Great Christian Biographies with John Piper: John Calvin, Part 3

Calvin’s Detour to Geneva and God’s Providence

1536 France gives a temporary amnesty to all these guys who ran away. Calvin goes back for a few months to settle his accounts get his brother Anton and Marie and he leaves forever never to return. But something awesome happens.

You all know this story, but oh, is it important historically is so important. He says I'm off to Strasbourg. I know what I'm wired to do I'm gonna go there and be safe secure comfortable and easy and write books to defend the gospel till I die someday in ease in Strasbourg.

Well, there happens to be a war going on between Charles five and Francis one and the troops are moving on the road between Paris and Strasbourg and so he takes a dearth a detour through Geneva.

Detour ha.

He says.

It's exactly the same as and. And behold Caesar Augustus.

Declared.

Attacks. Why. Well just to get a virgin for Nazareth to Bethlehem. That's why. That that's why these that's why these Troops were in the way to get Calvin to Geneva. Don't doubt that one minute. Of course at 10 ,000 other things God was doing.

Just like you know why you came to this conference or why we why we held this conference. So that a maid over the holiday in would be saved. That's why. So that a van driver would hear the gospel. That's why and 10 ,000 other reasons nobody ever thought of we're here that God's doing.

Okay.

He goes to Geneva. One night William Farrell firebrand of the Reformation in Geneva Finds out that he's there and he comes to him and this is what happened. Let's let Calvin give us the words this time Farrell who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the gospel Immediately learned that my heart was set on devoting myself to private studies for which I wished To keep myself free from all other pursuits.

And finding that he he gained nothing by entreaties he proceeded to utter an Imprecation that God would curse my retirement and the tranquility of my studies. Which I sought if I should withdraw and refuse to give assistance in Geneva when the necessity was so urgent.

By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror that I Desisted from my journey, which I had taken so I told you he believed in submission. This happened again later on so the course of his life is forever turned by this providence of going through Geneva and.

Calvin’s Ministry in Geneva and Strasbourg

48.

Volumes later of books and tracts and sermons and commentaries and Letters. We thank God for this providence. He took up his responsibilities as professor of sacred scriptures first in Geneva in 1536.

And then in four months, he became the pastor one of the pastors of st. Peter's or st. Pierre's. However you want to say it in Geneva it was one of three parishes. There were 10 ,000 people in the city.

So you can see how roughly it was divided up 3 ,000 people or so. He'd be responsible for with the other pastors there and then lo and behold because he and Farrell are such hotheads and firebrands and believe in the gospel in the church and The City Council isn't that far along he and Farrell get banished out of the city April 1538 and He is relieved done with that city because it was nothing but trouble any way.

Wanted to die a thousand deaths. He said remember I told you last night at the banquet how he wanted to die every day. And so he's glad now he's off to Strasbourg and lo and behold. Martin Booster. Who's ministering to the poor French refugees in?

Where is he?

Strasbourg. Yeah, you Calvin went to Basel night strut booster comes to get him and Here's what Calvin wrote that most excellent servant of Christ Martin Booster employing a similar kind of remonstrance to Farrell and Protestation as that which Farrell had recourse to before drew me back.

Drew me to the new station alarmed by the example of Jonah. Which he sat before me. I still continued in the work of teaching a meaning. I went with him and became professor of New Testament there and became the pastor of 500 French refugees for the next.

Three years of his life now probably the most important thing. About those three years in Strasbourg before he goes back to Geneva is is maybe the Romans commentary. Maybe the second edition of the Institutes, but it's probably Idelette his wife.

She was an Anabaptist believe it or not. He had no truck for the Anabaptist at all and she married one and her husband Jean died and He married her in August 6 to 15 1540 and she had two children and the daughter came along with them back to Geneva and eventually broke Calvin's heart because she got involved in an affair and They were married then for nine years.

More about that in just a minute. May 1st 1541 the City Council changes his mind. We've really blown it because we sent away John Calvin William Farrell. Let's get him back. And so he agonizes through this decision again, and he goes back and Stays there for the rest of his life, which is not very long 23 more years and he dies when he's 54 years old.

You keep your bow strong like he did and you won't live beyond 54 probably. Tuesday September 13 1541 he entered Geneva for the second time to serve that church until he died. His first son is born July 28 42 he dies in two weeks and two other children die in childbirth and then She never recovers.

And nine years later. I'd let Calvin dies and he never remarries. So there's this season of great heartache in his life. All of his children die. His wife dies. He never remarries. He writes Too very.

You know, well how tender or rather soft my mind is had not a powerful self-control been given to me. That's an understatement. Had not a powerful self-control been given to me. I could not have borne up so long truly.

Mine is no common source of grief. I have been bereaved of the best companion of my life. Of one who had it been so ordained would have willingly shared not only my poverty, but even my death. During her life.

She was the faithful helper of my ministry. From her I never experienced the slightest hindrance. She was never troublesome to me throughout the whole course of her illness. But was more anxious about her children than herself as I feared these private worries might upset her to no purpose.

I took occasion three days before she died to mention that I would not fail in discharging my duty towards her children. He never remarried and oh it is good that he did not. Because the life he then led would have been a disappointment to any woman.

Listen to this summary of it. From Culloden who was a contemporary Calvin for did not Spare himself. At all he wrote. Working far beyond what his power and regard for his health could stand. He preached commonly every day for one week in two and twice every Sunday or a total of ten times every fortnight.

Every week he lectured three times in theology. He was at the consistory on the appointed day and made all the remonstrances. Every Friday at the Bible study. What he added after the leader had made his declaration was almost a lecture.

He never failed in visiting the sick in private warning and counsel and the rest of the numberless matters. Arising out of the ordinary exercise of his ministry, but besides these ordinary tasks. He had great care for believers in France.

Both in teaching them and exhorting and counseling them and consoling them by letters When they were being persecuted and also in interceding for them yet all that did not prevent him from going on working at his special study and Composing many splendid and useful books.

Wolfgang Musculus called him a bow always.

Strung.

To his great destruction Culloden said For many years with a single meal a day. He never took anything between two meals. His reason was That the weakness of his stomach and his migraine headaches could only be controlled.

He found out by experiment through continual abstinence. But on the other hand, he was apparently very careless of his health working night and day scarcely without a break scarcely without Sleep and to show how driven the man was.

He wrote to Philae in 1546 apart from the sermons and the lectures.

Now.

We read it all apart from the sermons and the lectures. There is a month gone by in which I have scarce done anything in such wise. I am almost ashamed to live this useless life. Now. He's talking 20 sermons and 12 lectures in In that month.

To get a clear picture of his ironed constancy through it all on behalf of the Majesty of God We need to hear about his sicknesses just a little bit just briefly here. He wrote to his physicians when he was 53 years old.

I'm 51 so I can resonate what that age would be.

Like.

And Described his colic his spitting of blood his ague his gout in the feet. He's excruciating suffering from hemorrhoids and worst of all he says the kidney stones quote. They gave me such exquisite pain at length not without the most painful strainings.

I ejected a calculus Which in some degree mitigated my sufferings. But such was the size of it that it lacerated the urinary canal and a copious Discharge of blood followed. The hemorrhage could only be arrested by an injection of milk through the syringe.

You know, I have a separate paper here that I I Wrote on along the way called the barbarity of the age of John Calvin because I thought I was gonna talk about Michael Servetus and you're all waiting for me to get there and I'm not gonna say a word about it until you ask me about it and the question answer time.

But the barbarity of this age. You got a feel from quotes like that. We can come back to that later. Not only the physical sufferings, but the the threats to his life were just unbelievable. Just imagine Francis the first and King Charles and there in Winona, Minnesota.

They 50 miles away or so and within a half an hour They can be here and this is what he wrote to Melanchthon whence you may conclude. He said that we have not only exiled to fear. But all the most cruel varieties of death are impending over us for in the cause of religion They will set no bounds to their barbarity.

That's why Saul wanted his armor bearer to kill him. Calvin knew what would come if the army did what it could do and he ministered under that kind of pressure. Not only that he was surrounded by enemies.

They shot muskets over his house at night. The mobs would shout out you come out of there. We're throwing you in the river tomorrow morning on your way to the Lord's house. The Libertines were his biggest ache.

Probably they were the contemporary Corinthians who boasted in their Immorality in every city in Europe. In those days men had mistresses. It was regulated in Geneva. You can only have one Mistress and that's the town that he came to and years after he had been preaching there.

These Libertines had now gotten into the church and discovered some neat Pauline ways to justify the communion of Saints which meant wife-sharing.

For the.

Libertines in his church and So they caused endless grief for him and not just in the way you might think but in very severe life-threatening. Ways, let me tell you one little story here to show you the commitment to the majesty of Christ and the crisis that he faced week after week in this city.

The City Council in Calvin's view had no jurisdiction over excommunication. Calvin was the great deliverer of the church from state control believe it or not. The consistory of elders and pastors Excommunicated.

Well, the crisis came when this bear told yay fellow was a Libertine was Excommunicated for his sexual immorality by the consistory of the Church of Saint Peter's and he appeals his case to the City Council and they overturn it and say he can go to communion.

Calvin.

Says.

He writes a letter to Verae. I Took an oath that I had resolved rather to meet death. Then profane so shamefully the Holy Supper of the Lord. My ministry is abandoned if I suffer the authority of the consistory to be trampled upon and Extend the Supper of Christ to open scoffers.

I should rather die a hundred times. Then subject Christ to such foul mockery, so here comes the Sunday morning and Beto yay, not only has himself but many libertines with him in the congregation and Calvin knows they're there and he knows the City Council is watching and the whole Genevan Reformation.

Probably is at stake in 1553 so here's the report taken from Bisa who wrote the first biography. Quoted in I forget what book I got it from. This the sermon had been preached. The prayers had been offered and Calvin descended from the pulpit to take his place beside the elements at the communion table.

The bread and wine were duly consecrated by him and he was not ready to Distribute he was now ready to distribute them to the communicants. Then on a sudden a Rush was begun by the troublers in Israel in the direction of the communion table.

Calvin flung his arms around the sacramental vessels as if to protect them from sacrilege. While he while his voice rang out through the building these hands you may crush. These arms you may lop off my life.

You may take my blood is yours you may shed it but you shall never force me to give holy things to the profaned and dishonor the table of my God and.

After this says Bisa.

The sacred ordinance was celebrated with a profound silence and under solemn awe all present felt as if the deity himself had been visible Among them. Now the point of that in all of this talk about his sufferings physically his threats Politically is simply to illustrate his unwavering allegiance to the majesty of Christ in the word in the table against all odds.

And I believe That the experience that he had with God's majesty in the scriptures yielded this Constancy. There had been a supernatural Inward testimony to the majesty of God in Scripture. He could not escape it and this word was therefore God's Word and now he would live for this God in this word all his life no matter what.

The Majesty of God in Scripture and Calvin’s Constancy

Now.

To see how much time I should take here and decide what to do here I'll try to wrap it up in a few more minutes. His view of Scripture which defined the remainder of his ministry Was very high. He said we owe to the Scripture the same reverence Which we owe to God Because it proceeded from him alone and has nothing of man mixed with it.

His own experience had taught him. Quote. The highest proof of the Scripture Derives in general from the fact that God in person speaks in it. Those were the incontrovertible Truths for John Calvin. The scriptures were the voice of God.

God vindicates God by bringing us to life by his majestic witness. We see him in his scriptures and he and they then become authoritative immediately for our lives and What kind of life is born. For Calvin it was a life of invincible constancy in the exposition of.

Scripture tracks.

Institutes commentaries Commentaries on every New Testament book except Revelation numerous Old Testament books. But all of it all of it including these two books here is Exposition of Scripture. Dillenberger says Calvin assumed that his whole Theological labor was the exposition of Scripture he wrote at the end of his life.

I have Endeavored both in my sermons and also in my writings and commentaries. To preach the word purely and chastely and faithfully to interpret his.

Sacred.

Scriptures.

Everything was exposition of Scripture. That was the kind of ministry that was unleashed by his experienced and preaching then became the main Vehicle and meal. I'm not sure how to pronounce his French name.

Do marriage you or Do murder or whatever Americans say if he read it? He's the main biographer. Six volumes on the 400 anniversary of John Calvin standing in his own pulpit in Geneva wrote That is the Calvin who seems to me to be the real and authentic Calvin the one who explains all others.

Calvin the preacher of Geneva molding by his words the spirit of the reformed of the 16th.

Century.

Calvin’s Sequential Expository Preaching

Calvin's preaching Was of one kind and it never ever Changed. It was sequential. Expository preaching through book after book after book. On Sunday Morning, he always took New Testament afternoon New Testament.

Sometimes a psalm. On Sunday during the week three times always Old Testament. There are only fewer than half a dozen instances. Where he broke pattern for any church year event. So Don Whitney if you wonder what to do on Christmas preach on Deuteronomy 29 23 or Whatever happens to be next.

That's what Calvin Did every Easter every Christmas he plowed right on through with fewer than half a dozen Exceptions. Now to give you an idea picture this. It's August 25th 1549 and he begins a series of messages on the book of Acts.

We know this because that was the first time when he had a stenographer who was taking down his sermons. He preached totally without notes and without anything straight from the Greek and straight from the Hebrew right there in front of him.

He begins acts on August 25th 1549. He ends acts on Sunday morning in March 1554. So some 49 to 54 he's preaching on acts Straight through and then after that he picks up Thessalonians 46 sermons Corinthians 186 sermons Pastoral's 86 sermons Galatians 43 sermons Ephesians 48 sermons until May of 1558 when he has to quit for half a year because he's sick.

As you can well imagine he might be with the relentless schedule that he's kept. He begins then in 1559 the harmony of the Gospels and he dies while he's doing it in 1564 now during that time. During the week he's preaching 159 sermons on Job 200 on Deuteronomy 353 on Isaiah 123 on Genesis and so on.

The numbers are Phenomenal. The point is this is no accident. He chose to do this. Here's the story that I love that shows how completely self-conscious he is in this on.

Easter day.

1538 he's banished out of Geneva. That first time remember he's been preaching for about a year. He's banished for three years. To minister in Strasbourg they call him back. He comes back in September 1541 and walks into the pulpit and picks up at the next verse.

And he he comments on the fact that he wanted them to know that it was just an interlude in his exposition of the Word of God.

Why Calvin Preached Through Books of the Bible

Why?

I'm closing now with these last three answers. Very short answers to the question Why that kind of preaching? Luther didn't do that. Luther preached the gospel and the epistle. Spurgeon didn't do that.

Shame on Spurgeon, maybe or maybe not. Why did he do it this way? Three possible reasons. Number one. Calvin believed the lamp of the Word had gone out in Europe. The Word had been taken away. Here's what he said.

He's confessing his own sin to the Lord. He says thy word which ought to have shown on all thy people like a lamp was Taken away or at least suppressed as to us and now Oh Lord What remains to a wretch like me?

But earnestly to supplicate thee not to judge according to my deserts that fearful abandonment of thy word From which in thy wondrous goodness thou hast Delivered me so you feel in his conversion the the harbor he felt he saw by the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit the majesty of God revealed in the word and he looked across the church and he said what a fearful abandonment of the holy precious Word and His whole life then became.

I am going to lay this word out every day for the rest of my life. It is so precious. That's reason number one. Number two. THL Parker says Calvin had a horror of Those who preach their own ideas in the pulpit.

Oh, we need that horror today.

He says.

When Kevin says when we enter the pulpit it is not so that we may bring our own dreams and fancies with us. So evidently he believed that the best safeguard against bringing my fancies Into the pulpit is to systematically work my way through God's ordered inspired majesty revealing word.

Finally the third reason. It brings us full circle back to the majesty of God in the word. He really believed that when the word was faithfully Exposited God in his majesty stood forth in the congregation.

Listen to this great exhortation to you from Calvin. Let the pastors boldly dare all things by the Word of God. Let them constrain all the power glory excellence of the word. To give place to and to obey the divine Majesty of this word.

Let them enjoin everyone by it from the highest to the lowest. Let them edify the body of Christ. Let them devastate Satan's reign. Let them pasture the sheep kill the wolves and struck exhort the rebellious.

Let them bind and loose thunder and lightning if necessary, but let them do all According to the Word of God. In other words the key phrase. There is the divine Majesty of his word. Calvin believed that if his goal in life was to illustrate the glory of God and if the glory of God is uniquely and Self-authenticating Lee revealed in the Word of God.

Then the full display of the word would be the fullest display of the glory. I think that's the way he reasoned and my own personal conviction when I asked myself the question Can it be done any other way besides preaching?

How about just teaching with an overhead? How about small group discussions? How about lectures. How about books. How about computer? CDs sent to China what's to become of preaching and this is my conviction.

I don't know what Calvin would say, but I'm a preacher and I have to Believe in what I'm doing. And so I want to know why I am so drawn to do it. And I believe the answer is nothing will ever replace preaching and the reason.

I believe that preaching Uniquely not teaching per se not reading the Bible per se but preaching to the congregation. Over a text will always be there is because God means for himself in the fullness of his glory to be Extolled and glorified and honored and cherished.

And something about that event of worship beckons for more than analysis it beckons for more than explanation it beckons for expository Exaltation. That's what I like to call it preaching is the worshipful Moment over the word it is expository Exaltation and wherever God-centeredness is alive.

Wherever the supremacy of God reigns in the hearts of a people. Something inside will say Oh Pastor do more for us than explain it to us.

Love it over us Cherish it over us taste it over us revel in it over us.

Exalt in it over us because we need to see it come alive and burn in you and that is what it's called.

Preaching.

Closing Exhortation and Prayer

Father I thank you so much for the help that John Calvin has been to me and for many. You make no claim of his perfection and I surely make no claims of Infallibility in this message and ask that you would balance it now with all that.

You need to be for these brothers here in their preaching. Balance it out with all that. I haven't said that needs to be said and Make us faithful to this glorious word and to your majesty in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or Alter the content in any way without permission.

We invite you to visit desiring God online at www .desiringgod .org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons articles radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of pastor John's books audio and video resources.

You can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring God again. Our website is www .desiringgod .org. Or call us toll-free at 1 -888 -346 -4700. Our mailing address is desiring God 2601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406.

Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us When we are most satisfied in him.