Calvin's 500th Birthday

My original intention was to write an article doing justice to John Calvin on this, the 500th anniversary of his birth. However, It did not take long for me to realize that it was an impossible task. Books have been written about the man and continue to be written. There are seminary classes that cover his life and doctrine. It would have been folly for me to think that I could sum up the life of such a man in a simple article. So, with less ambitious aims, I would like to celebrate Calvin’s contributions in what small way I can.

It is a testimony to our times that the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth will pass with little notice and no fanfare because few Christians and fewer Americans today know who he was. Even though Calvin was one of the most important men in history and has profoundly influenced the lives of all Americans and especially all Christians, he is primarily, and incorrectly, known as the founder of the doctrines that bear his name.

Calvinism, as it is called, is a body of doctrine that exalts the sovereignty of God in salvation and contains such controversial teachings as sovereign election and predestination. These doctrines were the teachings of the Protestant Reformation but became associated with John Calvin because he taught them and was the primary theologian of the Reformation. The doctrines had their post-biblical origin with Augustine in the 4th century but adherents will say that they reach back to the teachings of Jesus and Paul in Scripture. Calvin’s main notoriety today then comes from something that many wrongly believe him to have invented.

John Calvin’s importance goes far beyond doctrinal controversy though. He was a giant in Christian history and left a legacy that no extra-biblical figure can surpass and few, perhaps only Augustine, can equal. His contributions reached beyond theology and doctrine to government and even commerce. Though physically weak and sickly, he was tireless in his work for the church and the Gospel of Christ, burning himself out and dying an early death at the age of 54.

I would like to briefly enumerate some of the ways that Calvin has influenced our modern world.

Interpretation of Scripture
Calvin was first and foremost a preacher and teacher of the Scriptures. In many ways, he taught us all how to do it. He shunned the allegorical methods that were so prevalent in the Middle Ages and sought the meaning of the text through history, grammar and, more importantly, the other Scriptures. Calvin was a great believer in “Scripture interpreting Scripture.” To read Calvin is to see a very modern method of scriptural interpretation at work.

Protestant Doctrine
Calvin was not the first of the reformers but did more than any other to enunciate the theology of the Reformation. Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion was a massive work of theology that he continually expanded until it reached its final form in 1559, five years before his death. This great work is profitable reading today but also laid the foundation for the great books of theology that followed and that would exert profound influence upon Protestant Christianity.

Church and State
Calvin believed that church and state operated in two different realms. In other words, he believed that church and state should be separate. These views were in opposition to the state church concept of Roman Catholicism and even of some other Protestant groups coming out of the Reformation. Calvin was not always consistent in his application of this principle because he exercised considerable authority (some would say domination) over secular society in Geneva. Despite Calvin’s inconsistency, his views were radical for their day and paved the way for such monumental events as the founding of the United States upon the principle of church-state separation.

Democracy
With his love for order, Calvin believed that the church’s ministers should exercise strong authority within the church but also recognized their need to be accountable to the people. Pastors were “ministers and helpers” to the congregation and the laity had the obligation to examine what their ministers were teaching. Calvin believed that ministers should be elected by the people. To prevent abuse of this privilege, the elections should be supervised by other ministers. It was not congregational government in the modern sense but it was a radical change from the rule of priests within Catholicism. This democratic innovation had a great influence upon political thinking and many today credit Calvin as being one of the prime architects of the modern democratic age in Europe and America.

Free Enterprise
Calvin was a strong believer in the importance of private property, thinking it fundamental to the order of society. He valued free enterprise and commerce though he recognized that men could abuse it. He was totally opposed to early forms of communism which he said would “turn all the world into a forest of brigands where, without reckoning of paying, each one takes for himself what he can get.” Calvin believed that society was bettered when all men work hard to improve themselves saying that there was “nothing more disgraceful than a lazy good-for-nothing who is of no use either to himself or to others.”

No discussion of John Calvin would be complete without mention of the incident for which he receives his harshest criticism, the burning of the heretic Servetus. While scholars debate just how responsible Calvin was for the way Servetus died (strong evidence exists that he argued for a more humane means of punishment), there can be no doubt that he fully approved of his execution for heresy. In sixteenth century Europe, societal order was highly valued and closely guarded. Heresies and non-orthodox religions were considered to be threats to that order and greatly injurious to societal stability. Calvin and his contemporaries (Catholic and Protestant) were fully prepared to use force when necessary to eliminate those threats to order. Calvin was very far from our modern ideas of religious liberty. On this issue, He was very much a man of the sixteenth century.

In conclusion, a man of John Calvin’s talents sometimes defies definition but possibly the most accurate assessment of him came from R. L. Dabney, Presbyterian theologian from the 19th century, who said that Calvin “was a very gifted, learned, and, in the main, godly man, who still had his faults.” John Calvin’s contributions to the church and modern society were immense. He loved Christ; he loved the Scriptures and wanted to see God glorified in all areas of human existence. He was not a perfect man; his great flaws reflected the times in which he lived, but Calvin desired to glorify God in all that he did.

John Calvin was both a man of his day and a man who was ahead of his time. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to him for the legacy he left and the world he helped to create.

Tony

---------------------------
Below is the audio and handout from our last Tuesday Bible Study. We looked at Balaam last and his incident with the talking donkey. It was a fun and profitable study.

Balaam, Balak and the Talking Donkey (audio)
Handout

Bronze Serpents and Biting Snakes

In Numbers 21, the Israelites were disappointed because Moses turned south to go around Edom. They did what they usually did in such situations; they complained. This time, however, their complaints took on a different nature. Usually, they complained against Moses. This time they complained against God Himself.

God's response was severe. He sent fiery snakes to bite them. These snakes killed many people with an agonizing form of death. When the people repented, God instructed Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole so that those who had been bitten could look at it and receive deliverance from death. Interestingly, God did not take the snakes away. The snakes remained for a period of time biting the people, causing much suffering. God's mercy is shown in that He provided for the people's deliverance from the plague but He wanted them to learn a lesson from their rebellion. The painful biting that continued would have made them realize that God was very displeased with them.

Sometimes we cannot evade the consequences of our sins even though God provides the mercy of deliverance. But God is always merciful to those who repent. The spiritual silver lining in this cloud of judgment is that in John 3:14, Jesus spoke of the bronze serpent as a type of Himself. Those who look to Christ will find deliverance from death...eternal death.
------------------------------------------------
I'm sorry for the delay in getting the later sessions online. Below you will find links to the mp3 files for the last four sessions.

Session 12: The Final Rebellion (Num. 12-14)
Session 13: Rebellion and Judgment (Num. 15-17)
Session 14: Forty Years of Wandering (Num. 17-20)
Session 15: The End of the Wandering (Num. 21)

Tony

Our Unchangeable God

Jesus Reading the Old Testament

From our Tuesday Morning Bible Study:

Perhaps you have heard statements similar to these:

"God was a God of judgment in the Old Testament but is gracious in the New Testament."

"The Law in the Old Testament was about obedience to the letter of the Law while in the New Testament God wants obedience from the heart."

Whether you have heard those statements of not, there is a general feeling by many people that God was somehow different in the OId Testament. He was harsher in judgment. It is also felt by many that the Old Testament focused more on the letter of the law than the emphasis we see on heartfelt obedience in the New.

Those attitudes are based upon a very superficial reading of the Bible and are not at all supported by the scriptural text. First of all, God gives us a general statement of His unchangeable nature in Malachi:

For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. (Mal. 3:6)

God's character is absolutely consistent. He is incapable of change. In fact, for God to change would be a sign that He was not, in fact, God.

In our Tuesday Bible study, we saw an indication of the unchanging nature of God in the commands of the Law on how the Israelites were to treat their neighbors.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Lev. 19:17-18)

You will recognize "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" as a quote from Jesus in the New Testament. Most people do not know that He was actually quoting from the Old Testament. In fact, most of Jesus' preaching was from the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus did not come to destroy the Law that had been given but to fulfill it in righteousness. (Matt. 5:17)

God has always been interested in obedience from the heart. Under the Law, God was no more pleased with wicked-hearted Israelites who did their sacrifices than he is today with professing Christians who go to church but are inwardly sinful and rebellious against Him. God expressed his loathing for hypocritical religion in the Old Testament as well as the New.

I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (Amos 5:21-24)

I take great comfort in God's unchanging nature and rejoice in the Scripture's complete testimony to it. It means that all of God's promises to His people will be fulfilled. It means that I can turn to any part of God's holy word and find a testimony to God's goodness and grace, as well as to his holiness and judgment.

Rejoice today in the fact that God does not change.

Tony

Audio from the Tuesday Bible Study
The Journey Resumes
Handout

Written for Our Learning

From our Tuesday Morning Bible Study:

Has this happened to you? You make a New Year's resolution to read the Bible through in a year. In January you begin with Genesis. You read Genesis and the first half of Exodus and think, "Wow, this is really good." Then you read the last part of Exodus and get bogged down in the detailed description of the tabernacle construction...but you soldier on. Then, you come to Leviticus with its precise instructions of the various sacrifices...and you quit.

Admittedly, part of the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch) is difficult to read. These parts contain detailed descriptions of the construction of the tabernacle, of garments for priests, and of a sacrificial system that is no longer practiced. Why are these portions in the Bible? What good is it for us today? Can modern Christians in 2009 gain any benefit from reading these passages about a system that has long been obsolete?

The short answer is yes.

There are two reasons why we have these detailed sections in the Bible on sacrifices and tabernacle construction. First of all, the Bible was not only written for people in the 21st century. It was written for God's people living in every century. The first five books were initially written to the children of Israel living in the wilderness almost 3500 years ago. It gave them God's plan for their worship and provided subsequent generations with the historical basis for their faith.

Secondly, and just as importantly, all things in God's word were written for our learning. (Romans 15:4) The description of the tabernacle and the rituals of the Law were filled with types and allusions to the sinful condition of man and the redemption that God purposed to accomplish through Jesus Christ. The tabernacle was a living object lesson to the people of Israel about the plan of God. We read the Old Testament and our faith grows because we see that God's plan did not unfold haphazardly but was in the mind of God from eternity past and was being worked out even even among the Children of Israel in the wilderness.

The next time you try to read through Exodus and Leviticus, I encourage you to read the New Testament book of Hebrews along with it. The writer there does a magnificent job of tying the Old Testament ritual to the completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Read it...and let God bless you.

Tony

Audio from Tuesday's Session
The Tabernacle
Handout

Rebellion

From our Tuesday Morning Bible Study

Moses took the people to the base of Mt. Sinai where they heard God personally speaking and where God established His covenant with them. The terms of the covenant were simple. The people were to obey God in all that He commanded. This they readily agreed to. Their words were unequivocable: "All that the Lord has spoken we will do and we will be obedient." (Ex. 24:7) Why would they not agree to obey God? They had witnessed miracles that no one, in their day or ours, has ever seen. Why would they not serve a God so powerful and yet so gracious?

It is one thing to talk and yet another to follow the words up with action. The Israelites agreed to obey God when the mountain was rumbling and they could see the fire of God. They were willing to submit when Moses was present because they had learned to fear his relationship with God. What would they do when the things that made them afraid went away and when Moses was not present? That would show the true condition of their hearts.

Regardless of what a person's inner desires are, they can be made to do things that they otherwise would not do. A person can be persuaded into something by a persuasive speech. We have seen that in political elections. A person can intimidated or scared into doing something because they fear for their life or they fear a loss of prestige. However, when the persuasion or the fear that is motivating them is removed, they will always gravitate back to the inner desires of their hearts. A thief may not steal because he fears he will get caught but when that fear is removed, he will do what his heart wants to do. He will steal.

When Moses delayed to come down from the mountain where he had gone to receive God's instructions, the people's rebellious hearts once again asserted themselves. They wanted Aaron to build them a golden calf which they then proclaimed as their savior god. They worshipped the idol with extremely sinful practices and dishonored both themselves and God. When Moses returned from the mountain and saw their wickedness, he broke the tablets of the Ten Commandments because they had broken God's law. Moses destroyed the idol and had the perpetrators killed. Three thousand died that day due to their sin. In addition, God brought a plague against the others
who disobeyed Him.

Our hearts must be guarded against a rebellious attitude. God hates rebellion because it is the opposite of faith and trust in Him. Samuel told the Israelites; "Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." (1 Sam. 15:23) Rebellion against God has its basis in an unbelieving heart. That is why it is so important that we examine our hearts, asking God to show us our sin and to change our hearts.

Whatever is in the heart will eventually come out. Let us make sure that our hearts are filled with God's love and a desire to serve and obey Him.

Tony

Audio from Tuesday Bible Study
New Problems for the New Nation
Handout

The Holiness of God

From our Tuesday Morning Bible Study:

The initial stage of the Israelites' journey out of Egypt ended at the base of Mt. Sinai. It was there that God would give them His law and would meet with them. When God made His appearance on Sinai, the mountain was covered with smoke and burned with fire. Thunder sounded and lightning flashed. Moses records it as such:

Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. (Ex. 19:18-19)

The people were struck with great fear. They remembered their sin and rebellion against God and feared that this awesome display of power was a sign that God was coming to destroy them. According to the writer of the book of Hebrews, even Moses, the man of God, feared exceedingly.

They feared because of two things; the power of God and the holiness of God. God's omnipotent power coupled with his absolute holiness should cause all sinners...that is, all people...to fear his presence. When God appeared to Daniel, one of the greatest men in the Old Testament, he fell on his face in sheer terror. When Isaiah saw the holiness of God he cried, "Woe is me for I am ruined." As the writer of Hebrews wrote, "For our God is a consuming fire."

Somehow, we have gotten the notion today that it is wrong to "fear" God. Much effort is made by many people, by many churches, to make God appear "non-threatening," thinking somehow that it makes God more "attractive." I guess that's fine if your goal is to generate greater numbers in attendance but it is useless if you want to accurately depict God as He reveals Himself in the Bible.

Let me tell you this, on Mt. Sinai, God was plenty threatening. His holiness and power were on full display. Just because we do not see such displays today many people seem to think that God has somehow changed. He is not the "threatening" God of the Old Testament but is now the gracious God of the New Testament.

God has not changed.

God offers grace to unworthy sinners today just as He did to the rebellious Israelites who were continuously disobedient in Moses' day. God reserves His great wrath for unrepentant sinners today just as He did to the unrepentant Israelites. God's wrath is delayed and his grace displayed because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ but God's power and holiness are undiminished. The same power that was displayed on Mt. Sinai will one day be seen by all when Christ returns "in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." (2 Thess. 1:8)

We live in a wicked age when many people think nothing of blaspheming the name of God and of despising His Son Jesus Christ. It grieves us greatly to see this but let us not lose heart. Let us not grow weary in well doing because we serve a righteous, holy, and powerful God who will not always to allow his name to be cursed. The Son of God will return in righteous wrath to execute judgment on this sinful world and take His children home to be with Him. These are the days to live for.

Tony

Audio and Handout from Tuesday Bible Study (right-click to download)
A New Nation
Handout
Slide Presentation

Unbelief

From our Tuesday Morning Bible Study:

It is safe to say that no one in history has seen the type of miracles that the Israelites saw as God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. They saw the ten plagues through which God pounded Egypt into submission. They witnessed the miraculous parting of the Red Sea which allowed the Israelites to cross but destroyed Pharaoh's army when the waters returned to normal. One would think that the Children of Israel had all the proof they needed to believe in God.

Alas, such was not the case. Despite the wonders they saw, they continually rebelled against God. They refused to believe that He would take care of them. They continually chafed at Moses' God-ordained leadership and even yearned to go back to Egypt, concocting some fantasy that things were actually good there and refusing to remember how the Egyptians oppressed them with bitter bondage.

This is the nature of unbelief. It exists separately from evidence or proof because unbelief is the product of a sinful, fallen, and God-dishonoring heart. There is no amount of evidence that can be brought forward to "convince" a sin-hardened heart filled with unbelief. If more evidence could have corrected the problem, the Israelites would have believed when they saw God's miracles. As such, they did not believe God because their wicked hearts were set against Him. They wanted their own way. They sought their own immediate comfort. They cared nothing for the great things that God had for them in the Promised Land if they could not have it now.

God knew the type of people He was dealing with. That is why He led them on a path through the wilderness rather than have them take the direct route to Canaan. God knew that as soon as difficulties arose, the true nature of the Israelites would become manifest. They would complain. They would rebel. They would fully demonstrate that they did not believe, or know, God at all. God's continual provision of the Israelites was both a sign of his mercy toward them and His testing of them. They failed the test and forfeited the right to enter the Promised Land. God would allow that unbelieving generation to die in the wilderness with their dreams unfulfilled and would raise up a new generation that would believe Him.

Unbelief is a dreadful and damning sin that refuses to acknowledge God's greatness and will not submit to His will. True Christians can experience times of doubt but unbelief springs from a lost and unregenerate heart, a heart that has not experienced God's grace.

True unbelief will ultimately come forward. It will betray a professed faith in God because it cannot be hidden beneath a religious outer garment.

The writer of Hebrews warned his readers of unbelief using the example of the Israelites in the wilderness.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. (Hebrews 3:12)

The writer of Hebrews feared that there were professed Christians who were actually unbelievers in the congregation to which He was writing. If that was the case, he knew that they would fall away from their faith in Christ when persecution arose. He wanted to warn them because he did not desire to see any of them be lost.

We need to give heed to the author of Hebrews and pay close attention to the example of the Israelites. Personal examination is necessary. Is our faith truly in God through Christ or do we "serve" God for other reasons, reasons of a selfish and ultimately damning nature?

As Paul wrote:

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (2 Cor. 13:5)

Let us not fail the test like the Children of Israel did. Let us go on to the Promised Land holding to a firm faith in the saving power of God through our Savior Jesus Christ.

Tony

Audio from Tuesday's Bible Study (Right-click to save)
The Journey to Sinai
Handout