NOTES for Wis 6:1-11

What is human greatness before the greatness of God? Zero? An infinitely small quantity? Or neither one nor the other? We are used, perhaps, to thinking that human greatness is nothing to God, while nothingness is great. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted, we read, and we understand what we have read literally, although the issue is by no means self-abasement, but precisely not exalting oneself.

But self-abasement is ultimately the same self-exaltation, only with the opposite sign. Perhaps the statements "I am the greatest righteous person" and "I am the most worthless sinner" sound equally ridiculous in God's ears. And not because reaching the furthest limits of fallenness is, fortunately, as difficult for a person as perfect righteousness is, unfortunately, but because our evaluations and systems of measurement are altogether unsuitable for the Kingdom. Our achievements and failures, our righteousness and sinfulness, our greatness and worthlessness are not projected into the Kingdom with the opposite spiritual sign. Nothing earthly is projected there in an unchanged, even inverted, form. If we must resort to the realities of our world, there the units of measurement are different, scarcely or not at all comparable with ours. And no "charismometer" in our world can measure the spiritual level of the Kingdom, even when the matter concerns our own spiritual level. And, of course, social status is least of all an indicator of this level. The sooner we accept this as a given, the simpler our path into the Kingdom will be.