We’ve studied Book I of Calvin’s Institutes in which Calvin focused on the knowledge of God; theology proper as theologians say. Calvin discussed God as Creator, God as Triune, and God’s divine providence. “God is the ruler and governor of all things, who in accordance with his wisdom has from the farthest limit of eternity decreed what he was going to do, and now by his might carries out what he has decreed” (Pg., 207).
Today we begin with the topics Calvin discusses in Book II, in relation to the knowledge of God the Redeemer in Jesus Christ. He begins by explaining the doctrine of man and sin. Before he gives us the good news of the gospel, he shows us the bad news of our sin. I find it amazing that the sin in us and in the world is a gate to let in the abundant goodness of God. And actually the whole story of the Bible exalts the Lord Jesus Christ in a fallen world where his redemption shines brilliantly in the midst of darkness. A darkness that God has conquered through his Son, even as he first conquered the darkness and void before creation through his Son.
Let’s begin. Here is the summary of Book II, Chapter 1.
1. A proper knowledge of ourselves is most valuable and essential for true living.
At the beginning of his Institutes Calvin asserted the necessity of a knowledge of God and a knowledge of man. As to which one is necessary to know first, Calvin chose the knowledge of God. The second necessity is the knowledge of man. “God’s truth, therefore, agrees with the common judgement of all mortals that the second part of wisdom consists in the knowledge of ourselves” (Pg., 243).
2. A true knowledge of self, “Will strip us of all confidence in our own ability, deprive us of all occasion for boasting, and lead us to submission” (Pg., 242).
3. For this to occur in our present condition we ought to realize that our original state in Adam reveals the nature of man’s duty to God; namely divine worship & enjoyment of God. But also that and our present corruption reveals our deadness to God and to that duty.
4. What is this thing called sin which destroyed our original joy and righteousness?
5. It started with pride, said Augustine. Its root was unfaithfulness, says Calvin.
6. I think they are both inseparably involved like light is to seeing or sound to hearing. “Adam would never have dared oppose God’s authority unless he had disbelieved in God’s Word.....thereafter ambition and pride, together with ungratefulness, arose, because Adam by seeking more than was granted him shamefully spurned God’s great bounty” (Pg., 246-45).
7. In Adam all have sinned and now are by nature children of wrath. [Rom 5:12-21; Eph 2:3; Jn 3:6] It is not a derived wickedness received from culture or example. No, “we have descended from impure seed, are born infected with the contagion of sin. In fact, before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God’s sight” (Pg., 248). [Ps 51; Job 14:1-5]
8. This is called the doctrine of original sin. Calvin defines it as, “A hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God’s wrath, than also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls ‘works of the flesh’ [Gal 5:19]” (Pg., 251).
9. Because of original sin we are corrupt and therefore, justly condemned and guilty before God. Because of original sin the perversity inherent to our depraved nature never ceases. The only hope is God’s mercy.
10. Eccl 7:29. Calvin was right when he said, “Man’s ruin is to be ascribed to man alone; for he, having acquired righteousness by God’s kindness, has by his own folly sunk into vanity” (Pg., 254).
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