Dr. Joseph A. Pipa, Jr: Calvin on the Holy Spirit for the 21st Century

Dr. Joseph A. Pipa, Jr. serves as President and Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He holds a M.Div. from Reformed Theological Seminary (1971) and a Ph.D. from Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia (1985). He pastored the Tchula Presbyterian Church, Tchula, MS (1970-1977), Covenant Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX (1979-1990), and the Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA), Escondido, CA (1991-1997). He was on staff at Great Commission Publications (1977-1979). He was also a Guest Lecturer at Westminster Theological Seminary (1978-1979) and Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Advanced Studies at Westminster Theological Seminary, Escondido, CA (1990-1997). He has written or edited numerous books and contributed to a number of journals and periodicals.

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We live in a day with respect to the person and work of the Holy Spirt that would be described as confusion and indifference.

Confusion as to the person of the Holy Spirit, and with respect to His role in gifts, and the inspiration of Scripture. What’s this product that is both divine and human? In evangelicalism there is confusion with respect to his application of the work of salvation. Also confusion around his role with respect to the means of grace.

There is also a great deal of indifference amongst us who have the right doctrine which ought to be a great motivation fo rus to live in dependence on the Holy Spirit yet we often neglect practically and experientially the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Calvin was a theologian of the Holy Spirit par excellence. Warfield says Calvin’s devlopment of the doctrine of the HS was his greatest contribution to the theology of the church. Calvin’s view of the Spirit permeates the Institutes.

The Spirit and the Trinity

Health and Wealth preachers deny the doctrine of the Trinity and create confusion. But even in our broad evangelical churches there is great confusion. Discipleship stops with graduation from high school leading to a whole generation of adults without much training in the work of the Holy Spirit.

Calvin was accused by his enemies of being anti-Trinitarian but in reality he was a high Trinitarian. For Calvin, the knowledge of the triune personhood of God was essential to the knowlege of God. Calvin said if you do not think of God as Triune then you are not thinking about the God who is.

Calvin defended the diety of the Spirit saying that the Spirit has the names and attributes of God, the titles of God.

He defended the use of the word person, though not found specifically in Scripture, as necessary to summarize what the Scripture teaches about the unique personalities of the Trinity.

How do our own confessions communicate the essence of Calvin’s scriptural view of the Holy Spirit? (The Three Forms of Unity and the Westminister Confession)

These confessions come directly from Scripture. Pipa cites statements on the Trinity from various confessions including the Heidelberg Confession.

Two Important Contributions by Calvin to our Understanding of the Trinity

1. Each member of the Godhead is autotheos – God of Himself. Calvin shuddered at the thought of subordination within the Trinity.  Recommends Doug Kelly’s Theological Interpretation of the Institutes.

2. His experiential and practical contribution. Calvin was tethered to Scripture, seeking to develop each doctrine in terms of his life and the life of his hearers.

The Spirit and Scripture

The Spirit worked in the inspiration of the apostles and prophets in the giving of Scripture. So convinced was Calvin of the role of the Spirit that he often talked of the Spirit’s role in Scripture in terms of dictation.”God’s Spirit speaks to us this day by his (Paul’s) mouth.” The Spirit gave the Scriptures and the Spirit speaks through the Scriptures.

Because it is a Spirit given book, the Scriptures have authority and are self-authenticating. The church does not render the Scriptures authentic by its decrees. Institutes 1.7.4

The role of the Holy Spirit was necessary to illuminate the authority of Scripture.

This is emboldening for us. We do not have to argue that the Bible is the word of God before we preach it. All you have to do is use the Scriptures without fear of the intellect of those who argue against it. It is the Spirit who will make it effective in its use, even in the mere reading or quoting of its words.

The Spirit and the Christian Life

Calvin’s doctrine of our union with Christ in the application and reality of redemption is his unique contribution to the doctrine of soteriology. Institutes 3.1.1

“The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself.”  He unites us to Christ through conversion, justification, sanctification, adoption, and perservance.

Conversion: The work of the spirit in our union with Christ begins with conversion, namely regeneration. Some argue that Calvin used regeneration in a broader way to indicate sanctification. Sanctfication for Calvin flows from the inital act of regeneration.

When you pray for God to save sinners you are confessing that the sinner can do nothing to save himself.

Justification:

Sanctification: Justification and Sanctification are not two aspects of union but separate entities of God’s work of grace.

Sanctification will not get you into heaven but you will not get into heaven without it. Sanctification must always accompany justification

We must depend upon the Holy Spirit for our sanctification. We must not be afraid of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Do we pray for the Spirit’s annointing in our daily living?

The Spirit and the Means of Grace

Outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer. It is the sacraments that God uses with the word and prayer for our sanctification and perseverance.

We must recover the importance of the public use of these means of grace, especially in preaching.

The Word of God
Prayer
Sacraments

The Spirit and the Gifts

The Spirit generously gives natural gifts and abilities to the world, even to those outside of Christ. Innovations like air conditioning, laptops, blackberries, and even a beautifully designed leather laptop bag that blends practicality with elegance are all wonderful expressions of God’s goodness and creativity.

The Spirit gives gifts to the church and Calvin distinquished between the extraordinary gifts of the apostlic age that have ceased but still benefit us. We don’t need new miracles we have the Scriptures, but when we read of these great works that God has done, so that we may believe unto righteousness.

We are to seek the ordinary gifts: the preaching of the word, the knowlege of the Bible, caring for the sick, etc.

Dr. Gerald Bilkes: Calvin and the Word of God

Dr. Bilkes is Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI.

Psalm 119:41-56

To further study the subject of Calvin on the Word of God:
Read Book One of the Institutes
Read Calvin’s Sermons on Psalm 119

During the last 200 years Calvin’s view of the word of God has declined. It is time to recapture it.

Three Vignettes Illumine the Importance of the Word in Calvin’s Life:

The Conversion of Calvin:within a year of his conversion people flocked to him asking him for instruction and teaching in the word of God. A testimony to how powerfully the word of God gripped him. “Grace found us when we were addicted to spiritual darkeness. The end of this addiction came when there was this entry of divine light into the soul.”

Calvin’s Work as a Preacher: “The pulpit is the throne of God and from that throne he wants to govern our souls.” The pulpit brings the sinner face to face with God’s judgment. The preacher himself must be a hearer – a student – of the word, himself listening to the word. The twofold aim of the pulpit: to change God’s enemies into children, and to bring God’s children to honor their father more and more. Calvin had a wholehearted submission to the word of God and to speak nothing else but the Word of God.

Calvin on His Death Bed: “As for my doctrine I have taught faithfully and God has given me grace to write. I have not corrupted one single passage of Scripture so far as I know.”

Calvin’s Writings Summarized Under Two Headings

How God’s Word Comes to Us:

God accomodates himself to our feeble minds by taking word pictures to communicate his grandeur

The Word of God is Speech from God: “It was the mouth of the Lord that spoke. We owe to the Scripture the same reverence we owe to God.” When you go to the word of God to to it as the very WORDS of God. Look at the Scriptures as the mouth of God, as the speech of God.”  This carries over to how Calvin viewed the pulpit. We are not hearing a mere mortal man speaking.

The School:Calvin speaks of the Scriptures as a school of the Holy Spirit – nothing is taught but what is expedient to know. Whatever is revealed in Scripture should not be hidden (ie., the doctrine of predestination). Calvin emphasizes that we should be students – scholars.

The Sun: “The word of God is like the Sun, shining in our hearts.” He speaks of this Sun as the very face of God who is Light, unapproachable. God shines his word into the dark hearts of sinners. The Sun is the grace of Christ which reveals the glory of God. 

Spectacles: Likens the word of God to an aid to our ability to see (spiritually). The work of the Spirit is such that we need an internal illumination as well as the external illumination of the Word of God. The word of God is glasses for the soul.

Strength (Sword) The word as strength works against us by nature. “The word is not just sounds – it is a living thing and full of hidden power which leaves nothing in men untouched.” The word as strength is also a sword for the believer in his daily fight against his enemies and his own evil lusts.

Safety (Shield) It gives safety and security. Christ, when tempted by the devil, uses Scripture as his shield. For this is the true way of fighting. If we wish to have the assurance of victory, we ought to have the Scripture as our shield.

Shelter/Solace“There is no other solace and no other remedy for adveristy than our reposing upon the word of God.”

SweetnessDo we go to the word of God and think of it as sweet to our taste? “God’s word is sweet to all the godly, he will convey to us by his word nothing but sweetness.” By nature we are so attached to this world’s supposed sweetness. God allures us by the sweetness of the world from the false sweetness offered by the world. This idea that the word of God is sweet has an impact on preaching. Paul expresses the delictible sweetness of the gospel – his preaching was not savorless.

Seed

Song Calvin really believed that there was no greater song than that which God lays upon our lips and on our hearts in his word. “Thy statutes have been my song.” “David drew out of the word of God as a fountain songs for his soul.” The Psalms through Calvin became the songs for a pilgrim church.

How We Should Come to the Word of God:

Reverently God’s word is so glorious, awesome and divine and we ought not treat it any differently than we treat God Himself. We tremble before God’s word. This is the mouth of God. But this does not go against love or faith. We still come boldly to God. This humble fear is conjoined with love for God and with faith.

Dependently: Holy Dependence on God to understand and believe and walk in his word, in light of the remaining darkness in us. We cannot come to understand the secrets of God by our own minds. We need the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Ardently If there is one language along side of reverence and dependence in Calvin’s sermons on the the Psalms it is the language of desire. “We sigh and groan unto the majesty of of our God beseeching Him to instruct us.” Psalm 119:20

Calvin’s view of the Doctrine of the Word of God

Exalted: The word of God is not seen as something the merely serves us, but comes to us so that we might know God. God’s word is a sceptre whereby he makes his rule known in the world. The word of God speaks of God’s majesty and glory.

Experiential: Calvin is at pains to make and to see the word of God as relevant to whatever circumstance we are in. Whether it be in the darkness of sin or our struggle as believers in the life of faith. We need to hold Scripture high, but also recognize the way it speaks to our circumstances. Not as mere maxims for success, but first and foremost the word of God reveals God to us – an extension of his authority under which we must readily bow. If we are to be what the Reformers were and to have power in our pulpits and in our walk as believers we must recover this view of the word of God.

Expectant Read the prayers at the end of his sermons. He comes to God’s word with the expectation that God will use it, that God will bless it.

Dr. Ligon Duncan: The Resurgence of Calvinism in America

Dr. Duncan is Senior Minister at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS. He is a native of Greenville, South Carolina,  was born and reared in the home of an eighth generation Southern Presbyterian Ruling Elder. A 1983 graduate of Furman University, he received an MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary and studied Systematic Theology at the Free Church of Scotland College under Professor Donald Macleod.  He earned the PhD  from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1995.

Romans 11:32-36

There is a reformed resurgance going on. It is young. It is vast. It stretches across at least the English speaking world. In Bible churches,, Baptist churches, independent churches, charismatics churches. There is a fever for the glory of God that has gotten into the blood stream of a new generation. What is going on? Where did this come from?

Some of you know Iain Murray’s introduction to William Cunningham’s Historical Theology: In the year 1800 weakness, slumber and death reigned in the church of Scotland. God did three things to change this situation:

1. The publication of The Life of John Knox by Thomas M’Crie

2. The conversion of a minister: Thomas Chalmers

3. The birth of a series of little boys from 1801 – 1810: McCheyne, Buchanan, etc.

This led to a revival of reformed theology in Scotland that impacted the entire English speaking world.

Two Observations:

1. This new Calvinsim is not the full orbed confessional Calvinism of the three forms of unity or the Westminister Confession. It draws FROM these tradtions with an appreciation for its soteriology but without an appreciation of the ecclesiaology of the old calvinism.

2. As we look at this work, it is a mixed work. But there is no work on this earth that is not a mixed work. There is impurity in the new Calvinsim.

Nine Factors Contributing to the Resurgence of Calvinism:

1. Three Preachers: one from the 19th Century, one from the middle of the 20th Century, one who is still preaching today: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and John MacArthur. A Baptist, a Presbyterian, and a Dispensationalist.

Amazing the variety of preachers you find who will recommend the works of Charles Spurgeon.

Spurgeon has consistently across this century introduced generation after generation of Bible preachers to Calvinism.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, of whom J. I. Packer says “the greatest preacher I have ever heard and the greatest man I have ever known.” His impact is staggering on 20th century evangelicalism. His influence on Tyndale House, Intervarsity. His Studies in the Sermon on the Mount impacted pastors who had never read anything like this kind of exposition. His book Preaching and Preachers, and Spiritual Depression – a massive impact on this generation. A masterful expositor of Scripture. He was empahtically a Calvinist, from the Welsh-Methodist Church brought sound, reformed theology in the language Scripture into every sermon he preached. Would preach an evangelistic sermon every Sunday evening.

John MacArthur from a dispensational, Bible Church background, yet so committed to the word of God he was willing to go wherever that word took him and it took him right into the doctrines of grace.

2. Books. The grandfather of them all: The Banner of Truth Trust. Established by Lloyd-Jones and Iain Murray for the preservation of reformed, Puritan writings. Published systematically and carefully, these works exemplify sound, solid Puritan preaching. As I delved into these profound texts, I realized how crucial navigating the book publishing process is to ensuring such important works reach the right audience. These books offer precious remedies against Satan’s devices and lead to a deepening grasp of spiritual truth. The success of The Banner of Truth Trust has spawned many other publishers of many good books.

3. An Evangelist. The idea of a Calvinistic Evangelist would not have struck anyone as surprising in the 16th, 17th, 18th, or 19th Century. Somehow in the 20th Century, perhaps because of the pragmatic revivalism that resulted from the second great awakening, Calvinism became disassociated with evangelism. Whitefield read Matthew Henry four times on his knees in order to help him in his preaching. Matthew Henry was the great English non-conformist Calvinist.

Along comes a man named D. James Kennedy who was a passionate Calvinist who was a committed evangelist. We may question some of his methods, but we cannot question his commitment to the gospel. After Dr. Kennedy it became impossible to say that Calvinists can’t evangelize because of their theology. He dispelled the myth that Calvinism was anti-evangelistic.

4. The Battle for the Bible. The greatest theological controversy of the late 20th Century that stretched across denominations. There were many prominent non-Calvinists that took a stand, the great names associated with the defense of Scripture: R. C. Sproul, Packer, Boice, Roger Nicole, are all Calvinists. Sproul and Packer wrote the affirmations and denials adopted by the  Council on Biblcal Inerrancy. Calvinism was spread through the denial of the inerrancy of Scripture by theolohical liberals as God raised up men to stand against them.

5. Two Church Controversies, in the old Presbyterian Church and in the Southern Baptist Church. The father of L. Nelson Bell, the father of Ruth Bell Graham, the father-in-law of Billy Graham, former missionary to China who returned from the field to confront the theological liberalism in his denomination in 1940. In 1973 fifty thousand people left that old church to establish the Presbyterian Church – the largest conservative Presbyterian church in the English speaking world.

At the same time in the 1970s there was a conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. Since R. Albert Mohler became the president of Southern Seminary, there has been a revival of the Calvinism of the Abstract of Principles.

6. A book and an Anglican. The book: Knowing God. The Anglican: J. I. Packer The book that put him on the landscape is Fundamentalism and the Word of God, no finer defense of the authority and inspiration of Scripture. That evangelical Anglican, because he was trusted by the larger evangelical world – endorsed by Billy Graham – introduced a whole generation to a sovereign God and the doctrines of grace. His introduction to John Owen’s Death of Death has been influential in the lives of many .

7. A Theologian Philosopher who can popularize: Robert Charles Sproul. For a half century faithfully laboring teaching church history and philosophy to thousands through his radio ministry.

8. A force of nature named John Piper. John Piper is transfixed and intoxicated by Jonathan Edwards and he channels him every time he preaches. What sets Piper apart: All unction about God’s truth comes from God. Theological precision meeting up with life consuming passion.  A woman who sat under Piper’s preaching said, “The first time I sat under his preaching I was terrified, and then I realized I had never known the God of the Bible. Then I fell down and worshipped this God.”

9. The decline and death of liberalism. Liberalism is either dead or dying in our culture sustained only by the life support of endowments. The nominalism of days past is now in a hostile, secular environment. The rise of secularism and the decline of Christian nominalism has caused a generation of young people to rise to find something they can pin their lives on – they have looked to the Calvinists. These young people were drawn to Piper, Mohler, and others because they were being told the truth and not merely what they wanted to hear.

Dr. David Murray: What Kind of Love is This?

1 John 3:1-5

There remains a strange fascination with all things extra terrestrial, with aliens, with unidentified flying objects. There is a whole genere of literature and repeated newspaper reportsof sightings, usually in the context of hostility – something to be feared.

The Apostle John brings before us something alien, extraterrestrial, something out of this world. But this is not something to be feared., This is not full of hostility but something that is full of adopting love.

If you were to translate this verse literally, “Behold what foreign love is this – what out of this world love is this – what extraterrestrial love is this.”

We want to behold three things in this text:

“…that WE should be called the Sons of God”

This is obviously really stunning to John. It is beyond his comprehension.

Five factors in the decision to adopt a child:

1. The genes of the child: we want to know who the natural parents are. Is there any genetic factor that will prove problematic in the future. What kind of “genes” do we have?

We are born in sin (Psalm 51), astranged from the womb speaking lies. We have a spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil.” These are not good genes. This is a bad start in life.

2. The environment of the child:the nationality of the child. What kind of atmosphere have we been brought up in? Polluted and poisoned with sin! A prime consideration in adoption is the health of the child. Are the children healthly? Are WE healthy? We couldn’t begin it with a yes, could we. We suffer the affects of the sinful environment we have been brought in, infected with the virus of sin.

3. The education of the child. We are educated in the ways of sin, and we don’t need our parents to teach us to lie, how to fight, how to steal. We are self-taught, self-directed learners. We have learned every bad habit and evil way.

4. The record of the child.Is there a criminal or behaviorial history? Our record is black, isn’t it?

5.  The prospects for the child. Th Bible tells us our prospects are deathly – eternal death. We have one horizon when we are born into this world and it’s hell.

This is what staggers John. That this kind of “we” should be adopted by God. It goes against everything this world knows about love. God comes to you, believer, and he looks at you and he says your genes couldn’t be worse, your environment is polluted, you are a failure in education, your prospects are hell – yet YOU shall be my child!

Where does this love come from, that WE should be called the sons of God?

“Behold what manner of love the FATHER…”

If you were an adopted child, what kind of father would you like?

1. A gracious father. A forgiving father. A father who is full of grace. God is not looking for archetypal sons and daughters, for those who have spruced themselves up and made themselves look better. The children God has chosen to adopt cannot be predicted. He often picks the worst, and passes by those who seem most worthy.

2. A rich father. What doesn’t God have? He’s got everything. Many fathers have perverted their use of wealth toward their children, but God uses wise love in caring for his children. He is wiser than the wisest father and he knows what to give, and he knows when to take back what he has given.

3. A tender, gentle father.  Depicted in the Scriptures is a father who will wipe away every tear from our eyes. A father who feels for you and at the same time helps you, whose sympathy is matched by his ability and willingness to strengthen you.

4. A father with time. All the time in the world., who never says he is too busy. A father who is there as soon as we cry, “Abba, Father.” As soon as he hears us, he is racing to the scene.

5. A father with a wonderful record of adoption. 1 in 5 children are returned in adoption. Has God every returned a child, said he couldn’t take it any longer. Patient, one who has never failed and will never give up on you.

6. A father willing to adopt. People willing to adopt declines 15% every year. Has God’s willingness to adopt ever declined even 1%? A heart full of willingness to receive the worst and the most hopeless of cases.

There is no reason for any person to be an orphan any longer! Do you find any fault in this father, any reason to keep yourself away from this father? Bury yourself in his arms and plead for his love and his mercy.

This love is beyond comprehension. If you ever come to understand the love of God, you’ve never understood it.

“Behold, what manner of love..”

1. Behold the initiative of this love: we love him because he first loved us. The initiative of this love should fill us with thankful worship, because we would have never taken the initiative. He came seeking you and you love him because he first loved you. It was his strategy, not yours. The world doesn’t understand this – but the Christian loves to think on this great God taking the initiative to seek them out.

2. Behold the ease of this love.We might think, to think of this love would be a long process. But how do we become sons of God. John tells us in John 1, “But to as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God.” Does that sound like a long process? You open your heartt – the hand of your soul – to receive. It’s not coming with something, it’s coming with nothing. Through this faith in Christ we become adopted children! Could he make it any easier?

3. Behold the speed of this love. In England it can take as long as 12 months to adopt a child and many hoops to go through. How long does it take God to adopt a child? How fast is the process. [Snaps Fingers] That fast! As soon as you believe on the Son of God, you, too, are a son of God.

4. Behold the size of this love. 50,000 adoptions every year in the US with 100,000 unadopted every year. Is there any limit on God? Does he ever reach a quota? Does he ever reach a point in the year where he says, “Enough! I can’t take any more!” Does his heart of love have any limit? It’s large enough for everyone if everyone would seek him. It’s large enough for you, if you will seek him. Still there is room.

5. Behold the effects of this love. There are some painful side effects to adoption. Is there any of that: loss, sense of rejection, shame, guilt, intimacy avoidance. There is only one loser in our spiritual adoption and that is our natural father – the devil. He fights tooth and nail against it. He does not give up easily, gladly or willingly. You want to be a child of God – here is a blessed side afffect: pain, grief, loss, and a sense of rejection to the evil one.

But John here speaks of a specific side effect of being adopted by God: don’t expect to be recognized as a son of God or for that recognition to result in favor towards you: “the world does not know us” We can expect hostility.

6. Behold the great end (aim) of this love. “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” The day is coming when we will not merely be called the sons of God, but we will be LIKE the Son of God. This is what motivates holiness.

7. Behold the cost of it. The average international adoption costs somewhere between $25,000 and $35,000 which is nothing compared to the cost of your adoption as a son of God – the blood of God’s son which cost him his life. John says this love can only be explained by moving into another dimension.

In all of Calvin’s Institutes there is not one chapter on adoption, due in part to the fact that Calvin weaves the doctrine throughout the tapestry of God’s work of redemption. His view of adoption is not peripheal but central to Calvin’s whole view of the work of God in salvation. The purpose of the incarnation and the atonement is the adoption of Christians. The first title of the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Adoption.

Rev. Cornelis Pronk: Calvin and the Church

Rev. Pronk is Visiting Professor of Church History and Systematic Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI and the author of Expository Sermons on the Canons of Dort.

Ephesians 4:11-16

Shortly before John Calvin passed away he dictated his last will and testament and referred to himself as the minister of the word of God and the church in Geneva and thus indicates what he believes to be his most important life’s work. Devoted most of his energy to building the church in Geneva. Calvin, however, looked upon all of Europe as his parish. He kept abreast of what was happening in many countries, especially his native country of France.

In France, believers were periodically exposed to severe persecution. Calvin often wrote to kings reminding them of their God-give duty to protect the Christians. He warned the kings not to close their ears or minds to the injustices being inflicted on his Protestant subjects.

Three Different Concepts of the Church

1. The view of Rome: the church was the divinely instituted body of Christ headed by his Vicar the Pope with grace mediated by the sacraments and worked closely with the state.

2. The Lutheran view: the assembly of all who were united to Christ by visible, justifying faith, governed by the state with the authority to excommuniate.

3. The Anabaptists: a voluntary gathering of believers who had experienced the new birth and testified to it through baptism and the Lord’s SUpper. Church discipline was strictly enforced. Strict view of separation of church and state.

Calvin borrowed from all three of these views. Agreed with Luther that the church was a visible body. He agreed with Rome that the church had to work with the state, but that the state should not control the church.

Calvin’s view of the church is fully developed in Book Four of his Institutes. The church is a divinely instituted. The distinctive system of church government that he developed. The NT church is governed by Christ through four permanent offices: Pastor, Elder, Teacher and Deacon selected by the church body. The church governed itself without relying on state support.

What made Calvin’s view of the church so unique?

1. The church is of divine origin, which is not the same as saying that the church is divine, which was the view of the Roman Church. Rome arrogates to itself a divine attributes. It equates itself with the role of the Holy Spirit, a position which Calvin empahtically denied. The church consists of human beings, who even when they get to glory will continue to be human.

The church is firmly rooted in God’s sovereign election which is the foundation of Calvin’s ecclesiology: God from eternity has chosen a people. The Holy Spirit makes use of certain means in the choosing of this people. “We need outward helps to beget and increase faith within us.”

For Calvin the visible church is an indispensable aid to the salvation of God’s elect. Not all the members of the visible church, however, are members of the invisible church. The visible church is a “mixed body” based on the parable of the wheat and the tares. The church is made up of true believers and hypocrites who cannot be effectively separated until judgement day. “The holy assembly is defiled by much filth.”

Church Discipline: Two Views

Anabaptists held to a narrow view of the church that the church could not be defiled with unrighteousness and worked to remove all impurities.

The Reformers understood that mixed into the church were many whose lives were anything but holy. These unholy members were subject to discipline, but the reformers were realistic in theire view that all of the impurities could not be removed. Church discipline was essential to the well-being of the church but not to the essence of the church.

This visible church, despite her many weaknesses, is still the true church and outside of her there is no salvation.

Which visible church comes closest to the invisible church? Calvin address this question by pointing out that the true church is identified by the pure and faithful preaching of the gospel and the faithful observation of the sacarament of the Lord’s Table. Calvin does not mention discipline as a mark of the church’s soundness. Calvin gave precedence to sanctification.

Calvin’s use of the term ‘mother’ to describe the church has an ancient precedent. “You cannot have God as your Father without the church as your Mother” is a direct quote from Cyprian. The church as a mother nurtures.

The Unity of the Church

The unity of the church is rooted in truth, but there is room for differences in opinion over non-esential doctrines and practices.

The Ministry of the Church

If God is our Father through regeneration, the church must be our mother who gives birth to us and nourishes us to spiritual life.

Calvin’s doctrine of the church is of great importance to us who live 500 years after his birth yet bears similiarities to his day. God still has his visible church on earth, and identifiable by the marks laid down by Calvin.

Calvin was keenly aware of the mixed composition of the visible church. We are not members of the church by our natural birth, but to be re-born to spiritual life takes place through the ministry of the church. There is a tendency to by-pass the official ministry of the local church in favor of looking for spiritual food elsewhere. Many get their spiritual highs at conferences (laughter). There are many people who love conferences but they do not show an equal or superior love for their own church. Can the blessing you receive at a conference be seen in your attitude toward your own local church and pastor who has been given to you by Christ for your spiritual welfare? The local church is not given the attention and devotion that the Bible insists upon.

One mark of the church is her apolosticity: the church adheres to the doctrine as given to her by the apostles. And we must be in harmony with what the apostles taught, striving to understand the word of God with the help of those who have been taught the word of God and have a call to nurture the church in the word.

If God in his gracious providence has placed us in such a sound church consider that as a great and inestimable privilege – think of the church as your spiritual mother who gives us spirtual life and birth and then lovingly feeds us first with the milk of the word and then later with meat, then faithfully disciplines us through the ministry of the men whom God has appointed as its leaders.