God is the source. A sane creature should look at that and think, “There is nothing to envy. Everything good flows from Him. His presence is the highest good.”
But pride is not sane and says:
It is intolerable that goodness, glory, authority, and final say belong to another. I do not just want to enjoy the light. I want to be the light. I do not just want to be, I must be the source.
The object of envy is not even possession of things such as money or status in the ordinary sense, but God’s position as the center of creation. This is the satanic spirit.
It’s not,
I want a nice thing of God.
but rather,
I cannot bear that I am not God.
A creature has nothing to gain by trying to rival God. It is like a lamp envying the Sun where all energy comes from, or a stream envying the spring that gives it water. Such is the madness of pride, where living things envying the source of Life itself.
John 15:5–6 (ESV):
[5] I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. [6] If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
Severed from the source, it does not become greater. It dies. But pride can insist on self-assertion over life itself. This is why pride is so irrational. Genesis 2:17 is not a threat, but consequence:
[17] but of the tree of the knowing of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
There is also a hatred hidden inside envy. It does not merely desire to be the source, it also resents dependence. It hates that joy, life and glory are received rather than self-originating. It desires autonomy at the deepest level. Not just freedom within reality, but freedom from reality.
How strange is that? It is strange! Sin is strange. Pride is insane. It is an existential absurdity:
It is a branch that desires separation from the tree, thinking its separation is life.
Humility is sanity. A living being is not diminished by not becoming the source. It is fulfilled by remaining in it.
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