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… In looking into the nature of humility, we discover that it does not involve meanness or servility. It is not pusillanimity. It contains no element that degrades human nature. It is not the quality of a slave, but of kings and priests unto God. It is a necessary trait in all finite character, and therefore it is perfectly consistent with an inviolable dignity and self-respect. I. In the first place, humility is becoming to man, because he is A CREATURE. Shall a being who was originated from nonentity by almighty power, and who can be reduced again to nonentity by that same power, swell with haughtiness? II. In the second place, humility is becoming to man, because he is A DEPENDENT BEING. 1. All his springs are in God. He is dependent for life, health, and all temporal things. He is dependent, above all, for spiritual life and health and all the blessed things of eternity. 2. Man is dependent not only upon his Creator, but also upon his fellow creature. III. In the third place, man should be humble because he is A SINFUL BEING. Considering the peculiar attitude in which guilty man stands before God, self-abasement ought to be the main feeling in his heart, for, in addition to the infinite difference there is originally between himself and his Maker, he has rendered himself yet more different by apostasy. The first was only a difference in respect to essence, but the last is a difference in respect to character. How strange it is that he should forget this difference, and, entering into a comparison of himself with his fellow men, should plume himself upon a supposed superiority. The culprits are disputing which shall be the greatest at the very instant when their sentence of condemnation is issuing from the lips of their Judge! There is still another consideration under this head which strengthens the motive for humility. We have seen that the fact of sin furnishes an additional reason for self-abasement because it increases the distance between man and God; it has also made him still more dependent upon God. Nothing but pure and mere mercy can deliver him. But nothing interferes with the exercise of mercy like pride in the criminal. A proud man cannot be forgiven. It involves a self-contradiction. If there be self-asserting haughtiness in the heart, God can neither bestow grace nor man receive it. IV. A fourth and most powerful reason why man should be clothed with humility is found in THE VICARIOUS SUFFERING AND ATONEMENT OF CHRIST IN HIS BEHALF. Feeling himself to be a condemned sinner, and beholding the Lamb of God "made a curse for him" and bearing His sins in His own body on the tree, all self-confidence and self-righteousness will die out of his soul. (G. T. Shedd, 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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