What does the Bible say about pride?
Scripture treats pride not as a small flaw of manner but as the first sin in the universe and the one God Himself opposes. From the fall of Satan to a king's boast on a palace roof to a religious man's prayer in the temple, the Bible traces the same movement — self lifted up, then brought down — and it offers one remedy.
Where Pride Began
Commentators trace pride back before humanity, to a created being who refused his creature's place. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are read as the account of that fall:
J T MawsonThe beginning of his sin was pride, and out of that sprang the determination to be independent of God, and to be as God, ruling a kingdom of his own, a kingdom of darkness, from which the knowledge of God should be utterly excluded.
The same root shows up in a very ordinary church setting — a man who wanted to be first among fellow believers:
A J PollockIndeed we know from Scripture that his fall came by not being content with the very high place God had assigned to him as a creature—"the anointed cherub that covereth" (Ezek. 28:14)... Here we trace the source of the evil spirit of Diotrephes, and of all who have transgressed like him from his day to this.
Daniel 4: Taking Credit That Belongs to God
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, walked on his palace roof and claimed his empire as his own achievement. God answered by taking his reason for seven years. One writer draws out what that judgment says about human nature:
J. N. DarbyIn Daniel 4 we see the display of human pride; the king glories in the work of his hands, as though he had created his own greatness. This pride brings judgment... The only true privilege of man, the thing that ennobles him, is that he can look up to God and acknowledge Him. Without this he looks downward; he cannot be enough for himself; he is degraded. Dependence is his glory, for it sets him before God and gives him to know God.
Proverbs: Pride Goes Before Destruction
Proverbs 16:18 states the pattern; commentators point out that the fall usually arrives at the very moment a person feels safest.
William KellyPride, on the other hand, is deeply offensive to the LORD, and dangerous — indeed destructive — to man; and he tends to be most lifted up when the blow falls. We can see this all through Scripture: a haughty spirit before a fall. So it was with Nebuchadnezzar, where mercy stepped in; so with Haman, where there was only judgment.
The warning is not reserved for tyrants. Uzziah was a king of Judah who trusted God and then let success go to his head:
L M GrantEven King Uzziah, a believer, because he was prospering greatly, "when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction" (2 Chron. 26:16). In his case this was not the destruction of eternal judgment, but the destruction of his testimony, for he became a leper until the day of his death.
James 4 and 1 Peter 5: God Sets Himself Against It
Both James and Peter quote the same line: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. One writer notes that this supplies the reason Proverbs left unstated.
F. B. HoleThe wise king of long ago had noticed the fact that "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Prov. 16:18), though he does not tell us why it is so. Here we get the explanation. The proud get no grace from God but rather resistance. No wonder they go down.
Luke 18: Pride Wearing Religious Clothes
Jesus told a parable about two men praying — one a Pharisee, a strict religious expert, the other a despised tax collector. The Pharisee's prayer is the sharpest picture of pride in the Gospels:
W. W. FeredayNot one word of thanksgiving or worship for what God is in His gracious attitude towards men; every word was about himself and his own imagined perfections. What a sight this is! A man in the presence of the Giver of all good, yet asking no favour; in the presence of the Judge of the living and the dead, and the Searcher of all hearts, yet acknowledging no sin. He asks nothing and confesses nothing.
1 Corinthians 4:7: Nothing You Did Not Receive
Paul's question to a boastful church cuts the ground out from under every comparison between one Christian and another.
Leslie M. GrantVerse 7 strikes sharply at this unseemly pride. Who had created the differences among saints? Certainly not themselves. It is God who has made each just what he is... And if we simply received them (from God, of course), then only thankful humility should be our response, not boasting as though one were a self-made being.
The Cure
The answer offered is not self-criticism but exposure — time spent honestly in God's presence, and the example of Christ.
C. H. MackintoshIt is utterly impossible for anyone to indulge in a boastful, pretentious, self-confident spirit if he has ever really measured himself in the presence of God. To be much alone with God is the sovereign remedy for pride and self-satisfaction.
Summary
- Origin. Pride is the first recorded sin — a creature refusing his assigned place and wanting independence from God.
- Shape. It always looks like Nebuchadnezzar's boast: crediting to yourself the greatness God gave, when dependence is actually man's glory.
- Reach. It runs from pagan kings to believers like Uzziah, to religious men praying, to Christians comparing gifts — Scripture allows no one an exemption.
- Response. God does not merely disapprove of pride; He resists the proud, which is why the proud go down and the humble receive grace.
- Remedy. Time honestly measured in God's presence, and the mind of the One who called Himself meek and lowly in heart.