Paul Helm

If, as Paul say, the law is not faith (Gal. 3.11-12), the one excludes the other. So the law is quite different from faith. And so justification is by faith…

In his attack upon Osiander Calvin adds that while ‘Christ, as he is God and man, justifies us’, nevertheless Christ’s righteousness is a work of the Saviour’s human nature, the…

After his refutation of Osiander, Calvin returns to his mainline exposition of justification, that the believer receives pardon and God’s righteousness is reckoned to be the believer as the only…

Is the Institutes a work of systematic theology? Yes and no. Calvin covers many of the topics of theology in his own inimitable way, but unevenly. There is much from…

Calvin now begins to emphasise what has become apparent in Chapter 8. There we saw that there is one law of God, as obligatory in the New Testament era as…

Calvin’s approach to the moral law is not moralistic but evangelical. Keeping the commands is to spring from the fear of God which the Gospel engenders.  For the Law and…

Calvin’s distinctive way of setting forth of the true purpose of the law is now apparent. And so bearing false witness stands for having a general regard for truth, for…

The commands forbidding murder and adultery are, if anything, interpreted even more widely by Calvin. The command not to kill implies not merely a refraining form certain kinds of action,…

Calvin’s understanding of the Fourth Commandment is notably  restrained. Its present rationale has chiefly to do with the ordering of public worship at a set time, appropriately enough a time (or…

Calvin skilfully weaves themes together like strands of thread.  Faith  appears in connection with the self-authentication of Scripture, then disappears from view, returning in Book III. Word and Spirit come…