Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever

by Michael Horton Narrated by Tim H. Dixon

Overview

John Calvin, a man adored by some and maligned by others, stands as a legendary figure in Christian history. In Calvin on the Christian Life, professor Michael Horton offers us fresh insights into the Reformer's personal piety and practical theology by allowing Calvin to speak in his own words.

Drawing not only from his Institutes and biblical commentaries, but also from lesser-known tracts, treatises, and letters, this book will deepen your understanding of Calvin's theology and ministry by exploring the heart of his spiritual life: confident trust and unwavering joy in the sovereign grace of God.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176423013
Publisher:	One Audiobooks
Publication date:	11/18/2021
Series:	Theologians on the Christian Life
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

CALVIN ON THE CHRISTIAN LIFE: AN INTRODUCTION

"The spirituality of John Calvin is seldom examined." There are notable exceptions to this verdict by Howard Hageman. Yet it seems generally true that even those who consult Calvin on theological or exegetical questions may be inclined to look elsewhere for spiritual direction. I suspect that a principal reason for this oversight has to do with what we mean by "spirituality."

A Different Time

Once upon a time, daily rhythms were ordered by the tolling of the church bell and the annual cycle punctuated by the church calendar. People passed into the church to mark life's milestones through rows of headstones. From baptisms to funerals, God's presence was felt at least tacitly across the whole of life. Faith was a shared public frame of reference, not a private hobby of those who, in the words of modern theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, "have a talent for religion" or "a taste for the Infinite." God's hand was discerned in floods, fires, and plagues as well as in fruitful harvests. Of course, there were plenty of people for whom this was all unreflective gibberish more than genuine belief. However, no one assumed a world in which religion or spirituality was a corner of private life.

The Reformation and the Heart of the Matter

Whatever ways in which the Reformation anticipated the modern age, it belonged to the world shaped by Christendom. Especially for the Reformers and their successors, faith and reason, doctrine and life, sacred and secular were on speaking terms. It is striking to us in our contemporary context to discover the same theologian writing a sermon or a lecture, a poem on nature or a hymn to nature's Creator and Redeemer, a Hebrew or Greek grammar, and some calculations on planetary movements — in the same week. Truth, goodness, and beauty drew all disciplines together in a unified body of knowledge. No less when exploring the heavens than when poring over Scripture, one was engaging in pious meditation upon God's works.

It is difficult to justify the claim that the Reformation brought unalloyed blessing. Yet it is even more implausible to suggest, as some recent writers have, that it launched the drift toward secularism. First, by various measurements it can be easily shown that late medieval Christendom was already coming apart at the seams. It was held together precariously but firmly by the vast network of magisterial power. Centuries of papal tyranny and abuses created widespread cynicism and provoked myriad reform movements. For a while "conciliarists" — urging papal submission to councils — gained the upper hand, but "papalists" finally won out.

An especially anxious moment came in the fourteenth century, when three popes claimed Peter's chair. Begun in 1309, the Western Schism (often called "the Babylonian Captivity") was only concluded with the Council of Constance in 1417, a century before Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses. In 1987, before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained:

For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form — the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.

At least from the perspective of the Reformers, this was only the tip of the iceberg. Satires of the Roman curia and the monks were common. Yet Reformers like Luther and Calvin went to the heart of the matter: the doctrine, and not just any doctrine, but the substance of the gospel message itself.

However, as the word reformation suggests, they did not set out to create a new church, nor did the movement become mired in mere critique. The aim was essentially constructive: namely, to re-evangelize Christendom.

First, the Reformation sparked a renewal of Christian piety by deepening it. In his preface to his Small Catechism, Luther expressed alarm at widespread biblical illiteracy. Yet more than a century earlier, University of Paris chancellor and theologian Jean Gerson wrote a treatise complaining that even many priests were ignorant of the basic message, figures, and plotline of Scripture. Going back to the sources to rediscover a lost treasure, those who embraced the Reformation were so deeply knowledgeable about it and invested in it that they were willing to die for it if necessary. Those who embraced the Reformation were convinced that they had truly understood the gospel of God's free grace in Christ for the first time.

The Reformation also ignited genuine piety by widening the circle. The monks and nuns engaged in full-time prayer and contemplation were called "the religious." Basically, they were surrogates, fulfilling spiritual disciplines on behalf of the secular layperson. Monks were often targets of the period's equivalent of stand-up comics. Yet the Reformers were troublesome not because they joined in mocking abuses, laziness, ignorance, and vice, but because they challenged the legitimacy of the monastic vocation itself.

While all roads led to the cathedral or local parish, the church's leaders felt obliged to issue edicts requiring attendance at Mass at least once a year. Even then, the average worshiper could not understand the liturgy enough to participate in it, and the Communion cup was withheld entirely from the laity. Sermons were rare, except when traveling (mendicant) preachers came to town. Essentially, the Mass was a spectacle — a sumptuously staged event that the people observed from afar, separated by a screen. It was becoming increasingly clear that at least on the street, the veneer of Christianity was peeling away to reveal a canvas of various native (pre-Christian) folk paganisms. As Cambridge historian Patrick Collinson concludes, the Reformation was an "episode of re-christianization or even primary Christianization" that interrupted "a process of secularization with much deeper roots."

With the gospel as the fountain, believers now had full and equal access to God's mercy through his means of grace. They heard the Word expounded in their own languages. The screen was removed, and the congregation participated in the public liturgy, receiving Communion — not only the bread, but also the cup, and frequently rather than once a year. Soon, even poorer saints obtained Bibles and brought their own Psalters to church, from which they sang in their daily chores on the farm and in the shop, as well as in their homes around the dinner table. It became so common for martyrs to spend their final time on earth singing God's praises as they passed the watching crowds that the authorities resorted to cutting out martyrs' tongues before they were escorted to the pyres.

Imitating the example of the ancient church, the Reformers produced catechisms. Teenage evangelicals — girls as well as boys — were more familiar with the content and rationale for their faith and practice than were many priests. In fact, the Catholic Counter-Reformation produced its own catechism and other means of instruction (including the Jesuit order) in an effort to stem the tide of conversion to evangelical faith and practice.

Breaking down the wall separating the monks in "full-time Christian service" from the average believer not only deepened and widened piety in public worship; it also entailed a liberating view of callings in the world. Even milking a cow to the glory of God and for the neighbor's good was a spiritual activity.

John Calvin and Life Coram Deo

If the modern world was becoming more secular, this was the very opposite of Calvin's piety. He was not a progressive anticipating the Enlightenment's autonomous individualism, but an evangelical humanist crying, "Back to the sources!" The faith he encouraged was deeper and wider than the popular piety of his day. Like any pious Augustinian, Calvin viewed every aspect of life coram Deo, before the face of God. Calvin would not have even comprehended the idea that is usually assumed in the word spirituality as we use it today: namely, as a private island of subjective and imaginative irrationality surrounded by a sea of objective and public reason.

"Piety" (pietas), not spirituality, is the Reformer's all-encompassing term for Christian faith and practice. Even this term has lost its value in modernity. We've learned to draw a line between doctrine and life, with "piety" (like "spirituality") falling on the "life" side of the ledger. The ancient church saw it differently: eusebia encompassed doctrine and life. It could be translated "piety" or "orthodoxy" without any confusion. Calvin assumed this overarching horizon. Doctrine, worship, and life are all of one piece. The doctrine is always practically oriented, and practice is always to be grounded in true doctrine. In fact, "justification by faith ... is the sum of all piety." The root of piety is faith in the gospel. Love is the yardstick for all duties, and God's moral law in both Testaments stipulates the character of this love on the ground, comprehending "piety toward God" and "charity toward men." Calvin even defined his Institutes as "a sum of Christian piety."

If historical distance makes us work harder to understand Calvin's view of piety, it also forces us to appreciate the extent to which the Reformer himself would have been embarrassed to be singled out for a distinctive view of the Christian life. Indeed, the label Calvinist was coined in 1552 by Lutheran polemicist Joachim Westphal, and Calvin did not treat it as a term of endearment. As I point out in the next chapter, Calvin stood on the shoulders of giants from the past and fellow Reformers who helped shape many of his own views that are erroneously attributed to his unique genius.

In short, Calvin has been given too much blame by critics and too much credit by fans. His real genius is to be found in his remarkable ability to synthesize the best thought of the whole Christian tradition and sift it with rigorous exegetical skill and evangelical instincts. His rhetorical rule was "brevity and simplicity," and this, combined with a heart enflamed by truth, draws us back to his wells for refreshment in many times and places — especially when we seem to have lost our way.

The Making of an Unlikely Reformer

In 1536, a red-headed preacher, Guillaume Farel, begged the young French author of a popular little book to stay in Geneva to help him complete the work of reformation in the church there. The author was Jean Calvin, and his book was the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, at that point a brief summary of the evangelical faith. Calvin reverently declined the honor, explaining that he only wanted to be left alone to pursue his scholarship. Unexpectedly, the fiery preacher who had led Geneva to embrace the Reformation threatened his timid fellow-Frenchman with God's judgment on his studies if he should refuse God's calling to assist with reformation where it was needed. Persuaded by Farel and a few others, Calvin agreed, but initially only to the post of Bible lecturer, to which was added soon thereafter regular preaching and pastoral duties.

Geneva was basically a client state of the Reformed city of Bern. After a year of pushing for greater independence of the church from Geneva's magistrates (as well as Bern's), Farel and Calvin — along with two other ministers — were sent packing. Calvin found a new home and ministry in Strasbourg, where the leading pastor, Martin Bucer, became a spiritual father. It was Bucer (along with Peter Martyr Vermigli) who would have a large impact on the course of the English Reformation, even helping Cranmer revise the Book of Common Prayer. Here in Strasbourg the Reformation was already established — precisely as the young Reformer would have hoped for Geneva. Calvin was pastor to five hundred French exiles and started a youth hostel with his new wife, Idelette. He participated in imperial conferences, completely revised the Institutes from six chapters to sixteen, and wrote his important Romans commentary. Finally, he felt that he had found a home.

Yet only three years after Calvin and his colleagues had been summarily dismissed from Geneva, an ambassador was dispatched to Calvin's door with the official plea: "On behalf of our Small, Large, and General Councils ... we beg you very affectionately to decide to come to us and return to your former place and ministry." Happily ensconced in Strasbourg, Calvin "stated plainly that he would not return," according to the biography written by his successor, Theodore Beza. To one close friend he confided, "Rather would I submit to death a hundred times than to that cross on which I had to perish daily a thousand times over."

The Genevans recruited Bucer to their cause. Tearing a page out of Farel's playbook, Bucer "appealed to the example of Jonah" to encourage Calvin to return to his former post. Calvin mourned the prospect of returning to Geneva — "not because I have hated it," he told Pierre Viret, "but because I see so many difficulties presented in that quarter which I do feel myself far from being equal to surmount." He could at least stall the Genevans by writing from Germany that he still had important business to do for Strasbourg at these imperial meetings. Yet, as he expressed to Farel, "When we come back, our friends here will not refuse their consent to my return to Geneva. Moreover, Bucer has pledged himself that he will accompany me."

Nothing seems to have been less agreeable to his frame. "But when I remember that I am not my own, I offer up my heart, presented as a sacrifice to the Lord." This motto is enshrined in Calvin's crest: a hand holding up a heart.

A short time later, a lovely carriage arrived with the Genevan ambassador to transport Calvin and his new family back to Geneva, where he was greeted at the gates with a hero's welcome. Entering the pulpit of St. Pierre's once again the following Sunday, Calvin did not refer to his exile, rail against vicious enemies who still agitated against his return, or offer flattering speeches about the welcome that may have compensated for such an unseemly dismissal. He simply picked up preaching at the very verse at which he had left off when he had been asked to leave.

A Revealing Episode for Calvin's Life and Ministry

This episode illumines Calvin's wider life and ministry. First, it points up his shyness — and, at least in his own view, "cowardice" — in becoming embroiled in public controversies. "I must confess that by nature I have not much courage and that I am timid, faint-hearted and weak." Nothing could have proved more of a challenge to those natural tendencies and aspirations than ministry in Geneva: a backwater city of perpetual conflict, with passionate factions — political as well as religious. From his flight from France to constant public controversies that taxed his patience, each calling seemed to be imposed on him. Yet if God had called him to the post through the voice of the church, he could — indeed must — accept it. Bucer's Jonah analogy may have been apt after all.

Second, it points up the complexity of Calvin's ministry in Geneva. While those who are sympathetic to his convictions can only celebrate his uncompromising dedication to God's Word, those who are not can only regard him as an inflexible despot. The truth is more complicated than either of these views.

One of the reasons for Calvin's surreptitious ejection by the city council along with Farel and two other pastors was a riot that broke out when they refused to celebrate the Supper with unleavened wafers after a synod of Swiss Reformed churches upheld Bern's requirement of the practice. For his own part, Calvin did not even know about his senior colleagues' decision until it was done, and in retrospect he thought it was a petty issue. Yet it was more a test case for a larger contest: namely, whether the political authority had the last word in the church's affairs and whether, in particular, Bern's church and city council could determine every aspect of the Genevan church's life.

On some occasions, Calvin displayed youthful brashness, confusing stubbornness with fidelity and impatience with courage. Nevertheless, as he matured in these conflicts, Calvin became a remarkably flexible and ecumenical leader, willing to compromise even on points that he considered quite important, if it held out hopes of greater unity in the church. At a time of bitter inter-confessional polemics, he grew rather quickly in his ability to promote common ground and consensus while refusing to yield to the slightest confusion on what he considered the weightiest matters. In moments when others were given to vehemence, he could be the sweet voice of reason and compromise. Calvin was a complicated man in a complicated situation.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Calvin on the Christian Life"
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Copyright © 2014 Michael Horton.
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