May 2009
Quotations are from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed., John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960. Citations are by book, chapter, and paragraph (e.g., 1.1.1.)
May 1:
There is, indeed, nothing that man’s nature seeks more eagerly than to be flattered. Accordingly, when his nature becomes aware that its gifts are highly esteemed, it tends to be unduly credulous about them. (2.1.2.)
May 2:
And surely, once we hold God’s Word in contempt, we shake off all reverence for him. For, unless we listen attentively to him, his majesty will not dwell among us, nor his worship remain perfect. Unfaithfulness, then, was the root of the Fall. (2.1.4.)
May 3:
We are so vitiated and perverted in every part of our nature ... that this perversity never ceases in us, but continually bears new fruits - the works of the flesh that we have already described - just as a burning furnace gives forth flame and sparks, or water ceaselessly bubbles up from a spring. (2.1.8.)
May 4:
Indeed, I abhor contentions about words, with which the church is harassed to no purpose. But I have scrupulously resolved to avoid those words which signify something absurd, especially when pernicious error is involved. (2.2.7.)
May 5:
For there is no danger of man’s depriving himself of too much [honor] so long as he learns that in God must be recouped what he himself lacks. Yet he cannot claim for himself ever so little beyond what is rightfully his without losing himself in vain confidence and without usurping God’s honor. (2.2.10.)
May 6:
A saying of Augustine pleases me: “When a certain rhetorician was asked what was the chief rule in eloquence, he replied, ‘Delivery’; what was the second rule, ‘Delivery’; what was the third rule, ‘Delivery’; so if you ask me concerning the precepts of the Christian religion, first, second, third, and always I would answer, ‘Humility.’” (2.2.11.)
May 7:
Since reason, therefore, by which man distinguishes between good and evil, and by which he understands and judges, is a natural gift, it could not be completely wiped out; but it was partly weakened and partly corrupted, so that its misshapen ruins appear. (2.2.12.)
May 8:
Similarly the will, because it is inseparable from man’s nature, did not perish, but was so bound to wicked desires that it cannot strive after the right. This is, indeed, a complete definition, but one needing a further explanation. (2.2.12.)
May 9:
We see implanted in human nature some sort of desire to search out the truth ... Human understanding then possesses some power of perception, since it is by nature captivated by love of truth ... Yet this longing for truth, such as it is, languishes because it soon falls into vanity. Indeed, man’s mind, because of its dullness, cannot hold to the right path, but wanders through various errors and stumbles repeatedly, as if it were groping in darkness. (2.2.12.)
May 10:
Then [longing for truth] grievously labors under another sort of vanity: often it cannot discern those things which it ought to exert itself to know. For this reason, in investigating empty and worthless things, it torments itself in its absurd curiosity, while it carelessly pays little or no attention to matters that it should particularly understand. (2.2.12.)
May 11:
Whenever we come upon these matters [of science, society, and the arts] in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, through fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear. (2.2.15.)
May 12:
If the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. (2.2.16.)
May 13:
Some men excel in keenness; others are superior in judgment; still others have a readier wit to learn this or that art. In this variety God commends his grace to us, lest anyone should claim as his own what flowed from the sheer bounty of God. For why is one person more excellent than another? Is it not to display in common nature God’s special grace, which, in passing many by, declares itself bound to none. (2.2.17.)
May 14:
Human reason, therefore, neither approaches, nor strives toward, nor even takes a straight aim at, this truth: to understand who the true God is or what sort of God he wishes to be toward us. (2.2.18.)
May 15:
If we confess that we lack what we seek of God, and he by promising it proves our lack of it, no one should now hesitate to confess that he is able to understand God’s mysteries only in so far as he is illuminated by God’s grace. He who attributes any more understanding to himself is all the more blind because he does not recognize his own blindness. (2.2.21.)
May 16:
We ought to repudiate the opinion of all those who suppose that there is deliberate malice and depravity in all sins. For we know all too well by experience how often we fall despite our good intention. Our reason is overwhelmed by so many forms of deceptions, is subject to so many errors, dashes against so many obstacles, is caught in so many difficulties, that it is far from directing us aright. (2.2.25.)
May 17:
Because of the bondage of sin by which the will is held bound, it cannot move toward good, much less apply itself thereto; for a movement of this sort is the beginning of a conversion to God, which in Scripture is ascribed entirely to God’s grace. (2.3.5.)
May 18:
Man, as he was corrupted by the Fall, sinned willingly, not unwillingly or by compulsion; by the most eager inclination of his heart, not by forced compulsion; by the prompting of his own lust, not by compulsion from without. Yet so depraved is his nature that it can be moved or impelled only to evil. (2.3.5.) On the other hand, it behooves us to consider the remedy by which divine grace corrects and cures the corruption of nature. (2.3.6.)
May 19:
Somewhere Augustine compares man’s will to a horse awaiting its rider’s commands and God and the devil to its riders. “If God sits astride it,” he says, "then as a moderate and skilled rider, he guides it properly ... and leads it into the right path. But if the devil saddles it, he violently drives it far from the trail like a foolish and wanton rider." (2.4.1.)
May 20:
God works in his elect in two ways: within, through his Spirit; without, through his his Word. By his Spirit, illuminating their minds and forming their hearts to the love and cultivation of righteousness ... By his Word, he arouses them to desire, to seek after, and to attain the same renewal. (2.5.5.)
May 21:
In the gospel salvation is not offered under that hard, harsh and impossible condition laid down for us by the law - that only those who have fulfilled all the commandments will finally attain it – but under an easy, ready and openly accessible condition. (2.5.13.)
May 22:
The whole human race perished in the person of Adam. Consequently that original excellence and nobility... would be of no profit to us but would rather redound to our greater shame, until God ... appeared as Redeemer in the person of his only-begotten Son. (2.6.1.)
May 23:
Although the preaching of the cross does not agree with our human inclination, if we desire to return to God our Author and Maker, from whom we have been estranged, in order that he may again be our Father, we ought nevertheless to embrace it humbly. (2.6.1.)
May 24:
Moses was not made a lawgiver to wipe out the blessing promised to the race of Abraham. Rather, we see him repeatedly reminding the Jews of that freely given covenant made with their fathers of which they were the heirs. It was as if he were sent to renew it. (2.7.1.)
May 25:
God did not command sacrifices in order to busy his worshipers with earthly exercises. Rather, he did so that he might lift their minds higher ... Now from the grace offered the Jews we can surely deduce that the law was not devoid of reference to Christ. (2.7.1.)
May 26:
Paul justly calls Christ the fulfillment or end of the law. For it would be of no value to know what God demands of us if Christ did not succor those laboring and oppressed under its intolerable yoke and burden. (2.7.2.)
May 27:
The Lord freely bestows all things upon us so as to add to the full measure of his kindness this gift also: that not rejecting our imperfect obedience, but rather supplying what is lacking to complete it, he causes us to receive the benefit of the promises of the law as if we had fulfilled their condition. (2.7.4.)
May 28:
The first part [of the law] is this: while it shows God’s righteousness, that is, the righteousness alone acceptable to God, it warns, informs, convicts and lastly condemns, every man of his own unrighteousness. (2.7.6.)
May 29:
The second function of the law is this: at least by fear of punishment to restrain certain men who are untouched by any care for what is just and right unless compelled by hearing the dire threats in the law. (2.7.10.)
May 30:
The third and principal use, which pertains more closely to the proper purpose of the law, finds its place among believers ... Her is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord’s will to which they aspire, and to confirm them in their understanding of it. (2.7.12.)
May 31:
Now, the law has power to exhort believers. This is not a power to bind their consciences with a curse, but one to shake off their sluggishness, by repeatedly urging them, and to pinch them awake to their imperfection. (2.7.14.)
June 2009
June 1:
[Paul] therefore teaches us that we must be released from the bonds of the law, unless we wish to perish miserably under them. But from what bonds? The bonds of harsh and dangerous requirements ... To redeem us from this curse, I say, Christ was made a curse for us. (2.7.15.)
June 2:
Accordingly (because it is necessary both for our dullness and for out arrogance), the Lord has provided us with a written law to give us a clearer witness of what was too obscure in the natural law, shake off our listlessness, and strike more vigorously our mind and memory. (2.8.1.)
June 3:
Now what is to be learned from the law can be readily understood: that God, as he is our Creator, has toward us by right the place of Father and Lord; for this reason we owe to him glory, reverence, love, and fear; verily, that we have no right to follow the mind's caprice wherever it impels us. (2.8.2.)
June 4:
It is not fitting for us to measure God’s glory according to our ability; for whatever we may be, he remains always like himself: the friend of righteousness, the foe of iniquity. (2.8.2.)
June 5:
By comparing the righteousness of the law with our life, we learn how far we are from conforming to God’s will ... Secondly, in considering our powers, we learn that they are not only too weak to fulfill the law, but utterly nonexistent. (2.8.3.)
June 6:
Thus, realizing that he does not possess the ability to pay to the law what he owes, and despairing in himself, [man] is moved to seek and await help from another quarter. (2.8.3)
June 7:
The more inclined the playfulness of the human mind is to dream up various rites with which to deserve well of [God], the more diligently ought we to mark this fact. In all ages this irreligious affectation of religion ... has manifested itself and still manifests itself; for men always delight in contriving some way of acquiring righteousness apart from God's Word. (2.8.5.)
June 8:
The commandments and prohibitions always contain more than is expressed in words ... We must, I say, inquire how far interpretation ought to overstep the limits of the words themselves so that it may be seen to be, not an appendix added to the divine law from men’s glosses, but the Lawgiver’s pure and authentic meaning faithfully rendered. (2.8.8.)
June 9:
God has divided his law into two parts, which contain the whole of righteousness, so as to assign the first part to those duties of religion which particularly concern the worship of his majesty; the second, to the duties of love that have to do with men. (2.8.11)
June 10:
Surely the first foundation of righteousness is the worship of God. When this is overthrown, all the remaining parts of righteousness, like the pieces of a shattered and fallen building, are mangled and scattered. (2.8.11.)
June 11:
We keep the commandments not by loving ourselves but by loving God and neighbor; that he lives the best and holiest life who lives and strives for himself as little as he can, and that no one lives in a worse or more evil manner than he who lives and strives for himself alone, and thinks about and seeks only his own advantage. (2.8.54.)
June 12:
It is the common habit of mankind that the more closely men are bound together by the ties of kinship, of acquaintanceship, or of neighborhood, the more responsibilities for one another they share ... But I say: we ought to embrace the whole human race without exception in a single feeling of love. (2.8.55.)
June 13:
If we rightly direct our love, we must first turn our eyes not to man, the sight of whom would more often engender hate than love, but to God, who bids us extend to all men the love we bear to him, that this may be an unchanging principle: whatever the character of the man, we must yet love him because we love God. (2.8.55.)
June 14:
To be Christians under the law of grace does not mean to wander unbridled outside the law, but to be engrafted in Christ, by whose grace we are free from the curse of the law, and by whose Spirit we have the law engraved upon our hearts. (2.8.57.)
June 15:
The gospel did not supplant the entire law as to bring forward a different way of salvation. Rather, it confirmed and satisfied whatever the law had promised, and gave substance to the shadows. (2.9.4.)
June 16:
All men adopted by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as obtains among us ... The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so much like ours in substance that the two are actually one and the same. (2.10, 1,2.)
June 17:
Who, then, dares to separate the Jews from Christ, since with them, we hear, was made the covenant of the gospel, the sole foundation of which is Christ? Who dares to estrange from the free gift of salvation those to whom we hear the doctrine of the righteousness of faith was imparted? (2.10.4.)
June 18:
[Our] situation would surely have been hopeless had the very majesty of God not descended to us, since it was not in our power to ascend to him. Hence, it was necessary for the Son of God to become for us "Immanuel, that is, God with us," and in such a way that his divinity and our human nature might by mutual connection grow together. (2.12.1.)
June 19:
Who could have done this had not the self-same Son of God become the Son of man, and had not so taken what was ours as to impart what was his to us, and to make what was his by nature ours by grace? (2.12.2.)
June 20:
It was also imperative that he who was to become our Redeemer be true God and true man. It was his task to swallow up death. Who but the Life could do this? It was his task to conquer sin. Who but very Righteousness could do this? It was his task to rout the powers ... Who but a higher power could do this? (2.12.2.)
June 21:
In short, since neither as God alone could he feel death, nor as man alone could he overcome it, he coupled human nature with divine that to atone for sin he might submit the weakness of the one to death; and that, wrestling with death by the power of the other nature, he might win the victory for us. (2.12.3.)
June 22:
We should especially espouse what I have just explained: our common nature with Christ is the pledge of fellowship with the Son of God; and clothed with our flesh he vanquished death and sin together that the victory and triumph might be ours. (2.12.3.)
June 23:
The divinity of Christ has been proved elsewhere by clear and firm testimonies. Hence, unless I am mistaken, it would be superfluous to discuss it again here. It remains, then, for us to see how, clothed with our flesh, he fulfilled the office of Mediator. (2.13.1.)
June 24:
He is true man but without fault and corruption ... And this remains for us an established fact: whenever Scripture calls our attention to the purity of Christ, it is to be understood of his human nature, for it would have been superfluous to say that God is pure. (2.13.4.)
June 25:
Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be born in the virgin's womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning! (2.13.4.)
June 26:
We affirm his divinity so joined and united with his humanity that each retains its distinctive nature unimpaired and yet these two natures constitute one Christ ... The Scriptures sometimes attribute to him what must be referred to his humanity, sometimes what belongs uniquely to his divinity and sometimes what embraces both natures. (2.14.1.)
June 27:
In order that faith may find a firm basis for salvation in Christ, and thus rest in him, this principle must be laid down: the office enjoined upon Christ by the Father consists of three parts. For he was given to be prophet, king, and priest. Yet it would be of little value to know these names without understanding their purpose and use. (2.15.1.)
June 28:
[Prophet] We see that Christ was anointed by the Spirit to be herald and witness of the Father’s grace ... He received anointing not only for himself that he might carry out the office of teaching, but for his whole body that the power of the Spirit might be present in the continuing teaching of the gospel. (2.15.2.)
June 29:
[King] Christ enriches his people with all things necessary for the eternal salvation of souls and fortifies them with courage to stand unconquerable against all the assaults of spiritual enemies. From this we infer that he rules — inwardly and outwardly — more for our own sake than his. (2.15.4.)
June 30:
[Priest] Christ is an everlasting intercessor: through his pleading we obtain favor. Hence arises not only trust in prayer, but also peace for godly consciences ... Christ plays the priestly role, not only to render the Father favorable and propitious toward us by an eternal law of reconciliation, but also to receive us as his companions in this great office. (2.15.6.) |
