The Knowledge of God and of Ourselves

Mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. JOB 42:5–6

The Institutes of the Christian Religion is one of the longest and most demanding books in the Christian tradition, and yet it begins with a sentence anyone can understand. Nearly all the wisdom we have, Calvin says in its opening lines, true and solid wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. Everything he goes on to write, through four books and eighty chapters, is an unfolding of that sentence. It is worth stopping on it, because it is not as obvious as it sounds.

Two kinds of knowledge bound together

The striking thing about Calvin’s opening is that he refuses to say which knowledge comes first. The two, he says in Institutes 1.1, are joined by many bonds, and it is not easy to tell which precedes and brings forth the other.

On the one hand, no one can look honestly at himself without being turned towards God. We find that our very existence is held up by Him. Every gift we have, every good thing, trickles down to us from heaven like streams from a fountain. And the other side is just as searching: our poverty, our ignorance, our emptiness and our sin remind us that true light, wisdom and goodness are found in the Lord alone. Our misery drives us to look for Him. We cannot seriously aspire to God, Calvin says, until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves.

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. PSALM 139:1

On the other hand, we can never come to a clear knowledge of ourselves unless we have first looked upon the face of God and then come down to look at ourselves. So long as we compare ourselves only with other people, or look no higher than the earth, we are pleased with ourselves. A man who has only ever seen black will think grey is white. It is only when we raise our eyes to God — to His holiness, His wisdom, His power — that what looked like righteousness is exposed as filth, and what looked like wisdom as folly.

Undone before the Holy One

Calvin draws his proof from Scripture. Whenever the saints of the Bible were brought into the presence of God, they were struck down and overwhelmed. He points to Job, to Abraham, who confessed himself dust and ashes, to Elijah who wrapped his face in his mantle, and above all to Isaiah in the temple.

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. ISAIAH 6:5

This is not self-hatred for its own sake. It is simply what happens to a creature when it sees reality. Calvin wants his readers to understand that every kind of human pride — intellectual, moral, religious — survives only in the dark. Bring it into the light of God and it withers. And that is a mercy, because the same light that humbles us is the light that heals.

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. ISAIAH 57:15

Knowledge that is piety

It would be easy to misunderstand what Calvin means by knowing God. He does not mean simply knowing that there is a God, or knowing correct facts about Him. In the second chapter of the Institutes he says that God is not truly known where there is no religion or piety. And he defines piety with care: it is reverence joined with love of God, which the knowledge of His benefits brings about.

That definition is the key to the whole Institutes. For Calvin the question is never merely what God is, but what He is like towards us. It is not enough to know that God exists. We must know Him as the fountain of all good, so that we look for nothing anywhere else. Until people recognise that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by His fatherly care, that He is the author of every good thing, they will never yield Him willing service. Indeed, unless they put their whole happiness in Him, they will never give themselves to Him truly and sincerely.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. PROVERBS 1:7

This is why Calvin distrusts idle speculation. He has no patience with people who ask what God is in Himself, while taking no interest in how He deals with us. Curiosity of that kind, he says, is cold and frivolous. The one who knows God in the right way does not invent a God to suit himself. He looks for God in His Word and His works, fears to offend Him, submits to Him as Lord and loves Him as Father, and would honour Him even if there were no hell.

The same thread in Calvin’s preaching

This conviction runs all through Calvin’s sermons. In his sermon on All Scripture Is Given by Inspiration, one of the four in the Ochorus library, he sums up the whole doctrine of the gospel in a single sentence that could have come from the opening of the Institutes: “The doctrine of the gospel, in few words, is this: to know God, and put our whole trust in him.”

Notice the pairing. To know God is to trust Him. The knowledge Calvin cares about is always a knowledge that leans its whole weight on its object. And in the same sermon he makes the other half plain: when we consider that there is nothing but sin and wickedness in us, we must learn to be displeased with ourselves. The two kinds of knowledge travel together, even in a Sunday sermon in Geneva.

But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth. JEREMIAH 9:24

A caution and a comfort

Calvin can sound severe in this opening. He speaks bluntly of our emptiness, our corruption and our misery, and a modern reader may wince. It is fair to add two things.

First, Calvin never says that human beings are worthless. Later in the Institutes he insists that we were made in the image of God, adorned with extraordinary gifts, and that even fallen human beings are to be honoured for the image they bear. His point is not that we are nothing, but that everything we have is received.

Second, the purpose of the humbling is always the comfort. Calvin brings us down only to lift us up. The person who has learned that all his good comes from God has learned where to look for all the good he still needs. The emptier we see ourselves to be, the more we are driven to the fountain that never runs dry.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. PSALM 84:11

That is where the Institutes begins, and where the Christian life begins: with a glance at God and a glance at ourselves, and with the discovery that the two together send us running to Him.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Take a few minutes to list the good things in your life today. Beside each, write where it came from, and trace it back to God.

2. Ask where you have been comparing yourself with other people rather than with God, and what that comparison has done to your pride.

3. Read Isaiah 6:1–8 slowly. Notice that Isaiah’s cleansing and his calling both come after his undoing.

4. Examine your interest in God. Is it mostly curiosity about Him, or trust in Him? Turn one question you have been asking into a prayer.

5. Memorise Calvin’s sentence from his sermon: to know God, and put our whole trust in Him. Say it each morning this week.

A PRAYER

Holy Lord, when I look at myself in the light of my own opinion, I am pleased; when I look at You, I am undone.

Show me Your glory, that I may see my sin; and show me Your goodness, that I may not despair.

Teach me to know You not with a cold and curious mind, but with reverence and love, as the fountain of every good I have.

Let me put my whole trust in You, and look for nothing apart from You. Through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.