Calvin as Gadfly: Our God-ward Anxiety

This is why Scripture uniformly tells us with alarm and amazement that holy men were mortified and overwhelmed whenever the presence of God was revealed to them. When we see those who previously stood firm and secure literally quivering and scared even to the point that they were afraid they might die, or even that they might be swallowed up in judgment or complete destruction, we should understand something seriously: men will never know or understand their own insignificance until they have compared themselves with the royal, divine supremacy of God and discovered how much they themselves lack.

There are many examples of this God-ward anxiety both in the Book of Judges and throughout the Prophets. Indeed, it was a common expression among the people of God to cry out, "We shall die, for we have seen the Lord!" The primary argument from the book of Job for getting men to be rightly humble and convince them or convict them of their weakness, foolish ways, and their complete moral mess is always a description of God’s own Godly wisdom, and virtue, and purity. Abraham himself acknowledges that he is nothing but dust and ashes as he gets closer to the glory of God, and Elijah had to cover his face as God passed by – because the sight of God to man is a terrifying thing.

What else can man do, who is far beneath God, and rotten from sin, if even the angels must cover themselves with their wings at the sight of God who is “Holy, Holy, Holy!” This is exactly what Isaiah is talking about (Isaiah 24:23) when he says, “The moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign!” When God exhibits himself completely, and gives us a closer view of himself, every other allegedly-bright object will be, by comparison, covered with darkness.

In this way, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are bound together by a singular lash: we must first know the greater and treat it with its right place among all things, and then descend to the question of ourselves.

Catechism Buzz: Quite a Character

I step out of my extended quiet time, that sweet hour of prayer, when the dew has just barely evaporated from the roses – O! joyous bliss! — back into the house where my beloved is up to her eyebrows in a steaming stew of screaming progeny. She asks where on earth I’ve been, and when I answer, “In the garden . . . alone . . .” her eyes suggest that I have somehow been remiss in tarrying there.


A gentle answer turneth away wrath, so I gently suggest that if perhaps she got up earlier to have her own quiet time, she might better display the peace that passeth understanding like I am right now, and is breakfast ready? At which point the bluebird on my shoulder springs aloft for safer environs.

It goes without saying that the aforementioned quiet time was filled with prayers that I would be attentive to my wife, a strong and loving father, a forgiving and blameless head of my household. These supplications were carried to the heavens on the waxy wings of sincere intentions. And yet, moments later, having flown too close to the sun, the wings melted, and they crashed on the thorny rosebush of regret. My intentions were not matched by my ability to carry them out in forethought and love.

It is the nature of the universe that word and action arises from character. We, having been once created in the image of God, demonstrate this image, even in our fallen state. We speak to our loved ones, do our work, and make our plans according to who we are. Our Lord spoke of good trees and good fruit, bad trees and bad fruit, words flowing from the abundance of the heart. He then, on the cross, secured our re-creation and the making of all things new.

This reconciliation has come to us by the decree of One whose character is unfathomably Good. Better than ours, not by degree, but in its very nature. His intentions cannot be thwarted, because they arise from exactly Who He is. To hold to this doctrine of God’s decrees, we must believe that He is incomparably, unchangeably, inexhaustibly good.

Potent Prooftexts: it stands fast

Impressive? Not really. On every job, I was taking orders, along with at least two others. Every wall I raised had another man at the other end, and maybe a couple in the middle. Lumber was measured and cut, and nails, screws, and glue held it all together. Thousands of dollars worth of tools and who-knows-how-many kilowatts of electricity got the job done. All that, plus hundreds of man-hours, put another family in a house.

Sometimes, when my back and feet were tired and hurting, I wished I could be God for a day. I wished I could show up on the job site one morning and say to my boss, “Watch this,” and to the dirt, “Let there be a house.” I reckon I could have gotten a pretty good raise out of that.

That’s how God executes his decrees. From creation to the carrying out of his will for the creation, he executes his decrees by the sheer power of his will. He speaks, and it is done; he commands, and it stands fast.

Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created. —Psalm 148:5

Cathechism Buzz: Haiku

Through providence snow,
falling soft by His command,
reveals His decree.

Catechism Buzz: Not to hit us in the mouth

How do you take your decrees? What sort of lapsarian are you? Do you take your decrees with a side of Supra? Infra? Are you an Amyraldian? If you have no idea what any of that means, then there may yet be hope for you to get through this post without having an apoplexy. If you do understand what those things mean, then I beg you to understand that it is my hope to post devotionally on God's prerogatives as God, not just cerebrally. Give me some space here; I'm a Baptist.


As a man who is deeply affected in all parts by the rebellion of Adam, I temper my approach to the sovereign authority of God with great trepidation. I have serious authority issues due to my constant desire to usurp God and be my own god. So, even if God had decreed something inane like peanut butter and jelly for March 12th, I would want ham and eggs that day. How much more shall I shake my fist over His pleasure in election?

Instead of quarreling with God over His own business of running the world however He likes, I'd like to try something different. I do not believe that God inspired Paul to write about foreknowledge, predestination, sovereignty, and election so that you and I would get sick worrying about our children and the fate of Joe Pagan in the heart of Africa who has never heard the gospel. I know that the Holy Spirit isn't interested in hearing about how free our will is in response to reading Ephesians chapter one. So what did he tell us all this stuff for?

Look at Revelation 13:1-10. Seriously, look at it. It's full of lions, leopards, and bears, oh my! There's even a dragon. All these terrible, powerful, beastly predators are smashing, thrashing, and devouring the Saints of God. And how is the hero of chapter 13 described? He's a lamb?! Are you kidding me? We have a beastly lion, leopard, bear thing backed by a dragon and we get a lamb? And look at the decree! "If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes, if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword he must be slain" (Rev. 13:10). Are we getting that fuzzy, warm, devotional feeling yet? Is it possible that God would decree that I be slain by a sword-bearing blasphemer? How is that encouraging? (Acts 14:22).

Here's the point: God isn't aiming to hit us in our rebellious mouth with His decrees; He aims to comfort our hearts. I need God to be sovereign over my salvation in every way He can be. I know my heart. I do not want an offer of salvation; I want a salvation accomplished. If a seven-headed, ten-horned beast kicks in my door and threatens myself and my family with the sword, I want to know that I am in the embrace of a sovereign God who marked my going in and coming out from the foundation of the world. I want to wear the badge of "elect of God" in that time, and I want to know in that moment that my position in Christ isn't as fickle as my faith or as precarious as my circumstance. I want to feel the power of these words, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine" (Isaiah 43:1). This is fore-ordination. This is the joy of predestination and election. I have been summoned by name; I have been bought by Christ; I have been fashioned for honor, and everything that befalls me is ordained for my good, for my joy, and to redound to God's glory so much so that upon my redemption the angels of heaven shouted with joy.

Beloved, God has been moved by mere love to save you. He is ready and willing to save. I hold Him to that. I pray it over my precious babies. I trust my God to do what is good and right, and I work each day to subdue that rebel who would question or scoff at the decrees of my Sovereign Lord.

Calvin as Gadfly: a wide berth

Some who are trying to be clever would say that God doesn't only foreknow, but he also governs with his every wish whatever it is that is done in this world. However, they imagine that government as confused, as if God gives liberty to his creatures to do anything but what he requires. They say that the sun is ruled by the will of God, because, in giving light to us, it does what it must, which he set in motion but doesn't continually keep up with. They think that man has free-will in the same way, because his nature is disposed or inclined to the free choice of good or evil. But by doing this they think God is just sitting around in Heaven like an idle man. The Scripture teaches us something else, which marks out that God has a special government over all things, and also in man’s actions.

Just so, it is our duty to ponder and consider to what end it teaches this; for we must beware of dreaming up new things which are not actually in the Scripture. The Scripture will make our faith fit, so that we may know that we are defended by the hand of God, or else we'll be subject to the attacks of Satan and the wicked.

It's good for us to embrace this one thing, namely exactly what Peter meant in this verse of Acts. We have an example set before us in Christ, from which we may learn to be wise and even-tempered. For it is out of question, that his flesh was subject to corruption, according to nature. But the providence of God actually set his flesh free. If any man asks whether the bones of Christ could be broken or no? it is not to be denied, that they were subject to breaking naturally, yet could there no bone be broken, because God had so appointed and determined, (John 19:36.) By this example (I say) we are taught so to give a wide berth to God’s providence, that we keep ourselves within our boundaries, and that we thrust not ourselves rashly and indiscreetly into the secrets of God, where our eyesight does not have a chance to look.

Catechism Buzz: Irony Intended

I want you to think about the moment that Pontius Pilate offered to release from custody either Barabbas or Jesus. Both of these men were already condemned to die, so when the crowd chose to have Pilate release Barabbas, it wasn't their choice that condemned Christ (since Christ was already condemned by Pilate), rather their choice simply set Barabbas free.

The crowd elected to show mercy to Barabbas (by releasing him), and in doing so they necessarily passed over our Lord (ironic pun intended). If Barabbas had not been condemned, he could not have been a recipient of mercy. In the same way in order for God to ordain that a person will be saved, it is necessary for God to regard that person as needing salvation (ie. the person must be condemned in the eyes of God) Thus when we speak of predestination to salvation, we must presume that God is regarding men as guilty and deserving of hell in the moment He elects to save them.

If all were condemned already when God made His choice, it stands to reason that it was not the choice itself that condemned mankind. Mankind was already condemned. Election doesn't save some, and damn others - it just saves some of the damned from damnation, and leaves the rest in the same state of damnation that they were already in.

In other words God predestined certain condemned sinners to be saved from His wrath and the rest remained as condemned as they were prior to election. It isn't that God, "mockests with a fruitless call whom he has doomed to die" as Charles Wesley sarcastically put to music so long ago, rather it is that God earnestly calls all men everywhere to repent and believe, but no one ever will because man is fallen, and cannot seek God apart from God's grace. Such is the nature of the fall of mankind, and such is the reason that each one of us needs a Savior.

God's decrees are not horrible. They do not declare the death of innocent folks, but instead declare the promise of life for every guilty person that turns to Christ in faith. Thus we can declare with confidence to every sinner that if they repent and believe, they will be saved - even though we personally have no idea which sinners will receive the grace to repent and believe - a grace that was predestined to them before the world began.

Catechism Buzz: One Page at a Time

Let's pretend I am reading a book that I have never read before. As I read it I am only aware of what I have already read, or what I am presently reading. I don't know how the story is going to end, I am only aware of what has gone on since I began to read it. From the perspective of the author everything that I have yet to read is already set in stone, the story is over (as it were), but from my perspective as the reader, the story is ongoing until I have finished reading it. Hold this thought as you read through the next few paragraphs.


As the name implies, the book of Genesis describes the origin of man, so we shouldn't be offended or surprised when, rather than describe the creation of such things as Angels, or time itself, such things are instead implied.

If God created time (and He did) it follows that [1] God exists apart from time, and that [2] God is not held to any of the rules that govern time. Consider that God has already created every moment of time that will ever pass, and that He did so in a single cosmic act. God is thrice holy, not a creature. He perceives time in a way that is radically different than anything we can model or imagine. However He perceives time (and thus history), He sees it all, beginning to end, in the same glance - it a finished work from His perspective. Not unlike the author of a book knows his finished work. That isn't how we perceive time. We see ourselves moving through time. We remember moments that have passed, but are only aware of the moment we find ourselves in. The future, from our perspective, has yet to happen, and so it is as yet "unwritten".

Is it any wonder that we imagine the ability to foreknow something as merely being able to see something happen before it happens? How many of us imagine that when God "sees the end from the beginning", it only means that at the beginning God looked through all of time and saw how it would all turn out? The truth is that from God's perspective, all of history was written in the same moment that He created time. That offends those people who are unable or unwilling to accept the notion that it is God's perception of reality that is definitive, and not our own. We perceive the moment only as it happens, but God has created that moment, along with every other one already.

You may have to read that a few times to get it because (frankly) it can be confusing and heady stuff. Once you get it however, you should have no problem understanding what it means to say that God decrees (foreordains) everything that has happened or will happen. It isn't that the present is cementing the past in place, or that the future is all open. Rather God created only one story and we, like readers, are experiencing the reality of that story that God has authored one page at a time.

Calvin as Gadfly: Greater than we are

The right thing to do here is to look to the end which Scripture has in view the teaching that all things are divinely ordained. So, first: the Foresight and Care of God is for all things past, and all thing present, and all things future.

Secondly: in ruling over all things, it works at one time with the real things involved, at another without the real things involved (that is: above them, as a cause which they do not manage), and at another against the things involved.

Last: the design of God is to show that He takes care of the whole human race, but is especially vigilant in governing the Church, for which he has a special purpose as his special possession.

It’s important to realize that, although God’s fatherly care and fatherly discipline is often blatantly obvious as his providences are played out, sometimes the causes of events are concealed. We’re tempted to think at those times that we’re just the victims of chance, or to think that God amuses himself by tossing men up and down like balls.

But the counsel of God is the highest of reasoning, if we think about it soberly and seriously, knowing that he is so much greater than we are; his purposes are either to train his people to patience, correct their faulty urges and inclinations, housebreak their baser desires, teach them it is better to give than to receive, and wake them up from lazy dozing; or, on the other hand, to knock the proud down as they should be knocked down, defeat the craftiness of those who have other gods, and frustrate all their schemes.

Catechism Buzz: the Remedy before the Malady

God's control of the universe is so precise and so complete that He has, from the beginning of time, ordered and arranged everything that ever happens in such a way as to bring Himself glory.

This should not surprise us; God would not be God if this wasn't true. But it is still staggering, both in its overall scope and in its implications to finite creatures.

For instance, when we look at marriage, we see something not only designed for man's good, but also something that God instituted from the beginning as an institutional picture of our relationship with Him. The Mosaic Law has many functions—as an indication of God's character; as a set of rules for the good of God's people; as ordinances to mark them out from the surrounding nations; as a tutor to show people their own sinfulness; and as a foreshadowing of the fulfillment and salvation in Jesus Christ. No doubt I've even left something important out of this list. But all of this is intentional on the the part of God.

This idea also transforms statements like "God has a (master) plan" from empty platitudes trotted out when we are at a loss for what to say to genuine statement of faith and trust in an infinite God who is worthy of belief even when we can't see and understand the ends He has ordained.

It is in this God, and Him only, that we find hope for a remedy of all of the injustice we see around us: crime, poverty, and every form of social injustice. In Him, and Him only, can we entrust the disposition of the those who die in the womb, and those who, because they lack proper congnitive abilities, will never be able to express repentance and faith in a traditional way. This is a God of whom we can say "though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."

Catechism Buzz: Two Streets Over

There's an author, and he's written this novel. “Epic” doesn't even begin to describe it. It's more like [(Karamazov + Les Mis) x War & Peace/Iliad]. Cubed. But longer, with more detail. It’s a redemption story, with a cataclysmic central act involving the author himself. The author's tragic, then triumphant, appearance reverberates both ways through the whole tale, touching every detail and every character.

Somewhere, later in the book (I can’t seem to find the page right now), the author introduces a minor character. This man, having reflected on the fact that there is indeed an author to this book (nothing new, many of the characters had done so), realizes that this means the author is writing every character’s part. Again, nothing new here.

But armed with this bit of knowledge, this fellow begins looking at the roles that the other people in the novel are playing. And instead of enjoying the beauty and intricacy of the little bit of the plot that he’s able to see first-hand, he begins to harangue the other characters. Because he, of all people, understands that they’re merely characters in a novel. That puts him in a position to understand them better than they do themselves.

So this character goes about berating everyone who will listen for a minute about how they have no choice about their knowledge of the author, because it’s the author who decides. He shouts it from the blogtops. He classifies people based on their agreement with him, and separates himself from anyone who doesn’t line up to the letter. Because they don’t realize that it’s all about the author, you see. Years later, he dies alone, bloated, in his mom’s basement, lips coated in Cheetos® dust, caps lock on.

Meanwhile, two streets over, in a Free Methodist church, a sad pervert, a mean drunk, and an overwhelmed soccer mom hear a sermon on Matthew 11:28, and they ask God to forgive them.

But the author, you see, wrote the whole thing.