This week we will cover the final two sections of Calvin’s Ch 2 on “self-denial:” Sec.s 9 and 10.
Calvin Cited Verses So Far
A pdf of the key passages cited by Calvin previously and all the new ones in the present study is below:
Calvin Chapter 2.9 (D&P p. 49ff)
Beveridge translates Calvin’s Summary for 2.9 [with my additions] as follows:
9. We ought not to desire wealth or honours without the divine blessing,
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 260). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
nor follow the arts of the wicked.
We ought [instead] to cast all our care upon God,
and [so] never envy the prosperity of others.
Rule / Model of the Mature Christian Life: The Principle of Perspective
Recall that the Little Book began with the idea of formulating a “rule” or “model” for the Christian life, or as some have titled the Little Book, for the “mature Christian.”. Such reference to rule / model is not about law-keeping but, rather, some universal guidelines that we can draw upon to help our day-to-day walk in a fallen world with a still indwelling fallen nature.
Here’s the D&P translation in this section 2.9.
On the contrary,
Calvin 2.9, D&P p.48
we should always look to the Lord,
that by His care
we might be led to whatever lot in life He provides for us.
“Contrary” is a recurring Biblical watch-idea expressed by various words. Recall the opening phrase of the opening Psalm [with my emphasis on “not” or “nor,” which in this context are watchwords]:
1 Blessed is the man who walks
Psalm 1 (ESV)
not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but [in the contrary] his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
In the above quoted text from Calvin 2.9, “contrary” references one’s life-seeking “without God’s blessing” leads to an end that has “every kind of misery and misfortune.” And indeed it is so. We can examine the counter-example of the “wise” man throughout all of Proverbs and see the “fool” in his folly and its consequences as a life-choosing category to be avoided. (The etymology of “folly” is “fool;” if one sees “folly” there’s a “fool” somewhere doing it, and vice versa). And we need to recognize that that “fool” can be, and often is, us, and its consequences (folly) on us and that which we touch. Thus God’s call to a rule / model of a mature Christian Life, whose exposition is the very purpose of Calvin’s Little Book, in contradistinction to the life of a fool, our natural bent. (The irony is that “high IQ” persons are in no way invulnerable to live as a fool immersed in folly, and showering it everywhere; perhaps such are even more so inclined because of the arrogance of their self-intellect).
There is a famous quote by a famous ancient secularist, Cato the Elder. The English translation of his observation is below:
Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men;
Cato the Elder, from Plutarch, Lives
for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools,
but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.
Roman orator & politician (234 BC – 149 BC)
Cato stumbled onto one of the central truths of the Book of Proverbs.
Crush a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain,
Proverbs 27:22 ESV
yet his folly will not depart from him.
Ordered Conducive [to] Salvation
In the closing paragraph of Calvin 2.9 (D&P p. 51) we read this essential point: “he [the mature Christian] knows that his affairs are ordered by the Lord and, as such, promote his salvation.”
Let us dig down into three key words: ordered, sufficient, and salvation.
Beveridge translates this passage in Calvin as follows:
For he [the mature Christian] has a solace [D&P, “comfort”]
Beveridge (1845) translation of Calvin Ch. 2.9 (D&P p. 51)
in which he can rest more tranquilly [D&P, “greater security”]
than [a self-achieving man, even] at the very summit [D&P, “peak”] of wealth or power,
because he [the mature Christian] considers [D&P, “knows”] that
his affairs are ordered by the Lord
in the manner most conducive [D&P, “promote”]
to his salvation
Conducive
Calvin’s Latin original uses the verb conducit, from the Latin root conduco. When used in a sentence with a direct object (“transitive”), conduco means to draw or bring together, assemble, unite, join together. When used intransitively, as here, such meaning becomes: to be proper, fitting. Think of our derived everyday word conductor as the person with the baton in front of an orchestra. The conductor uses a plan, the musical score, and all the multi-varied sound sources, the instruments, while knowing the end from the beginning and every step between, all brought together to tell one coherent, beautiful, satisfying, complete (teleological) musical story. For those classic symphonies such musical story expresses great complexity using the multi-varied voices of individual instruments, of ever varying tonal intensity and color, and tempo, that in the end completes a whole, great idea.
Calvin’s use of the Latin word derived from conduco was likely to call us to see that the Lord is such a conductor ordering the events and circumstances of our lives, and in His Providence, that of the entire world including how it all affects us.
Ordered
How does such a life journey-story happen? How could it, given all the randomness, vagaries, evil, and so forth, of this world, this life? The answer drives us into the very depth of Who God Is.
Calvin’s Latin used the verb ordinari, derived from the root verb ordino. Ordino means to set in order, compose, ordain, appoint, regulate. Ordino is what the composer-orchestrator of the symphony has done in the creation of the script, and what the conductor has done in assembling and disciplining the performers and performances, and what the conductor is doing before our ears and eyes in time.
We don’t often think of God as “Creator,” though of course we all know that such is the case. But God has made every molecule in the vastness of the universe with all their interconnections for all place and time, including every atom of one’s own body and environment. One aspect of such creation is “ordering,” hinted at in Genesis chapter 1 as living beings were created after their “kind,” and all of creation itself was done in distinct categories of time, specified by each “day.”
In a direct parallel, God “ordered” the events and circumstances for our “salvation” and do so until our days’s end.
“Ordered” in all its forms is such an important Bible word, that I’ve created a separate page on the word, here:
Salvation
Salvation is an important Biblical word. It is commonly interpreted as meaning deliverance from the condemnation of hell upon one’s death into the eternal blessing of heaven. And it does mean such in some contexts.
But the root meaning of “saved” is “deliverance,” as a broad idea. The context reveals the matter in which deliverance occurs. So, such deliverance can mean solely a temporal rescue.
What did Calvin mean by his use here of “salvation?”
- All the necessary life trials and experiences that will cause us to grow to a state of righteousness such at at our death, but only then, we can be truly justified and thus admitted to eternal life?
- As above, but as God’s Plan of our growth, sanctification, to bring us to maturity, become an ever clearly image of God, because we have already been adopted as His child and declared “righteous?“
To ‘get’ Calvin’s answer we need to examine the other 75 chapters of his 80 chapters of Institutes from which our Little Book has been excised. To summarize, Calvin says, and the Scripture he records clearly supports, the second case above, and not the former. Such is the huge doctrinal divide between Arminianism / Pelagianism / Semi-Pelagianism (the first answer above), and the Reformed / Westminster Confession (the second answer above). This huge subject is beyond the scope of Calvin’s Little Book and our discussion here. What is directly relevant is that Calvin is not, definitely not, teaching here that such conductive and order is for the purpose of creating a possibility (if we cooperate) of our gaining eternal life only by producing our own righteous merit at the end of our days here.
Calvin Chapter 2.10 (D&P, pp. 51)
Beveridge translates Calvin’s summary of this section as follows:
10. We ought to commit ourselves entirely to God.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 260). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
The necessity of this doctrine.
Various uses of affliction.
Heathen abuse and corruption
“His [The Mature Christian] Lot in Life”
D&P translates Calvin by the phrase “his lot in life.” This occurs on p. 48 and at the bottom of p. 51. Such phrase is an English idiom similar to “luck of the draw.” These expressions are about what seems to be the utter randomness of life. Even situations that we are experiencing that appear to be the result of our own intentional acts can be later seen as a “lot in life” not at all envisioned by those earlier acts (or thoughts). But, here we each are, in some present condition, that bounds us in some way.
Is this “lot” then just the net result of thoughtful and random steps, likely more of the latter and less of the former? When we think back on our bigger choices in life, we recognize the “road not taken” as the line goes in the famous poem by Robert Frost, and wonder what our “lot” would presently be had we instead taken that other road at such past major junctures. (In Frost’s poem he evokes that exact idea by putting us at that moment of choosing and saying, inwardly, “sorry I could not have taken both”). How did we make that choice? Was it really an independent choice? Was it really more random than “choice?”
It our life is framed by a conviction of atheism, or by a God who is only the distant, uninvolved Creator-Observer, which is the essence of Deism, then we must understand that our life as it unfolds is mostly, if not entirely, just the random running downhill from birth to death like a pinball in one of those old style machines, bouncing off various bumpers and levers. But, as Calvin has been teaching from the Scriptures, and specifically considering the “Hand” we used to summarize five key points in the opening of Chapter 1 of The Little Book, the Bible teaches that our life has been under the oversight of our Heavenly Father. Life has not been random.
Our Responses to God’s Sovereignty of our “Lot in Life”
Our Present “Lot” has been designed by God. And, so? Calvin leads us to four responses we should then have:
- We should not pursue after wealth and honors by unlawful acts and such seeking to advance our self-interest by any means. (D&P, bottom of p. 48)
- We will be self-restrained so not to “burn with untamed lust” for riches and honors we have not experienced. (D&P, middle of p. 49)
- If our hopes for a certain level of prosperity are unrealized, we are at peace with knowing God Who could have made it so, made it better, just as it now is. (D&P, bottom of p.49, and p. 50).
- On the other hand, if we do prosper as had been hoped, we do not attribute such to our self effort and talents (contrary to President Thomas Jefferson’s claim that man’s fruition is the natural result of industry and talent).
Calvin cites John 3:27: “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.” And, Psalm 131:1-2:
1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
Psalm 131:1-2 ESV
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Resolving the difference, however great, between our “lot” (as it is, so far) compared to what we had thought or hoped it would be, occurs when (1) we are humble before our creator, and (2) appreciate that as a loving Father He has ordered our life toward achieving our salvation and His Glory, which will lead ultimately to our greatest joy. There’s even a country and western song that says “I thank God for unanswered prayers” (Unanswered Prayers; song writers: Patrick Alger / Garth Brooks / Larry Bastian).
Calvin Ch 2.10 (D&P p. 51)
This final section of Ch 2 deals with the “what about?” questions of life. We inwardly believe, and are commonly mis-taught, that embracing God as our Father will lead only to (really) good times, pretty much all the time, for a really long time. A brief inspection of the life of most people in the Bible’s narratives clearly reveals that such was not their experience, humanly speaking. And we can readily see many adversities in the lives of those around us, and our own lives too. And, then, we all die, many not propped up with many down pillows surrounded by a squad loved ones humming “Glory Glory Hallelujah ….” Some of us, many of us, will die alone, and between now and then, which could be soon, there will be many experiences we would not have freely chosen.
But we can freely choose to see God’s hand even in the adversity. That was Job’s greatest moment in responding to the charges of his three friends.
Calvin expresses this rightful perspective:
Indeed, the believer should accept whatever comes
Calvin, Ch 2.10, D&P p. 53.
with a gentle and thankful heart,
because he knows that it is ordained by Lord.
We will examine “order” and all its forms including “ordained” as used above and “orderly” below by Calvin on a separate page, here:
Calvin closes Ch 2 on Self-Denial with following:
…the rule of godliness is to
Calvin, Ch 2.10, D&P, p. 54
recognize that God’s hand is the sole judge and governor of every fortune,
and because his hand is not recklessly driven to fury,
it distributes to us both good and ill
according to his orderly righteousness.
Self-Denial Parody
A popular song today, has an entirely different take on Calvin’s long chapter on “self-denial,” one much more ‘in tune’ with our time and culture.
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble
Chorus of song “It’s Hard to be Humble,” (c) Mac Davis
When you’re perfect in every way
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
‘Cause I get better lookin’ each day
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble
But I’m doin’ the best that I can!
It’s a long way from “saved a wretch like me” in the hymn vastly more in tune with Calvin Ch. 2: “Amazing Grace.”