Alexander the Great was a king by age 20 and ruled over a vast area of land on three continents by the age of 30. One day, after a young Julius Ceasar read of Alexander’s conquests, he fell silent then produced floods of tears. “Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable.” Vaulting, selfish ambition is an undeniable human experience. Be it Macbeth or Melrose Place, countless plays, novels, movies, and tv shows have covered it. It is perhaps the most obvious tactic of the crafty serpent: “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Gen 3:4b-5)” Adam and Eve’s job description was already quite remarkable: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth”. However, doubting God’s goodness, word, and warning made them fertile ground for the fundamental nature of sin: to disregard God’s moral law and live independently from him. Ambition, in itself, is not the problem. For example, Paul writes: “Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts. (1 Cor 12:31)” The problem is the corrupted ambition we find in the garden. The great American theologian Jonathon Edwards gives an excellent diagnosis of the post-Fall human condition:
“The ruin that the Fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in his losing the nobler and more benevolent principles of his nature, and falling wholly under the power and government of self-love…Immediately upon the fall, the mind of man shrank from its primitive greatness … to an exceeding smallness”
Christ Connection:
Jesus provides the perfect example of redeemed, selfless ambition. Following his triumphal entry to Jerusalem he publically prays: “Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again (John 12:28).” The “glorify it again” points to the perfect expression of God’s glory through Christ: his crucifixion on the cross.