Category Archives: Calvin

Calvin on Genesis

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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).