In this 500th anniversary year since John Calvin’s birth it seems fitting to have more than the usual regular posts regarding him, and his life, his achievements and his legacy. I am reading several books at the moment, about different aspects of Calvin the man and his ministry, and one or two to follow afterwards too. I shall give a list at the foot of this post as worthwhile reads for anyone who wishes to read themselves.

Calvin had his plans all laid out, He was to retire in quiet contemplation, meditation and study. He was a man of meditation more than action, which probably suited his naturally meek and timid disposition. God however had other plans.  A quote from Calvin himself regarding  Farel’s  entreating him to stay:

As the most direct road to Strasburg, to which I then intended to retire, was as shut up by thewars, I had resolved to pass quickly by Geneva, without staying longerthan a single night in that city. A little before this, Popery had been drivenfrom it by the exertions of the excellent person whom I have named, andPeter Viret; but matters were not yet brought to a settled state, and thecity was divided into unholy and dangerous factions. Then an individualwho now basely apostatised and returned to the Papists, discovered meand made me known to others. Upon this, Farel, who burned with anextraordinary zeal to advance the gospel, immediately strained every nerveto detain me. And after having learned that my heart was set upondevoting myself to private studies for which I wished to keep myself freefrom other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, heproceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement,and the tranquillity of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw andrefuse to give assistance, when the necessity seas so urgent. By thisimprecation I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journeywhich I had undertaken.

Calvin heard the call, and had such fear of God, he  laid all his own plans aside to do as he felt called to do, because he had always had a strong sense of duty.

Calvin, in my humble opinion, is the opposite of what is wrong with much of the reformed church today. Today we stay in our little private nooks and crannies and have very insular faith. As long as our little boat is happy, then our belly is full and the work of the Lord,  in building up the church in whatever way that may be, is often laid aside because we choose comfort over  self-denial.  I have seen this up close and personal on numerous occassions.   Calvin was a theological genius of his day, and today, we can have all our theological ducks lined up near perfectly, but knowledge doesn’t maketh the Christian,  to be doers of the Word makes us either an  below average Christian or an good Christian.

Calvin was carried about in the worst of health, and still he laboured. Now, a bad case of the sniffels sends us running for comfort and  ease and rest.  One time he was laid up when particuarly ill, and too ill to preach, he complained about his lack of work that month, yet that single month had written twenty sermons alone, along with other sundry articles.  He worked tirelessly,  and selflessly, yet even amongst the most knoweldgeable at times, these days,  we are very self serving, rather than God serving.  A friend in need, is easy to turn away from, or limit how much we may assist, if  its more comfortable for us to stay at home, in the comfort of our own little shady nook.  I’m sure we can find all kinds of plausible excuses, of why that may do so, yet the brethren are family, and the Spirit that unites the brethren in God’s family should not be thinner than blood. We should serve our brethren when we can, as much as if they were our own blood relatives, because in God’s eyes,  your neighbour and my neighobur are our real brothers and sisters, because we are all God’s children.  Yet you rarely find it practiced that blood is  not thicker than water. And  I see that as very little different, to how when Christ talking about forgiving our enemies or praying for them, , says if you forgive  someone who is not your enemy, how small is that,  to go the extra mile and forgive your enemies and put ourselves out for our brethren in a self sacrificing way,  was the life of Calvin and many of his contemporaries. We can follow the old paths in our doctrine. We can  have all our theology nicely squred with Scripture, but unelss we practice self denial, and self sacrificing to serve Christ, in serving the brethren, then we are not living up to our full potential or glorifying God  very much.

Too often today, even amongst the reformed or perhpas particuarly among the Reformed, because the REformed church can be very unloving and harsh at times it seems to me. It seems like we use the Sovereignty of God as a get out clause, very little different to how the hyper calvinists do over salvation.  It’s all in God’s hands, why should I intervene and try to help?   Calvin was a great man not because of his doctrine, it was because of his work to spread the light of that doctrine, and the way he sacrificed his all for serving the church, even when  often he was so ill he would pray to die.

He had one prayer that went, “Lord, your  hand is heavily upon me, but I am thakful it is your hand, and not anothers.”

I am all for everybody working to have good doctrine, to learn the truth of what Scripture teaches, and  only God’s Word being our final authority on anything.  I am all for the doctrine of the Reformed Church, ie. the gospel  rightly understood, pervading into other churches and the truth  being spread abroad and evangelizing to the lost.  But what I abhor about the Reformed church, in its current state, is the decay and stagnation that lies within it often times. There are faithful, hard working ministers and Christians of course,  and they should get our full support, but the other side  the coin is that there is much stagnation, and decay, where self serving  and only just serving the Lord seems to be the order of the day. We may practice personal piety, we may do all the right things in our own homes, but faith and the church was not meant to  be that insular and so self orieented to only include those under our own roofs, or those we come into contact with in our  occupational duties. We work because we eat and feed our families by working.  It’s not something we cannot do if able,  but if that and our own home is all that we really pay attention to or pour our heart into, then it equates mammnon and comfort as  our motivations for both.

If Calvin and his contemporaries had taken that stance, the reformation would have been a non-starter, a disaster. We need to encourage those faithful minister, and those Christians who serve faithfully, and do sacrifice for the sake of building up the church, but we also need to urge those who  seem to seve  themselves first,  and only their nearest and dearest, to fulfil the duty God has called all of us to.

Yes, we all have times where we feel too tired, too worn down, and we just need to sit a while and rest. But when it is constant and a continuous state of affairs then something is seriously wrong with that. It’s unbiblical, its not without gretat sin, and it shows how highly we prize ourselves above our brethren.

The Covenanters when thrown our of their manses and occupations, didn’t just  suffer persecution and  hunger and starvation themselves. Their wives, children and any other independants were also thrown out to fend for themselves penniless and with no place to rest their heads.  And feeding or sheltering those thrown out, was a capital offense,  one that could cost their lives, yet they did. Even the prisoners in Grey Friars church, and the puritans in  England, they had to rely for food, by it being brought in by theose who visited them. Those who visited them bringing food, risked arrest and imprisonment themselves, by doing so,  yet they did it for their brethren because they were willing to sacrifice for Christ and his crown and the brethren  who were also God’s children.  Calvin is a pattern, almost, of a living sacrifice. His work cost him his health.  Yet he gave it all for the glory of God and was a living sacrifice. What made Calvin great, was not his doctrine, or his theology on its own, it was how he put his sense of duty and serving God and by that serving his brethren  and was willing to deny himself everything to do so.  Calvin is a pattern for Calvinists to follow. Not only in his doctrine, but also in his service and quest for  building up the church and supporting the brethren in any way he  could do. Calvin had a pastors heart,  and  we are all part of the preisthood today. Whether ministers or you, or I, or  whomever it maybe, we all have a duty to self deny and serve God  first and foremost, and our own comfort, and shady nook, being preserved so that it causes us as little disturbance of inconvience as possible,  laid aside. The sense of duty that Calvin had should inspire us all to stirive for similar. Rather than  doing minium service,  and taking the good things in life God gives us, because God can take it all off us in even the enxt hour, because then we have made idols of the things we love best, and we  put them before serving the Sovereign God of Heaven and Earth.

Calvin saw God’s Sovereignty in all its majesty and splendour and greatness, and saw how small and  insignificant he was next to the great God of heaven. And that’s why, he was willing to live a life of almost total self denial and self sacrifce, to serve the Lord he loved. Because if we love anyone,  we will always put them first.  But if those we put first are always our own nearest and dearest at often times the cost to our brethren on our own doorstep almost,  then we love our nearest and dearest more than we love the Lord, and they are the idols of our heart,  and serving them,  comes before serving God.