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2002
3rd March (am) - Walking With Giants - John Calvin
We're just going to learn John Calvin this morning: (With exaggeration, produce volumes of the Institutes and commentary on Genesis). These are just a very small sample of John Calvin's writings - he was a pretty 'beefy' theologian - so this sounds like a fascinating sermon! By the time I've taken you through his Institutes of the Christian Religion you should be sound asleep, more than usual, if that is possible!
Don't worry - all we're going to do is to get a little flavour of this next church history 'Giant' of the faith, and by doing so, hopefully we'll be helped to think more about a couple of very worthwhile and up-to-date lessons for faith.
John Calvin follows on pretty directly from where we left off with last week's 'giant', Martin Luther - remember how he rediscovered the clear Bible truth that Christian faith is essentially about trusting in what God has done through Jesus Christ and his death, rather than trusting in what we can do to please God by our own religious efforts..
We learnt about Martin Luther publicly protesting against the confused and superstitious state into which the church of his day had fallen. Luther's protests sparked off a period of great upheaval and controversy and change - called the Reformation - and although he didn't really want it to happen, the Christian church became deeply divided., and he and those who followed him came to be known as Protest-ants.
However, this was only the beginning - although Luther had challenged many of the old religious confusions, so many things still needed thinking about and sorting out - doctrinal matters, patterns of worship and church life, as well as the implications for everyday life. How are we worship and be the church and live our everyday lives as people who trust in Jesus Christ, by faith?
This is really where today's 'giant', John Calvin comes in, for he made a massive contribution to this thinking through and sorting out - and his influence was immense. He was a generation younger than Luther -a Frenchman, who became very much persuaded by the reformation ideas Remember that it was in 1517 that Luther pinned his famous 95 Theses to the door of the Church in Wittenberg.
It was from 1536 that John Calvin became a teacher of Scripture, Pastor and Leader of the Church in the Swiss city of Geneva. He dominated faith and church and city life until his death in 1564 .... and his influence spread very widely indeed - to France, to Holland, and to Scotland, where what came to be called Presbyterianism took root strongly ..... and in due course it came from Scotland to Ulster. So with John Calvin we are dealing directly with the giant to whom Christians in Presbyterian churches can trace their roots.
There is so much that could be said about Calvin, but I just want you to think about 2 basic points. They help us to learn about him, and maybe more importantly, they help us to learn some vital lessons for faith. The 2 points are these:
Calvin wanted to help people think about their faith absolutely clearly.
Calvin insisted that it was essential to apply faith absolutely consistently.
Thinking about faith absolutely clearly.
Calvin wanted to see Christian people who understood their faith properly, and Ministers who could teach the faith clearly.This was very important in Calvin's day - the Reformation had changed so much - many of the old religious ideas and practices of the church had been shown to be confusing and misleading; the total domination of the church by the priests, monks and nuns had been rightly questioned, and in general, so many things had changed. But sometimes it is actually easier to tear things down than to build them up - like me with DIY, I'm great at wrecking, not so good at constructing. And so, in terms of Reformation Faith, people needed to be helped to understand their faith and, positively, to think through what it meant for church life and everyday life. And this became John Calvin's life's work. He devoted himself to setting out the essentials of the faith in his many writings, and he emphasised the vital importance of teaching and preaching so that the ordinary people could understand their faith.
Like Luther, Calvin saw that the only true foundation for faith and church and life was the Bible - there could be no other way, this had to be the foundation authority - he would gladly have quoted 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. And so he set out to make sure that the ministers and preachers were well taught and equipped to teach the Bible to the people.
- Calvin produced major books like these Institutes, and his Bible commentaries, in order to set out the faith in a clear and coherent way.
- The ministers were very carefully selected and trained to as high a standard as possible, and they were expected to meet together weekly for Bible study - and they could be disciplined or even removed if it was felt that they were wandering from the sound truth of the Gospel..
- the people were expected to be at public worship very regularly - the Sermon was to be the very heart of the service, and would probably have been anything but short or simple.
This was serious instruction in the faith.
The system of Elders which was introduced gave the Elders the responsibility and duty to visit the homes and make sure that the people were at worship. - a catechism was produced from which the children were taught the essentials of the faith in a systematic way - I suppose this was the forerunner of what many of us remember as the Shorter Catechism.
Although this pattern has changed a bit since the time of Calvin, we can recognise many of the essentials of Presbyterianism - and we can see that Calvin's way was based upon some very important Biblical principles.
- We all need to see the need to learn - that will make us want to listen and think carefully about the sermon, rather than just hoping it will not be too long. So often we want to get away with the minimum.
We're maybe not so good at listening nowadays, because we are so used to the stimulation of visual presentation both through TV and video at home, and computer presentations at work and school. Maybe the Church needs to learn how to harness these modern communication methods so that w can learn more effectively. After all, Jesus used visual communication very effectively when he told parables - the OT prophets did so also - I'm sure we should also - we need to think about things like visual presentations through screens in church etc, as some congregations are doing - not as gimmicks but as aids to more effective learning - if Calvin and Luther teach us anything, it is surely that the church must sometimes change so that the worship and life of the kingdom is accomplished properly and as effectively as possible. when we just want to hold unto things the way we think they have always been, we can sometimes be in danger of holding unto the packaging but letting the contents slip through our fingers.
- so too, we need to recognise that smaller groups are also very effective contexts for learning - in combination with the big public gatherings of the church where the minister teaches and preaches. This is the purpose of our Home Groups where the leaning is more informal, but at the same time is structured and has a clear programme of study.
Sadly not nearly enough people even think about the value of these opportunities, never mind avail of them. We have to sometimes question whether we really do want to learn the essentials of faith so that we will understand them and believe them properly.
One of the really important Biblical teachings which Calvin emphasised repeatedly, came through from our Bible Readings today:- Ps. 97 The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad.
- Romans 8 In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
God is in control of all the situations and circumstances of our lives - we can feel safe in spite of all the difficulties and fears of life - what an encouragement. Indeed Calvin went further - He was convinced from Scriptures like Rom. 8 that before we ever put our trust in God, he has identified our lives personally and put his hand upon our lives - that it is God who calls us and brings us to faith - that he leads us along the journey of life, and that as Romans 8 tells us in its famous words: nothing in life or in death .... will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. - because he has called us and is for us: If God is for us, who can be against us?
This is a doctrine of the greatest possible reassurance - especially when we recognise that our faith and trust is weak, and that our lives are subject to all sorts of unexpected and often difficult circumstances - to know that our lives and our futures are safe with God through Christ, because he knows us, loves us and has taken hold of our lives. This was the motivating basis for Calvin's own life of courageous Christian service and leadership, and it can be ours too.
Sometime people have had great debates about this doctrine of Predestination, as it is called - they have argued about whether God only calls some people, and about where does our free will and choice come into all of this etc. Some of these arguments are futile - we will never know the answers - but we can know that our faith in Christ does not depend on our very weak faith-grip on him, but rather on the assurance that our poor faith in Christ has come because God has loved us and called us and brought us to faith and continues to help us to trust, and will never let us go. What a reassurance.
So as you feel yourself thinking about faith in Christ - you have felt the call of God upon your life, know you should put your faith in him, but you don't know whether you could keep it up and make the commitment of your life - be encouraged, when God calls you, he takes hold of you and will not let you fall.
If, as a Christian person, you feel that life is hard and tough, and at times more than you can cope with, be reassured that the Lord reigns, and by the marvellous reassurance of Romans 8: Neither death nor life ...neither the present nor the future ... neither height not depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
So Calvin emphases the importance - the practical importance of people understanding their faith clearly.
Secondly, he also emphasised that it was essential for people to apply faith consistently.
Faith in Christ and reassurance about the sovereign rule of God was not just something for inward faith or for people when they were in church. He saw faith as something which ought to rule and govern every single part of everyday life - he could not accept that there was a part of life that you could say was 'the religious part' and another part - the rest of your life - which had little to do with religion - For John Calvin, every part of life came under God's rule. For Calvin, when he read in Psalm 97, The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad, it meant that the Lord reigns over every part of life and that everything on earth was of Christian significance.
Because nothing in life or in death could separate us from God's love for us in Christ who died, as it says in Rom. 8, everything in life, and right up to death, was of Christian importance, and there would be Christian instruction and guidance to be found in the Bible about it.
Reading on from our chapter in Rom. 8, Calvin would have quickly pointed people to chapters like Rom.12 where it says that Christians are to offer their whole lives as sacrifices of worship and service, and as Rom 12-14 spells out, that has implications for all sorts of aspects of everyday life.
As a result, Calvin and the Church in Geneva came to have a very important influence over every part of life. The Consistory which was made up of the Elders of the city were probably as powerful and important as the city Council, and indeed sometimes there were controversies over who had the final say. The Elders pronounced upon all sorts of matters, both in terms of moral behaviour, and on issues like the bank rates, the law courts etc. some of the books even say that Calvin himself, claimed the right to check out that a new dentist was reputable before he could practice in Geneva. In 1546 Calvin persuaded the council to abolish taverns in the city and to establish cafes where grace would be said before and after meals and a French Bible would always be available for consultation. So you can see how he believed that the Faith and the Church should have a very strong say in every part of life. Certainly in terms of personal morality, Calvin with the Ministers and Elders, exercised great power and ruled with a rod of iron. The minutes of the Consistory of February 1542 record how thy dealt with a woman caught kneeling at her husband's grave and saying RIP, and a goldsmith who had made a fancy communion chalice, and a woman of 62 who wanted to marry a man of 25 ..... and how in 1547 Calvin declared his intention to deal rigorously with a group of citizens reputed to have held a dance in a private house!
There are many, many examples of this sort of thing. Calvin could not see or accept that faith could be a private matter - people were not at liberty to decide what they thought was right and wrong - the rightly appointed and ordered leaders of the Christian church had the duty to teach the people and the right to discipline them.
Calvin's very austere approach to life and his very strict discipline did not always win him many friends, even if he was help in respect and fear. John Knox the founder of Scottish Presbyterianism, famously said: Geneva was the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the apostles.
No church leader or church would ever get away with Calvin's kind of discipline nowadays, and I wouldn't like to send out the Elders to enforce these rules and regulations. It just would not work.
However the pendulum has maybe swung too far the opposite direction - our day is a day of 'anything goes' and well dare anyone question or judge other people's behaviour. Even within the Christian family of the Church we have maybe been enveloped by this way of thinking - Faith is private and inward, morals are personal and individual - and so many of the clear Christian principles for living and morality have gone.
We maybe need to learn that for Christians there are definite moral principles which do not change. Even though we cannot force our views down other people's throats, maybe we have been too slow to stand up and speak out for what we believe to be the Christian view e.g. on matters of marriage, family life, authority, sexuality, gambling, employment issues etc.
Maybe too, Calvin's approach to life in Geneva, reminds us that there is a very real place for the Christian to play a part the local community and in political matters. Calvin certainly played a major part in these areas - he wanted Christian principles to influence every part of life - not least in all the decisions of the city council.
Therefore it is good for Christians to be involved in local politics - like our own member, the Mayor. It's one of the reasons why I am pleased to act as her chaplain and to have the privilege to open the Council meetings with Bible Reading and Prayer - a means of reminding all that the affairs of our borough are of Christian significance and ultimately come under the authority of the Lord who reigns.
I'm not so sure that ministers should, themselves, be directly involved in politics - but there is an important place for individual Christians - how can we complain if we do not voice our position and make our contribution.
Think even at the level of The May Fair - can we really complain if we don't try to make a contribution and to influence things?
Therefore Calvin has something to say to us on at least 2 scores:
- The importance of having a clear understanding of our faith. Do we? If we feel that we haven't, do we rally care? - and remember, people in Geneva hadn't the educational opportunities that any of us have had - we have less excuse for not trying to learn and understand. It's usually more a matter of motivation. What are we going to do about it, for it is never too late?
- The importance of thinking hard about how our faith applies in everyday life - our own lives, and the society in which we live and in which we maybe should play a bigger part. I don't think that the Bible actually teaches the very austere approach to life that Calvin adopted, but it certainly teaches us standards that have slipped drastically in our day - maybe we need to think about this, and be prepared to be a little bit out of step with other people when we feel that our faith teaches us a better way.
If we could recapture some of the conviction and courage of Calvin, maybe our community would be a better place.