It is a curious fact of experience that every man must boast about something. The man who boasts of nothing at all is a being unknown and unheard of in this world. The mind of man, so it would appear, is hinged in so marvellous a manner that, were he still holy and unfallen, his thoughts would be for ever constantly flowing out of himself to God in an ecstasy of praise and delight. Sin has not altered this constitutional tendency of his soul but it has directed the soul to different objects, so that, instead of turning to God his Maker, he now turns with perverse delight to adore the creature.

There are, in the nature of things, only two ultimate objects to which a man's soul may incline with proud pleasure. He may turn to God or else to himself.

Man's Bondage⤒🔗

The Christless man is in the unenviable position of being a slave to himself. It is not simply that he is so but that he cannot help being so. 'Ye shall be as gods' (Genesis 3:5) was the tempter's whisper to our first parents, and it was fulfilled when man fell, but in a manner which was hideous and fiendish. There occurred in the faculties of man's soul at the Fall a revolution and a realignment of affection which was to have catastrophic consequences.

Whereas before it was instinctive for man to boast in God, from now on it became instinctive for him to boast in himself. Man, by the Fall, was smitten with a Narcissus complex. By some mysterious judgment of God, the chemistry of the soul was altered by this first entrance of sin. The orientation of every human faculty was introverted. It turned in upon itself. God was exiled to the periphery and self was set up high on the throne of man's mind. To reverse this tragic slavery to self and so to break the adamantine chains that bind us to our natural love of vainglory requires infinite power.

The New Birth←⤒🔗

It is this which occurs at the new birth. This is what the new birth is. It is nothing less than a gracious forth-putting of God's infinite energy within the chaos of man's fallen faculties in order to realign them, in principle, to what they were before the Fall. The new birth precedes faith in us. To suggest, as too many have done, that we must believe in order to be born again is as absurd as to say that the bulb must shine before the light-switch can be turned on. Faith in man is not the energy which produces the new birth nor is it the condition which God requires in order to perform His work of power. On the contrary, faith is the evidence that the new birth has occurred already in man's soul. In that sense, it is 'not of yourselves: it is the gift of God' (Ephesians 2:8). Faith is impossible before God makes the soul live, because faith is an activity of a soul made alive. Faith, like all the other evangelical graces, is the fruit of the Spirit's prior action in man. To define faith as an action possible to the unsaved sinner is to dignify man's fallen will with omnipotence and at the same time to offer an insult to God our Saviour. This is the theory of our new birth. It is elementary to the properly taught Christian. But not so elementary or easy to him is the practical outworking of the doctrine. It is to this we turn.

Practical Effect←⤒🔗

It must follow from what we have stated that the characteristic behaviour of true Christianity is to give all the glory to God. If the Fall so disarranged the faculties of our mind that we gloried as sinners in ourselves, it must follow that the new birth has rearranged our faculties so that we glory as Christians in God alone. This we should do and this we do when we act according to that which is most characteristic of us as God's children. For in our deepest desire we cannot but make our boast of him. We do not glorify him perfectly, it is true, but we do so heartily and sincerely.

No Christian, however, travels far on the pilgrim road before he experiences a disconcerting impulse within his nature to boast in himself. Two emotions follow hard on the heels of this guilty exaltation of self. The first is one of pleasure; every man loves his own praise. Self-love is sweet as honey to us; at least, it is for a brief moment.

The second emotion, however, is one of shame that we have allowed ourselves to act, or even to think, so completely out of character. For self-love is idolatry in the soul.

When we Boast←⤒🔗

When the Christian glories in himself, he is usually soon made aware of his guilt. A shadow crosses his mind and the light of God's countenance is withdrawn. He becomes troubled in conscience. The Christian who is lifted up with proud thoughts of self-love is made to feel awkward, unclothed and naked before the bar of God's judgment. The veil of his peace is then forcibly stripped off from him.

When conscience has done its faithful work, there follow further reactions of the soul — self-loathing and self-scrutiny. With bated breath the believer takes stock of his heinous crime. God, who is loved and acknowledged to be supremely loveable, is now reckoned to have been robbed of his rightful honour. To the spiritual mind, this robbery is counted as treason. Rightly and justly the soul now turns to become its own accuser and reproaches itself in the sternest terms:

O! rascal, proud heart within me, thou hast robbed God! O! my soul, thou hast played the part of Satan who sought to raise himself above God's throne!' 'Thou fool my heart, fall quickly into the dust and beg God's pardon, in case he be wounded and grieved with this devilry!

The art of being a Christian is very largely the art of managing the corruptions of our soul. It is such a daunting task that God, who alone knows what is in man, describes it as a more difficult and skilful labour than that of statesmen or military generals:

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.Proverbs 16:32

To capture a town in war and to tyrannise over it when captured are tasks possible to men without supernatural strength. But only divine grace can enable man to govern his own spirit and to mortify his instinctive love of human praise. The best Christian is the one who best manages his soul and most ruthlessly strikes the serpent of pride with the sword of mortification. No pride ever appears in the New Testament portrait of Christ.

The Liberal 'Jesus'←⤒🔗

The Liberal view of Jesus is a logical absurdity because it tries to have its cake and eat it. The Liberal theology wants to have a human Jesus and at the same time a Jesus whom we can admire. But this is a hopeless task. If the Jesus of the Gospels is only human, then there has never lived a greater megalomaniac. What admiration is owed to a mere man who can claim: 'I and my Father are one' (John 10:30) or 'Before Abraham was, I am' (John 8:58)? If Jesus is only what Modernists have made of him, then his claims are fully as blasphemous as the Jews of his day regarded them. There is only one conclusion to be drawn from the Liberal concept of Jesus and it is that we cannot possibly admire him or entertain his claims.

No theological view of Jesus fits his claims but the apostolic one, that he is the incarnate God, who may command the absolute obedience of all mankind forever. But Liberal theology has in the last hundred years emptied the churches more effectively than a horde of Saracens could have done, because it made him a mere man. It was not long before the man-in-the-street realised that a mere man does not have a right to our worship and so he left the pew years ago. Liberal theology has changed its name but today it still reigns in many pulpits and continues to deny the glory of Christ.

The real Christ is (marvellous to relate!) the meekest man who ever lived. Considering that he is the Lord of glory, he showed on earth a meekness under every form of ill-treatment which mystified even the brutal Pilate. No man ever governed his own human spirit as did the Lord Jesus Christ. Though scrutinised daily by a thousand enemies, he never betrayed, even momentarily, the faintest trace of selfishness, impatience or unjustifiable anger.

Our Need for Likeness to Christ←⤒🔗

Pride is one of the commonest sins in the modern church and it proves how little we really know of 'the mind that was in Christ Jesus' (Philippians 2:5). One man glories in gifts, another in numbers and a third in eloquence. As a generation of Christians we have little ability to manage our pride.  To append the label 'Reformed' to our party will not suffice to cure this evil. It is greatly to be feared that we do not take seriously the call to 'humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.' (1 Peter 5:6)

Happy is that believer who has learnt to 'glory only in the cross of Christ' (Galatians 6:14)! Happy that church where boasting is abhorred and shunned! Man must boast of something. The world boasts of itself. This is what no Christian must ever allow himself to do. Do we want 'unction'? Do we want 'power'? Do we want 'revival'? It would be a major step towards all three if we could only learn to crucify our accursed pride more ruthlessly. For then we would experience God himself drawing nearer to us in our weakness. And what weakness we are in!