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How the Holy Spirit Secures Scripture’s Authority | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. We are not talking about the
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  news today. We aren't talking about the
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  latest scandal in the evangelical world or what's
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  trending on social media. We are going back to the
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  absolute bottom of the pile, the singular question that holds up
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  the entire structure of what we believe.
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  It really is the question that keeps people up at night, I
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  think, even if they don't always admit it.
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  Right when you hold a Bible in your hands, that leather bound
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  book, maybe with the gold edges, why do you trust it?
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  And I don't mean just oh because my pastor told me to or because
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  it makes me feel good. I mean, how do you know it's
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  true? Yeah, What's the bedrock?
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  Is it because a group of guys and, I don't know, funny hats
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  voted on it in a marble hall 1500 years ago?
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  Or there's something you know living in the text itself.
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  And that's the authority problem.
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  And frankly, it's the great divide.
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  It's the divide between Rome and the Reformation.
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  If this book is just paper and ink that we sort of voted into
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  significance, then we are in a lot of trouble.
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  But if it's the breathing voice of God, then, well, then
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  everything changes. To get to the bottom of this,
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  we're looking at the Institute to the Christian Religion by
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  John Calvin, specifically book 1, Chapter 7.
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  And I have to say Calvin is in rare form here.
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  He's not writing a dry textbook. He is.
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  He's agitated. Oh, he's.
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  Fighting. He's fighting a battle for the
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  soul of the church. You have to remember the
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  context. This is the 1500s.
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  The prevailing worldview, I mean the very air everyone breathed,
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  was that the church was the mother of the Bible, right?
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  The argument was that without the church's stamp of approval,
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  you wouldn't even know what the Bible was.
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  The church determined the Canon. Therefore, the church sits over
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  the Bible. It's that whole chicken or the
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  egg thing, right? Does the church give authority
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  to the Bible or does the Bible give authority to the church?
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  Callum looks at the Roman position and basically just says
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  you have got to be kidding me. He treats it as a direct insult
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  to God, and that's the core of his anger.
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  It isn't just a, you know, a procedural disagreement he
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  thinks is blasphemy. So let's lay out a road map for
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  our discussion today. We're going to break this down
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  into three big moves that Calvin makes.
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  First, he takes a sledgehammer to the idea that the church
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  validates Scripture. He just demolishes it.
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  He really does. Second, he introduces what he
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  calls the internal testimony of the spirit.
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  And 3rd he explains why your logic, your archaeology, your
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  historical proofs, all that are kind of useless without that
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  spirit. Which is a hard pill to swallow
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  for a lot of us who, you know, like to win arguments with facts
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  and figures. Oh, absolutely.
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  But let's start with that first point, the source of authority.
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  Calvin opens this chapter by addressing what he calls a
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  pernicious error. So what is the specific error
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  that he's attacking here? The error is the belief that
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  Scripture only has weight if the church consents to it.
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  So imagine a bill sitting on the president's desk.
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  It's just a piece of paper until he signs it into law.
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  The Roman Catholic argument at the time was that the Bible is
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  that piece of paper and the church is the president.
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  Until the church signs it, it has no real authority over you.
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  And Calvin just hates this idea. He loathes it.
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  He asks this rhetorical question, Who can convince us
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  these writings are from God without the church's rule?
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  That was the taunt from the other side, they'd say, Hey,
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  Calvin, how do you know Matthew is Scripture and the Gospel of
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  Thomas isn't? The church told you.
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  You only know because the church told you.
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  And that's a strong argument on the surface.
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  Even today, you hear people say, well, the Council of Nicaea or,
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  you know, the Council of Carthage decided the Bible.
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  It feels historical. It feels solid.
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  It feels historical, but Calvin says it's theological suicide.
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  Listen to the way he puts it. He says that when the church
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  receives scripture and seals it with her vote, she does not make
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  it authentic. She isn't turning lead into
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  gold. He uses the word homage, doesn't
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  he? Yes, that's the key, he says.
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  The church is paying homage to the truth of God.
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  She is recognizing a reality that already exists.
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  It's the difference between an artist painting a masterpiece
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  and a critic writing a review saying, hey, this is a
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  masterpiece. Right, the critic didn't paint
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  it. The critic didn't paint it.
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  The critic just noticed it. And Calvin's point is that the
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  church is the critic, not the artist.
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  God is the artist. Calvin uses some really
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  aggressive language here. He calls the people holding the
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  other view sacrilegious men. He says they're trying to impose
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  an unbridled tyranny. Because it's a power play.
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  He sees it as a power play. If the church determines what
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  the Bible is, then the church can tell you what the Bible
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  means and you have no recourse. You can't appeal to God against
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  the church because the church holds the keys to God's Word.
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  He's this as enslaving people. Enslaving the simple minded is
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  his phrase. Yeah.
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  I want to drill down on his point about daily oracles.
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  That was a fascinating little logical step he took.
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  I found it really compelling. It's brilliant, he says.
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  Look if God were speaking from the sky every morning if you
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  woke up and there was a fresh scroll on your doorstep with
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  today's instructions. We wouldn't be having this
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  conversation, no. We would know it was God, but
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  God isn't doing that. Right.
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  The heavens are, in that sense, silent.
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  So because He's not sending new revelations daily, He has chosen
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  to hallow His truth to everlasting remembrance in the
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  Scriptures. The Bible is the repository of
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  His will. So to question the Bible is to
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  question Him. So it's not about questioning a
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  book. No, it's about questioning the
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  character of the author. It's a direct challenge.
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  And this brings us to what he calls the miserable conscience.
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  This is where it gets really practical for me.
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  Calvin isn't just doing abstract theology, he's worried about the
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  person sitting in the Pew who is terrified of hell.
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  This is the pastoral heart of Calvin that people so often
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  miss. He asks a very simple question.
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  If your assurance of eternal life depends on the decision of
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  a group of men, how can you ever be at peace?
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  You can't. Men change their minds.
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  Councils make mistakes. Popes contradict each other.
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  If the authority is precarious, if it's dependent on men, then
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  your salvation is precarious. He says your conscience will
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  always vacillate and tremble. It's such a vivid phrase.
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  Think. About it If I tell you you are
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  saved because the Bible says so, and the Bible is true because
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  Pope Leo said So, what happens when you start doubting Pope Leo
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  or you find out he did something terrible?
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  The whole chain. Breaks.
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  The whole thing collapses, and you're left subject to the
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  mockery of the skeptic. The skeptic looks at you and
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  says, see, you only believe that because your leaders told you
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  to, and if that's true, you have no answer.
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  You're just left there trembling.
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  So for Calvin, the authority has to be higher than humans.
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  It has to be grounded in God himself, otherwise there's no
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  rest. None at all.
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  OK, so he's complained a lot about the Roman view.
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  He's torn it down. But does he have a positive
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  counter argument? He goes to Ephesians chapter 2,
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  verse 20. He does, and this is his
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  foundation argument. And it's just devastatingly
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  simple. Paul writes in Ephesians that
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  the church is built upon the foundation of the prophets and
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  apostles. Which means the Old and New
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  Testaments. Right, The writings of the
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  prophets and the preaching of the apostles.
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  That's Scripture. Now just think about the
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  mechanics of building a house. What comes first?
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  The Foundation. Obviously you have to pour the
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  concrete before you can frame the walls.
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  You can't build a roof and then try to slide the foundation in
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  underneath later. It just doesn't work.
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  The foundation must exist before the building can be erected.
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  So if the church is the building and Scripture is the foundation,
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  then Scripture had to have authority before the church even
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  existed. So the church didn't create the
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  Bible, the Bible created the church.
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  Precisely without the teaching of the prophets and the
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  preaching of the apostles, there is no church.
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  It's logical nonsense to say the Church gives authority to the
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  very thing that brought it into existence.
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  He would be like a child claiming they gave birth to
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  their mother. Exactly.
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  It's a complete reversal of reality.
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  It's a vivid image, but I want to go back to the Canon
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  objection because I feel like we need to squash this.
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  It's the number one thing you hear from skeptics or from
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  Catholic apologists. The church gave you the Bible,
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  Calvin admits. The church voted on these books,
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  doesn't he? He acknowledges the history,
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  yes, of course, but he changes the verb.
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  This is so important. The Church does not create the
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  Canon. The Church recognizes the Canon.
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  And he uses these sensory examples here that I think are
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  perfect. He talks about the eye and the
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  tongue. He does.
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  He asks, how do we distinguish light from darkness?
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  Do we need a council of scientists to meet and issue a
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  decree that the sun is bright? No, you just, if you open your
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  eyes, you can see it. And how do we distinguish sweet
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  from bitter? Do you need a signed affidavit
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  from a chef to tell you that honey is sweet?
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  No, you taste it. The sweetness is inherent in the
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  honey. Your tongue just has the
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  capacity to recognize what's already there.
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  So in the Council of Carthage listed the books of the New
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  Testament. They weren't making them
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  scripture. They were saying we've tasted
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  these books and they are honey. We have looked at these books
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  and they are light. And they were rejecting, say,
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  the Gospel of Thomas, because they tasted it and said this is
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  vinegar. This doesn't taste just like the
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  others. The authority is in the
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  substance, not in the taster. I love that the authority is in
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  the substance. But now, now we have to deal
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  with the elephant in the room, or really the St. in the room.
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  Saint Augustine. Yes, but heavy artillery.
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  The opponents of Calvin were constantly quoting Augustine and
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  there was this one famous sentence where Augustine seems
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  to give up the farm. He says, quote, I would not
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  believe the gospel if the authority of the church did not
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  move me to do so. It sounds damning, doesn't it?
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  It sounds like game over. On the surface it sounds like
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  Augustine is saying I only believe the Bible because the
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  Catholic Church tells me to. If that's true, then Calvin is
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  wrong and the entire Reformation is built on sand.
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  So how does Calvin handle this? Does he just say, well,
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  Augustine was wrong? He could, but he respects
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  Augustine way too much for that. Instead, he puts on his
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  historian hat. He says context is everything.
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  We have to understand who Agustin was talking to.
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  He was writing against a group called the Maneques.
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  We should pause here who are the maneques?
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  Because I think most people hear that and think, oh, some random
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  heretics from long ago, but they were a big deal.
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  They were a massive deal. This was a rival world religion.
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  Basically. It was founded by a prophet
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  named Mani from Cursia. They were duelists.
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  They believe the world was this cosmic battleground between
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  light and dark particles. And they were very intellectual.
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  They mocked Christianity for being simple, for being for the
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  uneducated. They claimed to have secret
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  higher knowledge. So they were kind of the cool
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  hipster intellectuals of the 4th century.
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  That's a great way to put it, yes.
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  And they rejected the Old Testament entirely.
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  They said it was the work of a devil, an evil God, and they
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  used parts of the New Testament, but they edited it.
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  They claimed the apostles corrupted the text and only
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  their leader Mani knew the real truth.
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  So Augustine's arguing with people who don't accept the
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  Bible as we know it, and they definitely don't accept the Old
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  Testament. He's in a tough spot.
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  A very tough spot. He can't just quote scripture to
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  them and say thus saith the Lord.
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  They don't respect the Lord and they think the text is corrupt
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  anyway. He has to find some common
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  ground. So he uses the church.
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  He uses the sheer weight and history and consensus of the
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  church as an apologetic tool. He's saying, essentially, look
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  at this massive universal institution, look at the
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  continuity of this faith from the apostles until now.
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  Doesn't that make you at least want to listen?
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  Doesn't that earn them a hearing?
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  It's an introduction, a foot in the door.
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  It's an invitation, and Calvin draws this crucial distinction
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  here between the unbeliever and the believer.
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  For the unbeliever, like the Manakees, the church's authority
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  is a preparation. It makes them teachable.
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  It's like the friend who drags you to a concert of a band
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  you've never heard of. But once you're at the concert.
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  Once you're at the concert and the music starts, you don't
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  enjoy the music because your friend is sitting next to you.
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  You enjoy it because the music itself is beautiful.
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  And Calvin says that for the believer, certainty must rest on
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  a far different foundation. So Augustine wasn't saying his
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  personal faith depended on the church forever.
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  He was saying the church was the vehicle that brought him to the
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  gospel in the first place. Right.
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  And Calvin is quick to quote other parts of Augustine to
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  prove this. Later on, Augustine emphasizes
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  that we shouldn't rely on mere human opinion, but on sure and
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  firm truth from God, a truth that inwardly strengthens the
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  mind. The church is the usher who
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  shows you to your seat, not the playwright who wrote the play.
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  OK, that clears that up. But it does lead to kind of a
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  scary place for some people. If we don't trust the church to
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  prove the Bible, what do we trust?
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  Do we trust logic? Do we trust archaeology?
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  Do we trust the fact that, you know, we found evidence that the
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  Hittites actually existed? Kelvin says no, and this is
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  where he really pivots away from what we might call modern
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  apologetics. He argues that the credibility
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  of Scripture is only truly established when we are
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  persuaded that God is the author.
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  But you can't get that persuasion from a syllogism.
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  He says the rational proofs are useful, but they're secondary.
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  They're like window dressing. They are aids to our weakness.
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  That's the phrase he uses, but they are not the foundation.
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  And think about it. If I talk you into Christianity
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  with a really clever historical argument, what happens next
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  week? Someone smarter comes along with
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  a better argument. And talks you right out of it.
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  That's terrifyingly true. If my faith is based on my IQ or
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  my ability to debate, I'm one YouTube video away from
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  apostasy. Exactly.
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  Rational arguments are fragile, and Calvin points out that even
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  the smartest people in the world can argue against scripture if
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  they want to. You can be a genius and be an
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  atheist. The problem isn't a lack of
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  data. So what is the solution?
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  If it isn't the Pope and it isn't my own brain, what's left?
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  The Internal testimony of the Spirit, or if you want the fancy
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  Latin, the Testimonium Spiritus Sanctity Internum.
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  OK, fancy Latin. What does it actually mean?
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  It means that the same Holy Spirit who spoke through the
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  mouths of the prophets and apostles must penetrate into our
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  hearts to convince us that what we are reading is true.
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  This is the part that critics just hate.
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  They say that is circular reasoning.
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  You believe the Bible because the Spirit tells you, and you
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  know about the Spirit because the Bible tells you.
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  It sounds circular to the logician, yes, but Calvin would
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  say it's a spiritual reality. It's more like a spiral of
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  confirmation. The Word and the Spirit are
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  inseparable. He quotes Isaiah 59, verse 21.
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  My spirit, which is in you, and the words that I have put in
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  your mouth. So God binds them together.
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  He links them. You cannot have one without the
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  other. If you have the Word without the
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  Spirit, what do you get? You get the Pharisees.
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  You get the Pharisees. You get dry, dead legalism.
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  You have people who can memorize the book of Leviticus but then
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  go out and kill the Messiah. And if you have the Spirit
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  without the Word, what's the danger there?
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  You get fanaticism, you get chaos.
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  You have people claiming God told them to divorce their
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  spouse, or start a cult or sell all their possessions.
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  Calvin is fighting A2 front war here.
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  He's fighting the rationalists on one side who have the Word
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  but no spirit, and he's fighting the fanatics on the other who
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  claim the spirit but ignore the word.
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  So the spirit is the seal, he says.
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  Yes, the seal, the guarantee. And without this illumination
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  from the Spirit, the mind always wavers.
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  And I feel like that's the recurring theme for him.
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  The natural human mind is unstable.
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  It's always looking for something to lean on.
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  Because the natural mind is at war with God.
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  It doesn't want to submit, so no amount of external evidence will
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  ever be enough. You could show a determined
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  skeptic the actual Ark of the Covenant and they'd say it's a
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  forgery, right? The problem isn't the evidence,
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  the problem is the receiver. The Spirit fixes the receiver.
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  This brings us to a term that I think is both beautiful and
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  terrifying at the same time. Autopistas.
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  Autopistas. Yes, self credibility, self
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  authentication. Unpack that for us.
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  It means scripture carries its own credit cards.
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  It pays its own way. It does not need to be subjected
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  to human proofs or reasoning to be considered true.
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  It validates itself by is simply being what it is, the word of
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  God. Calvin uses this really majestic
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  imagery here. He says that if we have pure
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  eyes, the majesty of God immediately comes to view in the
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  Scriptures. It just, yeah, it subdues us.
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  He talks about it as an experience, and this is so
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  crucial. Calvin is often painted as this
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  cold, logical ivory tower systematician, but here he is
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  talking about feelings, about experience.
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  He says it is a conviction that requires no reasons, and yet
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  it's consistent with reason. It is a feeling born only of
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  heavenly revelation. He.
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  Describes it as feeling the undoubted energy of divine
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  majesty living and breathing in the text.
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  Undoubted energy. Think about that for a second.
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  When you read the words of Jesus or the Psalms of David, you
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  aren't just reading ancient literature, you're encountering
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  a power. It's the difference between
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  looking at a picture of a fire and sticking your hand in the
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  fire. 1 is information, the other is sensation.
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  Calvin is saying the Spirit makes us feel the heat of God's
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  Word. So we submit our judgement to
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  Scripture not because we're, you know, miserable men blindly
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  following some superstition, but because we are captivated by its
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  beauty and power. We are drawn and inflamed.
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  That's his language. We obey because we have seen the
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  king, We've heard his voice. But this this leads to the
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  hardest question of all. And Calvin, to his credit,
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  doesn't dodge it. If Scripture is so clearly
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  divine, if it has this majesty that shines like the sun, why
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  doesn't everyone see? It this is the question that
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  haunts us, isn't it? Why can you read the Bible to
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  one person and they weep with repentance and then you read the
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  exact same verse to your neighbor and they just laugh?
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  Calvin uses some pretty rough language here.
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  He talks about the ignorant and stupid regarding the Bible, and
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  he isn't calling them uneducated.
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  He admits they could be brilliant people.
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  No, the multitude includes distinguished and very smart
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  people. You can have a PhD in physics
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  and be spiritually blind. Calvin answers this with the
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  doctrine of election. He.
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  Goes to Isaiah 54 verse 13. All your children shall be
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  taught by the Lord. And the keyword there is
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  children. The distinction he makes is that
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  God grants this privilege only to His elect.
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  The treasure of understanding is not distributed to everyone like
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  a public good. It's a gift and it's given to
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  the children of God. That is a hard pill for our
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  modern democratic sensibilities to swallow.
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  We want everyone to have an equal shot based on their own
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  merit or their own intelligence. We want a meritocracy of faith.
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  But grace isn't a meritocracy. If it depended on intelligence,
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  then only the smart would be saved.
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  How is that fair? Why should a high IQ get you
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  into heaven? But if it depends on God's free
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  gift, then it remains a mystery of His sovereign will.
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  Calvin points to Isaiah 53.1. To whom has the arm of the Lord
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  been revealed? Implying not to everyone.
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  Not to everyone. The arm of God, His power, His
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  revelation is hidden from some. So if you do find the Bible
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  convincing, if you feel that spirit testifying in your heart,
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  it isn't because you're smarter than your atheist neighbor.
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  None at all. It's not because you're a better
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  person or more spiritual. It's because it was given to you
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  to comprehend the mysteries. That is incredibly humbling.
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  It removes all boasting. I can't look down on the skeptic
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  and say, well, I figured it out and you didn't.
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  You can't. You can only say I was blind and
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  now I see. It turns our theology into
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  doxology, into praise. We don't pat ourselves on the
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  back for our great insight. We fall on our faces in
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  gratitude, and for those who don't see it, we realized that
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  no amount of our clever arguing is going to change them.
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  Only the Spirit can open their eyes.
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  That changes how we do evangelism, doesn't it?
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  Yeah. We aren't trying to win a
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  debate. We're praying for a
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  resurrection. We're praying for the lights to
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  turn on. That's it.
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  So let's try to package this all up.
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  We started with the authority problem.
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  Why do we trust the Bible? And we saw that we don't trust
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  it because the church voted on it.
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  The church is the building. Scripture is the foundation.
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  The Church recognizes the truth like the eye recognizes white.
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  But it doesn't create it. And we don't trust it just
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  because of logic or history, because those things can be
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  debated endlessly and they depend on our own, you know,
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  wavering intellect. We trust it because of the
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  internal witness of the Holy Spirit.
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  The Spirit testifies in our hearts that God is speaking.
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  This is the higher proof. It is stronger than all human
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  reason. It's autopeestis.
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  It is self authenticating. This has massive relevance for
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  us today. It removes the anxiety of
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  needing to be a history expert to have faith.
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  I don't have to memorize the minutes of the Council of Nicaea
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  to know my Bible is true. It liberates the believer.
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  It places the weight of our faith on God's action, the
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  Spirit's work, not on human action.
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  Whether it's the church's vote or our own intellect, we can
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  rest. The text is what it is.
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  God speaks, and his sheep hear his voice.
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  It shifts the focus from approving the Bible to hearing
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  the Bible. That is the shift.
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  We stop standing over the word as its judge, and we start
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  sitting under the word and letting it judge us.
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  Before we go, I want to leave our listeners with a thought to
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  really a 1. Calvin suggests something that's
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  pretty countercultural. If you find the Bible
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  unconvincing, the problem isn't a lack of evidence.
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  We always think we just need one more archaeological find, one
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  more philosophical argument to finally turn the tide.
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  Look, Calvin says. The evidence is there.
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  It's shining like the sun. If you don't see the sun, the
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  problem isn't what the sun brightness, the problem is with
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  your eyes. So the question isn't is the
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  Bible true? The real question Calvin leaves
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  us with is, has the Spirit opened my eyes to see the truth
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  that is already there? And that's the only question
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  that matters in the end. Thank you for joining us for
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  this deep dive into Reformed thinking.
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  We hope this strengthens your confidence in the Word of God.
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  Until next time.