12^th November 2009

CALVIN 500 - SERMON: The Sovereignty of God

6 September 2009, The Forest Kirk

Professor Malcolm Prentis

INVOCATION
Heavenly Father, may our words perfectly fulfil Your Will and give You perfect glory. Thank you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

INTRODUCTION
Calvin would not have approved of what we are doing today. Including this cardboard face mask. And I don't just mean that he wanted only Psalms sung in church without instrumental accompaniment. I mean he wanted God to be worshipped and served, not idols of men's making; he insisted that the church preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, not Paul's or Calvin's.

Calvin might have been even more alarmed at this book, Positive Thinking for Calvinists, and the list I found in it, "10 REASONS WHY I AM A CALVINIST". Not just because he was not notable for his humour, but because he wanted people to be Christians not Calvinists.

2. John Calvin was French ... being French is very chic.
4. Calvinists can drink.
6. Dispensationalists are into prophecy conferences where they talk about Star-Trek eschatology and the mark of the Beast. Calvinists have conferences on "life and culture", art, social justice, and other high-brow things like that. Afterwards, we go to the local pub and talk about philosophy over a beer.
7. Calvinists have close ties with Scotland and Scotland is very cool: Sean Connery, Bagpipes, the Loch Ness Monster, Glenlivet 18 year-old Scotch, Braveheart, etc.
10. Ultimately, I am a Calvinist because I had no choice in the matter.

Calvin certainly did not want to be idolized by future generations. He gave strict instructions that he be buried in Geneva's common cemetery in an unmarked grave, to discourage those who might make it a Protestant shrine. Today, his grave site is unknown. Calvin advocated liberating the church from "the traditions of men", so why are we interested in the "tradition of Calvin"?

Other people might baulk at commemorating Calvin for quite different reasons. Some might say, "the Reformation is over", that celebrating the heroes of the Reformation is anti-ecumenical, maybe even anti-Catholic; we should forgive and forget, history is irrelevant. (Although a catholic priest friend told me Martin Luther was the best thing that ever happened to the Roman Catholic Church.)

Yet others would object because they see Calvin as the austere, humourless and cruel preacher of predestination and of an austere, humourless and cruel God, or associate him with persecution over the burning of the heretic Michael Servetus, or equate Calvinism with gloom, doom, killjoy Puritanism or fundamentalism. Or blame Calvinism for the troubles in Northern Ireland. Or global warming.

This is a heavy load of objections to commemorating John Calvin.
Our purpose today, however, is to praise God for John Calvin's enormous contribution to the cause of the gospel which God empowered him to make.

OUTLINE OF LIFE
The Reformation of the 16th century was not just about pruning corrupt church practices; it was about recovering the gospel and using it to root out the spiritual causes of the corruption. Absolutely fundamental was justification by grace through faith. No false hope, no buying you way into heaven.

As one historian puts it: "Calvin ... was able to systematize the Reformed faith so people could understand it. Luther was the obstetrician of the Reformation and Calvin was the paediatrician. God used Luther to ignite the Reformation, but he used Calvin to mould it into a mighty force for God."

Calvin was born in France in 1509; he studied theology, law and humane letters; experienced conversion in 1533: "Like a flash of light, I realized in what an abyss of errors, in what chaos I was...God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame..."

From 1534 he was an exile. First in Basel, learning Hebrew and writing his great theological work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion (cheekily addressed to the King of France); then in Geneva, then Strasbourg; finally Geneva again from 1541until his death in 1564. He suffered much in health and in his family life and in struggles to reform Geneva.

Calvin inspired Reformed Christians in many countries, many of whom faced persecution. His Scottish colleague John Knox testified that Geneva was "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles. In other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners and religion to be so seriously reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place besides."

Now, Calvin shared the common Biblical faith of Christianity and of the Reformation, but there were certain distinctive emphases. Of these, I shall mention only three, in connection with our three readings: the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Word of God and justification and election.

1. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD (Psalm 130)
In our reading from Psalm 130, we hear someone cry:
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD
But God is a stern judge:
3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
We have no hope in our own will and strength. 7 O Israel [or Christian], put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.
Someone in the pit of despair cannot get out in their own strength but realises at the end that only God is all-powerful to save.

Psalm 130 thus spoke to Calvin in his own sufferings and to Reformed Christians in their persecutions. The assurance of redemption gave strength and endurance, great resolve and confidence to Reformed Christians suffering under persecution. They knew that, no matter what, God is the sovereign Lord of history, ultimately that God was in charge. From the depths to redemption.

Our proper response to God's Sovereignty is firstly, awe - and then, what is expressed in Calvin's motto as paraphrased in the refrain of the hymn we shall sing later, "sincerely and completely I offer you my heart."

There is a great temptation for all of us to forget this; as Calvin said, "Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols" - and one of these idols is ourselves. As another hymn we will shortly sing says, "The world makes gods of lesser things". Christians are not exempt from the temptation to idolatry. As Lesslie Newbigin, the Scottish missionary, wrote: "...Christianity can easily slip, can become centered in me and my need of salvation, and not in the glory of God." And, have we all not slipped from time to time?

We need to be reminded that all we do should be done for the glory of God.
As our next hymn says, "How awesome is your sovereign rule; You reign from heav'n above."

2. AUTHORITY OF THE WORD OF GOD (1 John 5:6-12)

As Martin Luther said to the Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, "I am captive to the word of God". The church does not control the Bible; the Bible controls us. As a humanist scholar, Calvin worked really hard on the text, to let God's Word speak clearly to people in his day, "to reveal the Majesty of God [which] is radiant in the Word of God".

But how do we know the Word of God? In our reading today, in I John 5: 6, 9 & 10 we read:
6 ... the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth... 9We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. ...
Thus, we have the written Word and the Spirit speaks it to our heart.
Or as Calvin's Children's Catechism put it, "... the Holy Spirit by his illumination makes us capable of understanding those things which would otherwise far exceed our capacity, and forms us to a firm persuasion, by sealing the promises of salvation on our hearts."

Now, God's Word was not only a word to individual Christians but also a word to the church as a community, to be the means of purifying the church. The church is not just a random assemblage of believers in one place; it is our mother in the faith; it is the body of Christ in all times and all places but needs to express its earthly corporate life in Biblical order.

Purifying the church was and is a big task. The Reformed approach was to do in church, in worship and in governance, only that which was decreed by scripture . Calvin derived from the Bible the system of church order we know as Presbyterian, with 4 orders of ministry: Ministers of the word, sacrament & pastoral care; Elders for governance & discipline; Deacons for the care of the poor; and Doctors to teach theology.

As the great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge wrote: "...the combination of the principles of liberty and order in the Presbyterian system, the union of the rights of the people with subjection to legitimate authority, ... has made it the parent and guardian of civil liberty in every part of the world. ..." He goes on to say, " We do not regard [the Presbyterian system] as a skilful product of human wisdom; but as a divine institution, founded on the word of God, and as the genuine product of the inward life of the Church."
As the next hymn says, "In church, we seek an ordered life, According to your Word."

3. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH & ELECTION (John 17:1-11)
Our gospel reading today includes these words of Jesus' prayer:
"Father, ...you granted [the Son] authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 6 "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word."

We cannot run away from the controversial issue of the place of predestination in Calvin's theology - although "election" is a better word for it, and the one I shall use. As a T- shirt said on the front, "Calvinism: This shirt chose me," and on the back, "Arminianism: I chose this shirt."

Election is very much associated with Calvin's name; it became an albatross around the neck of reformed theology and Calvin's reputation. But it was not central nor the most important part of his theology. Its place in reformed theology as a whole is a bit like sparkplug in a car. The spark plug is not the engine, the car still goes with a missing spark plug, but the system works better if it's there.

Calvin would also be very surprised to be accused of inventing predestination, since it is blazingly obvious in the Bible and was taught by Augustine, Luther and many other great Christian teachers. Election is not just in Paul, it's throughout the bible, including in John 17, which was one of Calvin's cherished texts, which we also read today.

We also need to be clear about what election isn't. Election or predestination is NOT a general determinism, a che sera sera attitude of resignation, or of superstitious fatalism. Nor is it a licence for the elect to do what they like.

We also need to put this tricky idea in context. It is part of the way of explaining the inexplicable: our salvation, or justification before God. It is, in one sense, the corollary of justification by grace through faith.

Calvin clearly put it in this context, as in one sermon on election, he starts with quoting Galatians 2:15-16, "a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ". Election then reinforces the point that "Jesus Christ [is] both the author and finisher of our salvation", not we ourselves. We can do nothing to save ourselves. The point is this: God "elects" believers; they do not choose Him.

And we also need to remember, as Calvin also wrote, that "No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keeps us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief."
Hans Mol is a retired minister and world-renowned sociologist. In Holland in WW2 , he was locked up by the Gestapo. He explains election this way:
"In the Gestapo camp and in the prisons there was nothing from the past that I could rely on for security. The comfort of music, friends, relatives, status as a university student, capacity for reasoning, logical competence, confidence in man-made truth, all vanished as anchors for one's self-respect. ... Unexpectedly and miraculously in that situation of rejection and despair, affinity with, understanding of, and faith in, the crucified Christ did well up as a deep surge of inner power, as an inner spring of living water (John 4:10). God's act of resurrecting a quenched spirit did become supreme reality, pivotal to a changed identity.
"Both Paul and Calvin call this experience ‘election', a sense of God injecting sublime order and trust at the very moment of personal chaos in an existential wasteland. Both Paul and Calvin have been accused of overdoing predestination. Yet God's order is not a cold, static, impersonal execution (as people interpret predestination to be) but an exhilarating, dynamic, personal response to human disorder."
This mysterious doctrine reinforces our dependence on God's grace just as it gave great resilience to persecuted Calvinists, like the French Huguenots slaughtered in their thousands on St Bartholomew's Day in 1572. They believed that the Gospel was invincible.

CONCLUSION
All this just scratches the surface. As Pope Pius IV said, "The strength of that heretic [Calvin] consisted in this, that money never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such servants my dominion would extend from sea to sea." Well, Calvin's heirs number 70 million world-wide and his long-term influence on the modern world has been immense - spiritually, educationally and intellectually, socially, politically and economically.
Fundamentally, however, he remained a pastor and preacher of the gospel at heart, so I conclude with these words:
"With his grace as our foundation, we are so filled with his joy that we can offer the sacrifice of praise. Likewise, having sought him in prayer, we can know that he will answer us and, in return, we can thank him for the priceless gifts that he communicates to us every day."

GLORY TO GOD ALONE

Let us pray:
Almighty and ever gracious God, since all our salvation depends upon your holy Word: therefore grant that our hearts may be set free from worldly things, so that we may with all diligence and faith hear your Word, rightly understand your gracious will, and in all sincerity live according to your will, to your praise and glory; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.