Calvin points out in his work on justification in the Institutes that, Scripture affirms that “Christ is both righteousness and life, and that the blessing of justification is possessed by faith alone.”
(Inst. 3.14.17)
Evidence of God’s Love
Calvin has some beautiful comments on God’s discipline of his people in his Institutes (Inst. 3.4.32).
“the chastening of God carries his blessing with it, and is an evidence of love, as Scripture teaches.” (see Job 5:17; Prov. 3:11; Heb. 12:5)
“All the calamities which the wicked suffer in the present life are depicted to us as a kind of anticipation of the punishment of hell. In these they already see, as from a distance, their eternal condemnation…the Lord chastens his servants sore, but does not give them over to death (Ps. 118:18).”
God’s Two Judgments
Calvin points out the differences in the judgment of God.
“One judgment we call, for the sake of teaching, that of vengeance, the other, of chastisement.
Now, by the judgment of vengeance, God should be understood as taking vengeance upon his enemies; so that he exercises his wrath against them, he confounds them, he scatters them, he brings them to nought. Therefore, let us consider this to be God’s vengeance, properly speaking: when punishment is joined with his indignation.
In the judgment of chastisement he is not so harsh as to be angry, nor does he take vengeance so as to blast with destruction. Consequently, it is not, properly speaking, punishment or vengeance, but correction and admonition.
The one is the act of a judge; the other, the act of a father.”
(Institutes, 3.4.31)
Summing Up The Apostle’s Creed
Here is Calvin’s summation of the Apostle’s Creed
“We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ [Acts 4:12]. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is “of him” [I Cor. 1:30]. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth, he was made like us in all respects [Heb. 2:17] that he might learn to feel our pain [cf. Heb. 5:2]. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross [Gal. 3:13]; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other. Some men, not content with him alone, are borne hither and thither from one hope to another; even if they concern themselves chiefly with him, they nevertheless stray from the right way in turning some part of their thinking in another direction. Yet such distrust cannot creep in where men have once for all truly known the abundance of his blessings.” (Institutes, Book 2.16.19)
Knowledge of Sin
J C Ryle says that “the plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity.”
(Holiness, p. 1)
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