John Calvin is Important for Today!

It is my belief that John Calvin important today?  The wonderful theologian Joel Beeke has some solid ideas about what Calvin taught and why he deserves our continued remembrance in all parts of the church of Jesus Christ?  Beeke proclaimes::

◦Calvin the historian, who unfolded redemptive history for us

◦Calvin the polemicist, who combated error and heresy on every hand

◦Calvin the pilgrim, who longed for home with eschatological hope

◦Calvin the traditionalist, who respected tradition so long as it was biblical

◦Calvin the catechist, who stressed the need to catechize children

◦Calvin the deacon, who showed sympathy to the poor

◦Calvin the vocationalist, who developed a sense of the sacredness of work

◦Calvin the law-promoter, who taught the law as a rule of life for believers

◦Calvin the author, who promoted God’s kingdom through scores of writings on an astonishing number of subjects

( from Joel Beeke’s great work, Calvin for Today)

Scripture is Like God Speaking Directly to Us, As if from Heaven Itself

John Calvin viewed Scripture as being equivalent to an utterance of God given from heaven:  Calvin believed Scripture to be the Word of God.(Institutes, 1.7.4)] He considered that Christians do not need the testimony of the church to appreciate its authority, since it is self-authenticating,and that it is only through the Holy Spirit that we know it to be the Word of God..  Calvin wrote that Scripture was like God talking directly to us:


"Since no daily responses are given from heaven, and the Scriptures are the only records in which God has been pleased to consign his truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognised, unless they are believed to have come from heaven, as directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them." 

Institutes of Christian Religion I.vii.1.

The Centrality of the Word -- Without the Gospel Everything is Useless!

John Calvin wrote a remarkable preface for Pierre Robert Olivétan’s French translation of the New Testament (1534). Calvin, writing as a man standing on God's Word, underlines Bible’s message and the significance of the gospel message revealed in Scripture. The gospel must always remain central to our work on behal of God.  Without the gospel, we are like sailing vessels without sails.  He writes,


“Without the gospel everything is useless and vain; without the gospel we are not Christians; without the gospel all riches is poverty, all wisdom folly before God; strength is weakness, and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God. But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, fellow townsmen with the saints, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong, the fools wise, the sinner justified, the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free. It is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe …” (66)