"Adam & Eve", 1638, by Rembrandt.
This post is part of my year long study of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. To facilitate this course of study, I am following along with Princeton Theological Seminary's "A Year with the Institutes", which also includes an audio reading of the text.
Calvin's Institutes of Religion: 2.1.4
I don't find the vast majority, of the visual arts, properly capturing what really happened in the Garden of Eden.
In fact, I had prepared a photograph that displayed a man, willfully displaying his middle digit towards heaven. I suspect that this would have been a better representation than we see here.
I think we have a tendency to water down the spectacular sins in our lives, to our own disadvantage.
Nothing made the spectacular horror of the Holocaust more real to me, then standing in a death shower, in Auschwitz, and crying.
Nothing made the horror of 9/11 more real to me, than standing in front of the gaping hole, in New York City, and crying.
Nothing makes the horror of abortion more real to me, than looking upon the horrific, graphic photographs, at Abort73, and crying.
And nothing is more monstrous to my soul, than imaging myself, following the example of my forefather Adam, metaphorically raising my middle finger to God, through my constant disobedience, and proclaiming the words that typically accompany such an action.
This, my friends, was the great monstrous, and spectacular sin.
We saw the same monstrous sin, when Israel proclaimed to God, "God, we don't want you to be our King anymore, we want a human king, like everyone else!"
Don't allow yourself to run by this subject unaware. If you are not completely mortified, at the thought of this, then it is my contention, my dear reader, that you do not have a proper, and graphic view of this event!
Here is Calvin, on this subject...
The history of the Fall shows us what sin is: unfaithfulness.
We ought therefore to look more deeply. Adam was denied the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to test his obedience and prove that he was willingly under God's command. The very name of the tree shows the sole purpose of the precept was to keep him content with his lot and to prevent him from becoming puffed up with wicked lust. But the promise by which he was bidden to hope for eternal life so long as he ate from the tree of life, and, conversely, the terrible threat of death once he tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, served to prove and exercise his faith. Hence it is not hard to deduce by what means Adam provoked God's wrath upon himself. Indeed, Augustine speaks rightly when he declares that pride was the beginning of all evils. For if ambition had not raised man higher than was meet and right, he could have remained in his original state.
But we must take a fuller definition from the nature of the temptation which Moses describes. Since the woman through unfaithfulness was led away from God's Word by the serpent's deceit, it is already clear that disobedience was the beginning of the Fall. This Paul also confirms, teaching that all were lost through the disobedience of one man. [Rom. 5:19.] Yet it is at the same time to be noted that the first man revolted from God's authority, not only because he was seized by Satan's blandishments, but also because, contemptuous of truth, he turned aside to falsehood. And surely, once we hold God's Word in contempt, we shake off all reverence for him. For, unless we listen attentively to him, his majesty will not dwell among us, nor his worship remain perfect. Unfaithfulness, then, was the root of the Fall. But thereafter ambition and pride, together with ungratefulness, arose, because Adam by seeking more than was granted him shamefully spurned God's great bounty, which had been lavished upon him. To have been made in the likeness of God seemed a small matter to a son of earth unless he also attained equality with God -a monstrous wickedness! If apostasy, by which man withdraws from the authority of his Maker-indeed insolently shakes off his yoke-is a foul and detestable offense, it is vain to extenuate Adam's sin. Yet it was not simple apostasy, but was joined with vile reproaches against God. These assented to Satan's slanders, which accused God of falsehood and envy and ill will. Lastly, faithlessness opened the door to ambition, and ambition was indeed the mother of obstinate disobedience; as a result, men, having cast off the fear of God, threw themselves wherever lust carried them. Hence Bernard rightly teaches that the door of salvation is opened to us when we receive the gospel today with our ears, even as death was then admitted by those same windows when they were opened to Satan [cf. Jer. 9:21]. For Adam would never have dared oppose God's authority unless he had disbelieved in God's Word. Here, indeed, was the best bridle to control all passions: the thought that nothing is better than to practice righteousness by obeying God's commandments; then, that the ultimate goal of the happy life is to be loved by him. Therefore Adam, carried away by the devil's blasphemies, as far as he was able extinguished the whole glory of God."
Understanding God, and man, requires a proper view.
Post-modern America views man as predominately good, and many of those who hold a belief in God, see God more as a great Santa Claus in the sky, who job it is to make for us, our "best life now".
However, this is not what the word of God teaches. We simply need read the Bible to find it so.
It grieves me deeply to consider that I would even remotely consider giving "the middle finger" to God. However, my behavior consistently betrays my desires, and I am consistently unfaithful to God.
As such, there is no way for me to approach a holy & just God. Therefore, a Savior is required.
Do you hold to, and understand the Bible's view of mankind? Or...do you disagree with all that is said here, and think that Calvin is completely off base in his understandings?
