This week we will complete Sec. 9 of Ch 3, and begin Sec.s 10-11, the final sections of Ch 3 on Self-Denial and the Cross.
Calvin’s own heading for these final three Sections (as translated by Beveridge) are as follows:
9. A description of this conflict. Opposed to the vanity of the Stoics.
Illustrated by the authority and example of Christ.10. Proved by the testimony and uniform experience of the elect.
Also by the special example of the Apostle Peter.
The nature of the patience required of us.11. Distinction between the patience of Christians and philosophers.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, pp. 273–274). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
The latter pretend a necessity which cannot be resisted.
The former hold forth the justice of God and his care of our safety.
A full exposition of this difference.
The Scriptures cited by Calvin in these Sections are as follows:
Deeper Dive on “Endurance”
As discussed in Week #12, the latin Word D&P has translated as “endurance” is “moderatio.” (And from such word, Beveridge gives us the translation “moderation”). However, “moderation” conveys a different mean in our language today than was meant by Calvin and taught in the Scriptures. The root idea of “moderation” is “self control” and the obvious connection is to “self-denial,” the subject of Calvin’s Ch 2 and 3, and here specifically with respect to what can be perceived as unjust adversity.
Unjust Adversity
At some point we have recognized, or if not yet we need to recognize, that the God to which we are called is sovereignly in control of all events, and can bestow riches and honors beyond measure, like the seven great grain harvests of Egypt in that first period of plenty (and the seven barren ones that followed…both came from the Providential Hand of God for His greater purpose than just food). And, we know, or have to know, that we are beloved by God beyond all measure even to the clearest of all possible evidences, namely the death of Jesus Christ in our place, taking on our the full judgment and wrath of the Father against sin, eternally and irreversibly so, and thus imputing to us the very righteousness of Christ Himself, the Eternal God-Son.
We then might logically anticipate the ‘garden’ like blessing of prosperity and ease of Adam (and Eve) himself would be our life experience. Or, at worst, we would have a life without major sorrows or difficulty. But, as the Scriptures make clear, and is Calvin’s recurring focus in these twin chapters (2 and 3), we should anticipate that our experience in the spacetime, here and now, will be filled with all manner of adversity. (A simple exercise is to take a red pencil and underline every word that Calvin uses that speaks in some form of such adversity as to be expected as our experience). How can this make sense, be just? We can reasonably expect that not only the opposite should be true for us but all this foretold adversity should, as we think of these matters, be the full and sole experience being God’s enemies not His children.
So, when our experience conflicts with our reason (as just given above), we have a troubled mind. Has this all been false? Is God getting even with us for our imperfections (and worse)? Is God really not Sovereign, powerful? Is He not loving? Is He so transcendent from us and even all of spacetime, like an artist who painted a great work, or turned on some incomprehensibly massive machine, and left for other business intending to return at some future eon of time? How does our experiences and particularly those worse of the worse ones that we learn of that affect fellow believers in Christ cohere with the doctrines of Scripture?
The Mysteries of the Man Named Job
Likely the oldest book in the Bible, and even in humankind, is the Book of Job. Job’s story is very familiar to almost everyone. What is not fully appreciated is that even at the conclusion of the book, where God Himself enters the story with a very long narrative, there is no final explanation of why this all had to happen to Job.
One of the central teachings of Job, then, is that God is indeed Sovereign, but not accountable to explain all (or any) of His purposes, even to the one most-directly affected, Job himself. One thing Job learned is that for some things it not his place to ask of God an explanation. God is not ‘in the dock’ of our tribunal. However, many of us as readers of Job, or the Bible as a whole, do not come away with such understanding and humility.
Calvin’s Summation of Our Proper Response to the Experiences of the Cross
Quoting from the Beveridge translation of the closing paragraphs of Sec. 10 we have Calvin’s conclusion as to our proper “endurance” response. (In the D&P translation this quoted portion begins on the bottom half of p.81) .
It must therefore be our study, if we would be disciples of Christ,
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 282). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
to imbue our minds with such reverence and obedience to God
as may tame and subjugate all affections contrary to his appointment.
In this way, whatever be the kind of cross to which we are subjected,
we shall in the greatest straits firmly maintain our patience. Adversity will have its bitterness, and sting us.
When afflicted with disease, we shall groan and be disquieted, and long for health; pressed with poverty, we shall feel the stings of anxiety and sadness, feel the pain of ignominy, contempt, and injury, and pay the tears due to nature at the death of our friends: but our conclusion will always be, The Lord so willed it, therefore let us follow his will. Nay, amid the pungency of grief, among groans and tears, this thought will necessarily suggest itself, and incline us cheerfully to endure the things for which we are so afflicted.
Endurance is Not Passive
We have several English words that convey staying purposefully with or in a situation that one would not choose to experience. “Remain” is a weak such word. “Endurance” is stronger but carries with it a form of suffering passively. “Perseverance” is yet stronger because it is active, a doing of something, despite circumstances.
Hebrews 11 is sometimes called the “Faith Hall of Fame.” It is a brief summary bio of Old Testament followers of God. A common theme of all of them, as with all the many secular versions of a hall of fame, is determination in the face of adversity, commonly over the course of many years or even an entire lifetime. What is distinctive of Hebrews 11 is the undergirding “faith” is not, as with secular examples, a faith in oneself but, rather, in God Himself, often despite all experiential conditions.
Then when we get to Hebrews 12, The Holy Spirit turns the examples of Chapter 11 toward each of us, without exception. Consider the below passage:
12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In b you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the DISCIPLINE of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord DISCIPLINES the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”7 It is for DISCIPLINE that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without DISCIPLINE, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who DISCIPLINED us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they DISCIPLINED us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he DISCIPLINES us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all DISCIPLINE seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. (all highlighting is mine)
In the above passage I’ve highlighted by underlining the references to the reader (the “you” in the text), and by bold references to doing or being. Note further the many repetitions of the word “discipline” in its various forms.
As we have discussed in previous Calvin study weeks, the word “discipline” is the root of “disciple” and coveys the idea of learning, being developed, shaped, growing to a particular maturity. It does not, primarily, mean what is usually the first thought namely some for of punishment. Disciple involves correction but purposefully toward a difficult to achieve end. Using the discipline required of one’s hands in various contexts is instructive. Playing a musical instrument such as a piano, violin, guitar, drums, much attention from the very first lesson is about the positioning and movement of one’s hands, contrary to our natural inclinations. Such instruction (discipline) continues throughout all of one’s musical training as ever increasing refinement is required to achieve mastery of any particular instrument. Moving to sports examples, the same holds true for golf, especially that, but also basketball, football quarterbacks, and even football lineman on both offense and defense where hand ‘combat’ plays an important role.
Returning to Hebrews 12:1 we see the command that we are “to run with endurance the race that is set before us (literally, “laid out before us” as a road before our feet extending to some horizon). “Endurance” is not about being steadfast in position at that present point in that road. “Endurance” is about pressing on, going forward, and staying on the road, despite obstacles and even barriers on the road, and manifold tempting diversions on each side of the road, including the always-present temptation of making a U-turn and returning to some starting point.
Calvin’s Conclusion: Self-Denial & Taking Up The Cross
Self-denial is not our nature’s choosing, but the opposite. Taking up the (our) cross is even a more contrary-to-nature idea as it carries with it a lifetime permanence. And so, the requisite condition of “endurance” is not event-driven, but a life-condition. How can this be anything but somber news?
Why Endure?
If suffering in whatever forms is the presented issue, what then is man’s response?
- Denial? Denial can take many forms. An extreme version is that no suffering is real, so whatever appears so is an illusion. Another version is “The Prosperity Gospel:” such claims that suffering could not under any circumstances be ‘God’s will” for His followers, so if and as it exists one should and can remove it by following some recipe such as repentance and doing good works. Both of these versions, and everything in between, are lies.
- Stoicism? This is a special form of denial. The religious philosophy of stoicism does not deny adversity exists in all its manifestations–as St. Isidore (560-636 AD) said of Satan: “so many colors, so many dolors” (Lat. for pain, grief). Stoics, and those who have syncretized Stoicism with Christianity, say that adversity is real but suffering is not, because the will of self can overcome the ordinary human response by being impervious. (“Impervious” comes from Latin, combining “im” meaning “not,” with “pervious” meaning letting things pass through, i.e., permeable). This is as old as Buddhism, and reappears in many contexts such as Viktor Frankl’s writing of his Nazi prison camp experience during World War 2 wherein he differentiates liberty (which he did not have) and freedom (which he claimed for himself, as to his interior life). Stoicism has great appeal because, at least in part, it puts one in control of one’s environment, even in all its adversity. It’s ideal is to create for oneself an island sanctuary untouchable by the world’s tumult. Switching metaphors, Stoics are like submariners who are completely unconcerned with hurricanes and typhoons of the surface world, as those in row boats and sailing ships must be.
- Taking Up The Cross? This is the theme of Calvin’s chapter, based on the Scriptures, grasps the willing choice, which is an expressed preference of choosing the better, namely the yoke of the cross, over the lesser, and finding deep joy, but not in suffering itself, but in obedience and the companionship of Christ Himself.
Calvin’s Answer is “God’s Will”
If the answer from the Scriptures is it is God’s Will, then what is to be our reaction. Again, there are various possibilities:
- Anger at God, the upraised fist.
- Turning back away from God. This is the great warning in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and was the great example after the Exodus as the people longed (even) to return to Egypt, the place of their slavery.
- Resignation. The ‘oh well,’ ‘life stinks…and then you die,’ perspective often expressed in memes and on t-shirts.
- Demanding from God answers. Job was tested by Satan’s claim that with Job’s loss of prosperity he would even curse God to His face. Such claim was false, though a spirit arose in Job, prompted by the attack and reasoning of (1) his wife, (2) his three friends, and (3) the man-child Elihu, all backed by the thoughts of Satan himself to demand of God an explanation. Job did understand that God was Sovereign even in the adversity, and that such experience was not the result of sin as claimed by his friends and Elihu (though he did not claim a state of sinlessness). What Job lacked, and thought he deserved, was answers to “the why” questions. At the end of the book, God does appear directly to Job and makes clear that God is not in the dock of our tribunal. Man cannot know fully the full extent of God’s purposes, nor is it God’s Will to disclose areas of His secret Will. And, He does not disclose “the why” of why He does not disclose what He does not disclose. This is the aporia (cul-de-sac) of all the demands of Theodicy (the theology topic of the justice of God, or more particularly, seeking explanations for what appears to be the injustice(s) of God).
But Calvin gives us a totally different answer: “God forms us through affliction” (Sec. 3.11, D&P p.82). The difficult idea expressed by “forms us” in D&P’s translation, is expressed in alternative translations and by Calvin’s hand as below:
the hand of God tries us by means of affliction (Beveridge, 1845)
we are exercised with afflictions by the Divine hand (Allen, 1816)
the hand of God doth exercise us by afflictions (Norton, 1599)
estre exercitez de la main de Dieu par afflictions (Calvin’s original French text)
(be exercising from the hand of God through afflictions)ut manu Dei nos exerceri per afflictiones intelligerent
Calvin, J. (1834). Institutio Christianae religionis (Vol. 1, p. 458). Berolini: Gustavum Eichler. (the final quotation)
(by the hand of God, we are carried out by affliction [we should] understand)
Let’s think more deeply on the idea of “forms” or “exercises” as God’s hand in His use of afflictions. Latin “exerceri” is the present passive infinitive verb of the word “exercero” (exercere), which range of meaning is: train, drill, enforce, cultivate. So it can convey the immediate aspect, by the idea of train (or drill), or a longer-term perspective by cultivate, or the imposed experience by enforce, all of which have some purpose, an intention.
“Forms,” as an alternate translation combines all of these perspectives and is, I think, a brilliant one-word synopsis. It comes from the Latin word “forma,” which means form but also shape, contour as in making something beautiful by carving, chiseling, sculpting. Today there’s a vast industry of plastic surgery known as by terms such as “cosmetic surgery” (coming from the Biblical Greek word “kosmos”–worldly beauty or order), and esthetic (aesthetic) surgery. The goal of such is the improvement of physical appearance. God’s use of affliction is a transformation of inner and ultimate experience and appearance, which, ironically, may include an actual degradation in outward, physical appearance.
None of these words or the ideas behind them suggest a meaningless, purposeless experience. The late Elisabeth Elliot, who knew a lot about adversity, expressed this as “your suffering is never for nothing,” and, the completely counter-cultural, counter “the self” claim: “suffering is the gateway to joy.” (But, we must be ever reminded that we often do not, and will not, know what is was “for”).
Elisabeth Elliot
The late Elisabeth Elliot (1926 – 2015) is a well-known Christian author of many books. She first became well-known as the wife of missionary Jim Elliot who was murdered in the mission field early in their marriage. She later remarried and subsequently again became a widow. Along her life’s journey as a missionary herself, writer, counselor, teacher, she had many experiences of adversity including, in her latter days, the onset of dementia, a particularly difficult experience for one so gifted in mind and the craft of writing. Her memorial website is here:
Now gone home to her welcome reward, her experiences in the high intensity adversity moments and long periods of just ‘ordinary’ adversity, have blessed many through her learned perspective and writing. Below are a few insights from several of her books that closely relate to this topic of Calvin’s Chapter 3:
Suffering is Never for Nothing.
Hard times come for all in life, with no real explanation. When we walk through suffering, it has the potential to devastate and destroy, or to be the gateway to gratitude and joy.
Elisabeth Elliot was no stranger to suffering. Her first husband, Jim, was murdered by the Waoroni people in Ecuador moments after he arrived in hopes of sharing the gospel. Her second husband was lost to cancer. Yet, it was in her deepest suffering that she learned the deepest lessons about God.
Why doesn’t God do something about suffering? He has, He did, He is, and He will.
Suffering and love are inexplicably linked, as God’s love for His people is evidenced in His sending Jesus to carry our sins, griefs, and sufferings on the cross, sacrificially taking what was not His on Himself so that we would not be required to carry it. He has walked the ultimate path of suffering, and He has won victory on our behalf.
This truth led Elisabeth to say, “Whatever is in the cup that God is offering to me, whether it be pain and sorrow and suffering and grief along with the many more joys, I’m willing to take it because I trust Him.”
Amazon.com description, published by B&H Books, 2019.
Discipline: The Glad Surrender
In our age of instant gratification and if-it-feels-good-do-it attitudes, self-discipline is hardly a popular notion. Former missionary and beloved author Elisabeth Elliot offers her understanding of discipline and its value for modern people. Now repackaged for the next generation of Christians, Discipline: The Glad Surrender shows readers how to – discipline the mind, body, possessions, time, and feelings-overcome anxiety-change poor habits and attitudes-trust God in times of trial and hardship-let Christ have control in all areas of life Elliot masterfully and gently takes readers through Scripture, personal stories, and lovely observations of the world around her in order to help them discover the understanding that our fulfillment as human beings depends on our answer to God’s call to obedience.
Amazon.com, published by Revell (2016)
I like to think that Elisabeth and John Calvin have met up in some way in the heavenlies, where John has given thanks to Elisabeth for her insightful books on discipline and suffering and she John for his pioneering insights especially in Chapters 2 and 3 of his Little Book. They are very different people but through the Scriptures, and the life-work of the Holy Spirit in and on them they came to very aligned insights.
Calvin’s Counsel to Becoming a Disciple of Christ
On D&P p. 81ff, Chapter 3.10, Calvin offers some simple counsel as to what we can do to become true disciples of Christ, in this particular context of bearing the cross and self-denial. He says: “…we should make it our aim to soak our mind in the the sort of sensitivity and obedience to God that can tame and subdue every natural impulse contrary to His command.”
After he then notes that such action does not somehow magically prevent adversity nor our deep experience of suffering, he adds this is to be our pre-ordained perspective: “But this will always be our conclusion: nevertheless the Lord has willed it, therefore let us follow His will…in order to incline our hearts to endure those things with which they’re inflicted.”
Everyone’s Favorite Verse in the Bible: Romans 8:28 “All things work together…”
Calvin closes Chapter 3 (D&P p. 83) citing what is likely to be the most beloved verse in the New Testament, Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good…” This has comforted many over the centuries and circumstances.
However, this single verse is not the whole thought as verse 28 flows into 29, and should be (my opinion) considered as one sentence, expressing one complete thought. There is a concrete reason expressed in this text for “all things working together for good” as is the reference (in vs. 29) of God who “foreknew and [unto] predestined” and that is restoring fallen man to the image of God to which he was originally created. This connects us back to our Chapter 1 studies and the separate collection of observations on “Image” given here.
The ESV reverse interlinear with my annotations is shown in the below pdf is worthy of careful study and reflection:
The Westminster Confession, Self-Denial, and One’s Cross
The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) is a founding document of the Reformed Faith codifying certain core principles of the Christian Faith based upon the Scriptures. It is written in brief chapter form. Chapter 6 of WCF has a particular connection to this present Chapter 3 of Calvin which admonishes us to follow the command of taking up the cross, to be true disciples of Christ, in the context of our self-denial. Below is a brief recapitulation of WCF Ch 6 to highlight this connection. In the pdf directly below is the full text of the WCF chapter:
WCF Chapter 6.5
Let us begin with the fifth paragraph (section). Breaking up paragraph five clause-by-clause it says:
1 This corruption of nature,
WCF, Chapter 6, Paragraph 5, https://www.pcaac.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WCFScriptureProofs.pdf (ordering by clause is mine)
2 during this life,
3 doth remain in those that are regenerated;
4 and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified;
5 yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin
These five clauses, as shown, are expressions of the thrust of Calvin’s Little Book (on the Mature Christian Life). Any diagnosis requires a correct, full grasp of the disease of the human (fallen) condition.
With all novels, we have the basic structure that there exists a “hero,” and the essential, first question is “what does the hero want?” The rest of whatever is the story unfolds from there.
Considering Calvin’s Little Book, we can ask the parallel, big picture question, of “us,” namely: “what’s our problem?” or “what is our true condition?”
As we have seen throughout Calvin’s Chapter 1 – 3, his claim, based on the Scriptures, that man’s condition is fallen disastrously far from the absolute Holiness of God while, yet, we have been called to a model (framework) for the pursuit of that righteousness. The first three clauses of WCF 6.5 makes such claim clear: “this corruption of nature,” which meaning we will turn to momentarily, is with each of us in our period and place in spacetime even though we have been given new life from and of God through the unique and finished work of Christ. This should be deeply troubling and comforting at the same time: troubling in that we have not been experientially freed from something awful even to the point of our death, but comforting in that the pain we will each inevitably experience in our innermost selves does not represent our true standing before God nor foreshadow our ultimate destiny of freedom from sin.
Now let’s turn to WCF regarding the reference above to “this corruption of nature.” The preceding paragraph of WCF, 6.4, tells us this:
1 From this original corruption,
IBID
2 whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,
3 and wholly inclined to all evil,
4 do proceed all actual transgressions.
We see above, first, our true nature with respect to the holiness of God that derives “from this original corruption.” Note the use of universals: “are utterly,” “made opposite,” “wholly inclined,” “all evil,” “all…transgressions.” We are not just ‘off’ by a little, or damaged, banged up here and there, stuck with a body that doesn’t want to do what we want. No, we are top to bottom, inside to out, past to present to future, mind, body, soul, and every other way, utterly in a state of ruin, as was the pre-Creation in Gen 1 (utterly without form and void). We are like Isaiah when he saw God he said of himself “I am undone” (completely disordered), as our bodies will soon demonstrate upon our death, joining every single human who has died before us, with every treasure they thought to have acquired.
Now let’s turn to WCF regarding “from this original corruption.” The preceding two paragraphs of WCF 6.2 and 6.3, which say this:
Para. 2:
IBID
1 By this sin they[Adam and Eve]
2 fell from their original righteousness and communion with God,
3 and so became dead in sin, and
4 wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.
Para. 3:
1 They being the root of all mankind,
2 the guilt of this sin was imputed;
3 and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature,
4 conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.
We understand clearly now in the 21st Century that our physical bodies are built up from a DNA ‘recipe’ (more accurately, “program” or “algorithm”), located within every cell of our body. We are not a frog, or an egret, our dog. We cannot “be,” in terms of our physical instantiation, anything but what we have been made to be from the first cells of our physical creation at the moment of conception in the womb’s of our mothers, everywhere in the world, for all people.
In like manner, the Scriptures disclose to us, that “what’s our problem” had a like formation, it came to and in us, at every point of our inner being, by imputation. That formation caused physical death of our bodies, though it plays out over time, our respective lifetimes, but we are dying in our own processing ultimately to die. But more-significantly, there came to our inner being, not only our bodies, another kind of death, far more serious, toxic, and fatal–because such is a death under the wrath of God–and, humanly considered, incurable, exactly as our bodies are incurably doomed to physical death.
The doctrine of imputation is big and beyond our scope here. But, briefly, in Romans Chapters 5 through 8 we see that there is a second imputation, by a “second Adam,” Jesus Christ, who provides the eternal ‘cure’ for what is incurably “our problem.” We bring to God the one thing, and the only thing, that is truly ours alone, our sin and the fallen nature source of it, and God provides the eternal cure, that which only He can provide, our regeneration.
Yet, and here is the great issue underlying the entire Little Book of Calvin, we live in this spacetime period with two realities: our regenerated new life in Christ, and our still not extinguished fallen nature in Adam. Our minds naturally seek simplicity and head toward either truth as exclusive, namely: we are regenerated and without any inclination toward corruption that had been our old nature, or, we’ve never been regenerated at all because we experience seemingly without interruption the work and underlying passions of the fallen flesh. But it is not either / or; both conditions are true, and thus we have the call to follow the one to ‘home,’ reflecting, progressively, our true, new identify (image) of Christ in God.
Christ Modeled Our Call to Endurance
In Hebrews 12, considered briefly previously, Christ’s work of regeneration (redemption, propitiation, imputation) was predicated on His “endurance.” The Greek word so translated, hypo-meno, occurs four times in Hebrews: 10:32 and three times in Chapter 12 at vs. 2, 3, and 7.
The Scriptures are teaching us (at least) two things here. First, that there was an endurance element of the Work of Christ in regeneration. And second, that such endurance is a model of what we have been called to do as our pursuit of the mature Christian life. Consider these portions of Hebrews 12:
12 1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
Hebrews 12, ESV (highlights mine)
Recall as we have previously discussed at length, that “discipline” is not punishment but the work of training, refinement, growth to maturity, purification. Calvin’s connection of “taking up the cross” (quoting Scripture) with “self-denial,” the subject of Calvin’s chapter 2 and 3, is that such “discipline” and “endurance” is the necessary framework for the twin realities of our present life: we have been made wholly righteous in the sight of God, in Christ, and, yet, sin remains both in its acts and nature, a war with our new nature, seeking to prevent or tarnish the image of Christ to which we have been called ‘home.’