Sárospataki Füzetek 13. (2009)

2009 / 4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK

“Calvin on the Proper Attitude Toward This Life and the Next”

There are a number of other Scripture texts that can be appealed to in support of this notion of meditating on the future life. Think, for example, of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Seek ye first his kingdom” (Matt. 6:33). As Calvin interprets this, “Whoever puts God’s kingdom in first place will only exercise himself over the provision of his food with moderate energy” (i.e., will not become preoccupied with concern about this life); for “nothing was ever better suited to put a brake on the appetite of the flesh . . . than meditation upon the life in heaven.”18

D. Living sub specie aeternitatis

Or take Philippians 3:20: “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” In commenting on this text, the reformer does not speak of meditating on the future life or the life to come but rather “believers ought to lead a heavenly life in this world.”1« Here we have a different accent. To meditate on the future life is not primarily to dream about the future, but to experience the future here and now in our everyday lives—a sort of realized eschatology.

Calvin continues his reflections on this text (Phil. 3:20) with comments that bear this out:

We are exposed to the common troubles of this life; we require also meat and drink and other necessities, but we must nevertheless exist (versari) in heaven in mind and affection. For, on the one hand, we must pass swiftly through this life, and, on the other hand, we must be dead to the world that Christ may live in us and that we, in turn, may live in him.20

In other words, we are to live in the light of eternity (sub specie aeternitatis). Calvin suggests this further in comments on some other texts. Concerning 2 Peter 3:14: “Anyone who hopes for new heavens will begin renewal within himself and will aspire to this with all his energy.21 And in a sermon on Matthew 27:11-26: “Although in this world we are poor, ill-starred creatures, may we never cease to rejoice in God from the foretaste he gives us by faith in the heavenly glory and of this inheritance which he has acquired at such a price and from the hope of which we can never be cheated.”22

means “Let your whole meditation be on this; i.e., apply your abilities and mind.” This suggests that to meditate on the future life means more than simply lying back and reflecting on the life to come.

1 Comm. On Matthew 6:33, A. W. Morrison translation. Here Calvin says that we are meditate on “life in heaven.” Elsewhere he says that we are to “meditate on holiness” (Comm. Romans 12:1); “on holy and profitable meditation on the proper regulation of life [vitae rite formandae)”; on the “blessed resurrection” [Inst. III.25.1); and even on “the life of the angels”! [Inst. III.7.3).

1 Comm. Philippians 3:20, T. H. L. Parker translation.

1 Comm. Philippians 3:20.

1 Comm. 2 Peter 3:14, W. B. Johnston translation.

! “The Fifth Sermon on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” The Deity of Christ. translated by Leroy Nixon (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950), 149.

Xáriispiiliiki FiiMok 17