Today’s reading confronts one of the Church’s most persistent temptations: the desire to make the invisible God manageable through visible forms. In Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 11, Sections 1–4, John Calvin argues that every attempt to represent God visually—however sincere—inevitably corrupts His glory. Drawing from the Law, the Prophets, the Apostles, and even pagan witnesses, Calvin shows that God’s self-revelation consistently resists human imagination and demands reverent restraint. Divine appearances were never invitations to image-making but safeguards of mystery, reminders that God is spirit, not substance. Because the human heart naturally drifts toward superstition, Calvin insists that fidelity requires not creativity but obedience: we must seek God only where He has chosen to reveal Himself—by His Word, through His Spirit, without substitutes.

Readings: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 11, Sections 1–4

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Today’s reading presses us to recognize that the God revealed in Scripture is not a different God from the one made known in creation—but the same Lord, now speaking with clarity, authority, and moral demand. John Calvin shows how Scripture gathers what creation whispers and declares it plainly: God’s steadfast love, righteous judgment, and faithful rule over the world. Against the confusion of pagan religion and philosophical speculation, Scripture does not refine humanity’s guesses—it excludes them. It identifies the true God by His works, His character, and His Word, and in doing so calls us not merely to think rightly about God, but to worship Him with integrity, obedience, and trust.

Readings: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 10, Sections 1–3 Augustine, The Confessions Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

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Something is deeply wrong when people claim the Spirit of God while discarding the very Word the Spirit inspired. In today’s reading from John Calvin, we confront the perennial temptation of “spiritual” enthusiasm that substitutes private revelations for Scripture itself. Calvin argues with force and clarity that the Spirit of Christ never leads believers away from the written Word but seals that Word upon the heart. To sever Spirit from Scripture is not freedom but delusion—and it opens the door to endless deception. True illumination comes when the same Spirit who spoke through the prophets and apostles confirms their words within us, binding Word and Spirit together in an unbreakable union (Isaiah 59:21; John 16:13; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Corinthians 3:6).

Readings: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 9 (Sections 1–3)

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