Reformation Church History

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1 Reformation Church History CH502 LESSON 10 of 24 W. Robert Godfrey, PhD Experience: President, Westminster Seminary California In our lecture now we turn to the subject of John Calvin. It s hard for me to know what kind of reaction you have to the name of John Calvin. For some who are proud to call themselves Calvinists, there s an immediate eagerness to find out more about the one with whom they are identified as a great teacher of the Bible. For others, there is a sense that John Calvin is a strange, somewhat unknown but forbidding character. And indeed John Calvin, through the centuries, has had a great deal of bad press. He has not had the kind of warm and often enthusiastic response that Martin Luther had. And in part, that s a function of personality. Luther was a very human individual in the sense of being warm and talkative, opening up his heart and his mind of expressing a great deal that he was feeling. Calvin, by contrast, was much more reserved. He was not so quick to talk about his feelings. He was not so quick to open up especially in his writings, his heart, or his feelings. And the danger then is to conclude that he had no feelings, to conclude that somehow he s a sort of cool, impersonal mind at work, that he s a sort of brooding presence and to begin to wonder if Calvin is human. This problem was so great that one historian was led to write a little book entitled The Humanity of John Calvin to try to show that he really was human, and of course he was. He was a man who had close friends. He was a man who was deeply grieved about when he died. He was a man who was able to have warm, personal relations. But he didn t speak about those very openly, and that s been a problem for his biographers. It s hard to write the kind of effective biography getting inside the man as we have for example in Roland Bainton s splendid biography of Luther Here I Stand [1950; New York: Meridian, 1995]. Luther comes alive. It s harder to bring Calvin to life like that because he didn t open up as much. But because a person doesn t talk about his feelings doesn t mean that he doesn t have those feelings. Calvin was indeed a man of strong feelings and strong emotion and a very human being that, as we try to get to know him, rewards our efforts. 1 of 14

2 There were tales told about him. Some used to say that during his college days he was known as the accusative case by his schoolmates, and that was one of those nasty stories. Others of his opponents said his wife died of boredom. There were all sorts of bad things said about Calvin. But in fact he was a man who with tremendous energy gave himself to a remarkable level of work and of accomplishment in the service of God and a man who wore himself out for the gospel. We get a little hint of that late in his life as he begins in his letters to talk a little bit about the health problems that he s having. He writes about the malarialike fever that gets him down and weakens him. He writes about the terrible suffering he had from kidney stones and how the doctors had advised that to try to get rid of the kidney stones he ought to go horseback riding frequently. And Calvin, in a rather sad letter, talks about how he can t go horseback riding because his hemorrhoids are so bad. The man fell apart physically toward the end of his life, and he fell apart because he wore himself out. And one might also say that if the disease in the sixteenth century didn t kill you, the doctors would. So he suffered greatly and lived to be only sixty-three years of age and yet accomplished an incredible body of work. From his pen came some fifty volumes of commentaries of such remarkable quality that scholars to this day of whatever theological persuasion find a need to consult his commentaries and find wisdom and insight not only into theology but also into the character of the Greek and Hebrew languages from Calvin. We also have some thirty-five volumes of his correspondence and twenty-five hundred manuscripts of his sermons, as well as his great Institutes and other tracts and treatises that he wrote. It is truly a phenomenal accomplishment not only in quantity but in quality. And it speaks of the energy of the man who gave himself in the service of God. Calvin was born in Picardy in France, that is, in the city of Noyon in northern France in He was educated in largely humanist circles in France. There was a growing humanist movement in France very much encouraged by King Francis I of France, encouraged also by the king s sister, Margaret of Navarre. Margaret was herself very interested in religious matters. And while she did not become a Protestant, she was interested in protecting not only religious Renaissance figures but also religious Protestants in France. She was concerned about the improvement of the church. And Calvin was educated very much in this environment of considerable concern in humanist circles for the church and for 2 of 14

3 its morality and for its education. And so Calvin came in rather frequent contact with these folk who wanted to see the church improved. Calvin, in his early education, seemed to be destined for a career in the church. Calvin s father was well-connected in the city of Noyon to the church and hoped to be able to guarantee his son a good career in the church. And so Calvin was sent to Paris to study some theology and had an introduction to medieval theology, probably not as well-trained as Luther had been, but introduced to the medieval theology of the church. And then Calvin s father had a falling out with the church authorities in Noyon. Calvin s father was excommunicated by the church over some financial dealings. And his father then insisted that Calvin change his studies to study the law. And Calvin, as an obedient son, did spend time studying the law. But his real love in this period of his life was for the study of literature, the study of ancient writings. He was drawn particularly to the writings of Cicero. His first published work was a commentary that appeared in 1532 on the work of Cicero. Calvin doesn t seem in those years to have had a great deal of religious interest or concern. Some have tried to psychoanalyze him and say he was repressing his religious concern by all of his activity in studying Seneca, but that s hard to judge. It s hard to say for sure. At least the hard evidence does not make it very clear that Calvin had a great religious concern in those early years of his life. It seems rather that he wanted to make his reputation as a scholar of ancient literature, as one who was able to show great learning in his commentating on the ancients. And Calvin certainly did show great learning in that commentary on Seneca s De Clementia that he published in 1532, when he was only twentyone years of age. He showed that he was widely read in the ancient classics and that he had real ability to comment on the great Stoic philosopher Seneca. But Calvin was disappointed that his book did not receive very much attention. Calvin had hoped that he might make his reputation by this book and therefore be able to earn a living as an editor and writer. But the book did not get very extensive or good notices, and it s hard to know exactly why that was perhaps to some extent because he had dared at a couple of points in his commentary to criticize some of Erasmus s judgment, maybe that some of his fellow humanists felt that such a young upstart ought not to be criticizing his betters. But in any case, the book did not accomplish what Calvin had hoped it might. Some have felt that 3 of 14

4 that failure of his book led him to take religious questions more seriously and began to lead him away from his humanist friends and to consider more fully the concerns of some of his Protestant friends that he already knew in France. That again is an issue that s hard to evaluate and hard to be sure about. But what we can be sure about is that by late in 1533 or early in 1534 Calvin was suddenly converted to the Protestant cause. He himself writes briefly about that conversion experience in his introduction to his commentary on the Psalms. In that introduction he talks about how having been greatly addicted to the superstitions of the papacy (which seems to be an indication that he was a rather loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church for quite some time) he was then suddenly converted. He was converted in the midst of French Protestants who were well-acquainted and had been significantly influenced by the writings of Martin Luther. And Calvin himself then began to give himself to greater concern for the Reformation and for the cause of the Protestant churches. By March of 1536, Calvin had published the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. The Institutes that he published in 1536 was only one-fifth the size of the final edition that would appear in It was a work that Calvin kept expanding and refining throughout his career, but this 1536 Institutes was remarkable on several points. First of all it s remarkable in that apparently Calvin wrote that Institutes in about eighteen months from his conversion. And that is certainly remarkable all by itself. For someone who had been converted to produce in eighteen months a remarkably balanced and insightful introduction to the faith is a great achievement. And Calvin, at the age of only twentyfive, had produced just such a work. When The Institutes appeared in 1536, they were immediately hailed by Protestants as a major achievement in producing an apology for and an introduction to the Protestant faith. And that s what Calvin intended by naming the book The Institutes. The Institutes comes from the Latin word institutio. It had been used for a number of handbook,s including Quintilian s great Institutio of Rhetoric. And what Calvin was talking about was how one is educated or introduced to the Christian religion. And so The Institutes in the 1536 edition was intended to be an introduction to the Christian faith. In the letter of dedication that Calvin wrote to King Francis I of France, he writes how he hopes King Francis will stop believing some of the lies and rumors that have been spread about Protestants, and that he will come to judge the Protestants on the basis of their own writings such as his own Institutes. Calvin appeals to the king to recognize in Protestants those who are truly interpreting the 4 of 14

5 Bible and who are truly standing by God s Word. The other impressive thing about The Institutes is that most of the major themes of Calvin s theology are already clearly to be seen in that early Institutes. It s not just that Calvin was able, therefore, in a general sense to be able to describe Protestantism within some eighteen months of his conversion, but he was able to have a particular approach to the understanding and development of Christianity. His approach to Christianity would later be known as Calvinism or Reformed Christianity that already was remarkably mature in those first days of his Protestant experience. The 1536 Institutes had some six chapters. They followed very much the order of traditional catechisms and the order of Luther s catechism. Calvin had first of all a chapter on the law in which he set out to discuss the Ten Commandments and the way in which the law condemns us of our sin and leads us to a recognition of our sinfulness and of our need before God. Chapter 2 was on faith and in that regard follows a discussion of the Apostles Creed, what it is we as Christians believe, what it is that Christ did for us. And that leads to a discussion of justification by faith. Chapter 3 is on prayer, a discussion of the Lord s Prayer. And in those three themes, the Ten Commandments, the Apostles Creed, and the Lord s Prayer, you can see the traditional areas that catechisms covered. Calvin not only therefore covers that traditional catechetical material but does it in such a way to talk about the distinctively Protestant elements of a distinction between the law of the gospel and justification by faith and Christ as our only Mediator in prayer. Then chapters 4 and 5 relate to the sacraments of the church. Chapter 4 is on the true sacraments where he discusses baptism and the Lord s Supper. And chapter 5 is a fairly lengthy discussion of the false supposed sacraments of the medieval Roman church, the five sacraments that Protestants reject, namely, confirmation, marriage, penance, ordination to holy orders, and extreme unction. In the sixth and last chapter of that 1537 Institutes, Calvin talks about the responsibility and liberty that Christians have in their service of God. He stresses how we are freed from the law, that we are freed from the obligations of tradition, but we are freed to service of the Lord in the church and in the state and obligated to faithfulness. 5 of 14

6 What s interesting is that in this first edition of The Institutes, Calvin gives only very brief reference to predestination, the one doctrine that is often thought most characteristic of Calvin. And Calvin never on his own makes predestination central in his teaching. It is important to his teaching. It is one of the foundational aspects of what he understands the Bible to teach and the gospel to consist of, but Calvin himself does not insist that predestination always be in the center of every religious discussion. Even in his 1545 catechism that he drew up for the training of young people in the faith in Geneva, there is no single question on predestination itself. And so Calvin was not one who made the issue of predestination a centerpiece always of his theological writing. But he did believe in predestination, and he came to defend predestination in a number of his works from the attacks that many brought against it. And so Calvin felt the responsibility later in The Institutes as they grew as a work to talk more about predestination to defend what he felt was an attacked and misunderstood doctrine. Because Calvin had identified with the Protestant movement, life in France soon became difficult for him. And in July or August of 1536, he found himself in Geneva. He had been planning to travel through Geneva to Strasbourg, where he hoped to gain some support from Martin Bucer for a scholarly life of writing and promoting the Reformed faith. But as he passed through Geneva, word spread that the young author of The Institutes was in town. And a preacher by the name of William Farel came to him and told him about the needs of the city. Calvin knew something of Geneva, knew about the growing Reformed movement there. Geneva was an interesting case because the city of Geneva was a fairly independent state, and it had been growing in independence from the House of Savoy for quite some time and had recently largely exiled its prince bishop. And so its city council now had a large measure of independence. At the same time that political independence was coming to Geneva, so soon came the Reformation. By 1536, at just about the time in which Calvin arrived at Geneva, the Protestants had gained the upper hand in the city. But Farel, who had preached the reform and had been used to convince many of the truth of the Reformation presentation of the gospel, knew that he needed help by some able teacher and administrator who could assist him. And he felt that in the young John Calvin, just such a support and an aid was to be found. Calvin was not eager to undertake such a job and such responsibility. He wanted to go on to Strasbourg to pursue his writing and a scholarly career. But Farel thundered against 6 of 14

7 him that he would have no peace with God until and unless he stayed in Geneva to help the Reformation there. And so Calvin rather reluctantly agreed to stay. Calvin soon concluded that if a genuine Reformation was to be introduced to the city of Geneva, a confession needed to be prepared for the church to which all citizens in Geneva should subscribe, and that then a pattern of discipline should be introduced so that all people would not only formally embrace the Protestant faith but life in the city would begin to be more disciplined under the Word of God. And Calvin felt especially that the church needed to have the authority to excommunicate immoral people so that the purity of the church might be maintained. The city council was quite prepared to have a common confession of faith, but they were not so willing to have the power of excommunication vested simply in the preachers. They felt that that power was so great that it might lead to some civil unrest. Who knows what crazy preachers might do? They might even excommunicate a city councilman. And so the city council was insistent that the ultimate authority over excommunication should reside in the city council itself. This led to tension between the church and the government. It led also, as Calvin and others of the preachers of the Reformed tried to encourage a more disciplined life in Geneva which had had a rather immoral reputation as a city, to tension between the preachers and some of the people. And this led to a measure of unrest. And by 1538, some opponents of Calvin s vision of the church had been elected to the city council. Calvin was unhappy about that and unhappy about some of the immorality practiced even among city councilmen. Calvin and Farel insisted that certain people needed to be excommunicated before Easter of When the city council refused to go along with that request, Calvin and Farel refused to administer the Lord s Supper to anybody. And this led the city council to exile Calvin from Geneva. Calvin was in many ways delighted. He had had several experiences of real struggle with Geneva and with the city council, and he felt that this was an indication that he was now free to do what he had always wanted to do, that is, to pursue his scholarly career in Strasbourg. And so by September of 1538, Calvin had reached Strasbourg, and he felt that he could now at last pursue what he was really interested in doing freed at last from his responsibilities in Geneva. 7 of 14

8 Calvin was to stay in Strasbourg until September of And his experience there was influential upon him in a number of ways. He admired very much Martin Bucer and the Reformation that Bucer had introduced into the city of Strasbourg. He was impressed by the church order that Bucer had established in Strasbourg. Bucer had established a church with four different kinds of offices in them. There was the office of doctor of the church or teacher of the church. There was the office of pastor, the office of elder, and the office of deacon. And when Calvin would later return to Geneva, he would take that model of the church with him as one that he regarded as a genuinely biblical model of the church. Calvin was also impressed with the order of worship that Martin Bucer had introduced into the life of the Strasbourg church. And when one compares the later Genevan order of worship with the Strasbourg order, one sees a strong Bucer influence there. Calvin was also impressed by the school system that Martin Bucer and his educational leader John Sturm had established in Strasbourg. And that too became an influence on Calvin when he returned to Geneva and was able by 1558 to establish his own Genevan academy for the training of young people and for the preparation of ministers. Calvin was also very much impressed by Bucer as a biblical commentator. He saw Bucer as a man with real religious insight and learning. But he felt if there were any weaknesses in Bucer s commentaries was that they tended to be too long and too involved in some of their commentating. And so Calvin decided that this was one area where perhaps he could improve somewhat on Bucer s work. Calvin really began his career as a great biblical commentator there in Strasbourg. In 1539 he produced his commentary on Romans, his first commentary on a whole book of the Bible, a remarkably splendid and insightful piece of work and an approach to commenting that Calvin described as lucid brevity. That is, what Calvin was after was a clear but brief comment on the whole text. He wanted to treat the whole book evenly and produce a commentary therefore that would evenly talk about all of the verses of a text, not just spending most of his time on the difficult passages, as for example Philip Langton tended to do in his comments. Another important event in Calvin s life while at Strasbourg was his marriage to Idelette de Bure. Calvin married Idelette, a widow, and they had a number of happy years of married life together. His own experience with marriage, therefore, was a very positive one that carried over on into the Genevan years, although Idelette de Bure died after about eight years of marriage if I remember 8 of 14

9 correctly. And it was not a long married life that they had together but one that was precious to Calvin and to his memory of her. Calvin is sometimes thought to be an unfeeling fellow because of his comment in one letter when his wife died. One of the things that he said about her was that she never interfered with his work, and that was not the only thing he said about her. He expressed love and appreciation for much that she did. But when one thinks about it that was a very high compliment because Calvin did work at a phenomenally hard pace and schedule. And the fact that she could support him and not hamper that work in any way is a very fine compliment that he gave her. In 1541, the city council of Geneva recognized that things were going from bad to worse in the city and in the church and that there was a need for strong leadership in the church again. And they recognized that John Calvin was really the man for that leadership. S they invited Calvin back to Geneva, and Calvin returned but very, very reluctantly. Calvin was not eager to take up the kind of responsibilities that he knew awaited him and to face the kind of opposition that he knew would be faced when he returned. Somehow the myth has gotten around that Calvin was sort of a tyrant in Geneva, that he ran things in Geneva with an iron hand, and that is not at all the case. Calvin never held a real civic office in Geneva. He didn t even become a citizen until well into the 1550s. His position was not really secure in Geneva until about Only then were his enemies clearly not going to be reelected to the city council. And so Calvin s experience in Geneva was not one based on his own political authority or on military power. But for most of his life in Geneva, whatever influence he had was based clearly on the moral authority of his teaching and of his wisdom. And indeed not infrequently, the city council went against his judgment and against his recommendation. After all, it was Calvin who wanted a weekly communion, and it was the city council who insisted that communion should be administered only four times a year. And it s at least passingly interesting to note that most Reformed churches who claim to be Calvinistic have followed the advice of the city council of Geneva with a quarterly communion rather than the advice of John Calvin with a weekly communion. Another indication of Calvin s position in the city of Geneva can be seen from the famous episode of his confrontation with Michael Servetus. Michael Servetus was a theologian and physician who as early as 1531 had written rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity. In 9 of 14

10 the sixteenth century, the rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity was regarded as blasphemy and heresy and a crime punishable by death. Calvin, for a time, had corresponded with Servetus trying to lure him away from that error. But Servetus would not be lured away, and Calvin had written warning him not to come to Geneva, that such a move would be fatal for him. It appears that Servetus continued to be somewhat fascinated by Calvin and Calvin s role in Geneva. And in 1553 he published a book called Christianismi Restitutio, the restoration of Christianity, rather clearly aimed at refuting Calvin s Institutio, Calvin s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Servetus seems to have thought that because Calvin still had some enemies and some difficulties in Geneva that he might be able to visit Geneva and cause Calvin difficulty, perhaps even rally Calvin s enemies to exile Calvin again from the city. In any case, Servetus did appear in Geneva in August of 1553, and he was arrested there. The decision was made to put Servetus on trial for his heresy of rejecting the divinity of Jesus as the Son of God. Servetus was eventually executed for heresy by burning on October 27, And this has often been regarded as a great black mark against Calvin. It has often been held up as evidence that Calvin was a great persecutor of heretics and a violent man. I think it s important to look a little bit at this story and place it in its proper context. Calvin did believe, as did almost everybody in the sixteenth century, that gross heretics ought to be executed, that gross heresy was a danger to souls, that it might lead them into error and to hell, and it was a danger to the society because God might punish a society that tolerated heretics. That was a belief commonly held, as I said, in the sixteenth century, and Calvin shared that view. Therefore, Calvin approved of the idea that Servetus should be placed on trial. And Calvin served as the prosecutor at the trial. Calvin presented the argument that Servetus was a heretic and that the kind of gross heresy of which Servetus was guilty should be punished by execution. But sometimes people act almost as if Calvin were the judge and jury, and he was not. The city council itself functioned to render the final judgment on Servetus. Servetus was then condemned by the city council to death for the charge of blasphemy and heresy. The city council though was eager not to pursue this course all by itself. It did send off letters to various other Protestant states asking for advice, describing the heresy, describing the judgment handed down and asking for advice. All of the Protestant communities that wrote back to Geneva concurred with Geneva s 10 of 14

11 judgment and stated that Servetus should indeed be executed. In fact, Servetus had already been sentenced to execution by Roman Catholic authorities before he had fled from his earlier place of residence. And so there was indeed quite a consensus in the sixteenth century that a heretic on the order of Michael Servetus ought to be executed. Calvin tried to intercede to have Servetus executed in a more humane way. Calvin requested that Servetus be executed by beheading instead of by being burned at the stake. And the city council refused to go along with that request. It may not strike you as a great act of mercy to ask for someone to be beheaded rather than burned at the stake. But I assure you, it s a much more humanitarian way to die to be beheaded than to be burned alive. It also points to the fact that Calvin was not in charge in Geneva even as late as His advice was freely ignored by the city council. I go into this detail for the trial of Servetus not to defend Calvin and to say that he was right in thinking that heretics should be executed but only to say that Calvin s view was nothing unusual in the sixteenth century. And indeed, we can go further and say that far fewer heretics were persecuted and tried and executed in Geneva than they were in many areas of Europe. So it is unfair to Calvin and a misunderstanding of the historical context in which he lived to hold him up as some kind of remarkable persecutor of heretics or one who in some remarkable way was guilty for the death of large numbers of heretics. Calvin did share the belief general in the sixteenth century that heretics should be executed. But he was less a persecutor of his opponents than was true in many parts of Europe. As I said, by 1555, Calvin had finally reached a place of rather stable working conditions in Geneva. He was able in those last years of his life, then, the last nine years of his life to found an academy to work on his Institutes to bring them into final form in 1559, to finish up some of his important commentating that he was involved with, and to continue to offer a lot of advice through his letters to people throughout Europe. He was greatly treasured as one who could offer spiritual advice and counsel to people who were throughout Europe. We might pause just to take a look at that final form of The Institutes. They had, in that final developed form, taken on quite a different organization, and indeed scholars still debate exactly what the organizational pattern of those Institutes were. What is clear is that Calvin divides the material 11 of 14

12 of The Institutes into four books. The first book is on God, God the Creator, and man as he s brought into creation by God. And that book discusses the providence of God, the oversight of God over all things. The second book is on the fall of man into sin, the character of sin, and then on the work of Christ redeeming man from sin. The third book is on the application of redemption, the way in which the Holy Spirit applies redemption to mankind. And the fourth book is primarily on the church, the character of the church from a positive point of view, and then the negative deformation of the church in the Middle Ages. And then the last chapter of the fourth book of The Institutes is on the proper relationship of church and state. In formal terms at least then, The Institutes are patterned in their final edition on the basic structure of the Apostles Creed. Book 1 could be said to be about God the Father, book 2 about God the Son, book 3 about the Holy Spirit at least in terms of His work of creating faith in the hearts of men, and book 4 on the church. And it s interesting that in that final form, that preferred form of The Institutes, Calvin discusses the doctrine of predestination in that third book in the section where he s discussing faith. Predestination then is discussed in the context of where does faith come from? How does it happen that some people believe and some do not? Calvin s answer was that the reason that some people believe is not because they are better or wiser or make better use of free will or even make better use of available sufficient grace, but Calvin s answer was some people believe because according to the eternal plan of God, they are given the gift of faith. And so Calvin saw predestination as a doctrine that protected the free grace of the gift of faith, protected God s action in initiating faith, and ensured salvation that could never be seen as something that we accomplish but would be seen clearly as God s gift. In that regard also, Calvin believed that predestination functioned to give to the Christian a greater measure of assurance that his salvation truly did not rest in his hands or in his decision or in his action but that his salvation ultimately rested in God, and therefore neither the devil nor the world could snatch that salvation away. And so that structure of The Institutes is an important way of seeing how Calvin strove to balance his theology. We may return to some of those elements of The Institutes in a little while. 12 of 14

13 I think it s important to now begin to look a little bit at the theology of John Calvin. As we approach the theology, we can see again those same basics that we saw in Luther. Calvin was a reformer. He believed that Scripture was our only authority. He believed that salvation was by grace and through faith. He believed that Christ was the only Mediator. And all of his work as a pastor, as a professor, as an advisor to city councils, as a preacher, as a commentator on Scripture, all of that was focused on elaborating the Word of God, declaring the Word of God, opening up the Word of God to God s people. Calvin was one, therefore, who argued that we must limit ourselves to the Scriptures. We must speak where the Scriptures speak. We must be silent where the Scriptures are silent. In that regard, Deuteronomy 29:29 was a favorite text of John Calvin. The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever. And so Calvin said, Let s not try to pry curiously into hidden things, but let us rejoice in what God has revealed. Calvin felt strongly, for example, that in the matter of the doctrine of predestination, the reason he felt he had to teach it was because it was a revealed thing. He felt that when he looked into Ephesians 1, and he looked into Romans 9 and into many other places in Scripture, he found there over and over the doctrine of predestination. And he felt, therefore, the responsibility to God and to God s revelation to defend it. As we try to think about the other basic elements of Calvin s theology, there are a number of different areas that we might pursue. One of the things that we see in contemporary Calvin scholarship is that historians don t believe that Calvin s theology now is derived from one central doctrine and just reasoned out. It used to be said that after all, predestination is the heart and soul of Calvin s theology and everything else flows out of that. Now as people look at Calvin s theology and see the balance of it, they say you can t point to one single doctrine and say that s the heart of Calvin s theology, that really Calvin is a theologian who elaborates his theology from the Scripture, who tries to maintain a scriptural balance, who is not trying to build up a logical, reasoned-out theology. But over and over again, Calvin does in fact stop where he sees the Scriptures stopping and not move on. B. B. Warfield, interestingly enough, once declared that Calvin should be thought of as the great theologian of the Holy Spirit. And that s a very timely topic in our day when, with the great interest in Pentecostal and charismatic movements, there has been great interest in the Holy Spirit. When Warfield said that Calvin should be regarded as the theologian of the Holy Spirit, 13 of 14

14 he wasn t talking about what Calvin would have described as the extraordinary works of the Spirit like speaking in tongues and prophecy and such things. But Warfield had in mind what Calvin would have called the ordinary work of the Spirit, not those special things that the Spirit did in the days of the apostles and prophets but those things that the Spirit always continues to do in the life of the church. And what are those things? Those things are the really important things that the Spirit does. The Spirit opens our eyes to understand the Scripture. The Spirit renews our hearts that we might have faith. The Spirit calls the church into being and sustains it. The Spirit gives power to the sacrament to bring us to Christ. All of those things, those empowering works of the Holy Spirit, those enlivening works of the Holy Spirit are the important works of the Spirit. And those, as Warfield rightly saw, Calvin puts at the heart and center of his theology. And therefore Calvin is indeed rightly called the theologian of the Holy Spirit. Because in the writings of Calvin for the first time, that work of the Spirit in applying the redemption of Christ to His people is elaborated in a fuller and more profound way than it is most any other place in any theologian in the history of the church. We need to stop at that point, and we ll continue with our look at the theology of John Calvin next time. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 14 of 14

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The Reformation Wall in Geneva, Switzerland. From left to right: William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox. Martin Luther. ( ).

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