We are somewhere in the thick of looking at the true nature of pride. The effort is to show the pride of man in relation to what true God-centeredness is. If we try to judge pride by its effects on human beings or by how it appears in human beings in relation to other human beings, we will miss what it is by virtually an infinite distance. Pride is only seen in relation to the glory of God and His rights and demands on human beings. Pride is seen in human beings by how they do all for self and the love of self rather than doing all out of love for God and His glory. Pride is the worship of self and it is idolatry, yet this is hard for religious people to see in themselves. They think of themselves as doing things commanded in the Bible and they think this is done in love and for God. What they might not see, however, is that the feelings they feel are really feelings for themselves rather than God. They only love Him because they think He has done something to benefit them and so in reality they love themselves.
“In Luther, the theocentricity of primitive Christianity returns; and it is the determining factor of his whole outlook. His opposition to Catholicism is due ultimately to nothing else but this. In the Catholic conception of Christianity, it is in the last analysis man who occupies the centre of the religious stage; in Luther’s reforming conception it is God. Luther seeks to eradicate every vestige of the egocentric or anthropocentric tendency from the religious relationship. There is no place for the slightest degree of human self-assertion in the presence of God. Here, man must be content to receive undeserved the gifts God wills to bestow on him, and to obey without thought of reward the commandments God pleases to give him. In other words, he must let God really be God, the center around which his whole existence moves. This theocentric emphasis can be described as the fundamental motif of Luther’s entire thought.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)
For Luther, who found this idea in Scripture, man must become centered and focused on God in and for all things. Man does not do things for God because God will do something for man, that is nothing but an idea that destroys the truth of grace and makes salvation and sanctification out to be by works. If man does things for God in order to get something from God, then regardless of what else man believes or does that man is in a system of works rather than one of sheer and glorious grace. The pride of the heart is seen in that self determines man’s whole outlook rather than God which is man choosing self rather than God. Man’s outlook on God and the things of God can be nothing more than ways that the self can look out for self. It is impossible for human beings to be anything else but man-centered in their outlook unless God changes their hearts by grace alone. The outlook cannot be changed by a self-centered human being to be anything other than self, and grace will not change a human’s outlook to be anything but according to grace which is a thorough God-centeredness in all of its parts.
This is a vital point that cannot be missed. There is nothing in all of Christianity that cannot be believed or done that is not self acting for self. This is perhaps the greatest way that people are deceived. The ringing words of Paul in Philippians 2:21 concerning those who were ministers: “For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.” These were evidently men who were quite religious and quite interested in the things of God, but evidently they were only interested in the things of God in order to further their own interests. They were like Simon in Acts 8 who was interested in purchasing the power of the apostles to give the Holy Spirit. He was very interested in giving people the Holy Spirit, but it would have been a way to make money or gain honor. What a beast a person must be to try to make money by giving the Holy Spirit. What pride it must take to do that sort of thing, but probably no more pride than it is to preach in order to be honored by men. That which must determine the whole outlook of a preacher must not be self in looking to obtain honor, prestige, applause, and even larger pay packages, but it must be a love for God in all things. Without this the man will do nothing but serve self.
When we see the Bible commanding us to do all things out of love for God, it is not commanding us to find the strength within self to love God. It is commanding us to deny self so that God will be loved. But once again, it is not commanding us to deny self with self because that is still nothing more than the efforts of self. What should be clear, then, is that the proud soul must be humbled which is to say that the proud soul must be emptied of self. Humility is the emptiness of self and not the work of self in bringing self down to a point of lowliness. It is only when the soul is emptied of self can the soul be full of the living God and then and only then will it be God-centered in all it does. Only God can work God-centeredness in the soul that He lives in and that is only by grace.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment