Humility

A few days ago I wrote a facebook note about humility and humiliation. I have since been looking again at the words for humble in both the Old and New Testaments. I also looked up the word in Synonyms of the New Testament by Richard Chenevix Trench (R. C. Trench, 1807-1886, was archbishop of Dublin and professor of divinity at King's College, London and later Dean of Westminster Seminary). He has some amazing insights on humility, which I include below. The brackets [ ] are my attempts to make clear what he wrote. This is, of course, not the final word of humility. For that we need to search the Scriptures. But it is a good starting line.

ταπεινοφροσυνη— humility, humbleness, lowliness of mind

“The work for which Christ’s Gospel came into the world was no less than to put down the mighty from their seat, and to exalt the humble and meek. It was then only in accordance with this its mission that it should dethrone the heathen virtue μεγαλοψυχια [greatness of soul; desire for honors; pride], and set up the despised Christian grace humility … advancing so far that a Christian writer has called humility not merely a grace, but the treasure house in which all other graces are contained. And indeed not the grace only, but the very [Greek] word [for humility] is itself a fruit of the Gospel; no Greek writer used it before the Christian era. It does not occur in the Septuagint [Greek translation of the Old Testament. The simple word humble or low occurs numerous times, mostly referring to humble or lowly conditions or circumstance. Two other closely related words occur, as in Proverbs 29:23 Pride brings a man low, but the Lord upholds the humble-minded with honor.] In the heathen writers use of humility, the instances are few and exceptional in which humility signifies anything for them which is not grovelling, slavish, and mean-spirited.

There is, however, an almost prophetic foresight of humility as a virtue. Aristotle, having confessed how hard it is for a man to be truly proud [“Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character”; and pride is a virtue - “Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues”; then he adds, “The man who thinks himself worthy of less than he is really worthy of is unduly humble…”] — for he will allow no “thinking yourself worthy of great things”, which does not rest on corresponding realities of goodness and moral greatness, and he goes on to observe, though merely by the way and little conscious how far his words reached, that to think humbly of oneself, where that humble estimate is the true one, cannot be imputed to any as a culpable meanness of spirit. But if this be so (and who will deny it?), then, seeing that for every man the humble estimate of himself is the true one, Aristotle has herein unconsciously vindicated humility as a grace in which every man ought to abound. Christian humility is no mere modesty or absence of pretension, which is all that the heathen would at the very best have found in it; nor yet a self-made grace; No, humility is the esteeming of ourselves small, inasmuch as we are so; the thinking truly, and because truly, therefore lowlily, of ourselves.

But it may be objected, how does this account of Christian humility, as springing out of and resting on the sense of unworthiness, agree with the fact that the sinless Lord laid claim to this grace, and said, I am meek and lowly in heart (Matt. 11:29)? The answer is, that for the sinner humility involves the confession of sin, inasmuch as it involves the confession of his true condition; while yet for the unfallen creature the grace itself as truly exists, involving for such the acknowledgment not of sinfulness, which would be untrue, but of creatureliness, of absolute dependence, of having nothing, but receiving all things of God. And thus the grace of humility belongs to the highest angel before the throne, since he is a creature. In His human nature He must be the pattern of all humility, of all creaturely dependence; and it is only as a man that Christ thus claims to be lowly in heart: his human life was a constant living on the fulness of his Father’s love; He evermore, as man, took the place which is proper for the creature in the presence of its Creator.”

As I have followed this wonderful word throughout the Scriptures, I realized the best passages, supplying our strongest motive to humility, are:

Matthew 11:27-30
27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.  
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Philippians 2:3-11
3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.  
4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.  
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:  
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:  
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:  
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  
9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:  
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;  
11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus, the Son of God, was “lowly in heart.” He “humbled himself.” Can we do less? Humility or lowliness of mind should be our aim, our goal, our prayer. How the Church would prosper if it concentrated on humility and love. Each believer should focus on humility and love. I need to be marked by lowliness of mind and love!