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John Calvin – Superstition vs. True Worship

9 Mar

3. We are not to fashion God according to our own whim
Thus is overthrown that vain defense with which many are wont to gloss over their superstition. For they think that any zeal for religion, however preposterous, is sufficient. But they do not realize that true religion ought to be conformed to God’s will as to a universal rule; that God ever remains like himself, and is not a specter or phantasm to be transformed according to anyone’s whim. One can clearly see, too, how superstition mocks God with pretenses while it tries to please him. For, seizing almost solely upon what God has testified to be of no concern to himself, superstition either holds in contempt or else openly rejects that which he prescribes and enjoins as pleasing to himself. Thus all who set up their own false rites to God worship and adore their own ravings.

~John Calvin~






The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press; 1974) Vol. 1.4.3. p. 49

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Herman Bavinck – A Specific, Limited, Yet Well-Defined and True Knowledge of God

7 Mar

If God cannot be known, neither can he be felt or experienced in any way. All religion is then empty. But modern philosophical agnosticism makes the same error as ancient Gnosticism. By reducing God to “inexpressible depth” and “eternal silence,” they make the universe godless, in the most absolute sense of the word. What it all comes down to is whether God has willed and found a way to reveal himself in the domain of creatures. This, the Christian church and Christian theology affirm, has indeed occurred. Thanks to revelation, we have a true knowledge of God, knowledge that is relative and finite rather than comprehensive. Incomprehensibility does not imply agnosticism but an ingredient of the Christian claim to have received by revelation a specific, limited, yet well-defined and true knowledge of God. In the words of Basil, “The knowledge of God consists in the perception of his incomprehensibility.”

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 28-29.

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Herman Bavinck – God is Both Personal and Absolute

1 Mar

God’s special relationship with his people Israel, with Zion as his dwelling place, suggests not confinement or limitation but election. Israel’s religion did not evolve from henotheism to ethical monotheism but is rooted in the divine call of Abraham/Israel and God’s initiative in establishing a covenant with Israel. Though the Old Testament refers to “other gods,” it never takes their reality seriously. Israel’s God is God alone, the Lord of heaven and earth. He is the Creator of heaven and earth, who manifests himself in various ways to specific people at particular times. This revelation is never exhaustive of God’s being but partial and preparatory to the supreme and permanent revelation in Jesus Christ. This personal God is the high and lofty One, who inhabits eternity and also is with those who are of a contrite and humble spirit. His fullness dwells bodily in Christ, who emptied himself and took on the form of a servant. He also resides in the church as his temple. God is both personal and absolute.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 27.

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John Calvin – The Hearts of All Give Tacit Confession to God

28 Feb

There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity. This we take to be beyond controversy. To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. Ever renewing its memory, he repeatedly sheds fresh drops. Since, therefore, men one and all perceive that there is a God and that he is their Maker, they are condemned by their own testimony because they have failed to honor him and to consecrate their lives to his will. If ignorance of God is to be looked for anywhere, surely one is most likely to find an example of it among the more backward folk and those more remote from civilization. Yet there is, as the eminent pagan says, no nation so barbarous, no people so savage, that they have not a deep-seated conviction that there is a God. And they who in other aspects of life seem least to differ from brutes still continue to retain some seed of religion. So deeply does the common conception occupy the minds of all, so tenaciously does it inhere in the hearts of all! Therefore, since from the beginning of the world there has been no region, no city, in short, no household, that could do without religion, there lies in this a tacit confession of a sense of deity inscribed in the hearts of all.

~John Calvin~






The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press; 1974) Vol. 1.3.1.

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Herman Bavinck – To Know God is To Live

22 Feb

The knowledge of God is the central, core dogma, the exclusive content of theology. From the start of its labors dogmatic theology is shrouded in mystery; it stands before God the incomprehensible One. This knowledge leads to adoration and worship; to know God is to live. Knowing God is possible for us because God is personal, exalted above the earth and yet in fellowship with human beings on earth.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 2: God and Creation (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2004) p. 27.

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John Calvin – Knowledge Should Lead to Praise

25 Jan

What help is it, in short, to know a God with whom we have nothing to do? Rather, our knowledge should serve first to teach us fear and reverence; secondly, with it as our guide and teacher, we should learn to seek every good from him, and, having received it, to credit it to his account. For how can the thought of God penetrate your mind without your realizing immediately that, since you are his handiwork, you have been made over and bound to his command by right of creation, that you owe your life to him?–that whatever you undertake, whatever you do, ought to be ascribed to him?

~John Calvin~






The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press; 1974) Vol. 1.2.2. p. 441-42

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William Gurnall – God is at the Top and Bottom of the Ladder

24 Jan

[13] for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. – Philippians 2:13

He makes the heart new, and having made it fit for heavenly motion, setting every wheel, as it were, in its right place, then he winds it up by his actuating grace, and sets it on going, the thoughts to stir, the will to move and make towards the holy object presented; yet here the chariot is set, and cannot ascend the hill of action till God puts his shoulder to the wheel: ‘To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not,’ – Rom. 7:18. God is at the bottom of the ladder, and at the top also, the Author and Finisher, yea, helping and lifting the soul at every round, in his ascent to any hold action.

~William Gurnall~


The Christian in Complete Armour Vol. 1 (Edinburgh, Scotland; Banner of Truth; 1989) p. 19.

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Charles Spurgeon – He Is Goodness Itself

22 Jan

Spurgeon Bio


1 Blessed be the Lord my strength,
which teacheth my hands to war,
and my fingers to fight:
2 My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer;
my shield, and he in whom I trust;
who subdueth my people under me. – Psalm 144:1-2 (KJV)

The word for goodness signifies mercy. Whoever we may be, and wherever we may be, we need mercy such as can only be found in the infinite God. It is all of mercy that he is any of the other good things to us, so that this is a highly comprehensive title. O how truly has the Lord been mercy to many of us in a thousand ways! He is goodness itself, and he has been unbounded goodness to us. We have no goodness of our own, but the Lord has become goodness to us.

~Charles Spurgeon~


The Treasury of David Vol. 3 (Peabody, Maryland; The Hendrikson Publisher; 1988) p. 355 – Commentary on Psalm 144:2.

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Martyn Lloyd-Jones – The God Who Seeks Us

17 Jan

There are some people who seem to think that the message of the Bible is one which tells us what we have to do in order to please this God whom we have offended. That again is quite wrong. The Bible tells us about what God has done in order to reconcile us to Himself. I want to put that very strongly. Not only is God not unwilling to receive us, it is He who goes out of His way to seek us. So if we want to grasp the biblical doctrine of redemption we must once and for ever get rid of that notion which has been instilled into the human mind and heart by the devil, who is God’s adversary and our adversary, and who tries to make us believe that God is against us. But the Bible’s message is that `God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. . .’ (John 3:16).

~Martyn Lloyd-Jones~


The Great Doctrines of the Bible (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2003) Chapter 19: Redemption: The Eternal Plan of God

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John Calvin – The Fountain of Every Good

16 Jan

Although our mind cannot apprehend God without rendering some honor to him, it will not suffice simply to hold that there is One whom all ought to honor and adore, unless we are also persuaded that he is the fountain of every good, and that we must seek nothing elsewhere than in him. This I take to mean that not only does he sustain this universe (as he once founded it) by his boundless might, regulate it by his wisdom, preserve it by his goodness, and especially rule mankind by his righteousness and judgment, bear with it in his mercy, watch over it by his protection; but also that no drop will be found either of wisdom and light, or of righteousness or power or rectitude, or of genuine truth, which does not flow from him, and of which he is not the cause.

~John Calvin~






The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press; 1974) Vol. 1.2.1. p. 40-41

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