There is more to obedience to God’s commandments than meets the eye! Calvin’s reason? The law is full of synecdoche. Synecdoche?–that un-spellable figure of speech from High School English in which the whole of something is used to refer to…
John Calvin is full of surprises. As he comes to expound the Decalogue (the third longest chapter in the work, after his expositions of Prayer and the Lord’s Supper), how will the master biblical theologian introduce the God of the…
Blog 60 2.714 – 2.8.1Obligation to the keep the law as believers seems to many to legalistic and contrary to the gospel. Antinomianism has ever been an issue and Calvin asks, “To what extent has the law been abrogated for…
The pedagogic (and first) use of law is to “shut our mouths” (Rom. 3:19), not so as to lead us to utter despair (as is the case with the reprobate) but to lead us to Christ: “But in Christ his…
More covenant theology from Calvin: the covenant with David is a line of continuity with Moses, and the entirety as a preparation for the coming of Christ. Calvin walks between the (Lutheran) Scylla that the sole purpose of the law…
More Christ-centered hermeneutics from Calvin: in short, that what is seen in the New is promised in the Old; that by covenant (mentioned five times in section 2.6.3 alone) God administers salvation by one means – “the hope of all…
More arguments against Calvin’s view of free will emerge. One from Ecclesiasticus which Calvin, knowing it to be of dubious authority as an apocryphal document, nevertheless patiently answers viewing these texts as “supportive” of his point of view even if…
Objections still remain to Calvin’s view of free will. Such as this one, raised in 2.5.13: What about the biblical passages that leave us to our own devices, such as Hosea 15:5, “I shall go to my own place, until…
Long before Ben Franklin said God helps those who help themselves, others said it too. This becomes another argument in favor free will, that we, through our free will, contribute to our salvation. Calvin responds, “It is pointless to require…
The next argument in favor of free will that Calvin refutes concerns exhortations or commands. To put the matter differently: What good is any moral instruction if we are not free? In my reading of Pelagius this concern seems to…
