It was my privilege a year or so ago to work with Ligonier producing two CDs for them,
one entitled "The Reformed Pastor," and the other, as you have heard, entitled "Calvinism
and the Christian Life." I'm sure if you asked most Christian people, "What exactly is Calvinism?"
they would think about the frozen chosen. They would think about hardheaded, cold-hearted,
logical, not so biblical Christian men and women. And if that were so, we would be denying
what Calvinism is at its heart. Most people, I think, when they hear that word instinctively
think of five points: TULIP as it's called. But I've often thought that if that's what
you think Calvinism is, it's a bit like taking five bones out of a body and forgetting there's
another two hundred and one located in the body.
The five points are wonderful truths, but dislocated from the anatomy of biblical Christianity,
they can become austere, lacking in grace, and almost floating above the realities of
life, not really connecting with the way we go about living lives that are pleasing to
God and honoring to the gospel. And so in this little series entitled "Calvinism and
the Christian Life," my main concern, my passionate concern, if I could put it like that, was
to help people see that Calvinism was something richer, grander, profounder, deeper, more
pulse-quickening than mere five truths. And I sought to -- maybe poorly, but I hope with
all my heart -- to help people understand that John Calvin had a vision that was captivated
by the revelation of the triune God in Holy Scripture.
If you were to ask someone like John Calvin, "What is the great, fundamental, foundational
truth of the Christian religion?" without pausing he would surely have immediately replied,
"The revelation of the grace and glory of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
And that vision of God's self-revelation not only captured Calvin's mind, it captivated
his heart. The problem with many Calvinists is that the system of Calvinism has captured
their minds, but it hasn't captivated their hearts. But God is the great captivating reality.
The Lord Jesus Christ said in John 17, "This is eternal life that we might know you, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you've sent."
Pondering, meditating upon, reflecting upon, reading about, discussing, praying through
God's self-revelation of Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is intended not simply
to fill our heads with interesting facts about the relationships of the Father, Son, and
the Spirit one to the other. The intention is not to leave our minds captured by the
intricacies of the intra-Trinitarian relationships. God's revelation is intended to captivate
our being because eternity is about being in the presence of this God and learning increasingly
to know Him in the infinitude of who He is.
If you were to ask most people here in this room tonight, "When did the Lord bring you
to saving faith?" I would guess that many of you would be like me. You would be able
to point to a particular time in your life when God drew near to you, spoke into your
heart, won your allegiance, and brought you into His kingdom. Perhaps some of you would
be like my wife, who has never known a day that she didn't trust Christ as her Savior
and Lord.
If you'd asked John Calvin, "When did the Lord bring you to faith?" I'm not quite sure
what he would have said because in the fifty or so plus volumes of his writings, in only
one place -- and that in the space of three lines -- does he discuss his conversion. And
all he says is that his heart was rebellious against God but that God subdued him and brought
his heart to docility. That's Calvinism, subdued by God, Deus subigit, subdued by God and brought
to docility. Isn't that a beautiful way to express the saving grace of God in your life?
He has brought you to docility. He has brought you to embrace the yoke of Christ sweetly
with a docile heart. And for Calvin, that was the soil out of which the Christian life
was to be lived. Calvin had a motto, "Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere."
If you're interested, "My heart I give to you, O God, promptly and sincerely," and that
became the driving pulse beat of Calvin's Christian life. My heart I give to you O Lord
promptly and sincerely, and that reality shaped for Calvin the style, if you like, the shape
of his Christian life. Calvin was a man who lived under the Word of God. He sought to
go where the Word would take him and to stop short where the Word did not take him.
And in the video series, I tried as best as I was able, poor though that may be, to sketch
the lineaments of what biblical Calvinism actually looks like, and there were a number
of features that I highlighted. Let me just mention them to you very briefly. Here are
the fundamental features that will shape and style any man or any woman who truly is a
Calvinist.
Number one, they will live a life that honors God's sovereignty. They will acknowledge the
lordship of God in their lives and in all things everywhere. They will acknowledge that
He is God, sovereign, majestic, to be worshipped, to be adored, to be loved. So Calvinists honor
God's sovereignty.
Secondly, Calvinists cherish God's grace. One of the things I love about reading John
Calvin, and he is easy to read. Let me encourage you, maybe you're a little daunted by the
name "John Calvin." Calvin is easy to read. Profound, but his prose is beautiful. It's
rhythmic. There's a cadence to his prose. And Calvin delights to cherish God's grace,
because when you cherish God's grace, you are cherishing the God of grace. Grace puts
God where He belongs, on the throne, and puts us where we belong, at his feet.
And then thirdly, Calvinists live before God's face. They live coram Deo. We don't live looking
over our shoulder, wondering either what the world thinks about us or even what the church
thinks about us. I don't mean we have to live our lives irrespective of the body of Christ,
but that we have to live before God with a single eye to His glory and to His will done.
And one of the things that first attracted me as a young undergraduate, studying history
in the university in Glasgow was to encounter in Calvin a life that in everything, as it
seemed to me, he sought first God's kingdom and His righteousness. There was never any
trace, as far as I could see, of him looking for the plaudits, certainly not of the world
around him and not even of the church. He was a catholic-spirited man, as I will mention
in a moment, but it was this single eye to the glory of God that to me just challenged
me and at the same time frightened me, but also at the same time compelled me.
And then fourthly, Calvinism is a life shaped by God's holiness. One of the tragedies in
modern evangelical Christianity is the manifest worldliness that has not only crept into the
church, but that has come like a tidal wave into the church. We are called to be holy
as God is holy. That doesn't mean to be prickly, to be awkward, to be cross-grained, but it
means to live our lives shaped by the moral glory of God as His image bearers and those
who are called to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ.
And then fifthly, Calvinists are satisfied with scriptural worship. I find it very strange
that there are evangelicals who will fight to the death over what the Bible teaches that
we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, but they're very indifferent
to what God would decree to us concerning how He's to be worshipped. Perhaps, it would
be a surprise for you to know that the Reformation and the Reformers certainly, considered the
Reformation to be first not about the doctrine of salvation, but about the right worship
of God.
In his 1543 treatise on The Necessity of Reforming the Church, Calvin writes in the preface to
Emperor Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, "If you ask me why there has been a reformation,"
to paraphrase, "number one, because God is to be worshipped as He has decreed and not
as we have imagined." And one of the great concerns of Calvinists, if we can call ourselves
such, is that we look to shape our worship not by the passing fads and fancies. Remember
C. S. Lewis' comment, "Fads and fashions come and go, but they mainly go." And the church
and its worship is to be shaped regulatively by what God has ordained, not by what we think
might be interesting.
Sixthly, Calvinism pursues godly catholicity. I don't know if any of you -- how many of
you either possess or have dipped into Calvin's tracts and letters? Now, let's be honest.
I'm not going to pounce on you. One or two, wonderful! Some of Calvin's letters are breathtaking.
I'm not sure he would be invited to many Reformed conferences. His catholicity is really unsettling.
He wrote this wonderful letter to archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1553, and he begins, "Godly,
revered brother Cranmer." Calvin's in Geneva, Cranmer is archbishop of Canterbury. He's
soon to be burnt two years later through bloody Mary's witch hunt. And Calvin there expresses,
I think in a very moving way, his longing for Protestant unity. And he said, "I would
willingly cross ten seas to help heal the bleeding body of the Lord Jesus Christ." His
letters are gloriously pastoral, profoundly, deeply catholic-spirited in the best sense
of the word. He saw beyond himself. He was willing to lay aside certain cherished convictions
that he had.
When, for example, the exiles in Frankfurt in 1555 wrote to Calvin, they were really
miffed that they were being forced to kneel, to receive the Holy Supper, and they said
to Calvin, "This isn't biblical, this is not ordained by God. What should we do?" And Calvin
replies, "Well, yes, you're absolutely right. Scripture does not command this, but in the
state of the times bear with tolerable foolishnesses." Bear with tolerable foolishnesses. John Knox
wrote to Calvin at the Scottish Reformation, 1516. He said, "Brother Calvin, things are
going from bad to worse. The Parliament are giving one-third of the church's patrimony
to these old Roman priests. What shall we do?" And Calvin replies, "Dear brother John,
they will die." You know when you're building a house, don't start with the roof. Get the
foundation right. And this godly catholicity, this holy moderation was a great note that
certainly deeply attracted me to Calvin.
And then finally, simply this. I try to highlight that Calvinism seeks to cultivate communion
with God. I mentioned, in my earlier address, volume two of John Owen's works. After Calvin's
Institutes, it has had more impact on me than any other book I've read, it's just, for me,
it is an out of this world experience reading John Owen in volume two, "Communion with the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." If you haven't read it, buy it. It's just magnificent.
Calvinism should be noted for communion with God. Our services should be marked by a deep
sense of drawing near to God even as God in Christ, by His Spirit, draws near to us. Calvinism
is not less than five points. But it's gloriously more than five points, and I hope that perhaps
if you haven't looked at the little DVD, I don't think I get any royalties from it so
it's OK, I can just promote it. You might find it helpful, if nothing else, as to give
you a little taster of what Calvinism actually is and not what many people imagine it to
be. Thank you.