False Humility
by Joe La Bianca

Col. 2:18
Do not let anyone who delights in false humility
and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize.
Such a person goes into great detail about
what he has seen, and his unspiritual
mind puffs him up with idle notions.

The legalist delights in himself. His humbleness is false because the self praise that must accompany his legal relationship with God precludes the possibility of humility. In other words, a person who points to himself and his supposed goodness is inherently puffed up and therefore void of true humility. How can anyone say, “Look how wonderful I am,” and at the same time claim true humility? How can such a one even admit his need for a Savior?
The truly humble person is he who admits his sin and trusts solely in the saving act of Christ on the cross. He rightfully gives God all the credit for his salvation and changed heart, though he does choose to believe. This, God will not do for him. But God will give him the faith so that he can choose just where to put it. Are you putting your faith in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
The falsely humble legalist does not merely hint at his goodness, he is very bold in his assertions of righteousness. There is not a question in his mind that God will accept him based on his own good life, so he vehemently attests to his merits. The rules-oriented person faithfully delights in his service to God. But real faith delights in God, not in works for God.
The combination in the phrase “delight in humility” is contradictory. A person who is lowly of heart does not glory in his lowliness. A true believer never delights in his humility. He is never proud of being humble. The “I’m-good-enough-for-heaven” folks trust in their performance to please God. They say the good they’ve done will cause God to be merciful to them. They are forgetting a very important thing. The wages of sin is death. No matter how many good things a person does, he nevertheless will be paid his death earnings because of sin.
Sin owes us death, and by ourselves, without the Divine Substitute, we must receive our due payment. Death is separation. When the body dies, the spirit separates from it. When the spirit dies, it is separated from God. This is the second death that the bible refers to.
Jesus died for our sins and took upon himself the transgressions of every living soul. This is why Jesus said, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus was separated from God on the cross when He bore our sins. So Jesus tasted both our physical and spiritual deaths. Without Jesus we must face those deaths alone. With Jesus both deaths are redeemed. Since we’ve been given the righteousness of Christ when we believed the gospel, even our physical death is paid for, hence resurrection day.
But it was impossible for Jesus to stay dead because, judiciously, Jesus defeated sin by His perfect, sinless life, and consequently, could remain unpaid of any death wages. So He paid for our sins by dying, and rose again through the power of His holy, indestructible life. The earthly life of Jesus is indestructible because of it’s perfect holiness. After remaining dead for 3 days (3 being the number of completion), Jesus raised Himself up by His own authority. So Jesus completely tasted death for all people. Then He raised Himself up.
This is how Jesus could have come alive again. It was by His holiness which defeated death. Since Jesus never earned death by sinning, death couldn’t hold Him down. Jesus is the only human who never, ever sinned. This is also why Jesus is the only way. No one else ever lived a perfect life. So all die outside of Jesus. We are either in Adam or in Jesus, the Last Adam. All that are in Adam die. All that are in Jesus live. By the way, this does not apply to children. God views kids as innocent.
When we trust Christ, our historic moral record is clean because we are recipients of the goodness of Jesus by faith. Those not trusting Christ receive payment for their own sins, by sin. And sin loves to deal out eternal death, cheerfully.
As far as salvation is concerned, there is no difference between someone who spends their life in philanthropic endeavors and a serial killer. There is no difference between a “good person”, who trust’s self, and an evil person. This is because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, not the glory of each other. There is a great difference between the two. You may measure up well with another human, but we must compare ourselves to God, not man. This will help us to see that we are sinful and then be enabled to call on the Savior.
So maybe you are better than your neighbor. Big deal. That doesn’t matter anyway. In fact, we shouldn’t even be comparing ourselves with each other. That will never produce anything good. Either we will be prideful and think we are better than others, or we will be envious of others. Compare yourself with God, and see your great deficit. And then let God erase that shortage by the cross of Christ.
Either salvation is a gift or it is not, we can have no compromise here. There are those who are very productive in good deeds and yet are unsaved because of their lack of trust for the cross of Christ. You see, good deeds can never take away sin. There are also those not nearly as productive and are, even still, saved and on their way to heaven. It is possible for a heathen to pray more than a Christian, but that doesn‘t matter. Praying doesn’t save, Jesus does. Some unsaved people are very active in benevolence, while some Christians, though still changed in nature, have lesser levels of fruitfulness; 30, 60 or 100 fold.
We cannot base acceptance with God on productivity. The man who works one hour in the fields got paid the same as the one who bore the heat of the entire day. God is generous and gives eternal life to all who will receive it.
Do you want to get paid, or do you want a gift? Sin will pay the wage of death, which is separation from God forever. God’s gift is eternal life, through Jesus, which is the opposite of eternal death. We must be given our life, we can never earn it. Life isn’t something we can create with works. Life is given from God. It comes through faith in Jesus. We can only earn death from the sins we commit. We cannot earn life. Jesus is the only one who can give the gift of life.
Legalists treat life as something to earn, but life from God, in heaven and throughout all eternity, is a gift. Christianity is the only faith that represents life as a gift through faith in a savior. There is only One admitted Savior in the history of the world. Be humble and receive the gift of eternal life by faith in that Savior. Pride will try to earn its own way. False humility will try to cover up the feeble attempt to earn.
If you buy into the hypocrisy of self-salvation, you will disqualify yourself for the prize of heaven. Be careful to put no confidence in self, for it is possible to become a castaway if you do. The deceptive self-trusters will even use, in a wrong way, the bible to cheat you out of salvation. Those who serve the law, rather than God, are cold-hearted observers of a written code. They don’t obey the law and yet they want us to follow that impossible system as well.
Salvation is settled only if we continue in the good news of grace. But the whole thing comes tumbling down when we compromise with the do-it-yourself crowd. “Do-it-yourself” means that we don’t need what Jesus did. It is an insult to the Spirit of grace and a consideration of the blood of Jesus as ineffective.
If a man preaches works, while professing the Name, he does it without reason and with no foundation to his argument. Jesus is synonymous with grace. Jesus is Savior and saviors save. An inflated intellect is the inevitable result of self praise. But the truth of the matter is that we have nothing we haven’t received. Everything we have has been given. True, we had to willingly receive salvation, but that’s as far as our role goes. Remember, salvation is a gift that is offered free of charge, and faith is the hand that thankfully receives it.
Here is a thought on how impossible it is to be good enough for heaven. God only wants spotless lambs, so if you want to work your way to Him, you must have a spotless, absolutely sinless life. Also, if you can live, holy and perfect, unstained by sin, then death would have no hold on you, for the wages of sin is death, and you, like Jesus, can have the power to take up your life again in your own resurrection. You can also be another savior, for if you wanted, you could give your perfect life for others. Of course this is impossible, for all have sinned. But I make this point to show how much folly there is in legalism. You’d be well served by giving up your aspirations of self salvation and accepting Jesus as your only victorious Savior, for He is the only One.
The reference to the worship of angles in Col. 2:18 is an allusion to the law of Moses as Galatians 3:19 says. Let’s read it. “ What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.” The law was added by angels until the first advent of Jesus. After Jesus fulfilled the law, the law ended. Now and forever, Christ is the end of the law so there can be righteousness by faith. Since Christ accomplished the law, there is no longer any need for the law of Moses for believers, just unbelievers. Unbelievers need the law to lead them to Christ. But if someone is Christ’s, he is no longer under the supervision of the law. Jesus fulfilled the law in His earthly life. God now has that one life which He can credit to others. What a great salvation we have. God gives us the perfect score of Jesus when we just believe. God also changes our hearts by that same faith. Inside and out we are renewed by grace through faith!
So, we see that those who follow the law for salvation invariably become puffed up with their own unspiritual interpretations of scripture, i.e., the Talmud, and even go as far as to delight in their own goodness and humility, thus becoming ungodly and prideful. We see that this doctrine is held by every living soul outside of Christ and is so appealing to the flesh that Paul even warned Christians to not let them make us disqualified for the prize of heaven. But unfortunately Judaism has crept into the church. I fear for those who do not understand that we must never mix the old with the new. All we get from that are ruined wine-skins, and badly torn cloths, if you know what I mean.
Whether it’s someone on the street that trusts in their own supposed goodness, or a religious person who thinks that salvation is a ceremony of liturgy, or even a good deed doer that trusts in those deeds, they all pale when contrasted with the only sinless life. It was lived by our generous Savior, who gave all that He acquired as a gift to the believer. He earned salvation for us.
Trust Jesus and live in joy, for He alone can raise us from our deaths and continue our happy existence for all eternity.