1 Peter 5:5-7 Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves to the elder. Yes, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility… No one need fail in life, in things temporal or things spiritual, through pride! and yet not be able to know what kept him back. Not temporally, not spiritually, will promotion come — any real progress — while self-conceit is there. The course of the universe is dead against that, and against those who are cursed with it. We do not wonder that the Almighty should "oppose Himself to the proud." Even we must often have thought how strange it is that man should be proud at all. What have we to be proud of. I. GOD "RESISTETH THE PROUD" IN HIS PROVIDENCE. The course of God's Providence, as a general rule, does (as a matter of fact) keep back the proud from positions of eminence. In practice, the most conceited persons one has ever known are those who have been the deadest failures. The pride tended to the failure, no doubt: but where other disqualifications rendered success impossible, the self-conceit alleviated the mortification of failure. For it is more pleasant for a man to think that he has been very unlucky, than to think he has been very incompetent and undeserving. But, setting aside the case of incorrigibles, it is very striking, as a matter of historical experience, how, when the sore discipline had been borne, when the old conceit was fairly taken out, the tide turned and great success came. Aye, the man could stand it now: and that which would once have intoxicated, was now taken with lowly thankfulness. True are the wise man's words, "Before honour is humility!" I know, of course, that the question may be put: Have we not sometimes seen self-conceited people in prominent places? And the answer must be, Not often, but sometimes, no doubt. But it is only in appearance that these cases are exceptions to the principle stated in the text. For God resists such, humbles them in various ways. Perhaps He allows them to get the prominent position and then prove conspicuously unfit for it; which is (to one of any worth) the sorest kind of failure. Or the conceited heart is hourly punished by a host of little mortifications and slights, keenly felt through all its morbidly sensitive texture, from which the humble minded are entirely free. Make him chief minister of the State, like Haman: and the proud man has all the enjoyment killed out of his lot by the slighting looks of one unmannerly Jew. Raise the proud man to the throne itself; and he holds his peace of mind at the mercy of any crowd that may raise the shout, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." II. HOW GOD RESISTETH THE PROUD IN HIS KINGDOM OF GRACE. "Where is boasting" here? "It is excluded." There is but one lowly gate of humble penitence by which anyone can pass into that family of the redeemed in which alone is salvation. And then this repentance is not just once for all: it must be a daily thing, a strengthening habit. Look at the whole design of grace, and see how from first to last it resists all pride, and cuts hard all human self-sufficiency I It sets out by taking it for granted that we are all guilty, all helpless. It goes on to tell that we can be saved only by entire dependence on another. Then, in the design of grace, though we are saved through Christ only, lye are called to the highest degree of purity, truthfulness, self-sacrifice, devotion of heart and of life to God. Only through the communications of the Blessed Spirit are we able to do anything as we ought. He begins, He carries on, He ends our better life! Thus it is that in God's kingdom of grace there is no room for pride. It is not merely resisted, it is shut out altogether. And now we may humbly believe that we can discern the reason why "God resisteth the proud." There is not in our Heavenly Father, in our Blessed Saviour, the faintest infusion of that wretched jealousy of their creatures which old heathenism ascribes to its gods; that wretched jealousy of human power and wisdom, — even of human goodness, which we can trace in ancient classic tragedy. It is not a touchiness about His own importance, such as we should judge petty and contemptible in a man, that makes God resist the proud. It is because the thing is bad; because it is unlike us and our place; because it must be got rid of before we shall be fit either for this life or for a better. It is all for our true good and our true happiness that God opposes the ever-growing self-conceit. Thus He trains us for duty here and for rest hereafter. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. |
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