Humility-Andrew Murray « Archives of the Puritanical

Humility-Andrew Murray

Humility

By Andrew Murray

PREFACE

There are three great motives that urge us to humility. It becomes me as a creature, as a
sinner, as a saint. The first we see in the heavenly hosts, in unfallen man, in Jesus as Son
of Man. The second appeals to us in our fallen state, and points out the only way through
which we can return to our right place as creatures. In the third we have the mystery of
grace, which teaches us that, as we lose ourselves in the overwhelming greatness of
redeeming love, humility becomes to us the consummation of everlasting blessedness and
adoration.

In our ordinary religious teaching, the second aspect has been too exclusively put in the
foreground, so that some have even gone to the extreme of saying that we must keep
sinning if we are indeed to keep humble. Others again have thought that the strength of
self-condemnation is the secret of humility. And the Christian life has suffered loss,
where believers have not been distinctly guided to see that, even in our relation as
creatures, nothing is more natural and beautiful and blessed than to be nothing, that God
may be all; or where it has not been made clear that it is not sin that humbles most, but
grace, and that it is the soul, led through its sinfulness to be occupied with God in His
wonderful glory as God, as Creator and Redeemer, that will truly take the lowest place
before Him.

In these meditations I have, for more than one reason, almost exclusively directed
attention to the humility that becomes us as creatures. It is not only that the connection
between humility and sin is so abundantly set forth in all our religious teaching, but
because I believe that for the fullness of the Christian life it is indispensable that
prominence be given to the other aspect. If Jesus is indeed to be our example in His
lowliness, we need to understand the principles in which it was rooted, and in which we
find the common ground on which we stand with Him, and in which our likeness to Him
is to be attained. If we are indeed to be humble, not only before God but towards men, if
humility is to be our joy, we must see that it is not only the mark of shame, because of
sin, but, apart from all sin, a being clothed upon with the very beauty and blessedness of
heaven and of Jesus. We shall see that just as Jesus found His glory in taking the form of
a servant, so when He said to us, “Whosoever would be first among you, shall be your
servant,” He simply taught us the blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and
heavenly as being the servant and helper of all. The faithful servant, who recognizes his
position, finds a real pleasure in supplying the wants of the master or his guests. When
we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our
participation in the life of Jesus, we shall begin to learn that it is our true nobility, and
that to prove it in being servants of all is the highest fulfillment of our destiny, as men
created in the image of God.

When I look back upon my own religious experience, or round upon the Church of Christ
in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the
distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily
intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special fellowship with Christians, in

the direction and performance of work for Christ,-alas! how much proof there is that
humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can
grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus. That it should have
been possible for men to say of those who claim to be seeking the higher holiness, that
the profession has not been accompanied with increasing humility, is a loud call to all
earnest Christians, however much or little truth there be in the charge, to prove that
meekness and lowliness of heart are the chief mark by which they who follow the meek
and lowly Lamb of God are to be known.

Chapter 1–HUMILITY: THE GLORY
OF THE CREATURE

“They shall cast their crowns before the throne, so saying: Worthy art Thou, our Lord and
our God, to receive the gloty, and the honour and the power: for Thou didst create all
things, and because of Thy will then are, and were created. “-Rev. 4:11

When God created the universe, it was with the one object of making the creature
partaker of His perfection and blessedness, and so showing forth in it the glory of His
love and wisdom and power. God wished to reveal Himself in and through created beings
by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable
of receiving. But this communication was not a giving to the creature something which it
could possess in itself, a certain life or goodness, of which it had the charge and
disposal.By no means. But as God is the ever-living, everpresent, ever-acting One, who
upholdeth all things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, the relation
of the creature to God could only be one of unceasing, absolute, universal dependence.
As truly as God by His power once created, so truly by that same power must God every
moment maintain. The creature has not only to look back to the origin and first beginning
of existence, and acknowledge that it there owes everything to God; its chief care, its
highest virtue, its only happiness, now and through all eternity, is to present itself an
empty vessel, in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness.

The life God bestows is imparted not once for all, but each moment continuously, by the
unceasing operation of His mighty power. Humility, the place of entire dependence on
God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the
creature, and the root of every virtue.

And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. It was when the
now fallen angels began to look upon themselves with selfcomplacency that they were
led to disobedience, and were cast down from the light of heaven into outer darkness.
Even so it was, when the serpent breathed the poison of his pride, the desire to be as God,
into the hearts of our first parents, that they too fell from their high estate into all the
wretchedness in which man is now sunk. In heaven and earth, pride, self-exaltation, is the
gate and the birth, and the curse, of hell. (See Note “A” at end of chapter.)

Hence it follows that nothing can be our redemption, but the restoration of the ‘lost
humility, the original and only true relation of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came
to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven
He humbled Himself to become man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in
heaven; it brought Him, He brought it, from there. Here on earth “He humbled Himself,
and became obedient unto death”; His humility gave His death its value, and so became
our redemption. And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a
communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit, His own
humility, as the ground and root of His relation to God and His redeeming work. Jesus

Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of man, as a creature, by His life of perfect
humility. His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility.

And so the life of the saved ones, of the saints, must needs bear this stamp of deliverance
from sin, and full restoration to their original state; their whole relation to God and man
marked by an allpervading humility. Without this there can be no true abiding in God’s
presence, or experience of His favor and the power of His Spirit; without this no abiding
faith, or love or joy or strength. Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the
lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not
so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the
right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all.

God has so constituted us as reasonable beings, that the truer the insight into the real
nature or the absolute need of a command, the readier and fuller will be our obedience to
it. The call to humility has been too little regarded in the Church because its true nature
and importance has been too little apprehended. It is not a something which we bring to
God, or He bestows; it is simply the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we
see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all. When the creature
realizes that this is the true nobility, and consents to be with his will, his mind, and his
affections, the form, the vessel in which the life and glory of God are to work and
manifest themselves, he sees that humility is simply acknowledging the truth of his
position as creature, and yielding to God His place.

In the life of earnest Christians, of those who pursue and profess holiness, humility ought
to be the chief mark of their uprightness. It is often said that it is not so. May not one
reason be that in the teaching and example of the Church, it has never had that place of
supreme importance which belongs to it? And that this, again, is owing to the neglect of
this truth, that strong as sin is as a motive to humility, there is one of still wider and
mightier influence, that which makes the angels, that which made Jesus, that which
makes the holiest of saints in heaven, so humble; that the first and chief mark of the
relation of the creature, the secret of his blessedness, is the humility and nothingness
which leaves God free to be all?

I am sure there are many Christians who will confess that their experience has been very
much like my own in this, that we had long known the Lord without realizing that
meekness and lowliness of heart are to be the distinguishing feature of the disciple as
they were of the Master. And further, that this humility is not a thing that will come of
itself, but that it must be made the object of special desire and prayer and faith and
practice. As we study the word, we shall see what very distinct and oft-repeated
instructions Jesus gave His disciples on this point, and how slow they were in
understanding Him. Let us, at the very commencement of our meditations, admit that
there is nothing so natural to man, nothing so insidious and hidden from our sight,
nothing so difficult and dangerous, as pride. Let us feel that nothing but a very
determined and persevering waiting on God and Christ will discover how lacking we are
in the grace of humility, and how impotent to obtain what we seek. Let us study the
character of Christ until our souls are filled with the love and admiration of His lowliness.

And let us believe that, when we are broken down under a sense of our pride, and our
impotence to cast it out, Jesus Christ Himself will come in to impart this grace too, as a
part of His wondrous life within us.

NOTE A–

“All this is to make it known the region of eternity that pride can degrade the highest
angels into devils, and humility raise fallen flesh and blood to the thrones of angels. Thus,
this is the great end of God raising a new creation out of a fallen kingdom of angels: for
this end it stands in its state of war betwixt the fire and pride of fallen angels, and the
humility of the Lamb of God, that the last trumpet may sound the great truth through the
depths of eternity, that evil can have no beginning but from pride, and no end but from
humility. The truth is this: Pride may die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.
Under the banner of the truth, give yourself up to the meek and humble spirit of the holy
Jesus. Humility must sow seed, or there can be no reaping in Heaven. Look not at pride
only as an unbecoming temper, nor at humility only as a decent virtue: for the one is
death, and the other is life; the one is all hell, the other is all heaven. So much as you
have of pride within you, you have of the fallen angels alive in you; so much as you have
of true humility, so much you have of the Lamb of God within you. Could you see what
every stirring of pride does to your soul, you would beg of everything you meet to tear
the viper from you, though with the loss of a hand or an eye. Could you see what a sweet,
divine, transforming power there is in humility, how it expels the poison of your nature,
and makes room for the Spirit of God to live in you, you would rather wish to be the
footstool of all the world than want the smallest degree of it.” –Spirit of Prayer, Pt.II,
p.73, Edition of Moreton, Canterbury, 1893.

Chapter 2–HUMILITY: THE SECRET
OF REDEMPTION

“Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who emptied Himself; taking the
form of a servant; and humbled Himself; becoming obedient even unto death. Wherefore
God also highly exalted Him. “Phil. 2: 5-9.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Through all its existence it can
only live with the life that was in the seed that gave it being. The full apprehension of this
truth in its application to the first and the Second Adam cannot but help us greatly to
understand both the need and the nature of the redemption there is in Jesus.

The Need.-When the Old Serpent, he who had been cast out from heaven for his pride,
whose whole nature as devil was pride, spoke his words of temptation into the ear of Eve,
these words carried with them the very poison of hell. And when she listened, and
yielded her desire and her will to the prospect of being as God, knowing good and evil,
the poison entered into her soul and blood and life, destroying forever that blessed
humility and dependence upon God which would have been our everlasting happiness.
And instead of this, her life and the life of the race that sprang from her became corrupted
to its very root with that most terrible of all sins and all curses, the poison of Satan’s own
pride. All the wretchedness of which this world has been the scene, all its wars and
bloodshed among the nations, all its selfishness and suffering, all its ambitions and
jealousies, all its broken hearts and embittered lives, with all its daily unhappiness, have
their origin in what this cursed, hellish pride, either our own, or that of others, has
brought us. It is pride that made redemption needful; it is from our pride we need above
everything to be redeemed. And our insight into the need of redemption will largely
depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power that has entered our being.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. The power that Satan brought
from hell, and cast into man’s life, is working daily, hourly, with mighty power
throughout the world. Men suffer from it; they fear and fight and flee it; and yet they
know not whence it comes, whence it has its terrible supremacy. No wonder they do not
know where or how it is to be overcome. Pride has its root and strength in a terrible
spiritual power, outside of us as well as within us; as needful as it is that we confess and
deplore it as our very own, is to know it in its Satanic origin. If this leads us to utter
despair of ever conquering or casting it out, it will lead us all the sooner to that
supernatural power in which alone our deliverance is to be found-the redemption of the
Lamb of God. The hopeless struggle against the workings of self and pride within us may
indeed become still more hopeless as we think of the power of darkness behind it all; the
utter despair will fit us the better for realizing and accepting a power and a life outside of
ourselves too, even the humility of heaven as brought down and brought nigh by the
Lamb of God, to cast out Satan and his pride.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Even as we need to look to the
first Adam and his fall to know the power of the sin within us, we need to know well the
Second Adam and His power to give within us a life of humility as real and abiding and
overmastering as has been that of pride. We have our life from and in Christ, as truly, yea
more truly, than from and in Adam. We are to walk “rooted in Him,” “holding fast the
Head from whom the whole body increaseth with the increase of God.” The life of God
which in the incarnation entered human nature, is the root in which we are to stand and
grow; it is the same almighty power that worked there, and thence onward to the
resurrection, which works daily in us. Our one need is to study and know and trust the
life that has been revealed in Christ as the life that is now ours, and waits for our consent
to gain possession and mastery of our whole being.

In this view it is of inconceivable importance that we should have right thoughts of what
Christ is, of what really constitutes Him the Christ, and specially of what may be counted
His chief characteristic, the root and essence of all His character as our Redeemer.There
can be but one answer: it is His humility. What is the incarnation but His heavenly
humility, His emptying Himself and becoming man? What is His life on earth but
humility; His taking the form of a servant? And what is His atonement but humility? “He
humbled Himself and became obedient unto death.” And what is His ascension and His
glory, but humility exalted to the throne and crowned with glory? “He humbled Himself,
therefore God highly exalted Him.” In heaven, where He was with the Father, in His
birth, in His life, in His death, in His sitting on the throne, it is all, it is nothing but
humility. Christ is the humility of God embodied in human nature; the Eternal Love
humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness, to win and serve
and save us. As the love and condescension of God makes Him the benefactor and helper
and servant of all, so Jesus of necessity was the Incarnate Humility. And so He is still in
the midst of the throne, the meek and lowly Lamb of God.

If this be the root of the tree, its nature must be seen in every branch and leaf and fruit. If
humility be the first, the all-including grace of the life of Jesus,-if humility be the secret
of His atonement,-then the health and strength of our spiritual life will entirely depend
upon our putting this grace first too, and making humility the chief thing we admire in
Him, the chief thing we ask of Him, the one thing for. which we sacrifice all else. 1-See
Note B (at end of this chapter)

Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often feeble and fruitless, when the very root
of the Christ life is neglected, is unknown? Is it any wonder that the joy of salvation is so
little felt, when that in which Christ found it and brings it, is so little sought? Until a
humility which will rest in nothing less than the end and death of self; which gives up all
the honor of men as Jesus did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone; which
absolutely makes and counts itself nothing, that God may be all, that the Lord alone may
be exalted,-until such a humility be what we seek in Christ above our chief joy, and
welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a religion that will conquer the world.

I cannot too earnestly plead with my reader, if possibly his attention has never yet been
specially directed to the want there is of humility within him or around him, to pause and

ask whether he sees much of the spirit of the meek and lowly Lamb of God in those who
are called by His name. Let him consider how all want of love, all indifference to the
needs, the feelings, the weakness of others; all sharp and hasty judgments and utterances,
so often excused under the plea of being outright and honest; all manifestations of temper
and touchiness and irritation; all feelings of bitterness and estrangement,have their root in
nothing but pride, that ever seeks itself, and his eyes will be opened to see how a dark,
shall I not say a devilish pride, creeps in almost everywhere, the assemblies of the saints
not excepted. Let him begin to ask what would be the effect, if in himself and around
him, if towards fellowsaints and the world, believers were really permanently guided by
the humility of Jesus; and let him say if the cry of our whole heart, night and day, ought
not to be, Oh for the humility of Jesus in myself and all around me! Let him honestly fix
his heart on his own lack of the humility which has been revealed in the likeness of
Christ’s life, and in the whole character of His redemption, and he will begin to feel as if
he had never yet really known what Christ and His salvation is.

Believer! study the humility of Jesus. This is the secret, the hidden root of thy
redemption. Sink down into it deeper day by day. Believe with thy whole heart that this
Christ, whom God has given thee, even as His divine humility wrought the work for thee,
will enter in to dwell and work within thee too, and make thee what the Father would
have thee be.

Note B.-

“We need to know two things: 1. That our salvation consists wholly in being saved from
ourselves, or that which we are by nature; 2. That in the whole nature of things nothing
could be this salvation or saviour to us but such a humility of God as is beyond all
expression. Hence the first unalterable term of the Saviour to fallen man: Except a man
denies himself, he cannot be My disciple. Self is the whole evil of fallen nature;
selfdenial is our capacity of being saved; humility is our saviour … Self is the root, the
branches, the tree, of all the evil of our fallen state. All the evils of fallen angels and men
have their birth in the pride of self. On the other hand, all the virtues of the heavenly life
are the virtues of humility. It is humility alone that makes the unpassable gulf between
heaven and hell. What is then, or in what lies, the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies
in the strife between pride and humility: pride and humility are the two master powers,
the two kingdoms in strife for the eternal possession of man. There never was, nor ever
will be, but one humility, and that is the one humility of Christ. Pride and self have the all
of man, till man has his all from Christ. He therefore only fights the good fight whose
strife is that the self-idolatrous nature which he hath from Adam may be brought to death
by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life in him.”-W. Law, Address to the
Clergy, p. 52. [I hope that this book of Law on the Holy Spirit may be issued by my
publisher in the course of the year.]

Chapter 3 –HUMILITY IN THE LIFE
OF JESUS

“I am in the midst of you as he that serveth.” Luke 22: 27.

In the Gospel of John we have the inner life of our Lord laid open to us. Jesus speaks
frequently of His relation to the Father, of the motives by which He is guided, of His
consciousness of the power and spirit in which He acts. Though the word humble does
not occur, we shall nowhere in Scripture see so clearly wherein His humility consisted.
We have already said that this grace is in truth nothing but that simple consent of the
creature to let God be all, in virtue of which it surrenders itself to His working alone. In
Jesus we shall see how both as the Son of God in heaven, and as man upon earth, He took
the place of entire subordination, and gave God the honor and the glory which is due to
Him- And what He taught so often was made true to Himself: “He that humbleth him:
shall be exalted.” As it is written, “He humbled Himself, therefore God highly exalted
Him.”

Listen to the words in which our Lord speaks of His relation to the Father, and how
unceasingly He uses the words not, and nothing, of Himself. The not I, in which Paul
expresses his relation to Christ, is the very spirit of what Christ says of His relation the
Father.

“The Son can do nothing of Himself” (John 5: 19).

“I can of My own self do nothing; My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own
will” (John 5: 30).

“I receive not glory from men” (John 5: 41).

“I am come not to do Mine own will” (John 6:38).

“My teaching is not Mine” (John 7:16)

“I am not come of Myself” (John 7:2

“I do nothing of Myself” (John 8:2

“I have not come of Myself, but He sent Me” (John 8: 42).

“I seek not Mine own glory” (John 8:50)

“The words that I say, I speak not from Myself” (John 14: 10).

“The word which ye hear is not Mine” (John 14: 24).

These words open to us the deepest roots of Christ’s life and work. They tell us how it
was that the Almighty God was able to work His mighty redemptive work through Him.
They show what Christ counted the state of heart which became Him as the Son of the
Father. They teach us what the essential nature and life is of that redemption which Christ
accomplished and now communicates. It is this: He was nothing, that God might be all.
He resigned Himself with His will and His powers entirely for the Father to work in Him.
Of His own power, His own will, and His own glory, of His whole mission with all His
works and His teaching,of all this He said, It is not I; I am nothing; I have given Myself
to the Father to work; I am nothing, the Father is all.

This life of entire self-abnegation, of absolute submission and dependence upon the
Father’s will, Christ found to be one of perfect peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving
all to God. God honored His trust, and did all for Him, and then exalted Him to His own
right hand in glory. And because Christ had thus humbled Himself before God, and God
was ever before Him, He found it possible to humble Himself before men too, and to be
the Servant of all. His humility was simply the surrender of Himself to God, to allow Him
to do in Him what He pleased, whatever men around might say of Him, or do to Him.

It is in this state of mind, in this spirit and disposition, that the redemption of Christ has
its virtue and efficacy. It is to bring us to this disposition that we are made partakers of
Christ. This is the true self-denial to which our Saviour calls us, the acknowledgment that
self has nothing good in it, except as anempty vessel which God must fill, and that its
claim to be or do anything may not for a moment be allowed. It is in this, above and
before everything, in which the conformity to Jesus consists, the being and doing nothing
of ourselves, that God may be all.

Here we have the root and nature of true humility. It is because this is not understood or
sought after, that our humility is so superficial and so feeble. We must learn of Jesus,
how He is meek and lowly of heart. He teaches us where true humility takes its rise and
finds its strength-in the knowledge that it is God who worketh all in all, that our place is
to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do
nothing of ourselves. This is the life Christ came to reveal and to impart-a life to God that
came through death to sin and self. If we feel that this life is too high for us and beyond
our reach, it must but the more urge us to seek it in Him; it is the indwelling Christ who
will live in us this life, meek and lowly. If we long for this, let us, meantime, above
everything, seek the holy secret of the knowledge of the nature of God, as He every
moment works all in all; the secret, of which all nature and every creature, and above all,
every child of God, is to be the witness,-that it is nothing but a vessel, a channel, through
which the living God can manifest the riches of His wisdom, power, and goodness. The
root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we
have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.

It was because this humility was not only a temporary sentiment, wakened up and
brought into exercise when He thought of God, but the very spirit of His whole life, that
Jesus was just as humble in His intercourse with men as with God. He felt Himself the
Servant of God for the men whom God made and loved; as a natural consequence, He

counted Himself the Servant of men, that through Him God might do His work of love.
He never for a moment thought of seeking His honor, or asserting His power to vindicate
Himself. His whole spirit was that of a life yielded to God to work in. It is not until
Christians study the humility of Jesus as the very essence of His redemption, as the very
blessedness of the life of the Son of God, as the only true relation to the Father, and
therefore as that which Jesus must give us if we are to have any part with Him, that the
terrible lack of actual, heavenly, manifest humility will become a burden and a sorrow,
and our ordinary religion be set aside to secure this, the first and the chief of the marks of
the Christ within us.

Brother, are you clothed with humility? Ask your daily life. Ask Jesus. Ask your friends.
Ask the world. And begin to praise God that there is opened up to you in Jesus a
heavenly humility of which you have hardly known, and through which a heavenly
blessedness you possibly have never yet tasted can come in to you.

Chapter 4–HUMILITY IN THE
TEACHING OF JESUS

“Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. “-Matt. xi. 29. “Whosoever will be chief
among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came to server.” Matt.10:27.

We have seen humility in the life of Christ, as He laid open His heart to us: let us listen to
His teaching. There we shall hear how He speaks of it, and how far He expects men, and
specially His disciples, to be humble as He was. Let us carefully study the passages,
which I can scarce do more than quote, to receive the full impression of how often and
how earnestly He taught it: it may help us to realize what He asks of us.

I. Look at the commencement of His ministry. In the Beatitudes with which the Sermon
on the Mount opens, He speaks:”Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.” The very first words of
His proclamation of the kingdom of heaven reveal the open gate through which alone we
enter. The poor, who have nothing in themselves, to them the kingdom comes. The
meek,who seek nothing in themselves, theirs the earth shall be. The blessings of heaven
and earth are for the lowly. For the heavenly and the earthly life, humility is the secret of
blessing.

2. “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest for your
souls.”Jesus offers Himself as Teacher. He tells what the spirit both is, which we shall
find Him as Teacher, and which we can learn areceive from Him. Meekness and
lowliness the one thing He offers us; in it we shall find perfect rest of soul. Humility is to
be a salvation.

3. The disciples had been disputing who would be the greatest in the kingdom, and had
agreed to ask the Master (Luke 9:46; Matt. 18:3). He set a child in their midst and said,
“Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, shall be exalted. ” “Who the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven?” The question is indeed a far-reaching one. What will be the
chief distinction in the heavenly kingdom? The answer, none but Jesus would have given.
The chief glory of heaven, the true heavenly-mindedness, the chief of the graces, is
humility. “He that is least among you, the same shall be great. ”

4. The sons of Zebedee had asked Jesus to sit on His right and left, the highest place in
the kingdom. Jesus said it was not His to give, but the Father’s, who would give it to
those for whom it was prepared. They must not look or ask for it. Their thought must be
of the cup and the baptism of humiliation. And then He added, “Whosoever will be chief
among you, let him be your servant. Even as the Son of Man came to serve. ” Humility,
as it is the mark of Christ the heavenly, will be the one standard of glory in heaven: the
lowliest is the nearest to God. The primacy in the Church is promised to the humblest.

5. Speaking to the multitude and the disciples, of the Pharisees and their love of the chief
seats, Christ said once again (Matt. 23:11), “He that is greatest among you shall be your
servant.” Humiliation is the only ladder to honor in God’s kingdom.

6. On another occasion, in the house of a Pharisee, He spoke the parable of the guest who
would be invited to come up higher (Luke 14:1-11), and added, “For whosoever exalteth
himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The demand is
inexorable; there is no other way. Self-abasement alone will be exalted.

7. After the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, Christ spake again (Luke18: 14),
“Everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be
exalted.” In the temple and presence and worship of God, everything is worthless that is
not pervaded by deep, true humility towards God and men.

8. After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus said (John 13:14), “If I then, the Lord and
Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” The authority
of command, and example, every thought, either of obedience or conformity, make
humility the first and most essential element of discipleship.

9. At the Holy Supper table, the disciples still disputed who should be greatest (Luke
22:26). Jesus said, “He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that
is chief, as he that doth serve. I am among you as he that serveth.” The path in which
Jesus walked, and which He opened up for us, the power and spirit in which He wrought
out salvation, and to which He saves us, is ever the humility that makes me the servant of
all.

How little this is preached. How little it is practised. How little the lack of it is felt or
confessed. I do not say, how few attain to it, some recognizable measure of likeness to
Jesus in His humility. But how few ever think, of making it a distinct object of continual
desire or prayer. How little the world has seen it. How little has it been seen even in the
inner circle of the Church.

“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” Would God that it might
be given us to believe that Jesus means this! We all know what the character of a faithful
servant or slave implies. Devotion to the master’s interests, thoughtful study and care to
please him, delight in his prosperity and honor and happiness. There are servants on earth
in whom these dispositions have been seen, and to whom the name of servant has never
been anything but a glory. To how many of us has it not been a new joy in the Christian
life to know that we may yield ourselves as servants, as slaves to God, and to find that
His service is our highest liberty,-the liberty from sin and self? We need now to learn
another lesson,-that Jesus calls us to be servants of one another, and that, as we accept it
heartily, this service too will be a most blessed one, a new and fuller liberty too from sin
and self. At first it may appear hard; this is only because of the pride which still counts
itself something. If once we learn that to be nothing before God is the glory of the
creature, the spirit of Jesus, the joy of heaven, we shall welcome with our whole heart the
discipline we may have in serving even those who try to vex us. When our own heart is

set upon this, the true sanctification, we shall study each word of Jesus on self-abasement
with new zest, and no place will be too low, and no stooping too deep, and no service too
mean or too long continued, if we may but share and prove the fellowship with Him who
spake, “I am among you as he that serveth”.

Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down! This was what Jesus ever
said to the disciples who were thinking of being great in the kingdom, and of sitting on
His right hand and His left. Seek not, ask not for exaltation; that is God’s work. Look to it
that you abase and humble yourselves, and take no place before God or man but that of
servant; that is your work; let that be your one purpose and prayer. God is faithful. Just as
water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased
and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless. He that humbleth himself-
that must be our one careshall be exalted; that is God’s care; by His mighty power and in
His great love He will do it.

Men sometimes speak as if humility and meekness would rob us of what is noble and
bold and manlike. Oh that all would believe that this is the nobility of the kingdom of
heaven, that this is the royal spirit that the King of heaven displayed, that this is Godlike,
to humble oneself, to become the servant of all! This is the path to the gladness and the
glory of Christ’s presence ever in us, His power ever resting on us.

Jesus, the meek and lowly One, calls us to learn of Him the path to God. Let us study the
words we have been reading, until our heart is filled with the thought: My one need is
humility. And let us believe that what He shows, He gives; what He is, He imparts. As
the meek and lowly One, He will come in and dwell in the longing heart.

Chapter 5–HUMILITY IN THE
DISCIPLES OF JESUS

“Let him that is chief among you be as he that doth serve.” -Luke 22:26.

We have studied humility in the person and teaching of Jesus; let us now look for it in the
circle of His chosen companions—the twelve apostles. If, in the lack of it we find in
them, the contrast between Christ and men is brought out more clearly, it will help us to
appreciate the mighty change which Pentecost wrought in them, and prove how real our
participation can be in the perfect triumph of Christ’s humility over the pride Satan had
breathed into man.

In the texts quoted from the teaching of Jesus, we have already seen what the occasions
were on which the disciples had proved how entirely wanting they were in the grace of
humility. Once, they had been disputing the way which of them should be the greatest
Another time, the sons of Zebedee with their mother had asked for the first places–the
seat on the right hand and the left. And, later on, at the Supper table on the last night,
there was again a contention which should be accounted the greatest. Not that there were
not moments when they indeed humbled themselves before their Lord. So it was with
Peter when he cried out, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” So, too, with the
disciples when they fell down and worshipped Him who had stilled the storm. But such
occasional expressions of humility only bring out into stronger relief what was the
habitual tone of their mind, as shown in the natural and spontaneous revelation given at
other times of the place and the power of self. The study of the meaning of all this will
teach us most important lessons.

First,. How much there may be of earnest and active, religion while humility is still sadly
wanting.-See it in the disciples. There was in them fervent attachment to Jesus. They had
forsaken all for Him. The Father had revealed to them that He was the Christ of God.
They believed in Him, they loved Him, they obeyed His commandments. They had
forsaken all to follow Him. When others went back, they clave to Him. They were ready
to die with Him. But deeper down than all this there was a dark power, of the existence
and the hideousness of which they were hardly conscious, which had to be slain and cast
out, ere they could be the witnesses of the power of Jesus to save. It is even so still. We
may find professors and ministers, evangelists and workers, missionaries and teachers, in
whom the gifts of the Spirit are many and manifest, and who are the channels of blessing
to multitudes, but of whom, when the testing time comes, or closer intercourse gives
fuller knowledge, it is only too painfully manifest that the grace of humility, as an
abiding characteristic, is scarce to be seen. All tends to confirm the lesson that humility is
one of the chief and the highest graces; one of the most difficult of attainment; one to
which our first and chiefest efforts ought to be directed; one that only comes in power,
when the fullness of the Spirit makes us partakers of the indwelling Christ, and He lives
within us.

Second, How impotent all external teaching and all personal effort is, to conquer pride or
give the meek and lowly heart.-For three years the disciples had been in the training
school of Jesus. He had told them what the chief lesson was He wished to teach them:
“Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.” Time after time He had spoken to them,
to the Pharisees, to the multitude, of humility as the only path to the glory of God.He had
not only lived before them as the Lamb of God in His divine humility, He had more than
once unfolded to them the inmost secret of His life: “The Son of Man came not to be
served, but to serve”; “I am among you as one that serveth.” He had washed their feet,
and told them they were to follow His example. And yet all had availed but little. At the
Holy Supper there was still the contention as to who should be greatest. They had
doubtless often tried to learn His lessons, and firmly resolved not again to grieve Him.
But all in vain. To teach them and us the much needed lesson, that no outward
instruction,not even of Christ Himself; no argument however convincing; no sense of the
beauty of humility, however deep; no personal resolve or effort, however sincere and
earnest,-can cast out the devil of pride. When Satan casts out Satan, it is only to enter
afresh in a mightier, though more hidden power. Nothing can avail but this, that the new
nature in its divine humility be revealed in power to take the place of the old, to become
as truly our very nature as that ever was.

Third, It is only by the indwelling of Christ in His divine humility that we become truly
humble.We have our pride from another, from Adam; we must have our humility from
Another too. Pride is ours, and rules in us with such terrible power, because it is ourself,
our very nature. Humility must be ours in the same way; it must be our very self, our very
nature. As natural and easy as it has been to be proud, it must be, it will be, to be humble.
The promise is, “Where,” even in the heart, “sin abounded, grace did abound more
exceedingly.” All Christ’s teaching of His disciples, and all their vain efforts, were the
needful preparation for His entering into them in divine power, to give and be in them
what He had taught them to desire. In His death He destroyed the power of the devil, He
put away sin, and effected an everlasting redemption. In His resurrection He received
from the Father an entirely new life, the life of man in the power of God, capable of being
communicated to men, and entering and renewing and filling their lives with His divine
power. In His ascension He received the Spirit of the Father, through whom He might do
what He could not do while upon earth, make Himself one with those He loved, actually
live their life for them, so that they could live before the Father in a humility like His,
because it was Himself who lived and breathed in them. And on Pentecost He came and
took possession. The work of preparation and conviction, the awakening of desire and
hope which His teaching had effected,was perfected by the mighty change that Pentecost
wrought. And the lives and the epistles of James and Peter and John bear witness that all
was changed, and that the spirit of the meek and suffering Jesus had indeed possession of
them.

What shall we say to these things? Among my readers I am sure there is more than one
class. There may be some who have never yet thought very specially of the matter, and
cannot at once realize its immense importance as a life question for the Church and its
every member. There are others who have felt condemned for their shortcomings, and
have put forth very earnest efforts, only to fail and be discouraged. Others, again, may be

able to give joyful testimony of spiritual blessing and power, and yet there has never been
the needed conviction of what those around them still see as wanting. And still others
may be able to witness that in regard to this grace too the Lord has given deliverance and
victory, while He has taught them how much they still need and may expect out of the
fullness of Jesus. To whichever class we belong, may I urge the pressing need there is for
our all seeking a still deeper conviction of the unique place that humility holds in the
religion of Christ, and the utter impossibility of the Church or the believer being what
Christ would have them be, as long as His humility is not recognized as His chief glory,
His first command, and our highest blessedness. Let us consider deeply how far the
disciples were advanced while this grace was still so terribly lacking, and let us pray to
God that other gifts may not so satisfy us, that we never grasp the fact that the absence of
this grace is the secret cause why the power of God cannot do its mighty work. It is only
where we, like the Son, truly know and show that we can do nothing of ourselves, that
God will do all.

It is when the truth of an indwelling Christ takes the place it claims in the experience of
believers, that the Church will put on her beautiful garments and humility be seen in her
teachers and members as the beauty of holiness.

Chapter 6 –HUMILITY IN DAILY LIFE

“He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath
not seen?”-1 John 4:20.

What a solemn thought, that our love to God will be measured by our everyday
intercourse with men and the love it displays; and that our love to God will be found to be
a delusion, except was its truth is proved in standing the test of daily life with our
fellowmen. It is even so with our humility. It is easy to think we humble ourselves before
God: humility towards men will be the only sufficient proof that our humility before God
is real; that humility has taken up its abode in us; and become our very nature; that we
actually, like Christ, have made ourselves of no reputation. When in the presence of God
lowliness of heart has become, not a posture we pray to Him, but the very spirit of our
life, it will manifest itself in all our bearing towards our brethren. The lesson is one of
deep import: the only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before
God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct;
the insignficances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they
prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments that
we really show and see what we are. To know the humble man, to know how the humble
man behaves, you must follow him in the common course of daily life.

Is not this what Jesus taught? It was when the disciples disputed who should be greatest;
when He saw how the Pharisees loved the chief place at feasts and the chief seats in the
synagogues; when He had given them the example of washing their feet,-that He taught
His lessons of humility. Humility before God is nothing if not proved in humility before
men.

It is even so in the teaching of Paul. To the Romans He writes: “In honor preferring one
another”; “Set not your mind on high things, but condescend to those that are lowly.” “Be
not wise in your own conceit.” To the Corinthians: “Love,” and there is no love without
humility as its root, “vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not its own, is not
provoked.” To the Galatians: “Through love be servants one of another. Let us not be
desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another.” To the Ephesians,
immediately after the three wonderful chapters on the heavenly life: “Therefore, walk
with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love”;
“Giving thanks always, subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.” To the
Philippians: “Doing nothing through faction or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each
counting other better than himself. Have the mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
who emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and humbled Himself.” And to the
Colossians: “Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering,
forebearing one another, and forgiving each other, even as the Lord forgave you.” It is in
our relation to one another, in our treatment of one another, that the true lowliness of
mind and the heart of humility are to be seen. Our humility before God has no value, but
as it prepares us to reveal the humility of Jesus to our fellow-men. Let us study humility
in daily life in the light of these words.

The humble man seeks at all times to act up to the rule, “In honor preferring one another;
Servants one of another; Each counting others better than himself Subjecting yourselves
one to another.” The question is often asked, how we can count others better than
ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in holiness, in natural
gifts, or in grace received. The question proves at once how little we understand what real
lowliness of mind is. True humility comes when, in the, light of God, we have seen
ourselves to be nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be all.
The soul that has done this, sand can say, So have I lost myself in finding Thee, no longer
compares itself with others. It has given up forever every thought of self in God’s
presence; it meets its fellow-men as one who is nothing, and seeks nothing for itself; who
is a servant of God, and for His sake a servant of all. A faithful servant may be wiser than
the master, and yet retain the true spirit and posture of the servant. The humble man looks
upon every, the feeblest and unworthiest, child of God, and honors him and prefers him
in honor as the son of a King. The spirit of Him who washed the disciples’ feet, makes it a
joy to us to be indeed the least, to be servants one of another.

The humble man feels no jealousy-or envy. He can praise God when others are preferred
and blessed before him. He can bear to hear others praised and himself forgotten, because
in God’s presence he has learnt to say with Paul, “I am nothing.” He has received the
spirit of Jesus, who pleased not Himself, and sought not His own honor, as the spirit of
his life.

Amid what are considered the temptations to impatience and touchiness, to hard thoughts
and sharp words, which come from the failings and sins of fellow-Christians, the humble
man carries the oftrepeated injunction in his heart, and shows it in his life, “Forbearing
one another, and forgiving one another, even as the Lord forgave you.” He has learnt that
in putting on the Lord Jesus he has put on the heart of compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness, and long-suffering. Jesus has taken the place of self, and it is not an
impossibility to forgive as Jesus forgave. His humility does not consist merely in
thoughts or words of selfdepreciation, but, as Paul puts it, in “a heart of humility,”
encompassed by compassion and kindness, meekness and longsuffering,-the sweet and
lowly gentleness recognized as the mark of the Lamb of God.

In striving after the higher experiences of the Christian life, the believer is often in danger
of aiming at and rejoicing in what one might call the more human, the manly, virtues,
such as boldness, joy, contempt of the world, zeal, self-sacrifice,-even the old Stoics
taught and practised these,-while the deeper and gentler, the diviner and more heavenly
graces, those which Jesus first taught upon earth, because He brought them from heaven;
those which are more distinctly connected with His cross and the death of self,-poverty of
spirit, meekness, humility, lowliness,-are scarcely thought of or valued. Therefore, let us
put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness,long-suffering; and let us
prove our Christlikeness, not only in our zeal for saving the lost, but before all in our
intercourse with the brethren, forbearing and forgiving one another, even as the Lord
forgave us.

Fellow-Christians, do let us study the Bible portrait of the humble man. And let us ask
our brethren, and ask the world, whether they recognize in us the likeness to the original.
Let us be content with nothing less than taking each of these texts as the promise of what
God will work in us, as the revelation in words of what the Spirit of Jesus will give as a
birth within us. And let each failure and shortcoming simply urge us to turn humbly and
meekly to the meek and lowly Lamb of God, in the assurance that where He is enthroned
in the heart, His humility and gentleness will be one of the streams of living water that
flow from within us. 1

(1- I knew Jesus, and He was very precious to my soul: but I found something in me that
would not keep sweet and patient and kind. I did what I could to keep it down, but it was
there. I besought Jesus to do something for me, and when I gave Him my will, He came
to my heart, and took out all that would not be sweet, all that would not be kind, all that
would not be patient, and then He shut the door.”-George Foxe)

Once again I repeat what I have said before. I feel deeply that we have very little
conception of what the Church suffers from the lack of this divine humility,-the
nothingness that makes room for God to prove His power. It is not long since a Christian,
of an humble, loving spirit, acquainted with not a few mission stations of various
societies, expressed his deep sorrow that in some cases the spirit of love and forbearance
was sadly lacking. Men and women, who in Europe could each choose their own circle of
friends, brought close together with others of uncongenial minds, find it hard to bear, and
to love, and to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And those who should
have been fellow-helpers of each other’s joy, became a hindrance and a weariness. And
all for the one reason, the lack of the humility which counts itself nothing, which rejoices
in becoming and being counted the least, and only seeks, like Jesus, to be the servant, the
helper and comforter of others, even the lowest and unworthiest.

And whence comes it that men who have joyfully given up themselves for Christ, find it
so hard to give up themselves for their brethren? Is not the blame with the Church? It has
so little taught its sons that the humility of Christ is the first of the virtues, the best of all
the graces and powers of the Spirit. It has so little proved that a Christlike humility is
what it, like Christ, places and preaches first, as what is in very deed needed, and possible
too. But let us not be discouraged. Let the discovery of the lack of this grace stir us to
larger expectation from God. Let us look upon every brother who tries or vexes us, as
God’s means of grace, God’s instrument for our purification, for our exercise of the
humility Jesus our Life breathes within us. And let us have such faith in the All of God,
and the nothing of self, that, as nothing in our own eyes, we may, in God’s power, only
seek to serve one another in love.

Chapter 5

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 6 –HUMILITY IN DAILY LIFE

“He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath
not seen?”-1 John 4:20.

The humble man seeks at all times to act up to the rule, “In honor preferring one another;
Servants one of another; Each counting others better than himself Subjecting yourselves

one to another.” The question is often asked, how we can count others better than
ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in holiness, in natural
gifts, or in grace received. The question proves at once how little we understand what real
lowliness of mind is. True humility comes when, in the, light of God, we have seen
ourselves to be nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be all.
The soul that has done this, sand can say, So have I lost myself in finding Thee, no longer
compares itself with others. It has given up forever every thought of self in God’s
presence; it meets its fellow-men as one who is nothing, and seeks nothing for itself; who
is a servant of God, and for His sake a servant of all. A faithful servant may be wiser than
the master, and yet retain the true spirit and posture of the servant. The humble man looks
upon every, the feeblest and unworthiest, child of God, and honors him and prefers him
in honor as the son of a King. The spirit of Him who washed the disciples’ feet, makes it a
joy to us to be indeed the least, to be servants one of another.

God will work in us, as the revelation in words of what the Spirit of Jesus will give as a
birth within us. And let each failure and shortcoming simply urge us to turn humbly and
meekly to the meek and lowly Lamb of God, in the assurance that where He is enthroned
in the heart, His humility and gentleness will be one of the streams of living water that
flow from within us. 1

Chapter 7–HUMILITY AND HOLINESS

“Which say, Stand by thyself;-,for I am holier than thou. ” -Isa. 65: 5.

We speak of the Holiness movement in our times, and praise God for it. We hear a great
deal of seekers after holiness and professors of holiness, of holiness teaching and holiness
meetings. The blessed truths of holiness in Christ, and holiness by faith, are being
emphasized as never before. The great test of whether the holiness we profess to seek or
to attain, is truth and life, will be whether it be manifest in the increasing humility it
produces. In the creature, humility is the one thing needed to allow God’s holiness to
dwell in him and shine through him. In Jesus, the Holy One of God who makes us holy, a
divine humility was the secret of His life and His death and His exaltation; the one
infallible test of our holiness will be the humility before God and men which marks us.
Humility is the bloom and the beauty of holiness.

The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility. Every seeker after holiness
needs to be on his guard, lest unconsciously what was begun in the spirit be perfected in
the flesh, and pride creep in where its presence is least expected. Two men went up into
the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. There is no place or position
so sacred but the Pharisee can enter there. Pride can lift its head in the very temple of
God, and make His worship the scene of its self exaltation. Since the time Christ so
exposed his pride, the Pharisee has put on the garb of the publican, and the confessor of
deep sinfulness equally with the professor of the highest holiness, must be on the watch.
Just when We are most anxious to have our heart the temple of God, we shall find the
two men coming up to pray. And the publican will find that his danger is not from the
Pharisee beside him, who despises him, but the Pharisee within who commends and
exalts. In God’s temple, when we think we are in the holiest of all, in the presence of His
holiness, let us beware of pride. “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to
present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.”

proved in touchiness and haste and impatience, in self-defense and selfassertion, in sharp
judgments and unkind words, that they did not each reckon others better than themselves,
and that their holiness has but little in it of the meekness of the saints?l In their spiritual
history men may have had times of great humbling and brokenness, but what a different
thing this is from being clothed with humility, from having an humble spirit, from having
that lowliness of mind in which each counts himself the servant of others, and so shows
forth the very mind which was also in Jesus Christ.

“Stand by; for I am holier than thou!” What a parody on holiness! Jesus the Holy One is
the humble One: the holiest will ever be the humblest. There is none holy but God: we
have as much of holiness as we have of God. And according to what we have of God will
be our real humility, because humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the
vision that God is all. The holiest will be the humblest. Alas! though the bare-faced
boasting Jew of the days of Isaiah is not often to be found, even our manners have taught
us not to speak thus, how often his spirit is still seen, whether in the treatment of
fellowsaints or of the children of the world. In the spirit in which opinions are given, and
work is undertaken, and faults are exposed, how often, though the garb be that of the
publican, the voice is still that of the Pharisee: “Oh God, I thank Thee that I am not as
other men.”

And is there, then, such humility to be found, that men shall indeed still count themselves
“less than the least of all saints,” the servants of all? There is. “Love vaunteth not itself, is
not puffed up, seeketh not its own.” Where the spirit of love is shed abroad in the heart,
where the divine nature comes to a full birth where Christ the meek and lowly Lamb of
God is truly formed within, there is given the power of a perfect love that forgets itself
and finds its blessedness in blessing others, in bearing with them and honoring them,
however feeble they be. Where this love enters, there God enters. And where God has
entered in His power, and reveals Himself as All, there the creature becomes nothing.
And where the creature becomes nothing before God; it cannot be anything but humble
towards the fellow-creature. The presence of God becomes not a thing of times and
seasons, but the covering under which the soul ever dwells, and its deep abasement
before God becomes the holy place of His presence whence all its words and works
proceed.

May God teach us that our thoughts and words and feelings concerning our fellowmen
are His test of our humility towards Him, and that our humility before Him is the only
power that can enable us to be always humble with our fellow-men. Our humility must be
the life of Christ, the Lamb of God, within us.

laudation, but simply in the absence of that deep self-abasement which cannot but be the
mark of the soul that has seen the glory of God (Job 42: 5, 6; Isa.6: 5). It reveals itself,
not only in words or thoughts, but in a tone, a way of speaking of others, in which those
who have the gift of spiritual discernment cannot but recognize the power of self. Even
the world with its keen eyes notices it, and points to it as a proof that the profession of a
heavenly life does not bear any specially heavenly fruits. O brethren! let us beware.
Unless we make, with each advance in what we think holiness, the increase of humility
our study, we may find that we have been delighting in beautiful thoughts and feelings, in
solemn acts of consecration and faith,while the only sure mark of the presence of God,
the disappearance of self, was all the time wanting. Come and let us flee to Jesus, and
hide ourselves in Him until we be clothed upon with His humility. That alone is our
holiness.

Chapter 6

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 7–HUMILITY AND HOLINESS

“Which say, Stand by thyself;-,for I am holier than thou. ” -Isa. 65: 5.

“God, I thank thee, I am not as the rest of men, or even as this publican.” It is in that
which is just cause for thanksgiving, it is in the very thanksgiving which we render to
God, it may be in the very confession that God has done it all, that self finds its cause of
complacency. Yes, even when in the temple the language of penitence and trust in God’s
mercy alone is heard, the Pharisee may take up the note of praise, and in thanking God be
congratulating himself. Pride can clothe itself in the garments of praise or of penitence.
Even though the words, “I am not as the rest of men” are rejected and condemned, their
spirit may too often be found in our feelings and language towards our fellowworshippers
and fellow-men. Would you know if this really is so, just listen to the way in which
Churches and Christians often speak of one another. How little of the meekness and
gentleness of Jesus is to be seen. It is so little remembered that deep humility must be the
keynote of what the servants of Jesus say of themselves or each other. Is there not many a
Church or assembly of the saints, many a mission or convention, many a society or
committee, even many a mission away in heathendom, where the harmony has been
disturbed and the work of God hindered, because men who are counted saints have
proved in touchiness and haste and impatience, in self-defense and selfassertion, in sharp
judgments and unkind words, that they did not each reckon others better than themselves,
and that their holiness has but little in it of the meekness of the saints?l In their spiritual
history men may have had times of great humbling and brokenness, but what a different
thing this is from being clothed with humility, from having an humble spirit, from having
that lowliness of mind in which each counts himself the servant of others, and so shows
forth the very mind which was also in Jesus Christ.

before God becomes the holy place of His presence whence all its words and works
proceed.

Let all teachers of holiness, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, and all seekers after
holiness, whether in the closet or the convention, take warning. There is no pride so
dangerous, because none so subtle and insidious, as the pride of holiness. It is not that a
man ever says, or even thinks, “Stand by; I am holier than thou.” No, indeed, the thought
would be regarded with abhorrence. But there grows up, all unconsciously, a hidden habit
of soul, which feels complacency its attainments, and cannot help seeing how far it is in
advance of others. It can be recognized, not always in any special selfassertion or self-
laudation, but simply in the absence of that deep self-abasement which cannot but be the
mark of the soul that has seen the glory of God (Job 42: 5, 6; Isa.6: 5). It reveals itself,
not only in words or thoughts, but in a tone, a way of speaking of others, in which those
who have the gift of spiritual discernment cannot but recognize the power of self. Even
the world with its keen eyes notices it, and points to it as a proof that the profession of a
heavenly life does not bear any specially heavenly fruits. O brethren! let us beware.
Unless we make, with each advance in what we think holiness, the increase of humility
our study, we may find that we have been delighting in beautiful thoughts and feelings, in
solemn acts of consecration and faith,while the only sure mark of the presence of God,
the disappearance of self, was all the time wanting. Come and let us flee to Jesus, and
hide ourselves in Him until we be clothed upon with His humility. That alone is our
holiness.

Chapter 8–HUMILITY AND SIN

“Sinners, of whom I am chief.”-1 Tim.1:15

Humility is often identified with penitence and contrition. As a consequence, there
appears to be no way of fostering humility but by keeping the soul occupied with its sin.
We have learned, I think, that humility is something else and something more. We have
seen in the teaching of our Lord Jesus and the Epistles how often the virtue is inculcated
without any reference to sin. In the very nature of things, in the whole relation of the
creature to the Creator, in the life of Jesus as He lived it and imparts it to us, humility is
the very essence of holiness as of blessedness. It is the displacement of self by the
enthronement of God. Where God is all, self is nothing.

But though it is this aspect of the truth I have felt it specially needful to press, I need
scarce say what new depth and intensityman’s sin and God’s grace give to the humility of
the saints. We have only to look at a man like the Apostle Paul, to see how, through his
life as a ransomed and a holy man, the deep consciousness of having been a sinner lives
inextinguishably. We all know the passages in which he refers to his life as a persecutor
and blasphemer. “I am the least of the apostles, that am not worthy to be called an
apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God …I labored more abundantly than they
all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (I Cor. 15: 9,10). “Unto me, who
am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the heathen” (Eph.3:
8). “I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; howbeit I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief …Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. i. 13, 15). God’s grace had saved him; God
remembered his sins no more for ever; but never, never could he forget how terribly he
had sinned. The more he rejoiced in God’s salvation, and the more his experience of
God’s grace filled him with joy unspeakable, the clearer was his consciousness that he
was a saved sinner, and that salvation had no meaning or sweetness except as the sense of
his being a sinner made it precious and real to him. Never for a moment could he forget
that it was a sinner God had taken up in His arms and crowned with His love.

The texts we have just quoted are often appealed to as Paul’s confession of daily sinning.
One has only to read them carefully in their connection, to see how little this is the case.
They have a far deeper meaning, they refer to that which lasts throughout eternity, and
which will give its deep undertone of amazement and adoration to the humility with
which the ransomed bow before the throne, as those who have been washed from their
sins in the blood of the Lamb.Never, never, even in, glory, can they be other than
ransomed sinners; never for a moment in this life can God’s child live in the full light of
His love, but as he feels that the sin, out of which he has been saved, is his one only right
and title to all that grace has promised to do. The humility with which first he came as a
sinner, acquires a new meaning when he learns how it becomes him as a creature. And
then ever again, the humility, in which he was born as a creature, has its deepest, richest
tones of adoration, in the memory of what it is to be a monument of God’s wondrous
redeeming love.

The true import of what these expressions of St. Paul teach us comes out all the more
strongly when we notice the remarkable fact that, through his whole Christian course, we
never find from his pen, even in those epistles in which we have the most intensely
personal unbosomings, anything like confession of sin. Nowhere is there any mention of
shortcoming or defect, nowhere any suggestion to his readers that he has failed in duty, or
sinned against the law of perfect love. On the contrary, there are passages not a few in
which he vindicates himself in language that means nothing if it does not appeal to a
faultless life before God and men. “Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and
righteously, and unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you” (1 Thess.2:10). “Our
glorying is this, this testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God we
.behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you ward” (2 Cor.1:12). This is
not an ideal or an aspiration; it is an appeal to what his actual life had been. However we
may account for this absence of confession of sin, all will admit that it must point to a life
in the power of the Holy Ghost, such as is but seldom realized or expected in these our
days.

The point which I wish to emphasize is this-that the very fact of the absence of such
confession of sinning only gives the more force to the truth that it is not in daily sinning
that the secret of the deeper humility will be found, but in the habitual, never for a
moment to be forgotten position, which just the more abundant grace will keep more
distinctly alive, that our only place,, the only place of blessing, our one abiding position
before God, must be that of those whose highest joy it is to confess that they are sinners
saved by grace.

With Paul’s deep remembrance of having sinned so terribly in the past, ere grace had met
him, and the consciousness of being kept from present sinning, there was ever coupled
the abiding remembrance of the dark hidden power of sin ever ready to come in, and only
kept out by the presence and power of the indwelling Christ. “In me, that is, in my flesh,
dwelleth no good thing;”-these words of Rom. 7 describe the flesh as it is to the end. The
glorious deliverance of Rom.8-”The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath now
made me free from the law of sin, which once led me captive”-is neither the annihilation
nor the sanctification of the flesh, but a continuous victory given by the Spirit as He
mortifies the deeds of the body. As health expels disease, and light swallows up darkness,
and life conquers death, the indwelling of Christ through the Spirit is the health and light
and life of the soul. But with this, the conviction of helplessness and danger ever tempers
the faith in the momentary and unbroken action of the Holy Spirit into that chastened
sense of dependence which makes the highest faith and joy the handmaids of a humility
that only lives by the grace of God.

grace did abound more exceedingly.” This reveals how the very essence of grace is to
deal with and take away sin, and how it must ever be the more abundant the experience of
grace, the more intense the consciousness of being a sinner. It is not sin, but God’s grace
showing a man and ever reminding him what a sinner he was, that, will keep him truly
humble. It is not sin, but grace, that will make me indeed know myself a sinner, and-
make the sinner’s place of deepest self-abasement the place I never leave.

I fear that there are not a few who, by strong expressions of self-condemnation and self-
denunciation, have sought to humble themselves, and have to confess with sorrow that a
humble spirit, a “heart of humility,” with its accompaniments of kindness and
compassion, of meekness and forbearance, is still as far off as ever. Being occupied with
self, even amid the deepest self-abhorrence, can never free us from self. It is the
revelation of God, not only by the law condemning sin but by His grace delivering from
it, that will make us humble. The law may break the heart with fear; it is only grace that
works that sweet humility which becomes a joy to the soul as its second nature. It was the
revelation of God in His holiness, drawing nigh to make Himself known in His grace,
that made Abraham and Jacob, Job and Isaiah, bow so low. It is the soul in which God
the Creator, as the All of the creature in its nothingness, God the Redeemer in His grace,
as the All of the sinner in his sinfulness, is waited for and trusted and worshipped, that
will find itself so filled with His presence, that there will be no place for self. So alone
can the promise be fulfilled: “The haughtiness of man shall be brought low, and the Lord
alone be exalted in that day.”

It is the sinner dwelling in the full light of God’s holy, redeeming love, in the experience
of that full indwelling of divine love, which comes through Christ and the Holy Spirit,
who cannot but be humble. Not to be occupied with thy sin, but to be occupied with God,
brings deliverance from self.

Chapter 7

Table of Contents

Chapter 9

�

Chapter 8–HUMILITY AND SIN

“Sinners, of whom I am chief.”-1 Tim.1:15

But though it is this aspect of the truth I have felt it specially needful to press, I need
scarce say what new depth and intensityman’s sin and God’s grace give to the humility of

the saints. We have only to look at a man like the Apostle Paul, to see how, through his
life as a ransomed and a holy man, the deep consciousness of having been a sinner lives
inextinguishably. We all know the passages in which he refers to his life as a persecutor
and blasphemer. “I am the least of the apostles, that am not worthy to be called an
apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God …I labored more abundantly than they
all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (I Cor. 15: 9,10). “Unto me, who
am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the heathen” (Eph.3:
8). “I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; howbeit I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief …Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. i. 13, 15). God’s grace had saved him; God
remembered his sins no more for ever; but never, never could he forget how terribly he
had sinned. The more he rejoiced in God’s salvation, and the more his experience of
God’s grace filled him with joy unspeakable, the clearer was his consciousness that he
was a saved sinner, and that salvation had no meaning or sweetness except as the sense of
his being a sinner made it precious and real to him. Never for a moment could he forget
that it was a sinner God had taken up in His arms and crowned with His love.

The three passages above quoted all show that it was the wonderful grace bestowed upon
Paul, and of which he felt the need every moment, that humbled him so deeply. The grace
of God that was with him, and enabled him to labor more abundantly than they all; the
grace to preach to the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ; the grace that was
exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus, it was this grace of
which it is the very nature and glory that it is for sinners, that kept the consciousness of
his having once sinned, and being liable to sin, so intensely alive. “Where sin abounded,
grace did abound more exceedingly.” This reveals how the very essence of grace is to
deal with and take away sin, and how it must ever be the more abundant the experience of
grace, the more intense the consciousness of being a sinner. It is not sin, but God’s grace
showing a man and ever reminding him what a sinner he was, that, will keep him truly
humble. It is not sin, but grace, that will make me indeed know myself a sinner, and-
make the sinner’s place of deepest self-abasement the place I never leave.

that made Abraham and Jacob, Job and Isaiah, bow so low. It is the soul in which God
the Creator, as the All of the creature in its nothingness, God the Redeemer in His grace,
as the All of the sinner in his sinfulness, is waited for and trusted and worshipped, that
will find itself so filled with His presence, that there will be no place for self. So alone
can the promise be fulfilled: “The haughtiness of man shall be brought low, and the Lord
alone be exalted in that day.”

Chapter 9 — HUMILITY AND FAITH

“How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another, and the glory that cometh
from the only God ye seek not?”-John 5: 44.

In an address I lately heard, the speaker said that the blessings of the higher Christian life
were often like the objects exposed in a shop window,-one could see them clearly and yet
could not reach them. If told to stretch out his hand and take, a man would answer, I
cannot; there is a thick pane of plate-glass between me and them. And even so Christians
may see clearly the blessed promises of perfect peace and rest, of overflowing love and
joy, of abiding communion and fruitfulness, and yet feel that there was something
between hindering the true possession. And what might that be? Nothing but pride. The
promises made to faith are so free and sure; the invitations and encouragements so strong;
the mighty power of God on which it may count is so near and free,-that it can only be
something that hinders faith that hinders the blessing being ours. In our text Jesus
discovers to us that it is indeed pride that makes faith impossible. “How can ye believe,
which receive glory from one another?” As we see how in their very nature pride and
faith are irreconcilably at variance, we shall learn that faith and humility are at root one,
and that we never can have more of true faith than we have of true humility; we shall see
that we may indeed have strong intellectual conviction and assurance of the truth while
pride is kept in the heart, but that it makes the living faith, which has power with God, an
impossibility.

We need only think for a moment what faith is. Is it not the confession of nothingness
and helplessness, the surrender and the waiting to let God work? Is it not in itself the
most humbling thing there can be, the acceptance of our place as dependents,who can
claim or get or do nothing but what grace bestows?! Humility is ’simply the disposition
which prepares the soul for living on trust. And every, even the most secret breathing of
pride, in self-seeking, self-will, selfconfidence, or self exaltation, is just the strengthening
of that self which cannot enter the kingdom, or possess the things of the kingdom,
because it refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be there– the All in All.

Faith is the organ or sense for the perception and apprehension of the heavenly world and
its blessings. Faith seeks .the glory that comes from God, that only comes where God is
All. As long as we take glory from one another, as long as ever we seek and love and
jealously guard the glory of this life, the honor and reputation that comes from men, we
do not seek, and cannot receive the glory that comes from God. Pride renders faith
impossible. Salvation comes through a cross and a crucified Christ. Salvation is the
fellowship with the crucified Christ in the Spirit of His cross. Salvation is union with and
delight in, salvation is participation in, the humility of Jesus. Is it wonder that our faith is
so feeble when pride still reigns so much, and we have scarce learnt even to long or pray
for humility as the most needful and blessed part of salvation?

Humility and faith are more nearly allied in Scripture than many know. See it in the life
of Christ. There are two cases in which He spoke of a great faith. Had not the centurion,

at whose faith He marvelled, saying, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel!”
spoken, “I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof”? And had not the
mother to whom He spoke, “O woman,great is thy faith!” accepted the name of dog, and
said, “Yea, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs’? It is the humility that brings a soul to be
nothing before God, that also removes every hindrance to faith, and makes it only fear
lest it should dishonor Him by not trusting Him wholly.

Brother, have we not here the cause of failure in the pursuit of holiness? Is it not this,
though we knew it not, that made our consecration and our faith so superficial and so
short-lived? We had no idea to what an extent pride and self were still secretly working
within us, and how alone God by His incoming and His mighty power could cast them
out. We understood not how nothing but the new and divine nature, taking entirely the
place of the old self, could make us really humble. We knew not that absolute, unceasing,
universal humility must be the rootdisposition of every prayer and every approach to God
as well as of every dealing with man; and that we might as well attempt to see without
eyes, or live without breath, as believe or draw nigh to God or dwell in His love, without
an all-prevading humility and lowliness of heart.

Brother, have we not been making a mistake in taking so much trouble to believe, while
all the time there was the old self in its pride seeking to possess itself of God’s blessing
and riches? No wonder we could not believe. Let us change our course. Let us seek first
of all to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God: He will exalt us. The cross, and
the death, and the grave, into which Jesus humbled Himself, were His path to the glory of
God. And they are our path. Let our one desire and our fervent prayer be, to be humbled
with Him and like Him; let us accept gladly whatever can humble us before God or men;-
this alone is the path to the glory of God.

You perhaps feel inclined to ask a question. I have spoken of some who have blessed
experiences, or are the means of bringing blessing to others, and yet are lacking in
humility. You ask whether these do not prove that they have true, even strong faith,
though they show too clearly that they still seek too much the honor that cometh from
men. There is more than one answer can be given. But the principal answer in our present
connection is this: They indeed have a measure of faith, in proportion to which, with the
special gifts bestowed upon them, is the blessing they bring to others. But in that very
blessing the work of their faith is hindered, through the lack of humility. The blessing is
often superficial or transitory, just because they are not the nothing that opens the way for
God to be all. A deeper humility would without doubt bring a deeper and fuller blessing.
The Holy Spirit not only working in them as a Spirit of power, but dwelling in them in
the fullness of His grace, and specially that of humility, would through them
communicate Himself to these converts for a life of power and holiness and steadfastness
now all too little seen.

“How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another?” Brother! nothing can cure
you of the desire of receiving glory from men, or of the sensitiveness and pain and anger
which come when it is not given, but giving yourself to seek only the glory that comes
from God. Let the glory of the Allglorious God be everything to you. You will be freed

from the glory of men and of self, and be content and glad to be nothing. Out of this
nothingness you will grow strong in faith, giving glory to God, and you will find that the
deeper you sink in humility before Him, the nearer He is to fulfill the every desire of your
Faith.

Chapter 8

Table of Contents

Chapter 10

�

Chapter 9 — HUMILITY AND FAITH

“How can ye believe, which receive glory from one another, and the glory that cometh
from the only God ye seek not?”-John 5: 44.

fellowship with the crucified Christ in the Spirit of His cross. Salvation is union with and
delight in, salvation is participation in, the humility of Jesus. Is it wonder that our faith is
so feeble when pride still reigns so much, and we have scarce learnt even to long or pray
for humility as the most needful and blessed part of salvation?

Humility and faith are more nearly allied in Scripture than many know. See it in the life
of Christ. There are two cases in which He spoke of a great faith. Had not the centurion,
at whose faith He marvelled, saying, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel!”
spoken, “I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof”? And had not the
mother to whom He spoke, “O woman,great is thy faith!” accepted the name of dog, and
said, “Yea, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs’? It is the humility that brings a soul to be
nothing before God, that also removes every hindrance to faith, and makes it only fear
lest it should dishonor Him by not trusting Him wholly. <