The Highway Forums General Discussion Devotional Truth for All Time — John Calvin

Knowing God and Knowing Ourselves

1. All men live in order that they might know God

You cannot find a man anywhere, how ever uncivilized or wild, who is without some idea of religion. This is because we have all been created to know the majesty of our Creator and, in knowing it, to think more highly of it than anything else. We are to honour it with all awe, love and reverence. Unbelievers seek only to wipe out all memory of this sense of God which is planted in their hearts. Leaving them aside, we who claim to have a personal religion must call to mind that this present life will not last and will soon be over. We should spend it thinking about immortality.

Now, eternal and immortal life can be found nowhere except in God. It follows then, that the main care and concern of our life should be to seek God. We should long for Him with all the affection of our hearts and not find rest and peace anywhere except in Him alone.— John Calvin, Truth for All Time

2. The difference between true and false religion

It is commonly agreed that to live without religion is to live in real misery and to be in no way better than wild animals. This being so, no one will want to be considered as being entirely indifferent to personal religion and the knowledge of God.

But there are many differences in the visible form that religion takes. This is because the majority of men are not really affected by the fear of God. Nonetheless, willingly or not, they cannot escape from the idea that there is some divine being whose power either holds them up or brings them down. This idea keeps coming back to their minds. Struck by the thought of such a great power, in one way or an other they revere it. This is to avoid having too great a contempt for it, for fear of provoking it to act against them. However, living in a disorderly way and rejecting all honesty, they exhibit an obvious lack of concern in the way they disregard the judgement of God.

In addition, because their estimate of God is governed by the foolish and thoughtless conceit of their own mind, and not by his infinite majesty, they actually turn away from the true God. This is why, even when they make real and careful efforts to serve God, it turns out to be a wast of time. It is not the eternal God they are worshipping, but rather the dreams and illusions of their own hearts.

Now there is a fear which would most willingly flee from the judgement of God but which, being unable to do so, dreads it more than ever. Tru godliness does not lie here. It consists, rather, of a pure and true zeal which loves God as a real Father and looks up to him as a real Lord; it embraces his righteousness and detests offending him more than it does dying.

And all those who have this zeal do not set about rashly fabricating a god in line with their own wishes. Instead they seek the knowledge of the true God from God himself, and do not conceive of him as being different from what he reveals himself to be and what he makes know to them.

3. What we must know about God

Since God’s majesty is intrinsically above and beyond the power of human understanding, and just cannot be grasped by it, we must adore its loftiness rather than scrutinize it, so as not to be entirely overwhelmed by such brightness.

This is why we must seek and consider God in his works which, for this reason, the Scripture calls manifestation of what is invisible (Romans 1:29,20 [ASV] “because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse:”; Hebrews 11:1 [ASV] “Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.”) because these works portray to us what we could not otherwise know of the Lord.

We are not talking here about empty and frivolous speculations which keep our minds in a state of uncertainty, but of something which it is essential for us to know—something which does us good, and which establishes in us a true and solid piety, that is, faith mixed with fear.

In looking at this universe, then, we gaze upon the immortality of our God. It is this immortality which gives rise to the beginning and origin of everything which exists. We gaze upon his power which has created such a vast system and now sustains it. We gaze upon his wisdom which has brought into being such a great and varied array of creatures, and rules them in a finely-balanced and ordered way. We gaze upon his goodness which was the very reason why all these things were created and continue to exist. We gaze upon his justice which displays itself in a marvelous way in the protection of good people, and in the punishment of bad ones. We gaze upon his mercy which so gently puts up with our sins, in order that it might call on us to put our lives straight.

Indeed, it is so very necessary for us to be plentiful taught about God, and we really ought to let the universe do it for us. And it would do, if it were not for the fact that our coarse insensitivity is blind to such a great light. But it is not only in being blind that we sin. Such is our waywardness that, when it considers God’s works, there is nothing that id does not perceive in an evil and perverse sense. It turns upside down all the heavenly wisdom which otherwise shines so clearly there.

We therefore have to come to the Word of God where, through his works, God is very well described to us. There his works are not evaluated according to the perversity of our judgement, but by the standard of eternal truth. We learn there that our God, who is the only God, and who is eternal, is the spring and fountain of all life, righteousness, wisdom, strength, goodness, and mercy. Everything which is good, with no exception whatever, comes from him alone. And so it is that all praise should rightly return to him.

An although all these things appear clearly in each part of heaven and earth, it is ultimately in the Word of God that we always truly understand what is the main goal towards which they are heading, what their value is and in what sense we should understand them. Then we go down deep inside ourselves and consider how the Lord displays in us his life, wisdom, and power, and how he exercises towards us his justice, kindness, and goodness.