It Isn’t About You

 In Reformed circles we often like to tell people “it isn’t about you” (“it” being the Gospel, or the worship of the Church, or anything related to Scripture). In our narcissistic age, this certainly has its need. But while God is clearly concerned about His own glory, and often puts wicked men in their place, I think we tend to push this further than Scripture gives us the right to. Salvation is about us, in that it’s us He’s saving. Scripture is filled with statements about the love, the kindness, the mercy, and the goodness of God directed toward us. Scripture tells us that He sent His Son not just to satisfy His own righteous demands, nor simply to bring Himself glory, but out of His love for mankind. His loving acts in this world are not just self-focused, nor focused at those impersonal parts of His creation, but focused on us. “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that You should care for him?” (Ps. 8). And this is clear in Calvin as well. Using one quote to illustrate:

“For in administering human society he so tempers his providence that, although kindly and beneficent toward all in numberless ways, he still by open and daily indications declares his clemency to the godly and his severity to the wicked and criminal. For there are no doubts about what sort of vengeance he takes on wicked deeds. Thus he clearly shows himself the protector and vindicator of innocence, while he prospers the life of good men with his blessing, relieves their need, soothes and mitigates their pain, and alleviates their calamities; and in all these things he provides for their salvation.”

God’s point often in His rebukes in Scripture is to show His glory, to show His place as God exalted above man and all creation in all His being, and to show that His care for all things is His free choice. But He has chosen. He everyday cares for mankind freely, willingly, gladly, lovingly. And when sin came into the world, the thing that might prevent the giving of His love, He gave even more, that no impediment might stand in the way. In our arrogance we might need a reminder sometimes that we aren’t the center of the universe - that we are not God. But the true God has set His love upon us in such a way that He can call us His children, His friends, and the inheritors of the universe He has created and upheld.

“He will not always strive with us,

Nor will He keep His anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,

Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,

So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

As a father pities his children,

So the Lord pities those who fear Him.

For He knows our frame;

He remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

And its place remembers it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting

On those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to children’s children,

To such as keep His covenant,

And to those who remember His commandments to do them.” (Ps. 103).

I wonder if as Calvinists we don’t sometimes strive with men more than God Himself. Inasmuch as we do, it is a thing of which we must repent. If we have truly been recipients of His grace, how can we do otherwise? 

Does this really arise from a zeal for the glory of God and a love for our neighbor? Or is it merely a lust for power and authority that isn’t rightly ours, with a sadistic need to tear others down? If it is the latter, and sometimes I think it is, then our own salvation must be in question. We are not reflecting the character of the God we claim to be in union with, but rather something of the devil. True godliness speaks not only truth, but in love and humility.