The first sentence of Calvin’s Institutes is:
“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists in two parts: The knowledge of God and of ourselves.”
Sinclair Ferguson’s commentary on it is so good!
Calvin’s Institutes opens with a strikingly important sentence. Truly to know ourselves we need to know God; come to know God and at last we see ourselves in our true context.
God made man as his image (Gen. 1:26). Our creation, our very being, is defined by that relationship to him. Living makes sense and gives joy only when we live out that relationship before him. So the question “What is man?” must be answered by a sentence that has a reference to God in it.
When, in the pursuit of the project of the self, we a priori exclude the person of God we not only cut ourselves off from knowing him, but from knowing ourselves. The project ends in frustration. Fulfilled life requires that we know God in Jesus Christ (Jn 17:3).