A Reformation of Humility: Advent and the Christian Life
“For Christ is with those who are humble, not with those who exalt themselves over his flock. The majestic scepter of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not come with pomp of arrogance or pride (though he could have done so), but in humility, just as the Holy Spirit spoke concerning him” (1 Clement 16:1-2).
Clement, bishop of Rome, wrote to the church in Corinth in hopes of returning harmony to this divided lot. Self-aggrandizement and the desire for public honor and authority endangered the bonds of Christian unity within the Corinthian church. In this letter, Clement reminds them that they are “called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He thus calls the church in Corinth back into a life of discipleship and holiness, and particularly to the virtue of humility.
When Clement writes that “the Holy Spirit spoke” concerning Christ and his humility, he is pointing back to Scripture, what we now call the Old Testament. He quotes at length from the prophet Isaiah (53:1-12). I won’t reproduce the entire passage here, but only the first three verses as Clement renders them:
For he says: Lord, who believed our report? And to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed? In his presence we announced that he was like a child, like a root in the thirsty ground. He has no attractiveness or glory. We saw him, and he had no attractiveness or beauty; instead his ‘attractiveness’ was despised, inferior to that of humans. He was a man of stripes and of toil, knowing how to endure weakness, for his face is turned away; he was dishonored and not blessed (1 Clement 16:1-3).
He then quotes from Ps 22:6-8. Again I offer Clement’s rendering:
And again he himself says: “But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach among humans and an object of contempt to the people All those who saw me mocked me; they spoke with their lips; they shook their heads, saying, ‘He hoped in the Lord; let him deliver him, let him save him, because he takes pleasure in him” (1 Clement 16:15-16).
Historical critics would tell us these passages have nothing to do with Jesus, that the early Christians simply used them (among many others) as prooftexts in support of their Christological arguments. The historical-critical method, however, is a rather flat-footed way to read these texts. Throughout most of church history, Christians have understood that texts are multivalent. In other words, they have different levels of meaning. God is fully able to breathe into the biblical writers words that addressed the writers’ own historical settings and foreshadowed or foretold God’s definitive work of salvation.
Clement draws upon the words of the prophet and the psalmist to show us who Christ is, and thus who we should be. Put differently, the payoff, for Clement, is in the way Christology comes to bear on discipleship. The character of Christ demonstrates what we should aspire to as Christians: “You see, dear friends, the kind of pattern that has been given to us; for if the Lord so humbled himself, what should we do, who through him have come under the yoke of his grace?” (16:17).
If the Lord so humbled himself, what should we do?
The answer is clear. Humility is a requisite virtue for all who wish to follow Jesus. I’m not talking about a kind of Aw shucks foot shuffling that tends to pass for humility today. Rather, humility, in a Christian sense, is a kind of death: death to self. Christ talks about death to self in Mark 8:34-35: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Paul expresses this idea in mystical terms in Romans 6:4: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Death to self means that we now have true life. Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Our lives will thus be different than they were before. If Christ lives within us, our thoughts, words, and deeds will come into agreement with his, and the humility Clement commends will become a natural part of our character.
Decades before Clement wrote to the quarreling church in Corinth, Paul wrote to the quarreling church in Philippi. The reason for the dissension in both cases is the same: self-exaltation. Paul thus advises them, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (2:3-4). He then quotes what may well have been an ancient hymn, as if to say, Remember what we sang together? Remember our common confession?
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God,
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (NRSV).
This is the character of Christ: not self-exaltation, but self-giving love. And if this is the character of Christ, it should be our character, too.
It was, after all, Christ who gave us this idea about himself. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Jesus teaches his disciples in Mark 9:34, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” In Mark 10:43-44 he teaches, “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” I’ve quoted from the NRSV here, but this translation leaves a particular word out: kai. It simply means “and” or “even” in Greek. It’s not a big word, but it can be an important one. A better way to translate the end of this passage is, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve….” In other words, if even Jesus is here to serve, how much more should you? Christ taught that people such as the poor in spirit, the meek, the peacemakers, the mourners, and the slandered were those who were truly blessed.
We stand now on the precipice of Advent. In this season, we will prepare our hearts to celebrate anew Christ’s birth into the world and the salvation we have through him. Christ models for us how to live and through his death and resurrection makes it possible for us to live as he taught. He is not just our exemplar, but our savior, rescuing us from the power of sin and death. Without him, we are lost, but now we can be who God intended.
He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood availed for me.
By the grace of God, we can understand our proper relationship to our Creator, which is the essence of true humility. Augustine identified pride as the font of other sins, and he held that humility is necessary for us to know the ways of God. We can’t properly learn about God until we are willing and able to humble ourselves.
Each year, then, Advent should be a reformation of humility for the church. Christ is Lord over the church. It is his kingdom in which we live, not kingdoms of our own making. To acknowledge his lordship is essential to our own humility. Will we humble ourselves before him? Will we submit our wills to his? Will we receive his inspired word? Will we decrease so that he may increase? Do we seek the good of the other? Are we quick to listen, slow to anger? Are we willing to ask God to bring us to that point where we say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me”?
There are many ways in which the Western church needs reform today, but perhaps none is more necessary than a reformation of humility. We have conflated celebrity and sainthood. Social media in particular has created a world in which everyone can be famous, and fame, or at least notoriety, is an enticing idol. The world of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram carries with it its own value system tied to clicks, hits, followers, and friends. Yes, there are good reasons for Christians to use social media. Primarily, it provides tremendous opportunities for outreach and evangelism. Being an “influencer” as a Christian is not necessarily bad, but what kind of influence do we exert? What values are we influencing others to adopt? Do we model the exaltation of Christ, or the exaltation of the self? Within the ecosystem of social media, our platforms can become their own ends, and when that happens, humility is a necessary casualty.
There are God’s values, and there are human values, and these are not the same. Human values are marred by sin, and they turn us away from God, away from one another, and toward the self. We can begin to bring our values into agreement with God’s by submitting ourselves to Christ and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. And this means becoming Christlike. “The majestic scepter of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not come with pomp of arrogance or pride (though he could have done so), but in humility.”
David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.