It might seem strange to write about humility. But, if someone doesn’t, we will never entertain the idea because this is a part of righteousness that is as foreign to our nature as it can get. Humility is from God. Pride is from us. If we think that we have finally mastered humility, then we have lost it and must start all over. With such an ethereal consideration, almost metaphysical, we would think that humility is for the spiritual elite, the perfect saint, the Christian who has it all together. That is exactly what humility is NOT. In fact, the very essence of humility is not the well-ordered Christian who is better than the normal Christian. Not at all. It is very different.
Consider what Jesus is quoted as saying in Luke 18:14-
““I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.””
Luke 18:14
This is in the context of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee and the tax-collector simultaneously ascend up to the Temple in order to pray. It is the time of public prayer, a function begun at the time of the exile decades before Jesus’ time. That form of public prayer would, naturally, engender a kind of comparison of prayers. That is, true to human nature, one person would size up the other person based upon how he prays. That is what is going on here.
The Pharisee, a member of an insanely strict sect of Judaism known for their deep sense of self-righteousness, prays to God. Jesus tells us that he even stood before God and, assumedly, lifted his eyes to God in typical fashion of the day. His prayer was a prayer of gratitude that he was unique, superior to other men, especially the riff-raff of society.
When he rehearses his righteousness to God, praying within himself (v.11), he said,
“‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’”
Luke 18:12
“I,” “I.” His “religion” is whittled down to his fasting and payment of tithes; reliquishing food and money as tokens of his devotion. Of course, his sense of pride and self-satisfaction should be beaming, and it is. After all, what swindler, or unjust person, or adulterer, or even the tax collector near to him, could even come close to that? They can’t. Do you understand what I am saying?
The tax collector is different, however. Unlike the Pharisee, he is unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. He can’t conceive of even looking God’s way, because he knows his innate unrighteousness. And, unlike the Pharisee, the only rehearsel of righteousness before God and man is his unrighteousness. He knows that he is “the sinner.” His posture, unlike the Pharisee, is “far off” from the place to meet with God. Also, unlike the Pharisee, this man despised himself and is trapped within himself. He “beats his breast” as a sign of extreme self loathing. This tax collector’s prayer, in comparison to the Pharisee, was laughable. The inane way that this man has depreciated himself publicly is shameful, sad, and the epitome of self degredation.
And that is the point: the Pharisee, based upon his own achievments, albeit while using strains of God’s Law to do it, elevated himself above other men. In fact, it seems that he was elevating himself to the place of the righteousness of God Himself. He, in his own mind, was in a class all his own. That can only be said of God alone. But he, in his smug, blind, self pleasure, felt that he deserves the honor. He is an audience of one and an actor in his own theatre.
The tax collector was not even close to this kind of thinking. In Jesus’ parable, this man knows who he really is. This self knowledge is not in his own sight, but in God’s sight. That is, this man does not compare himself with man. That would be foolish.
“For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.”
2 Corinthians 10:12
Rather, this man feels the stark difference between himself and the God with Whom he must have dealings with some day. This is humility.
Humility, then, is the lowering of yourself before God and man. Jesus said to “humble yourself” often in His preaching. How do we make ourselves humble? By pretending to be soft, gentle, kind, having an air of self mastery and no reputation for vice? No. That is pride and self exaltation. Self humility is knowing who you really are, in God’s eyes, and despising the applause and comparison fellow men. Humility is lowering yourself in man’s eyes because of your unrighteousness before God’s all-seeing eyes. In other words, who cares what another man, woman, organization, group of people, thinks. What God thinks is what matters in the final judgment, the place and time in which you “will be humbled,” or “you will be elevated.”
Humble yourself now before men and God and be elevated before men and God later.
Elevate yourself now before men and God and be humbled before men and God later.
You do have a say in your own humility and there it is.
Sketches of Scripture 