Peace and faith go together. We don’t often think of faith as the way to peace. Knowledge, science, medicine, politics or technologies are the keys to peace, we think. However, faith or trust in the word and will of God brings true peace. Here are Calvin’s thoughts on the relationship between faith and peace.
I should remind my readers that I am using the John T. McNeill edition of Calvin’s Institutes found in The Library of Christian Classics. The summary below covers pages 561-66.
1. Faith and inward peace. From Scripture's testimony we realize that true faith brings and grows the fruit of peace. Actually, peace is a part of faith, due to faith's embracing the gospel. [Rom. 5:1]
2. Calvin says that the "hinge on which faith turns is that a person individually embraces God's promises of mercy. Hence, at last is born that confidence which Paul elsewhere calls 'peace'"(Pg., 561).
3. Yet it must be remembered, as Calvin reminds us, that this faith can be, and is assailed by temptations of the mind and our own conflict with unbelief. But Calvin quickly adds, "we deny that, in whatever way they are afflicted, they fall away and depart from the certain assurance received from God's mercy"(Pg., 562).
4. David is an example of persevering faith. (See, Pg. 563) "So David, even when he might have seemed overwhelmed, in rebuking himself did not cease to rise up to God. He who, struggling with his own weakness, presses toward faith in his moments of anxiety is already in large part victorious"(Pg., 563).
5. From David's life, from the life of other saints in the Bible and our own life we understand that there is a conflict between faith and unbelief. Why? Calvin gives 2 reasons.
a. The division between flesh and spirit.
b. The godly heart feels itself divided between a love for God's goodness and hatred of our own sin, a restful reliance upon God's promises and an awareness of our "restless reliance," and a great expectation of eternal life, and fear of death.
6. However, Calvin is quick to remind us that, "the end of the conflict is always this: that faith ultimately triumphs over those difficulties which besiege and seem to imperil it" (Pg., 564).
7. Weak faith however is still real faith; hence faith is weak and strong at times. [1 Cor. 13:9-12] For the weakness to be cured and faith to be strengthened "we must constantly keep at learning," from the Scriptures (Pg., 565).
8. The Scripture fortifies faith. "The Word, which is an incorruptible seed, brings forth fruit like itself, whose fertility never wholly dries up and dies" (Pg. 567).
9. "Holy fear" also strengthens faith and peace. [1 Cor. 10:11, Ps 5:7, Phil 2:12-13] Calvin explains how this occurs. "This happens when believers, considering that the examples of divine wrath are executed upon the ungodly as warnings to them, take special care not to provoke God=s wrath against them by the same offences; or, when inwardly contemplating their own misery, learn to depend wholly upon the Lord, without whom they see themselves more unstable and fleeting than any wind" (Pg., 568).
10. Faith and peace live together. [Ps. 23:4] We must be "content with this certainty: that, however many things fail us that have to do with the maintenance of this life, God will never fail. Rather, the chief assurance of faith rests in the expectation of the life to come, which has been placed beyond doubt through the Word of God. Yet whatever earthly miseries and calamities await those whom God has embraced in his love, these cannot hinder his benevolence from being their full happiness" (Pg., 574).
No comments:
Post a Comment