Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we're grateful for all of your love for us in Christ. We're thankful for the truth that you're not only our creator, but you're the father of all mercies who delights in your children. And we thank you for seeking and pursuing us by your grace, even while we were dead in trespasses and sins, even while we were far from you. Even while we were selfishly seeking our own way, you found us. And as the great shepherd of the sheep, you made us to hear your voice and to follow you. And we were given that strength by your grace to pick up our cross and follow you daily. We're grateful, Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, that you have laid down your life for your sheep to show the vast and deep and unfathomless love of God the Father, and we're grateful that you have demonstrated your love to us, that while we were yet sinners, you died for the ungodly. We're thankful that he who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ. And we're grateful for that. Fill us with your spirit today. We must have your spirit to understand, to know, to know you better, to know ourselves better, to see your glory, your beauty, your truth, your goodness revealed. And so we humbly We confess our dependence upon you and our need for your spirit now to pour you that you would pour out your spirit upon us and help us as we learn and help all that we learn Lord be used in service to our faith and to Love you and our neighbor as ourselves. We pray in Jesus name and all the church said Amen All right, we continue with our study of Calvin's Institutes today. I want to point your attention to a couple of Bible verses, a couple of places in Scripture. Let me remind you, if you're able to, I know the book is very thick, but if you can bring your Bible and your Calvin book every week, that would be helpful. Remember, for best results, and I think best results I mean in learning, is try your best to do your journal outlines, at least a few of the sentences, as much as you can. Remember, for doing 85% and above of your journal outlines, there will be awards at the end of the year. And so that's something that you might want to look forward to. Let's turn first in our Bibles to Psalm 19. And I want to read these a few scriptures to let you hear what the Bible says and then how Calvin takes these truths and gives them to us, instructs us in his institutes. Everything he does is from scripture. That's his goal is to do all of his theology from scripture. and based on good scriptural tradition. But we want to start with scripture. So let me read Psalm 19, a few verses from Psalm 19. Listen to Psalm 19 and you will hear the truths here, I think, reflected in what we study today. In Psalm 19, in verses 1 and 2, or verses one through three, it says the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech. And night to night reveals knowledge, there is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. So very clearly, God speaks in creation. But then down in verse seven, he does something much more gracious. He condescends to speak in his word. Verse seven, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. And this psalm can be really divided into two parts. The first part being on God's speech in creation and then God's speech in the Bible or the Word of God. Look then at Acts chapter 14. We're going to see some of the truths that we see in Acts 14 as well today. Acts 14. Paul and Barnabas are at Lystra, and they're telling the Gentiles there of the good news of the gospel. And in chapter 14, beginning in verse 15, Paul and Barnabas say, men, why are you doing these things? They're rushing out to worship them. We also are men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news. that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations, he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Verse 17, very important. Yet he did not leave himself without witness. For he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness." Even with these words, they scarcely restrain the people from offering sacrifice to them. And then finally, Acts 17, a familiar passage where Paul is at the Areopagus or Mars Hill in Athens, and he is provoked by all the idols that he sees. But then he gives them truth in the midst of that idolatry. He says in chapter 17, verse 24, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Notice that feel. Feel their way toward him. You'll hear that today. Yet he's actually not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. Even some of your own poets have said, for we indeed are his offspring. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and the imagination of man. We'll leave it there, but wanted to point out a few things. In those scriptures that we'll see reflected today, those scriptures are very important to understanding Calvin's first chapter, Calvin's first 28 pages. Let me situate the first chapter in this way, the larger context of the Institute, also with a bit of review from last week, especially since it's been two weeks, and some of you may not have been here two weeks ago, and it was part one, so it's important that we think about it together again. So what we're discussing here is the knowledge of God. And the way Calvin wants us to picture every man's relationship to God is that God is creator and we are creatures. And so to know God is to know ourselves. And so all the wisdom that we possess, that is sound wisdom, that is true and assured wisdom, consists in this, the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves. And so we see here this creator creature distinction that we have to keep in mind that Calvin has in his mind visually or imaginatively in his imagination. It's where he's drawing forth from scripture that God has created all things and that he has made the creature for himself. And so to ask the question, who is man? to ask the question, what is man? We must first deal with the question, who is God? And Calvin is not interested in starting first and foremost with a knowledge of God through speculation or considering what is God, that is, considering God in his essence or his being. It was very popular in the medieval time. It's not that Calvin doesn't discuss that later. But what he wants to get at first and foremost is he wants to lay the foundation of scripture alone. That when we speak of God, we speak scripturally of God. And when scripture is silent about God, we remain silent about God. But what he's getting at with this is that rather than asking what is God in the sense of his essence or being, he wants us to see first and foremost that God is to ask who he is as the creator and the good God of all mankind. He wants us to first and foremost see God, in other words, in relationship to man. That even before there's a formal covenant that God makes with man, there's an implied covenant by virtue of creation. That man is a covenantal being. That is, that man is a being in relation to the eternal God. That there is no way that man can live apart from God and be truly man. So this covenant epistemology is what's driving Calvin in this picture. Epistemology is simply how do we know? So how do we know about God? How do we know about man? Calvin says we know because God has chosen personally and relationally to reveal himself. God has chosen relationally, personally, it pleases God to reveal himself, to tell about himself. And in telling about himself, he tells man about himself. And so We must know God and we must know ourselves. And we have to start with that knowledge of God. So covenant epistemology, you might say, if covenant causes you to trip over because you've got more of a formal definition of covenant that's later established, then put in there relational epistemology. But the emphasis on covenant is that God has created his creature to be fully dependent at all times, that in him we live. and move, and have our being. And so there is no way to truly deny the existence of God without refusing His clear speech. That it's not an intellectual problem merely for man to refuse to worship and serve his Creator. It is a moral problem because he refuses to see what God has made clear before his eyes and within him and above him and below him and around him. Next time you go about memorizing prepositions, think about God's covenantal relationship with man and how he's revealed himself in all those ways above, within, around, about, everywhere. All right, so we start with understanding covenant epistemology, and then let's do a review for a moment from last week. The purpose of the knowledge of God, let me, if I may, just remind you of these things as a review, and then we'll get to the outline for today, OK? But the purpose of the knowledge of God was so that ultimately we would know his goodness, that we'd know God as the fountain. of all goodness, righteousness, truth, beauty, goodness, that everything we define, say, in the three that we think of, the good, the true and the beautiful, would be defined ultimately by God. What is true? What is good? What is beautiful? God defines that. And then he refines that for man. And that truth is transformative for man. So the purpose ultimately of knowing God, is that we might know he's good. That's Calvin's openness statement. And to put it in a better way, perhaps, or more particularly applied way, which is what Calvin's always driving to. He's always taking his theology to build your faith. He's always taking his theology to give you a pastoral application. He's saying, you want to be really happy? You were made for God. You can't be apart from him. And you can't be if you've got a twisted knowledge of him, because you'll have a twisted knowledge of yourself. Don't start with yourself. Start with God. You want to be happy? You can be the happiest knowing that God is your God and that you're made to be dependent, not independent. So that's the reason. The purpose of the knowledge of ourselves? To humble us. to remind us that we're by nature nothing apart from God, that who we are is defined by our relationship to God. That's covenant epistemology. In other words, you can't talk about the psychological self without first talking about the theological self. You can't talk about the psychological self without first talking about the theological self. You can't talk about your race or your sexual identity apart from knowledge of the true God. You can't twist it. You can't change it. It's not for man to do. Though he tries, he should not. He cannot. He'll never really bring glory to God and never really find happiness apart from that. And so that's the purpose of the knowledge of which says to humble ourselves is to realize our dependency. Listen, beloved, remember, as you're growing up, especially young folks, you're not growing up to find your independence. Mom and dad actually say that accidentally. I do, too. You're not growing to find independence. You're not growing into independence. You're growing into more freedom as Christians, freedom to do what God has revealed for you to do. Freedom to live as God has purposed you to live from His Word in Christ. You'll never be independent of your parents. You'll never be independent fully of your parents. You'll never be fully independent of your God. You're never to be learning to be independent. You're learning to be free, not independent. You're made for dependency. And I've already answered the self-knowledge is impossible without knowledge of God, because we are covenant selves. We are people made as creatures to be in relationship. And so there's a common awareness of God to all mankind that Calvin speaks of. Before I get to that, let me say one thing about the duplex cognitio or the duplex cognitio. So all of Calvin's thesis is found in this double knowledge, OK? So it's a double knowledge. And the knowledge is the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. So everything he's going to work out after the first 28 pages. There was a reason why I gave you two studies on the first 28 pages. And it gets a little deeper and it gets more complex and as you go in a good way, I mean, it's still going to be clear. And he will unpack what he's doing in the first 28 pages. But the first 28 pages are very important. Because this is his thesis statement, right? Is that there's a knowledge of God and a knowledge of ourselves. And that's true and sound or true and assured wisdom. But in the knowledge of God, there's also a duplex cognitio or duplex cognitio that you'll see that he does. He shows God first as creator. That's why you are. He talks about man having a sense of divinity. He talks of all men. And then he ends chapter one by talking of scripture, affirming what the creation says about God. The reason is, is because first and foremost, he wants you to understand first, God, the knowledge of God is creator. so that every man's held accountable. He's showing that every man that's ever been created, everyone who's had their own mythology, or their own mythology, or everyone who's had their own worldview that's apart from the truth of Christianity, all of those things are partial truths, some truer than others. But my theologies, mythologies, me-theology, mythologies, whatever, worldviews of any kind, must acknowledge somehow a truth that God has revealed and must deny the truth that God has revealed at the same time. It must affirm to some degree, because they're creatures and they have a sense of the truth of God. So there's a truth, but they will never come to the truth. But the reason why they won't come to the truth is not because it's not been made clear. It's because they refuse to see it. So he starts with Creator for that reason, so that every worldview is given to us in a nutshell in the first 28 pages. Worldview studies are helpful. They take a lot of time. People often have varying worldviews. You have to learn to listen to people's worldview. People's spirituality is all over the map these days. This is a very helpful apologetic. Because you know that they're affirming a truth, but they're refusing to see the truth. Because the same Creator who made you, made them. And they refuse to accept that. But the second is the Redeemer. And this will be, he begins to do this in chapter three, or chapter two, actually, with free will and the fall of man. So the two-fold knowledge of God, the duplex cognatio, or the duplex cognatio is to show the knowledge of God, the knowledge of ourselves, and then in the knowledge of God, a knowledge of God as creator first, as foundational, and then a knowledge of God as redeemer. Praise God in Christ. In other words, to put it in a nutshell, what he's going to do is say, here's the creator. Here's all the clear ways he's revealed himself above, within, around, behind, below. And man's refused it. And so God in his goodness has also spoken very clearly. So man will know him. So you see that condescension. When we talk of the knowledge of God as creator, man is finite. When we talk of God as the redeemer, he's sinful. You see what he's doing here? So he's getting all of us. He's starting with a really profitable and helpful foundational point that man's in God's image without coming out insane. You see that there's rich stuff here. There's rich stuff in every one of your relationships because of this. You see, so he's starting with creator to show that we're all made in God's image. And so he's starting as finite beings, that it's not sinful to be dependent. It's just creaturely. The Redeemer, the problem, the reason for the Redeemer by God's grace was because we were sinful, that we not only were finite, but we have become now incapable of doing anything good, true and beautiful. We can do good things, beautiful things, noble things, but we can never do ultimately the thing for which we were created. And that is to worship and serve God unless he redeems us. All right. So there's a difference. I was asked a great question yesterday about the difference between man being able to do good, being able to do beautiful things, being able to do true things. Again, to emphasize, he could do true things. He could say true things. We know that. Calvin's got a whole section in 50s about the Holy Spirit speaks truth wherever you find it. So he can speak true things. He can do make beautiful things and he can do good things. But it's never ultimately good. It's never defined by God as good, beautiful and true apart from God. Because it has to do with why God created man. And he created man for his worship and his glory. So we'll go more on that when we get to chapter 2. We'll be talking more about the Holy Spirit's work in everything that's good, true, and beautiful. And I'm using those because that's the summary of many of the philosophers. So let's, so Calvin speaks of an awareness that is common to all mankind. And this is what he calls, this is what has been called in Latin, the senses divinitatis. The senses divinitatis. So the senses divinitatis tells us three things, witnesses to three things about God the creator. The senses of divinitatis can be translated a sense, of divinity. OK, it can be translated an awareness of God. OK, it's got that the idea in Acts 17 where Paul says that they might feel their way toward him. All right. This, because there is a sense of divinity in every mankind, in every man, every creature, every finite creature, there's a sense of the divine, an awareness of God to some degree. There's also a semen religionus. And a semen religionus is just a seed of religion. The seed of religion. So these are very similar things, but they're distinct. How might this sense of divinitatis in the semen religionis be distinct in your mind? How might you make distinction? This is a sense of divinity, awareness, and this is the seed of religion particularly. How does that reveal a knowledge of God, perhaps, I could ask? Anything come to mind? I think that's it. I think the census divinitata says that every creature has the potential of worshiping God because it reveals why we were created, for worship and service. The semen religion is in distinction, and again, they're very closely connected. We're just making distinctions here, but the seed of religion is the actual outworking of that sense of divinity, how it works itself out. There are three ways the sense of divinity, the awareness of God works itself out. One is just to look around us and see the universality of religion. Again, the my theology, me theology, mythology, worldviews of various kinds, religions of various kinds. All of those things is the universality of religion. You'll never go anywhere without finding some kind of religion, even if it's a boring kind where man just worships himself. But generally, there's wood involved, and generally, there's clay involved. Generally, there's images involved. Generally, they're all the kind of ingredients for a Christian worldview. But they're just not put together properly under God's guidance. You know, there's the ingredients. That's one wonderful thing about mythology I like and different worldviews is always trying to find that truth, a truth, but not the truth through it. You won't find the truth, but you'll find a truth. You'll find truths. And it's quite helpful to see how they then pervert that truth that they find. The second is a servile, a servile kind of a way of looking at God as a servile fear, a fear as a slave, one who lives with fear and trembling. So you might think that, so you might be able to talk with someone about their religion, their spirituality, and they're comfortable. You start speaking truth to them, and they begin to fear, and I just feel like you're getting, you know, I'm feeling a little condemned now. That's going to come out, right? As even the Holy Spirit may be present, working, there's this kind of fear and trembling. There's this sense that I don't feel comfortable with the truth because I've sinned against my Creator. And that's going to come out more in Calvin. But that servile fear, a slave, a fear of trembling, Calvin calls it the horror illa et stupor. It's kind of like the horror and the trembling. The fear and the trembling. And so then there's the fear of conscience and conscience will be dealt with more later, but there's a fear of conscience that one knows they're not doing right. And that's why a lot of times people find works righteousness programs in cults or Roman Catholicism or the Marine Corps. Wherever you find some kind of an award-based, merit-based works, you're going to find people who are willing to do it. No offense about the Marine Corps, but I'm just saying it does become a real religion for people. And you find, hey, I can do good things. You just tell me what to do, and I'll do them for award. I'll do it for merit. Roman Catholic mythology speaks to that, and that's why it's been phenomenally popular. All right, the semen religion comes out in two manners, in two ways particularly. Do you remember? This is kind of, we're overlapping now into our study today. I'm doing a bit of review today because I didn't get time to really go over these two points, these two matters last time, and I want to make sure we do that. They're very important. But can you tell me about the seed of religion? How does it manifest itself? We've talked about one of them. If you're not worshipping the true God, what are you worshipping? Idols. So it's idolatry. And we see that in Acts where there's the gospel where Paul and Barnabas are doing these wonderful deeds and telling them that God is witness to you of his goodness through the years. He's not left himself without a witness. And they're just they're just really wanting to worship who they think is Zeus and Hermes. The second is superstition. Superstition. And you see this in Israel's history. You see it in your own heart sometimes. You know, it's when you want to use God. You know, when you think that religion can be used to get God to do what you want Him to do. And it's all, the Roman Catholic mythology is based on that propensity, that tendency in man of superstition. Roman Catholicists are very superstitious. It's what one guy called rabbit foot theology. But we have it ourselves in Protestantism. And that's not to be mean, it's just to be honest. I mean, it's very superstitious. So you're going to get idolatry and superstition. they're both displeasing to God. I say that with a smile. I think it's important to remember that Calvin is arguing against Roman Catholicism, and it's important to remember that he's wanting to constructively build a system of theology that's on the Bible. And so when we talk of Roman Catholicism, we're not just trying to pick on Roman Catholics, but we're trying to say that there is this system of theology that was contrary and that is still very immensely popular today throughout the world. and it's dangerous. Yeah, I think you're talking about superstitious behavior in Protestantism? Sure, it's harder to see, but it's whenever we, I think, would have a tendency to try to use God for our purposes. We're going to see it in 1 Samuel 4 this week, Lord willing. It's where we might go through the motions of something without real faith, I'm defining it now, but I'll define it hopefully more fully in the sermon this Sunday. But I call superstition that which is religion without a relationship. So it's going through the religious motions, and we can go through our devotions. We can even go to sermons and say we went to church that day, and so God should bless my life. And so that can be superstitious, that kind of thinking. All right. We'll get more into that, but that's a good question. So let's move to what we want to do now with the journal for today. And I'd like to interact more with you. And does anyone have a question about these two important matters? We got the double knowledge, I think, right? Does everybody get that? All right. And then the knowledge of God being two, also a duplex cognitio or cognitio. So then you get the sense of divinity and the seed of religion. Everybody got that? All right. So let's move. Let's look at our outlines then and talk about this for a minute. First, I want to ask you, because what Calvin's bringing us to is that if all you get is idolatry and superstition, When you don't know God the Creator, as you say, when you refuse to acknowledge the knowledge you know of God the Creator, that's better. When you refuse that, what happens, right? What happens? Idolatry and superstition. What happens when you get a good understanding of the knowledge of God as Creator? That's where we are right here on the outline. So number one, what is a true and fear and reverence of God? So for Calvin, the opposite of idolatry is true worship. The opposite of idolatry is true worship, okay? Biblical worship, we'd call it. And the opposite of superstition is a holy fear. A holy fear of God. A fear of God that is healthy. And so, what is fear and reverence of God when you think of it? Somebody. Anyone. What do you think of fear and reverence of God? We're told that our God is a consuming fire. And so we want to worship him not only in spirit and truth, but with fear and trembling. We're told that in the New Testament, in Hebrews 12, right? Yes. Okay, yeah, walking humbly with our God. That's a constant theme throughout the scriptures, isn't it? That we would act justly, that we would love that which is merciful and gracious, and that we would walk humbly with our God. Over and over again, that humility is shown in our life before God. Repentance is a humble act, right? It's submitting ourselves to the Father and saying, I'm sorry I've sinned. Well, how do you see fear of God? The opposite of true fear of God would be superstition. Yes. Yes, Connor? Yes, sir. Yep. Yeah, we see the irreverence oftentimes in Scripture. We see it in ourselves. But we see it when someone would go near the Ark, the very presence of God, without considering God's instructions with regard to the Ark, or someone who would come into God's holy presence and be consumed because their They're high-handedly, defiantly sinning in his presence. Or Hophni and Phineas, who blasphemed God in their office and did all kinds of irreverent and immoral actions as priests. There are two things that you want to remember with regard to God, to the fear of God, I think, that's very helpful. First, on page 5, he talks about that fear and reverence is coupled with faith and love. Fear and reverence is coupled with faith and love. He says that down at the bottom of 5. And so whenever you think of the fear of God, don't think of the fear of God that you're under condemnation, because you remember 1 John 4 says there is that perfect love casts out fear, right? There's no fear in love. Well, there is true fear of God. That's talking about the wrong kind of fear. That's talking about the fear of condemnation, the fear of God's judgment. But true fear of God includes both fear in reverence and faith in love. Malachi 1.6 is a wonderful scripture for you to meditate on sometimes. God asked Israel, he says, you know, I'm a father, so where's my honor as a father? You know, where's my obedience? And I'm also a master, I'm a lord, so where's my reverence? And that's the fear of God. It includes both a reverence or honor that we give to God, but also a love that we would have for him as a father. Calvin says it on page nine at the top. He gives us a really good definition. Listen to what he says. He says, it's in the context, the larger context of him saying how kind and good God is. And then he says, verse 9, the first paragraph, I mean chapter 9, I'm sorry, one more time, page 9, the first full paragraph, he says, furthermore, it's not mere fear of his vengeance which holds the heart back from sinning. It's because it loves and reveres him as its father and fears him as its Lord. Even if hell didn't exist, it would dread to offend him. And this is what's meant by pure and true religion. So it's faith joined with an unfeigned, that is a sincere fear of God. And so that fear becomes in Christ a love for righteousness. And the reverence is a service to his majesty. All right. So just ask, and we don't have to do this now, but just to think about, do you fear God? When folks ask, they'll ask you, what do you think is the big deal in the church today? What do you think we ought to aim some of the preaching, or what do you think are some of the big problems? I'd say in the top five, maybe number one is an irreverence in the church today. a lack of fear and trembling, a lack of understanding, perhaps first and foremost, that fear means also love, that it's knowing God as Father and Lord, and it would change the way we lived. So, are you listening? Are you talking? Don't do that. Unless you have something to say. Do you want to speak? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Pay attention. So that's good. All right. So we want to make that clear that the fear of God is very important. And let me show you a picture. I think it's always helpful. I showed you this last week, but maybe it'll help to see it again. As creator, what we have over here is we have true worship. I'll try to just draw it right here, over here. And then we have faithful. faithful service. And what we could see is as we understand God as our creator and all good things from him, the fear is coupled with faith. And over here, it's a reverence joined with love. All right. That then gives us faithful service and true worship of God. And we would call this here true religion. Or Calvin would call this true piety. And piety just means godliness, okay? So just to remind you that what he's getting to is to show that fear, coupled with faith, leads to true worship of the living God. And reverence, joined with love, leads to faithful service for God's honor. And coupled with that faithful service and worship is Thanksgiving, all right? Being grateful. All right. So, number two, what are the primary ways that God reveals himself? There were three primary ways that we learned that God reveals himself. What are those three ways? All right, creation. Good. Creation, number one, God reveals himself in creation. Yes, James? The works of providence. And number three? Yes, Kath? The Bible. Very good. The three ways that God reveals himself are in creation, the works of providence, and ultimately, in a special way, in the Bible. Now, under the heading of creation, what all would that include? Tell me a little bit about that. I'm going to skip over three for a moment and perhaps come back, but let's go to four. How is God specifically revealed in creation? This was on pages 9 through 11. How is God specifically revealed in creation? How do you have... We quoted Psalm 19 this morning, right? The heavens are proclaiming and preaching about the truth of God. The speech of God is day and night. Yes, sir? Okay. Yes. Okay. Magnitude and power of nature. Do you see... truths of this reality coming out in mythology. You have the need for personification. of those things. You have some of the attributes of God that are worshipped. Yeah, you do. You see it in that. So first and foremost, the magnitude of the powers that we see in weather, in creation, the sea is always used as a powerful, powerful place that symbolizes almost chaos throughout the scriptures, a place of great chaos that only God can keep it back. And we see that in terrible storms. Isn't that wonderful? That's a really good point. You know, let me say that what Calvin wants us to do in thinking of creation is that every time we go out into this, what he calls this theater of his glory, when we go out into this masterpiece theater, you know, Calvin was on to all the world being a stage before Shakespeare. And he said that the world was a theater of his glory. And so when you go out today, stop, and there's a reason why people say stop and smell the roses. You know, you have the smells, the olfactory, you have the ears that can hear, you have the beautiful, intricate designs of bugs and of flowers, bugs you want to get close to anyway. But even from afar, they're kind of cool to notice that they're really intricately made. These things, if they were big, as these 50s sci-fi movies showed us, they would be. formidable pose. It was very, very frightening. But to see God everywhere, to see Him in the handiwork, and Calvin will say that one way to bless our hearts and help us to worship Him is to see every created thing, you know, as a gift of God and see His goodness and His power through that. So the two things that we see about God's attributes are His goodness and His power. One thing about creation also, we could talk about it forever, right? But one thing about his creation is that it shows that his power and his goodness are not in tension. You know, that he reveals himself as a good and a powerful God. And so he's also wise. And so his wisdom and his holiness will guide, if I could put it in human terms, would guide his decisions, every one of his decisions. He's all wise. He's all holy. He's all powerful. He's all good. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Yeah, the arts, the sciences. Did you notice how many of the great Greeks that Calvin's aware of? I mean, he's talking about Galen, the Greek doctor, early Greek doctor of the second century. He talks of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods. You notice how he's using The insights that Cicero's on to, or Cicero, however, I have a hard time, you know, some of my Latin scholars like Conor will say Cicero, some of Latin scholars like Noe will say Cicero, I have no idea. So I want to ask you to go to the Latin scholar. But Cicero, Cicero, we're going to call him, Cicero. You know, on The Nature of the Gods, did you notice how he quoted him to show that even the pagans are on to this design or the wonder and majesty of creation? It's a wonderful place where he shows how there's a beginning point, a starting point with unbelievers who will see. He quotes Soutenius, you notice that? With Soutenius giving an example of fear and trembling through the great Gaius Caligula, or the perverted Gaius Caligula, the Roman Emperor. So over and over you're going to see this guy's knowledge, not only of the church fathers, but of the great artists and scientists and philosophers. Now, the reason I'm telling you that is because this is one of Calvin's projects, is to show that truth is true everywhere you find it. And that to prove his point that there's a universality of religion and observance of God's knowledge, at least to some degree. All right. Good. We need to move. So how is God specifically revealed in Providence? I find this a harder one to understand. Oh, before we move on from creation, remember creation is also everything involving the creature, so it's what he'll also talk about later with conscience, okay? Conscience. So God has revealed himself in creation, in the world, but also in conscience, okay? We'll talk about that later. How does God specifically reveal himself in Providence, beloved? Those are on pages 12 and 13. He said the best way to observe God is through his works, right? And so that's creation and providence. Do you remember what he says? Right. Yep. What I appreciate about what he's saying about the wicked is He, you know, it's like even the wicked world knows that they use phrases such as, he had it coming to him. What goes around comes around. There's patterns of providence. There's a conscience speaking, it'll talk more about where those who do evil know that they deserve to be judged. Romans 1 tells us at the end, people who exchange that true likeness of God for idolatry or idols and people who exchange their true knowledge of who they are and have, commit sexual immorality with those of their same sex. He says at the end of Romans 1, this is Bible, He says that they know they deserve to die, but they not only encourage others to do it, but they themselves know that they deserve judgment. So there's a sense of judgment. In fact, you break in line at any relativists, you know, waiting on, let's say you go to the DMV, right, and you just, the person's been waiting, an unbelieving pagan's been waiting for hours, and you break in line, and this is the the best relativist that ever lived, there's no absolute truth, everything's what you feel it to be, you know, that sort of thing. You break in line, he's going to quickly tell you there's an objective truth about the fact that that's not fair, what you just did to him. So, that kind of providence, the providence that shows that, and this is not prosperity thinking, because when we get to the Christian life, we're going to see that Calvin's saying, You know, we got to prepare ourselves for hard lives as Christians. But it is to say this, you ready? That there is a pattern in God's providence that those who do good tend to enjoy good. And those who do evil tend to get punished and live miserable lives. It's not always the case. But here's another example of the providence, if I may. When you see a good movie and the villain gets what's coming to him, the whole world wants that to happen. That's built in. That's another example of what Calvin would do if he had film or stories. If the villain doesn't get his justice, her justice, whatever, if that doesn't come to pass, it's not a good story. We're irritated at it. We'll throw it across the room. We are waiting for that to happen. Every man is. Every man and woman. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Excellent. Excellent. Psalm 73 is what Tom was just really meditating on, or at least the truth of that psalm. It's a very good psalm. It talks of that he knows that God's good to Israel, but then he looks around him and the psalmist sees all the evil in the world and that fact that they seem to be getting away with it. But then he says, then I went into the sanctuary. He got into God's presence and he realized, you know, that that there'd be a day of judgment. That's very good, very helpful. Your sin will find you out. So many ways we could think about this one. I appreciate this application. There's been a lot of storms lately, right? A lot of things that we know are God's hand of providence. And the way Jesus tells us to interpret these are similar to what maybe even from the mind of Calvin, where Calvin's drawing from. But remember, when Jesus is confronted with a couple of really, really bad circumstances, really horrifying circumstances, where the people's good, sincere sacrifices were mixed Pilate had mixed them with their own blood and had killed the people. He'd massacred the people who were sacrificing. And then he talks about the Tower of Siloam that fell on all of those people. And he says something very important. He says, he says, and he doesn't give them the why behind it, but he says, you too will likewise perish if you do not repent. And so Calvin's on to that when he says that every bad happening, every storm is to remind us of the seriousness of sin and of God's final judgment. And every bad happening, though we don't know why exactly, we know what we're to do, and that is to repent. And so when people are praying for others to be comforted and cared for, that's wonderful, but also pray that they'd repent. Because oftentimes God will take away his hand of care in order to bring people to their sin. All right. All right. So that brings us to... So the third is Scripture. The Bible. We could say so much about those two things. Let me move on. We're going to get into more of those as we proceed. Okay. Everybody hanging in there? All right. You ready? Let's try to do 10 minutes on Scripture and then we'll close. Is that good? All right. So much to say here. So much. But let's start with number six. So why does man need additional revelation from God in order to rightly know him? It's a very important point. Why does man need additional revelation in order? All right. So we take the truth as Romans one says. Can I let me let me read that real quick. You're all familiar with Romans one, I think. And but we'll get more and more acquainted with it. You know, every time we read the word of God, there might be something new comes. But let me read not all of it, but just a portion in Romans one. Paul says. Verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them. Because God has shown it to them. for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse." Literally, in Greek, it's anapologia, anapologia. without excuse. That's translated. You know what that means? They're without a defense completely before the judgment of God. Anapologia. It means apologetics, right? Defense of the faith or apology, you know, to make a defense. That's where we get that word today. But anapologia means that they are inexcusable, that they are literally without any defense before God's judgment because he's clearly made himself known to them. Yes, sir. Yep, that's right. That's wonderful. That's right. Very merciful. Yeah, well, that's a good thing to start on, Tom. Let me just remind you. So these two categories are very important. What we're talking about in theology are these two categories of general revelation, general revelation, which is God's revelation in creation, all right? in providence, okay, in conscience. All right, so general revelation. But here we have, what would be distinct from general revelation, someone? Very good. Special revelation. And this is the special revelation that we're given to And the first because of God's mercy he opens his mouth We're told that God opens his mouth That's that's the language Calvin gets is he wants you to know that when you open the Bible God opens his mouth All right, so he opens his holy lips to speak. So you didn't get it. Okay. I'm a gracious God I'm gonna speak to you give you some specifics So you didn't get my illustration? You did you you you you denied the sufficiency that I gave you in creation All right. You you didn't see the clarity I gave you. OK. OK. I'm a merciful God. I'm patient. What I'll do is I'm going to open my mouth. So so and I'm going to verify everything I've said. And it's not going to be inconsistent with what you already know. It's actually going to help define you and it's going to help refine you. It's going to transform you. It's going to be truth that witnesses consistently with everything you already know. But you're not yet ready to receive it. That'll happen in a moment. So Calvin uses the lips. So every time your preacher opens the Bible, every time you open your Bible for devotions, whatever, to look for God's truth, remember that light is shining. Remember that God's mouth is open. And what Calvin calls it for us is our spectacles. Our spectacles. Connor, our word spectacles comes from what Latin word, brother? Specto. Everybody know that? Ones in Connor's class need to know that today. And what are other English words we get from specto? Spectator, spectacle, wonderful. Spectator sports, circumspect. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, it's hidden in there. Or spectacles. And what do spectacles do? They have to do with seeing. They have to do with seeing clearly. And so we're given new eyes through the scripture. The scriptures are sufficient. They're clear. They're authoritative, right, because they're from God and they're necessary for us to know God truly as fallen people. But, you ready? We'll never use them. We'll never be able to see them without the work of the Holy Spirit. That's very important to always remember the close relationship between the Spirit and the Word in Calvin. Over and over you're going to see this and how it should be in your life. Open the Word to hear God's lips. Remember, you're still a fallen creature, though redeemed. You need the Spirit. When you hear preaching, remember, you need the Spirit. It's not all on the preacher or the teacher to make things clear, though he tries very hard to do so, most of them. It is also upon you to pray for clarity that you can hear and you can see. So the Holy Spirit, very important. List as many ways as possible as why the Spirit must be active in our study and our reading of Holy Scripture. What are some of the reasons? Calvin says the reason we need the spectacles is because we're bleary-eyed and almost blind. What he means by that and the reason he's using bleary-eyed is because he's not differing from Scripture saying that we're blind and that once I was blind, now I see, but he's just saying that there's enough to see in creation, you see. There's enough to see all around us, but we refuse to see it. And so, instead of calling it full blindness, he's calling it bleary-eyedness. Yep? Okay. Yep, so that you can clearly see. Very good. We need to have our own sins removed before we can see well through Scripture, to make a right judgment, as we're called to do. That's one very good reason. Very helpful. Yes, TJ? That's right. There's always a need for the Holy Spirit to bring those things to our attention so that the words of our mouths, our meditations of our hearts will be pleasing in His sight. It's very easy for us to get the first part of that. We're trying to get the words of our mouth pleasing in His sight, especially in front of other people. But what about the meditations of our heart? Only the Spirit can show those things and change us. That's very helpful. So how do we know scripture's true? This is a very helpful, I think this is a most important truth to learn from Calvin. How do we know that scripture is true? How do we know it's God's truth? It's on page 20. How do we know it's true? It's quite easy really to understand, I think, but I think it's worth meditating on is that the Spirit's the author of the scriptures ultimately, right? And the Scripture authors it, but the Scripture is also the one who testifies to it within mankind. This is why it's so important to emphasize the Spirit's sovereign work in, as Ephesians 2 says, that while we were dead and trespassed in sins, while we were blind, while we were slaves following the prince of the power of the air and doing the deeds of the sons of disobedience, God made us alive while we were dead. That the Spirit initiates that work, the Spirit gives us eyes to see, the Spirit gives us life and light, and the Spirit testifies internally that the Scriptures are written by the Creator who created us, the Spirit ultimately. As 1 Corinthians 2 says, who can know the mind of the Lord? The Spirit knows the things of God. And the natural man cannot know the things of God, but the Spirit makes known those things to us, to spiritual, making the spiritual truths known to spiritual people. Yes, sir, TJ? Good. Yes, amen. Yeah, it's through Scripture we ultimately get a full-blown, very clear picture of the God we already see. But we see Him in all of His glory, in every aspect that He has chosen. Yep. Yep, that's good. Then we can see. Yep. And through it we can see God's grace, His goodness more clearly. We can see that God's not only the Creator, but He's our Redeemer. We can see he's the forgiving God. We can see that his salvation is found in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, for his glory alone. This testimony of the Holy Spirit is called by Calvin, autopiston. It's the Greek word auto and then piston. And it just means self, auto, self there, and faith. It's self-authenticating. So whereas in any other book, perhaps in any other, with any other thing you're wanting to grant evidence to, it might allow there to be evidence to particularly authenticate something to be real or not. But with scripture is very unique. as God's book, as God's lips, as God's spectacles, it is self-authenticating. The author who wrote it must also reveal it. The author who wrote it must also reveal it. And so, as Calvin goes on to say, and I've got to close, Calvin goes on to say, you know, there are places for evidences of Scripture, there's the testimony of martyrs, there's the testimony of the church, all of those things we want to take into consideration. But here's the point he makes. The author who wrote the scriptures is the author. The Holy Spirit must reveal the scripture. He must testify inwardly to us, just in the same way that he testifies that we're truly the sons of God, as Romans 8 says. And so this self-authenticating is unique with regard to the Bible. Are there evidences? Yes. Are there testimonies? Yes. Are there faithful martyrs who've witnessed? Yes. Are there reasons of comparison between the ancient other religious books and this one? Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. But at the end of the day, what's going to cause you to receive it as the lip of God, the word of God, the mouth of God, the spectacles that God gives you is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit alone. All right. So the church doesn't determine the Bible. The church discovers the Bible. The church doesn't determine the Bible. The church discovers what is biblical. Because it's the work of the Holy Spirit, ultimately. And that's all we've got for today. Let's do... Oh, yes, ma'am. Absolute dependence. Thank you. That's excellent. And yes, thank you, Margie. Yes, ma'am. Absolute truth. Absolute truth. Yep. The light to our feet, the lamp to our path. Amen. All right. So any final questions or thoughts on this? All right, so next week, Lord willing, have all of the, let's see, the next one you have to take a deeper dive, 29 to 108. Maybe you've already had time to read that. I'm sure you have. You're up to right there, I bet. So just do your best. Come with study three. We're going to do knowledge of man and free will. So we're going to go into now the depravity of man or man's, what sin has done to man. And we're going to talk about that more, okay? So write me, call me, text me, whatever you want to do to ask questions if you have any. And you'll get the most out of the class if you do the journals and then come to class. And I'll try to summarize it here and we'll have discussion. All right. That'll be available later. Let's pray.