THE PRIDE OF ADAM OPENED THE GRAVE FOR MANKIND!

THE PRIDE OF ADAM OPENED THE GRAVE FOR MANKIND!

 The devil told Adam and Eve that they would become like God if they disobeyed. They drank the devil’s poison; they swelled up with pride; they stretched their hands’; they took the fruit. They did not become like God. Their pride opened the gate of suffering, sorrow, pain, death, loss and every evil under the sun. Consider the terrible effects of their pride: They exchanged the friendship of God for the friendship of the devil. They lost the comfort of the Garden of Eden (the earthly paradise) and embraced the harshness and difficulties of a life of hard labour. Giving up the gift of life, they embraced death (the wages of sin is death– Rom 6:23). Carrying the pregnancy of pride (in its full term), Cain gave birth to that jealousy which gave him the diabolical rage (anger) which strengthened his arm to kill his brother.

            DEFINED, pride is a wrong (inordinate, disordered, false) love of, excellence, perfection, glory, popularity, etc. Scripture gives it first place by identifying it as the source of all destruction (Tobit 4:14). Louis of Granada call it “the most powerful of our enemies.” It is the most terrible example of self-love. Like the witch king of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgul, the captain of the nine in JRR Tolkien’s celebrated The Lord of the Rings, pride is the rebel captain and lord of the seven deadly sins, according to cassian and other spiritual writers. It grows out of a false knowledge of God and self.

            The dictionary of Pride             If you look in the dictionary of pride, you will find only three words: me, myself, I. The spirit of pride will always ask others: “Do you know who I am?”

            Pride is the dividing spirit per excellence. The Greek name for the devil is Diabolos. This means the one who divides. Pride always produces the pattern of the diabolos. What does this mean? Right after the first act of pride in the Garden of Eden, Adam was already divided against Eve when he Blamed Eve for his sin (cf Gen 3:12). He attacked the same woman he had called “bone of my bone; flesh of my flesh” (cf Gen 2:23). Pride divided Adam and God, Adam and Eve, Adam and creation (Genesis 3:17 indicates that from then material hardship and suffering, sickness would come to him from creation), and indeed it divided Adam against himself.