Archive for October 2024
Not rejecting our Lord’s great kindness
What we have said is sufficient, as one can see, to show how unreasonably and thoughtlessly these people trouble the Lord’s church. They arouse questions and debates in order to censure the holy observance which has always, since the time of the apostles, been carefully kept by the faithful. It is sufficient because we have clearly proved that the baptism of children has certain and assured foundation in the holy scripture, and on the contrary we have abundantly refuted all the objections which they are accustomed to make against it. So we do not doubt that all good servants of God, after having read this treatise, may be clearly satisfied and perceive with their eyes that all the attacks which are made to overturn and abolish this holy ordinance are deceitful machinations of the devil, in order to diminish the comfort that the Lord wanted to give us by His promise, and by so much to obscure the glory of His name—which is the more exalted the more the generosity of His mercy is fully poured out on people. For when the Lord visibly testifies to us by the sign of baptism that for love of us He wants to pay attention to our posterity and to be the God of our children, do we not have good grounds to rejoice as David did, when we consider that the Lord takes the role of a good father of a family for us, extending His providence not only over us but over those who are ours after our death? In that rejoicing God is particularly glorified.
This is why Satan strives to deprive our children of the communication of baptism—so that when this testimony that the Lord ordained in order to confirm for us the graces which He wants to give our children has been erased from before our eye, we might likewise little by little forget the promise which He has given us for them. From that would follow not only ingratitude and lack of recognition of the Lord’s mercy toward us but a negligence in instructing our children in the fear and discipline of His law and in the knowledge of His gospel. For it is a significant goad to incite us to nourish them in true piety and obedience to God when we hear that from their birth the Lord has received them among His people, as members of His church. That is why, not rejecting our Lord’s great kindness, let us boldly present to Him our children, to whom He has given entrance by His promise into the company of those whom He avows for household members of His house, which is the Christian church. (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1541 French edition, trans. by Elsie Anne McKee, chapter 11, “Of Baptism”)
Conquest
The death of a high priest is significant.
Sometimes it is significant because it is a sign of judgment: “Then she named the child Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel!’” (1 Sam 4:21) But it is always significant in that it releases those who are in prison into a new situation, for better or worse: “After the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession.” (Num 35:28) This is true in the greatest sense in Jesus; his death inaugurates a new epoch where those who are slaves of sin are given freedom and a future. You can see a more ordinary example of this in the death of Aaron; in a sense his death sets Israel free from the wilderness and makes it possible for them to conquer the promised land (Num 33).
There is a way in which this is true of all men, whether they be fathers or teachers or pastors; and even if they have planned for their succession with the utmost wisdom and faithfulness. The death of such a man releases a community from an obligation into a kind of freedom, but it also creates a new obligation and responsibility for that community to wrestle with the new future that is facing them. When you suffer the death of such a man, consider what old obligation you are released from, and what new opportunity you must give thanks for; and set your energies toward it.
Weary
“But you profane it,
In that you say,
‘The table of Yahweh is defiled;
And its fruit, its food, is contemptible.’
You also say,
‘Oh, what a weariness!’
And you sneer at it,”
Says the Yahweh of hosts.
“And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick;
Thus you bring an offering!
Should I accept this from your hand?”
Says Yahweh. (Malachi 1:12-13)
Peter Leithart writes of this passage:
Contempt for the Lord’s table is contempt for the Lord of the table, and this is as true for the church as it was for ancient Israel. Matthew Henry wisely applied these verses of Malachi to “those who live in a careless neglect of holy ordinances.” If this is the case, many churches today live in open contempt of their Lord. The Lord has provided a generous meal for His people; we have a sacrifice from which even those who served in the temple had no right to eat. Yet we complain that it makes the service too long and it is inconvenient and it is repetitive and it is boring and maybe the roast in the oven will burn. “My, how tiresome it is,” we sniff (Mal. 1:13), and thereby prove ourselves sons of Esau.
If you fear that serving the Lord’s Supper weekly might result in its becoming routine; or if you despair at the challenge of fitting it in regularly along with the rest of worship; then you should consider the possibility your love is growing cold.
Thus, weekly communion: do not grow weary in doing good.
I gotta have my orange juice. 