Pride # 1

Pride # 1

"You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5).

The temptation by which satan ruined our first parents, he too successfully applies daily to us, their wretched posterity. "God knows," said he, that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." It seems as if this were verified in the event; for "the Lord God" said: "Behold man is become as one of us, to know good and evil."

Before the fall man knew nothing, as to good, but the will of His Creator; and it was enough for him implicitly to follow that. But since that direful event, he has become independent of God, and chooses for himself; "He has become like one of us," says God, "to know good and evil." Instead of being a child, provided for by His Father, under His care and protection - he has become his own master, and his own physician, choosing good and rejecting evil, according to his own inclination. Thus he set up, as it were, for himself - a spirit of independence had taken possession of his soul.

This is the spirit which constitutes essentially the character of satan himself. "Whence do you come?" said the Lord to him. His answer was, "From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it," boldly intimating, that he acknowledged no superior, and was his own master, going where he would, and doing what he pleased - yes, even boasting as if the earth was his own, and that here none could control him, or at least had a right to do so.

We, as satan's children, faithfully bearing his image, and exactly copying his example - are under the influence of the same independent spirit. And were the Lord to put the same question to us, our answer, if according to truth, must be similar - we go to and fro, live to ourselves, and do what we please, as independently of God as if there were no such Being. Thus we are like satan. We are practical atheists, seeking for sufficiency and comfort in ourselves, and not in God - in the creature, and not in the Creator. No temper or frame of mind can be more opposite to God than this, or further from true godliness.

While this self-sufficiency influences the heart, there is an utter impossibility of any reconciliation between us and God. "God resists the proud." And hence our Saviour says, "Except you are converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." We must be "converted," and become what man was at his creation, "as little children" - that is, dependent on God, submissive to His will, seeking all our happiness in Him alone, being contented, that He should forever be the source of all our happiness, and that He should communicate it in the time, way, and degree He pleases.

When thus converted, we, as the creatures of God, become humble in spirit, and, as forgiven sinners, we become contrite in heart. And in this frame we are to walk with God, and He will dwell in us: "for thus says the High and Lofty One, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place; with Him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Here the religion of Christ begins - our progress in the divine live is always measured by our progress in humility. Humility is the strength and ornament of all other graces - it is the food that nourishes them; it is the soil in which they grow.

Though the whole scheme of gospel salvation in every view of it, and all the different providential dispensations of God towards us, are directly calculated to hide pride from man; yet so deeply rooted is this spirit of independence and self-sufficiency in our hearts, that nothing but the effectual operations of the Holy Spirit can bring us to possess the humility of creatures, and the contrition of sinners. As creatures, we would possess all-self-sufficiency for happiness in ourselves; and, as sinners, we would be even our own saviours, sufficient to rescue ourselves from sin and guilt, from destruction and misery.

This seems to be intimated by the words, "Behold man has become as one of us, to know good and evil" - as one of us, in the plural number - as the whole Trinity, in themselves essentially considered, and also in their various relations to us, as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, were rejected, and man sought for sufficiency, relief, and happiness in himself only.

This seems further intimated in the latter part of the verse, "And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden and the ground from whence he was taken." These words plainly set forth a total rejection of God and His will, and a strange and a willful propensity to seek a remedy for his misery, the consequence of his disobedience, in a way of his own finding out. He would still live, though he had sinned; and he thought he had sagacity sufficient to provide effectual means to prevent the execution of the threatening.

~Thomas Charles~

(continued with # 2)