A copy of the Scriptures and turn to Romans 1. We'll look at a few verses from Romans 1, 2 and 3. 1, 2 and 3. So we're going to look at those first three chapters to summarize a few things that we'll be looking at today. We're continuing the chapter today on the knowledge of man and free will. Free will having to do with that first aspect of the knowledge of man and what condition man is in. So let's read our scriptures. Romans 1, first, I'm going to read verses 19 and following. Listen to beginning chapter 1, verse 19. 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. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." Alright, so that's Romans 1. And now turn to Romans 2. Romans 2. Actually, before Romans 2, look at verse 32 of chapter 1, just to emphasize again that there's a knowledge that all men have of God and His righteousness. Verse 32 says of chapter 1 of Romans, Though they know God's righteous decree, hear that, all mankind, knows of God's righteous decree that those who practice such things, such things as envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, disobedience to parents, those who are defined by this, defined by sin, slaves to sin, those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. All right, so that's Romans 1. Romans 2. So Romans 1 is very clear about the knowledge that all mankind has about God. And then Romans 2 says, beginning in verse 12, Paul is addressing Jews and Gentiles. The first chapter he was addressing primarily the Gentiles and their knowledge of God. And now he's addressing the Jews who had the Bible. And he says in verse 12, all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Verse 14, for when Gentiles who do not have the law, that is, they don't have the Bible, they don't have that special revelation, is what he's addressing, not in the same way that the Jews did. When they don't have the law, they by nature do what the law requires. They are a law to themselves, even though they don't have the law. Verse 15, very important. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on the day that when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. So the second chapter of Romans says that even those who don't have special revelation, who don't have the law of God, don't know the 10 commandments, they have the 10 commandments, they have the works of the law written on their hearts, and they know what's right and wrong. So again, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is reiterating the knowledge that mankind has about good and evil, about right and wrong, because they're image bearers. And then chapter three. So first two chapters of Romans, very clear that all mankind knows God. All right. It doesn't mean they know him savingly. It doesn't mean that they acknowledge him as God. On the contrary, they know him, but they refuse to acknowledge him and they exchange the truth for a lie. OK, although they have revelation outside and creation and inside in their consciences. Chapter three, then what's the verdict about man? Because this knowledge doesn't lead to true fear of God and true religion, doesn't lead to saving knowledge, what's the verdict? Chapter three, verse nine. Are we Jews any better off? Not at all. We've already charged that all both Jews and Gentiles are under sin. And then here it is. None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks after God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. All right. And then verse 23, it says very clearly at the end of verse 22, there is no distinction whether you're Jew or Gentile, whether you're under the saving light of God's revelation in the Bible, or whether you're far away from that exposure to the Bible or special revelation, the verdict is verse 23, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All right, all have sinned. and falls short of the glory of God. So chapter one of Romans says that all mankind knows there's a God and refuses to accept that and actually takes that and commits idolatry with that knowledge and refuses, exchanges the truth for a lie. Chapter two of Romans tells us that mankind, though they may not have the Bible, they have what is in essence the Bible written on their hearts. They know what's right and wrong. And chapter three says, the verdict therefore for all mankind, there is no righteousness in them, nothing good, all have fallen short of the glory of God. And then he goes on to say, which is our hope. And it's only through Christ Jesus that we can be saved. So today that's what we're gonna look at is we're going to continue looking at the way that God's knowledge, the way that we come to know, have a knowledge of God, the way that God makes himself known very clear to all mankind. And then we're gonna talk about the particular problem we have of depravity or corruption and how we need the saving grace of God and how glorious it is to know that God saves sinners when we realize the kind of condition we're in, the kind of place we're in and the hopeless place that we should find ourselves. So let's pray, we'll begin. Our Father and our God, we're grateful that you have revealed yourself very clearly in creation and in conscience and in a special way in Jesus Christ. And we ask that you'd come by your Holy Spirit now to teach us and instruct us. Father, we pray that all of these things that we're learning would just not be merely just tidbits of knowledge, things that'll make us smarter, things that might make us better in arguments with unbelievers, but ultimately that they would help us to know you and they'd help us to live the lives that we've been created to live, the godly lives, that we could renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, waiting for the glory of the Savior and His appearing. We pray that you would help all of these truths to be supports for our faith, strengths to our faith, that they would serve our faith to build us up and to make us more like you. Help us to be holy and humble and honest before you from our hearts. Help us to realize that Our condition is desperate and hopeless apart from your grace in Christ Jesus. And let us magnify you today. Help your servant, make him useful. Help me to decrease as Christ increases to your glory. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name be the glory. And all the church said, Amen. All right, so let's look at study four. That's where we're at. Chapter two. This is part two of the knowledge of God or the knowledge of man and free will. And we read the first three chapters of Romans to get a sense of how God has made himself known and what man has done with that knowledge. and therefore what verdict all mankind is under apart from God's grace, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So we're hopeless and helpless without the Lord's grace and kindness and mercy. Well, here Calvin takes a turn to describe to us two things very important because what he's doing now is he's talking more specifically about the revelation of the spirit and how the spirit of truth makes himself known not just to believers but to all mankind and so that's why he turns our attention beginning at page 53 to the work of the spirit. When you think of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, what are some of the titles that you think of when you think of the Spirit? What are some of the titles of the Spirit that you might recall from the Lord Jesus' ministry? Okay, a comforter, a counselor, a comforter, good. A helper. Teacher, yes. Calvin likes to call the Spirit our inner teacher. That's wonderful, isn't it? He's the one who has, that Christ uses, that Christ is Christ's Spirit. He's equal with Christ in essence and glory. Christ ministers His Spirit to His people to teach them, not only externally but internally. He uses men, and he calls men to himself, he uses scripture, but he also ultimately has to teach us from the inside, so he's our inner teacher. What's another designation or title of the Holy Spirit that might come to mind? He is, as Jesus says, when He comes, He comes particularly as, yes, comforter, yes, as teacher, but He comes particularly as spirit of truth. As spirit of truth. In John 16, remember? 12 through 15, Jesus says, when the spirit of truth comes, these things will happen. Ultimately, He will lead you into all truth. And He means that not just will He lead the apostles into all truth, who write the scriptures, but he will lead through the apostles, through the scriptures, believers into all truth as well. And so that truth is made known to us, but the truth is not merely made known to believers. The truth is made known to all mankind. It's part of the Spirit's work. And so Calvin, if you notice number one on your journal outline, Calvin distinguishes, makes an important distinction here between things of earth and things of heaven. And I ask the question, what distinctions does Calvin make between the spheres of heaven and earth, and what's included in the first sphere and the second sphere? So, what distinctions does he make between these two spheres of heaven and earth, beloved? The same thing for both spheres is that the spirit of truth is teaching. The spirit of truth is active. That's what is the same for both spheres, or both, yeah, spheres, or realms, some have called it. But what's distinct about the earthly and the heavenly? Yes, sir, James? Okay, the earthly doesn't particularly pertain to God and his kingdom, a saving knowledge of God and his kingdom, right? Okay, good. Good. Yeah. Calvin starts by reminding us of what spiritual wisdom is. And spiritual wisdom is first knowing God, and that's knowing God as creator and redeemer. It's acknowledging God for who he is. It's knowing his will, you know, and it's knowing it's the ability to show obedience and service to him, service, worship, OK, so spiritual wisdom is broken down into knowing God, his will and obedience and service and worship. And so in the earthly sphere, the spirit of truth is at work. But it doesn't mean that mankind will come to know God. It means it doesn't mean that men will be spiritually wise in that they will come to know God, his will and and obedience and service and worship. Calvin's reason for making this distinction, did anyone answer that question particularly? Do you know why he makes this distinction? I mean, there can be several answers to this, so it's not just as if he says one thing and that's the only answer. But why would you think, whether you answered the question or not, why would you think that he'd make this important distinction between the heavenly and the earthly sphere? Yes, ma'am. Good. Good. Good. Yep. We can do a lot of good things and we can know a lot of true things. We can do a lot of beautiful things, but we can't ultimately know he who is truth, he who is beauty and he who is good and defines good for us. Excellent. Yes. Yes, sir. Yeah, his justice, his wisdom, his power, every aspect of God, right? Good. That's right. What Calvin wants to get across is what Romans 1 does. What Paul in Romans 1 says is that mankind is inexcusable. That this knowledge that man has is enough knowledge to damn him. You know, you've heard the saying that we say in jest sometimes, you know, I know enough to be dangerous. All right, well, that's the truth with every human being. They know enough to be dangerously in trouble, dangerously under the condemnation of God. Romans 1.32 actually says that those who practice outwardly blatant sins against God know his righteous decree. that those who do those things should die, but they not only continue to do them, but they approve of those who practice them. Just watch your current events right now. You'll see that all over the place. In a time like this, it's particularly a time where Christianity and the uniqueness of Christianity is being made obvious. That can be troublesome to us sometimes, because it sometimes means persecution, but it also helps to see what is the grand truth. It highlights and emphasizes what Christians are saying and the need for the gospel because there's no subtle religiosity anymore. There's no hidden idolatry. It's just way blatantly out there now. And that is a good time for Christians in many ways, because Christians can now say, you know, this is why Christianity is needful. This is why you are living this way is because Christianity is so contrary to everything that you have thought and imagined. And it can witness to the truth that's already built inside them as image bearers. The spirit can witness to that truth Spirit can also harden hearts, but the two spheres have commonly been known more popular as common grace and special grace. This would be made very popular later on in the 1800s, around the turn of the 20th century, with a man named Abraham Kuyper, who would apply these truths that Calvin comes up with very, very helpfully, sometimes called a Kuyperian worldview. Abraham Kuyper would come up, would be using Calvin's spheres He has some lectures he did at Princeton right at the end of the 1800s, maybe the first of the 1900s, called The Lectures on Calvinism. Very, very influential lectures. I think they're in five parts about government and about religion and so on and so forth. They're very helpful with understanding engaging culture. Very small book of lectures, still in print. And so this is what's meant by the earthly and heavenly spheres is the emphasis is on in these two spheres is that man is now fallen. It's not man as finite, but man as he is in his fallen condition. Okay. And in that condition, the spirits at work in two ways, in common grace and in special grace. Okay, in common grace and in special grace or the earthly and heavenly realms. And this is extremely helpful for us all to consider and think about, especially in what might be the late modern or post-Christian age in which we live. is to understand what the scripture is saying about humanity, but understanding that there are still glimpses of image and truths in fallen mankind that we want to take note of. And number two, I asked the question, how does the Holy Spirit specifically work properly and graciously in both of these spheres? And what does this teach you? How does the Holy Spirit work in both of these spheres? Anyone? Yes, ma'am. Yes. Yes. Very good. Yep. Yep, common grace, that's one of the wonderful helpful texts to support the notion of the earthly sphere of common grace is Matthew 5, I think it's 16, that God sends rain on the just and the unjust. Another helpful text to support this is Psalm 104 about God taking care of all creation. Another is Psalm 147 that talks of God in his works to all mankind, his kindness, his mercy. So the two spheres, earthly and heavenly, very good. That's very helpful. So the Holy Spirit specifically works properly and graciously in both these spheres. And so this teaches us that God is not just one who has revealed himself and then gone far away from us. You know, a God who might be, okay, I've given you my revelation, I've done what I need to do, I'm gonna go really far away and live in transcendence, but he's a God who's eminently close to us by his Holy Spirit, making truth known every day to the world. In other words, he's constantly revealing himself. And man is constantly refusing that knowledge by nature. And so God has never ceased to be actively by the spirit of truth, making himself known in both common spheres of common and spheres of special grace. On page 55, there's a wonderful quotation here that I'm going to take the moment to read because it is one of the classic quotations from Calvin with regard to common grace. It's one that Kuyper made very popular. Kuyper's statement in the lectures on Calvinism was something like, you know, that there's not one square inch of this universe in this world that the Lord Jesus doesn't say it is mine. In other words, he's showing that Jesus rules and reigns over creation, over all humanity. And it belongs to him ultimately and is accountable to him. And the way that Calvin put it was that truth is true wherever you find it. And wherever you find that truth, it's especially from the spirit of truth. And if we deny that truth wherever we find it, we're being ungrateful to God. This is what he says on page 55. He says, when therefore we discover the wonderful light of truth in the works of pagan authors, or we could say pagan poets, or songwriters, or filmmakers, you know, there's truth in Simon and Garfunkel, right? There's truth in the Coen Brothers films. As our friend Cheryl sent me recently a very good article that was helpful about how unbelievers can often make better Christian movies than Christians can. because they're not preaching, but they're asking questions that all humanity is asking. And so the works of pagan authors, films, poems, songs, should alert us to the fact that man's nature, though fallen from its integrity and profoundly corrupt, is nevertheless adorned with many of God's gifts. If we recognize the Spirit of God as the unique source of truth, we'll not despise truth wherever it appears unless we wish to offend God's Spirit. For we cannot disparage the Spirit's gifts without attracting His contempt and reproach. So we want to have a positive view of education, of exploring this world, of seeing with our eyes the wisdom and truths of God as they're revealed in all mankind, especially in the arts. I think that's where it comes through, but also the philosophers, particularly the philosophers. He goes on to say, how shall we deny the keen light of wisdom with which the ancient jurists designed such an orderly and just system of government? In other words, how could you deny that was the work of the spirit of truth in the ancient jurists, even though they were unbelievers? He says, shall we say that the philosophers were blind when they studied nature's secrets with such care or when they wrote so skillfully about them? Shall we say that those who taught us the art of disputation, that is the skill of rational debate, were devoid of understanding? Shall we say that those who invented medicine were mad? Shall we regard the other disciplines as mere folly? On the contrary, we cannot read the books which deal with all these subjects without a feeling of wonder, wonder. For wonder is what we feel when we're obliged to acknowledge the wisdom they contain. So that's the kind of wonder we ought to have as Christians, especially knowing God and being careful with regard to discernment, being discerning and being able to decide and discern the difference between good and evil. Now, for each one of us, we have to be careful of our own consciences as we engage in certain things, as we watch certain things, as we listen to certain things, there's no doubt that. But I think what you want to remember is something Calvin holds together here is that there's not only common grace, but there's common corruption. There's not only common grace, there's common curse on every man and every woman. And so while a song may be truth or carry some truth to it, it may also have a purpose of corrupting you. So you have to be careful of that. In other words, when you're reading a book, reading it with discernment, you want to behold the wonder of all the truths, but you also wanna be very careful because as Calvin says very clearly, they're profoundly corrupt. And they don't know oftentimes the things that they're influencing you towards. So you have to understand those things. So common grace and common curse have to be held together. That's wisdom, okay? That's wisdom. In the name of common grace, some have found this liberating and then become worldly. because they haven't used Christian discernment in understanding there's still corruption. They've just jumped in, you know, to the looking for truth everywhere and then find themselves engaged as a worldly person because they weren't wise. So hear those words. Be wise. But listen to what Calvin says. The truth is we should judge nothing to be exceptional or worthy of praise unless we recognize that it comes from God. And it's gross ingratitude when we don't acknowledge these things. So the truth as it's summarized is that the truth is true wherever you find it. And it's God's truth particularly. And it's the spirit of truth more particularly who is revealing something about God and about the world that God has made. So this is profoundly influential and helpful. And I have put a few things up that maybe would be helpful to remember. Though fallen man. go on to number four and five, and then I'll do something on the board. But though fallen man is reasonable, and we see great giftedness in them, nevertheless, this will never bring mankind to a saving understanding of God. Okay, so the spiritual wisdom, though they have some kind of wisdom, lowercase w, and though they have truths, lowercase t, and they can comprehend truth, Nevertheless, this will never bring them to an understanding of God. And it's because they need two things from the Holy Spirit. And this is where it becomes a witness from the inside. A witness from the inside. So if you will, if we weren't fallen, we could see every truth, every beautiful thing, every good thing as from God. Every human being would acknowledge it and be grateful all the time. So we're freed in Christ to be thankful. We're freed in Christ to be grateful. We're freed in Christ to give all the glory to God, you see? Well, we're made that way. That's why nothing else will satisfy us except to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, you see? So the well-ordered life is obedient service and worship. That's the well-ordered life. So some philosophers have come upon the well-ordered life as self-control. True. Good. Yeah. Can't go too far. They've come upon the orderly life as, well, you ought to tell the truth. Good. It's true. It keeps you out of trouble. But the reasons for them doing it are always self-motivated. It's so that they can have a happy life. And in and of itself, it's not a bad thing. It keeps culture orderly, right? It's a grace of God, in a sense. But it will not do. with regard for ultimately making them happy because it's not, they're not created for themselves, they're created for God. And so what happens is the spirit of truth must from within, not just outside, he must from within witness to this truth and show us this truth. Reason alone can't find it. Giftedness cannot find it. And so there's two ways the spirit of truth makes this known. The first is enlightenment, enlightenment. You know, by nature, we're in darkenment. We're in a state of in darkenment. You know, what we call the enlightenment in history sometimes, or at least historians used to, that time period, late 1700s, you know, and early 1800s, that was a time of in darkenment. It was a time of belief in deism, a false God, it was idolatry. It was good for the sake of good, and to a certain degree, it was, well, how to, pursue happiness. But on the other hand, it wasn't about the true God. It created gods, it created idolatry, and it was a time of endarkenment. Enlightenment comes when the spirit from inside gives us light to see what has been around us all the time. The Bible calls that an awakening. The Bible calls that a resurrection from the dead. So we are those dead in trespasses and sins. We're blind and God gives us new eyes, right? We're dead. He makes us alive. He enlightens us, takes our minds and says, wow, I never saw that before. And if you can remember a time when you were not a Christian, The time, and then after you were a Christian, you remember how you began to behold things in a different way. Everything was new to you. You were in God's world that you'd always lived in, but you saw it better now. Those happen also times of maturity. When you've come to a new maturity, you start really appreciating the things of creation, or the things of God, or the things of His truth, the things of His word. You really are at a new awakening. So there is an awakening, and then there are little awakenings. But the Spirit's work ultimately is to enlighten those whom God has put His affection on. And we'll talk more about predestination and providence later, okay? But for now, that's what Calvin's saying is until that, enlightenment happens, there's no way we can ever ultimately find God, nor His will, nor live for Him. And so the second thing that the Spirit does is illumination. And that's just what it is. He gives us light in our darkness, in our darkness, our dark understanding, right? He helps us to see better. Whenever you approach the Bible, you remember at least two things. Whenever you open God's word, this is his apostolic word, this is his spiritual word. Jesus has spoken finally and consummately in his word through the apostles by his Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ, his vicar on earth, is not a man, it's not a bishop, it's not a fallible man, it's the Holy Spirit. And so his vicar is the one who gives you true interpretation and illumination. It's not a man you go to for the true interpretation. You go to the spirit and you say, spirit of God, one, I'm opening your word, which is your very mouth to speak to me. And two, I need your illumination to hear you. I need illumination to see as I should see. And so let your light carry me and give guidance to my path. So those two things we want to at least pray for when we open the Bible is, Lord, I recognize this is your mouth. This is your opening your lips to speak to me. And I want to hear you. Give me illumination. Help me to hear. Help me to see. All right. So let's summarize on the other side the common grace and special grace we talked about. This might be something that's helpful for the younger folks. I've tried to draw some pictures so that maybe that's a little bit more helpful to grab hold of some of these things, right? But we hear, we hear the old root of goddess worship, you know, is in us. And so you often will hear about the false deity Mother Nature, right? It's not as threatening of a deity to us as, you know, educated middle class Americans, you see. We know Odin, that's a myth. And Thor, that's a good movie, but it's not, you know, and a myth. But, you know, he's an Avenger, right? And he's also a mythological character, we got that. But Mother Nature seems okay. Mother Nature is really shaking it up today. Mother Nature is really going to do this, that, and the other. No, no, that's false worship. And be really careful. That's that seed of goddess worship that still remains in fallen man. We want to be careful about. Goddess worship was also used in the medieval time to point toward mariolatry, you know, to make merry. an idol to worship Mary and her son. And goddess worship was about fertility. It goes all the way back to Baal and Dagon and back to the devil himself. All right. It's not father nature, it's father nature. And his name is Yahweh. And so the way you want to understand is he really does call himself the father of all creation. Right? And he calls himself that particularly in Ephesians 3.14. And so here's a way we can understand how Father Nature reveals himself by the Spirit and give him the praise. First of all, through common grace. All right. So Father Nature shows himself in common grace, in different ways, or what's also called general revelation. And I'm hopefully, I'm trying to teach you several terms so that you'll have them. Throughout the ages, Calvin started with earthly, heavenly, and then it was summarized with common, special, and then it was common and also general revelation. All right, all those are synonyms, theological synonyms. And through this common grace, there are three ways particularly that father nature makes himself known. The first is through law. The second is home ec, home economics as we'd call it, and then the liberal arts. All right, the liberal arts. So law, home act, liberal arts, those are the examples he gives particularly, Calvin gives. And so the light of nature, who's familiar with the chapter one of the Westminster Confession of Faith, where it says the need for scripture, though the light of nature is sufficiently clear, right? So the light of nature is what Calvin's talking about when he's talking about the earthly sphere, common grace, general revelation, the light of nature. It's called natural light. natural light, the light of nature. So the Westminster divines were influenced by Calvin, right? And so here you've got in this, you've got callings and giftedness, gifts that God gives. To all mankind, God gives callings to all men. He gives gifts to all men to use those callings in a way that will bring good. You see how Father Nature is so kind to us in so many ways. So, He's revealing Himself constantly. He's giving us order in humanity and a desire for order to some degree. He's given us light and He's given us calling and gifts all around us. Then, Father Nature, we realize it's this work of the Spirit ultimately that helps us to understand him as the true God, Father Nature, the true God. And that leads us to wonder and wisdom. So the exploration of Father Nature is to come to a place of wisdom and wonder and worship. We can add that. All right, maybe that will help in seeing this, but our Catholic friends sometimes talk about a sacramental view of creation. That's a wrong terminology. There are only two sacraments, and we don't wanna make everything a sacrament. That's dangerous. What the best of them are talking about is what Calvin's saying, is that you wanna have a wonder of creation. Like G.K. Chesterton says, you wanna see something wonderful, take a hold of some water and just let it go through your hands and see. the miracle of water, the wonder of water. That's what he's saying. Even though he will use the term sacramental, that's a bad term. You don't want to use that term. Leave that term for baptism in the Lord's Supper. They want to make everything a sacrament, many Roman Catholics. So don't do that. Use wonder and explain why. So it's not a sacramental worldview. It's a creational worldview. And if you've read Tolkien, Catholics will read it and say it's a sacramental worldview. And maybe they're right because of his Catholicism. But you can read it also as a wondrous worldview, that it's just a wondrous worldview of fantasy that gets at the story behind all stories. So. That's, maybe that's helpful. That helps me to think of father nature and not mother nature and helps me to emphasize common grace and those kinds of things. Yes, ma'am. Why don't I do that more when we get to the chapter on sacraments and I'll do my best to explain more of that. So just very briefly, Roman Catholics will oftentimes see the wonder of creation and they're very much trying to argue against kind of a fundamentalist viewpoint of creation, right? And they say we should take a sacramental view, we should see the mystery of these things and they're using language, I believe, that should be kept to just what God has ordained in Christ as sacraments. I don't think we should use that term. I know the term comes from mysterious, okay, mysterium, musterium, musterion, and I know that, and I know that's where they get the word sacrament from the Latin, but That sacramental term, I think we'd rather use just for that special revelation of God. Whereas when we're talking about the creational or the common revelation, we can nod at their intention and say, it's a wonder. I'd rather use the language of wonder and the language of wisdom rather than sacramental. I'm trying to reserve that language just for special revelation. All right, so if you read a lot of Roman Catholic articles, and it's a very hot topic today, Roman Catholicism, when you're talking about it, they're talking about the sacramental view of creation. Their intention is good, it is to get people to wonder at creation, but I think it's twisting some categories and it can have some negative effects in your thinking. So they're trying to get us to see the wonder of creation. G.K. Chesterton was the best of them. Tolkien, Lewis, but Tolkien particularly in his books is trying to get us to see the wonder of creation, the wonder of father nature, that sort of thing, wonderful stuff. But just use, I'm encouraging you to use sacramental as a term for special revelation, not for common. So that brings us then to, how does Calvin define natural law? Natural law and its purpose. Can someone tell me about natural law? What is natural law? We read about it earlier. Yes, sir, TJ. Well, I think natural law, I think a great example of natural law is the second sentence, when Nathan talks to David. Good. That's great. Yes. Excellent, yeah, I thought that was a very good answer you gave. Helpful, very helpful. Yeah, it's what's written on our hearts. It's what Romans 2, 14 to 16 says is that that law is written on our conscience. We know what's right and wrong by nature. And so that natural law is man as a social being is always to some degree, every culture is trying to be well-ordered and they know that laws must well order them. They don't rise to the place of knowing the first four commandments. We're going into the law next. you know, worshiping the only and true God, and not making idols, and not taking the name of the Lord in vain, and keeping the Sabbath holy. They don't acknowledge those, but there is still a religious impulse, as we've looked at. There's still a sense of divinity. There's still a seed of religion. They're still religious by nature, and they tend to order their society by by making unlawful the things we would think that God says are unlawful, like adultery and murder, and lying and stealing. There's a natural law written on every man's heart. Its purpose is what? Really just... Yes, sir, James? Yeah, it makes man inexcusable. Let me read you two passages real quick, Romans 1. Again, in Romans 1, verse 20, it says, God's 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, okay? And that's literally they're without a defense. They have nothing to defend them at the judgment seat. And then verse 32, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but get of approval to those who practice them. All right, and then finally in Romans 2, 15, It says that unbelievers show that the work of the law is written on their hearts while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. That's very important. But man is incapable of understanding God's law because that's part of the enlightenment. That's part of the work of the spirit of God in special revelation. But in common grace or in the earthly sphere, all mankind knows what's right and wrong. That's why the relationships we have with unbelievers and relationships we have with neighbors who are unbelievers, the people that we come into contact with, that's why taking Calvin's view helps you not only in asking them questions and listening well to what kinds of worldviews and spiritualities they possess and where it is they are exchanging the truth with the lies, with many lies. in their lives, and it's also a place where you can appeal to their consciences. There's no way they can get rid of their guilt and shame. Even in the scriptures we see, some of you saw last week in the passage from 1 Samuel 5 and 6, that the Philistines knew that when God's hand was heavy upon them, they needed relief and they sought to offer a sacrifice. It was not the right sacrifice, it was the wrong sacrifice. But they sought to offer that sacrifice because they by nature knew that their conscience had done wrong. So it's very important to think about natural law. It's also, I think, important, what else might you say about natural law? Natural law. What it is, what it does. Any? It's not enough. Right, never enough. And Calvin makes the point that mankind, because of sinful deception and sinful self-deception, and sinful self-interest that someone can know right and wrong in a general sense and still make excuses for themselves to live in an ungodly way, to excuse themselves. You see this all the time. I mean, you've seen this in your own heart, right? You say, well, in general, this is very wrong. This is wrong. I know that's to be wrong, but I'm justified in this. I'm justified in doing that. The heart is desperately wicked. The heart is deceitful. It will deceive us if we're not careful. That's why we need the scriptures, the spirit, that we need accountability. We need one another to help us to see those things we can't see in ourselves, you see. But, you know, somebody will say today, you know, that that's just gross and wrong. Somebody who practices some outward blatant kind of immorality will justify themselves in their particular immorality while pointing a finger to others who are more immoral in their estimation. So you have homosexuals today who'll come out who know that they are wrong and they're under God's righteous decree that they should be damned, and yet they're finding a moral high ground to then point their finger to someone who they think, in their estimation, commits a worse sexual, more heinous crime. It's going on right now. and it's pathetic and it needs repentance. We see it in ourselves. So that's very important to remember that when they have the natural law, they do with it according to their own self-interest. And we can too. But there's an important point to be made here that I want to emphasize because this gets confusing. This can be confusing. So I want to make the point clear and then we'll address it later. But let me just state the point. There is a natural law. We just saw that. But there is not natural theology. And that must be emphasized. Just because there's a natural law does not mean you can build a theology on it. Why would I say that, anybody have any idea? Who would be interested in stressing this and then building a natural theology? Yep, yep, that's right. What's that? Well, rationalists, yep, yep, all creatures to some degree, humanists, but more liberals, liberals, lots of liberal-minded people who don't accept need of enlightenment, illumination, who think that just based on what's right and wrong, they can build a philosophy on it, they can build a religion on it. Unfortunately, some of our Roman Catholic friends get into this too. But we might look at this more fully later, but it's just to state when you read of natural law, make sure you're not reading of natural theology. Natural law does not mean you can you can create a theological system based on it. Because man perverts the law and the knowledge they have for self-interest, you see? You have to have supernatural revelation, that's the point. It's another emphasizing of the importance of the Bible, the supernatural revelation. Saying no natural theology is another way of saying that we need scripture alone, okay? For what we believe and how we live, okay? Any questions or thoughts so far? Yes, ma'am. Very helpful. Very helpful. The natural law is also an aspect of the common grace or the earthly sphere, the kindness of father nature to serve in a way that is preventative or is in a way that holds back the impulse of man to be as wicked as it could be. In other words, the natural law, by God's grace, can cause men to be good men, women to be good women. And when we say good, we mean outstanding, upstanding citizens. They try to obey the speed limit and they try to do what's right and mind their business, that sort of thing. Yes, very, very helpful. When we get to the law, for what it's worth, maybe this is a good chance to just say, when we get to the law of God, there'll be three things that Calvin mentions about the law, and Lita just mentioned one of them. There's a preparative aspect of the law of God. The law of God prepares us to meet Christ. Then there's a preventative. a preventative, and that's what Leda is reminding us about with regard to natural law. There's a way that God prevents man and chaos from wrecking havoc in families, in societies, in cultures. And then we'll talk about the third one when we get there. But yes, there's definitely a preventative holding back of man's impulse toward evil. Okay, good. Indeed it does. The flip side of that is that it shows us when we've been enlightened and illuminated, it shows us that we're far worse than we imagined because we knew we had enough to make this dangerous, but we actually, for our own selfish reasons, denied those truths and didn't live by them. Yes, yes. Just thinking about this in terms of American history, studying this here, for a religious and moral component. Because natural law will only take us so far. We're seeing that, I think, today. That's an excellent point, absolutely. Yeah, the people have to be morally influenced in order to have, ideally, a constitutional government of the kind we have. One way that God shows his judgment, I'm not declaring that God's judging America right now, but one way he does show his judgment throughout the scriptures is that he withholds his hand of prevention. He takes back his hand from, and allow men and women to do, he hands them over, Romans 1, he hands them over to do the wickedness that they know is wrong. That may be what we're observing too. So time, we're running out of time. Let me try to look through a few of these questions very quickly. We still have a few things to do. So the second section basically was thinking about goodness and we'll look at this further. So let me just summarize this if I may, that man can desire the good to some degree. He can desire to do good things. He can desire to some degree to follow the natural law written on his heart. But he cannot do the good defined by God. God defines us as image bearers, as those who were created to be holy and righteous, wise, powerful, that is, powerful independence upon him, to possess power in him, all of those things. And by nature, we cannot do the good with a capital G. So, I like to make the decision that we can do good things, but we can't do the good. We can go the speed limit, but the reasons of our heart, the reason why we may go the speed limit is because we don't want to tick it. You know, oftentimes the policeman is sitting there hiding so that when you see him, or sometimes he's not hiding, he's just out in public, he's out there for you to see, so your heart will desire, no ticket, no ticket, therefore slow down, slow down. But your heart will not say, I wanna honor God in my driving. The unbeliever will never say, I wanna honor God in my driving. We'll actually want to honor God in our driving by God's grace and say, I want to slow down. I don't want to kill my family. I don't want to kill others. I want to honor God in my driving. And so the desire, the reasons behind the heart are self-motivated, you know? So and there's just there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you know, that's why the civil authorities hold the sword. You know, you do bad, you're going to get in trouble for it. And you should, right? And we're gonna make an example of you because we don't want other people to do bad. We won't order. Number eight, we'll just look at for a moment. Man is not completely evil. Again, the natural law reminds us that man can still do good things and we can do beautiful things, artistic things. And the kind of good that we can do are things that do indeed glorify God, but it won't be with an intention and a desire to glorify God unless we are made new by the Holy Spirit. All of us have an evil root. And when we talk about total depravity or total corruption in that sense, we don't mean exhaustively, comprehensively corrupt. We mean that there is at the root of our trees, every one of us, a bad root that must be healed by God's grace, okay? And by God's grace, the tree doesn't get as bad as it could. There are some fruits on it that are good fruits. There's some evil fruits. The good fruits are not by definition good by God's standards, but they're good things. So man is not comprehensive exhaustively corrupt. That's one of the caricatures of Calvinism that we think man is as bad as he could be. And that's just not true. Calvin didn't teach that. Calvin's very careful not to teach that. He's actually the theologian of the Holy Spirit that admires the image of God in man, though he knows he's corrupt, but not exhaustively, not comprehensively, not in every aspect. He's not as bad as he could be by God's grace. Means particularly from the root, means potentially we are as bad as we could be if it weren't for the grace, common grace of God, right? Without that common grace, we'd all be as bad as we could possibly be. And there are some who are far more evil than others, right? But because of God's common grace, and that's why it's in this section, he's saying that because of common grace, because of what's right and wrong written on the heart, and because of God's common grace to give us gifts and callings, there are people, for instance, who work really hard all their lives and will provide for their families. And that's honorable. It's not for the glory of God. It might have been because they didn't want shame in their community. might be because they wanted a better life for their kids. All those are self-motivated reasons, right? But they're not as bad as they could be. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely, you can love the truth and the goodness and the beauty because it might give you the well-ordered life, that it might make you better than others, but it will be self-motivated and not for God's glory. And you will never gaze upon true beauty and true truth and true goodness in the face of Jesus Christ. It's a good point. Yes, sir. Right. That's absolutely true. Yep. Amen. Yeah. To reemphasize that, and I thank you for that, that's very helpful, is that in order to do truly good things, to observe the beautiful in Christ, to honor the truth, we have to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has to make us alive while we're dead. And it's a completely a work of grace from him. I'm, because of time, I'm gonna get into this more. I had it actually here below, and maybe I could start next time with just this, starting here alone. But I wanna emphasize that what Calvin's getting at is that if we're going to be saved, if man's going to be saved, and no matter how gifted he is, no matter how much the Holy Spirit has given him kind, common grace, There's no way a man can do the true, the good and the beautiful, can truly acknowledge Jesus Christ, can truly know God, his will and serve and obey and worship him unless he's given grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And that's where Calvin's going. All right. And and there have been three positions and I'll leave you with this and then perhaps we'll start with this as a review next time. But there's been three positions and that's been the Augustinian, or Calvinian view, all right? Calvin's building on the church father Augustine, just as Martin Luther did before Calvin. The Augustinian Calvinian view is grace alone, apart from any works, all right? And we'll look at this more fully as we continue through the institutes. Calvin will get even clearer about this. Then there's a semi-Pelagian, semi-Pelagian, which means that man cooperates with grace and then is saved. The first position is that man is lost, blind, in darkened, totally separated from God, at enmity with God, hates God by nature, although gifted and knows God, must be acted upon by God, by his grace alone. The semi-Pelagian position is the one that's perhaps most popular throughout church history and even today, is that man cooperates with God in order to be saved. And that's bunk, that's false, and we'll talk more about it. The Pelagian system is the most dangerous, because Pelagian basically thought that Adam was just a bad example. He didn't believe in imputation of Adam's corruption. And so because Adam's just a bad example, all you need is a good example. And so Jesus is nothing more for you than a good example. So look to Jesus and follow him and you'll get saved. That's works righteousness, right? Everybody hears that? We'll look at this at the beginning next time. But let me close with the medieval system of grace. So you can hear a formalization and formalization of grace. In Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas taught this. And Thomas Aquinas was at best a semi-Pelagian. And this is what he wrote in his fabulously popular and influential theology. He wrote that there are four stages of salvation. The first is an infusion of grace. And this infusion of grace happens through baptism. The second is that there's a movement of the free will. directed toward God out of love. That now one's been baptized, all they need is to move their free will in love toward God. This is totally contrary to what the Bible says, that we didn't love God first, God loved us. Three, then there's a movement of free will against sin, which the Roman Catholics call contrition. And then the fourth is a remission of sin eventually. This is made formal at the Council of Trent. I'm gonna read you Council of Trent and then we'll close and we'll start here next time as we jump into the law of God next time. They, this is the quote from Council of Trent. This is the formalization of the Roman Catholic theology based on Lombard sentences in the 1000s, based on Thomas Aquinas' theology in the 1200s. And this is the 1500s in response to Luther and Calvin They who by sins are alienated from God may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace to convert themselves to their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that said grace. And those who would say it's by grace alone through faith alone, those who would hold an Augustinian, Calvinian view, they'll come out and they're very clear about it. Let them be a curse. And that hasn't changed. That's still the formal Roman Catholic belief today. And so though there's semi-Pelagian cooperating with grace, you just heard it for yourself. It's Roman Catholic theology, mythology. It's not Pelagian, strictly speaking, but it might as well be. It's not completely works righteous, but it might as well be functionally. But semi-Pelagian teaches a cooperation of the free, of the will. Augustine came along, Calvin came along and said, no, the will, the will is completely in bondage to sin. And only God's enlightening spirit, only his power, only his awakening, because of his grace and power alone can mankind freely choose God and Jesus Christ. All right. All right, so that's a lot, and we spent quite a bit of time with the first part, so we'll review the second part with depravity, corruption, grace alone. We'll use that as the opening for next time, and then jump into the law of God. This next section, let me encourage you to read very carefully the law of God. This is going to change your life by God's grace. I'm sure you're already being changed, but this is some life-changing material when you jump into the law of God. So Calvin has said the true and sound wisdom is through a knowledge of God and a knowledge of ourselves. He's shown us that. He's shown us that a knowledge of man brings man to an understanding, though he's gifted and though he's an image bearer, he's corrupt deeply to the core from his heart. And he can't do any good as God defines it. And so, therefore, God has given him all of these benefits and blessings, but he still refuses to believe it. Nothing apart from a gracious, powerful work of God can he be saved. And so then he goes into chapter three to show the law of God. Now he's showing special revelation. Now he wants to show what the law requires of us so that we might see that we are depraved creatures, that we are deeply corrupt and we are in need of a savior. Okay? All right. Any final questions or comments? Yes, ma'am. Exactly. Yep. Yep. What's forbidden? Yep. Very helpful. Yeah, that's a very good point. In the larger or shorter catechism, the Westminster larger or shorter, there's very helpful sections on the law of God that show what's, what's, what was the word you used? Required. Required and what is forbidden. Very helpful. And now you see our marriage life helping each other, you know, with, what'd you say? Yes, that's the other one. A and B, the, The law of God is very helpful in laying out the righteousness and holiness that we were created to live and what Christ saves us unto for. He saves us in order to be able to be that kind of free again. All right. So let's close in prayer, and thank you so much for coming and your hard work, listening well. Father, thank you so much for all of your blessings to us. Thank you that you have shown us these deep truths, and thank you for the way that you have used your servant to teach us today. Thank you for the faithful servants you've raised up, like Calvin and others before us. Thank you we can stand on their shoulders and see better, interpret our Bibles well. We pray that you would go with us and change our thinking, help us to be more biblical, to follow you in our thoughts and in our heart. Help the words of our mouths and the meditations of our heart be pleasing in your sight. And bring us back next week, Lord, to learn more, especially about your specific will and how to worship and serve and obey you. And we pray that we would know that freedom in Christ. We pray that we'd know that yes and amen of your promises in Christ for all of us. And we're grateful for what you do for us. In Jesus' name, amen.