6. While knowledge of God is available in creation, anyone who would come to know him needs Scripture to guide and instruct them.
- Nature alone isn’t enough to direct us rightly to the Creator. We need Scripture to direct us to right and sound doctrine.
- Apart from Scripture, we fall into error.
- Creator and sustainer of heaven and earth, all of your works declare your glory, but I am blinded to it by my sin. ---- - Thank you for the grace that you have shown me in giving us Scripture so that I might truly know you. Help me to delight in your word because it shows me you.
7. Scripture’s authority comes through its speaker, not its hearers.
- The truth of Scripture doesn’t depend on the decision of humans.
- Scripture teaches (Eph. 2:20) that the church is built upon the Word.
- The truth of Scripture is dependent on believing that God is its author. Reason won’t convince us of the truth; it requires the testimony of the Spirit. The same Spirit that spoke the words must illumine us to their truth.
- "By this power we are drawn and inflamed, knowingly and willingly, to obey him, yet also more vitally and more effectively than by mere human willing of knowing!"
- God who spoke long ago by prophets and apostles, thank you for your word. Thank you that its truth is something that lies entirely outside of me, and thank you for revealing its truth to me by your Spirit. Remind me and all your church that we are under your Word. Draw and inflame hearts to its beautiful testimony. Increase our love for your word and by your Spirit speak your Word to every tribe, tongue, and nation.
- Because I need a reminder every now and then of the TREASURE of the Word, I thought I’d share a video I’ve watched repeatedly that speaks to my heart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9dpmp_-TY0
8. Human reason gives proofs of Scripture’s credibility – believing in Scripture’s truth isn’t illogical or a “blind leap of faith”. (I’m summarizing Calvin’s thoughts on this – not offering my own)
- All the parts of Scripture are united in a wisdom that expresses divine mystery in simple human language. Other writing might affect us, but only Scripture is powerful enough to transform us.
- The content of Scripture is beyond human conception, whether the style is eloquent (like Isaiah) or unrefined (like Amos).
- The narrative of Scripture doesn’t idealize the characters, instead it reveals messy and broken people.
- The Word of God was confirmed by miracles e.g. Moses published all the events of the exodus to eyewitnesses.
- The prophecies spoken of in Scripture are fulfilled in surprising ways.
- Scripture tells us that the law of God was preserved in spite of human negligence.
- God has preserved his Word through the ages. Even as some worked to destroy it, others gave their lives to transmit it.
- The Spirit used multiple, ordinary men (and one even who was previously a murderous enemy) to witness to the gospel
- The church has trusted its authority throughout the ages, even though the world and evil one conspired to destroy it.
- Scripture’s authority is confirmed in the blood of martyrs.
- All the proof in the world won’t convince an unbeliever that Scripture is the Word of God, that will only come as a result of faith that is generated by the Spirit.
- Heavenly Father, thank you that in your infinite wisdom you gave us your Word and that you’ve preserved it by your providence. Thank you that you call us, not to an unthinking leap of faith, but to a faith that loves you with our minds. Thank you for the gift of faith that causes me to trust that your Word is true. Forgive me for wandering from your truth, breaking your commandments, distorting your teaching to serve my own ends, and failing to trust your promises. Help me to love your Word and transform me by it.
9. Word AND Spirit
-The Spirit doesn’t lead us away from Scripture to new kinds of revelation and doctrine, but seals our minds with the truth of Scripture.
- We recognize the Holy Spirit by his agreement with Scripture. Since the Spirit is the author of Scripture, he is as he has revealed himself there.
- The same Spirit who spoke the Word efficaciously confirms it.
- Heavenly Father, thank you for revealing yourself and your work through Word and Spirit. Thank you for sending the Spirit to lead us into all truth. Make me a careful student of your Word, who tests the spirits by the truth that the Holy Spirit has revealed therein. Guard your church by Word and Spirit against false doctrine and deceitful schemes. Keep us firmly rooted in doctrine that agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
January's Reflections on Calvin's Institutes
So I'm reading Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion this year. One month in to this project, I can say decisively that this stuff is an absolute treasure. His writing is warmly devotional and not too difficult (I do have days or portions that I need to read a couple of times). Each week I read a chapter, take some notes, and respond with a short prayer. I'll post a month's worth of my notes at a time.
1. To know God, I must know myself & to know myself, I must know God –
- Wisdom (knowledge + practice) is rooted in knowing God and ourselves. This connection is established in creation– we are made in his image- to rightly know ourselves, we’ve always needed to know him
- This knowledge is complicated by the fall – our image is marred and we can’t come to wisdom apart from his revelation
- The two parts of this knowledge go hand-in-hand. I need to know that I am sinful, needy, foolish so that I might seek him. AND I need to know him in his splendour, majesty and holiness that I might not measure myself by merely a horizontal comparison and fail to come to an accurate assessment of myself and my need of him.
- Heavenly Father, my wisdom is so little. I confess that I don’t know you as I should, so I also don’t know myself. I confess that I measure my righteousness by that of my neighbours, leading me consistently to pride and self-righteousness. I think myself wise and strong, independent of you, my Creator. Because I fail to acknowledge your true nature, I am deceived about my own. Sadly, too often I prefer my ignorant darkness to your humbling, fear-inducing beauty. I am one who knows the truth and yet suppresses it. Forgive me because of Christ’s work on my behalf and shine the light of truth into my darkness.
2. Piety (reverence + love) and trust are requisite in knowing God (as Creator)
- It’s not possible to truly know God without loving, revering, and trusting him.
- apart from Christ there is no favourable knowledge of God – therefore Scripture is the only way to rightly know the Creator
- Through Creation (with Scripture) we come to know that God founded and sustains the universe by his might, regulates it by his wisdom, preserves it by his goodness, and rules it (including us) by his righteousness and judgment, bears with it in his mercy, watches over it by his protection, and no wisdom; power; or truth exists apart from him THEREFORE humanity owes everything to Him. Until we acknowledge this we won’t give ourselves truly to him.
- Knowing God isn’t a philosophical exercise, it is a personal one. As part of his creation, knowing him should generate both reverence and trust as we recognize him as the source of every good.
- Knowing God isn’t dreaming up any god we please, but contemplating the one and only true God and responding with reverence and trust - it submits to his authority, seeks his help, rests in his goodness, advances his glory, and restrains its sin. *** “Even if there were no hell, it would still shudder at offending him alone.”
- Oh Lord, how little my mind conceives of your majesty. The stunning beauty of your revelation in creation alone is enough to cause me to bow down in worship. You are a God who wants to reveal yourself to your creatures and I praise you for all that you’ve shown me. Your goodness, wisdom, righteousness, justice, truth, and power are all evident through the world around me. Forgive me for not seeing, for my feeble responses, for shallow and half-hearted reverence, love, and trust. Help me to know you more that I might worship you rightly.
3. All men know God.
- All men know God enough to be condemned, so all hide from him just as our first parent’s did.
- Every isolated civilization knows there is a god, even if in ignorance they worship a false one. Every impious person knows there is a god, even if in fear they try to hide it from themselves. Humanity tries by every means possible to destroy their knowledge of God and corrupt their worship of him.
- We were made with the purpose of knowing God.
- Heavenly Father, apart from your intervention I would stand condemned. Thank you for opening my eyes. I confess that even now, even though I know you to be the Only True and Living God, I worship false gods – reputation, comfort, pleasure- and all too often hide from you in fear when I’ve done wrong. Forgive me and renew my delight in you. Help me to pursue knowing you with everything I am and all that I have.
4. The knowledge is either corrupted or smothered – partly by ignorance, partly by malice.
- Humanity does not receive God as he offers himself but imagines him as they’ve invent/dream him to be – it is a vain curiosity that drives them not an ordinate desire to know him.
- Humanity, hardened by habitual sin, repels any and all remembrance of God and his true character. They blind themselves from any knowledge of him.
- There is no true religion without a commitment to truth – it must conform what God says about himself and how he is to be worshiped.
- Fear-driven motions of religion without repentance is a corruption of the knowledge of God.
- Father even though I know you my sinful flesh still wants to suppress that knowledge. I confess to you that my ignorance of your character is rooted in nothing less that my laziness and my vain religious motions are desires to manipulate you into giving me your gifts or impress others with my displays. Your word says that you desire worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth. Purify my heart, oh God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Thank you for mercy, so undeserved and so free.
5. Knowledge of God is evident in both his creating and governing the universe.
- Humans are the highest evidence of a wise creator.
- God reveals himself through creation but few see his glory revealed in it.
- We ought to seek God, not in our own minds, but instead by contemplating him in his works.
- This knowledge must affect us – bringing us to worship and awakening and encouraging us to the hope of the future life. The works of his providence and judgement in creation are pointing to even greater things. We need to study his work and then contemplate how his characteristics of power, mercy, goodness and wisdom are shown to us.
- Yet how infrequently when we gaze upon creation do we remember our creator?
- Each man decides for himself what god is and always comes out wrong. We need God to reveal himself.
- Nature speaks to us in vain, and we are left with no excuse. Although creation displays his glory, it cannot lead us in the right path. The problem is not in the one who reveals himself through creation, but in us, the creatures who ignore and corrupt the knowledge of our Creator.
- In the rain that falls, I see your abundant provision O God. In the fact that it falls on the righteous and the unrighteous, I see your justice for therein is the promise of a day that judgement will be divide but I also perceive the wideness of your mercy in withholding punishment. In the timing of the shower and the grand design of the hydrological cycle, I see your wisdom. In the droplets running together to form rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans, I see your majestic power. You, O Lord, are worthy of all worship. How small and inconsistently I see the glory you reveal in the world you made. Forgive my blindness, my deafness, my feebleness of mind through Jesus and in your grace transform my faculties that I may behold you with greater clarity.
1. To know God, I must know myself & to know myself, I must know God –
- Wisdom (knowledge + practice) is rooted in knowing God and ourselves. This connection is established in creation– we are made in his image- to rightly know ourselves, we’ve always needed to know him
- This knowledge is complicated by the fall – our image is marred and we can’t come to wisdom apart from his revelation
- The two parts of this knowledge go hand-in-hand. I need to know that I am sinful, needy, foolish so that I might seek him. AND I need to know him in his splendour, majesty and holiness that I might not measure myself by merely a horizontal comparison and fail to come to an accurate assessment of myself and my need of him.
- Heavenly Father, my wisdom is so little. I confess that I don’t know you as I should, so I also don’t know myself. I confess that I measure my righteousness by that of my neighbours, leading me consistently to pride and self-righteousness. I think myself wise and strong, independent of you, my Creator. Because I fail to acknowledge your true nature, I am deceived about my own. Sadly, too often I prefer my ignorant darkness to your humbling, fear-inducing beauty. I am one who knows the truth and yet suppresses it. Forgive me because of Christ’s work on my behalf and shine the light of truth into my darkness.
2. Piety (reverence + love) and trust are requisite in knowing God (as Creator)
- It’s not possible to truly know God without loving, revering, and trusting him.
- apart from Christ there is no favourable knowledge of God – therefore Scripture is the only way to rightly know the Creator
- Through Creation (with Scripture) we come to know that God founded and sustains the universe by his might, regulates it by his wisdom, preserves it by his goodness, and rules it (including us) by his righteousness and judgment, bears with it in his mercy, watches over it by his protection, and no wisdom; power; or truth exists apart from him THEREFORE humanity owes everything to Him. Until we acknowledge this we won’t give ourselves truly to him.
- Knowing God isn’t a philosophical exercise, it is a personal one. As part of his creation, knowing him should generate both reverence and trust as we recognize him as the source of every good.
- Knowing God isn’t dreaming up any god we please, but contemplating the one and only true God and responding with reverence and trust - it submits to his authority, seeks his help, rests in his goodness, advances his glory, and restrains its sin. *** “Even if there were no hell, it would still shudder at offending him alone.”
- Oh Lord, how little my mind conceives of your majesty. The stunning beauty of your revelation in creation alone is enough to cause me to bow down in worship. You are a God who wants to reveal yourself to your creatures and I praise you for all that you’ve shown me. Your goodness, wisdom, righteousness, justice, truth, and power are all evident through the world around me. Forgive me for not seeing, for my feeble responses, for shallow and half-hearted reverence, love, and trust. Help me to know you more that I might worship you rightly.
3. All men know God.
- All men know God enough to be condemned, so all hide from him just as our first parent’s did.
- Every isolated civilization knows there is a god, even if in ignorance they worship a false one. Every impious person knows there is a god, even if in fear they try to hide it from themselves. Humanity tries by every means possible to destroy their knowledge of God and corrupt their worship of him.
- We were made with the purpose of knowing God.
- Heavenly Father, apart from your intervention I would stand condemned. Thank you for opening my eyes. I confess that even now, even though I know you to be the Only True and Living God, I worship false gods – reputation, comfort, pleasure- and all too often hide from you in fear when I’ve done wrong. Forgive me and renew my delight in you. Help me to pursue knowing you with everything I am and all that I have.
4. The knowledge is either corrupted or smothered – partly by ignorance, partly by malice.
- Humanity does not receive God as he offers himself but imagines him as they’ve invent/dream him to be – it is a vain curiosity that drives them not an ordinate desire to know him.
- Humanity, hardened by habitual sin, repels any and all remembrance of God and his true character. They blind themselves from any knowledge of him.
- There is no true religion without a commitment to truth – it must conform what God says about himself and how he is to be worshiped.
- Fear-driven motions of religion without repentance is a corruption of the knowledge of God.
- Father even though I know you my sinful flesh still wants to suppress that knowledge. I confess to you that my ignorance of your character is rooted in nothing less that my laziness and my vain religious motions are desires to manipulate you into giving me your gifts or impress others with my displays. Your word says that you desire worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth. Purify my heart, oh God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Thank you for mercy, so undeserved and so free.
5. Knowledge of God is evident in both his creating and governing the universe.
- Humans are the highest evidence of a wise creator.
- God reveals himself through creation but few see his glory revealed in it.
- We ought to seek God, not in our own minds, but instead by contemplating him in his works.
- This knowledge must affect us – bringing us to worship and awakening and encouraging us to the hope of the future life. The works of his providence and judgement in creation are pointing to even greater things. We need to study his work and then contemplate how his characteristics of power, mercy, goodness and wisdom are shown to us.
- Yet how infrequently when we gaze upon creation do we remember our creator?
- Each man decides for himself what god is and always comes out wrong. We need God to reveal himself.
- Nature speaks to us in vain, and we are left with no excuse. Although creation displays his glory, it cannot lead us in the right path. The problem is not in the one who reveals himself through creation, but in us, the creatures who ignore and corrupt the knowledge of our Creator.
- In the rain that falls, I see your abundant provision O God. In the fact that it falls on the righteous and the unrighteous, I see your justice for therein is the promise of a day that judgement will be divide but I also perceive the wideness of your mercy in withholding punishment. In the timing of the shower and the grand design of the hydrological cycle, I see your wisdom. In the droplets running together to form rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans, I see your majestic power. You, O Lord, are worthy of all worship. How small and inconsistently I see the glory you reveal in the world you made. Forgive my blindness, my deafness, my feebleness of mind through Jesus and in your grace transform my faculties that I may behold you with greater clarity.
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