A Righteous Vision of Holy Pride
"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” - C.S. Lewis
There is a kind of pride that turns angels into demons, men into beasts, nations into graveyards, and civilizations into smoking ruins. It is the pride that looks at God's world and says, "I will remake this." It is the pride that looks at God's law and says, "I will revise this." It is the pride that looks at God's design and says, "I will improve this." It is the pride that looks at the Creator and says, "Move over." That kind of pride is not strength. It is insanity dressed in sequins. It is rebellion wearing a parade costume. It is the ancient hiss of the serpent translated into modern slogans. It is Eden with a marketing department. It is Babel with better lighting. It is Sodom with corporate sponsorship.
But there is another kind of pride. There is a pride that does not boast in man but in the Lord. There is a pride that does not celebrate rebellion but rejoices in righteousness. There is a pride that does not strut before heaven but bows before the throne with trembling joy. There is a pride that does not mutilate creation but marvels at it. There is a pride that does not shout, "Look what I have made myself to be," but sings, "Look what the Lord has done." This is the pride Christians must recover.
We have spent too long allowing rebels to define the word. We have allowed pride to become synonymous with defiance, self-invention, sexual confusion, and moral arrogance. We have watched an entire month be claimed for the public celebration of what God condemns while many Christians stand around awkwardly, wondering whether we are allowed to hate what God hates and love what God loves. But the Bible does not call us to be embarrassed by God's world. The Bible calls us to glory in it. The Bible does not call us to mumble apologies for the created order. The Bible calls us to rejoice in the works of the Lord. The Bible does not call us to act as though male and female, marriage and children, fathers and mothers, fruitfulness and dominion are fragile human traditions we must defend with trembling voices. They are not fragile. They are granite realities laid into the foundation of the world by the hand of God.
One of the strangest developments in modern Christianity is that many believers have become embarrassed by the very things God celebrates. They whisper where Scripture speaks boldly. They apologize where God rejoices. They act as though God's design needs a defense attorney. They speak of marriage cautiously. They speak of children defensively. They speak of fatherhood nervously. They speak of motherhood apologetically. They speak as though the world is the judge and God is on trial.
But who taught us this shame? God is not embarrassed by His creation, His design, His law, His institution of marriage, His gift of children, His ordering of masculinity and femininity, or the created order itself. The Lord who invented these things has never once apologized for them. Why then should His people? The world has become proud of its shame. Christians must become joyfully unashamed of God's glory. The church must stop acting as though God's blessings are guilty until proven innocent. We do not need permission from the age to celebrate what God has already called good.
The modern world has its pride month. Christians need a better pride. Not pride in ourselves. Not pride in our desires. Not pride in our flesh. Not pride in our rebellion. But pride in the Lord. Pride in His wisdom. Pride in His design. Pride in His Word. Pride in His creation. Pride in His covenant. Pride in His Christ. That is not the pride of devils. It is the boasting of saints.
The Apostle Paul gives us the proper grammar of holy pride when he writes, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." That sentence is not a mild suggestion. It is a wrecking ball swung into the temple of human arrogance. Paul does not say, "Never boast." He says, "Boast rightly." The problem is not that human beings boast. The problem is that we boast in the wrong things. We boast in ourselves, our strength, our wisdom, our desires, our achievements, our identities, our tribes, our appetites, and our imagined autonomy. We take gifts from God and then brag as though we manufactured them in the basement.
That is madness. If a man receives a castle as an inheritance and then spends the rest of his life congratulating himself for inventing stone, we would call him a fool. If a child receives a birthday cake from his mother and then boasts that he created flour, eggs, butter, fire, and joy itself, we would laugh him out of the room. Yet this is exactly what modern man does with his own body, his own sexuality, his own identity, and his own existence. He receives everything from God and then parades through the street announcing that he belongs to himself.
Christian boasting begins by ending that delusion. We belong to God. Our bodies belong to God. Our desires must bow to God. Our identities must be received from God. Our families must be ordered by God. Our sexuality must submit to God. Our lives must glorify God. The first sentence of holy pride is not, "I am proud of myself." The first sentence of holy pride is, "The Lord has made all things well."
This is where a righteous vision of holy pride begins.
When a master architect completes a cathedral, he stands back and delights in the work. When a craftsman finishes a table, he runs his hand across the grain. When a farmer surveys a healthy field, his heart swells with satisfaction. Why? Because glory naturally delights in glory. Excellence naturally rejoices in excellence. Good workmanship invites admiration.
Christians should have this kind of pride, not in ourselves, but in God's craftsmanship. Look at the heavens declaring His glory. Look at the mountains standing like monuments to His power. Look at the oceans that obey the boundaries He established. Look at the human body, fearfully and wonderfully made. Look at marriage, family, church, redemption, and the countless evidences of wisdom woven throughout creation. Everywhere we turn we find evidence of a Master Craftsman whose works are worthy of admiration.
The Christian looks at God's world and says, "My Father made this." That is not arrogance. That is worship. That is not self-exaltation. That is grateful delight in the workmanship of God.
That is why Genesis is so offensive to modern man. Genesis does not begin with self-expression. It begins with God. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Before there was a human self to discover, there was a divine Speaker declaring reality into existence. Before there were desires to affirm, there was a Creator giving form to the void. Before there were feelings to explore, there was the Word of God separating light from darkness, waters above from waters below, sea from land, day from night, creature from creature, man from woman.
Creation is not chaos with decorations. Creation is order from the mouth of God. That means the distinctions in creation are not accidents. They are gifts. Light is not darkness. Land is not sea. Man is not beast. Male is not female. Husband is not wife. Father is not mother. These distinctions are not prison bars. They are the beams and rafters of a habitable world. They hold reality together.
Modern rebellion treats distinctions as enemies. God treats them as blessings. A world without distinctions is not free. It is formless. It is not liberated. It is void. When the modern world wages war against male and female, marriage and family, truth and error, righteousness and sin, it is not moving civilization forward. It is trying to drag creation backward into Genesis 1:2, back into the shapeless deep, back into the dark, back into confusion.
Christian pride looks at that chaos and refuses to clap. Christian pride looks at the world God made and says, "This is good." Male and female is good. Marriage is good. Children are good. Fruitfulness is good. Fathers are good. Mothers are good. Households are good. Covenant succession is good. The body is good. Sexual difference is good. The creational order is good. Not because conservatives invented it. Not because our grandparents preferred it. Not because it feels traditional. Not because it makes society run more smoothly, although it does. These things are good because God made them, God blessed them, God named them, and God called them good.
That is the heart of righteous pride. It is not self-worship. It is Godward delight. It is the soul standing in the middle of God's world, looking at the sky above, the earth beneath, the wife beside him, the children around his table, the church gathered in worship, the Word opened before him, and saying with reverent joy, "My Father made this."
This is why holy pride is not embarrassed by the ordinary. The modern world is bored with normal because sin has rotted its appetite. It yawns at a faithful husband and wife raising children in the fear of the Lord, but it applauds confusion as courage. It sneers at the mother nursing her baby, the father leading family worship, the children singing psalms around the table, the church gathering Lord's Day after Lord's Day, and then it calls a parade of disorder beautiful.
But Christians must regain our eyesight. The most glorious things in the world are often the most ordinary. A man and a woman standing at an altar making vows before God. A husband working hard to feed his household. A wife making a home warm with wisdom. A mother carrying life within her body. A father teaching his son to pray. Children growing up beneath the sound of Scripture. A family gathered at the table. A church baptizing babies. A congregation singing the Psalms. Bread and wine received by faith. A home where Christ is named, honored, confessed, loved, and obeyed. These are not small things. These are the seeds from which civilizations grow.
This is why Christians should be the most celebratory people on earth. If anyone has reason for holy boasting, it is the people of God.
We celebrate creation because it belongs to Christ. We celebrate redemption because it was purchased by Christ. We celebrate marriage because it reflects Christ and His church. We celebrate children because they are a heritage from the Lord. We celebrate faithful fathers and faithful mothers. We celebrate forgiveness of sins, the empty tomb, the reign of King Jesus, the advance of His kingdom, the discipling of the nations, and the certainty that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The church does not need a month to celebrate these things. The church has celebrated them for two thousand years. The world throws festivals for self-expression. The church gathers every Lord's Day to celebrate the risen Christ. One celebration ends in dust. The other ends in glory.
The modern world paints its rebellion in bright colors because it has to distract from the barrenness beneath it. It must turn the volume up because the song is hollow. It must make the costumes louder because the vision is empty. It must keep celebrating because silence would expose the despair. But a Christian household does not need glitter to be glorious. It does not need a corporate logo. It does not need a state-sponsored month. It does not need a parade permit. A faithful family walking in the fear of the Lord possesses more future than a thousand sterile revolutions.
This is where holy pride becomes war. Not the war of insecurity. Not the war of resentment. Not the war of fleshly arrogance. But the war of cheerful, immovable, covenant confidence. We should not shuffle into the public square apologizing for the world God made. We should not speak of marriage as though it were a regrettable doctrine we are forced to maintain. We should not speak of male headship, female glory, motherhood, fatherhood, children, chastity, and fruitfulness as if these are embarrassing relics from a less enlightened age. We should speak of them as treasures.
Because they are.
More than that, Christians must recover the confidence to build. We are not merely trying to resist evil. We are raising children, cultivating homes, planting churches, discipling nations, and bringing every sphere of life beneath the crown rights of King Jesus. The Christian vision is not fundamentally defensive. It is constructive. It is fruitful. It is hopeful. We are not standing on the shore desperately trying to hold back the tide. We are laboring in the confidence that Christ reigns now, that His kingdom is advancing, and that the nations belong to Him. Holy pride is not merely the rejection of rebellion. It is the joyful confidence that God's way of life is better for men, women, children, families, churches, and nations. The Christian does not merely tear down idols. He builds households, institutions, and communities that testify to the wisdom of God.
Paul says in Galatians, "But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." That is the center of all holy boasting. We do not boast in creation apart from redemption. We do not boast in family apart from Christ. We do not boast in morality as though morality can save. We boast in the cross because at the cross the Lord Jesus Christ defeated the very pride that ruined us.
Adam grasped. Christ humbled Himself. Adam reached for glory. Christ took the form of a servant. Adam brought death through pride. Christ brought life through obedience. Adam listened to the serpent. Christ crushed the serpent. Adam hid among the trees. Christ was nailed to one.
This is why Christian pride can never become mere traditionalism. We are not simply trying to recover the 1950s. We are not trying to baptize nostalgia. We are not merely defending an old social arrangement because it feels familiar. We are proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord over heaven and earth, that all things were created through Him and for Him, that all rebellion against His order is doomed, and that all who come to Him will find mercy, cleansing, forgiveness, sanity, and life.
The cross does not teach us to boast less. It teaches us to boast rightly. Boast that Christ is King. Boast that His blood cleanses sinners. Boast that His resurrection begins a new creation. Boast that His Spirit makes dead men alive. Boast that His Word is true. Boast that His law is good. Boast that His design is beautiful. Boast that His kingdom will fill the earth. Boast that the nations will be discipled. Boast that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
This is the holy pride the church must recover. Not the swollen pride of a rebel shaking his fist at heaven, but the grateful pride of a son standing in his Father's house. Not the pride that says, "I will become whatever I desire," but the pride that says, "I am not my own. I was bought with a price." Not the pride that celebrates sin, but the pride that celebrates salvation. Not the pride that mutilates the body, but the pride that honors the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Not the pride that sterilizes the future, but the pride that fills homes with children and churches with songs. Not the pride that confuses categories, but the pride that rejoices in the wisdom of God's distinctions. Not the pride that ends in wrath, but the pride that begins at the cross and ends in glory.
So yes, Christians should have pride. Not in ourselves. Never in ourselves. We should have pride in the Lord who made us. Pride in the Father who created the world. Pride in the Son who redeemed it. Pride in the Spirit who renews it. Pride in a creation that still declares His glory. Pride in a Gospel that still saves sinners. Pride in a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Pride in a future that does not belong to revolutionaries, rebels, bureaucrats, corporations, activists, or cowards, but to Jesus Christ and to the meek who shall inherit the earth.
Let the world have its counterfeit pride. Let it paint rebellion in bright colors and call it courage. Let it throw festivals for confusion and call it love. Let it applaud what God condemns and condemn what God blesses. The church has something better. We have the Lord. We have His Word. We have His world. We have His Christ. We have His promises. We have His kingdom.
And therefore we may say with holy confidence, with clean joy, with lifted heads, and with knees bowed before the throne:
Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
