On May 27, 1564, just after eight o’clock in the evening, a nurse urgently summoned Theodore Beza (1519–1605) to Calvin’s bedside. “We found he had already died,” Calvin’s friend and fellow pastor later wrote. “On that day, then, at the same time with the setting sun, this splendid luminary was withdrawn from us.”1 Calvin was 54 years old.

Calvin’s death sent a shock wave throughout Geneva and beyond. Beza writes, “That night and the following day there was a general lamentation throughout the city . . . all lamenting the loss of one who was, under God, a common parent and comfort.” He records that two days later “the entire city” gathered at the St. Pierre Cathedral to honor their beloved pastor. Despite Calvin’s prominence, the funeral was unusually simple, “with no extraordinary pomp.”2 But Calvin’s burial was particularly unusual.

Unmarked Grave

Eighteen years earlier, on February 18, 1546, fellow Reformer Martin Luther died at the age of 63. As was common practice for ministers, Luther’s remains were interred inside the church where he had faithfully served. His casket lies in Wittenberg’s Castle Church, near the pulpit, seven feet below the floor of the nave. Luther’s successor and fellow Reformer, Philip Melanchthon (1490–1560), is buried beside him.

So also William Farel (1489–1565), who first called Calvin to Geneva in 1536, is buried in the cathedral of Neuchâtel, where he spent the final years of his ministry. When Calvin’s friend and successor Theodore Beza died in 1605, he was buried next to the pulpit of St. Pierre, the Genevan church in which he and Calvin ministered together.

But Calvin’s remains lie elsewhere.

Rather than being interred in St. Pierre, Calvin’s body was carried outside the city wall to a marshy burial ground for commoners called Plainpalais. With close friends in attendance, Calvin’s body was wrapped in a simple shroud, enclosed in a rough casket, and lowered into the earth. Beza writes that Calvin’s plot was unlisted and, “as he [had] commanded, without any gravestone.”3

Why did Calvin command that he be buried, contrary to common practice, in an unmarked grave? Some speculate that he wanted to discourage religious pilgrims from visiting his resting place or to prevent accusations from the Roman church that he desired veneration as a saint.4 But the answer lies somewhere deeper — in Calvin’s understanding of Christian modesty.

Forgotten Meaning of Modesty

When we speak of modesty today, we most often mean dressing or behaving in such a way as to avoid impropriety or indecency. But modesty more generally refers to the quality of being unassuming or moderate in the estimation of oneself. For centuries, the church understood the connection. Immodest dress was not simply ostentatious or sexually suggestive; it reflected an overemphasis on appearance. As Jesus warned, outward appearance can mask impiety (Matthew 6:16) or pride (Luke 18:12).

This is why both Gentile women converts in Ephesus and the Jewish Christians addressed in Hebrews are urged to consider how their outward appearance relates to the disposition of the heart. Excessive adornment could be evidence of self-importance (1 Timothy 2:9). Acceptable worship requires a posture of reverence, not pretension (Hebrews 12:28). Thus, a modest person represents himself neither too highly nor too meanly because he understands both the dignity and the humility of being transformed by the grace of God.

“Modesty is simply the outward reflection of true Christian humility.”

Modesty, then, is simply the outward reflection of true Christian humility. It obliterates pride by embracing the reality that a Christian is both creaturely and beloved. In this light, self-importance becomes absurd. Grandiosity becomes laughable. Celebrity becomes monstrous.

We Are Not Our Own

For Calvin, the gospel radically reshapes our view of self. As those created in God’s image, provisioned by his goodness, redeemed by his mercy, transformed by his grace, and called to his mission, those who belong to Christ no longer live for themselves. “Now the great thing is this,” Calvin writes, “we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory.” Calvin continues,

If we, then, are not our own but the Lord’s, it is clear what error we must flee and whither we must direct all the acts of our life. We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us not therefore see it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.

Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal. Oh how much has that man profited who, having been taught that he is not his own, has taken away dominion and rule from his own reason that he may yield it to God! For, as consulting our self-interest is the pestilence that most effectively leads to our destruction, so the sole haven of salvation is to be wise in nothing through ourselves but to follow the leading of the Lord alone.5

“Modesty blossoms when we experience the freedom from having to prove ourselves to God or one another.”

Modesty and humility flow from a heart transformed by the Spirit of Christ. “As soon as we are convinced that God cares for us,” Calvin writes, “our minds are easily led to patience and humility.”6 The Spirit shapes us with a kind of moderation that “gives the preference to others” and that guards us from being “easily thrown into agitation.”7 Modesty blossoms when we experience the freedom from having to prove ourselves to God or one another.

‘Modesty, His Constant Friend’

Calvin’s life reflected this reality. Despite the doors that were opened to him through his writing and network of connections, he was committed to “studiously avoiding celebrity.”8 When the Institutes was published in 1536, he was so successful in his object to “not acquire fame” that no one in Basel knew that he was its author. For the rest of his life, wherever he went, he took care to “conceal that I was the author of that performance.”9 Calvin even sought to avoid a wider ministry in Geneva, having “resolved to continue in the same privacy and obscurity.” He was drawn into the limelight only when William Farel warned him “with a dreadful imprecation” that turning down the post would be refusing God’s call to service.10 In brief autobiographical comments he wrote the year that he died, we see a glimmer of his own surprise over God’s sovereign hand through his life.

God so led me about through different turnings and changes that he never permitted me to rest in any place, until, in spite of my natural disposition, he brought me forth to public notice. . . . I was carried, I know not how, as it were by force to the Imperial assemblies, where, willing or unwilling, I was under the necessity of appearing before the eyes of many.11

It is no surprise, then, that a few days before his death, Calvin exhorted his friends to not be those who “ostentatiously display themselves and, from overweening confidence, insist that all their opinions should be approved by others.” Instead, he pleaded with them to “conduct themselves with modesty, keeping far aloof from all haughtiness of mind.”12 For Beza, Calvin’s modesty — forged by his vision of God’s glory, Christ’s redeeming love, and the Spirit’s animating power — was his defining characteristic. After Calvin’s burial, Beza captured it in verse:

Why in this humble and unnoticed tombIs Calvin laid — the dread of falling Rome;Mourn’d by the good, and by the wicked fear’dBy all who knew his excellence revered?From whom ev’n virtue’s self might virtue learn,And young and old its value may discern?’Twas modesty, his constant friend on earth,That laid this stone, unsculptured with a name;Oh! happy ground, enrich’d with Calvin’s worth,More lasting far than marble is thy fame!13

Free to Be Forgotten

In old Geneva, on the grounds of the college Calvin founded, stands an immense stone memorial to four leaders of the Protestant Reformation. At its center are towering reliefs of Calvin, Beza, Farel, and John Knox (1513–1572). Calvin would surely detest it. But the monument is a metaphor. We live in a culture that fears obscurity and irrelevance. We measure ourselves against others and build our own platforms in the hope that we will not be forgotten. We attempt to distinguish ourselves at the expense of the humility and modesty that honors Christ. Calvin would have us be free from such striving.

For however anyone may be distinguished by illustrious endowments, he ought to consider with himself that they have not been conferred upon him that he might be self-complacent, that he might exalt himself, or even that he might hold himself in esteem. Let him, instead of this, employ himself in correcting and detecting his faults, and he will have abundant occasion for humility. In others, on the other hand, he will regard with honor whatever there is of excellences and will, by means of love, bury their faults. The man who will observe this rule, will feel no difficulty in preferring others before himself. And this, too, Paul meant when he added, that they ought not to have everyone a regard to themselves, but to their neighbors, or that they ought not to be devoted to themselves. Hence it is quite possible that a pious man, even though he should be aware that he is superior, may nevertheless hold others in greater esteem.14

We may rightly regard Calvin as a hero of the faith, but he didn’t ultimately see himself that way. Humility had taught him to walk modestly before God and others — and, in the end, the freedom to lie down in a forgotten grave.

When pain jerks me awake at night, I first glance up. If the digital display on the ceiling says only the second watch of the night, I push through the pain and try to breathe my way back to sleep. But if the clock says 4:00 a.m., I smile. Jesus has awakened me to enjoy communion with him, even though it’ll be hours before I sit up in my wheelchair.

Do I need more sleep? Of course. Will my pain subside? Unlikely. But at four in the morning, there is a more necessary thing, and it makes me happy to think that long before dawn, I am among the early ones who are blessing Jesus. Filling my chest with Jesus. Rehearsing his Scriptures, murmuring his names, and whisper-singing hymns that cascade one into another, all filled with adoration.

It’s hard to do that when you’re wearing an external ventilator. And so I wordlessly plead that he unearth my sin, fill all my cavernous, empty places, and show me more of his splendor. He always responds with tenderness. He sees me lying in bed paralyzed and propped with pillows, encumbered by a lymphatic sleeve, wheezing air-tubes, a urine bag, and hospital railings that “hold it all together.”

One of my helpers knows all about these nighttime rendezvous with Jesus, and so one night after she tucked me in, she stood over my paralyzed frame with an open Bible. “This is you,” she said, and then read Psalm 119:147–148: “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words. My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise.”

That pretty much describes it. In the morning when a different helper draws the drapes, unhooks my ventilator, drops the guard rails, removes the lymph-sleeve, and pulls out my many pillows, she’ll usually ask, “Sleep well?”

“Not the best, but I am so happy.”

Blessings that Bruise

Real happiness is hard to come by. Many Christians default to the lesser, more accessible joys of our culture. But the more we saturate ourselves with earthy pleasures, the more pickled our minds become, sitting and soaking in worldly wants to the point that we hardly know what our souls need. We then seize upon the loan approval, job promotion, the home-team victory, or rain clouds parting over our picnic as glorious blessings sent from on high. Yet if Jesus were counting our blessings, would these make his top ten?

I am the most blessed quadriplegic in the world. It has nothing to do with my job, a nice house, my relatively good health, or a car pulling out of a handicap space just as I pull up to the restaurant. It does not hinge on books I’ve written, how far I’ve traveled, or having known Billy Graham on a first-name basis.

Jesus goes much deeper than the physical-type blessings so reminiscent of the Old Testament. Back then, God blessed his people with bounteous harvests, annihilated enemies, opened wombs, abundant rains, and quivers full of children. Jesus takes a different approach. He locates blessings closer to pain and discomfort.

How Suffering Invites Blessing

In his most famous sermon, Jesus lists empty-handed spiritual poverty, hearts heavy with sorrow, a lowly forgiving spirit, eschewing sin, and struggling for unity in the church. Jesus tops off his list with, “And what happiness will be yours when people blame you and ill-treat you and say all kinds of slanderous things against you for my sake! Be glad then, yes, be tremendously glad — for your reward in Heaven is magnificent” (Matthew 5:11–12, J.B. Phillips).

How does one accept these hard-edged things as blessings? First Peter 3:14 suggests that “even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed.” It is affliction that sends us into the inner recesses of Christ’s heart and shuts the door. There, “a new nearness to God and communion with him is a far more conscious reality. . . . New arguments suggest themselves; new desires spring up; new wants disclose themselves. Our own emptiness and God’s manifold fullness are brought before us so vividly that the longings of our inmost souls are kindled, and our heart crieth out for God” (Horatius Bonar, Night of Weeping, 74).

“A godly response to suffering places you under a deluge of divine blessings.”

These new desires and wants give birth to a strong desire to obey him (James 1:2; 2 Corinthians 5:9). David the psalmist knew this. He said, “Before you made me suffer, I used to wander off. But now I hold onto your word” (Psalm 119:67). A godly response to suffering places you under a deluge of divine blessings.

‘If You Love Me’

Jesus summed it up, saying, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Here, Jesus is not likening himself to a stern husband who walks through the front door, notices that dinner is not on the table, and mutters to his wife, “If you love me, you will have my meal ready when I come home!” Biblical obedience is not a duty to do the right thing because that’s what good Christians should do.

John 14:15 is like a promise. Like Jesus saying, “If you love me, if you make me the center of your thoughts, delighting in me and doing your most ordinary tasks with an eye to my glory, then wild horses will not be able to stop you from obeying me.” Obedience that is motivated by unbridled love for your Lord has a powerful sanctifying effect. What euphoria when your delight in Christ meshes perfectly with your delight in his law! (Psalm 1:1–3) You are then able to cry out, “My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times” (Psalm 119:20).

So David could say, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Psalm 119:71). Think of affliction as a sheepdog that snaps at your heels, always driving you through the gate of obedience and into the safety of the Shepherd’s arms. Affliction and sanctification then go hand in hand as you are constrained on all sides and pushed hard “toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

This Blessing Has Fallen to Me

All the New Testament-type blessings that Jesus preached about now lose their hard edge. No longer off-putting, Matthew 5:11–12 feels smooth to your soul. You can rejoice with the psalmist who effused, “This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts” (Psalm 119:56). We are blessed — supremely happy — not when we have everything going for us, but when all of us is going for God.

“We are blessed, not when we have everything going for us, but when all of us is going for God.”

Does it get any better? Yes. Jesus describes an extraordinary blessing between obedience and the prize of himself in John 14:21: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me . . . and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” This is the sweetness of obedience. When you sanctify yourself, he opens layer upon layer of his heart, inexorably wooing you with his loveliness — and his holiness (Hebrews 12:10):

This is the blessing which above all others [God] desires for us . . . when we come to be perfectly at one with him, then the struggle ceases. How blessed when his desire to deliver us from sin, and ours to be delivered from it, meet together . . . then divine fullness flows into the soul without a check, and, notwithstanding the bitterness of the outward process by which [it is secured], joy unspeakable and full of glory possesses the consecrated soul. (Night of Weeping, 68–69)

Beholding Holiness Himself

In the hours before dawn when I lie awake, I fill my chest with such thoughts. I marvel at Jesus’s loveliness, picturing him carving out canyons, puckering up mountains, ladling out streams, rivers, and seas. He breathes suns and stars into orbit; nebula and galaxies, all spinning in motion, all so that we might behold his glory. Even more glorious, “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). Mountains, seas, and stars would — poof! — disappear, every molecule would vanish, if he stopped willing the universe to be.

This barely scratches the surface. Our Creator God then wills himself to be nailed to a cross. He gazes up into the eyes of a soldier about to drive in iron spikes. But as the soldier reaches for the mallet, his fingers must be able to grasp it. His heart must keep pumping. His life must be sustained nanosecond by nanosecond, for no man has such power on his own. Who supplies breath to this Roman’s lungs? Who holds his molecules together? Only the Son can, through whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

Jesus wills the spikes be driven through his flesh. He gives the executioners strength enough to lift the cross, heavy with his impaled body. God then goes on humiliating display — in his underwear. He can scarcely breathe. Yet he looks down upon these poorly-paid legionnaires jeering at him and utters, “Father, forgive them.” Jesus graciously and unbegrudgingly grants them all — every wretched one — continued existence.

Yet his crucifixion was a mere warm-up to the greater horror. At some point during that dreadful day, Jesus began to feel a foreign sensation. An unearthly foul odor began to waft in his heart. He felt dirty. Human wickedness crawled upon his spotless being — the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father’s eye was turning brown with the rot of our sin (see Steve Estes, When God Weeps, 53–54).

This is what Jesus was talking about in John 14:21. This is the Ancient of Days manifesting himself to us. And wonder of wonders, the Father now calls us the apple of his eye (Psalm 17:8).

Who Will Have Your Heart?

If you long for divine fullness to flow into your soul without a check, embrace your afflictions, get actively engaged in your own sanctification, and let your delight in Christ mesh with your delight in his law. For God has given you the sun, stars, and the universe; he has given you flowers, friendship, goodness, and salvation. He’s given you everything — can you not give him your heart? If God does not have our heart, who or what shall have it?

I trust that at four in the morning, Christ has yours.

Audio Transcript

Welcome to 2022 and to the first episode in our tenth year on the podcast. Amazing. I had no idea we were launching something that would last a decade. Here we are, Pastor John. The year begins with a question over idolatry, of all things. It’s a good one too. It’s from an anonymous man.

“Hello, Pastor John. What exactly is an idol? Christians use the term all the time, especially in sermons. So, I go to my Bible. There I find that idols were statues or figurines, worshipers bending down to ‘gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone’ (Daniel 5:4). Sometimes it seems idols were talisman-like items to ward off bad things — trinkets in the form of golden tumors or golden mice. I’m thinking here of 1 Samuel 5:6–7:2. But today’s idols are very different. They seem to be desires of the heart for money, sex, power, and things like that. How did this come to be? Idols used to be carved things; now they are heart obsessions. I don’t understand the link between statues and heart-idols. In fact, when I look at Old Testament idols of tumors and mice, I don’t really understand those either. Can you explain both forms of idolatry and how they’re connected?”

Well, I’ll try. Let’s start with a definition. I think to cover all the cases, we should probably define an idol (and I think this is a biblical definition) as anything that we come to rely on for some blessing, or help, or guidance in the place of a wholehearted reliance on the true and living God. That’s my working definition of idol. So you can see that would cover, for example, a rabbit’s foot in your pocket, or a picture of a saint hanging on your wall, or a relic from some sacred shrine sitting on your mantle, or the more forthright images taken from Hindu or Buddhist temples, or the golden calf that Aaron made while Moses was on the mountain.

What makes all of those idols is that we are looking away from a wholehearted reliance upon the true and living God through Jesus Christ, and we are looking at the rabbit’s foot, or the relic, or the picture for some special protection, or blessing, or guidance, or help that we don’t think we could get by just looking to God.

Anatomy of an Idol

Now, our friend who sent this question in is right, I think, that in the Bible the word idol is uniformly used for an actual object from nature or, more often, made by human hands. You don’t find the word idolatry used to describe excessive love for your wife, or your lands, or your money, or your pocketbook. So I think he’s right that in the Bible there’s this distinct focus on a manmade object or something from nature, rather than just this strong craving and desire for stuff.

Now behind that is, correctly, the second commandment:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:4–5)

In other words, God is so jealous for our direct, personal dependence on him, and reverence for him, and adoration of him, that he disapproves not only of competing so-called gods represented with idols, but even the creation of idols presuming to represent him — not just false gods being turned into statues, but himself being represented with some manmade object that we look to. I think if we ask why — that is, why is he so jealous for that kind of direct, personal dependence of reverence and adoration? — then part of the answer is found in Psalm 96:5: “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.”

In other words, one of the problems with idols is that they contradict the transcendent nature of God as Creator. Any representation of God made with human hands leads to the misunderstanding of God’s transcendence. It gives the impression, if not the direct assertion, that God is somehow in our power — we can carve him, or paint him, or put him in our pocket or on our shelf, or carry him on a cart. And so the psalmist says, “No! The Lord made the heavens.” In other words, he’s absolutely transcendent, and you can’t carve him or control him in any way.

Another reason why God is so averse to images, either of so-called gods or of his very self, is found in, I think, Psalm 115:4–8:

Their idols are silver and gold,     the work of human hands.They have mouths, but do not speak;     eyes, but do not see,They have ears, but do not hear;     noses, but do not smell.They have hands, but do not feel;     feet, but do not walk;     and they do not make a sound in their throat.Those who make them become like them;     so do all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:4–8)

“Not only do images misrepresent the nature of God, they destroy the nature of man.”

In other words, not only do images misrepresent the nature of God, but they destroy the nature of man. They turn human beings into mindless, powerless clumps of unspiritual flesh. We become like those statues. The nothingness of idols turns human beings into nothingness.

Exchanging God’s Glory for Images

So now we come to our friend’s question. Okay, if that’s what the Bible treated as idols, then “today’s idols,” he says, “are very different. They seem to be desires of the heart or for money, sex, power, things like that. How did this come to be? Idols used to be statues, not just heart obsessions.”

And I say, “Very good question.” How did that come to be? Here’s the first thing I would say — namely, that this change of focus in defining idolatry is owing to the fact that we live, in the West, in cultures where outright use of images for religious worship is less common than in some other cultures. So the question then arises, Well, do these biblical teachings about idolatry have any relevance for those of us who live in cultures where the use of statues before which people actually bow down and worship is less common? Is there any relevance to it at all?

The answer is yes. I don’t think the use of the term idolatry to refer to God-demeaning love of money, sex, power is a misuse of the term idolatry when one presses into the essence of what is really going on with an idol in the Bible. Here are a couple of New Testament pointers in that direction to show why I think it’s okay to use idolatry the way he says modern people tend to use it.

First, Romans 1:21–23 refers to people who don’t have direct knowledge of the gospel, but they do have general revelation in nature, so they can know God that way and be held responsible to glorify him and thank him. Here’s what it says:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Now, I think this text points to the essence of the problem beneath the outward display of idolatry; namely, we exchange the glory of God for images. The first kind of image that Paul mentions is images resembling man, and I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that the foremost image of man that threatens to replace God is the image we see in the mirror. We are lovers of self-exaltation, which threatens continually our love of God-exaltation. I think it’s right to call this exchange a form of idolatry.

Keep Yourselves from Idols

So, back to my broad definition. It went like this: anything that we come to rely on for some blessing, or help, or guidance, in the place of wholehearted reliance on the true and living God. If we come to crave, love, depend upon, and trust for a blessing people’s praise to enhance our self-exaltation, or money, or power, or sex, or family, or productivity, or anything else besides God himself for the greatest blessing, help, guidance, and satisfaction, then in essence we are doing what idolatry has always done.

“Anything in the world that successfully competes with our love for God is an idol.”

Let me give you one more passage from 1 John 5:21. It’s the very last verse of John’s letter, and it says this: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Why does John in his letter end that way? He had never even referred to idols in the whole book. He never referred to idols in his whole Gospel. Out of the blue comes this closing sentence with the very word idol that ordinarily means a statue of something that we use to replace God with. “Don’t give in to idols; keep yourselves from idols.”

So why did he end that way? Here’s my closing suggestion. He had said in 1 John 2:15–16, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life — is not from the Father but is from the world.”

Now, John the apostle may have had literal material images in mind when he said, “Keep yourselves from idols.” But I think he is also thinking of the more general deadly problem that anything in the world that successfully competes with our love for God is an idol. So keep yourselves from idols — that is, love God and all that he is for us in Christ more than you love anything.