Truth as a Protection Against Idolatry

I am currently reading selected works of John Calvin (Protestant reformer from the 1500s) and works about him. Tonight I found the following that I was challenged by. It relates to the importance of knowing the God whom we worship. The basic idea is that if we do not know God in truth (i.e., as He has revealed himself through Christ and through the Scriptures), we will inevitably fall into idolatry in our worship of Him.

The following quote comes from Calvin's Commentary on Acts 17:24. Paul is here declaring to the men of Athens the true nature of the "Unknown God" to whom they have erected an idol. The verse reads as follows: "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man (ESV)."

Calvin's writes,

“For this is the true rule of godliness, distinctly and plainly to know who that God whom we worship is. If any man will entreat generally of religion, this must be the first point, that there is some divine power or godhead which men ought to worship. But because that was out of question, Paul descends unto the second point, that [the] true God must be distinguished from all vain inventions. So that he begins with the definition of God, that he may thence prove how he ought to be worshiped; because the one depends upon the other. For whence came so many false worshippings, and such rashness to increase the same oftentimes, save only because all men forged to themselves a God at their pleasure? And nothing is more easy than to corrupt the pure worship of God, when men esteem God after their sense and wit" (emphasis mine).

Calvin rightly interprets the significance of what Paul is proclaiming to the Athenians. If God made you and you make the idols and temples, then it is foolish to think that God is something made by human hands?

We sometimes think that idolatry is something to which only primitive people are in danger. However, often times we are guilty of worshiping a God of our own making too. Maybe false image is that He is a heavenly grandfather that ignores our sins. Or maybe the false image is that He is high, aloof, and uncaring of us in our weaknesses. Both of these idols are torn down by the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. His sufferings and death to take the punishment of our sin tells us that God takes our sin seriously. Yet the fact that God would give His only begotten Son in our place tells us that He is not insensitive to us in our suffering. In fact, Christ currently intercedes for us as a Mediator who has suffered in every way we suffer yet without sin (Heb 4:15-16). May we know our God truly and may our worship be in accordance with and in grateful response to who He is and what He has done for us in Christ.

Grace & Peace,

Jonathan

"God, Be Merciful to Me a Sinner"

“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (Luke 18:13 ESV)

I am reading through portions of Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" in preparation for my last doctoral seminar. I ran across a passage that well expresses the theology of the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18 and wanted to share it with you:

"Therefore if we would make way for the call of Christ, we must put far from us all arrogance and confidence. The former is produced by a foolish persuasion of self-righteousness, when a man thinks that he has something in himself which deservedly recommends him to God; the latter may exist without any confidence in works. For many sinners, intoxicated with the pleasures of vice, think not of the judgment of God. Lying stupefied, as it were, by a kind of lethargy, they aspire not to the offered mercy. It is not less necessary to shake off torpor [sluggishness] of this description than every kind of confidence in ourselves, in order that we may haste to Christ unencumbered, and while hungry and empty be filled with his blessings. Never shall we have sufficient confidence in him unless utterly distrustful of ourselves; never shall we take courage in him until we first despond of ourselves; never shall we have full consolation in him until we cease to have any in ourselves. When we have entirely discarded all self-confidence, and trust solely in the certainty of his goodness, we are fit to apprehend and obtain the grace of God. “When,” (as Augustine says), “forgetting our own merits, we embrace the gifts of Christ, because if he should seek for merits in us we should not obtain his gifts."--Calvin (Institutes, 3.12.8)

Father, have mercy upon us for we are sinners and unfit to stand before your seat of judgment on our own. Help us trust only in Christ and in His righteousness for our hope and salvation. May this faith be found to live in us each day.

Grace & Peace,

Jonathan

Calvin on "the anchor" of Faith

Excellent quote by Calvin on the nature of faith. Commenting on the phrase "anchor of the soul" in Hebrews 6:19 (“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain"), Calvin writes:

"It is a striking likeness when he compares faith leaning on God’s word to an anchor; for doubtless, as long as we sojourn in this world, we stand not on firm ground, but are tossed here and there as it were in the midst of the sea, and that indeed very turbulent; for Satan is incessantly stirring up innumerable storms, which would immediately upset and sink our vessel, were we not to cast our anchor fast in the deep. For nowhere a haven appears to our eyes, but wherever we look water alone is in view; yea, waves also arise and threaten us; but as the anchor is cast through the waters into a dark and unseen place, and while it lies hid there, keeps the vessel beaten by the waves from being overwhelmed; so must our hope be fixed on the invisible God. There is this difference, — the anchor is cast downwards into the sea, for it has the earth as its bottom; but our hope rises upwards and soars aloft, for in the world it finds nothing on which it can stand, nor ought it to cleave to created things, but to rest on God alone. As the cable also by which the anchor is suspended joins the vessel with the earth through a long and dark intermediate space, so the truth of God is a bond to connect us with himself, so that no distance of place and no darkness can prevent us from cleaving to him. Thus when united to God, though we must struggle with continual storms, we are yet beyond the peril of shipwreck. Hence he says, that this anchor is sure and steadfast, or safe and firm. It may indeed be that by the violence of the waves the anchor may be plucked off, or the cable be broken, or the beaten ship be torn to pieces. This happens on the sea; but the power of God to sustain us is wholly different, and so also is the strength of hope and the firmness of his word." (Calvin's Commentary on Hebrews)

Father, may the anchor of our faith be securely grounded on You and the truth of Your Word.

Grace & Peace,

Jonathan