Pride Comes After the Fall
Pride goeth before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
We have all heard the statement that "Pride comes before the Fall." When we are looking with our nose up in the air sniffing at how great we think we are, a rock of reality lurks in our way below on the path we trod. Since we lack a circumspect spirit step-wise, we trip and fall. I don't want to act as is if I am free of this.
But how about when pride also comes after the Fall? We are down and rather admit how we found ourselves there, the proud spirit still wants to defend itself, blame-shift, and attack others. A wounded pride is like a wounded animal. Proceed with caution. It bites. We are down and stay down, all the while still acting all high and mighty. Only God can be high and mighty. When man tries to be God, he is more the Devil.
In human conflict, it is true enough that it often not so clear about who is right in wrong. In most conflict, each party has a measure of both. Just because another person is wrong does not mean our default then is right. This is not necessarily about facts only...it is heart attitude. For when we are most right we can also be most wrong.
I have seen situations harden by pride where an ounce of humility would have softened the situation. Instead, a short-term conflict scenario becomes a long-term and protracted antagonistic reality, much as concrete sets. The time to make the change and reconciliation is soon. The longer it goes unresolved, the harder it gets to recast the mold. I wonder if Satan could have repented of his rebellion with the other fallen angels. Or, was the heavenly insurrection so wicked that it was a once and done deal, like the unforgivable sin? We will never know because the Bible teaches that Satan is and will be the eternal rebel against God's reign.
There are three words for pride in the Greek in the New Testament and Paul uses this pride definition in his writings in Timothy: To envelop with smoke, i.e. (figuratively) to inflate with self-conceit:--high-minded, be lifted up with pride, be proud. Where there is the fire of sin, the smoke of pride rises. Hell is hot and the Lake of Fire even hotter. Yet, the sin of unrepentant created beings never ceases, an eternal flame of shame. The word for pride in the Hebrew when applied to man is categorically evil in connotation. When the word for pride is applied to God, it is entirely positive. For God is great, He is glorious.
Lurking in the heart of Jesus's enemies was an unquenched pride which like Hell was never satisfied. Their self-righteousness were as hard rocks used to stone others spiritually, all the while they were stumbling into Hell. He called them to lay down their stones and they would not. In that story in John, the accusers of the women caught in the act of adultery did lay their rocks down, but I surmise that was a tactical decision, strategic in nature. They just decided that those same stones would now be directed at Jesus later, when they would be more calculating and less careless in structuring the stage of the events. For they walked away, not saying a word of contrition, stumbling.
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