For we dare not … compare ourselves with some that commend themselves; but they measuring themselves by themselves … are not wise.
Two false standards of judgment
At the first reading we might scarcely see any distinction between the two faults spoken of. “Measuring themselves by themselve,” and “comparing themselves with themselves,” where is the difference? This habit of measuring self by self may arise from various causes.
1. It may arise from conceit. The man thinks himself perfect. Or, if not perfect--which no one says, or perhaps thinks--still sufficiently so for practical purposes. He needs no thorough remodelling; he may still be his own measure, though the measure itself may bear a little repairing to bring it up to statute and regulation. But the measuring of himself by himself may have another explanation.
2. Isolation will account for it. A man lives alone, does his own work, does not read, does not mix with others, never sees either self-denial or courage or patience or nobleness exemplified in life or action--how can he measure himself by any one or anything but himself?
3. A third account of it might be that sort of sluggishness and stupidity of the moral sense which acquiesces in the thing that is, thinks it will do, hopes all will come right. St. Paul does not “presume” or “deign” to make himself of the number. How palpably the opposite of that heroic soul which “counted not itself to have apprehended”! Self-measuring is one of the two faults, let us turn now to the other. “Comparing themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” Here the singular has become plural. The standard of the individual has become the standard of a multitude. The men spoken of compare themselves with themselves after all, only the self which they make their measure is a plural self, a composite self, a self of surroundings and circumstances, an “environment” of beings just like themselves, reflections of their own thought, their own principle, and their own judgment. This is, or may be, a less unlovely person than the former. He is no solitary, and he is no pendant, and he is no misanthrope. He does not profess himself the one wise man, or the one important man, or the one perfect. He is willing to let in some light upon the self-life. But it is a limited light. It is the light of his own little world. It may be a very little world. Some people--especially among the poor--pride themselves upon their littleness. They make it a merit not to go about houses. Men bound themselves by the workshop, the office, or the counting-house--women literally by the home. Yet within this fraction of the race multitudes of individual men and women are absolutely cribbed and cabined. They think within it, they judge within it, they act within it--worse still, they aspire within it. Not one idea comes to them but from it. St. Paul says that they who are described by either of these titles, self-measurers by self, or self-comparers with each other, “are not wise.” He might have put it more strongly. A man might be unwise, though applying a right standard to himself, because he was condemned by it, because he did not live up to it. But the man whose measure is self, or whose self-comparison is with other selves, as fallible and as prejudiced and as half-informed and as lazy-minded as himself, has no chance and no peradventure and no possibility of wisdom. He is on the wrong tack. “Measuring themselves by themselves, they are not wise.” What is to be done? Evidently self is the inordinate, the exaggerated, the overgrown thing. Self is here the thing which must be counteracted, combated, taught its place. “Measuring themselves by themselves,” they must be taught to measure themselves by something else. Almost anything will be a better standard. And now we must take the two men of the text, each by the hand, and bid them rise to a life higher for them both. We shall bid them to rest in no earthly heroism, and to acquiesce in no human example of virtue. We shall carry them on, without pause or dallying, to the contemplation of One in the presence of whose beauty and glory all such minor excellences pale and fade away. (Dean Vaughan.)
A wrong standard of measure
I. First, then, let us bring this question of comparison to the testing of character. We compare ourselves with others and say, “I am as good as ordinary Christians.” What is wanted is not just “ordinary Christians.” We ought each to pray with Wesley, “Lord, make me an extraordinary Christian.” Average Christians comparing themselves with average Christians may think they are about right.
II. Again, how practical this is for testing the measure of our self-sacrifice. Many people want to get to heaven as cheaply as they can. A man sees his neighbour do certain things on the Sabbath, therefore he claims a right to do them.
III. Once more, let this serve for testing the measure of our zeal and consecration in God’s service. As to work. Do you compare yourself with others? Are you ever tempted to say, “I do as much as my neighbour; I do not like to push myself forward; I never like to seem to take the lead!” Such feelings are born purely of a tendency to compare ourselves among ourselves. Let us try to be of the utmost use in the world.
Wrong estimates
I. The folly of adopting a false, worldly standard of character and conduct. The folly, viz., of--
1. Self-righteous reliance on ourselves, or our supposed excellences. See this in the parable of the Pharisee. “There is a generation pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filth.” Paul was once one of these Pharisees. “I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.” The death of legal hope became the life of evangelical obedience. The true Christian rests in Christ only and wholly.
2. Dependence on the opinion of mankind. A fatal indolence is apt to creep upon the soul when once it has attained the good opinion of religious men. Pursuit is at an end when the object is in possession. If at the judgment we were to be tried by a jury of fellow mortals, it would be but common prudence to secure their favour at any price.
3. Dependence on morality without religion. Society is a gainer from the absence of vice and the presence of virtue. We are, however, careful to mark the distinction between the morality which has for its only source the motives which begin and end in time, and that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord, which has its root and origin in Christian motives and principles.
4. Dependence on religion without morality. Christianity must be received as a whole. Christianity is something more than a mere set of rules, it is a living principle of action. Faith works by love and purifies the heart. In acknowledging Christ as Redeemer we must not forget that He is Lawgiver.
II. The wisdom of adopting that standard of character which the gospel reveals.
1. As it regards the rule of our faith.
2. As it regards the test of practice. (HomileticMagazine.)
Cliques in Church
“They measure themselves by themselves,” etc., they constitute a religious coterie, a sort of ring or clique in the Church, ignoring all but themselves, making themselves the only standard of what is Christian, and betraying by that very proceeding their want of sense. There is a fine liberality about this sharp saying, and it is as necessary now as in the first century. Men coalesce within the limits of the Christian community from affinities of various kinds--sympathy for a type or aspect of a doctrine, or liking for a form of polity; and as it is easy, so it is common, for those who have drifted like to like, to set up their own associations and preferences as the only law and model for all. They take the air of superior persons, and the penalty of the superior person is to be without understanding. The standard of the coterie--be it “evangelical,” “high church,” “broad church,” or what you please--is not the standard of God; and to measure all things by it is not only sinful, but stupid. In contrast to this Judaistic clique, who saw no Christianity except under their own colours, Paul’s standard is to be found in the actual working of God through the gospel. He would have said with Ignatius, only with a deeper insight into every word, “where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” (J. Denney,B. D.)
