If I were asked to choose a
text for what is on my heart I should have very great difficulty.
I can only say to you that the whole Book is the text, so I give
you the whole Bible as my text, and what I have on my heart I am
going to present, in the first place, in the form of three
propositions or questions.
Firstly: If there was one
particular thing that was the cause of all the suffering, the
misery, the trouble, the distress, the wars, and the necessity
for God to stand back in reserve; would we not wish with all our
being to be saved and delivered from that thing? There is such a
thing, and I am quite sure that, if it really did come home to us
that all that I have mentioned, and much more, from the beginning
until now and to the end, was related to and bound up with that
one thing, your answer to my question would be, 'The Lord save me
from that! With all my heart, with all my being, I do seek to be
delivered from that!" I am sure you agree.
Secondly: If there was one
thing that gave God the ground for being toward us, free from
fear and free from reserve on His part, so that His purposes
could be realised, His power be released, His wisdom be active,
fellowship with Him be unclouded, and His glory be resultant from
our having been here on this earth; would we not with all our
heart and with all our being say, 'Let that be in me!'? We
certainly would be in very earnest and whole-hearted quest for
that, would we not?
Thirdly: If that first thing
should be in us, that first evil thing, and we could only be
delivered from its power and its activity by a deep application
of the Cross of the Lord Jesus, and ever deeper application,
though it might cost suffering, breaking, emptying, humbling;
would we not say that the Lord would be justified in whatever
course He took to bring that thing into subjection, making way in
so doing for the other thing, really supplanting the evil thing
by the other, the good thing; would we not justify God in His
methods, in His way? If that were the end in view and He was
moving toward that end, would we not say, 'The Lord is right, the
Lord is justified'? Do you agree with that? Perhaps it is not so
easy to say Yes here - but when we come to think about it, what
is the alternative? The alternative is the loss of the one
glorious thing, with its far fuller meaning than I have
indicated, through the remaining of the other evil thing. These
are the alternatives. Then is the Lord justified in what He does
to displace the one and implant the other?
What is the one evil thing, the
cause of all that we have mentioned, and very much more? It is pride
- the root of all the trouble. What is the good thing?
Well, just the opposite - humility. I started by saying
that I gave you the Bible as my text, for the whole Bible is
built upon this issue of pride or humility, with their twofold
consequences. That is a big field in which to walk and meditate;
but there is no doubt about it - wherever you look, from the day
that man sinned to this day and to the end which the Bible gives
us, you find it is just that issue which lies behind the whole
history of God and man and the evil forces - just that issue.
There are many aspects of it, but it comes to one question. In
one way or another it can be traced to this question of pride or
humility.
Yes, the whole Bible is built
upon it. The whole meaning of Christ's coming into this world is
bound up with it, His very coming from glory. Somewhere, somehow,
before He arrived, He "emptied himself" (Phil. 2:7). He
spoke to the Father later of the glory He had with Him before the
world was (John 17:5). He had laid aside all that, He had emptied
Himself. And then His strange - ah, yes, very strange until we
have this key - His strange entry into this world, the
circumstances of it all related to His coming and His whole time
here. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven
have nests [lit. roosts]; but the Son of
man hath not where to lay his head" (Matt. 8:20). It
is all this one issue. Some tremendous thing is being fought out
and dealt with, some immense thing. The whole meaning of His
coming - His condescension, self-emptying, birth, life, death -
and the whole explanation of the experiences of His people, is
all centred in this one matter. The discipline - the chastening,
as it is termed - the Lord's dealings with us, are centred in one
thing: it is all related to the purpose for which Christ came,
and how He came and how He accomplished the purpose.
And, further, the whole nature
and vocation of the Church is centred in this one thing. The
Church that is going to serve the eternal counsels of God will
never be a Church of pride, self-glory, worldly glory, worldly
power, worldly praise. It will be, ever and always, what it was
at the beginning, something that the world will not look upon
with praise, will always look upon with contempt. That is
essential to its vocation, for its vocation is positively to
displace the world, and its temper and spirit and standards; to
do something spiritually in this universe - to rid it of that
evil thing which has been its plague and curse from Adam onward.
It does not need any argument
to show that the cause of wars, the cause of all the trouble, is
pride - somewhere, somehow. No wonder then the phrase occurs -
"the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev.
13:8). This is not something subsequent, taking place late in the
history of this world. From the foundation of the world the Lamb
was slain. And if a lamb symbolizes anything at all, it
symbolizes purity and innocence of motive, dependence,
selflessness, weakness - all that from this world's standpoint of
glory, greatness, power and wisdom is at a discount - and it is
therefore not surprising that the Holy Spirit chooses to use the
diminutive in relation even to a lamb. It is not apparent in our
translation, but it is there quite clearly in the original -
"a little Lamb" - a symbol of that which overcomes,
fights out this battle from the foundation of the world. This
issue is the cause of all the trouble - the cause of God standing
back, God in reserve, God unable to commit Himself, because of
this thing here that is always ready to take hold of Him and make
Him and His blessings serve its ends and glorify itself; that is
always there ready to snap up the slightest goodness of the Lord
and turn it to its own glory. It is there. And so the Lamb was
slain from the foundation of the world.
And it does invest that
proclamation of John with such full significance - "The Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
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, on the one side, it is
terribly true: "Every one that is proud in heart is an
abomination to the Lord" (Prov. 16:5). "The haughty he
knoweth from afar" (Ps. 138:6). It all sprang out of that
proud heart that lifted itself up and said, "I will exalt my
throne above the stars of God; ...I will be like the Most
High" (Isa. 14:13,14). With that I, all the trouble
began, and that one bit his poison into the race. The poison of
the human race is pride, and it has come all the way down. It is
sometimes almost untraceable: we are not able always to trace it
out in all its forms, because pride has what we might call
negative aspects as well as positive. There are, of course, the
obviously, manifestly proud, the ambitious, the assertive, the
self-important, the self-sufficient. But there are negative
aspects - and I use that word with regard to pride very
carefully, because pride is positive whatever form it takes. It
is an ugly thing. A lot of our murmuring is pride; a lot of tears
are pride - we think they are humility. A lot of our criticism of
other people springs from pride: we think we could do better, we
could go one better, setting ourselves up as the judge, the
critic: pride is at the root. Very much of our poor, miserable
tone is, after all, pride. Oh, how subtle and serpentine a thing
this is! It is there. So the Lord has to stand back.
On the other hand, look at
humility. "To this man will I look" - that is the
beginning, the Lord even looking in anyone's direction -
"even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit"
(Isa. 66:2), and He dwells with them (Isa. 57:15). And "the
meek will he guide in judgement: and the meek will he teach his
way" (Ps. 25:9). And "the meek shall inherit the
earth" (Matt. 5:5). It is like that all the way through;
vindication is on that basis. "Now the man Moses was very
meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the
earth" (Num. 12:3): and you know when that was said - at the
time when his position was disputed, and God appeared at the
entrance of the tabernacle and answered the challenge on the
ground of the meekness of His servant. God stands by and
vindicates the meek.
I say the whole Bible is
founded on this issue. What a vital matter this is! Is not the
Lord justified in taking any steps to clear up that
situation - breaking, emptying, humbling, withholding, deferring,
delaying; in any way bringing us to nought, to a place of utter
dependence, where there is nothing we can rely upon at all but
the Lord Himself? Is He justified? It is a tremendous process. It
is a very real, very devastating work: and the very fact that we
suffer so much shows how deep and real it is.
Yes, but you see the Lord has
such great ends in view. It is not just that the Lord wants
people of a certain kind and type; not just that He wants us to
be of a certain nature. He created man for a great destiny, and
this thing - pride - came in and made it impossible for man to
fulfil that destiny. So He has secured it in a Man utterly
different from us - the Lamb slain, the Man who emptied Himself,
the Man who became obedient unto death, yes, such
a death as the Cross, the last word in shame, in despicability
and now He says to us, "Have this mind in you" (Phil.
2:5). I think the greatest conjunction in all the Bible is there.
"Wherefore... God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the
name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:9). "Wherefore"
- all that leads up to that and all that issues from that. Two
vast realms of meaning and value are linked by that conjunction,
"wherefore". But - 'this is the way the Master went'.
Well, we cannot do what He did, or fulfil all that He fulfilled,
but we are called to drink of the cup which was His cup.
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! It was Adam's sin, Israel's sin, the sin of us
all. "By reason of the exceeding greatness of the
revelations... that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet
me, that I should not be exalted overmuch" (2 Cor. 12:7);
that was making a man safe for great revelation, undercutting
pride.
Yes, this is an important word;
it explains a lot. But let us remember that the Lord always has
positive ends in view, not negative. Though His ways may seem to
be destructive, even annihilating ways, He has always in view -
and not in the far view only, but as quickly as possible, as soon
as possible - that position where He can Himself let go, so to
speak, His own fears, His own reserves; and say, 'I have found
that to which I can give Myself without fear'. May it be like
that with us.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1952, Vol 30-5