Egotism

 

 

Egotism is expressed by many associated terms: self-righteousness, self-promotion, narcissism, pride, arrogance, conceit, and even self-deception. In any case, it is about trying to prove ourselves superior, both to ourself and to others. Many studies have clearly pointed out the universality of this tendency. One study found that 98% claimed the they are morally superior to others.

Why are we so egotistical? The Bible reveals that we are subliminally aware that there is something radically wrong with us, which needs to be addressed lest we succumb to crippling feelings of guilt and shame. The accusations from our conscience are so powerful that they continue to accuse us of wrongdoing:

·       Romans 2:15 (NLT) They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

Since God’s laws are written into our DNA, unless we find His mercy, we will continue to experience inner turmoil. Therefore, we resort to self-justifications:

·       Proverbs 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.

We suppress the truth about ourselves and cannot tolerate exposure by the One who judges us:

·       Romans 1:18–20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God and eat the forbidden fruit. Once sin entered, it took control. They could no longer tolerate the presence of God and hid from Him. Nor would they confess their sin once God gave them a chance. Instead, they covered their shame with fig leaves, half-truths, and blame-shifting. When God pronounced His verdict upon them and cast them out of the Garden, they seemed relieved. Adam was in denial and named his wife Eve (life), even though their God and Creator had just condemned them to eventual death.

We have been running from God and His terrifying and revealing light ever since, covering ourselves with the fig leaves of money, power, attainments, and sexual conquests, whatever might make us feel self-righteous and entitled, while our conscience has been declaring the opposite. In view of this, Christ pronounced His condemnation upon humanity:

·       John 3:19–20 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

We are condemned by what we love—the darkness of self-deception—and we know it:

·       Romans 1:32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

We either try to cover this awareness over with the fig leaves of self-righteousness or shake a defiant fist at heaven. Some will even maim themselves to experience a brief reprieve from the punishment they know they deserve.

The Remedy

We suffer from alienation from the Creator and need to be reconciled with Him. None of us can be good enough to earn anything good from Him but death. Our only hope is in His undeserved mercy. What then does He want from us?

·       1 John 1:8–9 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We just need to be real with God and acknowledge our sins, trusting in His mercy through Jesus’ atonement. Solid relationships must all be built on truth:

·       John 8:31–33 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

The self-righteous Israelite leadership were blinded. Their pride had to be broken for the Lord to begin to let light in through their hard shell. Hence, Jesus’ strong denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees!   He had to also break me so that my eyes would see my horrible bondage. However, I could not have endured without the miraculous assurances of His love.

Every day, I am comforted by these assurances. Only in the light of His love can I face myself and even boast in my failures and weaknesses, as He had revealed to Paul amid his disease and God’s unwillingness to heal Paul:

·       2 Corinthians 12:9–10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Consequently, I can now accept my many weaknesses and even laugh at them, because my true identity is in Jesus, where I rest safe and secure.

CAN THE CHURCH SURVIVE POPE FRANCIS?

According to La Civilta Catolica, on Sept. 5 in Mozambique, Pope Francis informed a group of Jesuits:

·       "Once a Jesuit, a great Jesuit, told me to be careful in giving absolution, because the most serious sins are those that are more angelical: pride, arrogance, dominion...And the least serious are those that are less angelical, such as greed and lust."

·       "We focus on sex and then we do not give weight to social injustice, slander, gossip and lies. The Church today needs a profound conversion in this area.”

Does the Church require a “profound conversion in this area?” I don’t think so. For one thing, the Bible has consistently denounced sexual sin above many others. It finds a permanent place among the Ten Commandments – “Do not commit adultery” (6^th Commandment) and “Do not covet your neighbors wife” (10^th Commandment). Many sexual sins are even called an “abomination” and had deserved death:

·       “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” (Leviticus 20:10-16 ESV)

The New Testament also teaches the seriousness of sexual sin:

·       For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:26-28)

·       Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality… (1 Corinthians 6:9)

·       Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!  Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:15-18)

All sin is a sin against God Himself, but it seems that sexual sin carries an extra cost: “the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”

Francis claims that the Church is preoccupied with sexual sin to the exclusion of other sins. Is the Church preoccupied with teaching against sexual sin? Hardly! This is the very set of sins that many now refuse to teach against.

If teaching against sexual sin causes the Church to ignore other sins, then the Church has a problem. However, the Church is fully able to teach against all sins. Nevertheless, there is an argument to be made to teach more strenuously against those sins that have become popular and are capturing the Church, like the sin of pornography.

Francis also pits the sins of arrogance and pride against sexual sins, claiming that the former are more serious. However, unrepented sins cannot be so easier teased apart. Here’s how – to refuse to repent of sexual sin is also arrogance and pride. It is to tell God, “I know what is best for me. I do not need to submit to Your every command. Consequently, we find that arrogance and pride have metastasized to embrace various sins. In God’s mind, they are all closely and inseparably associated:

·       “I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.” (Isaiah 13:11)

·       For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God… (Timothy 3:2-4)

Pride and arrogance are associated with the entire list of unrepented sins. Therefore, when the Church teaches against pride and arrogance, it is also preaching against all the sins that are associated with them. And when we teach against sexual sin, we are also teaching against the pride and arrogance that enables the proud to rise up against both the teachings of the conscience and those of God.

UNDERSTANDING THE BOOK OF JOB

The Book of Job is essentially about our ignorant self-righteous judgments. Job’s three friends were good friends. Remember, they had sat with Job for a week, mourning with their friend, without saying a word. However, in ignorance, they judged him guilty of having committed terrible sins, wrongly convinced that his sins had brought Job’s great misfortunes upon him.

The friends understood far less than they thought they did. Their understanding of God had been too limited, and their understanding of Job was both degrading and totally off-base.

Instead, Job had been the most righteous of men, but he too had judged God wrongly:

•                Job 9:21-24 "Although I am blameless, I have no concern for myself; I despise my own life. It is all the same; that is why I say, 'He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.' When a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks the despair of the innocent. When a land falls into the hands of the wicked, he blindfolds its judges. If it is not he, then who is it?”

•                Job 10:2-3 “I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me. Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the designs of the wicked?’”

•                Job 27:2-6 "As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul.”

•                Job 16:12-17 All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target; his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground. Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior…yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.

Had Job been judging himself correctly? Not according to the narrative:

•                Job 32:1-5 These three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God.

At this point, the prophetic Elihu began to speak, and he accused Job of self-righteousness:

•                Job 33:8-12 "But you have said in my hearing--I heard the very words-- 'I am pure and without sin; I am clean and free from guilt. Yet God has found fault with me; he considers me his enemy. He fastens my feet in shackles; he keeps close watch on all my paths.' But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than man.”

Preparing Job for his confrontation with the One whom Job had been accusing, Elihu charged that humankind does not have the wisdom to bring indictments against God:

•                Job 37:19-21 "Tell us what we should say to him; we cannot draw up our case because of our darkness. Should he [God] be told that I want to speak? Would any man ask to be swallowed up? Now no one can look at the sun, bright as it is in the skies after the wind has swept them clean.

If we are unable to look at the sun, how can we expect to look at God accusingly? Only someone who has an inflated estimation of his understanding would attempt to do so.

In many ways, God, who then came upon Job in a whirlwind, affirmed Elihu’s denunciation of Job:

•                Job 38:1-2 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

In order to make His point clear, God asked Job a series of questions, which Job could not even begin to answer. The lesson was clear – Job lacked the understanding to bring indictments against God:

•                Job 40:8 "Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?

This is exactly what Job had been doing, and this is what we do when we have to experience trials. Since we lack understanding, we blame God. However, even the most righteous need God’s correcting fires, as Elihu had explained to Job:

•                Job 33:13-18 Why do you complain to him that he answers none of man's words? For God does speak--now one way, now another--though man may not perceive it…. to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.

Job had been prideful and self-righteous. In love, God had been correcting him so that Job would not perish. However, Job had only blame for God and asserted his own righteousness. However, God used these afflictions to bring Job to repentance twice:

•                Job 40:4-5 "I am unworthy (“vile” NKJV)--how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer--twice, but I will say no more."

•                Job 42:3-6 You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

Meanwhile, The Jewish Study Bible comments that “Suffering is Incomprehensible!” Accordingly, Job had nothing to confess or repent of. They too are judging God wrongly, leaning to their own very limited understanding.

God also corrected the judgments of Job’s three friends:

•                Job 42:7-8  After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has."

The friends had misjudged both God and Job and needed correction. However, it seems that God contradicts Himself. Twice, He charged that the friends “have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” However, before this, He had charged Job with NOT speaking rightly about Him.

Contradiction? Not really! Why not? When we confess our sin, He forgives and cleanses us (1 John 1:9). Job had learned his lesson, and God had wiped his slate clean. “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).