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John Calvin: The Divine Majesty of the Word | John Piper · Reformed Thinking

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Brief audio segment, Reformed thinking.
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Welcome to the deep dive. Today we're really getting into
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the life and the thought of John Calvin.
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He's obviously a huge figure central to Reformed theology.
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But we're not just doing a biography here.
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It's more like an architectural analysis.
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Right, we want to see how the whole structure was built.
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Exactly. We've got a great stack of
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sources here, some histories, biographical notes, and of
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course, bits from Calvin himself.
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The Institute's his letters and our mission is pretty focused.
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We're trying to find out one single engine that drove him.
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That central passion. Yes.
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What was it that shaped his doctrine, his insane work
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schedule and, you know, kept him going through all the sickness
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and opposition? And the sources are well,
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they're surprisingly clear on this.
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It seems Calvin's entire life was organized around this one
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intense zeal to display the glory of God.
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So it's not just another doctrine on the list.
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Not at all. It's the sun and his solar
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system of thought. Everything orbited around it.
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His whole goal was to bring back this understanding of God's
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supremacy over everything. Everything he did, everything he
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wrote, it all flowed from that. That's a huge claim.
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It is, and to really get a feel for that zeal, you can't start
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with Calvin the man. You have to start where He
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started, which is with the reality of God Himself.
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With God's own self definition. Precisely Once you grasp the
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sheer absolute reality of the sovereign God, then Calvin's
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conversion, his fight with Rome, all of it starts to make a lot
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more sense. OK, let's unpack this.
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So to understand the mind behind something like the Institute's,
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we have to start at the bedrock. And that takes us to, well, one
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of the most significant moments in all of scripture, I think.
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Exodus Chapter 3 the. Burning Bush, right?
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Moses is getting his Commission to lead Israel, and he asks the
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question anyone would ask. Who do I say sent me?
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He needs a name, something with authority, something that will
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mean something to Pharaoh and to the Israelites themselves.
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And God's answer is just it's like nothing else.
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He doesn't say I am the Creator or I am your deliverer.
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He starts with his own being. He says I am who I am.
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In the Hebrew, a hi Asher, a hiya, it's just staggering.
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And then Moses is told I AM has sent me to you.
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God then gives the name itself Yahweh, and ties it directly to
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that statement of being. So the very core of God's name
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is just existence, that the most essential thing about him is
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that he is. Yes, and this is where it gets
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really foundational. When we say God is the I am,
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we're talking about his self existence, His assayety.
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Just think about what that means for a second.
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No beginning. No beginning, no end.
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He never becomes anything. He isn't developing or
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improving, he just is perfect, complete, eternal.
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That right there challenges so many ideas about God, even
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philosophical ones. The idea of a God that has to
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change or react. It does.
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I mean, some Greek thought had this idea of a distant,
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unchanging deity, but this is even more radical.
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God isn't dependent on anything outside himself, He just is.
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He is the standard for reality. We exist because he allows it.
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He exists because he is. So if God defines reality
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itself, what does that mean for us, for human choice?
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That's a great question, Calvin would say.
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God's absolute existence doesn't erase our choices, It actually
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provides the framework for them. Our choices are real, but they
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happen inside the reality that He has already defined.
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We don't. Get a vote on what reality is.
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We don't. Every atom, every law of nature,
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every moral standard, it all belongs to him.
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And the sources point out something critical here.
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Our skepticism, our arguments, our resistance.
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None of it changes the fact that he simply and absolutely is.
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So resisting him is like resisting reality itself.
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You're just fighting against the green of the universe and it
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changes you for the worst but it doesn't affect his being one
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bit. That's why I just thinking about
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this. Self existent God should really
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quiet our arguments and justice capture our minds.
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This sounds like the ultimate cure for human pride.
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If he is the absolute I am, then he has to be the main thing in
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everything. Our whole existence is just
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secondary. Exactly.
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And that's the seed of Calvin Zeal.
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He saw that if God is the absolute Russians point, then
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the goal of everything has to be pointed back to Him.
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Which is what we see in the New Testament, Romans 11.36.
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From Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
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To Him be the glory forever. That verse is the logical
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outcome of what God says in Exodus.
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Three OK, so if that's the standard that all things are to
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him, where do things go wrong according to the sources?
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Where does the modern church sometimes miss this?
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Well, the sources bring up some sharp critiques.
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They mention how this majestic view of God has kind of faded,
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even in some parts of evangelicalism.
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You can use all the right words, but the center of gravity has
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shifted. Shifted from God to what?
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To the self, the focus becomes me and my need of salvation.
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God becomes a tool to get something I want, whether that's
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happiness or peace or even heaven itself.
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His glory is no longer the main goal.
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His function in my life becomes the focus.
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So losing that view of God is the absolute I am means faith
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reorients itself around me, not him.
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That sounds a lot like what Calvin was up against.
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It is, Calvin believed that if the God you worship isn't the
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absolute self existent sovereign, you're not really
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worshipping God. You're worshipping an idea of
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God that you've tailored to your own needs.
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An idol. His life's work was about
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getting back to the non negotiable definition of God,
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forcing people to deal with the one who is.
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We have the subjective truth then God is the absolute
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sovereign, the I am. So how does that truth become
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the personal life changing experience for John Calvin?
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He was a young scholar and pretty zealous for the Catholic
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Church at first. And that transition is so
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important. It shows his theology wasn't
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just some academic exercise. It was born from a real
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encounter. That zeal for God's glory came
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directly out of his conversion. Let's talk about that moment.
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He writes about it in his preface to his commentary on the
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Psalms. This would have been around
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1533. Yes, he was trying to be pious
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within the Catholic system, and then he comes across calls, a
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very different form of doctrine, something that was trying to get
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Christianity back to its original purity.
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But he didn't just accept it. Oh, not at all, he said.
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He strenuously and passionately resisted it.
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He found it offensive. It was new and worse, it meant
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admitting that he, a brilliant young man, had been living in
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ignorance and error. That's a hard pill for anyone to
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swallow. So if he resisted it that
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strongly, the change must have been sudden and, well,
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supernatural it. Was based on his own words, he
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says. God, by a sudden conversion,
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subdued his mind and made it teachable.
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The sources really stressed the intensity of it.
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He saw, as if light had broken in upon me, just how deep his
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error was. That sounds like more than just
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changing his. Mind, it was a full blown
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spiritual crisis. He talks about being alarmed and
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repenting with groans and tears. It wasn't an intellectual shift.
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It was a spiritual awakening that left him with this intense
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desire for true godliness. For a mind like Calvin's, there
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has to be substance to that light.
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What did he actually see in that moment?
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This is the key. The light allowed him to
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suddenly see and taste in scripture the majesty of God.
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That's the breakthrough. The Word of God wasn't just a
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textbook to be interpreted by the church anymore.
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It became self authenticating. It proved itself to him.
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It convinced his soul beyond any doubt that the scriptures were
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from the very mouth of God, and that God in person speaks in it.
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And that completely flips the structure of authority, doesn't
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it? If you can see God's majesty in
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the Word, the Word doesn't need someone else to vouch for it.
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Exactly. It dethroned the church as the
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authority that gives the scriptures credibility for 1000
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years. The argument was you believe the
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Bible because the church says it's true.
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Calvin experienced the exact opposite.
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He knew the scriptures were true because he could perceive the
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majesty of the speaker, God himself, in the text.
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So this gets us to that core doctrine, the internal testimony
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of the Holy Spirit. How did Calvin explain this?
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So it didn't just sound like a subjective feeling.
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That's where the institute is so careful, he argues, that human
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reason alone can't get you there.
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You can have all kinds of good arguments for the Bible.
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It's history, it's preservation, how it all fits together.
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But those arguments, he said, are not sufficient to produce a
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solid faith. They just get your mind ready.
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So the Spirit does something more.
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The Spirit's job isn't to give you new private information.
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It's to awaken you as from the dead, to open your spiritual
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eyes so you can see the divine reality that's already there in
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Scripture. It's not a new truth, it's a new
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ability to perceive the truth. How did he keep that from just
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being about personal feelings? You know, I just feel like it's
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true. He used a great analogy, he said
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recognizing this truth is as immediate and unanalyzable as
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the perceiving of a color or a taste.
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If I hold up something blue, you don't need me to prove to you
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with logic that it's blue, You just see it.
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And if you're color blind, no amount of logic will make you
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see it. Exactly.
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Spherical truth is like that. The truth of Scripture is above
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human judgement. It's as if you're gazing upon
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the majesty of God Himself. The Spirit gives you the eyes to
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see the light that is already shining from the Word.
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So the authority is outside of us.
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It's in the Word, but our ability to see it is a gift from
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inside, from the Spirit. Right.
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For Calvin, his conversion wasn't about finding new
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arguments. It was an illumination that
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showed him the objective majesty of God speaking through the
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text. The Word showed him the majesty,
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and the majesty proved the Word. Here's where it gets really
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interesting. It's a completely interwoven
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reality, and once he had that spiritual perception, the only
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logical response was total allegiance to the book that
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contained that majesty. And that becomes the root of
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everything else he does. It turns him from a quiet
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scholar into a man on a mission for the glory of God.
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So that supernatural vision of God's majesty puts Calvin on a
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direct collision course with the Church of his day.
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And the sources say his chief quarrel with Rome wasn't even
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the specific doctrines at first. Right.
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It was the bigger issue underneath it all, the
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centrality and supremacy and majesty of the glory of God.
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The doctrinal fights were just symptoms of that deeper problem.
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Exactly. Calvin believed that the Roman
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system, through certain practices, had slowly shifted
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the focus and moved from God's honor to man's needs or man's
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comfort. He makes this point so clearly
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in his response to Cardinal Satellite.
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In 1539, Satellite had written to Geneva trying to get the city
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to come back to the Catholic fold after Calvin was exiled.
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And Satellite's letter is very pastoral, very focused on the
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salvation of the soul and getting to heaven.
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He basically paints Calvin as this unloving guy who's
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disrupting everyone's peace. But Calvin's response just
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reframes the whole debate. He critiques Satellite's entire
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approach. He calls it a zeal for heavenly
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life that keeps a man entirely devoted to himself.
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That is such a sharp critique. Think about it.
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He's saying that even a concern for your own soul can be
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self-centered if it's the ultimate goal.
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He says satellites piety doesn't even by one expression arouse
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him to sanctify the name of God. So for Calvin, the main point of
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life isn't even your own salvation.
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The main point is making the glory of God the prime motive of
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your existence. Salvation is the means by which
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we are brought back into a right relationship so that we can
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glorify God. The glory of God is the end
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goal. And that framework, God's glory,
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is the ultimate test, is what he used to analyze everything else,
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he argued. Rome had destroyed the glory of
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Christ in many ways. Yes, because certain practices
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took away from Christ's unique role.
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Let's walk through those examples.
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What were they? Well, first, praying to Saints
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for intercession. If you're asking Saints to take
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your request to God, it sort of implies the Christ isn't a
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sufficient mediator on his own. It lessens his unique role.
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It builds other bridges when Christ is supposed to be the
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only one. Exactly.
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Second was the adoration of the Virgin Mary.
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Honoring Mary is one thing, but he argued that adoration belongs
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to Christ alone as God Incarnate.
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When that adoration is shared, Christo's singular divine honor
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gets watered down. And the third one was about the
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mass itself. Right, the idea of a continual
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sacrifice, Calvin said. This diminished the once for all
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complete sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
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If you have to keep reoffering him, it suggests the first time
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wasn't enough. All these things together
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obscured what he called the excellence of Christ.
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It sounds like for Calvin, the best defense of good doctrine.
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It's just a passionate focus on the supremacy of Christ.
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If you lose that, other things start creeping in.
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He said it outright, he said. When you lose a clear sight of
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Christ's excellence, that's when people are carried about with so
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many strange doctrines. You start looking for other
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mediators, other sacrifices, other sources of comfort.
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Which brings us to justification by faith.
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That's what we've seen as the big one.
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How does that fit into this issue of God's glory?
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Because justification by faith is the doctrine that gives God
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the maximum glory and salvation. It says a Sinner is declared
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righteous based only on faith and what Christ did.
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Not on our works, not on our merit, not on anything we
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contribute. So it's designed to stop human
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boasting. It completely shuts the door on
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it. If we contribute even 1% to our
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salvation, then we get to take 1% of the credit.
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But this doctrine makes it 100% God's work from start to finish.
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Calvin said that when you take away the knowledge of
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justification by faith, the glory of Christ is extinguished.
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Because it's the doctrine that shows how totally sufficient
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Christ's work really was. The focus moves from what I have
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to do to praising what God has already done.
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Yes, and that same principle applies to the other big fight,
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the authority of Scripture. Right.
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You said earlier he saw Rome as making the word of God dependent
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on the word of man. And for Calvin, that was a most
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pernicious error. He had personally experienced
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the power of God's majesty in the Word, so the idea that the
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eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision
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of men was just absurd to him. If the church decides what
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Scripture is, then the ultimate authority is the church, not
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God. And Calvin rejected that
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completely. He said we owe to the Scripture
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the same reverence which we owe to God because it has proceeded
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from Him alone and has nothing of man mixed with it.
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That belief is what fueled his whole life's work.
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So we have the foundation, the absolute I am, we have of the
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personal experience, that sudden conversion, and we have the
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driving motive, recovering God's glory.
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All of this led to a ministry that was just relentless.
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It really was. And you have to remember this
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wasn't what he originally wanted.
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His plan was a quiet, scholarly life.
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After he first published the Institutes in 1536, his goal was
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to find a peaceful place to study and write.
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But that's not what happened. Providence kept stepping in a
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war, blocked his road to Strasbourg and he had to take a
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detour through Geneva. And that's where he met William
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Ferrell. The fiery reformer Ferrell found
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out Calvin was in town and just wanted to study, and he wouldn't
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have it. He didn't just ask for help, he
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basically delivered an ultimatum from God.
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Right. The sources say Ferrell
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pronounced an imprecation, a curse from God on Calvin's quiet
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studies if he refused to help in Geneva, where the need was so
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great. Can you imagine?
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It wasn't a polite request. It was a prophetic warning.
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And Calvin, who was this reserved scholar, said he was
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stricken with terror. He saw it as God's own voice,
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He. Did he felt it was God calling
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him out of his library and onto the front lines?
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So he stayed. And then it happened again.
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After he gets banished from Geneva a couple of years later,
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he thinks, OK, now I could finally go back to my books.
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But then Martin Buser finds him. And Buser does almost the same
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thing. He uses this powerful
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remonstrance to get Calvin to come and pastor in Strasbourg.
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It really cemented in Calvin's mind this idea that his life was
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not his own. Which is perfectly captured in
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his personal motto, Promptus Sincere.
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Promptly and sincerely, it meant he was offering himself to God
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immediately and without reservation.
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His seal was a hand holding out a heart to God.
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He said, Ioffer my heart as a true sacrifice to the Lord.
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That complete surrender is where his invincible constancy came.
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From and that constancy was put to the test.
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The list of his physical ailments is just staggering.
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I mean, his life was a constant battle with pain.
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He had chronic colic, gout, hemorrhoids, fevers, and the
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worst was the kidney stones, which he had to pass with no
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real pain relief. It's almost unbelievable.
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Yet his work schedule was brutal.
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Brutal preaching almost every every day.
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Lecturing multiple times a week. Church discipline meetings,
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counseling, writing thousands of letters.
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At one point he complained that he'd only managed 20 sermons and
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12 lectures in a month. He did all that while in
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constant pain. And he faced huge personal
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losses, too. Deep losses He and his wife
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Idalette lost their infant son Jacques at 2 weeks old, and then
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Idalette herself died in 1549. He wrote about his deep grief,
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calling her the best companion of my life.
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But even then he submitted, writing that God is himself a
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Father and knows best what is good for His children.
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The absolute I am was sovereign even over his deepest pain.
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That constancy was also tested politically.
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There were mobs, threats on his life.
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It all came to a head in 1553 with the libertine conflict.
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And that whole crisis was about the honor of Christ at his
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table. The City Council, siding with
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the Libertines, basically ordered the church to give
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communion to a man named Berthelier who had been
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excommunicated for his immoral life.
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So it was a direct challenge to the church's authority and for
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Calvin, a dishonor to the sacrament.
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He saw it as profaning the Lord's Supper, and he said he
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would rather meet death than feigned so shamefully the Holy
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Supper of the Lord. The source has described this
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incredibly tense scene in the church.
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The Libertines were there, ready to come forward and take the
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elements by force. And what did Calvin do?
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He stood in front of the table, physically shielding the bread
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and wine. He stretched out his arms and
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shouted. These hands you may crush, but
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you shall never force me to give holy things to the profane and
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dishonor the table of my God. That's incredible courage.
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It was, and it came directly from his theological conviction.
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But while those moments show his courage, the day in, day out,
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characteristic of his ministry wasn't confrontation.
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It was exposition. Just relentlessly teaching the
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Bible. Absolutely everything.
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He produced the Institute's, the commentaries on almost the whole
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Bible, the lectures, the tracks, It was all, at its core
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exposition of Scripture. He was Calvin the Percher of
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Geneva. And his method was very specific
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sequential expository preaching. Yes, he would start at the
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beginning of the book of the Bible and just preach through
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it, verse by verse, week after week, year after year.
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No skipping around to his favorite topics.
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And the scale of it is hard to grasp.
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It is. He spent 4 1/2 years just in the
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book of Acts. He preached 186 sermons on
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Corinthians 353 on Isaiah, and the most famous example, of
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course, is when he came back from his three-year banishment
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in 1541. He didn't give a big speech
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about his return. He walked into the pulpit,
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opened the Bible, and started his exposition on the very next
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verse where he had left off 3 years earlier.
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That tells you everything you need to know about what he
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thought was important. So why that method?
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Why not preach on topics that were more, you know, relevant to
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the moment? The sources suggest three big
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reasons. First, he saw a fearful
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abandonment of God's Word in the churches.
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So this was the necessary corrective.
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Just put the Word back in the center.
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OK, that makes sense. Second, it was to keep preachers
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honest, to stop them from bringing our own dreams and
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fancies into the pulpit. If you're committed to preaching
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through a whole book, you have to deal with what God says, not
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just what you want to say. It forces you to cover the full
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scope of God's revelation. And the third reason ties it all
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back together. It does.
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It was His conviction that the Word itself was radiant with the
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light of the glory of God. So the best way to show forth
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the majesty of God was to systematically layout the full
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range of His Word over years and years.
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It was the best method to display the full range of the
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glories of God and the majesty of His being.
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So he saw preaching as this act of total allegiance to God's
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revealed majesty. He called on pastors to boldly
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dare all things by the Word of God, and to force all the power,
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glory, and excellence of the world to give place to and to
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obey the divine majesty of this Word.
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So if we pull all this together, what does Calvin's life really
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show us? It's a clear demonstration of
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what happens when someone truly gets a glimpse of the absolute.
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I am who I am. That reality, that self existent
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God, demands a life that is radically centered on His glory.
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The moment he tasted that divine majesty of this word, his entire
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life's direction was set. It explains his suffering, his
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work, his schedule. Everything pointed back to that
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constant faithful declaration of Scripture.
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Right. And his legacy isn't just about
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defending a set of doctrines. It's about seeing truth as the
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revealed majesty of God Himself, something that demands our
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reverence and our total submission.
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That reverence is what really guards the faith.
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So it's not just about agreeing with his points, but about
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catching that passion for God's glory.
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Exactly. Calvin saw that since God's
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majesty is revealed primarily in His Word, the preaching of that
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Word has to be central to the life of the church.
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The challenge isn't just to learn about Him, but to apply
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the principle. So here's a final thought to
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Mull over. If God's existence is absolute
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and self defining, if He simply and absolutely is, how should
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that knowledge change the aim and focus of your own thoughts,
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your deepest affections, and your own zeal this week?