CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 12:3.—Those who possess special gifts must be humble and seek a sober mind.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 12:3
Self-glorified and God-dishonoured.—Self-help is a very good book, well written, containing useful information, and inculcating wise lessons; but it is to be read with caution. The very title may mislead. Self-help must not be divorced from divine help. Self-dependence and self-confidence are needful if the battle of modern existence is to be successfully fought, if prizes are to be won and trophies gathered in the closely contested arena of modern days. And yet self-dependence must not override God-dependence; self-confidence must be the wholesome product of confidence in the Creator; self-confidence must not degenerate into presumption. A man must think soberly and justly of himself, and not place an undue estimate on his faculties and his achievements.
I. An undue self-estimate is a source of atheism.—Samosatenus is reported to have put down the hymns which were sung for the glory of God, and caused songs to be sung in the temple to his own honour. Professedly a theist, practically an atheist. We sing “Let the Creator’s praise arise” with our mouths, but in our hearts we sing, Let our own praises be celebrated! While we think of the atheists who do not worship our God, let us also think of the practical atheism of which we are too often guilty. The atheist exalts the creature above the Creator, and continues the process until the Creator is supposed to be non-existent. The creature exalted is really self. Every atheist is indeed one who is given to an exaggerated self-importance. His thoughts run out pleasantly upon the track of his own perfections. The thought of his own greatness minifies the thought of any other greatness; he brings himself to such a pass that he cannot brook the idea of a superior. Self-importance leads to self-deception and to general deception, and he vainly fancies that God will cease to exist if he thinks of Him as non-existent, if he arrays shallow syllogisms to prove that there is no God.
II. An undue self-estimate is a source of scepticism—The sceptic should be one who looks about; but it is to be feared that the sceptic, as we now employ the word, is one whose external looking about is dimmed by the gaze being turned inward. The vision is introspective instead of latospective, if we may coin a word, though we should be as careful of coining words as of coining money. The sceptic is too often a vain-glorious person; latusut in Circo spatiere, that you may stalk proudly along. He professes to examine, but prejudice and self-importance conduct and colour the examination. He is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. Ajax in Sophocles says: “Others think to overcome with the assistance of the gods, but I hope to gain honour without them.” How many hope to gain honour by boasting of their scepticism, agnosticism, and their difficulty of believing and receiving time-worn creeds! They are wiser than the ancients, and their greater wisdom is shown in their no-knowledge and no certain beliefs. The ancients were constructive; the moderns are destructive. Surely the work of construction is nobler than that of destruction. The moderns destroy, and leave only unsightly ruins to tell of their greatness and their wisdom.
III. An undue self-estimate is a source of bigotry.—The narrow-minded man is in all ages the bigot. And the man must be narrow whose views are bounded by that little circle of which self is both the centre and the circumference. The man who considers only self has no patience with the different views of other people. His doxy is orthodoxy, and all other and different doxy is heterodoxy. We rail against papal infallibility, but there is a pope in every man’s nature. The errors of Roman Catholicism are the outcome of the errors of humanity. The inquisition is not destroyed. Bigotry stalks abroad with disdainful mien and fattens on self-esteem. The Christian bigot denounces the unchristian sceptic, and the latter in turn denounces the former. But bigotry treads the hall of science as well as kneels in the temple of religion. Whenever a man is found who thinks of himself more highly than he ought to think, there is the bigot either in embryo or in full development.
IV. An undue self-estimate is a source of God-dishonouring and of Christ-degrading.—All sin is a dishonour done to God, and an undue estimate of self is sin and is the prolific source of other sins. Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylon are typical. We all have our Babylons. They are just as baneful, though they are only ideal. The material Babylon was harmful because of the ideal Babylon. It was the mind-building which led to the boasting king’s downfall. He was his own architect and mason, and built a house which proclaimed his folly and procured his disaster. Self dishonours God and degrades Christ, at least strives to dishonour and degrade. Whence the offence of the cross? Self is the stumbling-stone and the true rock of offence. Self crucifies Christ afresh. Self must be dethroned before Christ can be enthroned. The dethronement of self is its true enthronement and enrichment.
V. An undue self-estimate is a source of modern display.—We too often desire to excel in order that we may be glorified. Display is our word. Show, pomp, and glitter are our ambitions. Even art, science, and literature are prostituted to the desire of making a sensation. Envy takes possession, if other selves are exalted above our own selves. Impatience is shown if our purposes are crossed and our projects defeated. Let self have its proper place and sphere, but let it not blot all the glory and nobility out of existence. Think soberly and wisely, and then life will flow evenly and sweetly along like some clear stream through a charming landscape.