In An Unmarked Grave

By Ryan Griffith (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) – pastor at Cities Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and a Senior Fellow at the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

source: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/hero-in-an-unmarked-grave

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 “On that day, then, at the same time with the setting sun, this splendid luminary was withdrawn from us.”1 Calvin was 54 years old.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, 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 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 tomb
Is Calvin laid — the dread of falling Rome;
Mourn’d by the good, and by the wicked fear’d
By 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.

Theodore Beza, “The Life of John Calvin” in Tracts Related to the Reformation (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844), 1:xcv. 
Beza, Tracts, 1:xcvi. 
Beza, Tracts, 1:xcvi. 
Eighteenth-century guidebooks indeed list the disused Plainpalais cemetery as an important stop for tourists, though they warn that pilgrims will search for Calvin’s resting place in vain. By the nineteenth century, keepers of the burial ground staked out a “likely-enough” site for Calvin’s grave (complete with a rudimentary marker) simply to avoid the irritation of being so frequently asked. 
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 3.7.1 (emphasis mine). 
John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, trans. John Owen (Edinburgh: T. Constable,1855), 149. 
John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, trans. John Pringle (Edinburgh: T. Constable, 1851) 52–53. 
John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Edinburg Printing Company, 1845), 1:xli, xlii. 
Calvin, Psalms, 1:xlii. 
Calvin, Psalms, 1:xlii. 
Calvin, Psalms, 1:xli, xliii. 
Beza, Tracts, 1:xci. 
Beza was widely known for his literary works. As a humanist, he became famous for his collection of Latin poems in Juvenilia, published just before his conversion in 1548. He continued to write poetry, satires, and dramas until the end of his life. Francis Sisbon’s nineteenth-century translation attempts to capture the sense of the Latin in a more familiar poetic form (Theodore Beza, The Life of John Calvin, trans. Francis Sibson, [Philadelphia: J. Whetham, 1836], 94). For the original text, see Calvin and Beza, Tracts, 1:xcvi. 
Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul, 53. 

Ephesians 1:4, 5 – Augustine & Calvin

Eph. 1: just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 

St. Augustine on Ephesians 1:3
Chapter 34
Therefore He chose them out of the world while He was wearing flesh, but as those who were already chosen in Himself before the foundation of the world. This is the changeless truth concerning predestination and grace. For what is it that the apostle says, As He has chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world? Ephesians 1:4 And assuredly, if this were said because God foreknew that they would believe, not because He Himself would make them believers, the Son is speaking against such a foreknowledge as that when He says, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you; when God should rather have foreknown this very thing, that they themselves would have chosen Him, so that they might deserve to be chosen by Him. Therefore they were elected before the foundation of the world with that predestination in which God foreknew what He Himself would do; but they were elected out of the world with that calling whereby God fulfilled that which He predestinated.

Chapter 36.— God Chose the Righteous; Not Those Whom He Foresaw as Being of Themselves, But Those Whom He Predestinated for the Purpose of Making So.Therefore, says the Pelagian, He foreknew who would be holy and immaculate by the choice of free will, and on that account elected them before the foundation of the world in that same foreknowledge of His in which He foreknew that they would be such. Therefore He elected them, says he, before they existed, predestinating them to be children whom He foreknew to be holy and immaculate. Certainly He did not make them so; nor did He foresee that He would make them so, but that they would be so. Let us, then, look into the words of the apostle and see whether He chose us before the foundation of the world because we were going to be holy and immaculate, or in order that we might be so. Blessed, says he, be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in all spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ; even as He has chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted.Ephesians 1:3 Not, then, because we were to be so, but that we might be so. Assuredly it is certain — assuredly it is manifest. Certainly we were to be such for the reason that He has chosen us, predestinating us to be such by His grace. Therefore He blessed us with spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ Jesus, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and immaculate in His sight, in order that we might not in so great a benefit of graceglory concerning the good pleasure of our will.

Chapter 38
He therefore chose and predestinated us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Although the apostle says that it was not because He foreknew that we should be such, but in order that we might be such by the same election of His grace, by which He showed us favour in His beloved Son. When, therefore, He predestinated us, He foreknew His own work by which He makes us holy and immaculate. Whence the Pelagian error is rightly refuted by this testimony. But we say, say they, that God did not foreknow anything as ours except that faith by which we begin to believe, and that He chose and predestinated us before the foundation of the world, in order that we might be holy and immaculate by His grace and by His work. But let them also hear in this testimony the words where he says, We have obtained a lot, being predestinated according to His purpose who works all things.Ephesians 1:11

Taken from the link below.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15121.htm

Calvin on Ephesians 1:4

Verse 44.According as he hath chosen us. The foundation and first cause, both of our calling and of all the benefits which we receive from God, is here declared to be his eternal election. If the reason is asked, why God has called us to enjoy the gospel, why he daily bestows upon us so many blessings, why he opens to us the gate of heaven, — the answer will be constantly found in this principle, that he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world. The very time when the election took place proves it to be free; for what could we have deserved, or what merit did we possess, before the world was made? How childish is the attempt to meet this argument by the following sophism! “We were chosen because we were worthy, and because God foresaw that we would be worthy.” We were all lost in Adam; and therefore, had not God, through his own election, rescued us from perishing, there was nothing to be foreseen. The same argument is used in the Epistle to the Romans, where, speaking of Jacob and Esau, he says,“For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.” (Romans 9:11.)But though they had not yet acted, might a sophist of the Sorbonne reply, God foresaw that they would act. This objection has no force when applied to the depraved natures of men, in whom nothing can be seen but materials for destruction.In Christ. This is the second proof that the election is free; for if we are chosen in Christ, it is not of ourselves. It is not from a perception of anything that we deserve, but because our heavenly Father has introduced us, through the privilege of adoption, into the body of Christ. In short, the name of Christ excludes all merit, and everything which men have of their own; for when he says that we arechosen in Christ, it follows that in ourselves we are unworthy

Verse 5
Verse 55.Who hath predestinated us. What follows is intended still further to heighten the commendation of divine grace. The reason why Paul inculcated so earnestly on the Ephesians the doctrines of free adoption through Christ, and of the eternal election which preceded it, has been already considered. But as the mercy of God is nowhere acknowledged in more elevated language, this passage will deserve our careful attention. Three causes of our salvation are here mentioned, and a fourth is shortly afterwards added. The efficient cause is the good pleasure of the will of God, the material cause is, Jesus Christ, and the final cause is,the praise of the glory of his grace. Let us now see what he says respecting each.To the first belongs the whole of the following statement God hath predestinated us in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, unto the adoption of sons, and hath made us accepted by his grace. In the word predestinate we must again attend to the order. We were not then in existence, and therefore there was no merit of ours. The cause of our salvation did not proceed from us, but from God alone. Yet Paul, not satisfied with these statements, adds in himself. The Greek phrase is , εἰς αὑτὸν, and has the same meaning with ἐν αὑτῷ. By this he means that God did not seek a cause out of himself, but predestinated us, because such was his will.But this is made still more clear by what follows, according to the good pleasure of his will. The word will was enough, for Paul very frequently contrasts it with all outward causes by which men are apt to imagine that the mind of God is influenced. But that no doubt may remain, he employs the word good pleasure, which expressly sets aside all merit. In adopting us, therefore, God does not inquire what we are, and is not reconciled to us by any personal worth. His single motive is the eternal good pleasure, by which he predestinated us. (109) Why, then, are the sophists not ashamed to mingle with them other considerations, when Paul so strongly forbids us to look at anything else than the good pleasure of God?Lest anything should still be wanting, he adds , ἐχαρίτωσεν ἐν χάριτι (110) This intimates, that, in the freest manner, and on no mercenary grounds, does God bestow upon us his love and favor, just as, when we were not yet born, and when he was prompted by nothing but his own will, he fixed upon us his choice. (111)The material cause both of eternal election, and of the love which is now revealed, is Christ, the Beloved. This name is given, to remind us that by him the love of God is communicated to us. Thus he is the well-beloved, in order that we may be reconciled by him. The highest and last end is immediately added, the glorious praise of such abundant grace. Every man, therefore, who hides this glory, is endeavoring to overturn the everlasting purpose of God. Such is the doctrine of the sophists, which entirely overturns the doctrine of Christ, lest the whole glory of our salvation should be ascribed undividedly to God alone.

Taken from the link below.
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cal/ephesians-1.html

HT: The Protestant Reformation

Calvin on Genesis

by Jonathan Sarfati (original source here)

Some professing evangelical Christians accuse creationists of taking a naïve literalistic view of Genesis, and claim that creationism is a 20th century aberration. Nothing could be further from the truth. A straightforward view of Genesis was the view of Moses (Exodus 20:8–11), the Apostle Paul (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22,45; 1 Tim. 2:13–14) and the Apostle Peter (2 Peter 3:3–7), and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Matthew 19:3–6; Mark 10:6–9; Luke 17:26–27).

It was also the view of the vast majority of the Church Fathers, including the faithful defender of the Trinity, Basil the Great. See Genesis means what it says: Basil (AD 329–379).1

And the great leaders of the 16th Century Protestant Reformation, in returning to biblical authority, also accepted a straightforward view of Genesis. This includes the Father of the Reformation, Martin Luther — see What was Martin Luther’s stand on Creation/Evolution?2

One of the most influential of the Reformers was the French lawyer and theologian John Calvin (1509–1564). He became leader of Geneva (Switzerland), which became a refuge for 6,000 Protestants. Calvin founded the University of Geneva in 1559, which attracted many foreign scholars, and still does today. His monumental Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) proclaimed the grace of God and salvation in Jesus Christ. He was also a skilled commentator on books of the Bible, including Genesis. His teachings influenced many confessions, catechisms, preachers, leaders of modern Christian revivals, and were brought to America by the Pilgrim Fathers.3

It’s very interesting that on every point on which CMI disagrees with much of modern Christendom, Calvin took our side. For example, Calvin believed that:

The earth is ‘young’:

‘They will not refrain from guffaws when they are informed that but little more than five thousand years have passed since the creation of the universe.’4

God created in six consecutive normal days:

‘Here the error of those is manifestly refuted, who maintain that the world was made in a moment. For it is too violent a cavil to contend that Moses distributes the work which God perfected at once into six days, for the mere purpose of conveying instruction. Let us rather conclude that God himself took the space of six days, for the purpose of accommodating his works to the capacity of men.’5

‘I have said above that six days were employed in the formation of the world; not that God, to whom one moment is as a thousand years, had need of this succession of time, but that he might engage us in the contemplation of his works.’6

The day-night cycle was instituted from Day 1 — before the sun was created [commenting on ‘let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3)]:

‘Therefore the Lord, by the very order of the creation, bears witness that he holds in his hand the light, which he is able to impart to us without the sun and the moon. Further, it is certain, from the context, that the light was so created as to be interchanged with the darkness … there is, however, no doubt that the order of their succession was alternate …’7

The sun, moon and stars were created on Day 4 — after the earth — and took over the role as light dispensers to the earth [commenting on ‘let there be lights …’ (Gen. 1:14)]
‘God had before created the light, but he now institutes a new order in nature, that the sun should be the dispenser of diurnal light, and the moon and the stars should shine by night. And he assigns them to this office, to teach us that all creatures are subject to his will, and execute what he enjoins upon them. For Moses relates nothing else than that God ordained certain instruments to diffuse through the earth, by reciprocal changes, that light which had been previously created. The only difference is this, that the light was before dispersed, but now proceeds from lucid bodies; which, in serving this purpose, obey the commands of God.’8

The Creation was originally ‘very good’ , lacking any evil [commenting on Genesis 1:31]:

‘On each of the days, simple approbation was given. But now, after the workmanship of the world was complete in all its parts, and had received, if I may so speak, the last finishing touch, he pronounces it perfectly good; that we may know that there is in the symmetry of God’s works the highest perfection, to which nothing can be added.’9

Suffering on the earth is the result of sin [commenting on Gen. 3:19]:

‘Therefore, we may know, that whatever unwholesome things may be produced, are not natural fruits of the earth, but are corruptions which originate from sin.’

Physical death is the result of sin:

‘And therefore some understand what was before said. “Thou shalt die”, in a spiritual sense; thinking that, even if Adam had not sinned, his body must still have been separated from his soul. But since the declaration of Paul is clear, that “all die in Adam, as they shall rise again in Christ” (1 Cor. xv. 22), this wound was inflicted by sin. …Truly the first man would have passed to a better life, had he remained upright; but there would have been no separation of the soul from the body, no corruption, no kind of destruction, and, in short, no violent change.’10

God created Adam and Eve directly [commenting on Gen. 5]:

‘… [Moses] distinguishes between our first parents and the rest of mankind, because God had brought them into life by a singular method, whereas others had sprung from previous stock, and had been born of parents.’11

The Flood was global [just a small part of an extensive discussion on the real, historical nature of the Flood and Ark]:

‘And the flood was forty days, &c. Moses copiously insists on this fact, in order to show that the whole world was immersed in the waters.’12

It is thus clear that if we accept the authority of Scripture alone, we must believe that Genesis should be taken at its plain meaning. Christians who deny this are imposing outside ideas onto Scripture. This is shown by the frank admission by the ‘progressive creationist’ Pattle Pun:

‘It is apparent that the most straightforward understanding of Genesis, without regard to the hermeneutical considerations suggested by science, is that God created the heavens and the earth in six solar days, that man was created on the sixth day, and that death and chaos entered the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, and that all fossils [sic — creationists would say ‘most’] were the result of the catastrophic deluge that spared only Noah’s family and the animals therewith.’13

Sadly, one hotbed of anti-creationist, theistic evolutionary/long age ideas even includes a college named after Calvin — Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michican, USA. Some of their staff have even invoked Calvin in support, although, as we have seen, Calvin opposed all such compromises.

Today the church needs a new Reformation to return to the authority of the Bible, the written Word of God, rather than trusting the fallible conjectures of unbelieving scientists.

References
Batten, D., Genesis means what it says: Basil (AD 329–379), Creation 16(4):23, 1994.
Citing Martin Luther, in Jaroslav Pelikan, editor, ‘Luther’s Works,’ Lectures on Genesis Chapters 1–5, 1:3,6, Concordia, St. Louis, MO, USA, 1958.
Packer, J.I., John Calvin and Reformed Europe; in: Great Leaders of the Christian Church, Ed. Woodbridge, J.D., Moody Press, Chicago, IL, USA, pp. 206–215, 1988.
Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2:925, ed. John T. McNeill, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 1960.
Calvin, J., Genesis, 1554; Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, UK, 1984, p. 78.
Calvin, Genesis, p. 105.
Ref. 5, pp. 76–77.
Calvin, Genesis, p. 83.
Calvin, Genesis, p. 100.
Calvin, Genesis, p. 180.
Calvin, Genesis, p. 227.
Calvin, Genesis, p. 272.
Pun, P.P.T., Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 39:14, 1987; emphasis added.

John Calvin’s Views on Worship

Original source here.

A review of a lecture by Dr. Robert Godfrey

In Taylors, South Carolina on March 11, 2OO3, at the Greenville Seminary Conference on Worship, Robert Godfrey, President of Westminster Theological Seminary in California, discussed John Calvin’s views on worship. Dr. Godfrey, who is also a church history professor as well as a minister in the United Reformed Churches of North America, began by reading Psalm 2 and by addressing common misapprehensions regarding Calvin. People think of him, stated Dr. Godfrey, as a “joyless killjoy, ruining people’s lives in Geneva.” People have had this sort of negative reaction to Calvin since the l6th century when, ‘His enemies circulated the rumour that his wife had died of boredom”

Nearly as many misapprehensions abound about Calvin among Calvinists because we think of him as more of a theologian than as a pastor. We must not, Dr. Godfrey said, divorce Calvin the theologian from Calvin the pastor, one concerned not only with the truth but with the application and ministration of that truth.

The great danger the church faces today is the separation of our theology from our practice or the viewing of the Bible as somehow separate from theology. Calvin believed that there was no theology that did not come out of the Bible, but that out of the Bible came a theology of coherence. It is distressing, President Godfrey said, when people dismiss the theology of the Reformation as being not adequately Biblical. Concerned with being “mean spirited” in his reply, Godfrey responded that most people today who would make such a charge do not know one tenth as much about the Bible as John Calvin or Martin Luther did.

Calvin did not separate his theology from the Bible or from his pastoring. He was an extraordinary preacher, a devoted pastor, a catechist who wrote his own catechism, a visitor of the sick, a counsellor, and one deeply concerned about missions, ecumenism, church polity, and church discipline.

He was, according to the seminary president, a pastor in every area of life, and he was a pastor in the matter of the careful thought he gave to worship.

In his treatise, “On the Necessity of Reforming the Church,” a document to be presented by the leaders of the Protestant movement to the Emperor Charles V, Calvin wrote.

“If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly; the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, viz., a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.”

The speaker stated that Calvin’s ranking worship as first in importance over salvation is due to one very important fact, namely that salvation is a means to an end, with worship being the end itself: We are saved, Dr. Godfrey said to worship God, now and eternally, with our public worship being a foretaste of the heavenly worship that awaits us. So, worship was not peripheral to John Calvin but fundamental. Continue reading

Calvin on Justification, Faith and Works

Article: Justification, Faith and Works: Calvin on Ezekiel 18:17
by R. B. Gaffin, Jr., Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology, Emeritus at Westminster Theological Seminary (original source here).

A passage from Calvin’s commentary on Ezekiel 18:14-17 has the distinction of being among the last, perhaps the last, of his comments on the relationship among justification, faith and works. Apparently written shortly before his death in 1564, it is perhaps as pointed as any of his comments on their interrelationship and so, highly instructive concerning his matured understanding. An excerpt of some length from his comments on verse 17 is provided here, because, seen in its immediate context, it needs to be read carefully and digested (bolding added). Note that when Calvin speaks here of “works” he clearly has in view, as the plural shows, the believer’s good works or obedience done over time, in other words, seen in terms of God’s work in the believer, sanctification as ongoing or progressive, what he regularly includes elsewhere with “regeneration,” a word he uses in a broader sense than later Reformed theology.

When therefore, we say that the faithful are esteemed just even in their deeds this is not stated as a cause of their salvation, and we must diligently notice that the cause of salvation is excluded from this doctrine; for, when we discuss the cause, we must look nowhere else but to the mercy of God, and there we must stop. But although works tend in no way to the cause of justification, yet, when the elect sons of God were justified freely by faith, at the same time their works are esteemed righteous by the same gratuitous liberality. Thus it still remains true, that faith without works justifies, although this needs prudence and a sound interpretation; for this proposition, that faith without works justifies is true and yet false, according to the different senses which it bears. The proposition, that faith without works justifies by itself, is false, because faith without works is void. But if the clause “without works” is joined with the word “justifies,” the proposition will be true. Therefore faith cannot justify when it is without works, because it is dead, and a mere fiction. He who is born of God is just, as John says (1 John v. 18). Thus faith can be no more separated from works than the sun from his heat: yet faith justifies without works, because works form no reason for our justification; but faith alone reconciles us to God, and causes him to love us, not in ourselves, but in his only-begotten Son.

Taken by itself, Calvin considers the statement “faith without works justifies” to be ambiguous. It “needs prudence and sound interpretation”; it is “true yet false,” depending on the way it is read. Pinpointed grammatically, Calvin is saying:

When the prepositional phrase “without works” is taken adverbially, that is, as modifying the verb “justifies,” then the statement “faith without works justifies,” is true;
When “without works” is taken adjectivally, that is, with the noun “faith,” that is, “without-works faith,” then the same statement is false.

“Without-works” faith (alone-faith) Calvin asserts, does not justify, “because faith without works is void.” Again he says, “faith cannot justify when it is without works, because it is dead and a mere fiction.” He is saying in effect, to focus the balance of his remarks: “faith, with its works, justifies without works”; or also, “with-works faith (or “not-without-works faith”) justifies without works.” Alone-faith does not justify, but justification is by faith alone; faith is the alone instrument of justification.

In this passage Calvin is on the proverbial razor’s edge, where we occasionally find ourselves in sound theologizing faithful to Scripture. Certainly, he is not saying here what he emphatically and repeatedly denies elsewhere, that I must do a certain amount of good works or obey God for a certain amount of time before I can be justified or be sure that I am justified. Rather, his comments highlight that even in its initial exercise justifying faith is inherently disposed to obedience and good works, which are bound to come to expression, however imperfectly, over time. His point is what is expressed later in the Westminster Confession, namely that faith as “the alone instrument of justification” is “not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love”; or, more importantly, Paul’s characterization of justifying faith as “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6; alluded to and cited as Scriptural support by the Confession at this point).

Here, in a particularly striking and instructive way, Calvin accents how inseparable, yet distinct, good works are from faith as the alone instrument of justification. This is fully in keeping with what he emphasizes in many other places, perhaps most notably at the beginning of his magisterial treatment of justification in the Institutes. With the application of redemption as the large, overall concern of Book Three, he had previously discussed sanctification (“regeneration”) and in considerable length (3:3-10). Why did he order his material in this way, treating sanctification before justification? “The theme of justification was therefore more lightly touched upon because it was more to the point to understand first how little devoid of good works is the faith, through which alone we obtain free righteousness by the mercy of God; and what is the nature of the good works of the saints, with which part of this question [justification] is concerned” (3:11:1).

Such works–it is surely true to Calvin to add–are necessary as “the fruits and evidences of a true and lively [that is, justifying] faith” (WCF, 16:2).

About John Calvin

Article by Dr. Sam Storms entitled 10 Things You Should K ow About the Life of John Calvin (original source here)

Everyone everywhere is talking about Martin Luther in 2017. It is, as you know, the 500th anniversary of the “launch” of the Protestant Reformation. But we would do well to give equal consideration to John Calvin. So today we look at 10 things everyone should know about his life. I will later follow up on this with 10 things we should know about his theology.

(1) Calvin was born on July 10, 1509, at Noyon in Northeastern France. Unlike Luther, Calvin was born into the professional class and received an excellent early education. His name has come to us via a process: Cauvin is French; Calvinus is the Latinized form; Calvin is the Anglicized form.

(2) At the age of 13-14 he attended the University of Paris where he came under the influence of three men: Nicolas Cop; Olivetan (both of whom had a positive impact on him with respect to his eventual break with Rome); and John Major, an anti-reformer who ironically introduced Calvin to the writings of Wycliffe, Hus, and Luther. He received his masters degree in 1528 and then studied law at the University of Orleans under pressure from his father and because of a growing discontent with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1532, at the age of twenty-two, he received his doctorate in civil law. He later studied Classics in Paris and was also well-educated in theology, ancient languages and rhetoric.

(3) Some place his conversion as late as 1534 and others as early as 1527-28. Unlike Luther, his was not a dramatic experience, but not for that reason any less revolutionary. He does describe his move from the teachings of Rome to biblical Christianity as a change “from papal superstitions to evangelical faith, from mechanical ceremonies to trust and faith, and from scholastic traditionalism to biblical simplicity” (Schaff, VIII:306).

At another point he calls it a “sudden conversion” but not in the sense of a Damascus road experience. Rather it was the climactic fall of a city by a final assault following a long siege. When “I was obstinately addicted to the superstitions of the papacy,” he writes, “God subdued and reduced my heart to docility.” Speaking of the sovereignty of God’s work, he writes: “Thou didst shine upon me with the brightness of Thy Spirit. . . . Thou didst arouse my soul.”

(4) Calvin did not at first desire a break with Rome, but envisioned a purification of the church from within. This was not to be. Calvin’s friend, Nicolas Cop, was elected Rector of the University on Oct. 10, 1533 and delivered the inaugural lecture on All Saint’s Day, Nov. 1, before a large assembly. The speech, written primarily by Calvin, was a plea for reformation and an attack on both Catholic theology and theologians. Of the latter Calvin wrote: “They teach nothing of faith, nothing of the love of God, nothing of the remission of sins, nothing of grace, nothing of justification; or if they do so, they pervert and undermine it all by their laws and sophistries. I beg you, who are here present, not to tolerate any longer these heresies and abuses.”

The reaction was violent. Cop fled to Basel. Calvin is reported to have descended from a window by means of bed-sheets and escaped from Paris disguised as a vine-dresser with a hoe upon his shoulder. His rooms were ransacked and his papers seized.

(5) Calvin was influenced by friends and colleagues to break completely with Rome, which he did in 1534. The next two years were spent as a wandering student and evangelist. He settled in Basel, hoping to spend his life in quiet study. There he began writing The Institutes under the assumed name of Marianus Lucanius (either to avoid publicity or persecution). In March of 1536 the first edition, which contained only 6 chapters (an exposition of the Decalogue, the Apostles Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, with brief comments on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the other sacraments, Christian liberty, church government, and church discipline) was ready for publication. He became famous overnight.

(6) Calvin returned to Paris in 1536 to settle some old financial matters. He decided to go from there to Strasbourg to be a scholar, but as he later explained it: “God thrust me into the game!” He was detoured during the journey to Geneva because of the war then raging between Francis I and Charles V. An old friend, du Tillet, recognized him in the hotel and immediately informed William Farel (1489-1565). When Calvin resisted Farel’s pleas to join him in the work of reformation in Geneva, the latter shouted: “Therefore, I proclaim to you in the name of Almighty God whose command you defy: Upon your work there shall rest no blessing! Therefore, let God damn your rest, let God damn your work!” As if under searing fire, Calvin’s defiance melted. And as he offered his hand to the preacher, a tear rolled over his caved-in cheek. “I obey God!” was his cry.

(7) Upon arriving in Geneva, he began to lecture on the Pauline epistles, wrote a constitution for the church, introduced congregational psalm singing, wrote a confession of faith, a children’s catechism, and insisted on the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper (but eventually had to settle for monthly). Trouble erupted when he and Farel sought to administer both church and civil discipline. The two were literally kicked out of town in April of 1538. Calvin was determined to return to Basel and resume his studies, but Martin Bucer (who was won to the Reformation while listening to Luther at the Leipzig debate) persuaded him to go to Strasbourg where he remained from 1538-1541.

(8) Calvin often said he didn’t care what a wife looked like as long as she was of a Christian spirit and could interact with him intellectually. In another place he wrote:

“I am none of those insane lovers who embrace also the vices of those they are in love with, when they are smitten at first sight with a fine figure. This only is the beauty which attracts me: if she is chaste, if not too nice or fastidious, if economical, if patient, if there is hope that she will be interested about my health.”

He finally married Idelette de Bure in 1540 who brought two children with her from a previous marriage (her first husband was an Anabaptist whom Calvin had led to the Lord). She died in 1549. They had three children, all of whom died in infancy.

(9) Once again under pressure from Farel, Calvin returned to Geneva in 1541 and ministered there until his death in 1564. Upon his return, Calvin was given a free hand. He drafted a document containing rules for ecclesiastical operations called Church Order. This attempt to enforce discipline would again threaten his position in the city. He faced opposition from numerous fronts.

The so-called Patriots or Children of Geneva belonged to the oldest and most influential families of Geneva. They resented Calvin’s efforts at moral reform and viewed them as encroachments on personal freedom (Calvin resisted such practices as dancing and late-night carousing). They disliked the fact that Calvin was a foreigner (he did not become a citizen until 1559) and resented the refugees of religious persecution that flocked to him for shelter.

The Libertines lobbied for the very vices Calvin resisted. Being somewhat gnostic, they appealed to the freedom of the spirit as an excuse for indulging the flesh. Calvin described them as “the most execrable and pernicious sect the world has ever known.” The libertines boasted in their license. For them, the “communion of saints” meant the common possession of all goods, even other men’s wives. They engaged in adultery and widespread sexual immorality while claiming the right to sit at the Lord’s Table.

(10) Calvin’s physical afflictions read like a medical journal. He suffered from painful stomach cramps, intestinal influenza, and recurring migraine headaches. He was subject to a persistent onslaught of fevers that would often lay him up for weeks at a time. He experienced problems with his trachea, in addition to pleurisy, gout, and colic. He suffered from hemorrhoids that were often aggravated by an internal abscess that would not heal. He had severe arthritis and acute pain in his knees, calves, and feet. Other maladies included nephritis (acute, chronic inflammation of the kidney caused by infection), gallstones, and kidney stones. He once passed a kidney stone so large that it tore the urinary canal and led to excessive bleeding.

Due to his rigorous preaching schedule (he preached twice on Sunday and every day of the week, every other week) he would often strain his voice so severely that he experienced violent fits of coughing. On one occasion he broke a blood-vessel in his lungs and hemorrhaged. When he reached the age of 51 it was discovered that he was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, which ultimately proved fatal. Much of his study and writing was done while bed-ridden. In the final few years of his life he had to be carried to work.

His friends and physicians insisted he ease off the pace of ministry. “What! Would you have the Lord find me idle when he comes?” He preached his last sermon on February 6, 1564. He had to be carried to and from the pulpit. He dictated his will on April 25th. It read, in part, as follows:

“In the name of God, I, John Calvin, servant of the Word of God in the church of Geneva, weakened by many illnesses . . . thank God that He has shown not only his mercy toward me, His poor creature, and . . . has suffered me in all sins and weaknesses, but what is more, that He has made me a partaker of His grace to serve Him through my work, . . . I confess to live and die in this faith which He has given me, inasmuch as I have no other hope or refuge than His predestination upon which my entire salvation is grounded. I embrace the grace which He has offered me in our Lord Jesus Christ and accept the merits of His suffering and dying that through them all my sins are buried.”

Calvin’s coat of arms, a hand holding a heart, is testimony to his compassionate and self-sacrificial spirit. It is encircled by his motto: Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. Freely translated it means: “My heart for Thy cause I offer Thee, Lord, promptly and sincerely.”

Calvin’s View on the Atonement

What did John Calvin believe concerning limited Atonement? Many say that Calvin did not. Dr. Nicole addresses this question with great care.

This topic has received considerable attention in the recent past, perhaps in view of R. T. Kendall’s very controversial book Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649.1 An effort is made here to summarize the debate and to provide a brief evaluation.
It is often stated—and with considerable propriety—that Calvin did not write an explicit treatment concerning the extent of the atonement, in fact did not deal with this precise issue in the terms to which Reformed theology has been accustomed. It must be owned, of course, that the question had received some attention before Calvin. Notably Gottschalk in the ninth century had given express support to definite atonement2 and the scholastics had discussed the topic and advanced a partial resolution in asserting that Christ’s death was “sufficient for all men and efficient for the elect.” 3 Calvin alludes to and endorses this distinction but views it as insufficient for a proper analysis of 1 John 2:2. 4 Nevertheless a full discussion of the scope of the atonement is not found in Calvin’s writings, and the assessment of his position in this area has been varied.

Certain other Reformed theologians, contemporaries of Calvin or flourishing in the late sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century, expressed a clear endorsement of definite atonement: e.g. Peter Martyr, H. Zanchius, T. Beza, J. Piscator, W. Ames, R. Abbot. 5 As far as we know, they did not assert that they were conscious of differing with Calvin on this score, nor did Calvin take issue in writing with any of those who formulated the view during his life-time.

One of the earliest writers to claim that Calvin espoused universal atonement was Moyse Amyraut (1596–1664) who in his Eschantillon de la doctrine de Calvin touchant la predestination6 quoted certain passages from Calvin’s commentaries in support of his own position on universal atonement. Amyraut’s friend and supporter Jean Daillé (1594–1670) later published some 43 pages of excerpts from Calvin’s works which he deemed in line with universal grace. 7 A number of these excerpts relate to the design of the atonement, but it is really amazing to observe how most of these quotations are lacking in cogency with respect to the precise status questionis. Some, indeed, appear actually counterproductive, especially if replaced in their original context. 8 Amyraut’s opponents, notably Pierre DuMoulin (1568–1658), 9 André Rivet (1573–1651), 10 and Frederic Spanheim (1600–1649) 11 did not fail to respond with explanations of Calvin’s texts which showed them to be compatible with particularism. Furthermore they quoted other texts of Calvin, especially from his Traité de la predestination,12 in which the design of the atonement and God’s elective purpose are seen as inextricably related. Continue reading

Calvin on the Sacraments

calvin-john7Article by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson (original source John Calvin seems to be at his most feisty when he writes on the sacraments. Against those who complain that infant baptism is a travesty of the Gospel, in the Institutes he stoutly insists, “these darts are aimed more at God than at us!” But a little reflection reveals he is also at his most thoughtful, and his analysis of sacramental signs can strengthen credobaptists as well as paedobaptists.

If repentance and faith are in view in baptism, how can infant baptism be biblical? Calvin responds: the same was true of circumcision (hence references to Jer. 4:4; 9:25; Deut. 10:16; 30:6), yet infants were circumcised.

How then can either sign be applicable to infants who have neither repented nor believed? Calvin’s central emphasis here is simple, but vital. Continue reading