Reflection 3 - Institutes of the Christian Religion

Are you a pupil of words from heaven? In today’s inaugural address President Barak Obama spoke “in the words of Scripture” saying, “We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.” It is here I reflected upon the words I read from John Calvin today, “Now, in order that true religion may shine upon us, we ought to hold that it must take its beginning from heavenly doctrine and that no one can get even the slightest taste of right and sound doctrine unless he be a pupil of Scripture.” (I.VI.2 p.72). Now a pupil of Scripture is one who sits under the authority of his teacher and speaks his words as one who truly represents him. As Calvin says, “The Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard.” (I.VII.1 p.74). Believers hold to the words of God as having sprung from heaven into their ears so that they have heard clearly from God himself. But for those who speak his words to exalt self or to prop up their own contrived doctrines are they pupils of words from heaven? The words from heaven are not meant to be twisted for when they are they allow the pupil to careen off his teacher’s path into a slippery fall of the human mind that forgets God. When the pupil thus walks he treads into a labyrinth of the revelation of God exchanging the glory of God for the glory of that which God creates and sustains. Therefore the pupil twists the truth and lusts after new fanciful religions. Religions that say God has promised all are equal, and all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. However in this same form of religion a child in the womb is not as equal as the mother, nor as free as the mother, nor as able as the mother to pursue their full measure of happiness. But for this pupil this is the noble idea, that precious gift, a better history and an enduring spirit we must reaffirm while we abort another 1.3 million babies this year in America.

John Calvin is right when he says, “For errors can never be uprooted from human hearts until true knowledge of God is planted therein.” (I.VI.3 p.73). The church must become pupils of the words from heaven to uproot the evil that lurks in our hearts and to see the true knowledge of God planted that will grow a church that is for his glory. The church must listen as those who long to hear God speak as from heaven to her that she may think rightly about him and his will. The church must be a pupil who hears not for our own ends but to know what is right and to be conformed by sound doctrine. I am assuming that President Obama was speaking from 1 Corinthians 13:11 in his speech. In that verse the apostle Paul is speaking in a illustrative manner of the time when the perfection of God’s church will be reached in the glory of God’s love and we will no longer be in need of those things that have helped us up to that time of perfection. We have needed prophecies, tongues and knowledge and God has given us those things from heaven. However, that time is not yet reached and we are still very much in need of instruction from a Wonderful Counselor and Mighty God. We are still seeing in the mirror dimly, we still know in part (1Cor.13:12). Therefore, we need God to direct us as pupils of the words of heaven so that when that day dawns on us we will not have followed cleverly devised myths and false religions that have a form of godliness but deny its power. I am praying for our President just as I am the church that we will receive the words from heaven as pupils who love and worship the one true, living and triune God who is our Creator and Redeemer.

Reflection 2 - Institutes of the Christian Religion

“Besides, this mind [pious mind] restrains itself from sinning, not out of dread of punishment alone; but because it loves and reveres God as Father, it worships and adores him as Lord.”
- Book I. Chapt.3.2

Christian piety is a gracious gift from God that swells out of a heart of love. It must be of grace for there is no love for God in the fallen man’s heart. If he wills to restrain himself from sinning it is out of fear of what he may loose for himself, but not out of honor he may give to God in love. God is not a Father to those who have not been given grace to honor and love God the Son as Lord. Therefore to restrain oneself from sin out of fear and dread of God as an illegitimate son is to expose a heart of prideful shame. But God is not mocked by a “vague general veneration” as though He is hungering for praise out of pride as the prideful man who needs the approval of others for His glory. Therefore there is needed grace for a pious mind that restrains itself from sin for love, honor, worship and adoration to God. An impious mind restrains itself from sin because of being afraid of being found out or caught, or fearing the consequences it may face or cause others to face, or fearing what this may do to a name, family, church or company it represents. And this impious mind is moral, good and upright in a world of immorality, depravity and decline. But it is impious because it does not have love for God but only self. When the pious mind is loved by God and filled with grace then it loves God by hating sin, it reveres God by shunning immorality, it worships him by running the incline to heaven out of the pit of mire, and it adores him in a passionate flight from the dung pit toward his glorious kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit.

Reflection 1 on Institutes of the Christian Religion

In the course of the 2009 year many will be remembering John Calvin as it has been 500 years since his birth, July 10, 1509. One way I am remembering this year is by reading the Institutes once again. I have made it a practice over the past several years to spend 30 minutes each day reading a work of systematic or biblical theology. During this time of reading I have read the Institutes but I am choosing to read them through again with the help of a reading plan put together by the Foundation for Reformed Theology. In each of my readings I am writing down something that Calvin said that greatly impacts and then reflecting on that in writing. I will seek to put forth some of these reflections through our churches blog.

“Unless they establish their complete happiness in Him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to Him.” Institutes, Book I. Chapter 2.1

Seeking happiness in a fallen world is a barren pursuit for the one seeking and a barren life for those who live in the wake of his pursuit. A fallen creature who seeks for happiness is not wrong. But when a fallen creature pursues happiness not in his Creator he is misguided by his desires, and it is this erroneous pursuit that leaves all whom he affects with the waves of his ill-directed pursuit.

Man is commanded to delight himself in the LORD (Ps.37:4). Therefore for the creature to delight himself in a primary way in anything but his Creator and Redeemer would be to pursue that which contrary to true joy for himself and others. Can a man seek for his joy in his wife or a vocational achievement? Yes, he can and he does. However, when his wife or the achievement he sought does not satisfy then he seeks another object or direction in life. Why does this occur? Because he sought his happiness in a wrong manner and the result is that he does not love his wife with endurance and sacrifice or work at his vocation for the good of those he has been given to serve.

God has made man so that he will know and enjoy Him through God’s revealing and giving Himself to man. The creature is made by and for the Creator and will not establish happiness, lasting, for he or others until he establishes happiness in God who has made Himself know. Therefore, God gives good gifts like family and vocations, but man must seek joy in God who the family is from and through and to (Rom.11:36). In this pursuit the waves that effect the family and those impacted by our callings can receive what is good, God. God has made and sustains family and vocations not primarily for a man’s joy, but for a man to have the opportunity to serve others joy in God. So a man is to establish his joy in God and as he gives himself fully to God as his joy he will be pursuing others joy in God. This is why Jesus can say, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt.5:16). A persons light shinning is the works he does, by grace, for others good. The reason it is called light is because it shines in a Godward direction. When a person establishes his joy in God then the light of God shines through him in the works of God, and others enjoy the results of God’s goodness and wisdom and they are able to look past the man to God whom that man knows, enjoys and refracts.

A Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me – Psalm 50:23

In October of 1621 God provided the Plymouth colony with an abundant harvest from the seeds planted earlier in the spring. William Bradford, the leader of the colony after the death of John Carver, declared that those living in the settlement should hold a festival of thanksgiving for the praise and glory of God due to his past mercies upon them. They decided to invite the Massasoit and other Indians whom God had allowed them favor and peaceable relations. The men gathered adequate supplies for three days of feasting, and all who gathered participated in cooking, eating, drinking, contests and the spiritual leaders of the settlement offered prayers of thanksgiving to God for his abundant blessings. God had abundantly blessed them and acknowledging this in their hearts and minds they offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving. However, it must not be forgotten that in the midst of this thanksgiving in all their memories was the loss of over fifty percent of those living in the settlement that first year before. Yet in the midst of this great loss there eyes were upon God and their hearts broke free for thanksgiving.

Soon after this first thanksgiving more colonists arrived in a ship from England. Their stores of corn for the coming winter were not enough to sustain those who had survived the first winter in addition to those recently arriving without supplies. All the families began to ration the corn they had and yet no one died in the winter of 1621-22 of starvation. The spring of 1623 came and they planted, continued their relations with the Indians, continued to explore new lands but it was a difficult year. William Bradford wrote, “the welcome time of harvest approached, but it arose but to a little. So it well appeared the famine must still ensue the next year also.” There is no record of a thanksgiving festival that fall. However, the fall of 1623 would be a different matter.

In the spring of 1623 the colonists planted a common field of corn but also each family planted and worked family plots of their own. They were seeking to increase their production of corn in preparation for the coming winter to avoid another “starving time”. Their diligence in planting and tilling the soil was met with a twelve week draught. The colonists realized that their crops were failing and so they knew starvation in the coming year was inevitable. William Bradford and the leaders of the families began to pray until Mr. Bradford called a special day of prayer and fasting. As they humbled themselves before God in prayer and fasting one colonist described what took place: “But, O the mercy of our God, who was as ready to hear, as we were to ask! For though in the morning, when we assembled together, the heavens were clear and the drought as like to continue as it ever was, yet…before our departure, the weather was overcast, the clouds gathered on all sides. On the next morning distilled such soft, sweet and moderate showers of rain, continuing some fourteen days…such was the bounty and goodness of our God!” William Bradford described it this way, “It came, without either wind or thunder, or any violence, and by degrees in that abundance as that the earth was thoroughly wet and soaked therewith. Which did so apparently revive and quicken the decayed corn and other fruits, as was wonderful to see and made the Indians astonished to behold.” The harvest was plentiful that fall and their abundance was so great that they were able to put up enough for winter and use some for trading with the Indians. William Bradford and the people planned another festival of thanksgiving that September and again invited their Indian friends to join them. It was again a time to rejoice in God with gratitude for his faithful display of goodness toward them. Edward Winslow wrote these words of the celebration, “having these may signs of God’s favor and acceptance, we thought it would be a great ingratitude if secretly we should content ourselves with private thanksgiving for that which by private prayer could not be obtained. And therefore another solemn day was set apart and appointed for that end; wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise with all thankfulness to our God who dealt so graciously with us.” They again turned from themselves to God from whom all blessings flow and gave a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

God is pleased when his creatures take their eyes off of themselves and fix them upon him with a heart and mind resounding in a voice of thanksgiving. We are abundantly blessed through the incredible hardship of those who have walked in faithfulness before us with their eyes fixed toward God and his promises in Christ in faith and their hearts resounding with gratitude for all God’s passed mercies. These who went before to this land were as those going to Macedonia to carry the gospel as a great cloud of witnesses. Let us learn to follow them in faith upon the promises of God made sure in Jesus Christ and learn in plenty or in want to offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving for his glory.

Community

“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”
1 John 3:11

Community
It is said that the apostle John could be heard living among the first century church with these words constantly upon his tongue, love one another. According to John this is a true test of one’s Christian faith, the presence of love for God’s church. Jesus had told his disciples they would be known as his followers by their love for one another (John 13:35). The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in regard to their living and worshiping as the church. In his first letter to them he dealt with the gifts God would give them by His Spirit and their usefulness to the unity of the body. Yet he did not elevate any of those gifts that God would give above the gift of love (1 Corinthians 13). The actions of love given and animated by the Spirit of God is the manifestation of Christ’s presence in the church. And this love in the church is manifested in community.

Love that is Biblical is love toward one another. Therefore, love takes place in the context of people living among one another in community. The command to love one another in the Scriptures is far from individualistic. A Christian cannot continue with God as his Father and have no use for the expression of the work of the Spirit in his life from his mother, the church. The church is a place of community where the love of God is manifest and expressed in actions.

This community where the love of God is manifest and expressed is larger than ourselves. We may desire community as a benefit God gives to us. We want to be in relationship with a loving community because it benefits me. Therefore the community we are a part of on Sunday morning tends to be larger than the community we spend the rest of our time with. We will whittle our community life down to a few people that we are comfortable with, have things in common with, who think like we do, and look and dress like we do. But this reveals that our “love for one another” is really a man centered love for ourselves. We are getting out of these relationships what we think we need, that is, to make more of ourselves.

If community is the place in the church where the love of God is manifest and expressed. What gifts has God given that you can manifest and express His love and be used of God to turn the hearts of His people in a Godward direction? We have all be given time, money, we live in houses with refrigerators and stoves, we have transportation, phones, computers, mailboxes, shoes for walking, books to read, movies to watch, games to play, tables to eat on, and beautiful places to enjoy. How are we using these gifts through the spiritual gifts and talents that God has given us to love others in community?

In the field of residential construction there is a movement in America to develop neighborhoods that create community. The houses are close together, the front porches are close to the sidewalk and the street, and the streets are narrow. There are parks in the neighborhood with playgrounds, basketball goals, and trails for walking, and some have developed grocery stores, shops and business offices in the middle of the development. But does this careful planning and developing create community? Community, that is for the glory of God, is developed in the eternal counsel of God. It is given through His love, manifest and expressed by His Spirit and expressed through the lives of a people who have died with Christ to sin and now live to God and one another in a community of love.

Confounded by the Glory of God?

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge. (Ps.19:1-2).

The infrared instruments upon NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have discovered a planetary aurora over Saturn that is unlike any yet to be seen. This blueish green aurora is similar to the Earth’s northern lights, yet it is completely different and unexplainable. The scientist who are receiving this data through the instruments upon the spacecraft are “confounded” because it “it behaves unlike any other planetary aurora known in our solar system.” One scientist studying the phenomena said, “Our current ideas on what forms Saturn's aurora predict that this region should be empty, so finding such a bright aurora here is a fantastic surprise.” There are other auroras observed on other planets where they are caused by the magnetic fields of particles trapped on those planets or solar winds but what they are observing on Saturn is unexplainable and does not relate to what they have previously discovered about other auroras. It is constantly changing and sometimes disappears within a 45 minute period of time. The scientists are confounded and mystified.

To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing…Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isa.40:25-26, 28)

Man’s telescope is blocked from view and his discoveries and explanations cannot apply understanding. He is confounded, mystified and surprised for a time until God allows a window into his ways. The heavens declare the glory of God and he speaks of his eternal power and divine nature so that we may see his creative and sustained works and marvel at his might and beauty in worship and trust. Whatever you may be confounded by, mystified or surprised by God is not and just as he creates and governs the beauty of the heavens so he has created you and governs all things in the heavens and the earth to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes (Rom.8:28). Therefore wait for the LORD by looking up and out in wonder and with repentance and faith and walk in his strength in Christ by his Spirit.

The Prudent Acts with Knowledge

I have made it a discipline to read a chapter in Proverbs each day according to the day of the month. In doing this I hold fast to God’s promise in Proverbs 13:13 “Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.” I long for the reward of knowing God and his will so that my soul is satisfied in him in all that he is for me in Jesus Christ. But as I have considered this promise, will be rewarded, with the condition, revering the commandment, I am struck with the necessity of not only reading, meditating and studying the word, but acting upon it.

The writer of Proverbs confers with this when he says, “In everything the prudent acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly.”(Pr.13:16) To revere the commandment is to treasure it and act upon it, doing what it says. And so those who are wise, fearing God as he reveals himself in his word, act by applying wisdom to life. Therefore the Christian must act and when he acts he will either flaunt his folly because he is not growing in the knowledge of God through his word, or he will reflect the glory of God in his acting because he is being renewed in his whole being by the knowledge of God through his word. By the grace of God we must not only be hearers of God’s word but doers (Jas.1:22).