The Controversial Calvin

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and turn in your Bibles to Psalm chapter 90.
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We're going to be in the 90th Psalm.
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And we're going to look at just one verse of this Psalm, and that is verse 2.
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Psalm 90 and verse 2 speaks about the reality of God's nature.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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I thank you that we now have an opportunity to turn to the truth and to be reminded of the importance of sound theology, of right thinking, of sober-mindedness, and of a commitment to the systematic teaching of the word of God.
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I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from error, as I am a fallible man, capable of teaching error, and I do not want to do that for the sake of your people and for the sake of my own conscience and for the sake of your name.
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I pray also, Lord, that you would open the hearts of your people to know and understand the truth, drive us to repentance where it is needed, and I pray, Lord, for those who have come today who know not Christ, that they would see in this message a pointing to Christ.
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While we will be talking about an important person of history and how they have helped shape the history of the church, Lord, may we understand that the one who truly is behind it all is Jesus Christ, and He is the focus of today, and it's in His name we pray, amen.
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We are continuing this morning in our series which is intended to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, and we have so far covered in review the time leading up to the Reformation, the time known as the Middle Ages, and how it gave rise to a need for change, it gave rise to a need for going back to the Scriptures, for reforming that which had become corrupt.
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We've discussed the papal corruption, we have discussed the corruption of indulgences and false teachings about the mass and other false teachings such as the veneration of Mary and the prayers to saints and the praying of prayers which are ungodly.
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We've discussed the early reformers like the dissidents, the Paulicians and the Waldensians, the men like John Wycliffe and John Huss, and in our last session we looked at the incomparable influence of Martin Luther and how his 95 theses fanned the flames of Reformation into a full-fledged inferno which could not be extinguished by Rome.
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Today we're going to set our attention on another notable and some would say controversial seal, historical figure, and that is a man who not only had influence over the Reformation, but he had influence over Western society and thought as a whole.
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He is known far and wide for his influence in Christian history and theology, but he is also credited with being influential in other areas such as politics where he influenced free market capitalism, democratic republicanism, individualism, and even the ideas of personal liberty.
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In 1554, John Knox visited his city and visited his church and he said, and I quote, that it was the most perfect school of Christ that had existed on earth since the days of the apostles, end quote.
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The man to whom I speak or of whom I speak, of course, is the pastor and theologian of Geneva, John Calvin.
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And I'd like to begin today with somewhat of a personal anecdote.
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I don't like to talk about myself often, but this morning I just have to mention this because it has been known that I have been accused of false teachings in the past.
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I've been accused of being a heretic, I've been accused of being one who did not love the truth, and a lot of it had to do with Calvin's teachings.
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Early on in my ministry that name was bantered about quite a bit, oh did you hear, Keith is a Calvinist, and it was almost as if it were some kind of a dirty word and I was somewhat opposed early on to the title Calvinist because I felt like it carried more baggage than it was worth, but I've come to understand that those who would identify me with John Calvin in a derogatory way are generally very ignorant of Calvinistic theology, they're very ignorant of history, and they're very ignorant of the man himself.
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Most of what they have learned has come from internet forums and YouTube comment boxes and not from genuine studies of history.
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Likewise in all my years of preaching here, today marks the first time, the first time I've ever preached on the life of John Calvin.
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Just so you recognize, I've mentioned him in quotes, I've mentioned him in stories, I've mentioned parts of his commentaries here and there, but as the last time when I spoke on the life of Martin Luther, this is the first time.
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And this is my twelfth year as the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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I say all this to simply say that while Calvin has had a tremendous impact on my ministry, I don't define him as any more infallible than any other man that has had impact on my ministry.
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Darcy Sproul and John MacArthur have had impacts on my ministry that are beyond compare and yet neither one of those men are without fail.
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Calvin wasn't perfect and he certainly was not Jesus Christ.
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He lived in a much different time and a different context than we do today and as such I can admire the parts of Calvin's life which are worth admiration and I can also disagree with the parts that are worth disagreeing with.
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As a person who denies infant baptism, I know that Calvin would have had me excommunicated from Geneva and I'm willing to say that.
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So I stand bearing the title Calvinist from those who would call me such, knowing that that term would have to mean, if it's to have any truth at all, that I do not bear every teaching that Calvin ever taught.
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But the heart of his theology, the heart of understanding the sovereignty of God should be at the heart of our theology.
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So if you ever hear me, I say all that to simply say this, if you ever hear me say Calvinism or you hear me make the title Calvinist, in generally I'm referring simply to the gospel.
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The understanding of how man is saved.
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Calvin's view of the gospel was hugely important in regard to the Reformation and this is why reformed theology, that theology which came out of the Reformation, is also called Calvinism.
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Calvin understood man's deadness and sin, God's sovereignty and election in Christ, man's perfection in his substitution, all of which had been abandoned by Rome.
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And this is why later pastors like Charles Spurgeon, you all know Charles Spurgeon, right? The Baptist preacher? He so closely identified the teachings of Calvin with the gospel that he said this, and I quote, this is from the words of Charles Spurgeon, I quote, I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism.
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It is a nickname to call it Calvinism because Calvinism is the gospel and nothing else.
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I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith, without works, nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God and his dispensation of grace, nor unless we exalt the electing, unchanging, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah, nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of his elect and chosen people which Christ wrought upon the cross, nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having once believed in Jesus, such a gospel I abhor.
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That's Spurgeon simply saying that to talk of Calvinism is to simply talk of the gospel and that gospel which would oppose justification by faith, substitutionary atonement, eternal security is no gospel at all.
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But obviously the term Calvinism does have its roots in the reformer himself and what he accomplished as a leader in the church should be understood and I want to say this, I know the last few weeks has been out of character for me because I have not been doing a verse by verse exposition of a particular book of the Bible.
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But as I have said from the beginning of this series, before I even get into the theology of the reformation, it is important that we understand the history that made it necessary.
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And I have taught church history on Wednesday nights, I've taught church history in Sunday school at times, but I have never stood before you all.
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And this is the gathering of the saints, this is when you all come together at one time.
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So this is the time where I felt the need to preach and teach history.
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So over the next few minutes I'm going to outline some of Calvin's life and teachings and I want to show you why they're important and why we still hold to them today.
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I want to show you that while Luther was the mouth of the reformation, Calvin was the mind.
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You could say Luther maybe was the heart, but Calvin was the brain.
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And it's interesting to consider that these two men are separated in time by almost a generation.
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When Luther was nailing his 95 theses to the wall of the castle church at Wittenberg, John Calvin in France was only 8 years old.
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So much of what Calvin would be able to accomplish was because of the blood and tears that Luther himself had shed for the gospel.
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So I would say that all people who might identify themselves in some way with Calvin must also identify themselves some way with Luther.
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Because Luther paved the way for Calvin to come.
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Calvin was born in France in 1509.
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He was the son of Gerard Calvin, Latin form of the word Calvinus.
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He was a sickly child.
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He was afflicted with severe asthma and he would actually die of asthma.
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He would die relatively early in life in his 50s.
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Initially his father wanted him to go into the ministry as a Roman Catholic, but later he turned his attention to the study of law and he went to law school and he studied in Paris and while studying in Paris Calvin became influenced by the growing Reformation thinking and he began to study the scriptures and he found that the Catholic Church, which he was very committed to, John Calvin and his family were committed Roman Catholics, but he began to find through the study of scripture that what the Catholic Church was teaching was not in line with what the Bible clearly taught.
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At the age of 25 years old, think of that for just a moment.
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By the way, I became the pastor here at 26 years old.
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Just think about this sometimes because I know how young and lacking of maturity I was and some of you may say still am, maybe not young anymore.
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But Calvin at 25 years old wrote what became entitled the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
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It was a treatise on Reformed thinking and Reformation theology and it was the closest thing that the early Reformers had to a full systematic presentation of what they believed.
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He penned it from 25 to 26 and it was published at 27 years old in March of 1536.
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The Institutes were immensely popular and they continue to be immensely popular today being used in seminaries all around the world.
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Calvin would revise and expand them several times over throughout his life.
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His theology wouldn't change but it would expand and it went from six chapters in the beginning to several volumes in the end, remaining steadfastly committed to the foundations of the Reformation.
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Shortly after writing the Institutes, Calvin's life would be unalterably changed because Calvin, and I want to say this, Calvin didn't intend to be a pastor.
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Calvin intended to be a scholar and a doctor, a theologian of the church, one whose job it was to train pastors to teach.
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But Calvin was traveling because he was fleeing from France and he was headed to the free city of Strasbourg.
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And while traveling to Strasbourg, he passed through a city known as Geneva, Switzerland.
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And he intended to stay for only one night.
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He was in Geneva, Switzerland for just the evening to rest his head and move on the next day.
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And a man by the name of William Farrell heard that the writer of the Institutes had made his way to Geneva.
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So he goes to where Calvin was lodging and he appealed to Calvin, stay in Geneva.
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The city needs a pastor.
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And you have been sent by God to be that pastor.
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And Calvin said no.
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He believed again his job was to study and to write and to teach.
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But Farrell was not to be denied.
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He told Calvin that if he left Geneva, he would be under the curse of Almighty God.
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And Calvin, for whatever reason, believed him.
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He said, and I quote, I felt as if God from heaven had laid his hand upon me to stop me in my course.
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And I was so terror stricken that I did not continue my journey.
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Farrell scared Calvin under the curse of Almighty God.
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So Calvin became the pastor in Geneva, preaching and teaching the word of God systematically to the people.
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And he was not immediately loved.
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He was not lauded and carried around the city on the backs of men praising him as he were the latest football coach of great renown.
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Calvin was hated by many people because of his commitment to the word of God and God's law and God's truth.
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In fact, it is said that in Geneva there were people who would literally sick their dogs on Calvin as he walked through the streets.
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So 18 months after he became the pastor, he was excommunicated from Geneva.
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He and William Farrell had a disagreement with the council of the city.
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And the council of the city banished him from the city.
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So guess what Calvin did? He made his way to Strasbourg, which is where he wanted to be anyway.
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And he became a teacher there.
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And he went to Strasbourg and he married a widow of an Anabaptist.
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And he became John Calvin of Strasbourg, teaching with his wife there in the city.
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But after three years, the city of Geneva fell into a situation where they had a great need.
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Because while Geneva had been won for the reformation, Rome was not to be denied.
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So Rome began to reach out to Geneva and try to win back this city that it had lost to the reformation.
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An open letter was sent from Rome to the city of Geneva, trying to win back converts to the church.
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No one could answer the letter and the accusations.
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But they knew they had to take a stand.
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So who did they call? Calvin.
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And they reached out to Calvin.
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They begged him to return.
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And it's interesting because he did not want to return.
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In fact, he said, I would rather face death a hundred times than return to Geneva.
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And yet, he did.
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And when he entered the pulpit, this is one of the most interesting parts of Calvin's life, is when he entered the pulpit in Geneva, having been gone for three years, mind you, you would think that his first words upon entering the pulpit might be a rebuke for having been excommunicated.
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I'm back may have been the starting words of the sermon, but no.
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John Calvin, when he left Geneva, was preaching verse by verse through the scriptures.
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When he was banished, he had left off at a certain verse.
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When he returned after three years of excommunication, he picked up at the very same verse on which he had left.
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And he started.
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He believed that if reform was to come, it would come through scripture alone.
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And he believed in the exposition of the scripture.
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Calvin is sometimes accused of being a dictator.
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He's accused of being the Pope of Geneva.
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But historically, it is notable that Calvin was not even a citizen of Geneva until very close to his death.
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He was appointed by and paid by the city council of Geneva.
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They expelled him once, and I'm sure that they felt as if they could do it again.
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But Calvin carried a moral authority among the people.
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Not because of his massive intellect, which he had, but because of his command of the scriptures.
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And because he exercised the gifts of a pastor.
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We hear about Calvin the theologian.
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We hear about Calvin the preacher.
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The verse by verse expositor.
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But Calvin was the pastor of a city.
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I'm going to read to you a quote on his life.
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It says, Calvin for his part preached twice every Sunday and every day of alternate weeks.
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When not preaching, he lectured as an Old Testament professor three times a week.
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And he took his place regularly on the consistory, which met every Thursday.
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That was a council.
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And he was either on committees or incessantly being asked for advice about matters regarding the deacons.
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What should the deacons be doing? Calvin drove himself beyond his body's limits.
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When he could not walk the couple of hundred yards to the church, he was carried in a chair to preach.
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When the doctors forbade him to go out in the winter air to the lecture room, the audience crowded into his bedroom where he would give lectures from his bed.
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To those who urged him to rest his body, he said, What? Would you have me, have the Lord find me idle when he comes? In addition, his afflictions were intensified by opposition he sometimes faced.
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People tried to drown his voice by loudly coughing while he preached.
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Others fired guns outside of his home in an attempt to intimidate him.
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And again, men set their dogs on him.
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Sometimes even naming their dogs after him so as to deride him.
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And there were anonymous threats against his life.
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Years ago, when I was being particularly railed against for the teachings of Calvin, and some of you were here for that occasion of history in our church, one thing in particular was used to attack the character of the Genevan Reformer.
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And it was the issue of the execution of Michael Servetus.
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So I felt like if I was going to talk about the life of John Calvin, I might best talk about the most controversial moment of his life.
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Servetus was a Spanish theologian.
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He was a physician and a Renaissance scholar.
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He is best known for having discovered the pulmonary circulation of the body.
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He was a doctor and he was a very smart man.
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But Servetus believed that the one doctrine that really was to be opposed in Christianity was the doctrine of the Trinity.
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He believed that if Christians could simply abandon the doctrine of the Trinity, then we could unite again with the Jews.
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We could unite again with the Muslims.
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We could abandon this divisive theology of Trinitarianism and we could reunite with the monotheists of the world and worship one God and one person.
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Not as the Trinitarians believed, one God and three persons.
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So Michael Servetus set out as his mission to see the world won for Unitarianism.
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But the issue was that that wasn't the doctrine that was in question.
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In the 15th and 16th century, nobody questioned the doctrine of the Trinity in the church.
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That wasn't the issue.
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The issue was justification by faith, not whether or not God was one God and three persons.
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That had long been understood and long been accepted as Christian orthodoxy.
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And Michael Servetus was going not only against the Church of Rome, but he was going against the Reformers as well.
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He found himself as a man without a home, a man without a home anywhere.
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And he was under the threat of assault from all around.
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And he made his way to Geneva, thinking maybe he could find in Calvin someone who would hear his pleas.
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But Calvin, knowing of Servetus' teachings, warned, do not come, you will not find refuge here.
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But Servetus came anyway.
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He found himself into a worship service and was recognized in the worship service and was thusly arrested after the service concluded.
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He was taken before the Geneva Council, a council of 25, and he was condemned as a heretic, as he was, teaching against the Trinity, and he was condemned to death.
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And Calvin approved of his execution.
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Now, in our modern times, it seems outside the bounds of any civility at all that we would ever think to approve of the execution of someone simply over a theological disagreement.
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But we are a product of our time, not a product of Calvin's time.
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And not only was this seen as customary, this was seen as necessary in the 16th century.
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Because those who were teaching falsely regarding God were considered to be dangerous to the souls of men.
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More dangerous than murderers or rapists, more dangerous than bandits or fiends, because they were taking not only the physical and material, but the spiritual life of men and condemning them to hell.
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And so such men were seen as the most dangerous of all.
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But one thing to consider would be Calvin's attitude towards Servetus.
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Because while approving of his execution, he asked that the severity of his execution be mitigated.
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Heretics were to die in one way and one way only, and that was by fire.
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It's a terribly painful way to die.
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But Calvin wrote to William Farrell, I hope that sentence of death will at least be passed on him, but I desire that the severity of the punishment be mitigated.
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Meaning, I wish they would kill him quickly, and not by the fire.
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That desire went unheeded.
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The Servetus controversy is hung on the head of Calvin, but in reality Calvin was not a part of the council.
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Calvin was the city pastor.
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And while he did approve of the death of Servetus, he did not strike the match that lit the man.
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So to identify Calvin as a murderer is to be unfair both to history, and to the reality of the situation.
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Calvin was neither judge, jury, nor executioner.
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In the end one might argue and say, well even so, Calvin certainly approved of the death of Servetus, and that leaves a blight on his reputation that cannot be overlooked.
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Yet I would remind us that none of us really understand what it was like to live in the 16th century, and in the context of a historical movement that was young, and still dealing with the history that it was living in.
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And while we may disagree with such decisions now, and may find ourselves to be much more astute and moral now, we mustn't allow us to cause such things to make us abandon the wealth and value of the knowledge that comes out of Geneva from this time.
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Calvin was not to be worshipped.
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And if anyone ever calls me a Calvinist in thinking I worship John Calvin, you're not only wrong, you're a fool.
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Because Calvin erred.
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Calvin erred on several things.
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Calvinists don't worship Calvin any more than Lutherans worship Luther.
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The name is simply shorthand for a theology that was used by God to help change the world.
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And I don't care what anybody says, no one can say that Calvin didn't help change the world.
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You realize that it could be argued with great intensity, that if it weren't for Calvin, there wouldn't be an America.
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The early Puritans were Calvinistic.
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Oliver Cromwell, who was responsible for what would eventually become the Constitution of the United States, thoroughly influenced by John Calvin.
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Things like Protestant work ethic, and the understanding that you can do anything, even mop a floor to the glory of God, was something that Calvin helped people understand.
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You don't have to just preach the gospel, but you can police, you can do software, you can work at a factory, you can do anything to the glory of God.
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These were things that were not understood readily, but Calvin made known to the world.
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And at the heart of Calvin's theology, beloved, was the very simple foundation stone.
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It was one very simple foundation stone.
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God is sovereign in everything, and everything builds on that.
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His love is a sovereign love.
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His grace is a sovereign grace.
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His mercy is a sovereign mercy.
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His wrath is a sovereign wrath.
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That God is God, because guess what sovereign means? It means Godhood.
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It's His Godhood.
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If God, as R.C.
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Sproul has said, if God be not sovereign, He be not God.
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This is why we started this morning with Psalm chapter 90, in verse 2.
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From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
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Before there was ever a mountain formed, before anything was laid upon this earth, God didn't need to create us to be God.
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He was already God.
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And God doesn't need us to sustain His Godhood.
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He remains God, and He will be God forever.
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In the heart of Calvin, which continues today, was the heart that understood that God is sovereign.
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Whether we read His institutes, or His commentaries, or His copious other writings, the string that holds them all together is the consistent reliance upon the truth that there is nothing in this world that is outside of God's control.
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And I want to say this as I begin to draw to a close.
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That simple theological principle, that God is God, is being abandoned left and right.
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I hear preachers today, I listen to preachers today, who speak of Jesus as if He were a weak and impotent beggar, a poor, indigent man, grasping for the morsels of men's attention, rather than the Lord of glory who commands all men to repent and believe.
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I've heard modern preachers say, God can do nothing without your permission.
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I once had a visitor to our office, Pat was with me, and he said, God has given all authority to us, and He's placed all the authority in our hands.
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He's not in control, we're in control.
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One very haughty preacher on television once said that when he prays, God sits up and takes notice, because He listens when I put a demand on His will.
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Let me tell you, beloved, that is an ungodly theology.
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It's a theology that deposes God from His throne, and makes God not only like us, and equal to us, but below us.
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It's a theology of men, and not of God.
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But Calvin saw God for who He is.
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He saw Jesus for who He was, and who He is.
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The King of kings, and the Lord of lords.
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He is the Lord from everlasting to everlasting, and He Himself is answerable to no one.
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Calvin saw a Jesus whose death not only made salvation possible, but actually saved.
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And he saw a God who didn't look down the corridor of time and respond to what men would do, but rather a God who had decreed from the beginning what would happen in the end, and all the means that would take place in the middle.
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In short, Calvin saw the God of the Bible.
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He saw the Jesus of Scripture, and by grace Calvin sought to make Him known.
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And beloved, that's the great legacy of John Calvin.
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The great legacy of John Calvin is not the institutes of the Christian religion.
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The great legacy of John Calvin is not his commentaries, which are wider than my arms, on almost every book of Scripture.
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His legacy is not his writings, beloved, his legacy is the missionary movements that were spawned by his tremendous influence.
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You have to understand that the great missionary movements of the last two and three hundred years were started by men who would have called themselves Calvinists, because they believed that God's elect were in every tribe, every tongue, and every nation, and it was their mission to go and preach the gospel wherever there be a man to hear it.
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One of those men was named John Elliot.
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John Elliot was a missionary sent to the American Indians in the 1600s.
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He is believed to be the first missionary to the Native Americans.
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And as many have said, if William Carey is the father of modern missions, John Elliot is the grandfather.
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But Elliot was committed to the reformed doctrines which would otherwise be called Calvinism.
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As was William Carey, the father of modern missions.
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As was Jonathan Edwards, the greatest theologian ever born in America.
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As was Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers.
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As was George Whitefield, the man who preached so prolifically both on our shores and the shores of Europe that he was seen physically, in person, more times than even George Washington, the father of our country.
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These men believed that the sovereign God of the universe had called them to preach His gospel.
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And so they went.
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And so they preached.
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The desire of Calvin and all those who follow in his footsteps is to know God truly and to make Him known.
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We cannot convert the soul, but we can proclaim to all men that there is one God who can convert the soul.
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And we can proclaim to them His gospel, to His glory.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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And I thank You for men like Calvin whose history we study, but knowing, Lord, that his history is simply the history of Your faithfulness in the church.
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You, Lord, have risen men up over the centuries to sustain and maintain and promote Your gospel.
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I thank You, Lord, for Calvin.
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I thank You what he means to me as a theologian and pastor, what he means to the church historically.
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But I thank You even more so for Christ, the one whom Calvin loved.
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Lord, may we love Christ.
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May we love Him with an ever-growing intensity.
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And Lord, if there are those here who know not Christ and know not the love of Christ, may they understand that there is no other name, not John Calvin, not Martin Luther, not Ulrich Zwingli, and not Charles Spurgeon, but there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And it's in His name we pray.
40:36
Amen.