The Burning of Michael Servetus

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Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective.
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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
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Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
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Recently I was a guest speaker at Grace Point Church and while I was there I gave several messages on the history of the Reformation.
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One of those messages was the life and legacy of John Calvin.
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During that lesson I spoke about one of the most controversial times in the life of Calvin, the death of Michael Servetus.
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On today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist, I want to play that section of my lesson because I know that's a question that a lot of people have about the life of the Reformer.
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I hope that this lesson is helpful to you and may God bless you.
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One of the most controversial moments of his life happened regarding a man by the name of Michael Servetus.
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Have you ever heard someone say, how can you read Calvin? He was a murderer.
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Have you ever heard a pastor say that? Yes.
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If you've ever gone online and studied Calvin, if you've ever gone to any places that have tried to be anti-Calvinistic websites or anti-Calvinistic message boards or any of that stuff, you'll often say, why would you follow Calvin? He was a murderer.
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And it sounds, if you listen to them, it sounds almost as if Calvin took a sword and just hacked Servetus to pieces.
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But that's not what happened.
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And if you'll indulge me just a few more moments, I want to give you a little history as to what actually did happen.
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Michael Servetus was a very intelligent Spanish physician.
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And he was actually a Renaissance humanist and a theologian.
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And he's actually credited among physicians as having discovered the pulmonary circulation of the human body.
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So Michael Servetus is noted in history, not only as in theology, but in regard to being a physician.
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So he was no fool.
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He was no stupid man.
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He was a trained doctor.
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And he believed that in regard to Christian theology, as the Reformation was dealing with things like justification and salvation, he thought the one area that the church had really gotten it wrong was on the doctrine of the Trinity.
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Michael Servetus did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.
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He thought that doctrine was incorrect.
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And so he set out on a mission to try to bring that issue into the Reformation.
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Now, I don't know how much all of you and I know everybody here has different background.
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We got some history buffs and other folks, but not everybody knows how important the doctrine of the Trinity was in the early church.
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The first 400 years of the church, there were several issues that came up, most particularly the issue that brought about what's known as the Council of Nicaea in 325.
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It was the issue that Arius had arose about the subject of whether or not Jesus was fully divine.
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And the Council of Nicaea was formed to deal with the claims of Arianism, which is a claim that Jesus was not fully divine.
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And the Council of Nicaea came together and some 300 and some odd bishops, there's no actual counted number.
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It depends on which textbook you look at as to how many were there.
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Some say 300, some say 321, some say 325.
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But the bishops that were there, all of them sided against Arius.
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Except for Arius and one of his friends, there were two there were two that were not, but all the rest did.
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And if you've ever heard of Athanasius, Athanasius was the he was the deacon of the bishop of oh, it's in Africa, Alexandria, Alexandria, the bishop of Alexandria.
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He was the he was the he was the second man to the bishop and he would later become the bishop himself.
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And Athanasius was one of the ones there.
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In fact, there's a there's a great story.
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And I know that I'm going way off a calendar here because I'm going 1500 years back.
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But, you know, Santa Claus, St.
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Nicholas of Myra.
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Well, there's a legend that says he was at the Council of Nicaea.
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And the legend says that St.
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Nicholas of Myra was so enraged at.
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Arius, who was saying Jesus is not divine, that he slapped him in the face.
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Now, I don't know if that's true, but I hope it is, because I just think that's great.
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I'm not advocating slapping people in the face, but I just I love the story that Santa Claus was so concerned with the doctrine of the Trinity that he was willing to slap a heretic over it.
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And so every Christmas we celebrate Santa Claus slapping heretics.
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And anyhow, the point is, this doctrine, by the time Michael Servetus.
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Was attacking the doctrine of the Trinity, this doctrine had not only been understood as so fully biblical in the church by the Roman Catholic Church, but it was understood also by the Protestants that if there's one doctrine that that we don't that we're not going to revisit, if there's one doctrine that holds true, that is not subject to debate, is the doctrine of the full deity of Christ and the trinity of God.
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And so when Servetus sought to have that doctrine reexamined, he was not given quarter by by Catholic or Protestant.
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And Servetus believed that if he could get Calvin to to agree with him, that he would be taking the greatest mind of the Protestant movement and he would get him one to his side and and.
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Through that could have his Trinitarian reform accepted.
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So he sent a letter to Calvin and Calvin sent a letter back.
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Calvin said, do not come to Geneva, you will not leave.
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He said, if you come here, you will not leave.
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He wasn't threatening him, he was just saying, you will not you're not welcome to come and bring that heresy here.
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Amen.
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And.
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Servetus did not heed the warning, Servetus came and he was found in the service, he was he was hidden among the people, as Calvin was preaching, and he was recognized.
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And when he was recognized, he was immediately arrested by the city council.
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He was put on trial by the city council.
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He was already condemned as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.
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So understand he was already a condemned man.
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But he went to Geneva hoping to find quarter.
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But in Geneva, he found no quarter.
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The city council arrested him.
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And.
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Calvin was yesterday.
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They arrested him for heresy.
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Yes, understand that at this time in history, there was no such thing as a separation of church and state.
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If the church condemned a person, the church would excommunicate the person.
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But the council, the city was responsible for dealing with the carrying out of the sentences.
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So it was not the church that would carry out.
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And this is why if you've ever had a Roman Catholic tell you and they will say this and they're not wrong.
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If you ever talk to a Roman Catholic about all the people that they burned, they'll say the church had never burned anybody.
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It's always been the council.
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And that technically is true because the church would not function as the sword.
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What is Romans 13 say? The government bears the sword.
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Right.
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And the government does not bear the sword for nothing.
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So the idea was if the church excommunicated someone that they were now under the condemnation of the church, but they also saw that as a legal matter because this person is now is is now subject to the punishment of death.
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So the city council arrested him.
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Calvin did speak at his trial and gave the explain that he was wrong, that he was a heretic.
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And Calvin did consent to his death.
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We a lot of a lot of people take issue with that.
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Calvin did consent to his death.
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Now, one, if you want to say this is one point for Calvin.
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Calvin did ask that the city council grant him.
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Grant, what's the language they used? Not leniency, but not clemency, because they didn't want he didn't want him released.
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He wanted him granted a quick punishment.
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He asked that he be beheaded, not burned.
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Because and and and honestly, if you had to take a choice, I'd rather be beheaded than burned to death, be burned alive.
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And so Calvin asked for a expedient punishment rather than a long and and terrible punishment of burning.
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So there was a certain there was a certain if you want to call it noble generosity for the heretic.
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But Calvin did approve of his execution.
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And it was something that none of us today really, really can wrap our minds around.
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I want you to think for a moment, I'm not defending the burning of heretics, just so you know.
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But for a moment, I want to make a historically important side note.
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We no longer believe.
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Well, let me back that up.
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We tend to be less concerned about the danger that false teaching poses to the souls of men today than was concerned 500 years ago.
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It is sad because today we laugh at Joel Osteen.
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We laugh at Creflo Dollar.
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We laugh at the false teachers that fill the airways and we say, ha, ha, ha.
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He's a false teacher.
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No, that man is dangerous.
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Those people are dangerous to the souls of other men.
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And I'm sorry if those names offend you.
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I'm not here to offend and I didn't come here to upset anybody.
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But there are men and women in pulpits who are dangerous to the souls of men.
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And so in the in the time period of Calvin, it was so understood that the soul was so important that you could not allow that to continue.
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Again, not defending the practice.
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I'm not saying we should go burn heretics today.
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Well, I'm just saying at the time period in which Calvin lived, it was a much different time and we have to always it's like understanding our American forebearers.
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You know, recently I've heard people come out and say we should never study Jonathan Edwards anymore because Jonathan Edwards owned slaves.
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It is stupid.
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But but you understand, we're we're we're taking an anachronistic look at someone.
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We're trying to make Jonathan Edwards be subject to our time period and our understanding of how law and order should work.
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And the same thing happens with Calvin.
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But I do want to say this.
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If somebody says Calvin was a murderer, that's not true.
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Calvin was a at best an expert witness in the case.
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And but he did not strike the match.
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He did not pile the timbers and he did not tie the man to the post.
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I think we have to be honest, at least enough to say that is trial by executors, trial by fire and execution by fire or trial for heresy and execution by fire.
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Something that we would probably not do today.
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Yes, but we have to understand at least the context of his life and the life that he lived in, the situation he was in.
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John Calvin was neither a judge or a member of the council.
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He was not even at that time a citizen of Geneva.
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In the end, one might argue that the issue with Cervetus leaves a blight on the reputation of the reformer that cannot be overlooked.
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Yet I would remind us that.
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Remind us all that none of us really understand what it was like to live in that context, in the context of that part of the history of history.
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And while we may disagree with such decisions now, we mustn't allow such things to cause us to not see the wealth of value that has arisen from the life of Calvin.
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He's certainly not a man to be worshipped.
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And that's the thing I hope people never think when they hear me say Calvinism or call myself a Calvinist, I'm no more worshipping Calvin than Lutherans are worshipping Luther or Wesleyans are worshipping Wesley.
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It's simply a it's simply a shortened way of describing a theological system.
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And many of my friends who don't like it that I call myself a Calvinist are very happy to call themselves Baptists.
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It's just a shorthand for a theological system.
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One of the things to mention, though, about Calvin, when he died, Calvin asked that he be buried in an unmarked grave.
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Most people don't realize that about him, Calvin did not want his life and legacy to become a place or a point of veneration.
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He did not want to be worshipped.
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He would probably get offended that I call myself a Calvinist because he did not want himself to be the focus.
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He wanted Christ and his gospel to be the focus at the heart of Calvin's theology is a very simple foundation stone.
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God is sovereign over all things.
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As the psalmist wrote, we read it earlier from everlasting to everlasting.
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You are God.
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Whether we read his institutes or his commentaries or his copious other writings, the string that holds everything together in the doctrines of Calvin is this.
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God is in control.
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We live in a day to day where many Christians don't believe that anymore.
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We live in a day to day where many Christians see God as a poor beggar or a figure like Santa Claus who wants someone to come and sit on his knee and tell him what they want for Christmas.
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Calvin saw God as the majestic one who created heaven and earth, who commands all things by the word of his power and who upholds all things by that same powerful word.
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So to be a Calvinist is simply to say we believe in the God who exists, the God who created all things, the sovereign God of the universe.
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Thank you for listening to today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.
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If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe and provide us feedback.
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We love to receive your comments and questions and may even engage with them in a future episode.
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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
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All who come to him in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect savior.
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He is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the father except through him.
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May God be with you.