Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29 NIV).
What is the sin of the
world? It is pride. You may not think so; you may not see it: but I would ask
you to consider again and see if all that is called sin cannot be traced to
this, if it is not this in some form of expression. For what is the root of
pride? What is pride? It is selfhood come to life, risen up, active –
that is the root of pride; and the branches and the fruit – how many they are! –
jealousy, covetousness, wrath, and all the rest. How is wrath pride? Well,
wrath, if it is not holy, purified, blood-purged wrath like the wrath of the
Lamb, if it is wrath which is actuated by ourselves and our interests, is the
wrath of selfhood. So often our anger is our self-preservation, our reaction to
some threat to our interests or our likes. Rebellion, stubbornness, prejudice,
and much of our fear, are all traceable to pride. What are we afraid of? What
are we fearing? If we examined our fears, why are we afraid? If we were utterly
severed from the personal interest – that is, if we could hand entirely over to
the Lord and get out of the picture ourselves – would not a lot of our fear go?
And so we might go on: but we do not want to indulge in a wholesale analysis of
human nature or of pride. We have mentioned enough to show that pride is the
root and that there are countless fruits traceable to that root....
So may this be a word of
interpretation as to why the Lord is dealing with us as He has
and does – on the one hand, overcoming this evil thing, breaking,
emptying, grinding to powder, until there is nothing of us left
in the matter of self-sufficiency; on the other hand, giving
Himself, increasing Himself. Now this is not a word, perhaps, of great
inspiration, but I feel it to be a word of very great importance. This must be
true of us individually. There must also be a corporate humility. This is the
way along which the Lord will commit Himself. He will never give us anything to
feed our flesh, to enlarge and strengthen our natural life. He will hold us to
the way that keeps us safe where that is concerned. How wonderfully the Bible
becomes alive when you look at it in this way!