God Loves… Himself

This sin of pride which turned myriads of angels of light into legions of black devils, and that for this they were hurled down from heaven to the bottomless pit of hell. …Pride was the sin which cast down Adam, and in him all his posterity, even to the last, from the height of created, natural, and princely excellency, into an unsearchable depth of spiritual slavery, and the just desert of eternal misery. (Anne Dutton, Letters on Spiritual Subjects)

Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

Pride is not just a minor pride; it describes the human heart in its attitude and rebellion against God. Pride is not just a little peccadillo, it is that from which the selfish heart of human beings overflows with sin and corruption in enmity against God. Regardless of how religious a person is or how nice a person is, apart from Jesus Christ that person is religious and/or nice out of a sinful heart and in rebellion against the living God. Regardless of how much a person uses the name of Jesus Christ, apart from truly having Christ as his or her life that person is in the depths of spiritual slavery and deserves nothing but the eternal wrath of God.

While Dutton’s statements above give us the origin of pride as such, they also give us the idea of the gravity of pride as well. It is impossible for a finite human being to overstate the evil of pride. Pride is such a monstrous sin that it simply cannot be overstated as to the horrors and evils it works to produce in the human heart. How can our minds and hearts grasp the evil of a sin that would cast untold numbers of the angels of light and make them legions of demons of the dark? How can our own proud hearts grasp that the angels that fell were never given a Savior for even one of them but were instead promised nothing but the very pit of hell? It is hard to even begin to grasp the evil of a sin so monstrous that one man could have it and the whole human race for all history would be plunged into sin and justly deserve hell. Just to think upon it is to know that we barely know anything of the power of pride and the evil of pride.

Genesis 1 tells us that man was created in the image of God and that very good. The original man was born without sin and bore the image of God in a way that no man has had since. Man was seemingly the culmination of the creation of God and we could even say that underneath the glory of God as a primary motive the whole creation was created for man. God created man and all things in order to manifest His glory through man. But through pride man is now in the bondage of the devil and his evil work and deserves eternal and even increasing wrath and misery for all eternity. Our feeble and fallen minds cannot grasp the height from which we have fallen from and the depths that we have fallen to. Pride is what has done it and as such it is far more evil than we can know.

We can observe, then, the power of pride that would take such a noble creature and work it to fall to such depths. Behold the power of pride that would take a child of God and make it the child of the devil. Behold the power of pride in that all the angels and all the men that God has created are powerless to cast it out. Behold the power of pride that will blind the smartest and the wisest of men into thinking that it is a small matter and perhaps even good. Behold the power of pride that will take sinful men and make them very religious and yet blinded to their lost condition. Behold the power of pride that will take religious men and blind them even while they read their Bibles and say their prayers.

Perhaps the power of pride is seen in the only cure for it. Pride is so powerful that it took the eternal Son of God to leave the bosom of the Father (in a sense) and divest Himself of His glory (in appearance) and clothe Himself in human flesh. Even more, it took the very Son of God to die on the cross in order to overcome the power of pride. It took the humility of the very Son of God to overcome the pride of the human heart. It takes the power of the living God by His Spirit to regenerate man and give him life. Behold the power, the glory, and the wonders of His free-grace in taking proud sinners and making them humble saints. All praise and all glory is to Him who by His free-grace saves sinners.

This sin of pride which turned myriads of angels of light into legions of black devils, and that for this they were hurled down from heaven to the bottomless pit of hell. (Anne Dutton, Letters on Spiritual Subjects)

Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

The power of pride is enormous and virtually all people don’t search their own hearts in order to look for pride. Even fewer, it would seem, actually seek the Lord to show them their pride. It seems impossible for the proud heart to see its own pride and yet even harder to admit that it is proud. The proud heart does not want to think of itself as proud, which is a power of deception. Perhaps it is rare to meditate upon the pride in our own hearts, but that would be a mistake on our parts. When we come down with a physical disease, we turn all of our thoughts and powers to defeating that illness because we think it may kill us. Pride is perhaps the essence of spiritual disease, however, and the death it brings is spiritual and eternal.

There are certain physical diseases that we are to take tests every year or every so often to determine if we have it. These diseases are more treatable if we catch them early on. Disease will often have no obvious symptoms and so they sneak upon us and before we know it we are in the grip of a killer disease. If we take the time to get the test, the scan, or the procedure we may catch the disease before it gets a death grip upon us. The great issue with pride (and the self) is that we are born dead in sins and trespasses and we are full of pride. We don’t need a test to see if we have pride, we are born and as such we are born with a proud heart. This pride may present itself differently in different people, but it is there and it is operating with great power and it grows.

For the believer, however, this pride can be hidden in even different ways. We can be proud of spiritual things and not even recognize it. The unbeliever can be proud of religious things, but never spiritual things. The believer should meditate on pride and ask God to run a scan (so to speak) of his or her mind and heart so that this pride will come to light. Untreated pride will bring great spiritual illness to the heart. It is a terrible heart disease that will bring corruption to the whole soul. Imagine the believer being unconcerned about pride when Scripture is so clear that the proud person’s soul is not right and that God opposes the proud. Can one who truly loves God not care if God Himself opposes that person? Can a person that loves the kingdom of God not want to get rid of all that prevents the kingdom of God reigning in him or her?

Our pride opposes God and is opposed by Him. We should spend time meditating on that and praying for God to open our eyes to see our hearts. Our pride stands opposite of true humility and we should long for and desire humility because gives grace to the humble. If we love God with a true love (most likely a small amount and as such we will fight unbelief in this matter) we should long for Him to give us grace because He gives grace to the glory of His own name. Our love for God should move us to long for Him to remove pride from our hearts that we may have the life of the humble Christ dwell in us.

The power of pride is such that we do not see pride and we don’t understand the ravaging disease it is to our souls. We are taught in both Testaments that God loves the humble and the contrite and dwells with them. We are told to humble ourselves and pray. However, if we are blinded to our pride we don’t see that what we think of as our humility is really nothing more than indwelling pride. We need the expertise of a Divine physician who will make an accurate diagnosis and who alone can remove the problem. This should cast a lot of light upon the subject of free-grace. There is in each sinner that which not only opposes God, but opposes His grace and is the opposite of His grace. However, because God is God-centered and because Christ has truly and fully purchased sinners, God is moved to save sinners because of who He is. His grace is truly free from all conditions to be met by the sinners and is given because of Christ alone.

This sin of pride which turned myriads of angels of light into legions of black devils, and that for this they were hurled down from heaven to the bottomless pit of hell. (Anne Dutton, Letters on Spiritual Subjects)

Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

It is one thing to accept the fact that there is a monstrous power of pride and it can and does make monsters of people, but it is quite another to come to the felt realization or experimental reality of what it means for me (each person) to have that pride in my own heart. It is one thing to know about it, but it is quite another thing to know it as quite real in my own heart. It is one thing to think of a movie star or famous athlete as proud, but it is another thing to recognize that pride is part of my own nature and it has power over me. While that movie star or famous athlete may in fact be arrogant, the fact that I have pride in my heart tells me that I might be worse than they are if God had put me in their place.

The weight of sin and the power of sin are hidden to the natural man, whether the man is religious or not. Becoming very religious does not give a person spiritual eyes, only regeneration and the work of the Spirit can open our eyes to our own sin in the spiritual realm. It is possible for unregenerate people to recognize that physical adultery is sinful and that even lusting in the heart is sinful, but they are blinded to the adultery of the heart in spiritual matters toward God. Even knowing that can trigger pride in the heart if we are not careful, though the eyes to see the rising in pride is a great mercy thought it is quite painful.

Pride is always pleased by the exaltation of self, the seeking of self to be exalted, and the thoughts of self being exalted. This is true in the religious realm as well as all other realms as well. The unregenerate person can understand something of pride when he is proud of his prayers and actually seek to please men in his prayers as did the Pharisees, but the regenerate person will see pride in the heart during prayer and after prayer and loathe self for that pride. It is also true that the unregenerate can see pride in his or her prayer and feel bad because of it, but that is because it is a failure of self or self-control (they think). The regenerate will loathe self because it understands that pride is part of him and that this pride is a horrible sin against God. The regenerate soul will understand with a degree of self-loathing that it takes the blood of Christ to take away such a vile and horrible sin as pride in prayer.

The unregenerate person may think of pride as a power, but it thinks of it as something it can overcome in some way by the efforts of self. It may recognize that the proud person’s soul is not right within him or her, but this person thinks that faith is in his or her power and so seeks to use faith to overcome the pride. However, the faith of a proud person is really in the power of self which is the power of pride though hidden to the unregenerate. This person is in the bondage of the power of pride and does not realize it. This person can actually think it has overcome the power of pride and is quite proud that it has done so. Pride is so sneaky and powerful (in the effects it has) that it will hide itself even in acts of pride and deceive the proud person into thinking it is humble.

The person that has been overcome by the power of pride will think that s/he is humble and as such will receive grace from God, but in fact God still opposes that person and is turning him or her over to a hardened heart of pride. This is why we see so many religious people full of self and pride. Though they are very religious and perhaps avid students of the Bible, they are full of pride and self. The truly humbled person (emptied of self and pride to some degree, though not made perfect) sees that s/he has no power over this awful pride and will seek the Lord to deliver him or her from it. When this person comes to see that indeed s/he has no power over pride, that person understands with horror what it means to be in bondage to sin. It is only free-grace that God delivers sinners from the bondage to pride and it is only by His free-grace that He will work to deliver humbled sinners from more and more pride. The soul that He has opened the eyes to see the awful power and darkness of pride will loathe self to some degree and knows it has no hope of every defeating pride with the power of self (pride). It knows that it must have grace (free-grace) in this battle and the whole battle resides in the power of free-grace. This is a soul that will pray to that end.

This sin of pride which turned myriads of angels of light into legions of black devils, and that for this they were hurled down from heaven to the bottomless pit of hell. (Anne Dutton, Letters on Spiritual Subjects)

Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

When we think of sin, our most likely thought is that of others. Perhaps we may have read some of the older writers and as such meditate on our own sin as we seek God to break our hearts from pride and self, but it is rare for us to trace sin back to the Satan and his legions of demons. It is here that we should face the facts of what sovereign grace really is and of the terrible and wicked sin of pride. As we think of Satan and how it was that he fell, it is clear from the scant evidence from Scripture on the subject that he was a very proud being. It was in his own desire to be like God that he used to deceive the first couple and they sinned. We can see that he was proud of his own wisdom in deceiving them, and it was clear that he did not love God or the creatures of God when he deceived them into sin. This was an enormous pride in what he did.

As far as we know all the angelic beings that God were created were true angels and without sin. However, what we do know is that some followed Satan and fell into sin. But again, we can see an enormous pride in those creatures in thinking that it was their choice and perhaps ability to choose the greatest good. What pride to think that following Satan was a good idea and what pride it was to choose anyone but God. But because of that great pride countless numbers of angels became demons. As Dutton put it, there were myriads of the angels of light who became black devils. What was the difference? It was pride.

We must be careful not to go beyond Scripture, but we can see that pride was a real issue here. We can also see the sovereign hand of God in upholding those who did not fall and His not upholding those who did fall. We can see the basic principle at work that God opposes the proud. We must understand this and know that God opposes the proud even when they are the most beautiful creatures He had made, yet pride was a cause in their becoming hideous devils. There are some great lessons for human beings to learn here.

There is no reason found in man for God not to send sinful human beings to hell since He damned Satan and the demons for pride. This should sink into our souls and we should feel the weight of our pride against the living God and know that the only reason we are not in hell is because He has upheld us in life. If we have the Lord Jesus Christ as our very life, then we can understand to some degree the nature of grace. There is nothing in us that moved God to save such wretches as proud human beings, but He did so in order to shine forth His glory in grace. There is no room for pride in sinners saved by free-grace, none at all. There was nothing in us that could possibly move Him to send Christ to take away our sins, yet He did so for His own glory. There is nothing in us that could possibly move Him to share the life of Christ with us, yet He does so by His free-grace for His own glory.

We must wake up to the fact that the only reason that those angelic beings remained angels was because God upheld them for His own sake. The only thing that keeps us from falling into sin each moment is the restraining hand of God who does so for His own purposes. We should seek the Lord and pray for Him not to lead us into temptation and to keep us from evil and the evil one. It is when our pride leads us to think that we can avoid sin by our own power that God lets us fall in order to teach us that He is sovereign and He alone has power over sin. Oh how we should seek humility from His hand that we may live before Him in complete submission and live by His grace. Unless we are living by free-grace, we are living to some degree by pride. While no one is even close to perfection, it should teach us to constantly seek His face for humility that we may seek Him and receive grace. Behold the power of pride in the fall of Satan and his demons, but also in our sin.

The sin of pride is the child of unbelief. Pride springs from a disbelief of God to be what He is, in His immense and essential glory, in His infinite, underived, all-comprehending, incomprehensible self-sufficiency; and from a vain conceit of the creature’s being that which indeed it is not—that the creature is something independent of God. Whereas, without His all-supporting and all-supplying hand, it would soon sink into its first nothing, and be, as in and of itself it is, a mere vacuity, less than nothing, and vanity. (Anne Dutton, Letters on Spiritual Subjects)

Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

Jesus spoke of not doing our works of righteousness to be seen by men (Mat 6:1-8). He specifically spoke of praying, giving alms, and fasting. Clearly, though, what He gave in principle would go beyond just those three things. The Pharisees were quite proud of their righteousness and would perform their acts before men and in order to be seen by men. This is nothing but a horrible pride that depended on self to do works of righteousness. It shows that the Pharisees looked to themselves and their own self-sufficiency in order to do works of righteousness.

This shows us a crucial problem in their day and yet in our own day as well, but we need to look at our day worse. Sinners need to be declared just in the sight of God on the basis of the sufficiency of Christ alone, but they also need to know that the sufficiency for good works is also in Christ alone. The fallen human being, even if regenerate, is not sufficient to do good one good work. For a good work to be truly a good work it must come from Christ and we must look to Christ for grace to do a good work. The Pharisees not only looked to themselves as having power to be righteous in terms of a standing before God, but they looked to themselves as sufficient to do good works. The same thing is rampant in our day.

Luther, though standing on the shoulders of Augustine and Wycliffe, found the rallying cry of justification by grace alone through faith alone. It seems as if many in our day would join him in that cry, at least in words, but in their hearts they look to self for sanctification. Nothing good can come from the flesh at any point. If it is to be good, it must come from Christ. Terms like “responsibility” have come to us in our day and seem to have changed meaning since it was used in earlier days. It is true that we have an obligation to God, but it is not true that we can respond with ability (respond-sibility). Our obligation is not just to do good things, however, but we are to do them by grace and in His strength.

It is utterly vital to realize that not only is Christ our justification, but that Christ is our sanctification too. No only are we justified by grace alone, but we are sanctified by grace alone. Sanctification is not just about the rules concerning what we don’t do and the good things we are supposed to do, it is about sharing in the life of Christ and all that we do coming from Him by grace alone. We are to walk by grace, that is, we are to live by grace and not just be justified by grace. We are to live in utter dependence upon Christ and His grace.

The power of pride is that it looks to self and blinds us from our inability in spiritual things. The proud can be proud of their knowledge and knowledge of grace, but they will still be pride and as such they will live by pride and the flesh. The proud can give themselves to outwardly great works and think of themselves as doing it for God, but their hearts are not right with God. Living by faith (which is opposite of pride) means living by Christ and by His grace. All truly good works are prepared by God, the strength to do them comes from Christ the vine, and we only do them by grace. Living by faith does not reflect how much the flesh trusts in Christ, but how much the humbled soul receives grace from Christ and lives by that grace. It is free-grace that the believer lives on. Pride is the power that blinds us from understanding that, from understanding our own hearts and how they deceive us, and from actually living by grace to His glory.

The sin of pride is the child of unbelief. Pride springs from a disbelief of God to be what He is, in His immense and essential glory, in His infinite, underived, all-comprehending, incomprehensible self-sufficiency; and from a vain conceit of the creature’s being that which indeed it is not—that the creature is something independent of God. Whereas, without His all-supporting and all-supplying hand, it would soon sink into its first nothing, and be, as in and of itself it is, a mere vacuity, less than nothing, and vanity. (Anne Dutton, Letters on Spiritual Subjects)

Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

James 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

The power of pride may seem like an odd phrase or title, but when one begins to think though it there is something very descriptive about it. Pride in the heart will run the whole life and drive a person in all that they do. Pride in the heart is so strong that no human power can overcome it and it is also true that no angelic power (think of the devil and the demons) can withstand it as well. Pride in the heart is so strong that the only power that can overcome it is the very power of the living God. Only God, who is omnipotent, can take the heart of unbelief which is a heart full of self and pride and put life in that heart and so the soul now looks to God as all-sufficient and all-wise rather than self and the world.

The creature is born dead in sins and trespasses which has as a major part of it (to say the least) the power of pride. We are born in a state where there is no spiritual life and where we are at enmity with God. It is a proud heart that is at enmity with God and it is pride in the heart which refuses to bow in submission to His sovereignty and it is pride in the heart which will not receive all from Him who is self-sufficient. The proud heart has an exalted view of self and it has quite the deflated view of God. That pride hinders the heart from seeing the true God and it also blinds the heart from seeing the truth of self. With that much effective working in the heart, we can safely say that pride has a lot of power.

Anything that is contrary to God and has such power in the heart will certainly influence prayer. Pride in the heart stands in direct opposition to the Lord’s Prayer and cannot pray that in a true spirit of prayer. Though a person may be very religious, even being a minister or seminary professor, pride has the power (so to speak) to prevent true prayer. Will a proud heart pray with a true motive for God’s name to be hallowed? I would argue that it cannot do so. Instead of that, the true intent of a proud heart is for itself to be hallowed and glorified. However, a proud heart can say the words and perhaps can convince itself that it does desire the name of God to be hallowed, but if it does have a desire for that it is a desire for God’s name be hallowed for the purposes of self. This proud heart can also pray for God’s name to be hallowed so that others who are listening will hallow/glorify the one praying. Oh the deceptive power of pride in the human heart that will take holy things and use them for self and pride!

Can a proud heart pray for His kingdom to come? Again, it can say the words but the proud heart wants its own kingdom to reign and rule over self, others, and God as well. The proud heart is at enmity with the true God and does not want God to reign and rule, so it cannot pray that with a true heart and as such can only say the words. A very religious person, once again, can be blinded by pride and so say the words and desire to some degree and in some way for God’s kingdom to come (be advanced), but that proud heart cannot bow in complete submission to God unless God’s kingdom has truly come in that heart and that proud heart has been broken and humbled. While Scripture speaks of the reign of grace, the proud heart opposes grace and is opposed by the God of grace. The proud heart does not just oppose grace, but it hates grace. The proud heart may accept a little help from grace, but it will never (in reality) bow in submission to a Gospel that is totally of grace. Free-grace is a hateful teaching to the proud heart, though it must be admitted that this proud heart wants acceptance from others and so it will give some lip-service to the doctrine in certain circles. A proud heart will oppose free-grace at every turn and place it sees it, so of course it will oppose prayer which depends on free-grace to be true prayer.