Pride's Inevitable Fall: The Architecture of Self-Destruction

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.—Proverbs 16:18

Pride is thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. It is a corruption of self-love, a form of self-flattery. A man thinks too highly of himself when he supposes that anything he possesses is entirely his own; when he conceives himself to have qualities he genuinely does not possess; or when he claims more respect than is justly due to him.

This vice deserves peculiar severity in Scripture because of its extensiveness. Pride seems almost originally ingrafted in human nature. It exerts itself in our first years and, without continual endeavor to suppress it, influences our last. Other vices tyrannize over particular ages and triumph in particular countries; but pride is the native of every country, infects every climate, and corrupts every nation. It mingles with all our other vices, and without the most constant and anxious care will mingle also with our virtues.

Pride produces its fall through natural tendency. Some kinds of pride are very expensive. Pride is contentious and makes a man enemies. Pride makes men over-confident in their own efficiency. Vanity runs men into error and mistakes.

Yet Adonai has particularly declared His detestation of pride and His resolution to punish it. The whole tenor of Scripture intimates how exceeding hateful pride is to Almighty God. Pride is improper to our condition and circumstances—it is an inlet to all vices. Consider this: humility is spoken so highly of in Scripture as the antidote to destruction.