Blogging The Institutes

When is a "church" not a church? How do we recognize the true church of Jesus Christ? And how do we discern the false? Calvin's answer to what was in his day--and remains--an important question, is, essentially: the ministry of the Word and of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper are the...

The 16th century Reformers fought to win back the keys of the kingdom. Calvin held that ordinarily there is no salvation outside of the church, but he did not hold that the church itself was the repository of forgiveness. No, forgiveness comes through the preaching of the gospel and its application...

Well might Calvin have drawn upon Lord Acton's famous dictum in describing the outcome of the papacy's successful bid to usurp all ecclesial authority in Christendom: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." During his earlier recitation of the earlier days of popes Leo (440-461 AD...

In contesting Rome's claim to universal authority over the entire Christian Church, Calvin pits the sober record of history against the fraudulent records of the papacy. It had long been the besetting sin of Rome, Calvin asserts, to desire hegemony over all bishops, and while this is reflected in...

As Calvin continues his refutation of papal claims to supremacy, he shows the great value of detailed learning. Reading 4.7.5-10, one may soak in the volume of facts marshaled by Calvin, but we should appreciate his vast reading in the early church fathers and councils and the value of this...

History is always important to Christians, since ours is a faith based on God's saving deeds in history and since the true church passes its faith through history, one generation to the next. For this reason, Calvin and the other Protestant Reformers had an urgent need to address the question of...

In defending the prerogatives of the pope as the successor of Peter, Roman Catholics commonly appeal to Matthew 16:19, where Jesus says to Peter, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be...

And thus we turn to Book 4 of the Institutes, the longest of the sections. How is the work of Christ on behalf of the elect appropriated? Answer: by faith in the gospel. But, since we are ignorant and slothful (Calvin's words), "we need outward helps to beget and increase faith within us" (4.1.1)...

"What else do prophets [pastors] do but continually preach God's free call?" So Calvin ends paragraph 1 of this section on the thorny issue of election to salvation and of reprobation. I was stumped by this. Should we not juts substitute prophets with all who call themselves disciples of Christ?...

Calvin turns his attention to a second objection, one that extends further the conversation in which he was engaged in the previous paragraph: "why should God impute those things to men as sin, the necessity of which he has imposed by his predestination?" (3.23.6). Simply put, if God decrees Adam's...