Calvin’s Institutes: We can do nothing for our salvation, Jesus did it all.

We continue with Calvin’s Institutes in this entry.  Reading this section I was encouraged in the glory of God and my walk with the Lord.  In Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Frodo and his team come to Tom Bombadil’s house.  It’s a place of happiness, rest, good food, and song.  Frodo and company needed it on their journey.  Calvin’s Institutes is like Tom’s house.  Tom directed the Hobbits to the beauty and blessings of life…Calvin with the Scriptures tells us of the beauty and blessings of God.

 Book 3, chapter 14 of the Institutes. It is truly rich. 

Is there any kind of righteousness possible with mankind?  Calvin answers this question in this chapter. The answer is yes!  Man the sinner can be righteous, but not of himself.  To understand this, Calvin gives a four-fold classification of man.  I am dealing with the first classification below.

1.         The first class, when judged according to their works are found absolutely empty and dead to any righteousness.  Every man when he is born is born in this state of depravity. [Jer. 17:9; Ps. 94:11; Ex. 20:20; Ps. 14:2; Gen 6:3; Gal 5:19-21]

2.         But what about their moral upright behavior?  These so called good works are gifts of God.  As Calvin writes, AAll these virtuesBor rather, images of virtuesBare gifts of God, since nothing is in any way praiseworthy that does not come from him.@  (Pg., 770)

3.         Without faith in Christ, and without Christ in the life, all these shadows of good works performed by wicked men are not holy at all.  AThose who have no part in Christ, whatever they may be, whatever they may do or undertake, yet hasten all their lives to destruction and to the judgment of eternal death.@  (Pg., 771)

4.         If we put the grace of God up against our natural condition, our depravity is even more clearly seen.  When God=s Spirit comes and illumines our hearts to who we are and who God is we realize that we are nothing.  This is the grace of regeneration, bringing dead sinners to life. [John 5:25; 2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:4-5; Rom 4:17]

5.         Hence it is obvious.  Salvation is by grace alone, not by our works.  AFor, as we have by nature been created, oil will sooner bye pressed from a stone that any good work from us... Let us therefore admit, with this very great instrument of God, that the Lord Acalled us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and ...grace@ [II Tim. 1:9p.],@ (Pg., 772)

6.         Man the sinner has nothing and can do nothing to attribute to salvation.  He is depraved and therefore without any ability to do anything to save himself. [Isa. 59:15-16; Rom 5:10; Col 1:21; 1 John 4:10] [Rom.13:10ff; Eph. 2:1-3; Rom 8:7-8; etc.]

7.         God, through Christ and by the Spirit, does it all.  His love for us is not awakened by our works.  No, our salvation depends entirely upon His mercy.  AWe are not cleansed and washed of our uncleanness by Christ=s blood except when the Spirit works that cleansing in us [I Cor. 6:11].@  (Pg., 773) (Phil.1:29)

 

Calvin’s Institutes: Two truths in justification impel us to glorify God.

In this entry I am writing on Calvin’s Institutes Book 3, chapter 13.

In justification there are two truths which bring all believers to proclaim the glory of God.  (1) God’s glory and righteousness is what is loved, not human righteousness.  (2) The justified are at peace in the presence of God. These two points are summarized below.

1.         First of all the apostle “testifies that the Lord’s purpose in bestowing righteousness upon us in Christ was to show us His own righteousness.”  (Pg., 763).  

·         Believers glory in the righteousness of God because it is the only true righteousness.  All our righteousness is in Christ.  As Bernard so beautifully writes, “The Lord’s compassion is my merit.  Obviously, I am not devoid of merit so long as he is not devoid of compassion.  But if the mercies of the Lord abound, then equally do I abound in merits.  Shall I sing my own righteous acts?  O Lord, I shall remember they righteousness only, for it is also mine.  Namely, he was made righteousness for me by God.” (Pg., 757)

·         To put it another way, God will not give his glory to any other.  (Is 48:11)  God will finally cause every sinner to recognize his own wickedness (Rom. 3:19; Ezek.20:43-44) for the express reason that nothing will be detracted from the pure glory of God.  Calvin is right when he says, “We never truly glory in him unless we have utterly put off our own glory.  On the other hand, we must hold this as a universal principle: whoever glories in himself, glories against God.”  (Pg., 764)

      

·         Calvin sums up this first point by reminding “That the praise of righteousness remain perfect and whole in the Lord’s possession, since it was to manifest his own righteousness that - as the apostle attests - he poured out his grace upon us so that he himself may be righteous, and the justifier of him who has faith in Christ.” (pg., 764) (Rom 3:26; Eph. 1:6; 2:8-9; 1 Peter 2:9)

2.         Secondly, the imputed righteousness of Christ gives peace to the soul.  If we were to look at our own righteousness we would have no peace, because we are found to have no righteousness.

·         Jesus is the King of Peace (Isa. 9:6).  Due to the provision of His righteousness, which God imputes to the elect sinner, peace comes to the heart of the believer.  How is this so?  Well, the believer has a place to rest, a surety and confidence that he possesses righteousness - not his own but Christ’s.  Hence, despair of righteousness is vanquished.

·         This justification which takes place because Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the sinner is received by faith alone.  Faith is that passive activity which brings the King of Peace to the heart.  Even this very faith is His gift of peace.

·         Calvin wrote.  “Therefore, we must come to this remedy: that believers should be convinced that their only ground of hope for the inheritance of a Heavenly Kingdom lies in the fact that, being engrafted in the body of Christ, they are freely accounted righteous.”  (Pg., 768)

Those who know God’s righteousness because God has shown it to them through Jesus Christ by the revealing and regenerating power of the Holy Spirit have joy now and will have it for all eternity.  God has been faithful to his word to bestow forgiveness and love to all his people – even though they did not deserve or earn it.  In this righteousness of God, God gives us the peace that surpasses all understanding.  Namely, that God is not longer angry with us due to our sin.  Without Christ sinners are justly under his wrath.  However, in being faithful to his promise to forgive the sin of his people he also made peace with his people.  See Romans 5.

Excerpts from Bavink's Reformed Dogmatics vol.2: We can truly know God.

It is so encouraging to realize that God is infinite.  He is not like us humans, finite and limited.  So he is completely trustworthy and able to care for his creation.  What is also encouraging is though he is infinite and we cannot therefore never know God in the fullness of his awesome perfection, we can still know truly know him and fellowship with him.  In grace he reveals himself to us.  This is gospel.  Bavink explained it this way…

God Almighty is truly incomprehensible.  "The distance between God and us is the gulf between the Infinite and the finite, between eternity and time, between being and becoming, between the All and the nothing" (Page 30).  Yes, he is infinitely exalted above us and we will never know the fullness of the glory of God.  However, this does not mean we cannot truly know God.  Scripture teaches the incomprehensibility of God... "His ways are past finding out" (Is 40:13; 1 Cor 2:16).  However, the bible also sets "forth a doctrine of God that fully upholds his knowability...In Scripture the knowability of God is never in doubt even for a moment (Is 40:26; acts 14:27; Rom 1:19-20; Jn 17:3; 20:31).  The purpose of God's revelation, according to Scripture, is precisely that human beings may know God and so receive eternal life" (Page 30).

Calvin’s Institutes: Justification and humility.

The Bible says, “Pride breeds quarrels.” (Prov 13:10).  Our pride makes us quarrel with God.  Mankind in his sinful fallen nature hates God and is always at enmity with him.  For this to be corrected God must justify (make right) man the sinner. 

When God justifies a man or woman, they will be humbled and experience the blessing of humility.  Calvin explains this in his Institutes Book 3, chapter 12.  I have summarized this chapter in the points below.

1.         Man needs no justification if he merely compares his morality and so called virtue with other men.  However, when man’s state is brought before the holy bar of God, mankind’s justification is of greatest necessity.

2.         The problem with fallen man is that they love to hide themselves from what they hate.  In other words they love to hide in their self righteousness while hating the holiness of God’s Person and Word.

3.         If we would know true justification we must expose our minds to true righteousness.  Calvin wrote: “Awe must apply our mind if we would profitably inquire concerning true righteousness: How shall we reply to the Heavenly Judge when he calls us to account?  Let us envisage for ourselves that Judge, not as our minds naturally imagine him, but as he is depicted for us in Scripture.”  (Pg., 755) Look up these passages: Job 9:5-6; 5:13; 25:5; 4:18; 9:20; Deut. 32:22; Job 26:6).  It is this holy God who judges the deeds of men by His law.  (Is. 33:14-15; Job 4:17-20; 15:15-16; Gal. 3:10; Deut 27:26)

4.         Before God, man the sinner is found empty of all righteousness; but he is blind to this.  Only the grace of God will make the sinner see himself for who he really is and who God really is. The Bible tells us this many times.  Look up Prov 12:2; 16:2; Job 25:6; 15:6; 14:4; 9:20; Is 53:6; 1 Peter 5:5; Eph 2:8-10; James 4:6.

            So the proud sinner must humble himself before God.  The sinner must be humble about himself and about his so called good works.  As Calvin writes, we cannot be humble “without immediately trampling upon whatever seems glorious in us.”  (Pg., 760)

5.         Humility has two parts according to Calvin.  (1) Salvation will never come unless, by God’s grace “we have laid aside all pride and taken upon ourselves perfect humility.” (Pg., 760)  (2) Humility is “an unfeigned submission of our heart, stricken down in earnest with an awareness of its own misery and want, For so it is everywhere described by the Word of God.”  (Pg., 760) (Zeph. 3:11-12; Isa 66:2; 57:15)

            The Pharisee loved to hide in his self righteousness while hating the humility of the publican.  On the other hand, the publican hated his sin and loved to hide in the righteousness of God.  (Lk. 18:11-14)

6.         Calvin correctly wrote, “We will never have enough confidence in him unless we become deeply distrustful of ourselves; we will never lift up our hearts enough in him unless they be previously cast down in us; we will never have consolation enough in him unless we have already experienced desolation in ourselves.”  (Pg., 762)

7.         We have no merits at all.  All our merit is found in the merit of Christ.  “Therefore we are ready to seize and grasp God’s grace when we have utterly cast out confidence in ourselves and rely only on the assurance of his goodness ‘when”, as Augustine says, ‘forgetting our own merits, we embrace Christ’s gifts.’” (Pg., 762)