Reformation! Reformation! Reformation!
No King But CHRIST!
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On putting God's glory before man's sensiblities
God's Long Sufferance of His people Many times did he deliver them; but they provoked him with their counsel, and were brought low for their iniquity.Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry:And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives.Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise.Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD. [Psalm 106:43-48] Many times he delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their sin. As the wicked perversity of the people was manifested in that God's severe chastisements failed to produce their reformation, so now, on the other hand, the prophet deduces the the detestable hardness of their hearts from the fact, that all the benefits which they had received from God could not bend them into obedience. They did, indeed, in the time of their afflictions, groan under the burden of them; but when God not only mitigated their punishment, but also granted them wonderful deliverance's, can their subsequent backsliding be excused? It becomes us to bear in mind, that there, as in a mirror, we have a picture of the nature of all mankind; for let God but adopt those very means which he employed in relation to the Israelites, in order to reclaim the majority of the sons of men, how comparatively few are there who will not be found continuing in the very same state as they were? and if he either humble us by the severity of his rod, or melt us by his kindness, the effect is only temporary; because, though he visit us with correction upon correction, and heap kindness upon kindness, yet we very soon relapse into our wonted vicious practices. As for the Jews, their insensate stupidity was insufferable, in that, notwithstanding the many and magnificent deliverance's which God wrought out for them, they did not cease from their backsliding. Moreover, he informs us, that though they were most deserving of all their afflictions, yet their groanings were heard; whence they learn that God, in his unwearied kindness, did not cease to strive with them on account of their perverseness of spirit. For what pity was this, to hear the cry of those who turned not a deaf ear to his wise instructions, and were regardless of all his warnings and threatenings? And yet after all this forbearance and long-suffering, their exceedingly deprived hearts remained unchanged.
Christ's humiliation |
For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. (2 Cor 13:4) Marcion imagines that Christ, instead of a body, assumed a phantom, because it is elsewhere said that he was made in the likeness of man and found in fashion as a man. Thus he altogether over-looks what Paul is then discussing (Phil 2:7). His object is not to show what kind of body Christ assumed, but that, when he might have justly asserted his divinity, he was pleased to exhibit nothing but the attributes of a mean and despised man. For, in order to exhort us to submission of his example, he shows that when as God he might have displayed to the world the brightness of his glory, he gave up his right and voluntarily emptied himself; that he assumed the form of a servant and contented with that humble condition, suffered his divinity to be concealed under a veil of flesh. Here, unquestionably, he explains not what Christ was, but in what context it is easily gatered that it was in the true nature of man that Christ humbled himself. For what is meant by the words, he was "found in fashion as a man," but that for a time, instead of being resplendent with divine glory, the human form only appeared in a mean and abject condition. Nor would the words of Peter that he was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirits" (1 Pet. 3:18) hold true unless the Son of God had become weak in the nature of man. This is explained more clearly by Paul when he declares that "he was crucified through weakness." (2 Cor 13:4). And hence his exaltation; for it is distinctly said that Christ acquired new glory after he humbled himself. This could fitly apply only to a man endued with a body and a soul. The Apostle does not there speak of the essence of his body as heavenly but of the spiritual life which derived from Christ quickens us (1 Cor 15:47). If his body were not of the same nature with ours, there would be no soundness in the argument which Paul pursues with so much earnestness. If Christ is risen, we shall rise also; if we rise not, neither has Christ. {john Calvin] . |
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