Calvin for These Days

Presbyterians and others in the Reformed tradition have long looked to John Calvin

(1509-1564) for theological direction and spiritual sustenance. The Genevan reformer has

provided insights to guide our understandings of God’s revelation in Scripture. He also gives

help for our theological understandings of God’s work in creation, in history, and in the church.

Sometimes Calvin is considered antiquated or relegated to the “distant past.” But those who

study his work find Calvin is startling relevant! His perspectives provide important directions for

our Reformed theology and nourish our Christian faith in a complex world.

The topics in this issue include the authority of Scripture, the sovereignty of God, the

priesthood of all believers and healing and ministering with the disenfranchised. These were all

important to Calvin who still speaks and has important words for these days.

For Calvin, God has given humanity the gift of Holy Scripture as the “Word of God.”

Through the Bible, God communicates who God is and what God has done. The Scriptures come

from God through human writers. They have authority when we believe that in them “the living

words of God” are “heard” (Institutes 1.7.1, 5). Scripture provides a matchless knowledge

because “God in person speaks in it” (1.7.4). Scripture is our key authority because it is “God’s

Sacred Word.” Among all the voices clamoring to be heard today, we in the church believe

Scripture is the unique and authoritative source for our knowledge of God.

We turn to Scripture to hear God’s Word and learn who God is. For Calvin, the God

revealed in the Bible is the God who is the “creator of heaven and earth” (Nicene Creed) and

who is also the “everlasting Governor and Preserver” of what has been created. God is the Lord,

the one God to whom all worship and obedience is due. This God is intimately involved in the
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creation and in the lives of all people, since God is our creator as well. As Calvin put it, God

“sustains, nourishes, and cares for, everything he has made, even to the least sparrow [cf. Matt.

10:29]” (Institues1.16.1).

Theologians refer to Calvin’s view of the “sovereignty of God.” This means God is

supreme, the one Lord of all creation and history whose will is done on earth. But for Calvin,

God’s “power” can never be separated from God’s “character”—which is God’s nature as loving

and good. God is the “fountain of every good” (1.2.1). In Jesus Christ we find the “benevolence”

of God and God’s parental love (2.16.2). So God’s “sovereignty” is always as a God who is

“sovereign goodness” and who acts in “sovereign love.” This is a God in whom we can trust!

God’s purposes will be carried out in history and in human life. The God we worship as Lord is

the God of sovereign love who has shown that love in Jesus Christ.

Most wonderfully, the God revealed in Scripture as the sovereign Lord who loves us in

Jesus Christ is fully approachable by us. Amazing! During the Protestant Reformation, Luther

stressed the “priesthood of all believers,” meaning Christians can pray directly to God without

needing any human intermediary or “priest.” Calvin continued this view by emphasizing God is

“the master and bestower of all good things, who invites us to request them of him” (3.20.1). We

can and must pray to God directly, for ourselves. We pray through Christ who is our “advocate”

and “mediator” and through whom we may “confidently come” to God (3.20.17).

Prayer, for Calvin, is “conversation with God” and in prayer we, like children, can

“unburden [our] troubles to their parents” (3.20.12). We can pray directly to our benevolent,

loving parent with the confidence that God hears and answers our prayers. This is a great benefit

of our freedom in Jesus Christ, available for the whole family of God. “The priesthood of all

believers” assures us of our direct access to our sovereign, loving Lord, through Jesus Christ.
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Yet the Christian’s relationship with God, through Christ, is not a purely “inward” matter.

Far from it! Calvin claims we are to look to others and care for them. We are not to judge others

on their “merits.” Rather, we are to “look upon the image of God in all [people], to which we

owe all honor and love.” Whatever person we meet who needs our aid, Calvin continues, “you

have no reason to refuse to help him.” Even if that person is a “stranger,” or we say the person is

“contemptible and worthless”—we cannot refuse to help since as we look at another, we must

recognize “the many and great benefits with which God has bound you to himself.” Even if that

person has been unjust to us, “not even this is just reason why you should cease to embrace him

in love and to perform the duties of love on his behalf” (3.7.6). May we all love like that!

The richness of Calvin’s teachings about Scripture, God, our direct relationship to God,

and our love for others beckon us. They nurture us in our beliefs and actions. As we listen for

God’s word we can find direction and nourishment in Calvin’s words for today.

Donald K. McKim