Mans Highest Good: Podcast Episode 1

Corey Ramsey

The Wonderful Works of God • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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Introduction

Thank you for tuning in to the first official episode of the Bibleofile Podcast with Corey Ramsey

I am Corey Ramsey, and in this episode, we will be talking about the theology that is contained in chapter 1 of Herman Bavincks wonderful works of God book.

As a way of reminder, if you are not following along in the book, that is okay, this podcast will still be approachable and understandable.

If you are following along in the book and have completed chapter 1, I am sure you found it very enjoyable, and if you are a bibleofile like myself, you are probably excited to talk about it.

Lets get into it.

Mans Highest Good

The first chapter of the book is titled “Mans Highest Good.”

What exactly does that even mean?

I asked people what was mans highest good after I had read this chapter and it showed me just how much people don’t understand what that means in general.

It also showed me that after they knew what it meant, they were still very far from the correct answer.

I can tell you that before I was saved I thought that mans highest good was being happy.

I pictured myself a rich man with a great job and a beautiful family, traveling anywhere I wanted and doing whatever I wanted to do at any given time.

At that point I felt that I would have craved nothing more out of life.

Some of the answers that I got from others were not far from my before Christ answer.

One person I asked said that they believed that mans highest good was honesty, which showed me that they understood the question as what is the best quality a man can possess and honesty is a good one although I would not say it is the best one.

Another person I asked answered and said that hope is mans highest good.

I thought that he may have been on to something but then I said, hope in what?

He answered by saying that hope in living/not dying.

I responded by saying what about somebody that the doctor says will die in the next few days or the next month?

Do they no longer have anything good in their life?

The point I am getting to is that there is only one correct answer when speaking of mans highest good.

The third person I asked the question actually got it right but not intentionally.

I asked him the question and he said Jesus Christ, not because he thought that was the correct answer but because he used it in a vain way being shocked that I would ask him such a question.

The books starts off with the sentence:

God and God alone is mans highest good.

Why is God mans Highest Good?

So what makes God mans highest good?

First of all, we were created by God.

Not only has he created us, but he also is the one who sustains us.

He created all things and sustains all things and Bavinck says that he is the source of all being and of all life and the abundant fountain of all goods.

If we were to stop right here, I think we would have enough to consider God mans highest good but this is only the beginning of why.

He then goes on to explain being created in the image of God is what makes us humans different from the rest of creation.

He says that compared to inanimate objects, plants, and animals how man is the only one who is able to penetrate through to the spiritual order.

Why is that?

He mentions plants are devoid of awareness and although animals have awareness he says they can only take note of the visual and sensuous things and not the heavenly things.

So what makes man so different?

To quote Bavinck, he says, “For man the case is quite different. He is a creature who, right from the beginning, was created after Gods image and likeness, and this Divine origin and Divine kinship he can never erase or destroy.”

So the reason that man is so much different from everything else is because he was made in the image and likeness of God.

I want to examine what he says next because I found it extremely interesting.

He explains how because of sin we have lost attributes that are contained in the image of God but are still present in small remains.

The three attributes that he mentions are knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.

Proverbs 1:7 says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

I believe when speaking of this knowledge we see one example in Romans 1:19-23 “since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.”

We can see here how man is faulty in his knowledge.

The Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and we see in this passage there is no fear of the Lord in the heart of natural man.

They neither glorify him or give thanks to Him and it says their “FOOLISH” hearts were darkened.

Although it is clearly perceived that there is a God through creation, they exchanged the glory of the true God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

That doesn’t sound very knowledgeable if you ask me.

By the grace of God, those who have been chosen by God are born again and given the Spirit of God, who puts the fear of God in their hearts which is said to be the beginning of knowledge.

Not only does this Spirit of God make us wise in the fear of the Lord, but the Spirit of God sanctifies us progressively making us holy.

Because of Christ, we are justified, clothed in his righteousness before God.

What was lost in the fall by Adam has been restored and is continually being restored by the better Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although it is not restored completely in this body, for our righteousness is not our own but Christs and always will be.

Our wisdom is incomplete as it is tainted by sin.

We are not completely holy but are progressively becoming more holy through the working of the Spirit in us.

We now long for the day when we see will see Christ because 1 John 3:2 tells us “we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

Not Satisfied in the World

Moving on in explaining why God and God alone is mans highest good, Bavinck says that “man is a creature who cannot be satisfied with what the whole corporeal world has to offer.”

The corporeal world could be defined as the world as it relates to the material things, not the spiritual.

I can also remember at one point in my life before I was saved, looking to all these celebrities that are unhappy and some of whom even commit suicide, and wonder what is going wrong in their lives.

For my opinion at the time was that they had everything anybody could want yet they are unhappy.

I know it was said money cant buy happiness but I was always of the persuasion it could and thought that the lack of money in my life was part of the reason my happiness wasn’t complete.

Part of the reason I believe that the corporeal world is unsatisfying to man is because there is no certainty in it.

If your satisfaction is based on your health, you could be diagnosed with a terminal disease today and you would no longer be satisfied.

If your satisfaction was in your money, you could lose all your money today and where would that leave you?

If your satisfaction in life was fulfilled in your family and you lost your family, as one day you will since we are only here on this earth for a God given amount of time, you would be lost if this were to happen.

Nothing in the corporeal world is satisfying because it is all temporal.

Bavinck explains that we were created in a way not to be completely satisfied with what this world has to offer but were created with a will and desire for a higher eternal good.

He says that mans understanding can find rest only in such an absolute Divine truth.

I remember thinking before I was saved that there had to be something more to life because nothing gave me the complete fulfillment that I had been looking for.

Once I was saved and was given knowledge of the Lord, a sense of peace happened in my life.

I knew that this was what I had been longing for all my life but knew not where to find it.

Although things of this corporeal world have their use and are necessary for physical existence, he explains, our will reaches out to other and higher goods.

We need food and water to nourish our bodies, work and rest, light and air etc...

If man were to only have the things necessary to exist, it would still seem life would be meaningless, something would be missing.

Yearning for eternal

Bavinck goes on to say that “this yearning for an eternal order, which God has planted in the heart of man, in the inmost recesses of his being, in the core of his personality, is the cause of the indisputable fact that everything which belongs to the temporal order cannot satisfy man.”

Consider all of the different religions there are around the world.

The Washington Post in a article written in 2012 says that 84 percent of the world population has faith, a third are Christian.

Due to the loss of knowledge in the fall, many people seek to fill this need for the eternal in the wrong places.

But Romans says they are without excuse because what can be known about God can be clearly perceived in nature.

We know that it is through Gods purpose in election that some are given to a debased mind and handed over to these false religions whereas his elect are given a knowledge of the one true God.

What about Science, Art, Culture, Philosophy, serving humanity, can man find his fulfillment in these things?

Bavinck explains that these things are good, a gift from God, and to be highly prized.

There are some that say the wisdom of the world and also Philosophy is condemned by Paul in the Bible but what he has in my explains Bavinck, is the wisdom that does not acknowledge the wisdom of God.

This verse is in 1 Cor 3:19 and when speaking to people regarding different aspects of the Scriptures, they have always attempted to take this verse out of context and use it against me so I am glad that he mentions this here and I get the chance to speak on it.

There are many who have commented on my YouTube videos on Calvinism and says that it was the wisdom and doctrines of men or when I have explained certain doctrines of the Bible, they have said that is philosophy not the Bible and the Bible is against Philosophy.

The word Philosophy simply means the love of wisdom.

Proverbs 4:7 tells us “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.”

I always thought to myself how could someone condemn me for simply wanting to know the Bible and the great doctrines that come from it.

Surely, that could not be what Paul was talking about in this passage and it wasn’t.

Seeking wisdom and understanding is a great thing and it is only vain when the wisdom and understanding does not acknowledge the wisdom of God first and foremost.

All that the Bible says about getting wisdom and understanding, it could not on the other hand say it was vain unless you were going about it in the wrong fashion.

Bavinck says that a book which proceeds out of thoughts like this (the huge emphasis on wisdom) cannot put a low estimate on knowledge, nor can it despise philosophy.

Its all about first and foremost having the fear of the Lord at its beginning.

Vain Knowledge

Bavinck states “Any Science, philosophy, or knowledge which supposes that it can stand on its own pretensions, and can leave God out of its assumptions, becomes its own opposite, and disillusions everyone who builds his expectations on it.”

Consider for example the political philosophy of Marxism.

It believes that it can establish an Utopia here on Earth by abolishing the different classes of people and everybody having everything in common.

Its foundation is built on the understanding that there is no God and Christianity is vain.

Instead of building this Utopia here on Earth, it has proved to be the exact opposite.

Everywhere this political philosophy has been practice have experienced intense suffering and hardship as a result of it.

We know that this Utopia that Marxism looks for here on this Earth cannot be found until Christ makes all things new.

Trying to experience or create a heaven without God only ends up seeming a lot more like hell.

You can devote your life to the studies of these things the arts philosophy science etc and it would still leave man unsatisfied.

And also, what would you really accomplish missing the key component of the fear of God at the beginning in these things.

Your life would be wasted in a sense that you spent the whole of it dedicating your efforts to something that started with the wrong foundation.

Bavinck says that “Knowledge without virtue, without a moral basis, becomes an instrument in the hands of sin for conceiving and executing greater evil, and then the head that is filled with knowledge enters into the service of a depraved heart.”

Wow, what a quote and so true.

Such is the example given in Marxism.

Knowledge without the fear of God leads to more sin.

Next he mentions Art and says that it is much but not everything for it still lacks.

He says that an artist once said that Art is the holiest and noblest thing, the one and only religion and the one and only salvation of man.

False!

He says art cannot reconcile for sin, nor cleanse of pollution.

How many people today in the world look to things for their salvation that cannot reconcile for sin, nor cleanse of pollution?

What about the services to humanity?

We cannot find ultimate satisfaction in that as well.

He makes a great point in saying that, “The love for neighbor can maintain itself only if on the one hand iot is based on, and laid upon us, by the law of God, and only if on the other hand that same God grants us the desire to live uprightly according to all His commandments.”

I agree that loving people is a great thing and serving humanity.

We see so many people who are not even Christians doing these kinds of things.

We can see in this instance the partial remains of the righteousness in the image of God in their character.

But what is their motive?

Could they even love and serve their neighbors if their neighbors hated them?

Could they love and serve their neighbors if it were to cost them something more than a little time or money?

I believe that if you applied these two filters to the list of results, the number of people would diminish by a lot.

This is because their service to humanity was built on the wrong foundation.

It must start with the fear of the Lord at the beginning so that you can point to and say the law of God tells me to do this and then also on the other hand, the grace of God grants me the desire to live according to this law.

Bavinck concludes

This is the perfect place for Bavinck to mention the great Augustine quote

“The Heart of man was created for God and it cannot find rest until it rests in him.”

That quote had come to mind earlier in the reading and I was excited when I saw him actually use it.

He says that all men are seeking for God but not seek him in the right way or right place.

That shows what I mentioned about all the religions.

He goes on to say,

“They seek Him and at the same time, they flee Him. They have no interest in a knowledge of His ways, and yet they cannot do without Him. They feel themselves attracted to God and at the same time repelled by Him.”

I love this quote because it was so true of me before God saved me.

I wanted to know God but the more I knew about God and his holiness I fled.

I decided I did not want to know more about him but found that time and time again, I needed God.

I was attracted to the idea of a God who created me but repelled by the fact he hated the sin I loved.

Bavinck concludes by saying, “Science cannot explain this contradiction in man and that Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God.”

My conclusion

This was a very interesting chapter and I feel a great way to start this book off.

It is amazing that God created us in such a way that we cannot be satisfied in the physical things or the idols in our life but that we are restless until we rest in Him.

I believe even as Christians, we have the tendency to try and find our rest and satisfaction in things other than God only to find how empty it is.

When I was saved and became a new man, at first I was on fire for God, constantly studying and learning and trying to know him better.

Then I went through a phase of trying to find satisfaction in many other things and in a sense, placing God in the background while trying to do so.

I went through a phase where I was really into chess and wanted to spend all my time playing and learning it, but found that although it was fun, it was empty compared to the satisfaction found in God.

I then went through a phase of working out and being fit.

I thought that this would give me great fulfillment.

I put God in the background of my life to pursue this only to find that at the end, its empty when all or even the majority of your eggs are in that basket.

Such is the same for say video games, watching TV, reading many books, the list goes on.

All of these things are good in themselves I believe, but the place they were taking in my life was not good.

I am blessed that God showed me the folly in where they existed in my heart and granted me the grace to repent from the idolatry that was present here.

This just goes to show how true I found this chapter to be.

As Bavinck says, “God is the fountain of all good.”

The greatest good God has given us is himself.

How good it feels to be spiritually alive and connected with God in great fellowship

How bad it feels to be disconnected from God and his fellowship

Once you have a knowledge of God, you begin to see that it would be better to forsake all else than to lose Him.

Overall, Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God.

Episode 2

In the next episode, we will be going over Chapter 2 which is titled, “The Knowledge of God.”

I posted a link on the Facebook page, I am not sure how long it will be good for, but if you were looking to get the book, it was a link to download it for free.

Otherwise, the best price I have seen the book at is Reformation Heritage Books website for $28.99.

I would also like to invite you to check out the website at www.thebibleofile.com

On this website, there is a link to all of the social media sites The Bibleofile is on and also a link to the Facebook group, created as place for discussion based on what was talked about on the show or read in the chapter.

There is also a link to the store where you can find Bibleofile merchandise.

Thanks again for tuning in and I hope that you are back gor episode 2 which will release June 1.

I would like to end the episode with this passage of Scripture.

The Lord says in Matthew 11:28 ““Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

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