SEEING
OURSELVES IN THE FACE OF GOD
A third significant aspect of Calvin’s thinking that we encounter in the opening chapter of his Institutes is that we can never truly know ourselves without knowing God. “It is certain,” he writes, “that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” (I.i.2)
In saying this, Calvin is thinking particularly of the knowledge we have of ourselves from a spiritual and moral point of view. By nature, he claims, “we always seem to ourselves [to be] righteous and upright and wise and holy.” That’s partly because of our innate pride, but also the result of our tendency toward hypocrisy – our inclination to be satisfied with a shallow outward appearance of goodness in place of the genuine quality itself. A “kind of empty image of righteousness in place of righteousness itself,” Calvin says, “abundantly satisfies us.”
Then, too, we are inclined to be self-satisfied with our state because we find others around us far worse (in our eyes) than we are. Others are less industrious, less truthful, less caring than we are – so we think. In the light of their imperfections it’s easy to fool ourselves that we are better than we really are. As Calvin puts it, “what is a little less vile [in us] pleases us as a thing most pure.”
That’s what happens as long as we confine our self-assessment to our own standards and to what we can see around us. However, when we lift our eyes beyond this world and contemplate God in his majesty, our self-evaluation changes instantly. In the light of his purity, power and righteousness (the true standard of all things, the “straight-edge” against which all else must be measured), what appeared to us earlier to be right and good now appears corrupt. “What wonderfully impressed us under the name of wisdom will stink in its very foolishness. What wore the face of power will prove itself most miserable weakness” (ibid.).
I’ve experienced this sober awakening on two occasions recently in
the course of my devotional Bible reading. In the first instance I was reading
John’s account of Jesus cleansing the temple in
Immediately the question came to mind, “How does your zeal for God compare to that?” In that instant I saw my state of heart with fresh clarity – its coldness and self-centredness. “Where is my indignation over the abuse of God’s name in our country?” I asked myself. “Where is my sorrow that he is not worshipped, honoured and adored as he should be? Where is my grief that people don’t love Jesus, the Son of God? And where is my readiness to wage war against such abominations as the ‘murder of the innocents’ through abortion?” Compared to Jesus’ zeal, mine barely exists at all, or is a feeble flicker at best.
The second instance was associated with reading the story of Jesus
urging his disciples to get some rest after their first preaching mission in
For a moment I tried to put myself in Jesus’ (and his disciples’) position. There have been times when I’ve been wearied with people contact and longed to get away by myself. When I manage to achieve that I guard my solitude jealously to the point of resenting intrusions upon it. How unlike Jesus I am in this regard. In the light of his compassion, patience, and self-giving, my “people-concern” pales into nothing.
It is this kind of “awakening” that Calvin has in mind when he says that “man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty” (I.1.3). How true his words are. And how essential is this awareness of our “lowly state” to true godliness, the subject we will take up next week.
Associate Principal (