Gospel Humility vs Religious Pride

Gospel Humility vs Religious Pride

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:28

“If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” John 13:8 

I’ve been meditating on the idea behind the believers devotion to Jesus, in relation to pride and humility. The words of Peter in John 13 are telling of this idea, “Never shall You wash my feet!”. Peter believed this to be a virtuous comment but according to Jesus these words have a false form of humility and I believe many Christians fall into this same kind of thinking. What do Jesus’ words demand? Well, the Gospel demands that we need Jesus Christ, simple concept right? Think about what Jesus did in earlier verses of John 13, and again the implications of the Gospel. The disciples needed the Son of Man to wash their (our) feet, to serve them (us). But everything in our thinking and being rejects the idea that the Savior must serve us. Our thoughts would quickly drive us to say no, we are called to serve Christ.

But this is what makes the Gospel so radical and completely contrary to our culture, in the same way it was in the NT. Listen, it is NOT Christ that needs to be served but we who need to be served. Jesus needed nothing from us and still needs nothing from us. When Peter rebukes the attempt of Jesus to wash his feet, it looked like an objection from humility but was actually religious pride, disobedience, and self-righteousness. At that very moment Peter was rejecting the grace of our Savior. You may have heard this idea from believers when they say, “God has forgiven me but I can’t forgive myself”, or “God has redeemed me but I don’t feel redeemed”, or “God has saved me but I’ll never change”, I can go on and on. You can even change those to directed them toward others, “God has forgiven them but I can’t/ won’t forgive them”, or “God has saved them but they’ll never change”.
Some of these comments/ thoughts may sound, at least those directed toward self, holy or sanctifying but they are not. That thinking is an assault on the Gospel. 

The believer must learn quickly, like Peter did, (according to the Gospel) that Christ is placed below us, for a time, to serve every believer. So the believers response ought to be humble obedience, “wash all of me!”. We are not given the right to exalt Jesus, that role belongs to the Father, and He did. I don’t see anyone better to do this, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name” Phil. 2:9. Our role is to be served by Christ and obey His Lordship, even when it is contrary to our thinking or feeling. Calvin explains, “Until a man renounces his liberty of judging the works of God, however he may strive to honor God, pride will always be latent under the semblance of humility.”

So when Jesus accomplishes our redemption by means that most would see as illogical or losing, in being humiliated and murdered by the creatures He created. This is why they looked upon Him and scoffed, the reality is that we would have looked at that humiliation and written Him off as done also. Jesus lowered Himself to raise everyone that would believe to the heights they could not take themselves, you and I could never “get low enough” to save ourselves, so Christ lowered Himself to the depths we could never understand.

So don’t adapt to a form of faux humility, receive all the Lord Jesus has for you in the Gospel and say “wash all of me Lord" because we have been given to “know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” Eph 1:18.

May the Lord give us a deeper understanding and devotion to our Savior, the Lord Jesus, to receive all that is offered to us in the Gospel so we to can do, in a lesser form, what Jesus did in humility and love.

Love you GCCSB family!