THIS whole psalm speaks against pride. Therefore pride and humility must be distinguished.
The first kind of pride is physical, having to do with riches, appearance, birth, skill, diligence, and abilities. This pride is twofold. For these, or some of these, are indeed present in some people, and as a result they extol themselves and boast and do not in these gifts acknowledge God who gave them. But in the case of other people it appears that these things are present when in fact they are not. This is a stupid pride, though all pride is stupid before God, yet this is stupid also before men. [“I will not be foolish, for I will say the truth,” 2 Cor. 12:6.] This pride has a twofold humility as the opposite: First, when these things are removed by the hand of the Lord. Then it is not possible to be proud, as is plain from experience. This is indeed a useful, but not perfectly praiseworthy, humility. Second, when the good things remain and yet by an inner strength are held to be nothing and one does not become proud but acts as if he did not have these things, and so he makes himself like others in all respects. This is a glorious humility, which shines forth in David and Esther and many other holy martyrs and sons of kings.
The second kind of pride is spiritual, having to do with knowledge, wisdom, understanding, virtue, chastity, poverty, gentleness, piety, and other spiritual gifts and riches of the soul. This, too, is twofold. First, some think they have it, but they do not, as in the case of the Jews and heretics, whom first and chiefly this psalm strikes and whom the Lord especially hates. Second, some indeed have it, but they do not acknowledge God nor make themselves equal with or beneath others, but rather extol themselves. To these, too, a twofold humility is opposed. First, if God permits them to fall into open error and sin, so that they cannot deny that they have been made blind and sinners. This is a useful, but not perfectly praiseworthy, humility, but it is rather a humiliation, since the opposite of what they presumed about themselves has been made known to them. Second, when these things remain for them, if such things are in them, and they yet by the strength of grace distinguish between themselves and the gifts of God and thus constantly preserve an acknowledgment of God in the goods received and in the knowledge of self in the evils which they have and so always are nothing to themselves. But, good God, how rare a bird this is! I have seen few people who would not rather pay attention to the gifts of God in themselves than to themselves. This is easy to perceive in demonstration. For if someone would have struck such a person on the left in word or deed, negatively or positively, if this one is wise and has not forgotten himself, he will easily stand, endure, and suffer it and will not think an injury is being done him, as, in fact, it is not; for though injury be done to Christ in His gifts, which are in that person, yet none is done to him in whom they are. He knows whence he is and what he is, that he is worthy of every evil because of himself and his nothingness and sins, and therefore he is not surprised that such things are happening to him. But if he confuses what is seen and, forgetting himself, pays attention to the gifts of God to him, he is soon puffed up, he rebels, prepared to repay in kind, thinking that he is like the other fellow or even superior because of God’s gifts, as is perhaps true. Oh, how rarely have I seen these examples of true humility! Always we want those things in us to be noted that are foreign and belong to God, and not those that are ours; indeed, we especially do not want these to be noted, and yet we pay attention in others to the things that are theirs, and not to those things that are God’s in them. In the same way, if one is touched on the right with praise, favor, honor, little presents, how difficult it is to regard oneself unworthy of these and not be pleased about them, as if they had been deservedly offered and worthily set forth!
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 11: First Lectures on the Psalms II: Psalms 76-126, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 11 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 279–280. (Introduction to Psalm 101)
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