Pride and Humility: April 2008

A humble spirit, lowliness, subjection and obedience go together; so do pride, a haughty spirit, self-will and sin. Sinful man is naturally proud. He thinks that what he has is to his own credit and does not see himself as needing mercy or grace. However, the proud heart wants to be like God and independent of God.

No man is truly humble until he sees and judges himself as he is before God. He must learn as Job, “I abhor myself,” and as the man in Romans 7, “In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” God resists the proud, for “every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 16:5).

When self is judged, a man recognizes the low place as his due place and any exaltation is of God’s grace and not his own merits. He looks away from self to find joy and confidence in God alone. As another has said, “True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves as in not thinking of ourselves at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about. What I want is to forget myself and to look at God who is indeed worthy of all my thoughts.”

Our Lord Jesus, the perfect man, humbled Himself and took the low place, a place of rest and obedience. He calls us to come to Him there. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  .  .  .  Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:28-29).

Theme of the Issue

There has always been a need among men for humility, for pride has been a prominent feature of man ever since the fall. It was pride that prompted Satan’s original rebellion against God, and an appeal to pride, at least in part, that Satan used to seduce Eve to disobey God. Thus we read in 1 Timothy 3:6 of one who is in danger of being “lifted up with pride,” and thus falls into “the condemnation of the devil.” So it is that pride is one of the roots of man’s original sin, and it has been rampant in the world since that time.

Forms of Pride

Our pride can take many forms. We can be occupied with ourselves either in a positive or in a negative way, yet pride can be the root of both. We may be taken up with ourselves, thinking how good we are, or alternately, we may think of ourselves as to how bad we are. While it is right to realize our true condition in the sight of God, He never occupies us with sin except to judge it. Constant occupation with our badness is not true humility, for pride can be nourished even by talking about how evil we are. More than this, pride can enter into spiritual things, for our sinful self is no better after we are saved than before. It is this spiritual pride that is perhaps the most serious.

In Proverbs 6:17, we find that “a proud look” is at the head of a list of seven things that the Lord hates and that are “an abomination unto Him.” Why is it that pride is so serious in the sight of God, and why is it so hateful to Him? I would suggest that the main reason is that man’s pride takes the glory that belongs only to God and gives it to himself. The proper place of the creature is that of submission and obedience, while pride promotes rebellion and disobedience. Thus it is correct to say, in the light of God’s Word, that every form of pride is wrong and ought to be condemned.

Where the World Is Going

In these last days of God’s grace with this world, we see pride exemplified in at least two ways. First of all, the pride of the natural man and the world in general will no doubt reach its zenith during the tribulation period. Rebellion will be rife everywhere, and even in the presence of the unmistakable power of God, it is recorded in that time that men “gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds” (Rev. 16:10-11). In view of all this, God has foretold that “in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers” (2 Tim. 3:12). In the larger sense, we are also told that we are to “behold the fig tree, and all the trees” (Luke 21:29). While no doubt this will be fulfilled after the church is called home, yet we see the beginnings of it now. The fig tree represents Israel nationally, and all the trees would speak of other nations. Every ethnic group and race is demanding autonomy and insists on having its voice heard in the world scene. When I started university forty-five years ago, there were about 120 countries in the United Nations. Today there are more than 190, representing an average of well over one new country per year. Religious pride is often mixed with this and results in a fanaticism that frequently displays itself in acts of violence to support false religions, as well as nationalistic ambitions. While this situation may result from multiple causes and an interplay of economic and political forces, man’s pride is surely at the root of it all.

A Babylonian Attitude

In another and perhaps a more serious way, however, we are seeing pride among the people of God. We are at the end of a ruined dispensation, as far as man’s responsibility is concerned. What God gave at the beginning has been neglected, and man’s thoughts and actions have spoiled, in outward testimony, what God intended. If we take this to heart, we realize that our place is more than ever to be humbled before God, seeking His mind, and not pretending to be what we are not. Yet we find that, as always, the sin that is most prevalent in the world is that into which the church of God tends to fall. Having been delivered morally from Egypt, the church is liable to fall into a Babylonian attitude and the pride associated with it. This attitude is brought out in the address to Laodicea, in Revelation 3, where the Lord has to say to those who profess His name, “Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17).

Once again, this attitude will no doubt reach its height in the false church, which will continue to pretend to bear Christ’s name even after the true church has been called home. The false church actually is called Babylon, because of its pride and ultimate rebellion against God. Nevertheless, it is a voice to each one of us today, for the spirit of pride and self-sufficiency displays itself now.

Deterioration of Testimony

We may point the finger at others, but it is a solemn thing to remember that in the Old Testament, pride was perhaps most evident among those who were still worshipping at Jerusalem—at God’s center. More than this, as their testimony and power deteriorated, their pride seemed to increase in proportion. Thus we find Israel saying, “The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these” (Jer. 7:4), just at the point when God was about to carry them away into captivity. Later, when the Lord in grace allowed a small number to come back from captivity and restore His worship in Jerusalem, their pride took the form of Pharisaism, and they ended up crucifying their Messiah.

We are liable to the same spirit in our day, and we must remember that the more God has given us, the more need there is of holding it in humility. If Christ is before us, there will be no problem, for we will be kept humble in constantly realizing how little we are like Him and how little we have walked in His ways. If we begin to look at others, however, then pride in ourselves will begin to puff us up, and then God is displeased with us.

The Right Reference Point

We see this attitude in the disciples, while our blessed Lord was on earth. While some of them were on the mount of transfiguration with Him, the other disciples were asked to heal a boy who was possessed with a demon, but they could not. Later, they disputed with one another as to who should be the greatest, and then John reports that they had seen one casting out demons in the Lord’s name. They forbad him, giving as the reason that “he followeth not us” (Mark 9:38). The Lord rebuked this spirit, for no doubt the emphasis was on “us” and not on the Lord. Pride had come in, and here we find the ones who could not cast out a demon forbidding another who was evidently doing it, because he was not with them.

Later, the Lord Jesus puts the right emphasis on the subject when He says, “He that gathereth not with Me scattereth” (Luke 11:23). Here the Lord is the reference point, and thus our desire should be to gather with Him, not with ourselves. In so doing we will be preserved from looseness, yet be kept from pride as well.

As the world grows darker, we will no doubt see man’s pride become worse, and among believers, too, there will be a tendency for pride, even if it is pride in what God has given us. How inappropriate it is in these days to boast of having done great things, just at the time when light from God has shown how little we really have done. No, humility is our place, yet confidence in God, who never leaves Himself without witness and who honors faith whenever it is exercised before Him.

W. J. Prost

The truly godly are instinctively humble. They are generally retiring, and for the most part but little known. There is no humility so deep and real as that which the knowledge of grace produces. Such lowly and hidden ones find but a small place on the historic page. But the insinuating or zealous heretic and the noisy or visionary fanatic are too clamorous to escape notice. Hence it is that the historian has so carefully recorded the foolish principles and the evil practices of such men.

A. Miller

There is a difference between being humble before God and being humbled by God. I am humbled by God because I have not been humble. I am humbled because of my sin. If I had been humble, I should have had grace given me to prevent it, for “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

The only humble place is the presence of God. It is when I get out of His presence that I am in danger of being lifted up. People say it is dangerous to be too often on the mount. I do not think that it is when we are on the mount that we are in danger, but when we come off it. It is when we come off the mount that we begin to think that we have been there. Then pride comes in. I do not think that Paul needed a thorn when he was in the third heavens. It was after he had come down that he was in danger of being exalted above measure — from thinking that he had been where no one else had been.

I do not believe that to think badly of ourselves is true humility. True humility is never to think of ourselves at all — and that is so hard to come to. It is constantly I, I, I. If you only begin a sentence with I, there is nothing that a person will not put after it.

What hearts have we! “I the Lord search the heart” (Jer. 17:10). Who but God can know them? People who think they search their hearts and are quick to talk about their evil do not really know their hearts, nor are they truly humble. The fact is that they must be talking of themselves, and their pride is nourished even by talking of how evil they are.

Things New and Old, 8:152

Obedience, and having no will of one’s own, is true humility, and to this the goodness and grace of God invites man. Confidence in God leads the soul to submit itself to Him. This is both a duty and a necessity, but it is done heartily where confidence exists. It is the truth of our relationship with God, and the soul is happy. We do not need to have a will for ourselves; if God who loves us has a will for us in all things, we ought to commit ourselves to Him. What grace that the omnipotent God should be always thinking of us in all the details of our lives!

J. N. Darby

The fullness of God ever waits upon an empty vessel. This is a grand practical truth, very easily stated, but involving a great deal more than one might at first imagine. The entire Word of God illustrates this truth, the history of the people of God illustrates it, and the experience of each believer illustrates it. Whether we study the Word of God or the ways of God, we learn this most precious truth that the fullness of God ever waits upon an empty vessel. This holds good with respect to the sinner coming to Christ, and it holds good with respect to the believer at every stage of his career, from the starting post to the goal.

The Sinner

When the sinner is coming to Christ, the fullness of God in redeeming love and pardoning mercy is waiting for an empty vessel. The real matter is to get the sinner to take the place of an empty vessel. Once there, the whole question is settled. Yes, but what exercise, what struggling, what toil, what conflict, what fruitless efforts, what ups and downs, and what vows and resolutions are necessary before the sinner is really brought to take the place of an empty vessel and is ready to be filled with God’s salvation! How difficult it is to get the poor legal heart emptied of its legality, that it may be filled with Christ! The heart will have something of its own to lean upon and cling to. Here lies the root of the difficulty. We can never “draw water out of the wells of salvation” until we come thither with empty vessels.

This is difficult work. Many spend years of legal effort before they reach the grand moral point of self-emptiness in connection with the simple question of righteousness before God. When the sinner reaches that point, the matter is found to be so simple that the wonder is how they could have spent so long in getting hold of it, and why they had not gotten hold of it before. There is never any difficulty when the sinner really takes the ground of self-emptiness. The question, “Who shall deliver me?” is followed immediately by the reply, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:2425).

The more a sinner gets emptied of himself, the more settled his peace will be. If self and its doings, its feelings and its reasonings, be not emptied out, there will be doubts and fears, ups and downs, wavering and fluctuation afterwards. Hence there is the vital importance of seeking to make a clean riddance of self, so that Christ, “the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” may be known and enjoyed.

The Believer

This truth also applies to a believer at every stage of his career. At times we have very little idea of how full we are of self and the world. Hence it is that, in one way or another, we have to be emptied of self. Like Jacob of old, we struggle hard and hold fast our confidence in the flesh, until, at length, the source of our strength is dried up and the ground of our confidence swept from under us, and then we are constrained to cry out,

“Other refuge have I none,
Clings my helpless soul to Thee.”

There can be no greater barrier to our peace and habitual enjoyment of God than our being filled with self-confidence. We must be emptied and humbled. God cannot divide the house with the creature. It is vain to expect it. Jacob had the hollow of his thigh touched so that he might learn to lean upon God. The halting Jacob found his sure resource in Jehovah who only empties us of nature that we may be filled with Himself. He knows that insofar as we are filled with self-confidence or creature-confidence we are robbed of the deep blessedness of being filled with His fullness. Hence, in His great grace and mercy, He empties us out that we may learn to cling in childlike confidence to Him. This is our only place of strength, victory and repose.

Our Ambition

Someone has said, “I never was truly happy until I ceased to wish to be great.” This is a fine moral truth. When we cease to wish to be anything, when we are content to be nothing, then it is we taste what true greatness, true elevation, true happiness and true peace really are. The restless desire to be somebody is destructive of the soul’s tranquility. The proud heart and ambitious spirit may pronounce this a low and contemptible sentiment, but when we have begun to learn of Him who was meek and lowly in heart, when we have drunk in any measure into the spirit of Him who made Himself of no reputation, we then see things quite differently. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The way to get up is to go down. This is the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine which fell from His lips and is inscribed on His life. “Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily, I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:24). This is the doctrine of heaven—the doctrine of self-emptiness. How unlike the spirit of self-seeking and self-exaltation!

A Voice

In John the Baptist we have a fine example of one who entered, in some degree, into the real meaning of self-emptiness. The Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who art thou? What sayest thou of thyself?” What was His reply? A self-emptied one. He said he was just “a voice.” This was taking his true place. “A voice” had not much to glory in. He did not say, “I am one crying in the wilderness.” No; he was merely “the voice of one.” He had no ambition to be anything more. This was self-emptiness. And, observe the result. He found his engrossing object in Christ. “Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!” What was this, but the fullness of God waiting on an empty vessel. John was nothing, Christ was all, and hence when John’s disciples left his side to follow Jesus, we may feel assured that no murmuring word, no accent of disappointed ambition or wounded pride escaped his lips. There is no envy or jealousy in hearts emptied of self. There is nothing touchy or tenacious about one who has learned to take his true place. Had John been seeking his own things, he might have complained when he saw himself abandoned, but no, when a man has found his satisfying object in the Lamb of God, he is happy to lose disciples to Him.

Oh! for a self-emptied spirit — “a heart at leisure from itself” — a mind delivered from all anxiety about one’s own things! May we be more thoroughly delivered from self, in all its detestable working. Then can the Master use us and bless us. Hearken to His testimony about John: “Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11). How much better to hear this from the Master than from the servant! John said, “I am a voice.” Christ said he was the greatest of prophets. Simon Magus “gave out that himself was some great one.” Such is the way of the world — the manner of man. John the Baptist, the greatest of prophets, gave out that he was nothing and that Christ was “above all.” What a contrast!

Adapted from

Things New and Old, 3:141

I believe we need to keep the body of Christ before us and seek to build up the saints simply as belonging to that, wherever they may be found. Alas! We know how the saints are scattered, but love seeks them out and seeks to minister to them because they are Christ’s. I find it very easy to sink down into a kind of sectarian spirit, while the ground may be held intellectually clear enough. It is easy to be seeking to build up something that is for man’s eye. May the Lord keep us from having our hearts set on anything but that which He loves — the church for which He gave Himself.

How true it is that apart from Him we can do nothing. And have we not much lacked the sense of dependence on Him? And instead of pursuing the lowly path of Him who could say, “I am a worm and no man,” we have thought ourselves to be something and exalted ourselves—alas! only to be abased. But how much better His mercy that He should abase us now, than allow us to go on in pride of heart! He brings us low that He may lift us up in the sense of His own wonderful grace. I have thought that perhaps many of us have not sufficiently realized the utter ruin of all that has been committed to man’s responsibility. We have spoken and written of the ruin of the church, while secretly in our hearts we are priding ourselves that at least there was a little circle where all was right, and we are in that.

Of course, God’s Word and truth change not, and it ever remains true that where two or three are gathered to Christ’s name there He is “in the midst” of them. The truth is as simple and the path as plain as ever it was, and thus there is ever a resource for faith. But if pride is lurking in our hearts, thinking we are all right, and that “Brethren” are a kind of asylum into which the people of God are to be gathered, where they can be in safe keeping and cared for till the Lord comes, surely that is not learning well the truth of the church’s ruin. And has there not been more of this than perhaps we are aware of? And therefore God is allowing us to learn the ruin of the church among ourselves, as well as our folly in setting up to be anything. Oh! May we learn the lesson well, that Christ may become everything to us, not only an object of our hearts individually, but the center to which we gather and the One who can never fail, but who, in spite of the church’s failure and even of apostasy which threatens everything, “is able to keep [us] from falling and to present [us] faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).

The way we have to learn these things, because of our pride and foolishness, is indeed humbling, and we might well take up the lamentation of David, “How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest  .  .  . the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph” (2 Sam. 1:19-20). But it is better to learn the lesson at whatever cost and however great the humiliation may be; it is our blessing surely to learn it, and we can have confidence, too, in Him whose grace can never fail and who loves all His people with an imperishable love.

May we be kept waiting for Him, yet keeping the word of His patience.

A. H. Rule, from a letter

When God puts the best robe on a worthless sinner, the greatest humility is to bow and wear it, knowing that all else is unfitness and rags, and that God has given us that. If you begin to wonder if you are fit, or to say I am not fit to wear it, it shows that you think it possible you could be fit. The Father “hath made us meet  .  .  .   [for] the inheritance of the saints in light.” True lowliness is to accept God’s gift in grace. It would be folly or worse for us to think of being like God’s Son, but when He says so, we must just own it and give up our own thoughts as bad and take Him as good. When God has spoken, we have no business to think; our business is to believe.

J. N. Darby

“Jesus! Thou art enough the mind and heart to fill.”

What an Object we have to occupy the mind and heart — the Word made flesh, the manifestation in perfect Manhood of every moral grace, engaging the heart of God Himself! Little do we lay hold of the excellencies, the glories that shine forth from Jesus, yet it is sweet to consider Him in any of His varied graces. We are not only delighted as we consider Him, but we have His image imprinted on our hearts; we have Himself as our Example in order that we should walk as He walked. Let us think of Him in His humility, His meekness, and His gentleness — sweet graces, which our hearts own are often lacking in our ways.

His Humility

In perfect submission to His Father’s will and in the presence of the evil of man who had refused His love and goodness, we hear those precious words of Matthew 11:25-30: “Come unto Me  .  .  .  and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly [humble] in heart.” His spirit in the prophetic word declares, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God” (Isa. 49:4). At such a time, He says, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly [humble] in heart.” He gives the secret, which He knew so well, of true rest. In absolute dependence, having nothing, but receiving all things from the Father, He is the Pattern of all true humility and dependence. His life on earth, in the place and relationship He had taken, was a constant living on the fullness of His Father’s love. He was ever the dependent One. What a Pattern of humility!

In Mark 10:44-45 He gives the secret of true greatness. “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” So in Jesus, ever preeminent in grace and glory, we behold a life of perfect humility. This grace, which belongs to the highest archangel before the throne, as well as the meanest of God’s intelligent creation, is “not merely a grace, but the embodiment in which all other graces are contained.”

His Meekness

Only the truly humble can be meek. The sense of complete dependence—of having nothing — must produce in the exercised one, in the inner spirit, the passive grace of meekness — receiving everything, whether joy or sorrow, from Him who is all-wise as all-good. So in Jesus we see meekness in the presence of man’s enmity, in all the sufferings of the path of obedience, receiving all things, the trials and sorrows, as from His God and Father. When refused by the Samaritan villagers (Luke 9:5156), the disciples would have called fire to come down from heaven to consume them, but He said, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” And they went to another village. Again in Luke 8, when His work of mercy in healing the demoniac brought out man’s evil and the Gadarenes besought Him to depart, “He went up into the ship, and returned back again.”

His Gentleness

The Apostle exhorts the Corinthians by “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1). Distinct from meekness, which lies more in the inner spirit, gentleness is shown in outward acts and ways. Jesus teaches the spirit of gentleness in the forgiving grace of the lord to the servant in the parable (Matt. 18:27), the lord abating his just claim and freely forgiving the debtor, and Jesus teaches that as forgiven debtors we too, in gentleness, should forgive, not exacting even what may be our due.

His own gentleness we discern in His reply to His servant and forerunner John the Baptist. From the prison John sends messengers to Jesus, saying, “Art Thou He that should come? or look we for another?” The trying circumstances seemed to weaken John’s faith. In gentleness Jesus gives the answer, without upbraiding His dear servant, but speaks in language John well understands, to his heart.

So ever in gentleness Jesus bears with the ignorance and self-will of His disciples. Peter learned His Lord’s gentleness in sweet restoring grace after the resurrection. The Lord of glory, the same Jesus, met Saul of Tarsus in his enmity and hatred of the name of Jesus and towards His lowly disciples as Paul afterwards wrote, in “exceeding abundant” grace. What He was in grace on earth, such He is in glory.

Our Only Object

The Spirit of God sets Him before us, where He is and as He is, as the only Object to occupy our hearts —“our Counselor, our Pattern and our Guide.” We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, daily, hourly, even here, bearing in our hearts the hope that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him according to the purpose of God, fully conformed to the image of His Son.

To Every Man His Work, 1:168

“The meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1).

As far as we know, this expression is only found in this scripture, but the characteristic with which it is linked, meekness, explains it. Moreover, the fact of the Lord’s gentleness shines out in almost every page of the Gospels. It is good for our souls to meditate upon it, though we may be rebuked by the contrast it offers to our own hardness and unyieldingness. The Apostle uses it as a ground of appeal to the Corinthians, who had turned aside from his blessed teachings and who, if they had not entirely rejected his apostolic authority, were yet allowing him to be displaced, both in their affections and as a teacher, by “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:13). It was in such circumstances that Paul besought them by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. His enemies had alleged that his bodily presence was weak and his speech was contemptible. Was it not that the character of his Master —His meekness and gentleness — had shone out through his ministry! Was it this which had excited the opposition, not to say contempt, of these upholders of the first man and what exalts him before the eyes of men? We know not, but in any case it will be profitable for us to consider this beautiful trait of Christ.

Meekness and Gentleness
Go Together

The Lord Himself connects meekness with humility (Matt. 11:29). There is a difference in these moral graces, and yet it might almost be said that they are necessarily bound up together. Where one of them is found, the others are sure to appear, at least in measure. True humility can only spring from brokenness of will. Where the will has been practically set aside through discipline, there also will be meekness, that patient lack of resistance in the presence of evil which accepts every cup of sorrow and trial from the Lord’s hand and displays gentleness of spirit and demeanor towards all. This is that contrite and humble spirit God loves to dwell with, or, as Peter says, that meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price.

If we understand this, as applied to believers, we shall comprehend more readily what Paul terms the “gentleness of Christ.” His will never needed to be broken (far be the thought!), because it was perfect. He never exercised it, because He came to do the Father’s will, He was always in complete submission to the Father. He lived by the Father, never moved or acted except at the Father’s word, and thus always did the things that pleased Him. He did nothing from Himself but what He saw the Father do, “for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). Hence, when in the presence of evil and the overflowing of Satan’s power, losing sight of the blind and wicked instruments of the enemy, He could say, “The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11). He was gentleness itself in the face of unrestrained violence. So also when before the high priest and the Jewish council, and also before Pilate, His meekness and gentleness were conspicuous both in His attitude and in His words. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opens not His mouth (Isa. 53:7).

Christ Exemplified by Us

We desire to point out that what is seen in Christ should be exemplified by His people. The same Apostle writes to the Philippians, “Let your moderation be known unto all men” (Phil. 4:5). This word “moderation” is the same as that which is translated “gentleness” in the passage under consideration, and this is really its true force. Another word has been suggested, namely, yieldingness, but yieldingness is only the expression of a gentle spirit. In Philippians it is the outward conduct which is in view, and outward conduct or demeanor towards all, believers and unbelievers, for it says, “To all men.” The form which gentleness would assume towards men would be that of never insisting on one’s own opinions or fancied rights, but seeking, with a chastened and subdued spirit, to retire and to take the lowest place in the presence of others, yielding everything to those around, excepting where faithfulness to God and to His Word requires firmness. What a powerful motive is given for the cultivation of gentleness in the words, “The Lord is at hand” (Phil. 4:5)! In view of His coming, we may well be content to leave everything that affects ourselves to the adjustment of that day.

If then the gentleness of Christ is to be reproduced in the believer, the question may profitably be considered, How is this to be effected? The hindrance to it is plainly in the character of the flesh in us — its impatience, impetuosity, obstinacy and willfulness. This much may be discerned even in the case of Peter, whose failures during his companionship with the Lord on earth may all be traced to the eager forwardness of the flesh, notwithstanding his ardent affection for his Lord. It is essential, therefore, before the gentleness of Christ can be displayed, that the character of the flesh should be experimentally learned. We must discover, even if through painful discipline, that there is no good thing in it. Then we may hail with gratitude the glad tidings of grace — that it has already come up before God for judgment in the cross of Christ and has passed away from before His eye forever. A new state will then be entered and enjoyed — the state of being “in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you” (Rom. 8:9). Thereupon there will be liberty for occupation with Christ, the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. His divine affections will be formed within us, so that while we are seeking for a growing intimacy with Christ, He will be formed within us and will be more distinctly manifested through our walk and conduct.

The Obstacle Removed

Our wills are the difficulty in the matter of gentleness. It would help to the removal of this obstacle if it were but seen and confessed that the will of the flesh is evil and nothing but evil. “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin,” for the body governed by sin in the flesh can produce nothing but sin. If Christ be in you —what a thought! If He be, surely we desire that He would take the entire control, and then His blessed will would govern us for His own pleasure. We shall then delight in the One who has become the object of our hearts. Then, constrained by affection to seek the intimacy of His company, we shall be daily conformed to His likeness, and thus His own blessed moral traits, His meekness and gentleness, will be formed within us and revealed in our ways and conversation. But the words of the Apostle must be recalled in this connection, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. 4:10).

Adapted from

The Christian Friend, 1898

Philippians 2 gives us Christian character, or as men speak, Christian grace; chapter 3 gives the energy which carries the Christian above present things. The former speaks of Christ coming down and humbling Himself; the latter, of His being on high, and of the prize of our calling above.

A little careful attention will show that chapter 2 throughout presents the gracious fruits connected with the heart’s study of the blessed Lord’s humiliation and of its imbibing the spirit of it. Chapter 3 gives the picture of that blessed energy which counts the world as dross, overcomes on the way, and looks forward to the time when the Lord’s power shall have subdued even the power of death in us and all its effects, and change us into glory. We need both these principles and the motives connected with them. We may see much of the energy of Christianity in a believer and rejoice in it, while another displays much graciousness of character but no energy that overcomes the world. Where the flesh, or mere natural energy, mixes itself in our path with the divine energy, the way of the sincere and devoted Christian requires to be corrected by the former — more inward communion and gracious likeness to Christ, more feeding on the bread which came down from heaven. Besides displaying Christ, it would give weight and seriousness to his activity — make it more real and divine. On the other hand, one who maintains a gracious deportment and judges, perhaps, what he sees to be fleshly in the energy of another fails himself in that energy and casts a slur on that which is really of God in his brother.

Grace and Devotedness

Oh that we knew how to be a little self-judging and complete in our Christian path, that we had nearness enough to Christ to draw from Him all grace and all devotedness and to correct in ourselves whatever tends to mar the one or the other! Not that I expect that all Christians will ever have alike all qualities. I do not think it is the mind of God they should have. They have to keep humbly in their place. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee, nor the hand to the feet. Completeness is in Christ alone. Mutual dependence and completing one another under His grace is the order of His body. It is hard for some active minds to think so, but it is true humility and contentedness to be nothing and to serve and to esteem others more excellent than ourselves. They have the thing in which we are deficient. Our part is to do what the Lord has set us to do, to serve and count Him all, for in truth He does it, and to be glad to be nothing when we have quietly done His will, that He may be all.

The Humiliation of Christ

Chapter 2 gives us the humiliation of Christ, but the way it is introduced is very beautiful. The Philippians, who had already early in the gospel history shown grace in this respect, had thought of Paul in his distant prison and of Epaphroditus who giving effect to their love and full of gracious zeal had not regarded his life to accomplish this service and minister to the Apostle’s wants. The Apostle makes a touching use of this love of the Philippians, while owning it as the refreshings of Christ. He had found “consolation in Christ, comfort of love, fellowship of the Spirit, bowels and mercies” in the renewed testimony of the affection of the Philippians. His heart was drawn out also toward them. If they would make him perfectly happy, they must be thoroughly united and happy among themselves. How graciously, with what delicate feeling, he turns to note their faults and dangers here in association with their expressions of love to him! How calculated to win and to make any Euodiases and Syntyches ashamed of disputes where grace is thus at work! Then he speaks of the means of walking in this spirit. Everyone should think of the spiritual gifts and advantages of his brother as well as of his own. To do this he must have the mind that was in Christ. This leads us to the great principle of the chapter.

The First Adam

Christ is set forth in full contrast with the first Adam. The first man set himself up by robbery to be equal with God: “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). As a result, he became disobedient unto death. But the blessed One, being in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation, and in the form of a servant was obedient unto death. He was really God, as Adam was really man, but the point here is to note the condition and status each was in, respectively, and out of which, in ambition or grace, he came. Christ was truly God still, when He had taken the form of a man, but He had taken the form of a servant and was also really a man and a servant in grace. Christ in love humbled Himself, while Adam in selfishness sought to be exalted. Christ was as man exalted, while Adam was abased. It was not merely that Christ bore patiently the insults of men, but He humbled Himself. This was love. There were two great steps in it. Being in the form of God, He took the form of man, and as man He humbled Himself and was obedient unto death, and that, the death of the cross. This is the mind which is to be in us — love making itself nothing to serve others. Love delights to serve; self likes to be served. Thus the true glory of a divine character is in lowliness, while human pride shows itself in selfishness. When the former is in us, both gracious affections and devotedness and counting on gracious affections in others are developed, a source of genuine joy and blessing to the church.

Self-Sacrificing Love

Gracious affections flow out from this lowliness, in which self disappears by love. “Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.” He makes the faith of the Philippians the principal thing — it was the offering to God. His part was only supplementary towards it, though it went to death. For the Philippians were Christ’s, the fruit of the travail of Christ’s soul, Christ’s crown and joy as Redeemer. So the Apostle saw them and rejoiced in them. His service had ministered to this. If his service continued on for him to give up his life, he rejoiced in this, so much the more evidently self-sacrificing love, for love delights in this. And they, for this reason, were to rejoice with him, for it was really his glory thus to give himself up for Christ.

Clothed With His Character

If we look at ourselves, we could never speak of humbling ourselves, for we are nothing. But practically in Christ, the mind which was in Him is to be in us, and in grace we have to humble ourselves, to have the mind that was in Him, to have done with ourselves and serve. Then these lovely fruits of grace will flow out unhindered, whatever be the state of Christendom around us. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling in the midst of the spiritual dangers of the Christian life, avoiding pretensions to greatness and spiritual distinction. God works in us, and that gives the sense of the seriousness and reality of the conflict in which we are engaged; obedience, the humblest thing of all, for there is no will in it, characterizing our path, we shall seek the mind of Christ and be clothed with His character. Blessed privilege! Be more jealous to keep it than our human rights and importance, and the blessed graces of heavenly love will flow forth and bind together, in a love which has primarily Christ for its object, the hearts of the saints. In such a state it is easy to count others better than themselves. As Paul saw the value of the Philippians to Christ, he was but offered on their faith. This becomes easy, because when we are near Christ, we see the value of others to and in Christ, and we see our own nothingness, perhaps our actual shortcomings in love too.

J. N. Darby, adapted from

The Girdle of Truth

“Ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9).

“Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

Fellowship

When we survey the wondrous cross
On which the Lord of glory died,
Our richest gain we count but loss,
And pour contempt on all our pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that we should boast,
Save in the death of Christ, our God;
All the vain things that charm us most,
We’d sacrifice them to His blood.

There from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flowed mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature ours,
That were an offering far too small;
Love that transcends our highest powers,
Demands our soul, our life, our all.

Watts, Little Flock Hymnbook, #283