I’m sure when I mention the name John Calvin, you think of the many things you’ve heard about him and his ideas on theology. But let me tell you about the man himself and his place in the Reformation.
He called himself a “timid scholar” who was more comfortable with his books than with people. He was known as the “great faster” as he often starved himself eating just one small meal a day in order to clear his mind as well benefit his body which suffered from ill health. He often suffered from throbbing headaches, too. He usually kept his emotions in control and was polite although he did have a temper that could flare up from time to time. He wrote many books but spent much time perfecting them so they would be just the way he wanted them. Some of his contemporaries such as Martin Luther wrote much more quickly.
Even though his body seemed weak and he was naturally shy – never seeking the limelight, the author of the book I used for much of my information The Unquenchable Flame*, said of him “a lamb he was born, a lion he became for the Lord who saved him.”
Calvin was born July 10, 1509 in an agricultural market town in France. This was the same year Martin Luther was becoming a priest. He therefore would have known the world before the Reformation. His family was very involved in the local church and his father planned for him to become a priest. At the age of 12 he was sent to Paris to study theology at the University of Paris.
After completing 5 years of study there, his father sent him to Orleans to study law. Why the change in his father’s attitude? We aren’t clear but it could have been a falling out with the church.
At Orleans he studied Renaissance humanism and loved it. The humanist call was to return to the original sources of writings as well as the classical beauty of Greece and Rome to return to the Golden Age. For many in the Reformation this included returning to the original Hebrew and Greek language of the Bible. We must understand that the church which used Latin would see this as a danger to their authority if the people could read and understand the original Biblical language merely by reading the text. This might also involve critiquing the church but in a gentle manner not to do away with it.
The use of the word “rebirth” that was used in his studies about the recovery of this classical age began to mean something more personal to Calvin. He later wrote and I quote, “God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame.” We don’t know any more than that about his conversion except that now he said he “became a lover of Christ.”
By this time Martin Luther had posted his 95 theses – his protest against Rome – and the Reformation had begun. In France, the young king, Francis I, was somewhat tolerant of those who were reforming the church until 1528. At that time someone took a knife to a statue of the Madonna and Child in Paris. Steps were taken to crack down on the “Lutheran heresy” and other groups infecting this kingdom. Some proponents of these ideas were blacklisted and began to flee persecution to Switzerland. Calvin’s name was on the list and he was now on the run and in hiding.
In October of 1534 placards were posted in cities across France that attacked the Mass itself. “Reformation” now became a word for a dangerous sedition and some that were believed to have been involved were killed. Calvin was trying to keep out of sight even though he agreed with the theology of the placards.
He began to write targeting Anabaptists as he “hated those who by perverting the Reformation or by their unbridled behavior, gave the Reformation a bad name.” This was a group that was more rebellious and acted more militarily than the Lutherans. After this, Calvin became an exile, slipping across the border himself. In Switzerland, he wrote the first edition of his life’s work: The Institutes of the Christian Religion. He wrote it to show that Lutherans being persecuted were not heretics but following true Christian religion. He also wanted religion to be shaped by godliness. It was a simple introduction to the evangelical faith, a guide of protestant beliefs to help readers understand the sum of what God meant to teach in His Word. It was published as a small book of six chapters that could be hidden in a coat pocket. It was a way to spread the gospel covertly. Calvin would go on to write a commentary on almost every book in the Bible.
He made his way to Geneva, Switzerland that was becoming almost totally independent by driving out its last bishop. This officially allied Geneva to the Reformation. The city’s motto became “Post tenebras lux” (After darkness, light).
In this city he helped draft a new confession of faith and all who wished to stay in the city were ordered to accept it. Calvin’s other proposals included observing communion monthly not quarterly and notorious offenders were to be denied communion and publicly humiliated. This was to be done at the hands of a French immigrant. This was too much and no one was refused communion. The city wanted reformation but not at this cost and Calvin was eventually banned from preaching which he didn’t stop and so in 1538 he was exiled again.
From there Calvin went to Strasbourg to settle down quietly with his books. Instead he was encouraged to become the pastor of Strasbourg’s French refugee church. He also taught at the Reformed College established there. Here he wrote his first commentary on Romans with the chief point being justified by faith alone.
Calvin was not a romantic but he did want to express his Protestant approval of marriage. He married a widow with two sons that he had converted from Anabaptism: a conversion that was necessary for happiness in the Calvin household. They had a son who died at two weeks of age and his wife never fully recovered her health. She died a few years later upon which he said, “I struggle as best I can to overcome my grief...I have lost the best companion of my life.”
During these years the political climate changed in Geneva and he was called back to pastor the church there. He went though he never trusted the Genevans again – keeping his suitcase packed for quick exile again.
The church braced itself for attack from the man they had ousted but it never came. Instead Calvin merely picked up with scripture he had last used 3½ years before. He returned as a preacher of God not with a personal agenda.
Calvin knew he had to do something about the control the city council exercised over the church while he was still welcome in the city. He made a list of proposals that made it clear that Reformation was not simply breaking from Rome but meant a dedication to ongoing reform by the Word. He proposed 1) pastoral visits each year to each household, 2) Everyone should learn catechism that explained evangelical faith, and 3) Only those that did could be allowed to the Lord’s Table. Others were added like staying out of taverns and acceptable names for children. As a result too many Genevans did not like being told how to live the holy life.
The population in Geneva began to shift as more and more Frenchmen left France to come and live openly as evangelicals and hear the Scriptures taught. Genevans wanted to put them back on a boat and banish them back to France. Calvin’s name was once again on the list. But he was not expelled from the country.
In 1555 things changed. Those favoring Calvin won city council elections giving him freedom to do things he had never ventured before. He established a top-secret program for the evangelization of his native France. A secret network was set up with safe houses and hiding places arranged so agents of the gospel could slip back and forth across the border into France to plant underground churches. Many Frenchmen became reformed including many among the nobility which gave the movement political clout. Even so there was still persecution and Calvin wrote letters to encourage the Christians to stay strong.
He turned Geneva into an international center for the spread of the gospel, advised rulers from Scotland to Italy, trained refugees who then returned to their native countries, and dispatched missionaries.
As he pushed Reformation, his own health declined. He stated, “The affliction of my body has almost stupefied my mind.” He was in horrendous pain which ended with his death on May 27, 1564. Sensing his death he made his will confessing “I have no other defense or refuge for salvation than God’s gratuitous adoption on which alone my salvation depends.” He had no desire to become a relic or idol so he was buried in the common cemetery in an unmarked grave. This was typical Calvin.
John Calvin never intended to found something called Calvinism and he hated the word. He spent his life fighting for what he believed was mere orthodoxy of the early post-apostolic church. Calvinism suggests a new school of thought that came into being and many would be led to misunderstand the man himself. Many of the ideas behind Calvinism were added by others beginning some twenty years after his death.
*Most of the information for this entry came from Michael Reeves book, The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation. Published in Nashville, TN by B&H Academic in 2009.
No comments:
Post a Comment