The Sin that Assails Us

“We see in this mirror how great is the blindness of wicked desires, and how powerfully they fascinate the mind.” John Calvin

It is so easy to look back over the lives of others, and to discern the foolishness of their blindness, to see the power of the fascination with the lusts of this life that grips their minds, and to see the deception of the allurements of the world upon them. What about ourselves? How do we see these same enticements in our own lives? Do we see them at all?

The following points are drawn from John Calvin’s Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew 26:14 in volume XVII of his Commentaries.

When we are given to sin:

1. We lose possession of all of our senses.

2. Our fear of God is overthrown.

3. The light of reason is extinguished in us.

4. Every feeling of shame is destroyed.

In reflecting on how low we may stoop when blinded by wicked desires, Calvin reminds us that, “We ought … to consider how fearfully monstrous it is, that men formed after the image of God, and appointed to be the temples for the Holy Spirit, should not only be turned into filthy stables or sinks, but should become the wretched abode of Satan.”