Psalm 131 is one of the most meaningful of all the Psalms to me.
John Calvin
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.
(Psalm 131 ESV)
The picture here is a lovely and comforting one. David acknowledges the absolute brain cramp that can accompany trying to understand the Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth. Even that phrase, the Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth, sounds the alarm: mere mortals need not tread here! And well it should. He is beyond understanding. To quote Spurgeon: “As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God. A God whom we could understand would be no God. If we could grasp Him, He could not be infinite. If we could understand Him, He could not be divine.”
And yet….
We are told by our Lord Jesus, “and this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) The Apostle Paul urges us to , “ to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1:10 ) Seek me and you will find me, declares the Lord (Jer.29:13) and yet ”it is the glory of God to conceal things…” (Prov. 25:2)
The Puritan writer Thomas Manton says it well:
“We know God but as men born blind know the fire: they know that there is such a thing as fire, for they feel it warm them, but what it is they know not. So, that there is a God we know, but what He is we know little, and indeed we can never search Him out to perfection; a finite creature can never fully comprehend that which is infinite.”
We are to seek to know the unknowable. That should promote a bit of humility.
In his wonderful book Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC
, Frederick Buechner writes the following about theology:
“Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung beetles may study man and his ways and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes that God feels likewise.”
One of the criticisms leveled at those in the Reformed camp is that there tends to be a scholastic arrogance that oozes from their pores. A little over the top but not far from the mark. Eliot Grudem, a pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle, wrote an article called “Elect or Elite? Why Arrogance Has No Place in Reformed Theology” in which he addressed this issue. In the article he quoted J.I. Packer from his introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ:
“To Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.”
That includes me. And you. There is no room for boasting and even if tempted to do so we should boast in nothing but the cross of Christ! (Gal. 6:14) Christian men of scholarship should be oozing nothing but humility.
In reading Calvin’s Institutes
(Kindle Edition)
I was encouraged by a part of his discourse on the subject of “election” in which he cautions us to remember our limits.
“The subject of predestination, which in itself is attended with considerable difficulty is rendered very perplexed and hence perilous by human curiosity, which cannot be restrained from wandering into forbidden paths and climbing to the clouds determined if it can that none of the secret things of God shall remain unexplored. For it is not right that man should with impunity pry into things which the Lord has been pleased to conceal within himself, and scan that sublime eternal wisdom which it is his pleasure that we should not apprehend but adore, that therein also his perfections may appear.” (1)
He continues:
“… the moment we go beyond the bounds of the word we are out of the course, in darkness, and must every now and then stumble, go astray, and fall. Let it, therefore, be our first principle that to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is expounded by the word of God, is no less infatuated than to walk where there is no path, or to seek light in darkness. Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning. Rather let us willingly abstain from the search after knowledge, to which it is both foolish as well as perilous, and even fatal to aspire. If an unrestrained imagination urges us, our proper course is to oppose it with these words, “It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory,” (Prov. 25:27).
These are words worth heeding. They are words that admit the limitations of finite men in the face of an infinite God. They are words that call for the sure boundaries of revealed scripture and boundaries upon the curiosity driven by pride in knowledge.
Now Calvin insists that we do not keep from people what can be known about the subject and, indeed, to do so would be to deprive the saints. Yet, his call for humility is unmistakable. Wisely he states:
“Let us, I say, allow the Christian to unlock his mind and ears to all the words of God which are addressed to him, provided he do it with this moderation – viz. that whenever the Lord shuts his sacred mouth, he also desist from inquiry. The best rule of sobriety is, not only in learning to follow wherever God leads, but also when he makes an end of teaching, to cease also from wishing to be wise.”
John Chrysostom said that a comprehended God is no God at all. The Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth is, without question, incomprehensible. Even so, He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in nature, in scripture and in the face of Jesus Christ. May we press on to know Him. May we with humility seek to know His character and understand His ways and may we extend much grace to our fellow travelers who seek the same, knowing that it is a wonder that we understand anything at all.
(1) All quotes from : Calvin, John; Beveridge, Henry (2011-01-26). Institutes Of The Christian Religion (pp. 607-609). Kindle Edition.
02. Feb, 2012 
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“All inadequate doctrines of the atonement are due to inadequate doctrines of God and man. If we bring God down to our level and raise ourselves to his, then of course we see no need for a radical salvation, let alone for a radical atonement to secure it. When, on the other hand, we have glimpsed the blinding glory of the holiness of God, and have been so convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit that we tremble before God and acknowledge what we are, namely ‘hell–deserving sinners’, then and only then does the necessity of the cross appear so obvious that we are astonished we never saw it before.”
