HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.–Luke 15:28

The Causes for Such Silence: The Stress on Christian Humility

In the first place, there was that new humility that was present so powerfully in Christian character. Working in the heart of the newborn did not suggest equality at all. However, glad was the good news of the Gospel, however, it cheered and comforted the world, one of its first effects on human hearts was to deepen the sense of personal unworthiness. And this deep feeling of personal unworthiness so coloured every estimate of self, that men were readier to deny than to assert their equality with anyone whatever. When Peter, overpowered and awestruck, cried, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man”; when Paul, in the ripeness of his vast experience, thought of himself as just the chief of sinners, you have a frame of mind that was widespread, and was the peculiar creation of the Gospel, and yet a frame that was far from ready to assert equality with anybody. Similarly, the only greatness in the kingdom lay in being a servant in the kingdom. It was to him who took the lowest place that Christ promised the blessing and the honour. And Paul, preaching what he practised, as he ever practised what he preached, bade his readers “in lowliness of mind esteem the other better than themselves.” Now in all this, there is no denial of the fact that we all have our equals. The Gospel is always true to human nature, and that is one of the facts of human nature. But you will readily understand how men, dominated by a new-born humility, were not in a mood to give immediate prominence to the duties which imply equality.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW …..