Reading the works of the great men of the Reformation can be a very refreshing thing.
They are very honest, and direct in their language, as I said, refreshingly so.
John Calvin in his great work “The Institutes of Christian Religion” has a section entitled, “All the Principles of Piety Subverted by Fanatics, who Substitute Revelations for Scripture.” (Bk 1 Ch 9). He aims his fire here on those who claim to have some independent line of communication from God, instead of relying on the Scriptures as God’s Word.
It is often claimed by those who do this, that they are relying on the Holy Spirit, but Calvin has little sympathy with these claims. He says that people who do this are “deemed not so much under the influence of error as madness.” He calls them giddy’ who reject the reading of the Scriptures and look down on the simplicity of the Word of God. His major complaint against the spiritually proud is that they dare to despise the doctrine of Scripture, after all, were not the apostles and prophets illuminated by the Spirit of God, and he notes how the writers of Scripture, far from despising the Word of God, were filled with a deeper reverence for it. Therefore those who claim a higher or closer communication with the Holy Spirit are actually guilty of a terrible sacrilege when they demean the Word of God written, by their actions.
Calvin further questions whether these miscreants’ have been sipping at some form of spirit other than the Spirit which Christ promised His disciples. What spirit did our Lord promise to send? Was He not One who would not speak of Himself (Jn 16:13) “but suggest and instil the truths which He Himself had delivered through the Word”? The conclusion is this: “the office of the Spirit promised to us, is not to form new and unheard-of revelations, or to coin a new form of doctrine…but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends.”
This then must impress on us the need for the careful and regular reading and hearing of Scripture, if God’s people are to gain any benefit from the Spirit of God. Let us not forget that Satan can disguise himself so well that he may appear to be an angel of light. We must be utterly convinced and sure of the Spirit who speaks, and how can we be this unless the Spirit is revealed to us by an “infallible mark” — the Word of God? Those however who insist to their misery and ultimate destruction that they have a word from God, seek not the Spirit from the Saviour but from themselves.
You may have heard me speak about the necessity of receiving the Word as inseparable from the Spirit and the Spirit as fused inseparably with the Word. We may read the word of God, and many do, who see it as nothing more than a marvellous source of language and stories, and read it with an intellectual curiosity. Such reading makes the Word of God into a dead letter. It is severed from the grace of Christ and only “sounds in the ear without touching the heart”.
It is only when the Word of the living God is “effectually impressed on the heart by the Spirit” that we see Christ, and it becomes to us a “Word of life converting the soul and making wise the simple”. Only then, as Word and Spirit in perfect harmony with One another fill our minds with reverence and wonder are we enabled to see the glory of God, and only in this way may we be certain we have not fallen into a terrible man made, Satan inspired delusion.
The Spirit of the Lord does not speak His own Words but the Word of Him who sent Him (John 16:13).
Let us be sure that we do not fall under the spell of enthusiastic fantasies or the dreams of empty heads, for we “know no other Spirit than the One who dwelt and spake in the apostles”, the Spirit who daily invites us to hear the Word of Christ.