Humble Theonomy

What is Humility?

We confess a faith that demands humility. There are many different forms of false humility masquerading as a virtue within the church, yet that does not diminish the command to be humble. In a culture, even a Christian culture that practices an array of false humilities, understanding and practicing true humility is even more vital.

Humility begins in the heart and then flows outward into our lives. Humility starts in the heart but can also be perceived and discerned.

Starting at the heart, we must understand who we are in relation to God.

While a great deal of commentary on humility is all about thinking less of ourselves in comparison with one another, humility before God is the basis for all true humility. Although there is truth in humility concerning others, thinking covenantally demands that we consider the transcendence of God first.

Before we can begin to understand humility, we must first understand who God is. There is no point in pontificating or meditating on how I should view myself or how I should treat others without having a standard.

God is most holy, most wise, and most powerful. He is self-existing. He has no beginning and no end. He is not a creature, as he is not created. This alone makes Him totally unlike anyone or anything else.

He is also unchanging while still be relational. He is not an impersonal, distant God that does not feel real emotions. However, he does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). His attributes and qualities remain the same, so we know we can depend on him (Numbers 23:19).

He is just and also quite gracious. He is perfectly loving and infinitely powerful. All things are made by God, and we are one of his creations (Colossians 1:16). This ontological fact forms the creator and creature divide and is the basis for humility. Why should we be humble before God? Why should we be humble towards one another if we are not to be humble before God? Why is humility considered a virtue?

Humility is not thinking less of ourselves. Humility is thinking much more of the almighty God and, in that light, living a life reflective of that utter and complete dependence on him.

We are a creation of God. We are helpless and hopeless without him. Every step we take, every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we utter is because of the grace of God. While God is self-sufficient and self-existing, we are contingent upon him. And not only are we all contingent and dependent creations of God, we are also broken and sinful creatures of God. In short, sin makes us stupid and much more. Sin has infected the whole of our identity. Sin affects our soul, our minds, and our bodies. Apart from the grace of God, we cannot know the truth of the gospel, but that’s not the only point of consideration. Sin, even after regeneration, affects us holistically. We are fallible, forgetful, irrational, impulsive, severely inconsistent, and we lack the self-awareness to realize these things. It is not whether we have these traits; it’s when, how, and where we have these traits.

These factors—our creatureliness, our dependence, and our sinfulness—all in comparison to the objective Glory of God, should lead us to consider how highly we think of ourselves. We are not and cannot be transcendent. No authority is derived from us, no knowledge originates in us, and nothing good is born by us. Even our ability to know the truth is limited.

One form of lacking humility is thinking far too highly of yourself and your abilities when that inflated view of yourself is only possible due to a lack of maturity, knowledge, or general competency. The Dunning Krugger effect, as it is known in psychology, can be simply described in this way: you know just enough to think you know it all, while in reality, you know very little.

The consequences to this type of thinking can be seen in the Christian walk, though it has a broader application than just knowledge. It applies to maturity in general, of which our experience is only a part. The young and immature Christian grows just a bit and matures just a bit. He goes from newborn to infant, and in his infancy, he thinks he is fully grown.

An adult in the faith, whether a man or a woman, understands fully that he or she is not perfect and does not know fully or perfectly.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself. When I was a sophomore in high school, I started reading John Piper and John MacArthur and became a Calvinist. Calvinism: the pinnacle of Christian knowledge and maturity. . . or at least I felt that way as an arrogant 16-year-old who just read his first few books on theology.

Then, I became truly Reformed when I studied covenant theology and decided that presbyterian ecclesiology and infant baptism was Biblical. Now, I reasoned, this must be the real stuff, the meat of the word.

But then I read Frame and Bahnsen on presuppositional apologetics, and they’re explantation blew my mind. Surely I now have a firm grasp of theology.

Then came theonomy. And then came Sutton’s covenantal framework, understanding the “one and the many” trinitarian paradigm, and I can go on and on.

Years ago, somewhere in all that arrogant mess, I began to think and believe that I’m not that great and not that smart. The ideas I once considered the deep, meat of theology were in fact the milk. To the infant, milk can taste like meat. Somewhere along the way, by God’s grace, I realized that there is always going to be more that I don’t know than what I do know at the moment.

However, the opposite of arrogance is not helpless ignorance. We do not want to fall into the trap of thinking about humility like the world. No matter how much my abilities are limited by being a creature of God and not being transcendent and self-sufficient, I do have the Holy Spirit. Although I cannot and should not rely on myself, I can depend on Christ who saves me and sanctifies me.

False Humility

False humility is not new, and it can take different forms. G.K. Chesterton had this to say about the false humility of his day, and his words are strikingly applicable today.

“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert — himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine. The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . .”

What we should doubt is our efforts, but never God or his word. It’s not humility to take the law-word of God and say, “Did God really mean this?” It is arrogance to think we know better than God. Can we mishandle God’s word? Absolutely. But we move forward with the knowledge that we are not reading and studying this book as if we are dissecting an ancient Roman text on Julius Caesar. We look at God’s Word knowing that we have the aid of the Holy Spirit. We can and will err in the details, but we can be sure of Christ and his word.

We are fallible, creaturely, broken people, yet we are not relativists. I recently read a book titled Who’s Afraid of Relativism by James K. A. Smith. The author focuses on the creaturehood of humanity. He even goes so far as to suggest that most evangelicals and Reformed effectively deny our creature-hood because we make “absolute truth” claims. According to the Christian relativist, our faculties are so limited that we can never really know anything with any degree of certainty. Because we are not perfect, the idea is that we can never really know anything. The author provides more nuance and even more confusion, but this too-short of a synopsis will have to suffice.

The relativist is half right.

Outside of the saving grace of Christ, the relativist is correct. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, according to the providential election of God before the foundations of the world, yes, we cannot be sure of anything. But if we do have these things, by grace, then we can know. What the relativist does not take into consideration is regeneration and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We can know, not because of how great we are, but because of how great he is. Yet when the Lord saves us, we do not know fully or perfectly. The apostle Paul explains this very idea in 1 Cor. 13:9-12,

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

I love how Paul says this. The reason why Paul will know fully someday is directly tied to God knowing us fully now. Furthermore, Paul says that he is first a man in the faith, yet he still sees through the mirror dimly. This is humility. The dynamic is not that we become men in the faith, and then we see clearly and fully, the dynamic is that we become men in the faith and now we can see some rather than not at all. Paul sees himself rightly, not as someone who knows nothing who cannot make any truth claims, but as someone who has matured in Christ and has more growing to do. This attitude is a fundamental mark of Christian humility.

The Christian relativist will focus on the creature/creator divide, and we should understand the implications of being a handiwork and not being the builder. Knowing and believing that we are the clay in the hands of the almighty potter should change us and humble us.

However, though we are creation, we are not merely creation. We are not beasts of the field or birds of the air. We are created in the image of God. Yes, we are creaturely, and we are not transcendent, but we are also not totally otherly. We are not a foreign or alien product of a distant creator. We bear his image. As those who have the Spirit, we are adopted sons and daughters of the Kingdom. The relativist fails to consider this and thinks of humanity as de facto beasts — soulless animals with heightened cognitive abilities.

If we think of ourselves as “too humble” to stand on the Word of God, we are denying our identity in Christ and twisting the balanced creator/creature distinction.

This form of false humility is the almost haughty “judge not” attitude we find in relativists or those who unwittingly adopt the same subjectivity. These “humble”ones proudly stand while not speaking on essential truths, and in doing so, make a clear statement. To claim neutrality or ignorance when God has spoken is arrogance towards God. Even the false claim of neutrality is not neutral, ethically speaking. They desire to sit in judgment of the law of God.

“But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” - James 4:12

It is far too common to claim the name of Christ and be too nice to claim much more than the name. They want to claim the name of Christ without claiming the words of Christ. Again, this is false humility and is rooted in believing that you know better than God. Sadly, this is extraordinarily common today; this is the false humility of niceness and subjectivity. Again, false humility is pride wrapped in pious sounding truisms.

How We Should View Others

In light of our creatureliness and in light of our adopted nature in Christ, we should also view others rightly—especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.

How we treat one another is not only important face-to-face but also when we are on social media. Maybe you strike up a conversation with someone at a local coffee shop and you share the gospel with them. Perhaps you are ministering on the street with a loudspeaker or handing out pamphlets. Whatever the situation, we must view that image-bearer of God rightly and with charity. The primary difference between the lost soul sitting across from you at that moment, or the lost soul you’re exchanging barbs with on social media, is not your intelligence or intrinsic goodness. The difference is Jesus. And you don’t have Jesus or his blood because you earned it.

Be sure of the gospel, and be sure of Christ. Deal with sin rightly. In scripture, those who thought much of themselves and lorded over others were treated harshly and sharply by Christ. The Pharisees were given no quarter. They had the law, yet they did not live as they did.

Christ also spoke gently, though firmly, with a Samaritan woman at the well. The Samaritans did not have perfect, Reformed theology. However, the woman was also not a teacher and leader, and most importantly, she was not pridefully lording over others.

There are many Samaritan women at the well. And yes, there are also Pharisees which Jesus called snakes and cowards. When everyone you encounter is treated as a Pharisee, you might be the Pharisee.

Whether on Facebook or in front of a Planned Parenthood, do not let these interactions be about you. I say this as someone guilty of pride and insecure sensitivity. I’m speaking as someone guilty of lashing out in anger and fleshly defensiveness, to then later claim I was like Jesus because Jesus was also sometimes harsh. I was not like Jesus turning tables over in his temple, although I often convinced myself that I was throwing tables when in reality I was throwing a fit.

I have been guilty of talking to ignorant, immature, and weaker brothers and sisters as if they are chief Pharisees. My immaturity and lack of humility caused me to see every last Christian that did not believe and act just like me as a Pharisee. While these Christians may have been wrong about several things, and although they may be apathetic or subscribing to pietism, they are often not the Pharisee, but the woman at the well. Yet sometimes we think, and I sometimes thought, that because of past experiences and a sense of bitter cynicism, we/I already know they are a Pharisee. Shame on me.

I have expected far more of others than what I expect from myself. I was not born a five-point Calvinist, five-pillar Reconstructionist, and five-tenet abolitionist. God has sanctified me slowly and over long periods of time. Yet I expect dispensationalists and pro-lifers on social media and the streets to “get it” in a five-minute interaction, or after a quick glance over a pamphlet.

We lean into this arrogance because we don’t understand transcendence. We are going to end where we began: the transcendence of God. We want to be God in the lives of these people. We affirm with our Calvinistic mouths that it is God who saves alone, but then we act as if it is John Reasnor who sanctifies others and illuminates the mind. We want to be—I want to be— transcendent.

God changes people. I can’t. You can’t. God changes the pro-lifer to the abolitionist and the pietist antinomian to the theonomist; just as God changes the heart of stone to a living heart of flesh. The God who saves is the God who sanctifies and illuminates.

Looking to God first, while humbling yourself before God and in how you deal with others is precisely how to build the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not built by those whom the world thinks is high or mighty, but by the meek and humble. It is built by those who have put themselves last and thought better of their brothers and sisters.

“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

When you are a presuppositional theonomist, you get into the habit of thinking about subjects in terms of ethics. Instead of an idea being philosophically accurate or inaccurate, the idea is just or unjust or righteous or wicked. After all, there is no neutrality. Theology is immensely practical, and when we see the potential for real harm, we tend to get up in arms. I get it. However, the theonomist must be careful not to maximalize every topic, lest we very quickly end up isolating ourselves on an itty bitty island. Some differences are worth strict division, but we lessen the weight of that division if every distinction is the most vital distinction. Again, we need to discern between false teachers who exercise power religion to the harm of others and the average Christian who simply does not know any better.

In the following quote, R.J. Rushdoony strikes at the root of the lack of humility. Keep in mind that this is a man who dedicated his life to teaching, preaching, and calling on the church to repent of its lawlessness.

“...we try to play God and to change other people to suit ourselves. People who are having problems getting along with their family, their fellow workers, or their community very often are guilty of this sin, which means they are trying to play God.

You and I are not asked to change other people. Only God can do that. What we can do, by God’s grace, is to change ourselves to conform to His Word and calling. This means seeing the need to change in ourselves, rather than in others, and leaving the reformation of others to God through the ministry of His Word.

Today, of course, this is unpopular. The common idea of a noble person, statesman, or religious figure is of a man who, by legislation and police power, with tax funds works day and night to change others, never himself.

The ultimate sin is anti-Christianity to the core. It places the power to change men in the hands of man, not God. It gives to man the supposed right to control his fellow men in terms of his ideas of social and personal reform.

We have no right to ask people to conform to our will and ideas. We do have the responsibility to summon them to conform to God’s Word and calling. God Himself conforms us to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:29), and requires us through St. Paul to “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:2). By His sovereign grace, He makes us “conformable” unto the death of His Son (Phil. 3:10). So that we die to our self-righteousness and our ideas of reforming the world, and are instead alive to the righteousness of God in Christ, and are conformed to His Word.

The next time you hear a man propose to reform you, the state, the world, and everything insight, look at him for what he is: the ultimate sinner, a would-be god, and a defiler of creation. And be careful, when you see such a man, that you do not spot him in your mirror.”