The Natural Man Is an Idiot (When It Comes to the Truth)

Excerpt From Newsletter

If you are a True Believer, I challenge you to read the following excerpt as though it were a devotional piece of literature. By that I mean, as you read, consciously try to identify with the born-again experience that Calvin was using as the basis for his understanding of the Scriptures. In other words, don’t just read what he wrote, read why he wrote it.

The meaning of many of Calvin’s statements eludes the Pretenders just as does the meaning of many of the statements of the Apostles. That is because they have never been born again. Consequently, they have no common experiential basis on which to identify with what these men of God have written. If you are a True Believer, you have that essential common ground. Use it to understand the Truth Calvin sought to communicate.

If you read what Calvin has written from the perspective of your own experience as a fellow Believer, you can clearly see that he had experienced the new birth (as opposed to the many Pretenders who came after him and distorted the meaning of what he wrote). Moreover, Calvin’s own revolutionary experience with God provided the perspective from which he sought always to understand the Scriptures. It is for that reason that his works are most valuable. They provide concise insight into his personal experience with God.

If you choose to read the entirety of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, leave your doctrinal beliefs lying on the title page or, at the very least, somewhere in the Table of Contents, and read his work devotionally. Calvin makes some definite statements concerning specific doctrinal matters in which he advocates the mind-set of the majority of his day. At other times he makes definite statements concerning Christian doctrine where there are apparently two contradictory truths represented in the Scriptures. In cutting the Gordian knot, Calvin often gives the eternal perspective. That’s why is it so obvious he had been born again. But the scriptural knot was never meant to be cut; it was meant to be untied so as to maintain both perspectives on the one Truth.

Keep in mind, therefore, that because of his own limited grasp of the parabolic imagery of The Apostolic Teaching, at points Calvin himself misunderstood, or chose to ignore, some of the statements of the Apostles in which they sought to convey their comprehensive understanding of the parables of the Scriptures. However, you will find Calvin’s errors minor in comparison to the amount of Truth his works contain.

“The Natural Man Is an Idiot (When It Comes to the Truth),” The Voice of Elijah^®, October 1993, pp. 1, 4

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