Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105)
Below are links to the respective week’s study in Chapter 2 of Calvin’s Little Book on the Christian Life.
Week #4: Chapter 2 “Self-Denial,” Sec.s 1-2
Week #5: Chapter 2 “Self-Denial,” Sec. 3
Week #6: Chapter 2 “Self-Denial,” Sec.s 5-6
Week #7: Chapter 2 “Self-Denial,” Sec.s 7-8
Week #8: Chapter 2 “Self-Denial,” Sec.s 9-10
This week we’ll do a first pass through Sections 1-3 of Calvin’s Chapter 4 (corresponding to Beveridge Book 3, Chapter 9).
Calvin has much to say about the World’s evils, our attraction to it, and our proper response away from it toward God. I have collected these observations on a special topic page, here:
Calvin’s headings for this Chapter 4, and for Sections 1-3 (from Beveridge’s translation) are as below:
Of Meditating on the Future Life
The three divisions of this chapter,—
I. The principal use of the cross is,
that it in various ways accustoms us to despise the present,
and excites us to aspire to the future life,
Sec. 1, 2. II. In withdrawing from the present life we must neither shun it nor feel hatred for it; but desiring the future life, gladly quit the present at the command of our sovereign Master,
Sec. 3, 4. III. Our infirmity in dreading death described.
The correction and safe remedy, Sec. 6.Sections
1. The design of God in afflicting his people.
To accustom us to despise the present life. Our infatuated love of it.
Afflictions employed as the cure.
To lead us to aspire to heaven.2. Excessive love of the present life prevents us from duly aspiring to the other.
Hence the disadvantages of prosperity. Blindness of the human judgment.
Our philosophising on the vanity of life only of momentary influence.
The necessity of the cross.3. The present life an evidence of the divine favour to his people;
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 285). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
and, therefore, not to be detested. On the contrary, should call forth thanksgiving.
The crown of victory in heaven after the contest on earth.
The verses Calvin cites supporting these sections included in the D&P translation are as below:
A graphic that will assist this overview of what we’ve covered and the chapter ahead is given below:
It might be imagined that the call of God coupled with the Providence and Love of His Character makes for smooth living here and now, every day, in every way. The Scriptures, and clearly Calvin in his Ch.s 2 and particularly 3, say otherwise. Exactly opposite otherwise.
Consider just this sample of descriptors Calvin used for the adversities of life:
(And all of the above is from Calvin’s first Section of Ch 4).
What then of the adversity that enters our life, again, especially in the context of our having taken up the Cross? Clearly Calvin, and Scripture especially considered comprehensively, says yes indeed we do experience genuine sorrow.
In the below pdf are some additional verses from the Bible on sorrow. Though far from a complete list it gives a clear indication that sorrow is an experience God’s children undergo, some more than others, and differently than others.
As shown in the above chart, I am distinguishing between “genuine sorrow” and a bad place to live and be, namely the very unholy (and unbiblical) ‘trinity’ of anxiety, misery, and despair. But, still, is there genuine sorrow in a Christian life particularly one which is living seeking the Lord’s Will? The answer is yes. Consider:
SORROW Emotional, mental, or physical pain or stress. Hebrew does not have a general word for sorrow. Rather it uses about 15 different words to express the different dimensions of sorrow. Some speak to emotional pain (Ps. 13:2). Trouble and sorrow were not meant to be part of the human experience. Humanity’s sin brought sorrow to them (Gen. 3:16–19). Sometimes God was seen as chastising His people for their sin (Amos 4:6–12). To remove sorrow, the prophets urged repentance that led to obedience (Joel 2:12–13; Hos. 6:6).
The Greek word for sorrow is usually lupe. It means “grief, sorrow, pain of mind or spirit, affliction.” Paul distinguished between godly and worldly sorrow (2 Cor. 7:8–11). Sorrow can lead a person to a deeper faith in God; or it can cause a person to live with regret, centered on the experience that caused the sorrow. Jesus gave believers words of hope to overcome trouble, distress, and sorrow: “I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have suffering. Be courageous! I have conquered the world” (John 16:33 HCSB).
Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary
GRIEF AND MOURNING Practices and emotions associated with the experience of the death of a loved one or of another catastrophe or tragedy. When death is mentioned in the Bible, frequently it relates to the experience of the bereaved, who always respond immediately, outwardly, and without reserve. So we are told of the mourning of Abraham for Sarah (Gen. 23:2). Jacob mourned for Joseph, thinking he was dead: “Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I will go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.’ And his father wept for him” (Gen. 37:34–35 HCSB). The Egyptians mourned for Jacob 70 days (Gen. 50:3). Leaders were mourned, often for 30 days: Aaron (Num. 20:29), Moses (Deut. 34:8), and Samuel (1 Sam. 25:1). David led the people as they mourned Abner (2 Sam. 3:31–32).
Mary and Martha wept over their brother Lazarus (John 11:31). After Jesus watched Mary and her friends weeping, we are told, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Weeping was then, as now, the primary indication of grief. Tears are repeatedly mentioned (Pss. 42:3; 56:8). The loud lamentation (wail) was also a feature of mourning, as the prophet who cried, “Alas! My brother!” (1 Kings 13:30; cp. Exod. 12:30; Jer. 22:18; Mark 5:38).
Sometimes they tore either their inner or outer garment (Gen. 37:29, 34; Job 1:20; 2:12). They might refrain from washing and other normal activities (2 Sam. 14:2), and they often put on sackcloth: “David then instructed … ‘Tear your clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourn over Abner.’ ” (2 Sam. 3:31 HCSB; Isa. 22:12; Matt. 11:21). Sackcloth was a dark material made from camel or goat hair (Rev. 6:12) and used for making grain bags (Gen. 42:25). It might be worn instead of or perhaps under other garments tied around the waist outside the tunic (Gen. 37:34; Jon. 3:6) or in some cases sat or lain upon (2 Sam. 21:10). The women wore black or somber material: “Pretend to be in mourning: dress in mourning clothes, and don’t anoint yourself with oil. Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for many years” (2 Sam. 14:2 HCSB). Mourners also covered their heads, “[David’s] head was covered, and he was walking barefoot. All the people with him, without exception, covered their heads and went up, weeping as they ascended” (2 Sam. 15:30 HCSB). Mourners would typically sit barefoot on the ground with their hands on their heads (Mic. 1:8; 2 Sam. 12:20; 13:19; Ezek. 24:17) and smear their heads or bodies with dust or ashes (Josh. 7:6; Jer. 6:26; Lam. 2:10; Ezek. 27:30; Esther 4:1). They might even cut their hair, beard, or skin (Jer. 16:6; 41:5; Mic. 1:16), though disfiguring the body in this way was forbidden since it was a pagan practice (Lev. 19:27–28; 21:5; Deut. 14:1). Fasting was sometimes involved, usually only during the day (2 Sam. 1:12; 3:35), typically for seven days (Gen. 50:10; 1 Sam. 31:13). Food, however, was brought by friends since it could not be prepared in a house rendered unclean by the presence of the dead (Jer. 16:7).
Not only did the actual relatives mourn, but they might hire professional mourners (Eccles. 12:5; Amos 5:16). Reference to “the mourning women” in Jer. 9:17 suggests that there were certain techniques that these women practiced. Jesus went to Jairus’s house to heal his daughter and “saw the flute players and a crowd lamenting loudly” (Matt. 9:23 HCSB).
Drakeford, J. W., & Clendenen, E. R. (2003). Grief and Mourning. In C. Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S. Bond, & T. C. Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (pp. 690–691). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
Consider the Book of Psalms. One useful perspective is to group the 150 individual Psalms by genre such as the seven categories shown in the graphic below (taken from a useful feature in Logos Software). Of these seven, the genre of “lament psalms” is clearly the largest (59 are considered to be in this category) and the subset of these termed “grief-lament” includes 43 psalms. The Psalms typically considered to be “encouragement psalms” number just 10, but eight of these 10 belong to the genre of “lament psalms,” showing that true encouragement commonly, and most reasonably, occurs in the context of lament or more specifically “grief” (sorrow):
Finally, consider the Greek word commonly translated “sorrow” in the New Testament. The graphic below (from Logos Software) show four forms of the root word “lúpē” that occurs 19 times, and a 20th word “odúnē.”
Further insight on the Greek word lúpē is given below. Note the many New Testament synonyms for this word indicating prevalence of the experience in multifaceted forms:
G3077. λύπη lúpē; gen. lúpēs, fem. noun. Grief, sorrow (Luke 22:45; John 16:6, 20–22; Rom. 9:2; 2 Cor. 2:1, 3, 7; 7:10; 9:7; Phil. 2:27; Heb. 12:11; Sept.: Gen. 42:38; Jon. 4:1). Metonymically for cause of grief, grievance, trouble (1 Pet. 2:19; Sept.: Prov. 31:6).
Deriv.: alupóteros (253), less sorrowful; lupéō (3076), to make sorry; perílupos (4036), surround with grief.
Syn.: katḗpheia (2726), a downcast look expressive of sorrow; odúnē (3601), pain, distress, sorrow; ōdín (5604), a birth pang, travail; pénthos (3997), mourning; stenochōría (4730), anguish, distress; thrḗnos (2355), wailing, lamentation; kópos (2873), weariness; sunochḗ (4928), anxiety, distress; básanos (931), torture, torment; pónos (4192), pain; tarachḗ (5016), disturbance, trouble; thlípsis (2347), tribulation, affliction; thórubos (2351), disturbance.
Ant.: chará (5479), joy; agallíasis (20), exultation, exuberant joy; euphrosúnē (2167), gladness.
Zodhiates, S. (2000). The complete word study dictionary: New Testament (electronic ed.). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers.
One cause of sorrow is that of being excluded, even exiled. In our judicial system we have a constitutional prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” The origin of such prohibition goes back to the use of torture in many forms as part of the penal system of the nations of Europe from which our constitution evolved.
But one form of penal punishment that is allowed is “solitary,” or “the hole,” whereby a prisoner is put in isolation for a time, perhaps a long time. In other contexts such isolation would be considered a positive: being put in a hotel room with a co-worker is less preferable to having one’s own room. How, then is isolation, separation, an added punishment for a prisoner?
The answer seems to be that we are innately social beings, though not necessarily 24 hours a day, or in all places or on everyday. But being ‘cut out’ of contact, excluded from belonging, can be a source of great sorrow. Such occurs even with children and teens as to their social groups, or the infamous ‘cool kids table’ at the high school lunch room. But it continues through all of life. And in these years of 2020-21 under pandemic restrictions of travel and association many have experienced despair in such isolation, despite all manner of online information resources and even people-‘connection.’
If we’d like to be able to be part of whatever group, club, society, what is required of us? What’s the admittance ‘fee?’ Depending on the group, such ‘fee’ can be so large as to be unachievable in our circumstance (which is likely why it exists). In many cases, the ‘fee’ is some version of conformity. We, body and perspective / values, need ‘to fit’ with the group.
Following the path to Christian Maturity, a title sometimes used of Calvin’s Little Book, and is the theme of its First Chapter, necessarily leads to perspectives, ideas, values that “the world” (Kosmos) will emphatically deem to be incompatible with it. The Scriptures make clear, there is darkness and there is light and the darkness hates the light, and flees from the light, because its deeds are evil. The likely favorite verse of Christians is John 3:16; but that verse heads an important paragraph as below:
16 “For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Gospel of John, Chapter 3, ESV
So, choosing, especially loving, such light excludes a person from the darkness-loving world (Kosmos). What can make this a cause fo Christian sorrow is that many of such groups are not evil in the sense of fleshy wickedness, but are aligned opposed to God to follow the wills of their self. We, too, full of “self” as well, can easily be drawn to such groups, as Lot was when he chose to leave Abram, as was Lot’s wife after she came to experience to the prosperity of the river valley civilization as it was then in the lower Jordan River valley.
Being excluded may cause us sorrow, but such should be so to protect us from a worse adversity, turning from God to adopt the perspectives and values of the world’s system.
Charles Spurgeon was one of the great preachers of the 19th Century. Fourteen of his sermons dealt with the subject of “genuine sorrow.” A pdf of his sermon on “Sanctified Sorrow” is directly below. It has a the traditional three-part format, where each corresponds to the major phases of “life,” from new creation to physical death.
Another example Spurgeon message, this one “Sorrow and Sorrow” is below:
The context of Spurgeon’s message “Sorrow and Sorrow” is sin leading to true, Godly sorrow and repentance and to true joy. So, such sorrow is of a different character than the subject of Calvin’s Chapter 2 and especially Chapter 3, which derives from adversity, but not adversity that derives from sin. However, I’ve included it here because Spurgeon, as is his characteristic, makes many insightful observations. Some nuggets from the above message are below:
There are twin truths “that lie side by side, like the metals [rails] on which the railway carriages ride. These are, in the context of coming to Christ: (1) the emphasis on the need for repentance, true and deep, as proclaimed by “those experimental [experience-driving] preachers” intending to produce “very sturdy Christians” by “deep ploughing” (into one’s sin and hopeless condition) before “they begin to sow the good seed of the kingdom;” and (2) the simple proclamation of the Gospel message “Believe, and live,” emphasizing the sowing, sometimes “all sowing and no ploughing.”
How to reconcile the two? There is nothing to be reconciled, as they are both true and taught in Scripture as Luther meets Calvin as did Paul meets James. (In our contemporary culture the term “easy believism” has arisen and been applied to the preachers of the second ‘rail’ only).
Man’s fallen condition, which is never fully grasped apart from the revelation of God is without “life” but “the charnel-house of man’s corruption” from which “you shall never be able to discern any remedy for a sin-sick soul.” A “charnel-house” is a perfect description as it was the place in which unclaimed skeletons were piled, such as might be found when digging up a foundation; churches of that day would have such an out-building known by that term. It came to symbolize the ultimate sorrow of irreversible death. It is worth reading this message just for the paragraph containing such imagery.
What makes certain “sorrow”…”Godly sorrow?” Spurgeon puts it this way: “”the godly sorrow [is that] which worth repentance to salvation,” that is, “it is an agent employed in producing repentance, but it is not itself repentance.” Thus, “in the world, a great deal of sorrow on account of sin which is certainly not repentance, and never leads to it,” because such sorrow is of sin’s consequences–be they psychic, social, criminal or eternal–as without such consequences the person exhibiting this form of sorrow would gladly return to their sin.
Another mistake made by many–that this sorrow for sin only happens, once–as a sort of squall, or hurricane….” Spurgeon freely confesses “that I have a very much greater sorrow for sin today than I had when I came to the Savior…” as “sorrow for sin is a perpetual rain, a sweet, soft shower which, to a truly gracious man, lasts all his life long.”Spurgeon notes another common misunderstanding “that sorrow for sin is a miserable feeling.” Rather, he says, “there is a sweet sorrow, a healthy sorrow.” Spurgeon exhorts “come, brother, come sister, you and I cannot afford to live at a distance from Christ. We cannot afford to live in a state of misery,” that which results from not using “sorrow” to bring us closer to Christ.
The seriousness of sin as an evil directly against God is what maturity brings to awareness. We are attuned to wrongs we do against another person or against the society of people (i.e, a crime), but the world does not see evil acts against the will of God as being as that serious, “but,” Spurgeon says, “the essential thing is to be sorry because the evil is a wrong done to God.” “…when a man is really awakened, he sees the gravamen of the offense.” “Gravamen” is another word worth looking up: it comes from the Latin gravere, meaning to weigh down, from which we get our scientific term “gravity,” and was used of a legal complaint, or grievance, that was a basis of a legal action (lawsuit), an offense deserving of penalty of judgment.
Spurgeon expounds further on repentance as it means a fundamental change of mind “about everything, and especially about sin. A man is so sorry for having done wrong that he thinks differently now of all wrong-doing. He thinks differently of his entire life…to live just the opposite way to that in which has formerly lived.”
Further, Spurgeon notes that repentance causes us to expand our concept of sin and evil, introducing the phrase “purlieus of iniquity.” “Purlieus” is no longer a common term but it is worth understanding its meaning and application. In England from the middle ages (and likely even earlier), down to Spurgeon’s time (1834-1892), had certain very notable laws about the “forest” land, certain of which related to the rights of nobility as to hunting and so forth. The question then naturally follows as to exactly where does “the forest” end? So the word “purlieus” developed into an important legal term meaning the area adjacent to “the forest,” that may or may not have isolated trees, shrubs, and such, was part of “the forest.” Spurgeon’s use is insightful because our human tendency is to defined sin as narrowly as possible, in part to shrink it, and perhaps in part because we’d like to get close enough to it to peer over, as it were, the boundary and see the goings on without feeling that we are doing the evil. “Purlieus of iniquity” helps us think of the evil of the close association with that which is more clearly demarcated as “evil.”
As a final Spurgeon term of art is his phrase “the smart of sin.” “Smart” here has nothing to do with with “wise,” but the sting, the immediate sharp pain. The root of this word means quick, active, so we apply it to quick learners. But sin, and the guilt and sorrow from it, can have that kind of effect, an immediacy of experience, and a painful one.
The above are my notations of Spurgeon’s direct phrases shown in quotations, all based upon the publication of a sermon Spurgeon gave on Sunday Evening, July 31, 1881. How wonderful it would have been to sat there and heard his powerful, unamplified voice fill the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Newington (area now known as Elephant and Castle), England. For the history of the Tabernacle see here:
The universality of the experience of adversity and genuine sorrow has led to many, multivariate accommodations, strategies, helps, explanations, ‘solutions.’ Examples? The entire history of man starting with Adam & Eve’s hiding with fig leaves give us countless examples, which emerge and re-emerge to this day, everywhere, and in every context.
Let us very briefly consider some major categories. Our purpose here is certainly not to make the case for any of these, though some more than others contain a certain space-time ‘wisdom.’ But they are all woefully inadequate to the Call, Self-Denial, and the Cross. Further, they all express in some essential way the will of man, independent of God, to make his way, as did Cain and his descendants in building their city whose pinnacle can reach to the heavens in some sense of saying to God Himself: “So there! We’ve done this without and despite You!”
This is the old ‘standby’ for suppressing unhappiness while giving a temporary illusion of happiness, contentment. A close relative is “entertainment” in whatever form: sports, movies, TV, the internet ‘vortex’ (social media, YouTube, blogs).
The goal of the producers / providers of such is: (1) make themselves money, preferably a lot of it, by (2) by providing in trade one or two hours, perhaps more, during which a viewer can lose their ever-present consciousness of self-existence. Otherwise, as the saying goes, wherever you go…there you are. It is really hard for you to escape you. And when, as it does happen, it is for just a short period with the common result that you feel worse after than at the start, similar to sitting and eating a large tub of ice cream (another version of Drugs, Sex, Rock n’ Roll).
Yes there exists “The Happiness Project” (researchers at University College, London), and numerous hyped books with ‘expert’ authors hyped continuously. Most of these are anecdotal, personal experience, or hypothesized keys–formulas even–to attaining a state of happiness.
Examples? Go outside. Sleep longer, better. Use stronger interior lighting, especially in dark climates or seasons. Exercise, even just walk a little. Call a friend. Love yourself, as in treat yourself as your best friend. Treat carbs as poison. Or, treat carbs as your friend (because, it is noted, that Jesus did not feed the 5,000 with fish and a side salad). Start a diary / journal to record your daily feelings and experiences. Play a musical instrument, sing a song, especially a happy one in a major key (C Major is always good; but stay away from B Flat). Put post note affirmations on your mirrors. Clean your room, make your bed. Be a learner, especially a lifelong learner. Stop being mean to people. But don’t be a pushover. Be generous. But, also look our for yourself. Do stretches, faithfully each day. Do daily tapping with both index fingers on your temple area. Whistle (but not with a “whistle”). Floss (don’t know the connection with happiness, but lots of people say this is important).
And, so forth. Fill up some 50,000 words of text about whatever comes into your head–and the previous paragraph is a good start–self-publish on Amazon, and, so, you have been self-made into an authority, literally (author-ity). Work social media. Post and promote regulary. Start a podcast. Maybe Oprah will invite you on to her show. Put a small assortment of Christian words and phrases, but be careful because you don’t want to lose the secular audience whose antenna are tuned to ‘hate speech,’ and you can sweep in a religious community of followers.
So, there is no reason to read any already published books or web searches. Just make up your own idealized version, and ‘go with it’ (but…it will be a road to nowhere, an aporia, but it may take a few years, decades even, to realize it).
Focus on the duty at hand, the way forward. Trudging forward, no matter what, is the way forward and keeps you from noticing that you are trudging.
Want nothing. Craving is the curse. Crave not, and you won’t be pained by having nothing. Nothing is good (it’s all ‘up’ from there).
Sickness is an illusion. It’s not real. So if you think you are sick, or getting so, the problem is you are thinking.
Such “rules” are common propositions with the learning of new skills. Consider the simple example of learning to use a windsurfing board (a surf board with a sail on it). There are many challenges involved, beginning with just climbing up out of deep water onto the board without sliding over back into the deep. Then there’s the challenge of just standing and balancing. Then there’s raising the mast, and so on and so forth. Typical instruction is given using the rule of “100,” namely that there’s no “failure” (metaphor here for “sorrow”) because what is required for windsurf capability is 100 tries without success. So upon the first fall, which customarily occurs on the first try in the first half-minute, there’s a declaration of accomplishment because it is now “one down, 99 to go.”
Teachers and professors use similar “rules” to encourage new learners, such as a first course in a new language such as Spanish or Greek. Students are reminded that each semester of 15 weeks of three-classes a week, 45 nominal in class-contact hours, will be supplement by double that number with homework, making for 135 hours, after which time the student will be speak, read, write at a certain basic level. Then, in following up in a four year academic major would result in about 1,000 hours and a significant level of competency.
One author has written a book on the “rule” of 10,000 hours as being a common numeric standard for a high level of “mastery” in many different areas of life.
In all such frameworks, the guidance customarily given is there is no need for “genuine sorrow,” as it’s simply a matter of ‘reps’ (repetitions), earnestly done, with of course some innate level of capability / compatibility, that leads to achievement.
Coaches of individual sports like golf or tennis, and group sports like football, employe similar strategies to the above numeric rules. But further, they stress the absolute importance of looking forward to the next play or event, so as not to be captive to the adversity of a prior event leading to the related feeling of sorrow, grief, anxiety, fear. As they say, the game must go on, and so must every one seeking, at the end, to be declared the winner. So, for a golfer, for example, you cannot ‘carry’ a prior double boggy (a very bad score for a professional golfer on any given hole) with you on future holes and, so, affecting the individual golf swings that must now be made.
Just singing happy songs, with physical movement, in a community of happy people, or those compelled to fake it, makes one, after a time, as happy as the songs and the community itself. It can be similar to attending a Garth Brooks concert, but with needing an often hard-to-get ticket.
A system of “religion” with its vestments, drama, even smells, all within the aura of a dramatic enclosure of height, span, and beauty can make one feel connected to something very big, and secure. TRI can be one’s protector in an uncertain world.
The system of community agreements that bind people and groups together can promise another kind of security, and even justice through the power of law and enforcement, including compulsory tribute paid to the common treasury.
The Call of Ch. 1 from which we began this study in Calvin’s Little Book anticipated and included the central concept that our experience is to be a state of being, way of doing (and going) that reflects the character foundation of endurance / perseverance. (As discussed in previous Week’s, Calvin frequently uses the Latin word from which we get “moderation,” but its original meaning was to react alternatively to our natural human, space-time, impulse to flee from the experience, or to deny it, or strategize against it).
Now in this beginning of Chapter 4 in Calvin’s Little Book we will see a key to our endurance / perseverance that goes ever beyond the simple teaching of the Scriptures to be so, namely: there is something beyond our present space-time experience that is so so close that there are those moments in prayer and meditation with God when it, and He, seems more real than any human experience we’ve ever had.
Think of a womb-baby. He, or she, is just an inch or so from a world-reality incomprehensibly different from their present, though real, experience of “life.” Yet, in a very shot time, and with some reluctance, that little guy is thrust into the outer real life for which he has been conceived and formed. In just a few minutes the traverse occurs, often in travail (for both mom, even dad, and the little guy too).
1. Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 285). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
From this [the ever present evils of our space-time] we conclude, that all we have to seek or hope for here is contest; that when we think of the crown we must raise our eyes to heaven. For we must hold, that our mind never rises seriously to desire and aspire after the future, until it has learned to despise the present life.
IBID.
The above conclusion by Calvin is direct, even harsh: (1) this present life, properly faced while on the journey to Christian maturity is and will always be “contest” (discussed further below), and (2) for our eyes (and heart) to be properly directed to our future beyond and after space-time, we must learn to “despise” this life. This is the absolute opposite of “Your Best Life Now,” and every other version of the prosperity Gospel, and of the labyrinth of the world (Kosmos) seeking to entrap us (thus the “contest”).
Beveridge’s translation gives us “contest,” whereas D&P “trouble.” “Contest” does not work for our age as it calls up the idea of a sports game. “Trouble” doesn’t exactly work either as that encompasses flat tires, dropped phone calls, and the like.
A better word, in my judgment is “conflict.” Conflict captures the essential idea that the Light of the Gospel, the Bible as a whole, is, when properly understood and proclaimed, in a state of conflict with any worldview that is man-centered or, even worse, centered on a god of man’s conception.
Calvin used in his Latin original the word certāmen (-inis, noun, from the Lat. verb certo). The Latin word is used of a contest, a competition. But the idea I think Calvin was expressing, also encompassed by certamen is dispute, dissension (not in the sense of argumentation but as the expression of a foundational difference in life-view). Another suitable translation would be “dispute.” All of such ideas convey the always-existing opposition of ideas.
Philosophers frequently deal with such oppositions. One well-known and still prevalent perspective was formulated (or approximately so) by Hegel as: First, thesis; then antithesis; finally synthesis, known by Hegelian Dialectics.
One simple perspective on this view is that sustained conflict is a naturally unstable existence. Inevitably, something just gives way. So in the rub between an existing world view (the “thesis”) and an alternative, conflicting world view (the “antithesis’) is a form of resolution, accommodation (the “synthesis”). Which, according to the theory only leads to a new thesis from which there will inevitably arise a new antithesis and thus synthesis and so forth. The optimistic form of the dialect is that such process produces better world views, better worlds, better humans and their conditions for living. The 20th Century is 100 years of evidence challenging such optimism, and the 21st continues to do so.
However, in Biblical terms, the conflict, the certamen, began before space-time, with the Fall of Satan, began at the very onset of space-time, with the Fall of Man (Edenic Fall), continued to and through Jesus Christ presenting Himself as Messiah, and has continued every since, to this day, and will until the time and occasion of Revelation 22. If there is any “synthesis,” some attempt at peaceful coexistence, then either God has changed His mind about Evil, or the Devil has changed his mind about God. I’ll let the reader assess the possibility of such occurring.
The Beveridge translation has it that God has called us to “despise” this present life. D&P instead translates the idea as “scorn.” Calvin’s Latin was contemptu, which nominally can be translated by either despise or scorn, and is clearly the source of our word “contempt.”
The etymology of “contempt” is helpful to aid our understanding:
late 14c., “open disregard or disobedience” (of authority, the law, etc.); general sense of “act of despising, scorn for what is mean, vile, or worthless” is from c. 1400; from Old French contempt, contemps, and directly Latin contemptus “scorn,” from past participle of contemnere “to scorn, despise,” from assimilated form of com-, here probably an intensive prefix (see com-), + *temnere “to slight, scorn, despise,” which is of uncertain origin.
…Phrase contempt of court “open disregard or disrespect for the rules, orders, or process of judicial authority” is attested by 1719, but the idea is in the earliest uses of contempt.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=contempt
The proper idea of “contempt”–and scorn or despise–in our Biblical context is not that of being a superior looking down on worthless, stupid, evil inferiors, especially the people ‘on the other side.’ First, we need to recognize that there is one that is on the other side, the Evil One himself, and his devils, and spawn, which is does not extend to all the humans who at any given time may express their opposition to the Light of the Gospel, as did Saul before he became Paul, as did the many who cried “Crucify Him!” at the trial by Pilate. There is an intractable opposition that will never relent, never be transformed, and will always oppose even to torment and physical death (but no further, and not even to that stage without Providential Permission). There is no “meeting of the minds” possible in such case, without abandoning the essence of the Gospel, and of Christ Himself.
However, we note that the Lord Himself called down from the Cross of utter condemnation by the Evil One asking God the Father, a communication within the Trinity, that Christ was Himself offering Himself as the means of the Father’s forgiveness of those who do not know what they are doing. In the same way, Steven the Disciple, the first martyr, asked God not to hold accountable the men in religious ignorance who at that very moment were stoning him to death solely for his proclamation of the Gospel, to which they were then mortally opposed.
So, perhaps a better translation for despise / scorn would be an artful way of saying we are in a state of unending mortal combat, about the most important issues of reality, the Character of God, and of man, the only means of restoration / regeneration, and eternal destinies post the end of Space-Time. And there is no peace to be had in this life, though we will hear of many Neville Chamberlin’s proposing such (Chamberlin was the British Prime Minister who claimed he had achieve “peace in our time” because he had the signature of Adolph Hitler on a piece of paper he was waving around after having landed in England after such negotiations).
Charles Spurgeon spoke repeatedly about heaven, and our next life, some 37 distinct sermons by some count. Below is a Spurgeon illustration of what it will be like leaving earth for heaven:
The Earth Clings to Us Job 1:20–22
What is the use of all that clogs us here? A man of large possessions reminds me of my experience when I have gone to see a friend in the country and he has taken me across a plowed field, and I have had two heavy burdens of earth, one on each foot, as I have plodded on. The earth has clung to me and made it hard walking.
It is just so with this world. Its good things hamper us, clog us, cling to us, like thick clay. But when we get these hampering things removed, we take comfort in the thought, “We shall soon return to the earth from which we came.”
We know that it is not mere returning to earth, for we possess a life that is immortal. We are looking forward to spending it in the true land that flows with milk and honey, where, like Daniel, we shall stand in our lot at the end of the days. Therefore, we feel not only resigned to return to the womb of mother earth, but sometimes we even long for the time of our return to come.
Spurgeon, C. (2017). 300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon. (E. Ritzema & L. Smoyer, Eds.). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Spurgeon, C. (2017). 300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon. (E. Ritzema & L. Smoyer, Eds.). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
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:
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
If suffering in whatever forms is the presented issue, what then is man’s response?
If the answer from the Scriptures is it is God’s Will, then what is to be our reaction. Again, there are various possibilities:
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”).
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.
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.”
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 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:
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.
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.’
This week we will be reading Calvin’s Little Book, Ch 3, Sec.s 7-9, pp. 72-29 in the Denlinger and Parsons translation.
Calvin’s headings for these sections as translated by Beveridge are below:
7. Singular consolation under the cross, when we suffer persecution for righteousness. Some parts of this consolation.
8. This form of the cross most appropriate to believers, and should be borne willingly and cheerfully. This cheerfulness is not unfeeling hilarity, but, while groaning under the burden, waits patiently for the Lord.
9. A description of this conflict. Opposed to the vanity of the Stoics. Illustrated by the authority and example of Christ.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 273). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
The verses cited by Calvin for these sections are given below:
Here Calvin brings out another perspective of the calling to the life of a mature Christian, namely that of being at war. This presents a challenging perspective as this chapter in Calvin is about bearing our cross as part of self-denial. “War” seems incongruous with “bearing our cross” and even with “self-denial.” But as we will see, there is a direct connection. And we need to see that in bearing our cross we are quite incapable, humanly speaking, of conducting such war, as we are of submitting ourselves to self-denial. The reconciliation occurs when we realize that “we” are not alone, and the true “we” is Christ in us. The presence of the cross makes it, or should make it, clear of the necessity of that union with Christ, as we saw in our study of Chapter 1.
In Week #11, there was provided two links to messages by the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones from a parallel text (Romans 8) of the same concept of the inner war.
In this chapter we are presented with an alternative application of the characteristic battle armor worn by the soldiers of the mighty Roman armies. The Apostle Paul is likely looking at and examining such gear directly from his place in his jail cell in Rome, and with which he is very familiar by virtue of his being confronted by it 24 hours a day, every day of the week, as he had been in one place or another since his arrest more than two year previously in the Temple area of Jerusalem (Acts 26).
Here is the text of Paul’s description and application of such armor that we, as soldiers of Christ, bear, should bear, and its purpose and use:
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
Ephesians 6:10-19 (ESV)
Looking ahead in Calvin’s Little Book, Chapters 4 and 5 (Beveridge, Book 3, Chapters 9 and 10) we can see that these are focused on our “Hope.” We need this reminder here, especially, in these sections of the “Bearing our Cross” chapter. So, this war is not forever, or even for very long in the true sense of time. And it is not unrelenting without consolation, encouragement, and engagement with fellow travelers, and with God Himself in prayer and primarily meditation, including meditation in the course of reading the Scriptures.
In Sec. 9, Calvin recounts that the world’s response to anyone who “assert[s] God’s truth against Satan’s lies” including any support of the cause of “good” will “necessarily encounter the world’s displeasure and hatred.”
Such should be the Christian’s always expected condition. It is clearly in the New Testament, even by the model of Jesus Christ Himself. Texts we should consider include (all from the ESV):
John 3:19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
John 3:19-20, The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 7:7). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
Matthew 11:20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
Matthew 11:20-24, ESV
The above passage from Matthew 11 is an astonishing pronouncement of judgement on many levels. But as to our issue here, these three Galilean cities–Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum–where Jesus directly ministered, taught, and healed by miracles for the better part of three years, all rejected, as cities of the whole, Jesus Himself and His teaching, though there were individuals who did believe and follow Him. And we know that at the final Passover of Jesus’s earthly life, when thousands of Jewish men were in attendance as required by the Old Testament Law, the scream from the crowds to Pilate’s ears was “Crucify Him!”
John 7:1 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
John 7:1, ESV
Jesus in the above passage from John 7 appears to say that the world is unable, or not permitted by God, to hate Jesus’s disciples, but Jesus Himself only. However, the grounds of the world’s hatred of Jesus is His proclamation that its deeds are evil. What deeds? There is no evidence that such deeds were what we typically consider as the carnal matters of the flesh (sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, as they say). Rather the deeds at issue were religious ones, with the underlying false, but vehemently embraced, belief that such deeds had indeed earned personal and corporate righteousness from and of God, especially in contrast to all Gentile peoples everywhere including, especially the hated Romans. After Pentecost, the Apostles and others, down to us in our day, proclaim that same message hated still by the world, namely that it is only by Grace, and the finished work of Christ by which we are imputed as righteous before God. No form of “Law” as a principle of us gaining personal righteousness before God exists either from the Old or the New Testaments. It is by Grace, and anyone in any religious system undergirded by legal self-merit will hate such message.
24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (2 Co 11:24–27). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles
.In the above passage the reference to “my people” refers of course to the Jewish people but more specifically to The Religion Industry (TRI) institution, much as Paul in his previous life as Saul was doing on behalf of TRI. And the “Gentiles” above is in reference to The Political Institution (TPI), namely the organized government, more so than individual Gentile individuals, which, like TRI, violently opposed any movement of people or ideas that threatened its incumbent powers.
25 who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? 26 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’— 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ac 4:25–28). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
The above passage shows the uniting of TRI with TPI to attack to extinguish (if possible) a common enemy, namely the Gospel message of Christ.
Calvin cites one of the “Beatitudes” (which references the word “blessed” which begins each line of that passage) in the opening chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5. This passage is provided in the pdf below:
Highlighted are the occurrences of an important Koine Greek word translated “blessed” and the source of the term “beatitude,” namely: markarios (Strong’s G3107). This word is so important. It is the very first word of the very first Psalm (Psalm 1:1 in the LXX, Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Old Testament). There the blessedness is the keeping of the believer from the three impulses to error, which is likely a reference to the false lures of TRI. Markarios is also the word used by the Lord of Peter’s great confession in Matthew 16–“Blessed are you Simon Peter”–because God Himself had revealed Jesus’s identity to Peter.
Calvin in Sec. 8 cites the passage in 1 Peter 4:14 that claims we are blessed (and it’s the word makarios used here also) if insulted for the name of Christ, whereby “the name of” references the full identify and work of Christ, with is contained in the Gospel. (There is an ancient compromise temptation that the world sometimes tries, namely: Jesus was a good man but not all these deep spiritual stuff; CS Lewis famously refutes this by his “trilemma:” Jesus was either insane, a voice of the Devil, or God Incarnate–He left us no other alternative including that of being just “a good man.”)
But how, exactly, in the above passage from the Sermon on the Mount, is mourning and sorrow, and experiencing persecution and reviling, a “blessed” thing? The answer, at least in part, links up with Calvin’s reference in this entire Chapter 3 of the Little Book with taking up the cross. And how is that a blessing? I suggest the answer is in our previous study of the shelter provided by God away from the labyrinth of the world’s system (be it TRI or TPI or in combination). Consider again the final chart we used then as given below:
One of the most power lines of attack of the Enemy against the Gospel is to sieze control of its truth so as to reshape it such that it’s meaning is distorted, even unrecognizable. The common strategy is syncretism, meaning the joining together of two separate camps, or ideas, to find common ground, compromise. One form of such temptation was used by Satan on Jesus in the wilderness. Another form appeared with the Judaizers in Galatia. Another form appeared with the carnal practices and doctrines in Corinth. Yet another in the Epistle to the Hebrews where (particularly in Chapter 6) the Jewish people who had been following the Gospel message, were being lured back into the ancient practices of Judaism as a call ‘home.’ In the judgments pronounced on the seven churches in Asia in Revelation Chapters 2 and 3, such compromise seems to be the universal ground of condemnation.
So, in such context, the absolute condemnation and rejection by the world’s system (TRI and TPI) causes us to seek and hold to the shelter of God’s provision, illustrated above, and not face the great temptation for compromising the purity of the Gospel message because no real, substantive part of such message will ever be acceptable to it.
What then? If the world does and always will hate the message of the Gospel, and despise and persecute any proclaimers of it, how does all this play out over this age in which we live? The answer is that such will be the condition until the Lord’s Return and under which we are called to many things but including, and relevant here, our endurance. The word “endurance” only makes sense if there is something that cannot or will not change that is the cause of discomfort and sorrow.
In Section 9 Calvin addresses one of the common teaching errors, namely some form of Christian stoicism. The stoics were an ancient form of TRI, holding to a doctrine of remoteness and “indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.” (OED definition). The essence of the teaching was not so much enduring such vicissitudes but being in an sense out of the reality of it so as to be un-affectable by misfortune.
Calvin clearly makes the case that our call to endurance is not about stoicism. Christian endurance feels the pain, the loss, that life can present especially when accompanied by injustice, specifically the suffering that can occur solely because of one’s faith God and His Word.
Note in the Beveridge translation the word “endurance” primarily used in D&P is instead expressed as “moderation,” which was more appropriate in the language of the 18th and 19th Century. Such word appears 48 times in the Beveridge translation, of Calvin’s Latin word moderatio which conveys “moderation” in the sense of “self-control,” here meaning that one does not respond to such persecution or other trials in accordance with how “self” would naturally do. The idea is restraining not one would commonly think of moderation as just being not in excess.
This week we will review Ch. 3, Sec. 2, and continue to Sec.s 3-4 (pp. 62-66 D&P).
Beveridge’s translation of Calvin’s headings for these two sections are as follows:
Sec. 3. Manifold uses of the cross.
1. Produces patience, hope, and firm confidence in God,
gives us victory and perseverance. Faith invincible.Sec. 4.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 273). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
2. Frames us to obedience.
Example of Abraham. This training how useful.
The Scripture cited by Calvin for Sec.s 3-4 are shown in the below pdf:
In Sec. 2 of this chapter, there is a key sentence that helps us further understand the need for “the cross.” As discussed in Week #9, the cross provides a “shelter” for us to escape (as much as such is possible) the enveloping arms of TRI (The Religion Industry), and to an extent TPI (The Political Industry). But why do we need such help? The answer relates to our “weakness,” even “helplessness.”
Let us return to the opening sentences of Sec. 2, which I have highlighted and reads:
2. We may add, that the only thing which made it necessary for our Lord to undertake to bear the cross, was to testify and prove his obedience to the Father; whereas there are many reasons which make it necessary for us to live constantly under the cross. Feeble as we are by nature, and prone to ascribe all perfection to our flesh, unless we receive as it were ocular demonstration of our weakness, we readily estimate our virtue above its proper worth, and doubt not that, whatever happens, it will stand unimpaired and invincible against all difficulties. Hence we indulge a stupid and empty confidence in the flesh, and then trusting to it wax proud against the Lord himself; as if our own faculties were sufficient without his grace.
Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software
In our D&P translation it expresses the bold phrases highlighted above as: “our weaknesses are regularly displayed,” and “drawn into foolish and inflated view of our flesh.”
In Calvin’s Latin original writing we find the following key words that were part of the highlighted portions above: “imbecillitas…oculo demonstrata,” and “virtutem…supra iustum..aestimamus.” Let’s consider these meanings as follows:
These few words are very important as they speak to our human nature encountering and responding to God’s call to self-denial and gives context to the difficult-to-comprehend command of the Lord that His disciples are “take up…the cross.”
As seen above, the key word “weakness” is a translation of Calvin’s Latin imbecillitas which semantic range includes feebleness in the sense of innate inability. This distinction between some limited impairment, which could be considered as the meaning of weakness, and a far more extensive incapacity is essential to our perspective on the cross as a personal calling.
Let us suppose that we were to use numbers on a five star rating scale as a superscript on the word “weakness” to designate the extent and seriousness of its meaning, where a “1” star rating would mean a very slight degree of it, something like a “tenderness” in bone or muscle, a “3” star rating would mean something like a serious, hobbling limp in reference to a leg, and a “5” star “weakness” score would mean needing to carried out of bed to be placed in a wheelchair. So we could have the following expressions: weakness* all the way to weakness*****.
Well, our language works a different way. In a dictionary, “weakness” might be expressed by many different definitions based on the range of extent (as our five star example), and context of occurrence. If we were to use a thesaurus it would give us a range of words that are synonyms which are another form providing a definition. Using such a thesaurus for “weakness” we can find nearly 90 synonyms, an amazing number. Some of the more interesting, and rare, examples are given below:
Why so many words that convey some aspect of “weakness?” This suggests that there is an underlying universal condition, much as the idea of “scarcity” in the field of economics, or “immoral” in social theory and ethics. There is a flaw here in our spacetime world. Weakness will not be part of heaven, just as we make sure it is not part of “bridges” and “high rise buildings.” But when it comes upon us, even “regenerated us,” there is “weakness” in its full range of application and extent. This can be seen in the biographies of God’s people, as identified individuals and groups, in the Old Testament and to an extent in the New Testament. And in can be seen inside each of us, as the text in Romans 7 expounds.
The key point of this text from Calvin is that even as regenerated beings in God’s Kingdom, we are not fully outside of the influence of our old, fallen nature. And such nature reasserts itself seemingly at every opportunity with a particular interest in corrupting what should otherwise be pure work on behalf of God. Further, as discussed in Week 9, TRI (and to an extent TPI) is a ready snare to disadvantage further such natural weakness.
I would have preferred “inadequacy” to translate Calvin’s imbecillitas, as such choice would better fit our five star model of weakness*****. Whichever way we express the core idea, should lead us to some response about ourselves. The most natural, obvious one would be sorrow, even resentment. How could being inadequate or even weak be anything but a bad thing?
In the reverse world of God’s Calling, however, what looks bad in human terms turns out for the good. Alistair Begg, an excellent preacher and teacher, has given an excellent message on exactly this observation, available here and here:
As Calvin makes clear (in the Beveridge translation) the failure to grasp such weakness / inadequacy leads, inevitably to: we indulge a stupid and empty confidence in the flesh.
As Calvin notes, the Scriptures teach us that “tribulations,” various forms of difficulty and suffering, are used by God purposefully, for our benefit. In particular, Calvin cites Romans 5:3-4. Given below is an interlinear of the context of these two verses, using a Greek manuscript format instead the usual reverse interlinear:
The true manuscript form given above shows us some important things because of its word order. Specifically, the passage begins and ends with a participle (a verb used as an adjective) that describes our condition–namely, justification (vs. 1), by receipt (vs. 5)–with the aorist tense meaning something that took place prior to the present tense of the main verbs of this passage. This is powerful because it makes clear that justification was given as a settled matter previous to the multistep explanation of the role of tribulation in our lives. It is all to easy to reach the opposite, and erroneous, conclusion that such tribulation was for the purpose of causing us to overcome such so as to reach a state of justification, based upon our own merit. This was would be a conditional life of always seeking the measure up to being worthy of such blessing by our demonstrated response to tribulation, which is the opposite of experience Grace.
Further we can see in the above very clearly the sequence from tribulations (which is in the plural) to hope (literally “the hope,” in the singular).
Additionally, there are multiple words and phrases in the dative case, which in this context is emphasizing the idea of agency or instrumentality as means by which something occurs.
The number below each word is the Strong’s G number. By doing a web search with such number, preferenced by “Strongs G” will lead to multiple resources that will give parallel uses and additional teaching. In particular the word translated “boast” can be misconstrued to being about one’s own pride, rather than the glorying in the source of the gift of justification and the means of establishing “the hope” in us, by the use, even, especially, of tribulation. Which then, as the text clearly says, should cause us to boast in the tribulation(s) themselves, an act contrary to our human nature.
Calvin lists five such benefits (p. 63, the below quoting D&P’s translation):
Calvin summarizes the benefits of our resulting weakness by the work, in time, that such does in our walk and life (p. 64, again quoting D&P).
This week’s study is on Calvin Ch. 3, Sec.s 1-2, pp. 57-62 in the D&P translation. In the Beveridge translation of Calvin’s complete Institutes, the corresponding sections are in Book 3, Chapter 8, Sec.s 1-2.
Beverage translates Calvin’s summary of Ch. 3 as below:
Of Bearing the Cross—One Branch of Self-denial
The four divisions of this chapter are,—
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 273). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
I. The nature of the cross, its necessity and dignity, sec. 1, 2.
II. The manifold advantages of the cross described, sec. 3–6.
III. The form of the cross the most excellent of all, and yet it by no means removes all sense of pain, sec. 7, 8.
IV. A description of warfare under the cross, and of true patience, (not that of philosophers,) after the example of Christ, sec. 9–11.
Specific to Sec.s 1-2 of Ch. 3, Beveridge translates Calvin’s headings as follows:
1. What the cross is. By whom, and on whom, and for what cause imposed.
Its necessity and dignity.2. The cross necessary.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 273). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
1. To humble our pride.
2. To make us apply to God for aid. Example of David.
3. To give us experience of God’s presence.
The verses cited by Calvin (or possibly by D&P in their translation) in these first two Sections of Ch. 3 are given below:
As the subject of self-denial was covered by Calvin in Ch. 2, why is this separate treatment of the subject necessary? Or, put in another way, what is distinctive of “the cross” in the context of this subject?
As noted in the verses of above, specifically Matt. 16:24, the Lord Himself gives that command to his disciples. To better understand the context of vs. 24, below is the text in Matt before and after this verse:
Note that Matt. 16 begins with the Lord refusing to perform sign-making for the Pharisees and Sadducees. And He gives a telling reason: that they, His inquisitors, are the leaders of an “evil and adulterous generation” (Matt. 16:4). Such a statement was the ultimate rebuke of leaders who saw themselves as God-favored. Jesus reversed the inquisition: they thought it was Jesus who was on trial, and expected to be found guilty of treason against Moses, whereas it was they who were guilty, of both failure to keep the very law they claimed to uphold, and of cosmic treason against God. Note the significance of the dramatic closing sentence, “So He left them and departed.”
Then, in the next three paragraphs we see (1) Jesus warn His disciples regarding the hidden effect of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees, (2) Jesus evoking the great realization as to His true Being and purpose, and (3) Jesus foretelling that such hidden teaching (the leaven) would result in His being judged, condemned, and killed, before rising from the dead. The disciples comprehended none of this. Further, Peter, after having made the great confession (Matt. 16:16), now speaks the words of Satan (Matt. 16:21), a manifestation of that “leaven.”
Now, the next paragraph, gives us the Lord’s command to “deny himself…take up his cross…follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). Clearly from this context, such “cross” is not in regard to some sickness, ailment, sin habit, physical or economic limitation, depression, or any other such thing. Jesus is foretelling that the forces of the Pharisees and Sadducees–The Religion Industry (TRI) of its day–will seek Jesus’s death and that of the disciples, in alignment with the Roman authorities–The Political Industry (TPI) of the time–using the tool of utter condemnation, shame, and terrorizing example, namely that of crucifixion on a wooden cross.
Let us now consider several charts to examine how the cross is a tool that is used by God for our good and His glory.
First, let’s frame a big picture of the broad sweep of the Bible’s story, as below in Chart 1:
The word translated “Garden” in Genesis means a walled in, designated area. From the context it clearly suggests that such area was filled with sources of food, and the forbidden tree with its fruit. That Garden was home for Adam and Eve, a kind of shelter, a place to which they belonged.
They also belonged to God with Whom they had regular direct communion. Then there was the deception of Eve and willful rebellion of Adam resulting in God’s judgment. That judgment included the forewarning of “dying you will die” and permanent expulsion from the Garden.
The result was, and has been, an extended time period of decay and death, separated from the intimate face-to-face connection to God. In broad strokes this period is referred to as “the world” translating (in the NT) the primary word “kosmos,” meaning order, structure, even beauty, and sometimes translating another Koine word, “aeon” meaning an age, or period of time.
In the Epistle of 1 John 5:19, as shown in the above Chart 1, that although we are of God, that is we are God’s own possession by virtue of His having purchased us in redemption, but at the same time the world, the kosmos, lies in the Evil One. This last phrase, “in the Evil One,” is a Koine dative phrase, that could mean “in” in the sense of spatial location or time. However, I believe that here it means “in” in the sense of agency or instrumentality.
We see such instrumentality of “evil” or “the evil one” immediately after the Garden expulsion. The very next scene in that story takes place many decades later when the two oldest brothers, Cain and Abel, participate in a worship event toward God. For reasons outside our scope here, God accepts the sacrifice, and by implication the one making it, of Abel, but rejects that of Cain. Such acceptance of Abel leads to Cain’s violent rage and his murder of his own brother. And that leads to Cain’s own expulsion from the family of Adam, to become a lifelong homeless, shelterless, wanderer. So, in one scene, Adam and Eve lose their two sons.
At the other end of the space-time kosmos, which is yet to come, is God’s final judgment which includes the revelation of beasts, false prophets, and most-notably the Great Whore of Babylon, as from the Book of Revelation. For our purposes here we note only (1) each and every person dies, suffering Adam’s (and Eve’s) judgment, as our representative head, and (2) the kosmos itself will likewise be judged and destroyed. Chart 1 above is constructed to emphasize the inevitable fall to death and judgment, sucked in, as it were, by the Evil One and his agents.
This is, and should be, a horrifying reality, one of no human escape.
Next, let us consider how God provides shelter for His Elect external to Eden, even as they are immersed in the fallen kosmos, as shown in Chart 2 below:
After the Fall and God’s pronounced judgment of death, but prior to the Expulsion out of Eden, God does a deeply significant act: He provides a shelter for Adam and Eve. They had, apparently, been coated with light during the period of their submission to God but were now naked, ashamed, and unprotected from the elements facing them outside the Garden. God shed blood to take that which Adam and Eve were not entitled to at the cost of the life of the giver of the sheltering coat. This covering anticipates the multi-colored, favored robe of Joseph, son of Jacob, and of the seamless robe of Christ, gambled for by his crucifiers.
As shown in Chart 2 above, there is a continuous thread of shelters which God has provided for His people who are strangers and aliens here in the kosmos. Such shelters take many forms, but they have this in common: they are a provisional shelter, like that cleft in the rock, or the strong tower, or walled city references throughout the OT. They together prefigure our permanent shelter, including that of a new, glorified body, and becoming an inhabitant / citizen of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
Next, let us think about how The Religion Industry (TRI) of the Kosmos–sometimes with or by The Political Industry (TPI) of its time–provides an alternate “shelter” as part of its labyrinth of confusion and evil. See Chart 3 below, where below the shelters of God are reference to these deceitful shelters of the kosmos.
Calvin makes frequent, important reference to “philosophers.” Such term does not transfer well to our time. Calvin lived in the second century of what historians call the period of the Renaissance. Relevant to our topic, this period was known by the admonition “ad fontes,” to the sources (fountain), meaning rediscovery and application of the ancient Greek and Latin writers and philosophies such as Stoicism, Platonism, Aristotelian ideals, etc.. Such philosophers stood against the other major force of the period the Roman Catholic Church then powerfully allied with many political powers on the Continent of Europe.
In our own time both The Religion Industry (TRI) and The Political Industry (TPI), subjects outside our current scope, offer many forms of different ‘shelters’ to which they entice and even command obeisance. Chart 2 shows five such categories.
An interesting example of such false shelters is given by the journey narrative of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. The pilgrim is a man named Christian. He begins his journey responding to a call by a man named Evangelist telling him to flee his home city (shelter) named Destruction, to reach the Celestial City, his final shelter. The entire book details all the many difficulties (such as “the slough of despond,” i.e. the bog of despondency) and many false ‘shelters’ (such as “vanity fair”) to which he is exposed and tested. It is another “great book” that has been very widely republished since it’s original publication in ca. 1680.
Finally, let us now examine Calvin’s call to action as to our self-denial by taking up our cross. See Chart 4 below:
Is “taking up the cross” a necessary ‘bad’ thing in this life, or is it a pathway to our shelter? A common interpretation of the phrase is the former. I believe it is the latter.
As discussed in a separate webpage of The Cross on this site, the cross helps us escape the labyrinth of the world’s system (the kosmos) to the present shelter of God’s provision. We’re much like the Pilgrim Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress who has to constantly avoid being waylaid on his journey to the Celestial City. So we too are lured by the various ‘shelters’ offered by the kosmos, including approval, and a place ‘at the table’ of the great conversations of the culture.
In the below pdf are all the NT verses that have both “love” and “world” (in the ESV):
This is an imperfect search, nonetheless three ‘hits’ are relevant to a particular question regarding “taking up the Cross,” namely this: why does God use such extreme language (the cross itself) and commonly severe measures for His own? Part of the answer is in Calvin’s Sec. 1 and 2, and more completely in next week’s Sec. 3. Another part, in my opinion, has to do with our seeking the proper, God-provided shelter as discussed here. A third point can be made that the world, contrary to our beliefs and its appearances, is our enemy. Consider the particular verses given above: John 15:19, 2 Tim 4:10, 1 John 2:15.
John 15:19 takes place in the Upper Room literally hours before Christ is condemned by both TRI and TPI, and executed by the most vicious tool of hatred and reviling, the cross. This verse says it plainly: (1) we are not of the world, (2) we were chosen out of the world, and (3), as a consequence the world actually hates us.
2 Tim 4:10 gives us a brief CV on an otherwise obscure man named Demas. (His name is closely related to “demes” which was a politically organized unit, something like a county or small state in terms of the U.S., which may give us a clue as to his interests). Here we see two coupled ideas: love of the world and desertion. This is particularly significant because Demas occurs in two other of Paul’s Epistles showing him participating in gospel work (Philemon, and Col. 4:14). So deserted (Gr. egkataleípō, G1459) is a proper, and very somber term, and should be a warning to each of us as we traverse life’s journey in and among the world and its lures.
1 John 2:15 tells us two things. First is the present active imperative command to “not love” with respect to its direct object “the world” (kosmos). The word “love” is agapáō (G25), the same word used of Demas’s ultimate desire (2 Tim 4:10). Secondly, the verse gives us the why behind the command: loving the world means not having the love of God our Father in us.
If taking up the cross does nothing else but protect us from becoming world-lovers it is clearly a great good. This is particularly so as Calvin extensively notes our natural inclination from birth to death is to love this world in a way incompatible with the love of God. Later in Ch 4 and 5, Calvin will discuss the obvious objection concerning the good that does exist in our environment, and our responsibilities living in and amongst it.
Noting again the journey of Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, we see the many occasions whereby he was lured aside away from the path to the Celestial City. Of particular relevance is the scene known as Vanity Fair.
The subject of “virtue”–often termed “the good”–is as old as time, and has been addressed by the wisest of men, including, famously, Socrates some 2400 years ago. The further idea of “pursuit”–often termed “the quest” or “seeking”–is likewise a long and extensively considered dimension of the question of virtue.
A classic and deeply thought-providing secular story was written by Cervantes about the time of publication of the KJV, entitled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, or Don Quixote. The name “Quixote” is a play on the Latin word for searching as in “who, what…?” and from which we get words such as quarry, quest, question.
The mystery of that book is who, really, is that man after which the book is named? He appears to be an easily-dismissed loon, with a rational partner (Sancho Panza), a classic ‘buddy story’ put in multiple ‘fish out of water’ tropes. But as the narrative unfolds it can appear that Quixote is the rational one, who alone is truly seeking a true good, so that the apparent craziness of his being and activities seem such because virtue and its pursuit is so foreign to us as to appear irrational. But is what Quixote pursuing truly “good?” Or, maybe, he is only a true loon and wouldn’t recognize “good” even if he had a map to find it. These matters have been puzzled over for 400 years, making Cervantes’s book the classic that it remains.
Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968) was a Catholic priest and trappist monk. He thought deeply of certain aspects of virtue (likely less so on the core truth of Biblical Doctrine). Below is an extended excerpt from a particular insight on how one is, or can be, moved toward virtue when it is so entirely foreign to our basic nature, and continues to be throughout our natural life.
The phrase self-conquest can come to sound odious because very often it can mean not the conquest of ourselves but a conquest by ourselves. A victory we have won by our own power. Over what? Precisely over what is other than ourself.
Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender.
Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.
More precisely—we have to have enough mastery of ourselves to renounce our own will into the hands of Christ—so that he may conquer what we cannot reach by our own efforts.
In order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence, some hope of victory. And in order to keep that hope alive we must usually have some taste of victory. We must know what victory is and like it better than defeat.
There is no hope for the man who struggles to obtain a virtue in the abstract—a quality of which he has no experience. He will never efficaciously prefer the virtue to the opposite vice, no matter how much he may seem to despise the latter.
Everybody [really??? EVERYbody??? See Rom 7 passage below] has an instinctive desire to do good things and avoid evil. But that desire is sterile as long as we have no experience of what it means to be good.
(The desire for virtue is frustrated in many men of good will by the distaste they instinctively feel for the false virtues of those who are supposed to be holy. Sinners have a very keen eye for false virtues and a very exacting idea of what virtue should be in a good man. If in the men who are supposed to be good they only see a “virtue” which is effectively less vital and less interesting than their own vices they will conclude that virtue has no meaning, and will cling to what they have although they hate it.)
But what if we have no virtue? How can we then experience it? The grace of God, through Christ Our Lord, produces in us a desire for virtue which is an anticipated experience of that virtue. He makes us capable of ‘liking” virtue before we fully possess it.
Grace, which is charity, contains in itself all virtues in a hidden and potential manner, like the leaves and the branches of the oak hidden in the meat of an acorn. To be an acorn is to have a taste for being an oak tree. Habitual grace brings with it all the Christian virtues in their seed.
Actual graces move us to actualize these hidden powers and to realize what they mean—Christ acting in us.
The pleasure of a good act is something to be remembered—not in order to feed our complacency but in order to remind us that virtuous actions are not only possible and valuable, but that they can become easier and more delightful and more fruitful than the acts of vice that oppose and frustrate them.
A false humility should not rob us of the pleasure of conquest which is due to us and necessary for our spiritual life, especially in the beginning.
It is true that later on we may be left with faults we cannot conquer—in order that we may have the humility to fight against a seemingly unbeatable opponent, without any of the satisfaction of victory. For we may be asked to renounce even the pleasure we take in doing good things in order to make sure that we do them for something more than pleasure. But before we can renounce that pleasure, we must first acquire it. In the beginning, the pleasure of self-conquest is necessary. Let us not be afraid to desire it.
Merton, T. (1997). Thoughts in Solitude (Third Edition, pp. 31–33). New York; London: Burns & Oates.
Merton’s view of the pursuit of virtue does not distinguish two categories of “virtue” and two categories of pursuers. Consider this important passage from Scripture on the regenerated man and that virtue which is the righteousness of God:
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Romans 7 (ESV)
So we can consider four possible situations:
All four possibilities involve “the seeker,” a favorite phrase of our time. But Scripture tells us something important about each case.
As discussed previously, Calvin’s Institutes, and the five chapter excerpt we’ve referred to as the Little Book, have been intensely studied and used since their earliest publication in the mid-16th Century. An interesting example of such study is evident in a vintage copy of the Institutes given below.
The top left of the above is Sec. 2 of Chapter 8 of Book 3 of the Institutes, which is Ch. 3, Sec. 2 of D&P at the top of p. 60.
From Calvin’s original Latin text, those beginning sentences which can be compared to the above marked up edition, are as follows;
2. Adde quod Dominus noster crucem ferendam suscipere nihil necesse habuit, nisi ad testandam approbandamque Patri suam obedientiam: nobis vero multis rationibus necesse est sub assidua cruce vitam degere. Primum, ut natura nimium propensi sumus ad omnia carni nostrae tribuenda, nisi nobis imbecillitas nostra velut oculo demonstrata fuerit, facile virtutem nostram supra iustum modum aestimamus, nec dubitamus, quicquid eveniat, contra omnes difficultates infractam fore et invictam. Unde in stolidam et inanem carnis confidentiam evehimur: qua freti, contumaciter deinde superbimus in Deum ipsum, perinde acsi propriae nobis facultates citra eius gratiam sufficerent.
Calvin, J. (1834). Institutio Christianae religionis (Vol. 1, p. 453). Berolini: Gustavum Eichler
I have underlined in the above text from Calvin the very words that our mystery owner/annotator of the 16th C book has done.
Beveridge and D&P translate these sentences as below, where I’ve highlighted the words underlined above:
2. We may add, that the only thing which made it necessary for our Lord to undertake to bear the cross, was to testify and prove his obedience to the Father; whereas there are many reasons which make it necessary for us to live constantly under the cross. Feeble as we are by nature, and prone to ascribe all perfection to our flesh, unless we receive as it were ocular demonstration of our weakness, we readily estimate our virtue above its proper worth, and doubt not that, whatever happens, it will stand unimpaired and invincible against all difficulties. Hence we indulge a stupid and empty confidence in the flesh, and then trusting to it wax proud against the Lord himself; as if our own faculties were sufficient without his grace.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 275). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.
Mystery man’s next highlight in our study Sec. 2 is below with Beveridge’s translation:
Sic humiliati discimus invocare eius virtutem: quae sola sub pondere afflictionem consistere nos facit.
thus humbled learn to invoke his strength, which alone can enable us to bear up under a weight of affliction.
Calvin’s Latin, and Beveridge’s translation of the second underlining of Mystery Man’s edition, Sec. 2
Mystery Man’s third highlighted phrase, and Beveridge’s translation is below:
prosperis obstupefactos fuisse suos sensus, ut posthabita Dei gratia
in prosperity his feelings were dulled and blunted, so that, neglecting the grace of God
Calvin’s Latin, and Beveridge’s translation of the third underlining of Mystery Man’s edition, Sec. 2
Finally, the fourth underlining by Mystery Man in this Sec. 2 is given below.
inquam, documentis admoniti suorum morborum fideles, proficiunt ad humilitatem: ut prava carnis confidentia exuti, ad Dei gratiam se conferant
Believers, I say, warned by such proofs of their diseases, make progress in humility, and, divesting themselves of a depraved confidence in the flesh, betake themselves to the grace of God
Calvin’s Latin, and Beveridge’s translation of the fourth underlining of Mystery Man’s edition, Sec. 2
Whoever mystery man was, he identified the crux of our fallen nature (and yes, “crux” comes from the word “cross”). How cool it would be if he could by a major miracle appear in our Zoom conference so as to share his thoughts (which miracle would also require him to speak English) as to his underlining as well as all of his many marginal notations. I wonder what he is up to right this moment. When I get ‘there,’ I will try to look him up to share this experience: a very famous saying quoted from Virgil’s Aeneid, “Forsan et haec olim [once, formerly] meminisse [remember[ iuvabit [pleasure, happiness],” translated (by Robert Fagles) as “A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this.”
In the study of Calvin’s Little Book we came to a consideration of the call to “doing good.” This arose in Week’s #6 and #7, and in the context of Galatians 6:10 (pdf repeated again below).
Small sidebar: Calvin wrote (in his Latin original) exercendae erga ipsos beneficentiae*. “Erga” is “therefore,” “ipsos” means “themselves,” and “exercendae” means “that which is to be done,” namely that which is “beneficentiae,” from which we get our (rarely used) word “beneficence.” The prefix “bene” simply means “good” (in French it’s “bon” as in bon voyage, or good voyage). The final word, “beneficence,” or benefit, derives from the Latin word for “to do” or “to make.” So, “charity” in its Old English / King James context is an excellent translation. Today, “love” does not work well because its many other uses and contexts. So, “doing good” is about the best we have, though perhaps something like “really helping” might work as well. D&P chose “kindness,” which sounds a little passive to my ear, something like what being a passenger on a bus or plane should generally be. Though in the context of a fractious church members meeting, even “kindness” would be a good thing, and perhaps good enough.
*Calvin, J. (1834). Institutio Christianae religionis (Vol. 1, p. 450). Berolini: Gustavum Eichler. This phrase is in the final sentence of Book 3, Chapter 7, Section 7, which in D&P is Chapter 2, Section 7, p. 45, there translated as “kindness.”
So a prevailing question of the mature Christian life, what exactly is before me that calls for my “doing good,” “really helping?” The answer always will hinge on the meaning and context of each of these four words: doing, good, really helping. And, as we discussed earlier in our study, our life in this world is in Christ, to be an image of God, which can universally be considered to be the context of any admonition made of us in Scripture, or in the expression of our archaeological metaphor, it is the provenance. So the answer to what specifically is my “doing good?” in some context, has to emanate specifically from that context and God’s ultimate purpose of conforming us to His image. The summary on this point from the Westminster Confession, Chapter 16, discussed below, is a helpful guide.
In Week #7 of Calvin’s Little Book, we saw these examples:
We could add other examples of Scripture’s call such as the extraordinary circumstances of sharing that was prompted by the persecution of followers of Christ which included their being shut out of opportunities to work, and perhaps also housing. (Acts 2)
Yet, we know that God has commanded each of us to work, provide for our own needs and even to excess so that we can provide for others:
The man who does not work, should not eat at the church’s shared buffet, or at the hands of the church’s charity (2 Thes. 3:10. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. ESV)
The Book of Proverbs is filled with admonitions to work, and productivity (e.g., Prov. 6:6ff, and Prov. 24:20ff). I have a separately created an extended writing of “Diligence vs. Indolence” (not yet posted here).
The Westminster Confession of 1647 has been widely recognized and adopted for having set forth the essential elements of the Christian Faith as given in the Scriptures. There are alternative Confessions–some earlier (e.g. Heidelberg), some later (1689 Second London Baptist Confession), some taking exception to certain aspects. But, nonetheless the Westminster is an important point of reference and has been for close to 400 years.
One of its chapters is on this matter of “doing good.” In the format of all the chapters, it is very succinct and heavily cites key relevant Scriptures. A pdf on Chapter 16 of the Westminster Confession–“Good Works”–is given below. This version is in “modern English.” The highlights are mine to identify the portions most relevant to our present discussion.
The Heidelberg Confession (1576) is in a FAQ format. Below is a relevant Q&A on doing good:
Q & A 91
Q. What are good works?
A. Only those which are done out of true faith,1
conform to God’s law,2
and are done for God’s glory;3
and not those based on our own opinion or human tradition.41 John 15:5; Heb. 11:6
Heidelberg Catechism https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism
2 Lev. 18:4; 1 Sam. 15:22; Eph. 2:10
3 1 Cor. 10:31
4 Deut. 12:32; Isa. 29:13; Ezek. 20:18-19; Matt. 15:7-9
The verses cited in the above Heidelberg Confession are given in the pdf below (from the ESV):
Recall that the five chapters comprising Calvin’s Little Book are extracted from an 80 chapter publication on systematic theology known as Institutes of the Christian Religion. So, it is easy to miss a big picture observation: surrounding the practical walk issues of The Little Book, there are 75 other chapters on doctrine. Further, any search of online resources for writings of John Calvin will find that he wrote massive numbers of books.
The motive of such writing, and that of so many gifted Christian authors over the centuries is proclaiming the Gospel. There is an important NT Koine word for such proclaiming: kērússō:
In the pdf below are the NT occurrences of the Koine word kērússō. It is often translated “preaching” because it is distinguishable from another forms of proclaiming such a teaching and witnessing. “Preaching” (kērússō) is freighted by a forceful claim of an important, particular truth being expressed.
Below is an a lexicon definition of kērússō:
The wants and needs of people are without bounds. Some, perhaps many or most of such, are the endless manifestation of greed and covetousness extending to lust and envy. Others may not be in that category yet still characterized as vast, and more particularly as far afield from the focus of the Christian Call.
What about so called “global climate change?” Sea levels rising? War and threats of war? Pollution? Disease? Are these the ‘jobs’ of the church as a body of Believer’s, or more specifically, me? And if so, does such become the complete priority of life outside of what necessity binds one to work to provide for oneself? Who determines that, and on what basis?
Let us consider a simple relatively recent 100 year example: the YMCA and YWCA. These two organizations–the Young Men’s (and Women’s) Christian Association–arose with the migration from the farms to the cities, begun in massive numbers early in the 20th Century. The cities then were large, foreign places with many dangers and temptations, and still are. These two associations arose to provide a safe venue for young Christian men and women moving to the city to find work, and create their own pair-bound family units and ministry. Let’s consider how the ca. 100 year history of these two organizations have now evolved by looking at where YWCA now stands in terms of its purpose and mission:
WYCA TBD
There are many colleges and universities that were founded to advance God’s work and the Gospel by the education of students in Biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek and, additionally Latin), Theology, and missions. Among the notable examples are Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, all of which are today bereft of any such mission, or even (it seems) tolerant of any such expression by individual students or faculty. How did that happen?
COLLEGES TBD
Early in the 20th Century there emerged the term “evangelical” to identify a category of ‘real’ Christians who could be distributed across many different denominations and traditions. However, the term never quite got defined precisely, in part because there was an interest in being “inclusive,” a term with almost a magical power, which got in the way of defining well-prescribed boundaries such as the Westminster Confession (or most of it).
For a time, even with such ambiguity, the category “evangelical” appeared to be useful, bringing together people of like faith, usually serious about what the Bible has to say, and living God-honoring lives. But over time, as with other the examples here, such core meaning has blurred to diffuseness. Two small books have in their own way chronicled the decay, Mark Noll arguing that the “evangelical mind” lost the “mind” part and, more recently Carl Trueman that there’s no ‘there’ there as to “evangelical.” CITATIONS
The loss of Christian distinctiveness in many mainstream and other churches and associations of churches is so well publicized that further comment is not needed here. I would, however, add four points:
Whatever gets built, physically or organizationally, that is toward the cause of Christ, elicits a violation of all 10 Commandments against it led by the devil himself, including #10, Coveting. And he will use, as they say, every trick in the book, that is the corrupted book, to gain control either to his own benefit as an outpost, or to extinguish it entirely. So the devil seems to win innumerable skirmishes, and yet God’s work, Christ’s building His church, has never been stopped, nor will it ever, though it keeps ‘moving on,’ as on its own journey in both space and time, as it will until that Final Time.
Chapter 2, Sec.s 4 and 5 (pp. 35-42 in D&P).
Bible texts cited in the D&P translation for Sec.s 5-6, and carrying forward key citations from our prior week’s studies is given in the pdf below:
A theme of our time, and perhaps all time, is the devaluation of authority and specifically, under various categories, devaluing also the foundational truth from such authority, namely: doctrine, “bible,” theology, creeds and confessions, etc. This is a broader topic than ours here but prevailing view is often expressed by: “deeds not creeds.” Such might be more bluntly expressed as “scents not words,” scents as in following any smells of interest emitted by one’s own interests and spacetime environment.
Such admonition then devolves further in various forms that what one does, one’s moral / ethical code(s) of life, is more meaningful than any “doctrine” (or, apparently, even worse: “creed”). Because? Well, there’s another common phrase that “doctrine divides,” meaning, in essence, such could lead to conflict or even division (yes, indeed) when the only thing that is truly important is how we all behave, get along, help our fellow human, heal the planet, and so forth.
Another variant (there are so many, but all from the same source) is “love is love,” or “you have to follow your heart.” (Prov. 28:26 says something about this: One who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But one who walks wisely will flee to safety. ESV)
Underlying such views is the belief that there can exist a true morality not underpinned by an ultimate reality founded in God’s Law and Holiness. But humans, do not like to be solitary, nor unanchored, so arises the need to establish an alternative morality / ethic, and find fellow travelers who hold the same, or vice versa; either way ‘works.’
One of the dangers of reading only Calvin’s Little Book is that it can appear to be about “deeds not creeds.” This impression can occur because, as discussed previously, such Little Book is little for a reason: it is an extraction from his four substantial volumes (“Books”), which were published as The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Specifically the Little Book is just Calvin’s Chapters 6 through 10 of his Book 3 of the 80 chapters comprising the Institutes.. So, what we know as his Little Book, is embedded in a major book of “doctrine,” that has been so recognized since its publication (final edition was 1559). It stands along with one or two others as the crowning books on Christian systematic theology which is as “doctrine” as one can get.
But, we should remind ourselves, Calvin, as all the Reformers and later Puritans and still later true scholars of the faith, were also about “deeds,” doing, living out the Christian Life. As we saw in Weeks #1-3, Calvin himself claims that the Scriptures fulfill for us the necessity of a “model” (framework) of the mature Christian Life. So the Little Book is indeed about that important subject. But underneath there was and is, “the doctrine.” We will see later in our studies how important it is to look back in Calvin’s Institutes to get key background teaching to understand certain practical issues being addressed. To an extent we have done exactly this previously in looking back to his Book 3 on the subject of “regeneration” which idea is expressed by Calvin in the very first sentence of the first chapter of the Little Book (where “regeneration” was translated there by D&P as “God’s work” as we discussed).
These two Sections, 5-6, deal primarily with spiritual gifts but in the context of self-denial, not the full expression of the doctrine of such gifts themselves. So, what then, is the connection with self-denial?
Calvin addresses two primary points about such gifts: their true origin (source) and their ultimate purpose (telos). So, first, it is essential to know and keep in mind, that gifts are special enablements given by God to his children, and, so, they are another element of our continuing reference to “The Image of God.” Second, these gifts are for the primary purpose (telos) of serving and so blessing the community of people that God seeks to affect. Gifts to each of us from God are His Doing for His Purpose, which ultimate Purpose is to exhibit His Glory in manifold ways and situations, including most obviously, within the community of fellow believers.
What are our individual responsibilities as gift-recipients? Much could be said about recognition of the gifts themselves, their development / maturation, realizing full potential of and in them, etc. Calvin’s concern, and ours, here, is focused on the necessary aspect of “self-denial” in relation to the possession and use of such gifts.
As Calvin develops in his Chapter 2 and again further in Chapter 3, “self” is the old, fallen self, not yet fully extinguished as to existence even in a regenerated believer, and so is part of a Christian’s day-to-day reality yet in this life. As a recipient of such gifts we all too readily think of them as belonging to ourselves, much like finding some cast-off valuable perhaps as received by an inheritance. Once we see something as “ours,” we naturally lean toward a perspective of self-sovereignty of whatever has been given. But the Scriptures make clear, as Calvin makes clear, we are not the end purpose (telos) of God’s gift but an agent of God, in the most humble way, to affect others for the glory of God, the Great Giver. For this to happen even at all, let alone well, “self” has to be denied, something exceedingly difficult to do, and delicate to navigate when doing, particularly with the more public gifts which naturally draw attention to its human agent.
Calvin reminds us, by his cited Bible texts as given in the pdf above, that we are to think of gifts as something like the astonishing enablements of various organs or parts of human body. We are all overwhelmingly sentient beings with extraordinary capabilities by the faculties endowed for sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, and capabilities for outward expression of speech, creations of the hand, and mobility of legs, and all the internal ‘overhead’ automated functions of breathing, digestion, life sustaining heart pumping, and (there’s more, much more) the mental processing of all the conscious and unconscious process control functions, memory, and reasoning. All of this works as an integrated whole, as a network, as a system. No one element would have any meaningful existence or function separate from being connected and live-‘wired’ to all the others. The connection to self-denial, then, is this: no human, or other being, could function if each part operated by some hyper-sovereignty whereby it ‘works’ only when it ‘feels’ like doing so or ‘works’ in a purely organ-preferring way. To have such a body would be, literally, disintegration leading to chaos and ruin.
One of the best loved chapters in the NT, and most misunderstood and misapplied, is the so-called “Love Chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13. Its poetic beauty has been used in countless wedding ceremonies even in non-Christian contexts and beliefs. But, alas, this chapter has nothing, as in zero, to do with marriage ceremonies, though of course the commendations to “be patient,” “be kind” is generally and universally good advice and should be, part of every driver’s license training manual and test exam, and some thousand other contexts.
As discussed elsewhere, context is extremely important to grasp what the Scriptures teach. So, 1 Cor 13 sandwiched between two adjoining chapters on the subject of gifts is most-reasonably understood as also speaking to gifts. Further, there is nothing in 1 Cor 13 providing any context for applying its admonitions to marriage or wedding ceremonies, so its use in that regard is, in my view, teaching error.
Now let us look at 1 Cor 13:5 cited by Calvin, and the verse that precedes it, in the pdf directly below:
The text shown in the pdf above is in interlinear form where each word of the ESV translation has below it five lines beginning with the “Lemma” of the original Koine Greek word from which manuscript form the ESV was translated, next the transliteration of the Lemma (meaning that insofar as possible an English alphabet equivalent is substituted for each letter of the Greek alphabet in the shown lemma), then the transliterated “root” word from which the lemma may have derived (if it is not itself its own root), the CODES that are used by Logos software to tell us the specific grammatical job the word does in the sentence, and finally the Greek Strong’s G number which allows us to find many resources on additional nuances of meaning of the word, and where else in the Bible the Koine word occurs, regardless of how it is translated.
Note that verse 5 has four “not’s” (Strong’s G3756), though the ESV, regrettably, translates two of them as “or” which preserves the sense but, likely was chosen to read more smoothly. The base meaning of such word, “ou” as shown transliterated, is simply “not!” Preceding verse 4 is shown in the left upper corner and also contains two more uses of exactly such “not!” word.
A further ‘fix’ to the translation is that in verse 4 there is no word “and” between “patient” and “kind;” so it would read in a literal translation as follows: “Love is patient kind”…. Again the ESV opted for smoother reading. I think seeing the direct pairing as these words occur in the mss is helpful because it suggests that they are one, a unity, as the chief characteristic of what “love” is. Then all the six following “not’s” further refine what such word pair look like in the real world of life.
Further as shown the word for “kind” is more than an attitude, but an action, a help.
Self-denial has a broader application than only (though importantly) having to do with spiritual gifts. Calvin points us to Galatians 6:10, given in the pdf directly below:
Because verse 10 begins with “so then,” I’ve also shown the preceding verse for context.
Here are some observations on this passage:
The D&P translation has multiple occasions to use the word “steward” (see three examples on D&P p. 37). This was their translation of Calvin’s Latin word “administrati,” obviously related to “administrator.” The ESV translation of the Calvin cited text of 1 Peter 4:10 also has the word “steward.”
Well, “steward” is not an everyday term these days and may even be misconstrued by the first syllable “stew” might be expressing inner frustration (which is not the case). Below is the etymology of “steward” that will be helpful to our understanding:
Old English stiward, stigweard “house guardian, housekeeper,” from stig “hall, pen for cattle, part of a house” (see sty (n.1)) + weard “guard” (from Proto-Germanic *wardaz “guard,” from PIE root *wer- (3) “perceive, watch out for”). …The sense of “officer on a ship in charge of provisions and meals” is first recorded mid-15c.; extended to trains 1906. This was the title of a class of high officers of the state in early England and Scotland, hence meaning “one who manages affairs of an estate on behalf of his employer” (late 14c.). Meaning “person who supervises arrangements” at a meeting, dinner, etc., is from 1703.
Source here:
An interlinear pdf of 1 Peter 4:10 is directly below:
Let us observe the following with regard to the above: