Using the Present Life and Its Benefits
Using the Present Life and Its Benefits |
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Using the Present Life and Its Benefits (March 25, 2007) “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15:58 Fifth in a series of five sermons on The Christian Life, as taught by the 16th century Reformer John Calvin, and as described by the late Dr. John Leith of Union Seminary (VA) in several books. We come now to the last in our series of five sermons for Lent on The Christian Life, as taught by John Calvin and described by the late Dr. John Leith. These are five basic branches of living the Christian life: We are Not Our Own. Self Denial. Bearing the Cross. Meditating on the Future Life. And finally, Using the Present Life and Its Benefits. Dr. Leith wrote that Calvin interpreted the Christian life around the entire idea of the immediacy of a person’s relationship to the living God. As a result the Christian is accountable not to a church hierarchy, not to a set of rules governing conduct, but to the personal will of the Lord of heaven and earth. The Christian life is not the achievement of some ideal or the imitation of some code of morality, not is it a puritanical legalism. Instead, it is the living and personal response to the grace of the living and personal God. The grace of God is known primarily in the gift of his only Son Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. It is also evident in the many good things of the earth and of our life. Since we must pass through this world on to the future life, we ought to use its good things “insofar as they help rather than hinder our course.” Calvin wanted to avoid both an excessive strictness on the one hand and a mistaken laxity on the other. He said that in church history some people, noting the many excesses and intemperateness, wanted to limit use of the world’s goods only to what was absolutely a necessity. But Calvin argued that God has given us a tremendous variety in nature. “Has the Lord clothed the flowers with the great beauty that greets the eyes, the sweetness of smell that is wafted upon our nostrils, and yet will it be unlawful for our eyes to be affected by this beauty….Did he not so distinguish colors as to make some more lovely than others?” Thus there is more to these things than just providing our necessities and we should enjoy them. Take food as an example. Food is not just for keeping us alive, but for enjoyment and pleasure. Wine, too, he said, quoting Psalm 104: “gladdens the heart of man, and oil makes his face shine.” Well, after all, he was French. The basic principle, he said, is this: “that the use of God’s gifts is not wrongly directed when it is referred to that end which the Author himself created and destined them for us, since he created them for our good, not for our ruin.” In common with all the Reformers such as Luther and Melanchthon, Calvin did not believe in withdrawing from the world and living the life of a monk. Monasteries were never popular in Protestantism. The world itself was God’s gift meant to be appreciated and enjoyed. It is also the field of a constant warfare the Christian has with the devil. Do you win the warfare with the devil by running away and hiding and avoiding all the good things out of fear that that the devil will get control of you through them, or do you stay in the field, as it were, be “steadfast”, as Paul said, and make sure you use God’s gifts but not let them use you? “Away, then,” he said, “with that inhuman philosophy which, while conceding only a necessary use of creatures (that is, the gifts of God), not only malignantly deprives us of the lawful fruit of God’s beneficence but cannot be practiced unless it robs a man of his senses and degrades him to a block.” Looking always at the Giver of the gift prevents both narrow mindedness and legalism on the one hand, and immoderation on the other. This is why, unlike some other churches, Presbyterian churches do not have a list of things you can’t eat or wear or drink. It is also one reason Presbyterianism got along quite well in Scotland – malted barley is one of God’s gifts. But Calvin insisted nothing must be done in immoderation. Use it, enjoy it as part of God’s gifts, but do not abuse it. “Where is your thanksgiving,” he wrote, “if you so gorge yourself with with banqueting or wine that you either become stupid of are rendered useless for the duties of piety and of your calling? Where is your recognition of God if your flesh boiling over with excessive abundance into vile lust infects the mind with its impurity so that you cannot discern anything that is right and honorable? Where is our gratefulness toward God for our clothing if in the sumptuousness of our apparel we both admire ourselves and despise others, if with its elegance and glitter we prepare ourselves for shameless conduct?” Calvin agreed with the Roman philosopher Cato “There is great care about dress, but great carelessness about virtue.” “Those who are much occupied with the care of the body are for the most part careless about their own souls,” Calvin said. It is the same way with wealth. Money in and of itself is not evil. It is the love of money which is the root of all evil, not money per se. We should not be greedy, but there is no need to be poor either to show your love for God. Frugality and modesty are crucial. Our earthly possessions are held in trust, Calvin said, and we must one day render an account of how we have used them. Use what you have for good. Andrew Carnegie said “it is a disgrace for a rich man to die rich.” I thought of this last year when Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, gave away some $41 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Buffett himself still lives in a modest home in Omaha, Nebraska. He has clearly caught the right idea of how we are to be in the world, using God’s gifts to the full, but not abusing them and not being greedy. The church proclaims these lessons with its constant emphasis on Christian stewardship, which is not about meeting a budget but about living faithfully before God with the benefits God has entrusted to us. Gratitude is the dominant motive of the Christian life. The Christian life is always thought of as the human response to God’s gracious deeds in Christ. Calvin liked the word “adoption”. We are adopted into God’s family. God has chosen to reclaim prodigal people by his fatherly love, as Dr. Leith wrote. God elects to restore us to fellowship with himself by gently drawing us to him. He lays aside his authority and power and approaches us in love, trying to evoke from us free rather than constrained service. God chooses children, not slaves. “No one can with alacrity render service to God except he be allured by his paternal goodness,” Calvin wrote. The Christian life to Calvin is the reconstruction of the image of God in humans which was defaced by the fall. Calvin believed we not only can know God but we can also reflect God’s glory. We can do this through moral and spiritual growth and also through our communal life, our life together. Calvin believed that human life as well as human society was entirely renewable. Instead of running away from the world we are menat to be in it, to use its benefits for God’s glory, to wage constant warfare with wickedness and evil, and to be “immoveable” in our conviction that God will triumph in the end. As a result, Çalvinism produced many people who lived their lives on what can only be thought of as a heroic level, they crossed oceans, conquered diseases, became missionaries and crusaders for good, overthrew despots, and worked hard for the common good and they never gave up. According to Dr. Leith, Calvin never regarded the fight against evil as a hopeless struggle. Calvin’s sermons were spirited and hope-filled exhortations. Calvin was not a utopian, but he believed in the possibilities for the individual to advance and for society to advance. One of my professors at Union was Dr. Paul Lehmann. His lectures were always packed and he was a charismatic teacher. He spoke of the Christian life as “making and keeping human life human.” It was a phrase Calvin would have liked, I’m sure. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15:58 --Rev. Charles Brewster, First Presbyterian Church of Forest Hills John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life, by John Leith. Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989 |