By Stephen Green
(First published in Christian Voice Summer Recess 2012)
James 4:6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
1Pet 5:5 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.
A few years ago I met with a pastor to seek his support for a witness against the London ‘gay pride’ parade. I went as a supplicant; I had nothing to offer. I hoped he would lead his people out onto this particular battlefield.
The reply surprised me. No, although he disagreed profoundly with sodomy, the pastor said, to protest against this display of depravity was inappropriate. He told me that what he would prefer to do would be to set up a stall along the route and give out water. That, he felt, would be a more gracious thing to do and would be a better expression of the love of Christ.
Not long after that I heard of the minister of a church along the route of the Belfast equivalent taking the same approach. He too had been invited, this time by the organisers of the Belfast protest, to stand against the ungodly parade. And he and his elders gave the same answer. They wanted to show the marchers the love of Christ. They wanted to be gracious.
Well, if a matter is established in the mouth of two or three witnesses, there is clearly a popular train of thought in Christian circles being articulated by these two ministers. It is not as if these were liberal churches. They knew that sodomy was sin. They just would not stand up against it. They preferred what they saw as the gracious approach to the confrontational.
I have encountered the same point of view since; an unwillingness to oppose evil coupled with a desire to be nice and the hope that in that way people will receive the Gospel. Those who really want to twist the knife will add with a superior air that we need to be ‘Christ-like’.
So it set me thinking and seeking the Lord. What is the Christ-like thing to do in these circumstances? What is Christ-like is God-like, and the scriptures with which we opened are very clear. God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble.
What we actually have in the church is pastors who would turn that principle on its head. They resist the humble and they give bottles full of grace to the proud.
The clue to the character of those taking part in the gay pride events is after all in the title. The parades are founded on pride. Going further, they are founded in pride in something which God calls sin and vile affection.
There is another problem with the refreshment approach. It is an offer of hospitality. In the Biblical sense, anyone who offers another hospitality has accepted them. That is why when the stricter Pharisees, those who were obsessed with ceremonial cleanliness, raised with the Lord Jesus (I think quite mildly) their observation that his disciples did not ritually wash their hands (in Matthew 15) they receive a tirade of rebuke in return. If you invited someone, you were expected to take them as they were. Giving water to someone is, on a spiritual level, being part of what they are doing and of who they are:
Matt 10:42 And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.
Mark 9:41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
Returning to the way in which God discriminates between the humble and the proud, it isn’t even as if the words in James and Peter are swimming against the general flow of Scripture. The wrongfulness of pride and the need for humility is a prominent theme in the teachings of the Lord Jesus. He said when explaining that those who rule should be as if they served:
Matt 23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
It is those like the abject publican in Luke 18 who are raised up, but those who boast, either in their sin or in their righteousness, who will be brought down. The Lord concluded that parable with exactly the same point as in Matt 23:12 above (it is also in Luke 14:11 where the context is choosing a place to sit at a banquet):
Luke 18:14b … for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
The famously humble Rabbi Hillel had paved the way for our Lord with similar teachings, opposed to those of Rabbi Shamai, who was seen as rather aloof, but it is not as if the Lord had just picked up on something Hillel said, or invented it independently. Many years earlier, his mother Mary came out with a very similar expression under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in her ecstatic song of praise known as ‘the Magificat’:
Luke 1:51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
Neither did Mary just invent such sentiments. In the Christian Voice Newsletter of December 2011 I wrote an article on Mary’s song, and showed that everything she said in it was based squarely on Old Testament scripture. The scattering of the proud, the pulling down of the mighty and the exaltation of those of low degree draw on a host of references like these in Psalms and Proverbs:
Psalm 18:26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.
Psalm 138:6 Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off.
Prov 3:34 Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly.
Prov 8:13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
Prov 11:2 When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.
Prov 16:19 Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.
Prov 29:23 A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.
It should not come as any surprise to find the words of the Lord Jesus, the song of Mary and the wisdom of the Old Testament agreeing. The Lord Jesus is God incarnate, so he wrote all the scriptures through the Holy Spirit.
Were the apostles gracious to everyone? Well, actually, they were not. Simon the sorcerer wanted to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit from Peter, whose first letter we quoted from when we opened:
Acts 8:20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
This is the same Peter who wrote:
2Pet 3:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen
As God tells us, there are those with whom to be gracious, and those with whom to be firm. And look how Paul dealt with Elymas, another sorcerer, who wanted to stop Sergius, the Roman deputy, from hearing the gospel. Many Christians would want to be nice to Elymas, to tell him Jesus loves him. The man who met the same Jesus on the road to Damascus had a radically different approach, as he stared the wizard in the face,
Acts 13:10 And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.
Now we do not know whether Elymas repented, although we hope that like Simon the sorcerer, conviction of sin overtook him. But just look what a positive result occurred in the heart of the onlooking Sergius:
Acts 13:12 Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
Elsewhere, the Apostle Paul told Timothy:
2Tim 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
But then, in his second letter to Timothy, he encourages him into more active opposition and to correct and rebuke:
2Tim 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2Tim 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
The same man who had laid up for himself a crown of righteousness (2Tim 4:8) was even given to imprecatory prayer six verses later against a man we may assume was caught in the sin of pride:
2Tim 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
Again, in his letter to Titus, we find Paul urging meekness on the one hand, and directing that someone be thrown out of the church eight verses on:
Titus 3:2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.
Titus 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;
Now someone might say that the Apostles were only human, and that we need to look at the example of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. We want to be Christ-like. The trouble is, too many of us think being Christ-like means going around saying ‘hello flowers, hello clouds’ and never saying anything untoward even to poultry. But our Lord’s example really does not encourage us to be nice and inoffensive.
Dorothy L Sayers said: We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him ‘meek and mild’, and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.’
When we look at the life of the Lion of Judah, we find that he dealt with people exactly as God says he will deal with them. He resisted the proud and he was gracious to the humble.
The Lord Jesus displayed humility before heaven and he had compassion, empathy and forgiveness to everyone who came to him in humility. He was gracious to the humble ‑ the lepers he healed (Matt 8:2‑4, Luke 17:12‑16), the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant (Matt 8:5‑13), the woman with the jar of ointment whose sins he forgave (Luke 7:37‑48), the paralytic he healed and whose sins he forgave (Mark 2:1‑12), the woman at the well (John 4:7), the Syrophenician woman (Mar 7:28), the father with the sick son (Mark 9:17‑27) and the scribe who asked his opinion (Mark 12:28‑34) to take just a few examples.
And of course, when our gracious Lord replied to the scribe, he quoted Deuteronomy and Leviticus, two books of the Old Testament.
Christ also resisted the proud. He referred to Herod as ‘that fox’ (Luke 13:32), called the traders in the temple ‘thieves’ and over‑turned their tables with two more Old Testament quotes (Mark 11:15‑17), called his dinner companions ‘hypocrites’ (Matt 23:13ff), accused his disciple Peter of being like Satan (Mark 8:33), and told a man who wanted to follow him right after his father’s funeral ‘let the dead bury their dead’ (Matt 8:22).
Jesus Christ pronounced woe on whole cities whose people did not respect his followers, saying it would be like Sodom for them (Luke 10:12‑15). And in a chilling passage, he said of those who would reject his authority to rule: ‘But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.’ (Luke 19:27).
In its desire to appear nice and gentle, the church has lost all balance. It has become like a tank of developing fluid which someone forgot to shake. All the developer has sunk to the bottom, so the film is over-developed on one half, and under-developed on the other. The modern fashionable church is well-developed with love, grace and acceptance while law, judgment and rebuke have become all but invisible. In this day, we need to learn when to be gracious and when to stand up against sin. The church, like the developing tank, urgently needs someone to pray that the Lord will agitate it!
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