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God's HymnbookReformed Perspectives Magazine Volume 11, Number 33 (August 16 to August 22, 2009), is now available. The following articles are featured in this issue:
The Doctrine of the Word of God
Preface
By: John M. Frame
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The Doctrine of the Word of God
Study Guide
By: John M. Frame
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Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy in the Epistle of James
An Article
By: Cary Paulk
Webpage PDF Word
Treatise on Grace, II
An Article
By: Jonathan Edwards
Webpage PDF Word
Freedom of the Will, Part XIII
An Article
By: Jonathan Edwards
Webpage PDF Word
Reformed Perspectives Magazine Volume 11, Number 31 (August 2 to August 8, 2009), is now available. The following articles are featured in this issue:
1 Timothy 3:14-16
A Sermon
By: Scott Lindsay
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The Once and Future Calvin
An Article
By: Mike Milton
Webpage PDF Word
Experiencing the Love of God
An Article
By: William Webster
Webpage PDF Word
The Best Things Reserved for Last
An Article
By: Thomas Brooks
Webpage PDF Word
Freedom of the Will, Part XI
An Article
By: Jonathan Edwards
Webpage PDF Word
The Morality of Everlasting Punishment
An Article
By: Mark R. Talbot
Webpage PDF Word
 |  | THEOLOGY IN THE NEWS Calvin: Man for the Mainline Reformer's 500th birthday draws out diverse cast of admirers. My Top 5 Books on John Calvin By Michael Horton, editor in chief of Modern Reformation Special Section: John Calvin |
Geneva had been under the rule of the House of Savoy, but the Genevans successfully overthrew the Savoys and the local bishop-prince of Geneva in the waning years of the 1520's. The Genevans, however, unlike the citizens of Zurich, Bern, Basel, and other cities that became Protestant in the 1520's, were not German-speakers but primarily French-speakers. As such, they did not have close cultural ties with the reformed churches in Germany and Switzerland. The Protestant canton of Bern, however, was determined to see Protestantism spread throughout Switzerland. In 1533, Bern sent Protestant reformers to convert Geneva into a Protestant city; after considerable conflict, Geneva officially became Protestant in 1535.
Calvin, by now a successful lawyer, was invited to Geneva to build the new Reformed church. Calvin's efforts radically changed the face of Protestantism, for he directly addressed issues that early Reformers didn't know how or didn't want to answer.
His most important work involved the organization of church governance and the social organization of the church and the city. He was, in fact, the first major political thinker to model social organization entirely on biblical principles. At first his reforms did not go over well. He addressed the issue of church governance by creating leaders within the new church; he himself developed a catechism designed to impose doctrine on all the members of the church. He and Guillaume Farel (1489-1565) imposed a strict moral code on the citizens of Geneva; this moral code was derived from a literal reading of Christian scriptures. Naturally, the people of Geneva believed that they had thrown away one church only to see it replaced by an identical twin; in particular, they saw Calvin's reforms as imposing a new form of papacy on the people, only with different names and different people.
So the Genevans tossed him out. In early 1538, Calvin and the Protestant reformers were exiled from Geneva...
In 1540 a new crop of city officials in Geneva invited Calvin back to the city. As soon as he arrived he set about revolutionizing Genevan society. His most important innovation was the incorporation of the church into city government; he immediately helped to restructure municipal government so that clergy would be involved in municipal decisions, particularly in disciplining the populace. He imposed a hierarchy on the Genevan church and began a series of statute reforms to impose a strict and uncompromising moral code on the city.
According to Calvin, the church has a role to play with regard to the state. The church is responsible, Calvin believed, to set forth the biblical teaching concerning the state and its function. Yet, and this is basic to Calvin’s thought, the church is not to rule the state. Calvin believed in a theocracy, not an ecclesiocracy. Both the rulers of the church and the civil magistrates are directly responsible to God for their actions, but they do not rule over each other. The church may admonish the magistrate as to what God’s law says, but cannot determine how that law is to be applied in matters of civil jurisdiction. The magistrate may advise the church concerning matters relating to civil affairs, but cannot force the church to conform to civil rules in its teachings, worship, or government. In this, Calvin laid down very clearly the principle of the separation of the functions of church and state. They are related and mutually supportive, but also independent of each other. This means, if the state attempts to interfere in the operation of the church or seeks to restrict its spiritual work, the church has the right and duty to disobey, although it will have to suffer the consequences of such disobedience.
At the same time, Calvin believed that the church’s form of government was to be fundamentally democratic. In this way it served as a pattern for the state to imitate. He did not believe that ministers and other church officials should be imposed on the church by the civil government or by a small group of wealthy or aristocratic individuals. Instead, he believed that ministers, elders, and deacons should be appointed by the people of the church as a whole.
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Reid regards John Calvin as one of influential founders of modern democracy.
What do you think?
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Calvin’s understanding of God is fundamentally social and socializing. Within the trinity, the Spirit is the relational bond that unites the Father and Son. It is also the ordering and vivifying power within the creation. Chung writes, “The Spirit, which Calvin stressed in trinitarian context, is the fountain and source of all creature’s lives. God poured life into creatures and sustains their lives through divine power. All living things are in the power of the Spirit” (18). The same relationality that the Spirit manifests within the Godhead overflows into the Spirit’s role in the creation.
In human beings, the Spirit is not only the source of life, but also the communicator of new life. The Spirit engrafts Christians into Christ. According to Dr. Chung, Calvin understands “union with Christ pneumatologically” (44). Without the work of the Spirit, Christ’s benefits would not be available to human beings. The spirit effectuates both justification and sanctification, pressing humanity back toward the order and vitality of the creation they had abandoned and betrayed.
The relational and dynamic nature of Calvin’s theology is most apparent in Chung’s discussion of the relationship of the Spirit to the law and the church. The law provides the basic structure of the cosmos. It communicates the natural law, setting out our obligations toward both God and our fellow creatures. Yet, as scripture is barren without the inspiration of the Spirit, so the law is powerless without it. The Spirit illumines the dynamic purpose and provides the inner meaning of the law, which may be summarized simply as love. Revealing the connection between Calvin’s understanding of law and Spirit, Chung shows that, for Calvin, the law is dynamic and relational rather than static and legalistic.
The church, also, exists only by power of the Spirit. According to Calvin, it is the Spirit that knits the church into the body of Christ, and in the Lord’s Supper it is the Spirit that brings Christians into the presence of Christ. Moreover, connecting the work of the Spirit in creation with the role of the Spirit in the church, Chung argues that, for Calvin, “the church has the task to constitute a new society, i.e., to regenerate society” (106). Therefore, in the chapter on the church, Chung also examines economic and political ethics. In each case, he presents Calvin as an advocate of solidarity and community. Economic and political life are spiritually significant in the sense that they move us toward or away from proper relationship with God and one another.
In the end, this volume not only presents a sympathetic and enlightening view of Calvin’s thought seen through the lens of pneumatology, it also recovers an understanding of spirituality that is prone to neither individualism nor sentimentality. Chung notes that, when dealing with Calvin’s thought, “it is necessary to recognize and to investigate spiritual experience, not only in terms of the individual, religious dimension, i.e., the so-called interior life, but also in terms of its integration with the historical, social, and political realms of human life, i.e., outward life” (3). From this perspective, spirituality and social ethics cannot be divorced because the Spirit is the dynamic, ordering force at the heart of the creation and the transformative, humanizing power in the heart of the believer.
Dr. Chung offers a timely book that contributes to our understanding of the relationship between spirituality and social ethics through a close reading of Calvin’s theology. The book is difficult to read, partly because English is the author’s second language. It is probably not accessible to the average undergraduate or even seminarian. The effort, however, will reward the persistent reader.
Timothy Beach-Verhey
Adjunct Professor of Religion, Davidson College
Davidson, NC
PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, SPRING/SUMMER 2003, VOL. 3, #2.
Born July 10, 1509 in Noyon, France, Jean Calvin was raised in a staunch Roman Catholic family. The local bishop employed Calvin's father as an administrator in the town's cathedral. The father, in turn, wanted John to become a priest. Because of close ties with the bishop and his noble family, John's playmates and classmates in Noyon (and later in Paris) were aristocratic and culturally influential in his early life.
At the age of 14 Calvin went to Paris to study at the College de Marche in preparation for university study. His studies consisted of seven subjects: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Toward the end of 1523 Calvin transferred to the more famous College Montaigu. While in Paris he changed his name to its Latin form, Ioannis Calvinus, which in French became Jean Calvin. During this time, Calvin's education was paid for in part by income from a couple of small parishes. So although the new theological teachings of individuals like Luther and Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples were spreading throughout Paris, Calvin was closely tied to the Roman Church. However, by 1527 Calvin had developed friendships with individuals who were reform-minded. These contacts set the stage for Calvin's eventual switch to the Reformed faith. Also, at this time Calvin's father advised him to study law rather than theology.
By 1528 Calvin moved to Orleans to study civil law. The following years found Calvin studying in various places and under various scholars, as he received a humanist education. By 1532 Calvin finished his law studies and also published his first book, a commentary on De Clementia by the Roman philosopher, Seneca. The following year Calvin fled Paris because of contacts with individuals who through lectures and writings opposed the Roman Catholic Church. It is thought that in 1533 Calvin experienced the sudden and unexpected conversion that he writes about in his foreword to his commentary on the Psalms.
For the next three years, Calvin lived in various places outside of France under various names. He studied on his own, preached, and began work on his first edition of the Institutes—an instant best seller. By 1536 Calvin had disengaged himself from the Roman Catholic Church and made plans to permanently leave France and go to Strasbourg. However, war had broken out between Francis I and Charles V, so Calvin decided to make a one-night detour to Geneva.
But Calvin's fame in Geneva preceded him. Farel, a local reformer, invited him to stay in Geneva and threatened him with God's anger if he did not. Thus began a long, difficult, yet ultimately fruitful relationship with that city. He began as a lecturer and preacher, but by 1538 was asked to leave because of theological conflicts. He went to Strasbourg until 1541. His stay there as a pastor to French refugees was so peaceful and happy that when in 1541 the Council of Geneva requested that he return to Geneva, he was emotionally torn. He wanted to stay in Strasbourg but felt a responsibility to return to Geneva. He did so and remained in Geneva until his death May 27, 1564. Those years were filled with lecturing, preaching, and the writing of commentaries, treatises, and various editions of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Additional reading
The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition
By Richard A. Muller.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000Calvin: an Introduction to His Thought
By T.H.L. Parker
Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1995The Writings of John Calvin — an Introductory Guide
By W. de Greef
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thought
By Francois Wendel
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997, c1963John Calvin — a Biography
By T.H.L. Parker
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975. [out-of-print]
