Some Calvin Quotes on Self-Denial

• For as the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves, so the only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever He leads.
  
  
• For he who has learned to look to God in everything he does is at the same time diverted from all vain thoughts. This is that self-denial that Christ so strongly enforces on His disciples from the very outset (Mat 16:24), which, as soon as it takes hold of the mind, leaves no place either, first, for pride, show, and ostentation; or, secondly, for avarice, lust, luxury, effeminacy, or other vices which are engendered by self love (2Ti 3:2-5).
  
  
• For this there is no other remedy than to pluck up by the roots those most noxious pests, self-love and love of victory. This the doctrine of Scripture does, for it teaches us to remember that the endowments that God has bestowed upon us are not our own but His free gifts; those who plume themselves upon them betray their ingratitude. 'Who maketh thee to differ,' says Paul, 'and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?' (1Co 4:7).
  
  
• Then by a diligent examination of our faults let us keep ourselves humble. Thus, while nothing will remain to swell our pride, there will be much to subdue it. Again, we are enjoined, whenever we behold the gifts of God in others, so to reverence and respect the gifts, as also to honor those in whom they reside. God having been pleased to bestow honor upon them, it would ill become us to deprive them of it. Then we are told to overlook their faults, not indeed to encourage by flattering them, but not because of them to insult those whom we ought to regard with honor and good will. In this way, with regard to all with whom we [deal], our behavior will be not only moderate and modest, but also courteous and friendly. The only way by which you can ever attain to true meekness is to have your heart imbued with a humble opinion of yourself and respect for others.
  
  
• The Lord enjoins us 'to do good' (Heb 13:16) to all without exception, though the greater part, if estimated by their own merit, are most unworthy of it. But Scripture subjoins a most excellent reason, when it tells us that we are not to look to what men in themselves deserve, but to attend to the image of God, which exists in all and to which we owe all honor and love. But in those who are of the household of faith (Gal 6:10), the same rule is to be more carefully observed, inasmuch as that image is renewed and restored in them by the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, whoever be the man that is presented to you as needing your assistance, you have no ground for declining to give it to him. Say, 'He is a stranger'; the Lord has given him a mark that ought to be familiar to you: for which reason he forbids you to despise your own flesh (Isa 58:7). Say, 'He is mean and of no consideration'; the Lord points him out as one whom He has distinguished by the luster of His own image. Say that you are bound to him by no ties of duty; the Lord has substituted him as it were into His own place that in him you may recognize the many great obligations under which the Lord has [bound] you to Himself. Say that he is unworthy of your least exertion on his account; the image of God, by which he is recommended to you, is worthy of yourself and all your exertions. But if he not only merits no good, but has provoked you by injury and mischief, still this is no good reason why you should not embrace him in love and visit him with offices of love (Mat 6:14; 18:35; Luk 17:3). 'He has deserved very differently from me,' you will say. But what has the Lord deserved? Whatever injury he has done you, when he enjoins you to forgive him, he certainly means that it should be imputed to himself. In this way only, we attain to what is not to say difficult but altogether against nature: to love those that hate us, render good for evil, and blessing for cursing (Mat 5:44), remembering that we are not to reflect on the wickedness of men, but look to the image of God in them, an image that, covering and obliterating their faults, should by its beauty and dignity allure us to love and embrace them.
  
  
• He alone, therefore, has properly denied himself who has resigned himself entirely to the Lord, placing all the course of his life entirely at His disposal. Happen what may, he whose mind is thus composed will neither deem himself wretched nor murmur against God because of his lot.
  
  
• Those whom the Lord has chosen and honored with His [fellowship] must prepare for a hard, laborious, troubled life, a life full of many and various kinds of evils—it being the will of our heavenly Father to exercise His people in this way while putting them to the proof. Having begun this course with Christ the first-born, He continues it towards all His children. For though that Son was dear to Him above others, the Son in Whom He was 'well pleased' (Mat 3:17; 17:5), yet we see that far from being treated gently and indulgently, we may say that not only was He subjected to a perpetual cross while He dwelt on earth, but His whole life was nothing else than a kind of perpetual cross. The Apostle assigns the reason: 'Though he was a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered' (Heb 5:8). Why then should we exempt ourselves from that condition to which Christ our Head behooved to submit—especially since He submitted on our account that He might in His own person exhibit a model of patience? Wherefore, the Apostle declares that all the children of God are destined to be conformed to Him (Rom 8:29). Hence, it affords us great consolation in hard and difficult circumstances, which men deem evil and adverse, to think that we are holding fellowship with the sufferings of Christ: as He passed to celestial glory through a labyrinth of many woes, so we too are conducted thither through various tribulations. For in another passage, Paul himself thus speaks, 'We must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God' (Act 14:22). Again, 'That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death' (Phi 3:10). How powerfully should it soften the bitterness of the cross to think that the more we are afflicted with adversity, the surer we are made of our fellowship with Christ, by communion with Whom our sufferings are not only blessed to us, but tend greatly to the furtherance of our salvation.
  
  
• It is of no little importance to be rid of your self-love and made fully conscious of your weakness; so impressed with a sense of your weakness as to learn to distrust yourself; to distrust yourself so as to transfer your confidence to God, reclining on Him with such heartfelt confidence as to trust in His aid and continue invincible to the end, standing by His grace so as to perceive that He is true to His promises and so assured of the certainty of His promises as to be strong in hope.
  
  
• Scripture gives saints the praise of endurance when, though afflicted by the hardships they endure, they are not crushed. Though they feel bitterly, they are at the same time filled with spiritual joy. Though pressed with anxiety, [they] breathe exhilarated by the consolation of God. Still there is a certain degree of repugnance in their hearts because natural sense shuns and dreads what is adverse to it, while pious affection, even through these difficulties, tries to obey the divine will. In bearing them patiently, we are not submitting to necessity, but resting satisfied with our own good. The effect of these thoughts is that to whatever extent our minds are contracted by the bitterness that we naturally feel under the cross, to the same extent will they be expanded with spiritual joy. Hence arises thanksgiving, which cannot exist unless joy be felt. But if the praise of the Lord and thanksgiving can emanate only from a cheerful and gladdened breast—and there is nothing that ought to interrupt these feelings in us—it is clear how necessary it is to temper the bitterness of the cross with spiritual joy.

Calvin the Peacemaker

Breaking the bond of fellowship between brethren is no small matter. In fact, it is so serious that Paul could declare, "As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned" (Titus 3:10-11).

Aside from foundational doctrinal differences, churches in fraternal relations, I would think, have no valid grounds for cutting off communion with each other.

Regarding the matter, the ff. piece exposes John Calvin's heart:

Personal Tragedy to Apostasy

I write this post from a position of not having experienced a personal tragedy of the magnitude that would rock the foundations of my faith to the core. In a way, I speak from ignorance, and yet the lives of some of those who have gone before me seem to speak ministration on this issue.

John Calvin lost his wife and son.

John Owen had eleven children. All died in early youth, except one daughter.

Francis Turretin had four children. Only one survived.

More recently, Michael Horton discloses in "A Place for Weakness" how one of his prematurely-born triplets, when older, experienced an accident wherein this elongated toy got jammed down the child's throat. The doctor gave a grim prognosis, but thankfully, the child survived.

As a father, I have often ruminated on the idea of the Lord taking back one of my kids. The same with Him taking back my wife. I have often wondered what my reaction would be. I do not know my heart well enough.

In a way, such thoughts are unwise, for it smacks of the attempt to peer into God's decretive will, and yet it is also wise in that reflection on one's faith, on one's devotion to the Lord, on the depth of one's love for Him, at the time when all is calm, may just be one of the ways in which stability may be had when the storms do come.

There's no minimizing the devastation of losing a family member. Imagining the possibility has often brought me to tears. But should it lead to apostasy? Should it drive one to the despair that leads to destruction? If the Lord Jesus Christ is our treasure, then we should mourn for the loss of a loved one with the passion that is due that love, but then that excruciating pain must be turned sacramental. It should lead us to Christ, whose life and death have redefined "death" for the Christian, with the promise of life forever restored in the future age of glory. Even if we think that the departed is lost by virtue of not being a Christian, our affinity with Christ and His promise of embodied eternal life should prove the stronger tug to renewed rejoicing.

May I love my Lord Jesus Christ more than my wife and children, that I may love them truly while they are here with me in this present age.

Calvin and the American Shorthair

I recently got myself an American Shorthair. Animal-world.com describes it as "a natural breed of cat that is as American as baseball and apple pie."

The impetus behind the acquisition is rats! We've been seeing rat activity, and though our home is kept quite clean, still these pesky rodents always seem to manage to rear their ugly heads. The ASH is the perfect breed for the job. Originally bred as ratters, they are the consummate "working cat."

I got my male at 2 months old, and though he won't be doing rat-murdering any time soon, the fact that my wife and kids absolutely adore him now makes the waiting all worthwhile. Tom the Terrible also functions in the way John Calvin describes in the ff:

"It is evident that all creatures, from those in the firmament to those which are in the center of the earth, are able to act as witnesses and messengers of his glory to all men; to draw them to seek God, and after having found him, to meditate upon him and to render him the homage befitting his dignity as so good, so mighty, so wise a Lord who is eternal; yea, they are even capable of aiding every man wherever he is in this quest. For the little birds that sing, sing of God; the beasts clamor for him; the elements dread him, the mountains echo him, the fountains and flowing waters cast their glances at him, and the grass and flowers laugh before him. Truly there is no need for long searching, since everyone could find him in himself, because every one of us is sustained and preserved by his power which is in us." (Preface to Pierre Robert Olivetan's New Testament [1534], 59-60)

The Priests of Success Don't Sleep

"It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2).

Modernism and the industrial revolution have left us not only with conveniences that have made life much easier but, as I've argued elsewhere, an unthinking breed of men. Another offshoot of this is the undue quality of virtue that has been stamped upon workaholism. Wide-eyed adulation is heaped upon the man (or woman) who can work long hours, who has the mettle to forego personal relationships and amusements, all on the altar of the workbench.

Enter SAP India CEO, Ranjan Das. By all accounts, the SAP India head honcho was a health nut. He ate right, exercised regularly, and was even an avid marathoner. But at the unripe, young age of 42, Das drops dead of a massive heart attack. The reason? Sleep deprivation!

Ranjan Das was a poster boy for modernism and industry. He was one of its priests, and he sacrificed his life for sacred success.

I don't know about you, but that's certainly no way to live! Nor die.

John Calvin has some words to say on the matter:

John Calvin's Theology of Music: An Introduction

By N. Seth Nelson for In Covenant (newsletter of Covenant OPC):

Part I

Part II

The Coolest of the Reformed Cats

Notice the prominent foreheads? A chief requirement of Reformed coolness.

Turretin was probably wearing a wig or decided on the "heavy metal" look—still within the bounds of cool. LOL.

Gospel Consolation in Calvin

Dr. R. Scott Clark has written a 5-part series on John Calvin's theology of consolation.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

The Goodness of Gandhi and the Like?

Cast a doubt on whether Mohandas Gandhi (or even Mother Teresa and Cory Aquino) is in heaven, enjoying eternal bliss in the presence of Christ, and more often than not, you will be met with fierce antagonism from those who do not properly comprehend the biblical doctrine of Total Depravity—because these people were just...so good.

Calvin offers us a timely reminder that it is only by God's restraining providence, through common grace, that not every one of us are as evil and barbaric as our totally depraved natures provide potential for us to be, and that ultimately, it is not our goodness that saves us but the goodness of the One who lived and died in the place of the elect:

Dream Theater Song Reminds Me of John Calvin

"If I seem superhuman, I have been misunderstood."

Calvin on the Essential, the Important, and the Indifferent

There are those who are debate trigger-happy, and those who, though embracing valid debating, know the difference between the essential, the important, and the indifferent.

I now invite you to be among the latter group by reading through this short article by Stephen Doe, an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and pastor of Bethel Reformed Presbyterian Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia:

All Trinitarian Baptism is Valid—Hence, the Invalidity of Anabaptism

Christian baptism is not a baptism into a denomination, group, etc., but a baptism into the Christian faith, as grounded upon the ontological Trinity. This speaks of the universality (catholicity) of the true Church of Christ, marked by its confession of the Trinity, and that baptism in any of the different denominations, groups, etc. that have this Trinitarian confession is a valid baptism, as it is a baptism into the Trinity. Hence, Anabaptism (rebaptism) is definitely error of an egregious sort, if not utterly sinful (as absurd as regrowing foreskin for recircumcision!).

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee explains:

Who Did John Calvin Consider as His Father in the Faith?

Martin Bucer.

The Psalter in Calvin's Piety

"Calvin views the Psalms as the canonical manual of piety. In the preface to his five-volume commentary on the Psalms—his largest exposition of any Bible book—Calvin writes: 'There is no other book in which we are more perfectly taught the right manner of praising God, or in which we are more powerfully stirred up to the performance of this exercise of piety.' Calvin's preoccupation with the Psalter was motivated by his belief that the Psalms teach and inspire genuine piety in the following ways:

The Muller-Meister Asks, "Was Calvin a Calvinist?"

"Abstract: Answering the perennial question, 'Was Calvin a Calvinist?,' is a rather complicated matter, given that the question itself is grounded in a series of modern misconceptions concerning the relationship of the Reformation to post-Reformation orthodoxy. The lecture examines issues lurking behind the question and works through some ways of understanding the continuities, discontinuities, and developments that took place in Reformed thought on such topics as the divine decrees, predestination, and so-called limited atonement, with specific attention to the place of Calvin in the Reformed tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (Richard A. Muller).

Also available here

Calvin the Van Tillian

In his letter to Martin Bucer entitled, Consolations to Be Found in the Study of Divine and Everlasting Truth, dated February 1549, Calvin shows himself to be the Van Tillian that he truly is (barring the anachronism):

"As truth is most precious, so all men confess it to be so. And yet, since God alone is the source of all good, you must not doubt, that whatever truth you anywhere meet with, proceeds from him, unless you would be doubly ungrateful to him; it is in this way you have received the word descended from heaven. For it is sinful to treat God’s gifts with contempt; and to ascribe to man what is peculiarly God’s is a still greater impiety. Philosophy is, consequently, the noble gift of God, and those learned men who have striven hard after it in all ages have been incited thereto by God himself, that they might enlighten the world in the knowledge of the truth. But there is a wide difference between the writings of these men and those truths which God, of his own pleasure, delivered to guilty men for their sanctification. In the former, you may fall in with a small particle of truth, of which you can get only a taste, sufficient to make you feel how pleasant and sweet it is; but in the latter, you may obtain in rich abundance that which can refresh the soul to the full. In the one, a shadow and an image is placed before the eyes which can only excite in you a love of the object, without admitting you to familiar intercourse with it; in the other, the solid substance stands before you, with which you may not only become intimately acquainted, but may also, in some measure, handle it. In that, the seed is in a manner choked; in this, you may possess the fruit in its very maturity. There, in short, only a few small sparks break forth, which so point out the path that they fail in the middle of the journey, — or rather, which fail in indicating the path at all — and can only restrain the traveler from going farther astray; but here, the Spirit of God, like a most brilliant torch, or rather like the sun itself, shines in full splendor, not only to guide the course of your life, even to its final goal, but also to conduct you to a blessed immortality. Draw then from this source, wherever you may wander, and as soon as he finds you a settled abode, you ought to make that your place of rest..."

Calvin's Prosperity Gospel

"It is not just those enamored with the prosperity gospel who have pursued health, wealth, and happiness as if they were divine rights and signs of God's blessing. Or who have avoided adversity and poverty as if they were curses. But God's ways are more mysterious than we perceive.

God so governs the universe by his secret providence that while nothing happens apart from God's decree, his hand remains largely hidden from us. What could be more natural than the changing seasons? Yet there remains such unevenness and diversity that every year, month, and day is seen to be governed by a new providence of God.

Calvin Loved Animals

I've been a lover of nature, and of animals specifically, for as long as I can remember. I've had a monitor lizard, a water snake, an iguana, a sulcata tortoise, many red-eared sliders, rabbits, birds, fish (Bettas, Arowanas, Oscars, etc.), a rhesus macaque, a host of mutts, a couple of German Shepherds, a couple of Rottweilers, a Bullmastiff, and about 10 or more American Pitbull Terriers at a single time (discounting the results of my breeding efforts) for pets—and that's just off the top of my head right now! All that is to reiterate: I love God's creation generally and animals specifically. And it seems Calvin did too:

"One reoccurring element of Calvin's theological language of nature—even overlooked by contemporary theologians reevaluating his theology of creation—is his fascination with the animal kingdom.....Calvin saw every living thing, no matter how humble or harmful, as a vehicle for the self-disclosure of its Maker.....Nature for Calvin was not a bare environment for humanity, but a theater alive with non-human creatures clamoring for God as their true end and possessing dignity in their own right. Nature also functioned as the rich seed bed for human language, a 'vast dictionary and grammar' (to use Bushnell's terms) for figures that enhance our comprehension of human existence and contemporary affairs. The animal kingdom in air, land, and sea may be a channel for the natural knowledge of God and a blessing to the life of humanity, but for Calvin it was also a living lexicon from which to cull provocative metaphors for the animation of human self-understanding and the quickening of theological debate." (Peter A. Huff, CALVIN AND THE BEASTS: ANIMALS IN JOHN CALVIN’S THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE, JETS 42/1 [March 1999])

I do believe that if Calvin had lived in our day and age, he would've been glued to the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet or National Geographic during those times that he would pause from his tome-writing (which were probably few and far between). :-D

The Foundational Christian Virtue: Underdogism

That is, humility.

"I have always been exceedingly delighted with the words of Chrysostom, 'The foundation of our philosophy is humility'; and still more with those of Augustine, 'As the orator, when asked, What is the first precept in eloquence? answered, Delivery: What is the second? Delivery: What the third? Delivery: so, if you ask me in regard to the precepts of the Christian Religion, I will answer, first, second, and third, Humility.' By humility he means not when a man, with a consciousness of some virtue, refrains from pride, but when he truly feels that he has no refuge but in humility. This is clear from another passage, 'Let no man,' says he, 'flatter himself: of himself he is a devil: his happiness he owes entirely to God. What have you of your own but sin? Take your sin which is your own; for righteousness is of God.' Again, 'Why presume so much on the capability of nature? It is wounded, maimed, vexed, lost. The thing wanted is genuine confession, not false defence.' 'When any one knows that he is nothing in himself, and has no help from himself, the weapons within himself are broken, and the war is ended.' All the weapons of impiety must be bruised, and broken, and burnt in the fire; you must remain unarmed, having no help in yourself. The more infirm you are, the more the Lord will sustain you. So, in expounding the seventieth Psalm, he forbids us to remember our own righteousness, in order that we may recognise the righteousness of God, and shows that God bestows his grace upon us, that we may know that we are nothing; that we stand only by the mercy of God, seeing that in ourselves eve are altogether wicked. Let us not contend with God for our right, as if anything attributed to him were lost to our salvation. As our insignificance is his exaltation, so the confession of our insignificance has its remedy provided in his mercy. I do not ask, however, that man should voluntarily yield without being convinced, or that, if he has any powers, he should shut his eyes to them, that he may thus be subdued to true humility; but that getting quit of the disease of self-love and ambition, 'filautia kai filoneikia', under the blinding influences of which he thinks of himself more highly than he ought to think, he may see himself as he really is, by looking into the faithful mirror of Scripture." (John Calvin, Institutes, 2.2.11)

"Natural Law = Decalogue" — Calvin

"Natural law was promulgated by God at creation and implanted in the human consciousness. We only know God because he has revealed himself, but he has revealed himself to us from the very beginning. Thus to say that a law is natural is to say that it is revealed in and constitutional to creation.

In the Institutes, he (Calvin) equated explicitly natural law to the Decalogue. At the beginning of his exposition he said 'that interior law' (lex illa interior) 'which we have described as written, even engraved upon the hearts of all, in a sense asserts the very same things that are to be learned from the Two Tables.' In book four, discussing civil polity, Calvin made the same point.

It is a fact that the Law of God which we call the moral law is nothing less than a testimony of natural law and of that conscience which God has inscribed upon the minds of men. Consequently, the entire scheme of this equity of which we are now speaking has been prescribed in it.

Far from being a conduit of the Classical or Thomistic view of the lex naturalis Calvin made a very sophisticated revision of the concept of natural law by removing it from the Stoic and Thomistic corpus of 'self-evident' truths and identifying it with the content of the Law revealed in the Garden and at Sinai and in the Sermon on the Mount" (R. Scott Clark, Calvin on the Lex Naturalis, Stulos Theological Journal [6/1-2, May-Nov 1998], 17-18, italics original).