Blogging The Institutes

The other side of divine election for Calvin is divine reprobation, which is necessary if the case of election is to stand. Reprobation means "those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines...

Even though Calvin's principle that God's good pleasure is the determining factor in human destiny seems well established in Romans 9-11 and the words of Jesus, he also dealt with the support or opposition of church fathers. After all, Ambrose, Origen and Jerome all believed "that God distributed...

Calvin moves to establish his argument that election is rooted in God's sovereign determination and not in human merit by turning to Romans 9-11. There he finds in the case of Jacob and Esau this basic principle: "If the will of God, the cause of which which neither appears nor ought to be sought...

God's sovereign election of Israel as a means of blessing to the world also included a delimiting decree, by which individual Israelites were chosen to be heirs of salvation. The conditionality of the covenant was a means by which individual election was realised. While the nation was, in one sense...

From prayer Calvin has turned his attention to predestination, a subject which many naively assume to be the cornerstone of Calvin's theology, if not the sum of it. It is interesting that he should raise the subject at this point; in the first edition of the Institutes he refers to it briefly,...

Calvin moves from the claim that the Church has the power to set up new doctrines to the idea that the Church has the power to interpret Scripture. Calvin, of course, does not believe that just because a council decrees something that the interpretation is thereby accurate. Calvin's opponents use...

Calvin's entries here continue his discussion about councils--insisting on their value and refuting that idea that they are doctrinally infallible. Scripture foretells that there will be danger and destruction within the church by pastors of the church; therefore we must always be on guard. We must...

Calvin now deals with what his opponents' objections and defenses of their additions to God's Word. Won't the Spirit guide us into truth (John 16:13)? Yes, but only through the Word, not in place of the Word. Didn't Jesus say that there were many teachings still to come which his disciples couldn't...

Servants of God can have full confidence to declare God's word, a sure message from the Creator to his world. Our powerful weapons of warfare are not the inventions of our minds but rather the decrees of God. With the Word pastors are equipped with the strength to: -to dare all boldly for the word...

Calvin insists on two presuppositions for thinking about the power of the Church: (1) it must be aimed toward edification for God's people, and (2) such edification must be done by maintaining Christ's authority. In the Bible when someone is granted authority by the Holy Spirit, God is not...