From my good friend Curt, the following is a great quote from T. H. L. Parker’s biography of John Calvin.

Before you read it may be helpful to know…

• Calvin was a sixteenth century theologian.
• The quote is Parker’s summary of Calvin’s view about man’s dependence on the Bible as our source of ultimate knowledge of God.
• The emphasis added through the italics is mine.
• Sorry the quote is so long, but stick with it… it’s really rich.

“For all his capabilities, man is a puzzled, groping creature, surrounded by that which is mysterious to him. He not only does not understand God, nor does he understand the world in which he lives, but he does not even understand himself-from where he has come, why he lives, or to where he goes. If help does not come to him from without, he will never know God or find His kingdom.

But God, in His loving concern for man, reaches right to him, where he is wandering imprisoned in the labyrinth, and gives him the guidance of the Holy Scriptures, which are like a thread, leading him through this maze of ignorance to the knowledge of God. “The light of the Divine countenance, which the Apostle himself says ‘no man can approach unto,’ is like an inexplicable labyrinth to us, unless we are directed by the thread of the Word.”

The basis of Calvin’s theology, therefore, is the belief that through the Bible alone can God be known in His wholeness as the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of the world. He is not so discernible in any other place-in the creation, or in man’s conscience, or in the course of history and experience. And since, if we are to know of God, we must go to the place where He is to be found, it is to the Scriptures that we must go, and there we shall find Him as He is. . . . The Scriptures are not man’s guesses about the mystery of God, nor are they the conclusions that men have drawn from certain data at their disposal. On the contrary, they are the unveiling of the mystery of God by God Himself-God’s gracious revelation of Himself to ignorant and sinful men. Far from being a stage, even the last stage, on man’s quest for the well at the world’s end, the Bible is the place where God comes from above and beyond the world to show Himself to His people.”

From T. H. L. Parker’s, Portrait of Calvin, 1954, 62.

What is the foundation for your knowledge about God? Are you leaning on your own ideas about God to form your understanding of Him? Or are you basing your understanding of Him on what He has said about Himself in the Bible?

One way is fatally flawed. The other way leads to life. So be careful.