Although I readily admit that God must be the centre of existence, I do not as readily perceive or accept all that this implies; and it is the most natural thing for me still to live and think as if I myself were the centre around which all else, even including God, moved. I find it exceedingly difficult to rid myself of this illusion and allow God really to be the centre, that is, really to be God. (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)
We can imagine a local church that is orthodox in theology and conservative in its moral view points. It teaches doctrine and morality according to its confession. It has as its conviction that God created the world and all things in it. It believes that God is sovereign over all that it does. It holds out that people must repent of sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It believes in justification by faith alone. It knows that it must be God-centered and that the church’s preaching and teaching must be Christ-centered. It even holds to Soli deo Gloria (to God alone be the glory) which was a central teaching of the Reformation. It believes along with various catechisms that the chief end of man (primary purpose) is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
All that this church does has the correct words. But can it be that the real heart and motive of the church is nothing more than an illusion? Can it be that all of those things are not inconsistent with a church that has developed for itself an illusion that it is God-centered? For a church to be governed by self would simply be some of the people in the church (a church consists of individuals) to be governed by self. It is easy to imagine one person in a church being utterly devoted to the study of theology for nothing more than self-centered considerations. Paul told us that “Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies” (I Cor 8:1). Paul also told us that people are proud of their association with certain names: “Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (I Cor 12-13). It would seem from this that people were dividing over whether they were of Christ or of Paul or of another.
Now if people divided over Paul, Apollos, Cephas (Peter), and even Christ in that day, it is certainly possible for people to do that now. Now, of course, we have people dividing over Luther, Calvin, and Wesley in the older days and then over Piper, Sproul, MacArthur and others today. It is almost as if people think they are holding on to their righteousness by defending a certain name today. It also appears that some seem to think that their righteousness is obtained or held on to by being a part of a certain denomination or not being part of another. It is also the case that people divide over which confession or creed that they hold to. In other words, there are myriads of ways that people of orthodox beliefs and confessions can have the illusion of God-centeredness while being thoroughly centered upon self. Jesus put it this way: “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Mat 6:23).
The minds and hearts of human beings are depraved. They will hold on to a church, a church building, a theologian, a denomination, a creed, and anything else before they will look to Christ alone. A person can know that s/he is saved by grace alone through faith alone and yet trust in something other than Christ. As there is a vital distinction between believing that one is justified by faith alone and being justified through faith alone so there is a vital distinction between believing a creed as true and believing in the truths of a creed because Jesus teaches it in Scripture. The self will gladly hold in an intellectual way certain doctrines if it believes that it will be saved by believing those things. Correct doctrine and correct creeds can be nothing more than self finding a way to save itself. One does not have to deny self to hold to a creed and the doctrine of a church. One does not have to die to self to believe that all must be done to the glory of God. One does not have to die to self to assert that one is doing all to the glory of God. But to actually live to the glory of God one must die to self.
It is certainly possible for a group of proud people to hide from themselves and from others their proud hearts as they believe and do all things in an orthodox manner. The proud and self-centered heart can also be quite proud of its theology and practice. It can even be proud that it does most or maybe all to the glory of God while it does all in the name of God but out of love for self. The heart that is taken up with self does not like to hear the teachings of Scripture which stress self-denial and the death to self. So it is much easier to believe in the intellectual things of Christianity and hide from the obligations that the soul is under than it is to deal with the death to self. Pride is the beast in the soul that hides itself from the soul. Pride is that exaltation of self which can hide itself in the guise of humility. Pride can hide itself under the guise of an external love and Christian activity. Pride certainly builds an illusion of God-centeredness to the soul while it is being damned by its self-centeredness. After all, it is easy to point fingers at the Pharisees for their pride in religious activities if we are blind to our own pride. If we have not truly died to self and the self-centered nature of our proud hearts, then we are doing the same things that the Pharisees did. We have orthodox theology for self. We pray and give alms for self. But we have not denied self and so are blinded to the truth by the pride of self. The illusion of God-centeredness is impossible for the natural man to cast away once it has blinded him to it. This takes grace. But the proud think it will just take a little more knowledge and a little more activity. How utterly blind we are to our own pride which blinds us to our pride.
God Loves... Himself 
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