Humble Calvinism: (13) The Institutes > Experiencing God (1.10)

February 6, 2007February 6, 2007 Tony Reinke Calvinism, Doctrines of Grace, Humble Calvinism, John Calvin

Part 13: Experiencing God (1.10)

We continue progressing through Calvin’s Institutes by investigating the question “How can we know anything about God the Creator?” Many of us forget about the wonder of this question. It’s by God’s grace that He reveals Himself to us.

Later we will tackle the details about how we know God as our Redeemer (that comes in book 2). Up to this point we see that the knowledge of God is etched into our hearts and is made clear in the creation. However, we suppress this truth to preserve our own sinfulness, creating a wicker-basket god twisted by our own sinful opinions. We become totally blind to the true God. We need Scripture to clarify God, but not just because we need clarity. We need a radical transformation. God must first subdue us in our suppression of Him and He accomplishes this sovereign task by confirming His Word by the power of His Spirit.

In chapter 10, Calvin pauses for one brief thought. Just because we are blind to God’s working in creation, does Scripture totally override God’s revelation in the natural world? The answer is “no.” Scripture calls us to see the same working of God and draw the same conclusion as Creation.

Experiencing God

God’s created order was sufficient to draw all men to fear and trust in God. He chose to reveal Himself “more intimately and also more vividly” in His Word (96). So while our sinfulness blinds us to God in creation, Scripture does not give up on this goal. Scripture actually pushes us in the same direction the Creation did to see just how close God is to each of us!

To prove this, Calvin opens the following texts:

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:6-7) … “let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord” (Jer. 9:24).

God’s kindness, goodness, mercy, truthfulness and judgment are revealed in Scripture and confirmed in our experience of the world He created. Based upon these texts, Calvin can write, “Thereupon his powers are mentioned, by which he is shown to us not as he is in himself, but as he is toward us: so that this recognition of him consists more in living experience than in vain and high-flown speculation” (97). And later, “with experience as our teacher we find God just as he declares himself in his Word” (98).

Our experience confirms Scriptural witness of God. Every sinner experiences God’s character every day! We experience His goodness through the joys we feel; we experience His kindness in our unmerited prosperity and comforts; we experience His mercy in this life, knowing that we fully deserve death for our sinfulness; we experience His truthfulness in a world governed by absolute truth; and we experience His righteousness and judgment when wicked sinners hang from Iraqi gallows.

Scripture resumes where creation left off: In reminding us that we experience God every day. Scripture is no “high-flown speculation” about God, but confirms our own experiences.

The goals: Fear and trust

The goals of creation and Scripture are the same. “Indeed, the knowledge of God set forth for us in Scripture is destined for the very same goal as the knowledge whose imprint shines in his creatures, in that it invites us first to fear God, then to trust in him” (98).

The goal of Scripture and creation are not intellectual persuasion, but fear and trust. Calvin is not content with revelation that does not bring us to our knees as fearful sinners submitting to a holy and sovereign God. All of God’s revelation is pointing us towards true piety.

So every sinner experiences God, but we are blind to His work because of our sinfulness. Scripture comes along to illuminate these experiences as the work and character of God. We should have caught on to this merely through the created order. But in our sin, we needed special revelation from God to break into our lives and give sight to our blindness.

Calvinistic meditations …

1. God’s character is contextual in every age. Calvinism is deeply contextual, concerned with how sinners come to know God. Here Calvin directs those of us who seek to reach a world population that grows ever secular and non-Christian. We don’t need gimmicks, we need Scripture. We need to show that when sinners live in a warm house, wear comfortable clothes and have all the food they need to live each day that they experience the goodness, kindness and mercy of God. As I said earlier when talking about general revelation, God does much of the contextualizing for us. He created trees so we can walk up to the atheist sitting against its trunk smoking a pipe and reading philosophy and ask his where the tree came from. We both know what a tree is and we both know the tree is alive. But only I know where the life of the tree originated zillions of years ago, in the God who is the Eternal Life source. And so here Calvin reminds us that we all experience God’s kindness, goodness, mercy, truthfulness and judgment. Sinners need to hear about the God who originates this kindness, goodness, truthfulness and justice. So to preach the Word of God is to contextualize. By God’s grace, sinners can see the authenticity of the biblical God through their own life experiences. This means preachers and evangelists need to be aware of the character of God in daily life, and grow ever confident in God’s message to do its work. More about that later.

2. Our vision of God’s activities is restored in sanctification. Recently I had the privilege to preach on the nature of man (see lesson 701. The Nature of Man). I discovered a theme throughout the biblical storyline: Being made in the perfect image of God enables men and women to live in face-to-face communion with God. Adam and Eve, before the fall, enjoyed communion with God as He walked in a garden in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). That’s not how Isaiah and Moses experienced the presences of God! Sinners – even redeemed sinners – cannot see God face-to-face. Maybe if God is gracious we see a glimpse of the backside of God – but only from the distant safety of a nuclear bomb shelter (Ex. 33:17-23). So in regeneration and then in sanctification God begins restoring the perfect image of Himself in us. Our hope is that one day the image of God will be perfectly restored when we see Jesus face-to-face (1 John 3:2). Only as that image is restored are we are fitted to see God’s glory. This explains why the most mature Christians are the most sensitive to the character of God in the world. They have eyes being prepared to see God’s glory. So when you read in Scripture that God is revealed all over Creation but you don’t see it, trust in God. If you are his child, He is restoring that image in you so you can see more of His glory in the world. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). God helps us see His glory less dimly as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

3. Experience God. Being a Humble Calvinist is to daily experience the character of God. We hear His voice and we taste His goodness and kindness (Heb. 3:15, 4:7, 1 Pet. 2:3, Ps. 34:8). We should grow ever sensitive of the connection between the God of Scripture and our daily experience of Him. If we do not cultivate this, our preaching and evangelism will fail to incorporate this divine sensitivity into our contextualization of the gospel in the world. Our secular cultures demand that we experience God and grow ever sensitive to His character revealed in the world.

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Packer: Humble Calvinism and evangelism

February 5, 2007February 5, 2007 Tony Reinke Calvinism, Evangelism, Humble Calvinism, J.I. Packer, John Calvin, Missiology, Missions

Packer: Humble Calvinism and evangelism

“So far from making evangelism pointless, the sovereignty of God in grace is the one thing that prevents evangelism from being pointless. For it creates the possibility – indeed, the certainty – that evangelism will be fruitful. Apart from it, there is not even a possibility of evangelism being fruitful. Were it not for the sovereign grace of God, evangelism would be the most futile and useless enterprise that the world has ever seen, and there would be no more complete waste of time under the sun than to preach the Christian gospel.”

– J.I. Packer. Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (IVP: 1961) p. 106. ISBNs: 083081339X, 9780830813391

Book review: Calvin’s Teaching on Job by Derek Thomas

February 2, 2007August 22, 2007 Tony Reinke BR > Christian Focus, BR > Mentor, Calvinism, Humble Calvinism, John Calvin

Book review:
Calvin’s Teaching on Job by Derek Thomas

After recently completing N.T. Wright’s new book, Evil and the Justice of God, I came away with the sense that evil is at God’s ankles like a small poodle biting and pestering. While I learned some things, the conclusion that we should simply learn to forgive more (while being true) was also a bit unsatisfying. For one who believes in the total sovereignty of God, this picture of evil was incomplete.

But the question, ‘Why do the most godly suffer?,’ is a question every Christian comes face-to-face with and to which every pastor must give an answer. I’m finding that the answer to this question is found within another big problem – how do we interpret the book of Job?

So when Derek Thomas’ book, Calvin’s Teaching on Job: Proclaiming the Incomprehensible God, arrived in the mail, I was eager to dive deep. And Thomas did not disappoint. With incredible depth, Thomas leads the reader systematically through Calvin’s thoughts as he wrestled with the book of Job. Here you will find both encouragement to tackle the book of Job expositionally and also real-life answers to the most perplexing questions in the Christian life. It’s a book that I will come back to time and time again when my own soul and the souls of friends ask the question ‘Why?’

Maybe the most helpful point I learned was exegetical. Calvin teaches us to use Elihu to interpret the Jobian dialogues (see Job 32:1-37:24). “While Calvin is consistently critical of the advice of Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar, he is generally supportive of the contribution of Elihu” (226). Elihu best understood the sovereignty of God, the nature of justice, the separation between God and man and that God’s justice and power go alongside His goodness.

By favoring the advice and input of Elihu, Calvin takes from the dialogues several helpful principles: Trials are appointed by God’s providence to educate us, they are used by God to humble us, they bring our hidden sins to the surface, and they bring us to repentance. “Afflictions also drive us to desire more of God’s help, provoking us to return to him, by drawing us to him, taming us, and teaching us to pray.” Certainly, “the distribution of trials is not whimsical or arbitrary” (228).

The bottom line is that God is incomprehensible. His providence is beyond our understanding. We cannot see the big picture, but we can rest in a sovereign God who does!

“When bad things happen to the righteous, the Lord is involved in the deepest possible way. Far from removing God from such crises in the interest of rescuing him from the charge of sin’s authorship, Calvin regularly takes God further and further into the difficulty. He meets the ensuing theological and pastoral difficulties by resorting to God’s incomprehensibility” (375).

Although it was a doctoral dissertation, the book reads very well. The old English spelling of Calvin’s sermons on Job may be annoying but you will pick up on it as you read (to “… shewe vs hee is the iudge of the world we must learne to stande in awe of him”). Thomas is critical of Calvin when necessary. The book itself is over 60-percent footnotes (surely setting some record). The masses of footnotes are mostly direct references from Calvin, providing him an extensive first-hand voice while keeping the book clean and concise.

For 14 months between 1554 and 1555 John Calvin preached through the book of Job, leaving a wealth of expositional insights and pastoral applications for future expositors. Dr. Thomas has assembled these insights in a systematic format that will benefit the student seeking a guide to Calvin’s thought, the pastor seeking a guide to counseling, and for the preacher seeking an exegetical guide to interpret the book of Job. An excellent addition to the library of a Humble Calvinist.

Title: Calvin’s Teaching on Job: Proclaiming the Incomprehensible God
Author: Derek Thomas
Boards: hardcover
Pages: 416
Volumes: 1
Dust jacket: no
Binding: glue
Paper: normal
Topical index: yes
Scriptural index: no
Text: perfect type
Publisher: Christian Focus Publications, Mentor
Year: 2004
Price USD: $25.99/$18.99 from CBD
ISBNs: 1857929225, 9781857929225

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2007 Banner of Truth Pastor’s Conference details

January 30, 2007April 17, 2007 Tony Reinke 2007 BOT MC, Banner of Truth, Calvinism, Humble Calvinism, John Calvin

This year I’m planning to attend two new conferences. The first is the Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference in April and the other is the Banner of Truth pastors’ conference in May. I’ve heard about them but never seen them for myself. Lord willing, this spring I will attend them both.

As you may have guessed, one of the major reasons I am spending so much time in John Calvin these first months of 2007 is to prepare for the upcoming Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference entitled “Set Apart for God.” The conference runs between May 29th and 31st on the campus of Messiah College in Grantham, PA. Speakers will include two of my favorites, Derek Thomas and Walt Chantry (Chantry wrote the excellent book, The Shadow of the Cross). I look forward to Dr. Thomas’ trio of presentations on holiness, especially as they relate to Calvin’s Institutes. It is encouraging to see emphasis on Calvin’s understanding of the Christian life (as I think he has much to offer here). Dr. Thomas wrote an excellent book on Calvin’s understanding of the book of Job which has recently become one of my favorites. We’ll look more at this book on Friday.

UPDATE 3/14: Walt Chantry will not be available to speak this year. Instead, Sinclair Ferguson will be taking his place.

But for more information on the pastors’ conference you can download the newly-released conference PDF here and you can register here. Should be a fun time. And from what I’m told, Friends of the Shepherd’s Scrapbook will get an exclusive tour of the Banner of Truth warehouse in Carlise, PA as an added bonus!

Humble Calvinism: (10) The Institutes > The self-authenticated Word (1.7)

January 25, 2007January 25, 2007 Tony Reinke Calvinism, Humble Calvinism, Humble orthodoxy, John Calvin, spurgeon

Part 10: The self-authenticated Word (1.7)

Sinners are in bad shape. We neglect as much of God’s glory as we can and the unmistakable evidence we do see is quickly suppressed and ignored. We want to live autonomously. We want to be independent from God, making our own decisions and choosing what we think is good for us. We are not merely ignorant of God, we are enemies of God (Rom. 5:10). We let our worldly, temporal appetites guide our lives and become enemies of the Cross in the process (Phil. 3:18-19). We are not ignorant biology students needing more information, we are sinners actively resisting truth and rebelling against God.

So when the Roman Catholic catechism of 1997 (π 154) teaches, “Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason” I can only shake my head. It contradicts both depraved bondage and a mind that suppresses truth like a boot suppresses an empty pop can.

The big question of the day is this: For the sinner to give the Word of God the full weight of her reverence and obedience, God must first burn these convictions supernaturally into her heart. For the Word of God to truly impact our lives, God must abduct us! He must convince us of the authenticity of His Word. He must convince us that His words are “sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Ps. 119:103). We must be given “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).

Once again, it goes back to the sovereign intervention of God. He alone can cause His elect to submit to the full authority of the Word by convincing them of the authenticity of the Word. This is exactly what God does.

The church and religious authority are insufficient (1.7.1-3)

The church does not have the authority to authenticate the Word. In Calvin’s day (and to our day), Roman Catholicism believed the authority of Scripture was authenticated via the authority of the papacy. This is impossible. According to Ephesians 2:20 the Word of God’s authority and authenticity preceded the church! No church ruler, pope, cardinal or pastors can authenticate the Word because the Word preceded the church.

In fact, no human authority can authenticate the Word. Calvin writes, “what will happen to the miserable conscience seeking firm assurance of the eternal life if all promises of it consist in and depend solely upon the judgment of men?” (75). It is absurd to think that the authenticity of Scripture rests upon council or decree.

Here’s the punch line: “Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do of their taste” (76). Scripture is self-authenticated!

Where “divine majesty lives and breathes” (1.7.4-5)

No sinner gives their life to the biblical God and the doctrines and truths contained in the Word until they are “persuaded beyond doubt that God is its Author” (78). And later, “For even if it wins reverence for itself by its own majesty, it seriously affects us only when it is sealed upon our hearts through the Spirit” (80). In other words, you can take the “Bible as Literature” course in college and be amazed at the literary styles and structure of the Bible and yet never be changed by the eternal truths contained within. God must sovereignly burn the authenticity of the Word into our hearts. He must authenticate in our own rebellious hearts that God is the Author. He must give us spiritual eyes and tongues to see and taste that God’s Word is what it claims.

Calvin references Isaiah 43:10: “’You are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He.’”

We must rest upon a divine power stronger than rational evidence and scientific proofs because even if the Word is authenticated by rationalism and proofs we will “ever waver among many doubts.” Rather, “those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated; hence, it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning” (80). The authenticating power of the Spirit is “more excellent than all reason” (79).

By not resting in proofs and human reasoning, the authority and authenticity of Scripture rest upon something higher and stronger. “We seek no proofs, no marks of genuineness upon which our judgment may lean; but we subject our judgment and wit to it as to a thing far beyond any guesswork” (80). When the Holy Spirit confirms Scripture in our hearts “we feel that the undoubted power of his divine majesty lives and breathes there. By this power we are drawn and inflamed, knowingly and willingly, to obey him, yet also most vitally and more effectively than by mere human willing or knowing!” (80).

In summary, Calvin teaches us that Scripture is self-authenticated (Gk. autopiston). Its authenticity rests in the truth that Scripture is where God’s “divine majesty lives and breathes” (80). And every sinner God chooses to invade, abduct, and transform will experience the burning authenticity of the Spirit.

This does not mean there are no proofs and reasons for the authenticity of Scripture. There are, and Calvin will give us many to ponder in the next chapter. But proofs are not enough to convince spiritually dead enemies of God. Humble Calvinism teaches it that if I am going to understand God and obey His Word, He must invade my heart and burn a conviction of its truth into my heart.

Calvinistic meditations …

1. Watch your evangelism. How do we prove the authority and authenticity of God’s Word to sinners? We don’t. This truth will radically impact our evangelism. As you probably know, there is a tremendous pressure in our church culture to use rational proofs and arguments to “convince” sinners of the truth of Scripture. If this is your evangelistic strategy, you and your audience will always be haunted by the next ‘proofs’ and ‘arguments’ of the opposing views. Christianity is a call for sinners to believe in eternal things. There is no proof. How do you prove the perfect righteousness and resurrection to one who wants scientific data? As A.W. Tozer once said, “To seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous” (Knowledge of the Holy, p. 19). Press sinners to embrace mystery, preach the gospel and let God take the responsibility of burning this truth upon sinner’s hearts. Your main concern is with presenting biblical truth accurately. The gospel – not proofs or rationalism – is the power of God to save depraved sinners (Rom 1:16).

2. Remember the depravity of our hearts. Churches that attempt to convince sinners of the truth with rationalism have fundamentally misunderstood our depravity so clearly stated in Romans and Ephesians. We need to ever remind ourselves of the state of the sinful human heart. Evidence can demand a verdict from sinners suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, but such verdict will never come (Rom. 1:18).

3. Expect rejection. Some preachers hide behind rationalism and human wisdom to avoid being rejected by sinners. Rejection and acceptance is not your responsibility – preaching the whole counsel of God is! If your audience is split over the gospel – some see it as the power of God and some see the gospel as foolishness – you are probably doing something right (1 Cor. 1:18-2:16). Keep boasting in the Cross! Some sinners will rest their hopes in signs and wonders alone, and they will never have signs or wonders enough. Some will want wisdom and proof and they will always waiver and struggle. But we are called to “preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23-25). If we are running from rejection we will mold church methods with fatal flaws and replace the gospel with something less foolish.

“For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:11-14).

So when you speak to other sinners, speak the truth in love. Pray that God would give them spiritual eyes to see that the “undoubted power of His divine majesty lives and breathes” in the Word. Oh, how it burns!

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Humble Calvinism: (9) The Institutes > Clinging to a thread (1.6)

January 23, 2007January 23, 2007 Tony Reinke Calvinism, Humble Calvinism, John Calvin

Part 9: Clinging to a thread (1.6)

With the help of microchips and electrical pulses, scientists are confident that the blind will one day see again. In our study of God, we now come to the reality that God confronts our spiritual blindness with His own advancements.

As we’ve seen in our series on Humble Calvinism, God’s glory is displayed in the universe for all to see with the hopes that we will honor and thank Him (Rom. 1:21). We don’t. We’re blind and we suppress Him to preserve our sinfulness (Rom. 1:18). The revelation God shines in the natural world is loud and bold but because of our sinful ignorance and suppression of this truth, it calls out “in vain” (73). Our hardened hearts miss the point. We need more than brighter colors, louder sounds or more complex genetic structures in creation. We need God to reveal Himself in a new way. We need new revelation.

God must speak more directly of Himself. For Calvin, Scripture is a “better help,” a “special gift,” the “pure knowledge of Himself,” and a “more direct and more certain mark whereby he is to be recognized” (69-70). Scripture is a bold solution directed at the blindness due to our depravity.

Calvin will not address our need for Scripture to understand the way of salvation until later. Here he says, merely to see God as the Creator of the universe, we need Scripture! Even though creation screams the glory of God every day through landscapes, microscopes and telescopes we need Scripture to tell us that God is the One who “founded and governs the universe” (70).

It would be accurate to subtitle Scripture “The Working of God in the Created Order for Dummies.” Merely the need for Scripture reminds us that we sinners just don’t get the point. The need for the bible reveals our ‘radical’ depravity. We walk blind in broad daylight.

Question. Has anyone ever tapped your head with their knuckles when you didn’t get something? Now pick up your bible and smack yourself on the forehead. In love, that’s what it was made for. We should have first seen God through His creation and pursued Him. We don’t.

So by giving us His special, more specific Word (the bible) and opening its meaning to our hearts, God gives sinners the precious gift of sight! This revelation through His Word now renders faith “unambiguous forever” and “superior to all opinion” (71). His Word opens the eyes of the blind to Himself. Through Scripture we can see again. Through Scripture we are given the content of faith that no human opinion can shake!

Even here, piety is central to Calvin. We understand God rightly in the Word only when we “reverently embrace” what God reveals of Himself because “all right knowledge of God is born of obedience” (72). Again and again, Calvin protects us from the idea that knowledge of God is gained just like knowledge of biology. Genuine piety (otherwise known as ‘reverence’) is central to understanding God. We must come to Scripture to learn about God in fearfulness, not flippancy. God says we must come to Him as one who is “humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word” (Isa. 66:2). How does a rebel sinner come to this place? God must subdue him. We’ll talk more about this amazing work of God in the coming weeks.

There are other reasons we must have special revelation from God in His Word. Our hard hearts (even regenerated hearts!) are naturally inclined to forget God, slide towards errors and create our own empty religions. Calvin writes, “how slippery is the fall of the human mind into forgetfulness of God, how great the tendency to every kind of error, how great the lust to fashion constantly new and artificial religions” (72). Scripture protects us from these errors because it elevates truth beyond our “depraved judgment” and into the “rule of eternal truth” (73).

When you add our depravity and blindness together with the gift of the truth we make one conclusion: We must always be pressing closer to Scripture as our guide. We must walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). Scripture must be the computer chip and electrical pulses to override our spiritual blindness. Calvin illustrates the concept like this,

“If we turn aside from the Word … though we may strive with strenuous haste, yet, since we have got off the track, we shall never reach the goal. For we should so reason that the splendor of the divine countenance [or God’s presence], which even the apostle calls ‘unapproachable,’ is for us like an inexplicable labyrinth unless we are conducted into it by the thread of the Word; so that it is better to limp along this path than to dash with all speed outside it” (73).

The path to the presence of God is an “inexplicable labyrinth.” There are so many winding staircases and hallways, and millions of choices that will lead away from God’s presence. There is a way that seems right to a man but it’s the way of death (Pro. 14:12). So we must walk by faith and not by sight, opinion or feeling. In effect our sinful ignorance hides Him. Yet along the path God has stretched a thread. Some will chase their own opinions or hastily run into all error, but the Christian slowly limps along the path, following the thread of the Word through this stairway, over this bridge, now down these stairs and around through a narrow doorway off to the side and through another tunnel.

As soon as we take our hand off this “thread” we are lost. Calvin closes this chapter with John 4:1-45 where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at a rest stop. Samaria itself was a bad place because of its theological heresies. The Samaritans built their religion off only the first five books of the Old Testament. This reductionism was dangerous. So dangerous, Jesus did not hesitate in telling the Samaritan woman she worshipped in “ignorance” (v. 22). Her church was worthless.

Calvin writes that when sinners begin “seeking God without the Word” they naturally “stagger about in vanity and error” (74). The Samaritans had taken their hands off the Word, were blind and now lost in the labyrinth.

So everyone who has a bible can see the spiritual realities clearly? Well, no. Before sinners put their entire trust in the message of the bible, they must first be convinced Scripture is the ‘real deal.’ So how do we convince other blind, truth-suppressing sinners to leave their own religious opinions and cling to the bible as God’s one revelation of Himself? Rational proofs? Arguments? Debates? What we will see next time is perhaps the most stunning truth I’ve ever learned from Calvin…

Calvinistic meditations …

1. Nothing cautions us of our own spiritual blindness more than Humble Calvinism. We miss God in creation every day! So how can we become prideful in our knowledge of Scripture? Why would I ever think that running a church or preaching a sermon without clinging to Scripture will lead through the labyrinth? How can we let go of the thread and think human opinion will guide the way? Scripture reminds us to be cautious of our own hearts because they are naturally inclined towards errors and false religions. The thread of God’s Word leads the way, but it also prevents empty speculation and the impulse to find a better route. (Occasionally you may find it helpful to smack yourself in the forehead with a bible to be reminded of this.)

2. Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman reminds us to beware of theological reductionism. Theological reductionism is one of the most rampant problems in contemporary Christianity. It’s not merely that gross errors abound. Many churches believe in the Trinity and seven-day Creationism and the importance of Jesus. Theological reductionism concerned with what is missing, of churches building their theology and methods off only part of Scripture. So churches now will call people to come to Jesus but not talk about sin and hell and guilt to drive them His way. People get saved from something other than God’s wrath. Other churches will talk about Jesus but not the substitutionary atonement whereby He bears my wrath and I get the grace. Both are common examples of contemporary theological reductionism. Jesus reminds the Samaritan woman that even to build a church upon part of the truth is to take both hands off the thread. So it’s no surprise that churches who struggle with theological reductionism will not place a high priority on lengthy expositions through Scripture nor doctrinal precision.

It’s important to note that John Calvin wrote the Institutes to complement his extensive expositional studies through the bible. Look to the commentaries if you want the specific details on Calvin’s systematic conclusions. Letting the full range of Scripture determine your beliefs is an excellent model for all Christians and pastors. Summarize your faith but be ready to defend its Scriptural basis as well.
Bottom line: We must never rest ourselves in vague talk about church, Jesus and Heaven lest we likewise worship in “ignorance.” Don’t be convinced a church is truly Christian just because they use the same words and terms as the bible. Search out their gospel, their savior and their hell. And if you are a pastor, make it your top aim to always be pushing yourself and your church as deep into Scripture as God allows.

3. Prepare for a long road of biblical growth. God’s special revelation is lengthy and filled with many details. God clearly did not intend it to be read in a weekend. It will take your entire lifetime and hundreds of sermons to work through. Humble Calvinism is a call to life-long, patient growth. Put both hands on the thread of Scripture. You won’t run fast, but you’ll walk securely. Resist the temptation to live faster than you can hold on to Scripture. If books encourage you to grow your church without slowly disclosing the whole counsel of God, you can be certain its author, having lost the thread, now runs ignorantly through the dark caves.

Never! Never! Never, let go of the thread! It’s your only hope into the presence of God!

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