Sin

Well, we come to a lesson seven this morning, sin and its results, and that means that we are now in book two. So be encouraged, you've gotten through book one of the four books of the institutes, and we're in book two. These titles, Calvin's titles are important. The knowledge of God, the Redeemer, in Christ, first disclosed to the fathers under the law and then to us in the gospel. That really sets forth the entire conscience of book two in the title. You can see the outline that I've given for book two. They are very brief outline. Sin and its results, talk about that this morning. The need for the Redeemer, first five chapters of book two, and then salvation through Christ, who is the Redeemer, the rest of book two, chapters six through seventeen. That gives us an outline something like this, Christ, law, Christ. Christ in two six, the law in two seven through eleven, and Christ again in two twelve through seventeen. You might say that Calvin completely surrounds the law with Christ, or completely surrounds the law with the gospel in book two. You'll see more of what that means a little later as we get to that part of book two. But this morning, the first five chapters, sin and its results, and we'll come before the Lord in prayer using one of John Calvin's prayers before we look at this material. Let's pray. Almighty God, thou hast in the gospel set clearly before us with how many and how dreadful sins we are afflicted. This thou hast done in order that we may learn to be displeased with ourselves, and so lie down, confound it in despairing, in our sins and in the guilt contracted from them. Thus we may yet know the true glory that thou hast offered to us, and we can be made partakers of it, if we embrace with true faith, not only begotten Son, in whom perfect righteousness and salvation has been offered us. Grant we may so cleave to Christ and receive His benefits in faith, that we may be able, not only before the world, but also against Satan and against death itself, to glory in thee. For thou alone are just and wise and strong. May thy strength, thy justice, thy wisdom, shine upon us in our iniquity and ignorance and weakness. Until at last we may reach that fullness of glory, laid up for us in heaven, through the same Christ our Lord. When Calvin begins to look to, he begins not with Christ for five, six chapters, he doesn't really start the treatment of Christ, his person and his work until chapter six, but the first five chapters he sets forth, sin in its results, or another way to say it, is the need for the Redeemer. Before we get to the Redeemer, which is the main topic of book two, Calvin gives to us the need for the Redeemer. He might say that book one is knowledge of God and ourselves. Remember how he did that in book one, knowledge of God and ourselves. And in book two, it's knowledge of ourselves and of God, because first five chapters focuses on knowing ourselves. What we were is created in Adam, but primarily now what we have become, because of the fall. Calvin says in one of his writings, not in the institutes, but in his commentary on Isaiah 53.6, for unless we realize our own helpless misery, we shall never know how much we need the remedy which Christ brings. Nor come to him with the fervent love we owe him. So that brief statement from the commentary on Isaiah 53.6 sets forth the program that he places before us in book two. We need first of all to realize our helpless misery. That's what the first five chapters will do for us. Help us to come to realize our own helpless misery. And if we don't have the first five chapters, we will not know the remedy which Christ brings nor come to him with the fervent love we owe him. I've mentioned already, I think, the little book by R.C. Reed Gospel according to Calvin, which is a short booklet, Treating Calvin's Teaching by a professor that taught at the old Columbia Seminary when it was back in Columbia South Carolina about 100 years ago. R.C. Reed and the Gospel is taught by Calvin says this, Logically, one's views of sin determine his views of redemption. Christ came to repair whatever ruin was wrought by Adam to appreciate the work of the former. We must understand the work of the latter. To know just how much we are indebted to Christ, we must know just how much we are indebted to Adam. So first we look at our debt to Adam or we look at the ruin that has come up by us because of Adam's sin and our involvement in that sin as we'll see. And then we can appreciate what Christ did. We need to see first of all our miserable ruin and then we can see his magnificent redemption. Calvin summarizes all of the first five chapters of book two in the very beginning of chapter six that will come to next time the whole human race perished in the person of Adam. That's two six one that's Calvin's summary of these first five chapters that we're going to look at today. So we could use that the whole human race perished in the person of Adam as a kind of brief summary of the five chapters that begin with two. Two full knowledge of ourselves ourselves as created and ourselves as fallen. This first point is a review of book one. So Calvin is looking back now. Remember we've already studied this under creation ourselves as created. Our primal worthiness is the expression that Calvin uses or what we were. We see the greatness of our creation. Remember that in book one there was that hypothetical premise. This is the knowledge of God that we would have had if Adam had not sin. Adam did sin and so that knowledge has crossed out and it is no longer available to us without the scripture and the testimony of the Holy Spirit opening our understanding so that we can embrace the scripture as a very word of God. There is also a hypothetical premise here in the beginning of book two. How great our natural excellence would be if only it had remained unlimished. So Calvin once again returns to the grandeur of the creation of mankind and not only points us to the excellence of it but also the purpose for which we were created. And that is our duty to God. We were made to worship God and to love and serve God. The response that should flow from us because of this is gratitude. We see what God did. We see the wonder of his creation of us, of people and the response is gratitude. But we also see ourselves as fallen. And this is really the proper topic of the first five chapters of book two. We look back to the creation of unfallen man and woman. But now in book two he focuses on what we are and waxes some blood eloquent about the greatness of the fall from the splendor of God's creation to the miserable ruin that we have become sorry spectacle. He says of our foulness and dishonor and our entire inability to carry out the purpose for which we were created. We cannot now in ourselves be of what we will need to be. And the response here should be humility. We bow low before God because we recognize that we have lost through our first parents and through our own sin we have lost that which God had prepared for us. And there is both humility and Calvin says a new zeal to seek God and whom each of us may recover those good things which we have utterly and completely lost. So the opening pages of book two he wants to focus our attention on those two points. What we were gratitude but we are now humility, brokenness, lowliness and earnest desire to seek God so that we can recover what has been lost. Calvin begins in book one with knowledge of God in ourselves and he says we are to know God we are to know ourselves. And we could summarize that now by saying we are to know our original excellence which was God's gift and be grateful for that. But we also know our present sinfulness and so are led to repent for corrupting such an excellent gift as God had given to us in the creation. That is how he introduces the topic and then he comes to Adam's sin and will come to the effects of Adam's sin on us. The nature of Adam's sin, he says it's not your lightening, it's not that Adam was an Eve where hungry for an apple, that's childish for you, Calvin says. But apparently some medieval people thought that was the problem that these two people were greedy, hungry, gluttonous. Calvin dismisses that as a childish but when he tries to understand the nature of Adam's sin it becomes a little more complex. What really was the sin that drove Adam and Eve to the action that had such dire consequences for themselves and for the whole human race. He begins with a gustan's idea saying the gustan said it was pride. It was pride that drove our first two parents, Eve and Adam to rebel against God. Calvin doesn't disagree with that but he wants to probe a little deeper and so he says we could also call it disobedience which he describes as the beginning of the fall. So there's pride there and then there is the decision to disobey God, the command that God had had set, how shall not eat of this fruit. And then Calvin says we could call it unfaithfulness which he says is the root of the fall and all of this issues in ingratitude, so pride, disobedience, unfaithfulness which rejects what God has said and it's ungrateful for all that God has given. And Caesar's upon that which God has forbidden. So that's Calvin's attempt to look at the sin itself. What really was it? It says you could call it pride, unfaithfulness you could call it disobedience, you could call it ingratitude. So why did it happen? The reason for Adam's sin and here Calvin is very clear, Man's ruin is to be ascribed to Man alone to 110. Why did it happen? Because of the action of Adam and Eve. Because of their free will which they exercised contrary to the law of God. Second question, Calvin asked here why did it happen and then why did God not prevent it? Why did God not prevent Adam's sin? A lot of people have given different ideas about that but usually the answer to that was something like this. God could not have prevented Adam's sin without making Adam and Eve like the other animals to give our first parents the freedom to love him freely and not being constrained to love him. In any kind of mechanistic way there had to be the freedom to disobey the freedom not to love. That's the standard answer I think to that question. But it's not the only Calvin gives. Remember what Calvin says? That question he says manifests in ordinate curiosity. It kind of closes the door on that. It says one of the questions that we shouldn't ask. Why did God not prevent it? I'm not sure the first answer is not a good answer but it's not one that appeals to Calvin. And he says beside that it has to do with the secret of predestination. This is one of the places before he gets to the doctrine of the election where he says you know you really could talk about election here but I'm not going to do it yet. So has to do with God's secret purpose and will and it was God's purpose and will that Adam and Eve sin. That raises some big questions that we'll have to look at in a few minutes but basically Calvin says God did not prevent it and we shouldn't probe too deeply into why. He did not prevent it because that manifest in ordinate curiosity. The next big point transmission of Adam sin because what Calvin is talking about in the first five chapters about two is not only that Adam and Eve sin but that that has impacted us so that we are born as sinners. The fact of that is clear to Adam or to Calvin as he thinks about the sin of Adam and Eve. Calvin says before we saw the light of this life we were soiled and spotted in God's sight to one five. So before we're born we're guilty we're soiled we're spotted in God's sight. The church fathers call this original sin and we often use that expression to original sin which means that we're born in sin not that we become sinners because we sin. But we sin because we are sinners. That expression is a little bit confusing and Calvin prefers another one he would rather use inherited sin or inherited corruption. So our condition is a condition that can be described as original sin as the church fathers say or as inherited sin or inherited corruption as Calvin says. Now that's the fact of it we're born in sin but how did that happen? How did it happen that the sin of our first two parents is somehow passed on to us. And here Calvin doesn't say that that's inordinate curiosity to ask such a question he spends considerable time trying to answer that because there are passages in the Bible that give us understanding about that. So the Bible says forth something we need to follow that and Calvin attempts to do that here. The first point he makes is that our sin is not inherited biologically or physically or carnally. Calvin says the contingent does not take its origin from the substance of the flesh or the soul. So it's not that just through the sexual act of propagation of the human race sin is passed on. You know I guess it's tempted to think that that could be an explanation but Calvin doesn't. It's not a carnal propagation. We don't inherit sin in that way and secondly it's not propagated by imitation which means we don't become centers because we imitate other centers. I'd say the first point Calvin deals with is that we are not centers because we are the offspring of biologically the offspring of centers. He makes the point there that the offspring of Christians are centers as well as the offspring of the unregenerate. But the manner of its propagation is not the carnal act. It's not the sexual act of beginning a child. That's not the way that sin is passed on to us. But neither is it passed on to us as villages taught by imitation. It's not that we become centers by sending Calvin rejects the pelagian concept. It's very interesting that he says this about pelagias. He attempted to cover up the disease and thus rendered it incurable. The reason people become centers is because they see others sending and they imitate others and all you have to stop sending and all will be well. That covers up the disease and if you cover up the disease there's no hope for a cure. Even though Calvin can seem rather almost harsh in these chapters it's really much kinder approach to expose our condition. And you might say to tell it like it is much better for a doctor to say this is what's wrong with you and we've got to do something about this than to say not much is wrong with you when there's a lot wrong with us. So ultimately it becomes a much kinder approach to make it as negative as it is so that we know what we're up against. Well if it's not inherited biologically and it's not propagated by imitation how does it come that we are born in sin and Calvin says we do inherit our sin from Adam and there are two possible ways to think of this. First of all that Adam is the root of human nature and secondly that he's the head of the human race. These are the two views in systematic theology that are known as the realistic view, realism and the representative view. And Calvin doesn't seem to feel constrained to choose between the two. Generally theologians will accept one and reject the other. Calvin uses them both although I think his preference I think he comes down more here and in his commentaries on the side of representation. He thinks both are true. The first is the realistic view which says even though our sin isn't transmitted biologically it is true that we have a connection with Adam. He is our first father and we are descended from him as a child is born into this world. That child doesn't represent a totally new beginning. The world doesn't start over again with that child. That child is part of human race and because we are part of the human race then we are part of Adam and the sin of Adam infects and affects all of the human race. Calvin says this way in 1, 2, 1, 7 the beginning of corruption in Adam was such that it was conveyed in a perpetual stream from the ancestors into their descendants. Sometimes he uses the figure of a tree here. The root is there and that's Adam. We are way out on one of the far limbs a little acorn but the root in the acorn are part of the same tree. So we are part of human race and Adam sin, he sin, that affects not only themselves but all their descendants. Well that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it, another strand in Calvin is that the relationship between Adam and the human race is not to be viewed so much in terms of the racial connection, the unity of the race, although he doesn't reject that and say that's improper. But another way to look at it is to look at it representatively. That is God by divine appointment made Adam the representative of the race so that what Adam does according to God's appointment is going to affect all the descendants of Adam. 2, 1, 7 it had been so ordained by God that the first man should at one in the same time have in lose both for himself and for his descendants the gifts that God had bestowed upon him. Or the commentary on John 3.6 the corruption of all mankind in the person of Adam alone did not proceed from generation but from the ordinance of God. As in one man he adorned us all so he has also in him deprived us of his gifts that seems to lean much more heavily to the representative view and almost appears to deny the realist view in the commentary on John 3.6. John Murray who's written some on this feels that Calvin is on the right track but isn't quite clear enough here probably because he combines these two views. And there could be something to that Murray says while Calvin's view of original sin is thoroughly Pauline and biblical yet exegetically he has not been successful in analyzing the precise thought of the apostle in this passage he's talking about Romans 5, 12.

But I think we understand Calvin whether he's right or wrong is another issue and John Murray thinks he's basically right but doesn't quite got it precisely right according to Paul's treatment of the issue in Romans 5. But I think it's quite clear that Calvin says sin is fast on could look at it realistically probably better to look at it representatively but in either case what Adam did affects us. So his sin has become our sin okay we come to our sin then what does it mean that Adam sin has become our sin by the fact that we're Adam's descendants part of the same tree and by God's ordinance he was appointed our representative Adam sin has become our sin. So we are born in sin and so deserve punishment that means we're born guilty. In Adam's sin mankind deserved to be vitiated 216 and 218 a contagion imparted by him resides in us which justly deserves punishment and again 218 without guilt there would be no accusation. So the fact that we're born in sin means that we're born guilty and so deserve punishment. That's pretty hard teaching for most people to accept the fact that I'm born as a guilty sinner. RC Reid I quoted a little bit earlier said this is it true not is it palatable a sinner's moral taste is no test and that's that's the issue isn't it. If this is is true according to the Bible then this is what we we must hold not do we like it sinners moral taste is not the ultimate judge of truth but the revelation of God in the Bible. So we're guilty so deserve punishment and not only we're guilty but we're depraved and that depravity we could describe in two ways it's positive and it's radical. Calvin says our nature is not only destitute and empty of good that would be deprivation that our nature is destitute and empty of good that's bad enough but more than deprivation. Calvin says we are characterized by deprivation we are not only deprived but we are depraved our nature is not only destitute and empty of good but also fertile and fruitful of every evil. So not only empty of all good but full of all evil full of evil full of sin he has some images here of evil bubbling up in us and draws a very bleak picture of fallen mankind here. Calvin here is to some degree reacting against Aquinas and the scholastics the medieval theologians who taught the fall meant simply the loss of something additional to man's nature. Here's man's nature here's something else added to man's nature and the fall strips off as something else and we're back to the original nature. The Donum super additum the added gift is gone leaving man pretty much as he was before the gift was added but that certainly is not Calvin's view. It's not that our nature is somewhat unaffected by the fall just having lost the extra blessing that God placed upon Adam and Eve but we're not just deprived of that extra blessing we're also depraved. So that now we do those works which scripture calls works of the flesh we're not just back to some sort of beginning point but we're plunged into condition where the works that we do are to be understood as works of the flesh. So positive and radical Roman Catholic theologians that Calvin is reacting against here tended to limit the problem to part of man's nature. In other words what really is the problem that we have now that we are descended from Adam and many of these theologians spoke about the place of the problem as concupacence. But I think by that they meant sensuality the lower nature the the physical part of man kind is the problem leaving the will and the mind as if not untied certainly not as affected as the carnal nature. Now Calvin will use concupacence you know he says it's all right to use that term it's not improper if it is applied to whatsoever is in man so when you read concupacence in Calvin it means the mind the intellect will everything. And if everything is affected everything is depraved then you can use concupacence but don't shut off concupacence to kind of part of mankind so that part of us has fallen more than the rest of us. In terms of floor nature or the physical nature or the carnal nature being the real seat of sin. The real seat of sin is the mind it's the will it's the whole person. That's what I think Calvin means here by radical depravity whatsoever is in man from the understanding to the will from the soul even to the flesh has been defiled so he doesn't leave anything untouched what stands out in Calvin's treatment of human sinfulness is its comprehensiveness. It includes both actual sinning and proclivity to sin touches every aspect of human existence the mind and the will the body and the soul and it affects every stage of life even the youngest child bears the hidden seed of Adam. So under radical we use the word comprehensive but I think we should make another point here because Calvin does this and that is it is radical but it's not total depravity. Now that means that the tea and the tulip is wrong as far as Calvin is concerned you know those five points no come from Calvin they come from the aftermath of the Senate of Dort reacting to the five points of the remonstrance or the five points of the Armenians and total depravity I think gives the wrong impression. It's not total because not all wicked traits appear in every person it's total then all wicked traits would have to appear in every person and those wicked traits which do appear are not fully manifested so it seems to me that to speak of Calvin's point of view it's much better to say radical than total. Which section would you find his question about that? 218 I think would be one place where we could find that and we'll come back to this point too it's spread throughout these chapters. You see the point here God restrains the sinfulness of sinful people so that every sinful person doesn't manifest every possible sinful trait and in centers the sins which centers do manifest are not allowed to go to their full expression. It's hard to imagine what the world would be like if we had total depravity. I mean it's bad enough with radical depravity but total depravity would be something else. What was the intention of the response to the five points of the remonstrance for total depravity? Usually when I hear somebody talk about the five points of Calvinism the T they tend to describe more as the comprehensible. I think you can use total if you use it in that sense and I think that was the intention of whoever created the five points no for sure. We know it came from the Senate of Dort but who created the tulip but crossed it I guess we don't know and Dr. Williams doesn't know. I'd like to find out how that actually came into existence but it's not improper so you know it presivitary if you're asked the five points of Calvinism you should probably say total depravity for the first one and not get into too much of well Calvin didn't agree with this but I think it would be more accurate according to Calvin's thinking to call it radical. Unless you can use total in the sense that every part of the human person is affected so it's not just restricted say to the flash but it also is total in the sense of affecting the intellect as well for instance. Another question? Okay thirdly we are unable to alter our condition title of book two chapter two chapter two of book two is man is deprived of freedom and bound over to miserable servitude so we're not only in this condition of guilt and deprivation. Provation but we can't we can't do anything about it we are deprived of freedom of choice and bound over to miserable servitude there are two points here that Calvin makes following the tradition here going back to Augustine that is the supernatural gifts are altogether abolished. By that he means faith love for God zeal for holiness those supernatural gifts that Adam possessed were lost people are not born now with faith love for God and zeal for holiness and the natural gifts were corrected by natural gifts he means reason and will our intellect and our will. These have been corrected but not destroyed we still have a mind we still have a will but these have been so seriously impaired and totally or radically you prefer perverted that the mind cannot function the way it should nor can the will. Calvin then treats first the mind reason and the effects of the fall on the intellect sometimes speak about the noetic effects of the fall and he talks about that and then he talks about the effects of the fall on the will. Calvin's stress on the on the noetic effects of the fall I think has few precedents in Christian theology most theologians don't give this much attention to the role of the mind but Calvin does both heart or will if you prefer and mind are deeply corrupted. When Lambert Peter Lambert speaks of this he talks about concupacence being centered more not only in the flesh but in the will but it doesn't affect the mind all that much so the mind the intellect is relatively unscored but the rest of humanity is deeply initiated but for Calvin it's radical it's total it's across the board. When he thinks of the reason now of fallen people he wants to divide this in two ways he wants to talk first about earthly things and then about heavenly things in other words the unregenerate person fall in person how does that person's mind work or does it work in terms of earthly things. And it does work works wonderfully in terms of earthly things it's here where Calvin praises human learning to to 14 and 15 these are impressive sections for Calvin goes through the curriculum of the liberal arts and praises. This is the learning of human beings not Christians but human beings in law science art medicine mathematics and says what a wonderful thing it is that these people have been able to learn so much in so many areas. This knowledge that human beings have and gain through their the use of their fallen minds is knowledge that comes through sinful people but it also comes from the spirit of God who is the soul fountain of truth. In other words Calvin says all of this learning magnificent and wonderful he celebrates it but he says that all of this comes from God this is not regenerating work of God but it is the work of God nonetheless. Special ability is given two people through God's special grace now this could be a little bit confusing and it could be that when you read this was confusing because we tend to use special grace or regenerating grace and common grace which is an expression Calvin does it use for this sort of thing. So this is really the work of God's common grace but Calvin wants to call it special grace because God gives it especially to individuals you know God gives special grace to one person so that he can become a great mathematician. And God gives special grace to another person so that she can become a great doctor position we're not all like God gives special grace to individuals I was struck for the first first time with this passage in two to seventeen I read it many times I'm sure but it really struck me this time. For why is one person more excellent than another why is one person great musician another person tone death and Calvin's answer is is it not to display in common nature God special grace which in passing many by declares itself bound to nine the freedom of God here in distributing these gifts however he chooses. And that struck me because that same argument will be used later for election to salvation God is free to choose whoever he pleases and here in this context God is free to give his gifts as he chooses. So man's reason all a man's reason produces some great things in earthly things not independent of God but through God's special grace to those centers that he gives with these gifts but his understanding in heavenly things. That is in matters related to salvation even though man is intelligent enough to take something of things above he misses the sum of things now what Calvin is saying here is in heavenly things sometimes people can get a bit of an inkling even of what is above. And that goes back to book one the continuing witness of the sense of divinity in the seat of religion but it never really produces anything lasting or substantial he talks about philosophers that may chance to sprinkle their books with droplets of truth. You can get some droplets of truth about you might say spiritual things in books of fallen people but he misses the sum of things he doesn't understand the full picture just bits and pieces. Do you know we would think of in today's terminology more in God's common grace working in non-elect people that certainly produces the intellectual prowess and accomplishments of the mind. Calvin doesn't deal with the will here in the same detail but he's talking about he's still talking about the mind so I think we could say that it's still any part of the truth that fallen person arrives at is due to God's common grace we would say. And also due to that and perhaps this is the way God's common grace works due to that continuing witness that's being suppressed conscience sense of divinity. Calvin says I can book one that it's like a flash of light but then the light has gone before you can take a step. So there's something there but not much and it never really produces the full picture. Francis Shafer used to put it this way that fallen people have bits and pieces of the truth, spiritual truth, bits and pieces but not the sum of things. Our Calvin puts it this way all this capacity to understand with the understanding that follows a funnett is an unstable and transitory thing in God's sight when a solid foundation of truth does not underlie it. So if there's just a little bit there is not much and there's no foundation and it doesn't last and here's where he has the famous illustration of man is like a traveler passing through a field at night. This is 2 to 18 who in a momentary lightning flash sees far and wide but the sight vanishes so swiftly that he is plunged again into the darkness of the night before he can take a step. Flash of lightning suddenly see something that is gone and really sense worse off than before because you've been blinded by the lightning and can't take a step. Okay let's see here, you need to come to the will. I talked about the mind, now the will. The will is so deeply initiated and corrupted in its every part that it can be get nothing but evil. 2 to 26 or the title of chapter three only damnable things come forth for man's corrupt nature. Calvin doesn't really treat the will quite as fully as he treats the mind he doesn't say can the will in earthly things make some good decisions. I think we should probably parallel what he has said about the mind with the will but rather than getting into what the will can do in earthly things by God's grace. This simply moves on to the fact that only damnable things come forth from man's corrupt nature. neglecting to discuss as he does for the fall of mind the remaining capacity of the will for good in earthly or lower things but I don't think Calvin would disagree with that it just doesn't develop that thought. So as we come to the will number of things to be said here not all wicked traits appear in every person and here we're back to that point we were talking about earlier that the priority is radical but not at least in an absolute sense total. Not all wicked traits appear in every person and his example you remember is Camilla's in Catalan Camilla's was a noble Roman patriot we would say a good man not a Christian is Calvin's point but noble and admirable. And Catalan was an evil man he was a man who conspired to assassinate Cicero and to overthrow the Roman government in 63 BC so we've got one good man and one bad man neither one Christian but you have to use good in a certain sense here. Now Calvin's point is this does Camilla's the noble patriot have more righteousness than Catalan the evil man and the answer is no they're both equally sinners the good man is just as sinful as the evil man they're both guilty they're both depraved so one is not better than the other in that sense. But does Camilla's the noble patriot have as much sin as Catalan the evil man and the answer again is no one man is not as sinful as another man they're both equally sinful in one sense and that is nothing that they do is spiritually good. But one has more sin than the other they're equally lost but not equally sinful is a way that you could put it why because God's grace restrains where it does not cleanse. And this gets back to that point of radical versus total God's grace restrains where it does not cleanse the grace of God does not cleanse Camilla's not one of the elect he's not one of God's people but God's grace works in this man to restrains him so that what we see is it's a good man not an evil man. God's grace then his special grace makes possible admirable and heroic actions in non elect persons. I have a quote here I think not from Calvin but from Kuiper Abraham Kuiper to be dear to God this this strikes me as being right on target with what Calvin says Kuiper says you know certain people who have not as yet been able to grasp the faith but whose noble qualities of mine and heart render them peculiarly interesting and refreshing frequently they're far more attractive to you than many a confess believer. They are as flowers in the bud that cannot come to bloom but this half open bud exhales exquisite fragrance talking about unsafe people and I think we've all had that experience where we know unsafe people who are wonderful people and we admire certain qualities in them. It's like a bud that can't open but even that bud exhales exquisite fragrance so not all wicked traits appear in every man. Man however cannot do good in heavenly things that might be a brief insight but this brief and it doesn't lead to anything lasting because there is no foundation there. Calvin gets into next what I would call a history of the doctrine of free will you read through that in which Calvin discusses the philosophers and what they said about free will and his point is there's some some droplets of truth in the philosophers but mostly era because the philosophers taught that the will is free to follow reason the mind acts thinks and then the will is free and comes to the church fathers and he says they're too close to the philosophers. He tries to make the best case he can for the church fathers and yet he acknowledges that as he put it they so differ waiver or speak confusedly on this subject that almost nothing certain can be derived from their writings. Erasmus is an example of contemporary example of this confusion. Augustin is the person that he holds on to for dear life because in Augustin he finds somebody that he thinks is teaching the right view of the will. Very much agree with that man that is Augustin whom the godly by common consent justly invest with the greatest authority. So philosophers get it wrong almost entirely church fathers are confused Augustin is right and the scholastic theologians go from bad to worse. These are the the medieval theologians because they minimize the effect of the fall a perfectly unblemished reason and a will also largely unimpaired. It's not something that Calvin of course can accept. So what is Calvin's doctrine well it's Augustin's doctrine he was already praised Augustin but let me set forth Calvin's view here briefly in the last few minutes. Calvin prefers you know he would prefer to avoid the expression free will but he will use it in a certain restricted sense. He talks about free will but when he defines what he really thinks it means he says what purpose is served by labeling with a proud name such a slight thing. Do we have free will yes Calvin says we have free will what does it mean it means that that you can do what you want to do what you want to do you want to sin so it means you're free to sin so it free will is. So if you use it that way Calvin is agreeable otherwise he would want to say as Luther did that the will is in bondage but his point is since the fall man has not been deprived of will but of a healthy will. We still have a will the will isn't abolished but no longer is it a healthy will we act by the will but we cannot act rightly by the will we cannot choose good so since the fall man has not been deprived of will but of healthy will. In one sense our wills are bound we can get nothing but evil in another sense as I explained a moment ago the will is free and what Calvin means by that is that we are free to act wickedly because that's the way we're going to act. We're free to act by will and not by compulsion that is our acts the acts of fallen people are not acts that are coerced it's not that a fallen person says I don't want to to sin but I'm forced to. The fallen person says I want to sin and I'm free to sin and so we sin we sin willingly not unwillingly or by compulsion there is an internal necessity and sins of necessity that's an internal necessity that's not an external compulsion. We sin on necessity because we're sinners and evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit or to say it another way we sin because we want to not because we're forced to but we can't we can't free ourselves from wanting to. Jonathan Edwards some plays put it this way one may one may will as one pleases but one may not please as one pleases and you may will as you please but you can't change your pleasing that's what you are and consequently we sin freely not by. Compulsion Calvin took over Augustine's insight that we are indeed free but we're not freed we're free but we're not freed we're bound in sin but we're free to sin I don't know the Calvin said this but I think it would follow we're free to choose our sins. You can sin anyway you want to follow people sin as they choose but what purpose is served by labeling with a proud name such a slight thing say we have free will that sounds good but when you understand Calvin's understanding it is a slight thing. Now all of this is leading up to what Calvin calls the principal point and that is the need for God's grace you know by this point talent has pretty much wiped out any possibility of human moral improvement in any deep spiritual way and saved under generate non alike people can think good things accomplish great things even make decent actions but none of that affects our standing with God it doesn't eliminate the fact that we are sinners. Calvin doesn't drag us down into the depths of our perversity in order to leave us there but rather to prepare us to hear the good news of the gospel. Now somewhere Luther says that the first half of the gospel is that we're lost you have to know your lost before you can want to be saved so when you preach the gospel you preach the lostness of people and the salvation that comes through Christ and that's what Calvin is doing in book 2 is hammering home our lostness our perversity our depravity our guilt and we ought to be ready to hear the gospel now because there's no there's no other message that can redeem us God is the author of our salvation but we respond from the heart salvation is not coercion either we respond willingly but we'll say it's God who produces that willingness in us. And so chapter on how God works in men's hearts you read that I won't comment on it and a chapter on refutation of the objections commonly put forward in difference of free will. Calvin has old chapters saying people have objections to this does away with human responsibility and so in Calvin answers all of those in a very a very good way I think. Okay that's as far as we'll go today we come next time next week to redemption through Christ book to chapter 6 through 8.