Pride: Celebrating Sin

What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. (Mark 7:20–23; emphasis mine)

In Proverbs, we read, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” and “One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor” (Proverbs 16:18, 29:23; emphasis mine).

It is interesting that what the world calls the “pride” movement is really man celebrating sin, and as such, it will “bring him low” and “defile” the person. God warns about this in 1 Corinthians as well.

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, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–10; emphasis mine)

It is interesting that what the world calls the “pride” movement is really man celebrating sin, and as such, it will “bring him low” and “defile” the person.

One of the few verses that uses “pride” in a positive way is this one: “In that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel” (Isaiah 4:2; emphasis mine).

“Branch” and “fruit” here refer to Christ. He became the God-man and grew as a tender branch for his beautiful and glorious work of redemption. Now that’s something we can be proud of—what Christ did for us, as was promised in Isaiah.

This is a reminder for all of us that the pride we should have is in the work of the Savior—in his humility in becoming a man and suffering at the hands of evil men so he could bear the penalty of our sin and offer us the free gift of salvation. Wow!

And when we understand this, we want to be obedient to Christ and all that he has instructed us to do. We want to be his servants. This means to take up our cross and follow him—to surrender to him fully. To be the husbands and wives God wants us to be in obedience to the roles he designated for us. It means to be the fathers and mothers Christ has instructed us to be when raising our children. It means to “turn away from evil and do good” (Psalm 34:14). It means to submit to the fact that God created only two genders, male and female (Genesis 1:27), and he (not politicians or judges) created marriage to consist of one man and one woman.