The last BLOG ended with the thought that Jesus loved and sought the honor and glory of God in all that He did. He did this because of the life that is within the Trinity. Jesus is the very shining forth of the glory of God and He lives in the communion of the Spirit which has to do with how the Father and the Son commune in love. The life of Christ must be in the soul if the love of God and the fellowship of the Spirit are to be in the soul. If the life of Christ is in the human soul, then that soul will have the communion of the Spirit in it and it will have love for God as its chief and controlling desire. Humility, the emptiness of self in the soul, is utterly vital to communion with God. Apart from a soul having humility the soul will be full of self rather than the life of Christ in it. While self flourishes in religion and even extreme religious practices, Christ flourishes in humble souls.
Within the nation of Israel in the Old Testament times pride in religion and self reigned. While many kept the outward parts of the religion to some degree, many became extreme in one direction or the other. Some went to the extreme of being Pharisees and others to an extreme more like modern liberalism. The same thing happens in Christianity as well. Apart from God working humility in the soul most people will fall to some form of liberalism/humanism or to something like the Pharisees were. This is something that should be and must be stressed. There is no Christianity apart from the life of Christ in the soul and there is no life of Christ in the soul apart from the soul’s being emptied of self. So if humility is not sought and obtained, true Christianity is not possible. Humility is that vital. Thomas Goodwin wrote on how humiliation of the soul is necessary for there to be true faith. In one sense, then, without humility there is no true faith. This is not something that is optional or that is for super Christians, this is at the heart of the life of Christ in the soul and of true faith.
So how much of true humility do we see in Christendom today? That may be hard to answer, but what we see is a lot of the spirit of the Pharisees and a lot of humanism in different garbs. We see a lot of pride in theology and a lot of pride over many things. But we don’t see the glory of Christ shining through His Bride today. That leads one to think that true Christianity has been set aside and some form of the religion of self has taken over. But another question has to do with each of our own hearts. How much of true humility do we see in our own hearts and coming out of our own mouths and lives? If the professing Church does not have true humility, it does not have the life of Christ in it. But if we don’t have true humility, we don’t have the life of Christ in us either. Humility is not just something that we add as a virtue or as something that makes us better Christians, but it is that which is utterly vital. Believers are to live by and be strengthened by grace, but God only gives grace to the humble.
Sin is defined in Romans 3:23 (at least in one aspect of it) as falling short of the glory of God. If sin is falling short of His glory and we do that be seeking self in our pride, then salvation is at least partly found in being saved from self and pride. If we can be very religious in our self and pride, then we are not saved from religion or from outward sin until we have been delivered from that which is sin itself in our hearts. We say that Christ came to save us from our sin, as indeed Scripture teaches. But what we often mean by that is that we are saved from the punishment in hell for our sin. What human beings want and desire is to be saved from the punishment for sin without being saved from sin at all. Even more, proud and self-centered human beings do not want to be saved from their own pride and self. But can we say that we are saved if we are not saved from sin itself? If Christ does not save us from self and pride, then why do we think we are new creatures in Christ? If we are not new creatures in Christ, then why do we think we are saved from the guilt of sin and hell?
Matthew 1:21 tells us that "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." Have you been saved from your sins? Christ saves people from their sins by dying on the cross for them and their sins. In doing that He breaks the power of sin and so the sinner may be humbled and broken for sin so that the life of the humble Messiah may live in them. If we think that Christ delivers us from the punishment of sin and not from sin itself, we have the wrong idea of sin. Romans 1:18-32 shows very clearly that God punishes sin by more sin and that sin hardens the heart. If Christ does not save us from sin then we are going to be in bondage to sin while we have Christ as Lord and Savior. That is simply not possible. Instead of that, Christ saves His people from sin and works true humility in their soul which is the life of Christ in the soul. It is the humble soul that He saves and He saves them to humility. The proud soul is opposed by turning it over to pride and the fall that comes with pride. The humble soul receives grace and the life of humility.
God Loves... Himself 
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