Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.
We all know that humility is good. The next question doesn’t have quite so clear an answer: what is humility? Often we equate it with self-debasement or self-effacement, the reduction of my own claim on the world. Such a definition, however, has an issue. It is a comparative definition, moving ever downward. However low I hold myself, presumably I can hold myself even lower. Worse, we know that we do have a proper place in the world (Gen. 1:26-28, 9:1,7), but this definition doesn’t stop at that place. It continues on: down, down, down. Thus, this definition of humility eventually involves a falsehood- and we cannot believe that telling a falsehood to ourselves (Rom. 1:18-25) and to God (Acts 5:4) is virtue. Humility is good, and this unlimited downward trajectory is not good- so this trajectory must not be humility in the Biblical sense.
The true nature of humility is proper self-assessment in relation to all else: a clear, correspondent-to-the-standard (God) understanding of myself, my value, and my capabilities. The reason that humility generally involves revising this assessment downward, not upward, is that we men like to big ourselves up. Even self-hatred’s statement that I am an irrecoverable mess and the thoughts which birth suicide are over-statements of ourselves, in a sense, because they place our judgement of our own value or potential above the truth, above God’s judgement, and deny His power to save. They also set our choice of remedy over His law, given to us as remedy (Ps. 119:9).
The first and most essential part of humility is relationship with God: to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). Humility is to recognize my own relationship with God. He is the Creator; I am a creature. He knows all, certainly, perfectly, and eternally; I know only imperfectly, in part, and from moment to moment. He is the standard of righteousness; I am an imitator of righteousness (Eph. 5:11) and habitually errant in that pursuit. He decrees all existence; I make decisions and bow to circumstance. He is the basis and origin of all value and weight-of-meaning, of all which is worthwhile; I am the recipient of these in the amount He deems good (Rom. 8:28; Matt. 10:29-33).
The second part of humility is applying this first relationship in all other relationships. See, in my assessment of His creation (myself, this world, and everybody in it), I see all falsely except I see by Him and His light (Is. 65:19-20). First, I can apply it in understanding myself. I have weight and value in God’s eyes, as His image (Gen. 1:26) and as made anew in Christ’s image (1 Cor. 15:49). This weight is derivative from God’s gift of it, though, and so it does not give me any right to override Him or His word. God’s law, His love (Rom. 13:10), His mercy, these things are all His prerogative, not mine, and I cannot turn His gift of being and nature and value to overcome Him. I can try- that’s pride, the pride of deeming myself without need for salvation or too depraved for His redemption- but trying to turn His gifts against Him is a futile and foolish thing.
This humility also tells me about myself that apart from Him grace, I am dead in sins and trespasses (Eph. 2:1). A man who says, “There is no God” (Ps. 53:1), he sweeps away from under himself all his ground to stand upon. That such a man (as I myself would be, without His preserving hand (Rom. 8:35-39)) still lives, this is a mercy of God (but also a curse, for the one who abuses that mercy). So this humility sets me low, low, low indeed before the Judge of all the Earth (Gen. 18:25). He does right, and I do not, which is my damnation (Rom. 6:23).
Seeing Him and me and His creation in light of Him has another lesson, a lesson for our relationship with this world before us. We are, as per Genesis 9:1, His stewards, sent to bring forth ‘fruit’ from the earth: beauty, honor, glory, all to His name and by His power. Humility recognizes at once the surpassing honor of this calling (for we are stewards of the Lord Almighty (Mark 12:1-3)) and its subordinacy (for we are stewards, not given the right to do without regard for Him (Mark 12:9-12)). This calling is the truth which should govern our every interaction with ourselves and His world and even with each other.
We are stewards too of each other (1 Cor. 10:27-28). I have not the rule of another man which I have over the ‘property’ I am fruitful with, but I have the authority to witness to all who see in all I do (Col. 3:23; Matt. 5:14). We have too certain specific authority to be His steward: the authority of office (public or private), of parenthood, of civil government, of church government, of authority delegated by one of these (as with an elder brother commissioned by his father to watch over siblings).
My relationship with my fellow man must not set him too high or too low. I may not make him too high by worshipping him or regarding him as an authority of Divine status (Acts 17:11). I may not make him too low by forgetting that he, like myself, is made in the Image of God, a work of His hand which I am to nurture (if at times with the rod (Matt. 3:7; Heb. 12:5-6)).
Honor, as this proverb tells us, comes only after humility. We can see the truth of this quite easily. If I am honored for that which I did in pride, I am honored for sin, for a lie. Honor for sin is worse than ashes, though, and should be reason for repentance, not rejoicing. Meanwhile, if I let honor fruit into pride, forgetting what humility I had before, I use His good gift for evil- and thus make it a curse upon myself. I must cleave, by His grace and strength, to humility, to the truth of myself and of others, but particularly the truth of God.
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
