Who was so fit to communicate this command to man as the once self-confident, arrogant Peter? We can fancy, as he wrote the words, how his mind would go back, with blushing memories, to many a passage in his earlier history; and as he thought of the painful processes through which, by the grace of God, he had unlearned the impetuosity, the egotism, and the pride of his youth, he would say it with all the earnestness and the force of one who had felt the power and the subjugation of a besetting sin, "Be clothed with humility."
I. "Humility," to be "humility" indeed, cannot see itself. It hides itself in Christ; it lets nothing be seen but Christ. The best "humility" is Christ; it makes itself humility by losing itself in the humility of Jesus. Now, if it be asked, "Of what material is this clothing of humility made?" I should take you for the answer to that marvellous scene when, upon the margin of heaven, Jesus denuded and emptied Himself of the prerogatives of Deity, and put off His glory, and put on shame and weakness, that He might be a Brother to the people whom He came to save. I would bid you collect from all the humilities of the Redeemer's history the real fabric of the "humility" that you are to copy and to follow.
II. I am persuaded that the first way to grow humble is to be sure that you are loved. The education of almost any child will teach you that if you treat that child harshly, you will make his little heart stubborn and proud; but if he feels that you love him, he will gradually take a gentler tone. So it is with the education through which we are all passing to the life to come. The first thing God does with His child is to make the child feel that He loves him. He shows him that he is forgiven. He gives him many tokens of His remembrance; He heaps tendernesses upon him, like the angels' food, that was to "humble them in the wilderness." There is nothing which will stoop a man into the dust like the gentle pressure of the feeling, "I am loved." No heart will resist it. The forgiven David; the woman at Jesus's feet; Peter under the look; John in the bosom; the gaoler, first rushing to suicide, and then casting himself at the feet of the Apostles when he heard a kind word "Do thyself no harm; we are all here" all witness to that one universal law love, makes humility.
III. There is a false "humility," than which none can be more unlike Christ's or destructive to the character. It is of three kinds. There is "humility" of external things in a mortification of the body a thing which nature likes to do, and which men generally admire, and call saintly. But it is a cloke, not a robe; a look, a posture, a ceremony. There is a great deal of self-applause, self-righteousness, conscious goodness. Self is denied on one side to break out, gratifying itself on the other side. The body is more vile, but the spirit is full of self-consequence. There is another counterfeit which Satan makes and calls "humility" (for there is never a work of God's but Satan is ready to counterfeit it); it is what St. Paul calls, in his epistle to the Colossians, "a voluntary humility," people thinking themselves unworthy to come to God. They put in other matters that God hath not required, and therefore "worship angels." And there are those who do not know it, but who, like Peter, are, under an appearance of "humility," indulging contemptuous pride. "Thou shalt never wash my feet." "I am not good enough to be saved. I am not worthy to come to the Lord's Supper. I cannot believe God loves me." What is that but the worst form of pride, giving God the lie and setting up worthiness as a condition to receive the free gift of God? True humility is to cast yourself so low that you just take, as a poor, helpless sinner, without a question, all that God is, and all that God gives, and all that God undertakes for you, as all your life, and all your peace, and all your salvation. For remember that this is the grace to which God has promised everything else.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,12th series, p. 13.
Clothed with Humility.
I. Humility what is it? It is a gracious gift of the Holy Ghost. So far as it has respect to God, it is that docility which is willing to learn what God teaches; that conscious penury which is willing to accept whatever God proffers; that submissiveness which is willing to do what God desires, and to endure whatever God deems needful. And, so far as it has respect to man, it is that self-oblivion which is not indignant at being overlooked; that modesty which is not aware of its own importance; that considerateness which, in reproving sin and in trying to rescue the sinner, recognises a brother or sister in the same condemnation: and in this development it is near of kin to that charity which envieth not, which vaunteth not herself, which is not puffed up, doth not behave herself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.
II. Humility is the conscious penury which is willing to accept whatever God offers. And there are two things which in the Gospel He more particularly offers: righteousness and strength. Perhaps, if those who have never got the full comfort of the Gospel would look narrowly into it, they might find that the hindrance is a want of humility. By the door of the Gospel a God of love invites you to come into His peaceful presence; but though a wide door, it is wonderfully low, so low that no one can enter who does not stoop.
III. Finally, humility is that submissive and acquiescent mood of mind which is willing to do, to undergo, and to become whatever may be God's good pleasure. If a haughty spirit cometh before destruction, God giveth grace to the humble. Affable, contented, obliging, grateful humility grows in favour with God and with the people around, and never lacks the materials of a continual feast.
J. Hamilton, Works,vol. vi., p. 389.
I. The humble man must be a spiritual man a believer in Christ Jesus. Other men may be modest, may be retiring, may be unselfish; but the Christian alone can be humble. They want the great source, the central point, of humility. They know perchance that they are weak, erring, inconsistent; but only the Christian knows that he is a sinner. No man knows this in the inner depths of his heart until God's Holy Spirit has wrought there has opened his eyes to see that in him which Christ came to save him from, and has brought him in abasement to the foot of Christ's cross. Nothing can lead a man to humility except God's blessed Spirit, breaking up the hard and fallow ground within, showing a man what he himself is and what Christ is. Two truths of which the natural man is ignorant: (1) What he himself is. The humble man must know himself. The self-examination we need is a habit, becoming at length, like other habits, a second nature. (2) And what Christ is. In true humility, faith is absolutely necessary.
II. "God giveth grace to the humble." There is no difficulty now in seeing that this is so. For it is the humble who are ever seeking that grace. The proud have no sense of their need of it; but it is the daily bread of the humble. Prayer for it is to them not an irksome duty, not a prescribed form to be got through, but the work of the heart, the struggle of the whole man for more strength to walk in God's ways. It is to the humble, then, that the promises are made, "Seek, and ye shall find"; "Ask, and ye shall have"; "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. ii., p, 30.
I. Who are the proud? One has the pride of birth. A long line of honoured ancestry has preceded him; he boasts of the blood of heroes and of princes. Fair indeed is his portion, and truly noble, if he be like the servants of God of old, perfect in his generation, not disgracing his descent by meanness of spirit, but rather striving, in the highest sense, to be the best of his line. But this is not pride of birth in the offensive sense. It is the pride of birth to stand aloof in thought from the poor and lowly-born, to deny in practice the universal brotherhood of mankind, to depreciate God's gifts and God's people. This pride of birth God resisteth.
II. Another is proud of his wealth. Here also it is none the less true that God by His promises resisteth the proud. The mere pride of the possession of this world's means how does it make discord in all the course of God's government and God's redemption of the world. There is the day of God's final victory, when the rich man also dieth, when all his revenues cannot keep his spirit here on earth, nor all the splendour of his tomb preserve the spirit's cherished tenement from decay.
III. Another is proud of his power. But here too God fights against pride. The pride of another is his talent, of another still his character. "God resisteth the proud." As long as the heart dwells in a fair habitation of its own, it has no place in God's spiritual temple; self-satisfaction is an insuperable barrier to the reception of the Gospel of Christ.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. ii., p. 15.
References: 1 Peter 5:5. C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons,p. 323; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 10; F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 171; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons,p. 268.