The Institutes: part 4

(By: Chad Bennett)
The knowledge of God is not just conceiving that there is a God, but to grasp what can be comprehended about him that is to our advantage to know of him. God cannot be known in this way where there is no piety. Calvin defines piety as “that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces” (41). Since we are by nature dead in sins and at enmity to God it follows that we must first be reconciled to God by Christ our mediator. We can not revere God nor love him until this happens.

Calvin explains that mere religion is never sufficient to bring us to a knowledge of God. Piety affirms that “no drop will be found either of wisdom and light, or of righteousness or power of rectitude, or of genuine truth, which does not flow from him, and of which he is not the cause” (41). All of these things we should expect from God and praise him when they are received. I am currently teaching a Bible study through Philippians. In the third chapter Paul makes it explicit that righteousness is found in Christ alone. Paul at one time had done much to be righteous in and of himself, but after Christ he accounts all his past works as manure compared to knowing Christ. Because those self righteous works were a hindrance to true knowledge of God. If we are to have a knowledge of God we must be reconciled to God and give ourselves over to Him. Calvin says “For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their very good, that they should seek nothing beyond him—they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him” (41).

Piety establishes its complete happiness in God and desires to seek nothing beyond Him. If we desire to know God we must also desire piety of this kind.

(By: Chad Bennett)

This year is the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, the famous reformer. Perhaps Calvin’s most lasting impact comes as a result of his greatest writing, The Institutes of Christian Religion. Revised many times over the course of his life, The Institutes is a systematic theology representing the fullest expression of Calvin’s theology in a fairly concise format. Nonetheless, the book is often overlooked for more contemporary works. In celebration of the life of the great reformer I want to glean some wisdom from excerpts of The Institutes.

The first book of The Institutes is “The Knowledge of God the Creator.” The book begins with the question of how the knowledge of God and ourselves is connected. Calvin states as his premise “no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves’ (Acts 17:28).” This premise is proved both positively and negatively. Positively, all that we possess (gifts, abilities, and even our very being) demands a source beyond ourselves. In other words, that we are creatures demands a creator. Calvin says “by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led by rivulets to the spring itself.” Negatively, “the miserable ruin, into which the rebellion of the first man cast us, especially compels us to look upward.” Just as hunger drives us to look for food so also our unhappiness drives us to seek the source of true happiness and our unrighteousness leads to seek the source of all righteousness. Through the failings of every man we come to realize that the fullness rests in God alone. Calvin states, “we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God.”Contemplation of self inevitably leads us to seek God.