Studying Pride and Humiliation

Jan 7

From time to time we interact with questions. If you want a question answered, send it to redeemingfamily@gmail.com. We prioritize questions and topics from our Substack supporters.

"Any recommendations on resources to study about pride? I have always glossed over the warning of pride thinking I had a handle on it ....pretty stupid I know! Recently I have been dealing with painful issues in my marriage and have been convicted of my pride, how almost everything comes back to pride. Thanks”

Recommended Resources on Pride

The fact that this question is being asked is a step in the right direction! I'll share below the recommended resources, and then give a short quote from each resource as a preview. Also studying both Pride - and humility as scripture guides is a great place to start.

Gentle and Lowly (By Dane Ortlund) will be one that will get recommended no doubt.
Spurgeon on Proverbs 18:12
Jonathan Edwards on spiritual pride
Some introductory thoughts by JC Ryle on humility
A short piece by Robert Rayburn on pride
Trevin Wax on self-pity as connected to pride

Dane Ortlund's "Gentle and Lowly"

“It is the most counterintuitive aspect of Christianity, that we are declared right with God not once we begin to get our act together but once we collapse into honest acknowledgment that we never will.”

Humility (Seeing ourselves as God sees us) cuts right into our sense of performance (what we are owed from others and God due to our merits), ability (a belief that apart from God we can achieve lasting satisfaction), or position (the self-perception that we are in God's position with the universe orbiting our agenda). Considering Christ's heart towards sinners (like you and me as we grow in our awareness of our sin) is a top prescription for combatting pride.

Charles Spurgeon's Sermon on Proverbs 18:12

"I say there is nothing more eloquently condemned in Scripture than pride, and yet there is no trap into which we poor silly birds so easily flee, no pitfall into which, like foolish beasts of the earth, we so continually run. On the other hand, humility is a grace that hath many promises given to it in the Scripture. Perhaps most promises are given to faith, and love is often considered to be the brightest of the train of virtues; yet humility holds by no means an inferior place in God's word, and there are hundreds of promises linked to it. Every grace seems to be like a nail on which precious blessings hang, and humility hath many a mercy suspended from it."

I love the way Spurgeon captures pride and humility in contrast. While pride may indeed be the fountain of all other sins, humility is the fountain of many Godly characteristics producing inward transformation and outward living witness.

Jonathan Edwards' Sermon on Spiritual Pride

"Pride is much more difficult to be discerned than any other corruption because its nature very much consists in a person’s having too high a thought of himself. No wonder that he who has too high a thought of himself does not know it; for he necessarily thinks that the opinion of himself was without just grounds, he would therein cease to have it. Those that are spiritually proud, have a high conceit of these two things, viz. Their light, and their humility, both which are a strong prejudice against a discovery of their pride. Being proud of their light, makes them not jealous of themselves; he who thinks a clear light shines around him, is not suspicious of an enemy lurking near him unseen; and then, being proud of their humility, that makes them least of all jealous of themselves in that particular, viz., as being under the prevalence of pride. There are many sins of the heart that are very secret in their nature, and difficultly discerned. The psalmist says, Psal. xix. 12. “Who can understand his errors,? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” But spiritual pride is the most secret of all sins. The heart is deceitful and unsearchable in nothing so much as in this matter, and there is no sin in the world, that men are so confident in."

Edwards brings up the secrecy and difficulty in identifying pride. Pride is insidious, it's often wearing a cloak under the cover of the darkness of indwelling sin. The uncloaking of pride is the stripping of self-confidence and the building up of confidence in Christ.

JC Ryle's Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

"Would we know the root and spring of humility? One word describes it. The root of humility is right knowledge. The man who really knows . . . himself—and his own heart; God—and His infinite majesty and holiness; Christ—and the price at which he was redeemed; that man will never be a proud man!"

Ryle points out the inflationary nature of pride - it puffs up and builds up based on a reality that isn't true, a wrong view of the universe and one's place in it. Pride is so often on display in what we know (or what we think we know). A right knowledge has experienced the grace of God that produces an internal and external new perspective on reality that squarely sees Christ's position on the throne and our position as worshippers at His feet.

Rayburn's Piece Regarding Pride

"A Christian, of course, would never say that he deserved salvation, perhaps never think it; but the difficulty every Christian has in being and remaining genuinely amazed and heart-broken at God’s grace to him or her is evidence enough of the pride that still fills the heart. We think so well of ourselves; it is very hard to think that God should not as well."

In pride, we switch positions with God, demanding that God conform to our point of view. The proud heart sees nothing wrong with itself; therefore, God shouldn't either. The proud heart remakes God after its own image, in its own likeness.

Trevin Wax Speaks of the Problem and Solution to Self-Pitying Pride

"Self-pity turns your gaze to yourself and your wounds. Fighting self-pity requires looking up to the crucified Jesus. By His wounds, we are healed. We boast in the cross that crucifies our pride. “For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ,” wrote the Apostle Paul. (2 Cor. 1:5) Likewise, Peter gave us this command: “To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation” (1 Peter 4:13)."

While pride looms large, Christ's reign is even greater. Fixing our gaze upon ourselves, our circumstances and our surroundings is a recipe for continual self-consuming pride. Fixing our gaze on Christ Jesus daily leads to a steady growing humility where we see ourselves as He sees us, and where we adore Him for how gloriously magnificent He is.

I hope these resources are of help to you today!

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