Affliction and the Chastisement of God - John Calvin

"[O]ur most merciful Father requires not only to prevent our weakness, but often to correct our past faults, that he may keep us in due obedience. Therefore, whenever we are afflicted we ought immediately to call to mind our past life. In this way we will find that the faults which we have committed are deserving of such castigation. And yet the exhortation to patience is not to be founded chiefly on the acknowledgment of sin. For Scripture supplies a far better consideration when it says, that in adversity "we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world," (1 Cor. 11: 32.) Therefore, in the very bitterness of tribulation we ought to recognise the kindness and mercy of our Father, since even then he ceases not to further our salvation. For he afflicts, not that he may ruin or destroy but rather that he may deliver us from the condemnation of the world. Let this thought lead us to what Scripture elsewhere teaches: "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth," (Prov. iii 11, 12.) When we perceive our Father's rod, is it not our part to behave as obedient docile sons rather than rebelliously imitate desperate men, who are hardened in wickedness? God dooms us to destruction, if he does not, by correction, call us back when we have fallen off from him, so that it is truly said, "If ye be without chastisement," "then are ye bastards, and not sons," (Heb. 12: 8.) We are most perverse then if we cannot bear him while he is manifesting his good-will to us, and the care which he takes of our salvation. Scripture states the difference between believers and unbelievers to be, that the latter, as the slaves of inveterate and deep-seated iniquity, only become worse and more obstinate under the lash; whereas the former, like free-born sons turn to repentance. Now, therefore, choose your class."

-John Calvin-

On Affliction and Our Slavish Love of This World- John Calvin

Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy.. . ..The heart also, engrossed with avarice, ambition, and lust, is weighed down and cannot rise above them. In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries.

-John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion-

A God and Governing Conference? How Good Could it Be?

I tend to get pretty interested when I see an amazing line-up for a pastors conference or some kind of biblical or theological conference, but most of the time when I see a line-up for an evangelical conference on government I’m less than enthused. My lack of enthusiasm is not due to an indifferent attitude toward the Christian’s responsibility to be involved in politically, but more to the shallow nature of many of these types of gatherings. After all, many of these conferences tend to deal with the artifacts of culture more than the worldviews that produce them, much like a doctor focusing only on the symptoms and failing to address the disease. You probably know what I mean when we as evangelicals spend so much time focusing on trying to get department stores to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”, or to have nativity scenes allowed on city property. Now there is a place for some of this type of thing but so often it is all surface level, and rarely is freedom of speech addressed in its constitutional understanding or a correct understanding of the establishment clause ever really dealt with, and almost always what is left out is a discussion of the worldviews that are driving these aberrant understandings.

Then about a year ago Trinity Law School began to plan for the God and Governing Conference. This conference was going to be different. It was going to look, theologically, philosophically, and historically at the political issues facing us today, and that is exactly what took place.

When you have speakers like David Wells, Dallas Willard, and Os Guinness, you are in for mental stimulation that will keep you going for some time. The lectures were of a wide range. From Dallas Willard and Pat Nolan reminding us of the importance of character as we engage in politics, which has been lost due to the lack of focus on sanctification in contemporary Christianity, to Os Guinness bringing to mind the framers understanding of freedom and that it is our job to maintain this balance of freedom in order not to loose it to too much security one the one hand or license on the other.

David Wells in his usual brilliance linked the breakdown of evangelical theology to much of the disarray that is found in today’s Christian involvement in Government. One of the primary issues being the loss of human nature in the philosophical worldviews of modernism and post-modernism that have made inroads into contemporary Christianity.

Vishal Mangalwadi, reminded us of the tyranny that tends to accompany paganism, and gave ample examples of the corruption of freedom in pagan India where he currently resides. Then he pointed out the many inroads paganism has made into the United States and college campuses and pointed to the popularity of tantric sex and the Da Vinci code, among others as mere symptoms of a deeper issue.

Paul Marshal dealt with many different issues regarding evangelical involvement in government such as those who tend to follow the Anabaptist model and contradictorily decry governmental power and then the minute they see a social ill they desire the government step in and fix it.

Donald McConnell spoke to us about ten ways to improve the evangelical involvement in Government and Dr. Stephen Kennedy spoke to us about natural law and a rights theory which flows from a Trinitarian theology and belonging.

Now some people might hear of such a conference and think that this group got together to work toward establishing a theocracy, but it was quite a contrary message that was given. In fact it is the Christian faith that drove the establishment clause in the first place and it is only the intolerant who want “freedom of religion” to become “freedom from religion.”

When it was all said and done, the attendees left with an enrichment that they will carry for some time. We were both challenged and inspired, as all of it was built upon the foundation of the inerrant and infallible Word of God and driven home with times of prayer. Pastors, teachers, theologians, philosophers, lawyers, laymen or anyone who loves the Word and God and wants use its light to think through the political issues facing us today would benefit from this conference. And rumor has it that the audio for these lectures will soon be available.

Doug Eaton

The Heavy Hand of God - John Calvin

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. Psalm 32:4

The greatest of all afflictions is to be so heavily pressed with the hand of God, that the sinner feels he has to do with a Judge whose indignation and severity involve in them many deaths, besides eternal death. David, accordingly, complains that his moisture was dried up, not merely from simply meditating on his sore afflictions, but because he had discovered their cause and spring. The whole strength of men fails when God appears as a Judge and humbles and lays them prostrate by exhibiting the signs of his displeasure. Then is fulfilled the saying of Isaiah, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it.” (Isaiah 40:7)

The Psalmist, moreover, tells us, that it was no common chastisement by which he had been taught truly to fear the divine wrath; for the hand of the Lord ceased not to be heavy upon him both day and night. From a child, indeed, he had been inspired with the fear of God, by the secret influence of the Holy Spirit, and had been taught in true religion and godliness by sound doctrine and instruction. And yet so insufficient was this instruction for his attainment of this wisdom, that he had to be taught again like a new beginner in the very midst of his course. Yea, although he had now been long accustomed to mourn over his sins, he was every day anew reduced to this exercise, which teaches us, how long it is ere men recover themselves when once they have fallen; and also how slow they are to obey until God, from time to time, redouble their stripes, and increase them from day to day. Should any one ask concerning David, whether he had become callous under the stripes which he well knew were inflicted on him by the hand of God, the context furnishes the answer; namely, that he was kept down and fettered by perplexing griefs, and distracted with lingering torments, until he was well subdued and made meek, which is the first sign of seeking a remedy. And this again teaches us, that it is not without cause that the chastisements by which God seems to deal cruelly with us are repeated, and his hand made heavy against us, until our fierce pride, which we know to be un-tameable, unless subdued with the heaviest stripes, is humbled.

John Calvin – Commentary on the Psalms