“For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)
Despite their spiritual giftings, Paul deemed the Corinthian church to be carnal. Perhaps the chief reason for this was their glorying in themselves and each other. Such pride led to envying, strife, and divisions (1 Cor. 3:3).
How subtle are the inroads of pride. We admire ourselves or others for some superior excellence or virtue. We fall into the comparison trap and smugly congratulate ourselves, or those of our kind, for not being “as other men ” (Luke 18:11). But Paul has one question for such high-mindedness: If you are different, in some better way, who made you different? Where did your virtue come from?
To claim any goodness in man outside of what God would give us in Christ is to deny the salvation that is only found in Him. Man’s goodness is as the flower of the field. It cannot hold up under the heat of the day. Under severe enough testing it will crumble. When it came to human excellence, David was blunt: “Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity” (Ps. 39:5).
Jeremiah in the Old Testament, and Paul in the New Testament, warned against glorying in men (Jer. 9:23; 1 Cor. 3:21). They both exhort us to glory in God alone (Jer. 9:24; 1 Cor. 1:31). To glory in men is incompatible with glorying in God. To do the one is not to do the other. Our song must forever be: “To God be the glory!”
May we never mistake the passing beauty of man for the eternal goodness of God. May we never look for explanations of goodness outside of Christ. We can do nothing without Him. We are nothing without Him. What we have that makes us better than anyone else is what we have received from Him. We have nothing to be proud about. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!