On the Shoulders of Giants -- John Calvin

Q: What does the Bible say about preaching?

The Bible emphasizes the importance of preaching as a central act of worship, highlighting its authority and necessity in the church. The Bible teaches that preaching is fundamental to the life of the church. In 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul instructs Timothy to "preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." This underscores the vital role that preaching plays in conveying God's message to His people. John Calvin, a significant figure in church history, believed that the ministry of the Word is where God’s truth is proclaimed with authority. The Reformation brought a restoration of the pulpit to its rightful place at the heart of worship, reaffirming that true preaching centers on Scripture and its transformative power.

Q: How do we know Calvin's theology is true?

Calvin's theology aligns with biblical doctrine and has been validated by historical impact and the spread of Reformed theology. The truth of Calvin's theology can be traced back to its grounding in Scripture and its enduring impact on Christian thought and practice. Calvin emphasized the sovereignty of God and the authority of Scripture, foundational aspects that are deeply rooted in biblical texts like Romans and Ephesians. His work, "Institutes of the Christian Religion," systematically articulates these principles, shaping Reformed theology and influencing countless leaders and movements. The enduring relevance of Calvin's teachings, along with their alignment with Scripture and the wide acceptance in Reformed circles, affirms the truth of his theological contributions.

Q: Why is expository preaching important for Christians?

Expository preaching is vital as it faithfully conveys the meaning of Scripture, ensuring that Christians understand and apply God's Word. Expository preaching is crucial because it allows the scriptures to unfold naturally, preserving the original intent and meaning of the biblical text. John Calvin exemplified this by systematically preaching through books of the Bible, guiding his congregation through the full counsel of God's Word. This method helps prevent the misinterpretation of Scripture and fosters a deeper understanding of God's revelations. Scripture itself instructs us to meditate on God's Word (Psalm 1:2), and expository preaching plays a key role in this meditation, equipping believers to live out their faith in obedience to God's commands.

Q: What was John Calvin's contribution to preaching?

John Calvin revitalized preaching by emphasizing expository teaching, making Scripture central in church life. John Calvin's contribution to preaching was monumental, characterized by his commitment to expository preaching that placed Scripture at the center of church life. He believed that the minister's role was to serve the Word of God, leading his congregation through thorough and systematic exposition of biblical texts. Calvin's preaching style was marked by precision, depth, and a clear understanding of the sovereignty of God in salvation, which became hallmarks of Reformed theology. His approach not only reformed the pulpit during the Reformation but also established a blueprint for theological education and the preaching of subsequent generations, ensuring that the truth of Scripture would continue to be communicated effectively.

Q: Why is the sovereignty of God important in Reformed theology?

The sovereignty of God is crucial in Reformed theology as it highlights God's control over all aspects of life and salvation. The sovereignty of God is a foundational doctrine in Reformed theology because it asserts that God has ultimate authority and control over all creation, including the salvation of His people. This belief is rooted in Scriptures such as Romans 8:28-30, which outlines God's divine purpose and plan for those He has called. Understanding God's sovereignty gives believers profound comfort and assurance, knowing that their salvation is secure in His hands. Calvin articulated this doctrine clearly, emphasizing that no aspect of life is outside of God's sovereign decree, which fosters a greater sense of trust, worship, and obedience among believers.

Welcome to the 2007 Shepherds
Conference. On the shoulders of giants, snapshots
from church history, John Calvin, Steve Lawson. All right, it's
time for us to begin. I'm excited for us to spend this
time together and what a wonderful afternoon we're going to be able
to spend together. I know that you must love the Word of God
and preaching of the Word of God. And we will look at one
of our older brothers in the faith, John Calvin, and we will
see how God so mightily used him and I trust that we will
learn some things regarding how God wired him to be the expositor
that he was. I think as we would begin, it
would be most appropriate for us to begin in a word of prayer.
Our great God, we humble ourselves beneath Your mighty right hand.
and ascribe to you all glory and all honor. We pray that you
would use these next minutes in a very strategic way in our
lives. that You would use them to impact
our hearts and our souls that we might become men who are so
devoted and committed to the teaching and the preaching of
the Word of God even all the more. And we pray that You would
use the example of this man, John Calvin, to light a fire
within our soul that would burn even brighter. that we would
be committed to the exposition of the Word of God. We pray this
in the name of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus
Christ, amen. Well, I welcome you to our seminar,
the expository genius of John Calvin and I have the joy of
giving an overview, first of his life and then I want to overview
his commitment to expository preaching. I was not certain
if the book would be here on time. I woke up this morning
with a headache at 3 o'clock in the morning and so I spent
all that time wisely. So, going back through my notes
and really what I'm going to do in large measure will be draw
much from the book. So if you have a copy of the
book, you'll have much of what I'll be saying and if not, I
would urge you if you can to go pick up a copy and I think
you will find it most encouraging. Towering over the centuries of
time, there stands one figure of such monumental importance
that he continues to command our attention and he arouses
our intrigue even 500 years after he passed off the scene. His
name is John Calvin and perhaps no other name in all of church
history stands so tall as this name. Philip Melanchthon who
was one of the Reformers referred to John Calvin simply as the
theologian. And that's what Calvin was. He
was, I believe, the most distinguished theologian of the entire Reformation
and I think really the most distinguished theologian of all church history. There are so many great men who
have given their testimony regarding the effectiveness and the power
of Calvin's ministry, and it seems like the greater the man...
the more convinced he is of the greatness of the ministry of
John Calvin. Charles Haddon Spurgeon needs
no introduction with us, easily the greatest Baptist preacher
who ever lived. I believe the greatest preacher
of the English language, the Prince of Preachers, Charles
Spurgeon said, among all those who have been born of women,
there has not risen a greater than John Calvin. No age before
him ever produced his equal and no age afterwards has seen his
rival." That is a staggering testimony from the Prince of
Preachers. Spurgeon went on to say, John
Calvin propounded truth more clearly than any other man who
ever breathed. And that would certainly be outside
of the canonical writers. He knew more Scripture and explained
it more clearly. If Mr. Spurgeon says this of
John Calvin, then I want to learn more about this man. John Knox
who is the founder of the Reformed Church in Scotland and the man
most noted in Scotland's entire history Spent some time, he was
a Marian exile who fled from Scotland under the reign of Bloody
Mary. Came to Geneva and sat at the
feet of Calvin and sat under his ministry, saw the church,
saw the academy and all that was going on. And he said, Calvin's
Geneva is, quote, the most perfect school of Christ that ever was
in the earth since the days of the Apostle. And Knox went on
to say about Calvin that he was, quote, that singular instrument
of God, meaning he stands out of all church history as the
towering influence. Richard Baxter who is one of
the golden Puritans who wrote the Reformed Pastor has said,
quote, I know no man since the Apostles' days whom I value and
honor more than Calvin. And John Broadus who is one of
the founding professors of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
where Al Mohler is presently the president and served as one
of the early presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention,
he is the one who taught homiletics and taught biblical preaching
at Southern Seminary, the Broadman-Holman Publishing House is named in
part for John Broadus. Son of Calvin, Calvin gave the
ablest, soundest, clearest expositions of Scripture that had been ever
seen for a thousand years." I know of many Southern Baptist conventions
you could attend now and read that very quote and be stoned
to death. I am that man. But John Broadus,
I think, gives clear testimony to the giftedness of Calvin by
the grace of God. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield,
one of the Princetonian divines One of the greatest theologians
in the history of the church, as I walk up the stairs into
my study at home that is over the garage, there hangs a picture
of Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield in his full academic regalia
as a reminder to me to be committed to sound doctrine every time
I teach the Word of God. Warfield said, quote, no man
ever had a profounder view of God than Calvin. No man ever unreservedly surrendered
himself to the divine direction." I believe that that is really
the true genius of John Calvin is that no one ever had a profounder
view of God than did Calvin. William Cunningham, the great
professor of church history at New College, Edinburgh, Scotland
said, John Calvin was by far the greatest of the Reformers.
Calvin is the man who next to St. Paul has done most to mankind,"
unquote. That's a staggering quote of
monumental And Philip Schaff, we have all read of his eight-volume
set on church history, I commend it to you. Schaff, this luminous
church history professor has written, Calvin was an exegetical
genius of the first order. His commentaries are unsurpassed
for originality, depth, perspicuity, soundness and permanent value.
He said Luther was the king of translators. But Calvin was the
king of commentators. John Murray, professor of systematic
theology, Westminster Seminary, said, Calvin was the exegete
of the Reformation. That is to say, he dug deeper
into the Word of God and excavated out of the Scripture The meaning
of the text. Calvin was the exegete of the
Reformation. And in the first rank of biblical
exegetes of all time, Calvin himself virtually single-handedly
brought the church back to the study of the Word of God in the
original languages. S. M. Houghton has written a
marvelous book entitled Sketches from Church History, has said
regarding the study of Calvin, it has been said that to omit
Calvin from the history of western civilization is to read history
with one eye shut, unquote. It's to be in total denial of
reality. It's to be in total denial of
world history, much less church history. To read with one eye
closed towards Calvin, Theodore Beza who followed Calvin in Geneva
said that Calvin was the Christian Hercules. I want to give you
first just a brief overview of the life of John Calvin. It would
be good for us to take a moment just to re-familiarize ourself
with who this man is. In just two years, it will be
the 500-year anniversary of his birth into the world. He was
born in Noyon, France which is just 60 miles northeast of Paris. in northern France in 1509 that
would make Luther 26 years old when Calvin was born. Luther
was a first generation Reformer, Calvin a second generation Reformer
and then Knox being a third generation Reformer. Calvin was well-educated. He studied at the most famous
university in all of Europe, University of Paris where he
received his M.A. degree. Then he went to the University
of Orleans to study law at his father's insistence and then
transferred to Bordeaux where he received a law degree in 1532.
There he received the nickname, the plaintiff case as he received
an education that was the finest that Europe had to offer at the
time. He entered the University of
Paris at age 14. and perfected Latin and grammar
and syntax and became a young scholar. And I think it should
serve as an encouragement to all of us to study hard, to love
the Lord our God with all of our mind and soul and strength. and to devote ourselves to the
study of the Word of God. And it ought to be an encouragement
to us even in training our children that they would be well-educated
and well-taught as much as providence would allow. And Calvin was a
Reformer in the making. Even as a young man, he's unconverted,
he grew up in a Catholic church and yet God was giving him the
tools with powers of analysis and command of language. before
he even was brought to saving faith in Christ. He was converted
to Christ while he was in college and by his own testimony and
Calvin never spoke about himself. And so, even constructing insight
into parts of this bibliography is very difficult because he
never used himself in an illustration, he never spoke about himself.
It's really a mark of true humanity, it's not merely that you only
speak of yourself in a negative light, you just don't speak of
yourself at all, period. And that was Calvin. The preface
to his commentary to the book of Psalms, he says that he was
converted by, quote, a sudden conversion. God turned my heart. I was immediately inflamed with
so intense a desire to make progress. And from the moment he walked
through the narrow gate, he was so fully committed to the Lordship
of Jesus Christ that he was literally on fire for God. He joined the
Protestant movement, he left Catholicism, he renounced it
and rightly so. And he was forced to flee France
while still a young man, still in his mid-twenties. It is believed
that he wrote the inauguration speech for Nicholas Copp who
was the rector of...the rector of University of Paris. It was
a very Reformational message that spoke of Christ as being
the sole mediator between God and man and it was a direct assault
upon the priesthood and the Roman Catholic false gospel. And once
it was known that Calvin as a young man, but a young Christian, but
months in the faith, perhaps but years in the faith, when
it was discovered that he was the true author or his influence
was heavy in that message, the police came for him in the middle
of the night and he was forced to escape out a window tying
together bedsheets and lowered himself down the wall and his
life was marked out even as a brand-new Christian. as one who would be
the object of much persecution in this world as he would stand
for the truth of the Word of God. And let me encourage all
of us at this point, no one has ever made a mark in church history
who has not paid a great price. And if you want God to use you
in your ministry, it will always come at a price. And popularity
is for those who have little influence in this world. Calvin
was marked out early. He traveled for a year anonymously
doing evangelistic work and he went to Basel, Switzerland and
there in 1534. He began to write the Institutes,
what would become his theological tour de force. John Calvin wrote
the Institutes of the Christian Religion at only age 26. In fact, he wrote it when he
was 25, it wasn't published until he was age 26. He studied in
solitude there and it was the most famous work of the Reformation. It was really the magnum opus
of the Reformation, I think exceeding even Luther's work on the bondage
of the will. It was his masterpiece. The institutes
of the Christian religion were...was dedicated to the king of France,
Francis I, really to give him, he was a Roman Catholic king,
to give him an understanding of what is true Christianity
because the believers and the Huguenots were being persecuted
in France and he reasons with the king in the dedicatory letter
at the beginning of his institutes that in essence he said, oh king,
If you only knew what true biblical Christianity is, you would cease
the slaughtering of the true believers in the Protestant Reformation. And so the institutes were dedicated
to the King of France and they underwent five revisions in future
years. And a strange providence of God,
the hand of God was upon Calvin, the invisible hand of God was
upon his life in an extraordinary way. And he was traveling from
Paris, headed to Basel and there was a war that was going on and
some of the king's soldiers put up roadblocks and unknown to
Calvin, he could not pass on and he was redirected in the
middle of the night. to the city that would become
his base of operation for the rest of his life. He went to
Geneva with no intention of going there. He went into the inn,
there to only spend the night to get up the next morning and
continue his way. And while he was in the inn,
a fiery redhead named William Farrell recognized him. The entire
city of Geneva had just voted to abandon the Catholic dogma
and to officially now become a Protestant city, 1536. Pharaoh was an evangelist and
what they needed was a Bible teacher. What they needed was
a theologian. William Pharaoh said to John
Calvin, you must stay and teach this city in Reformed doctrine. John Calvin was very bashful,
was a very shy, introverted person, just simply wanted to withdraw
to the corner of the library and to be left alone that he
might edit his works and write. And John Calvin said, No, it's
not for me to have a position of public ministry in the spotlight
like this. And William Ferrell said, Then
the curse of God be upon your life. Now John Calvin would have to
be the least mystical man who has ever lived. And he said he
felt it was the finger of God that was pointing at him. And
John Calvin said, I will stay. That's how God got the great
Geneva...Genevan Reformer there. And John Calvin became first
the teacher and then a few months he was installed as the pastor
of the church at Geneva. And he committed the church to
the ministry of the Word of God and one unique distinctive was
he fenced off the Lord's table. and said, only those who confess
faith in Christ and who live a life that is consistent with
their Christian testimony may come to the Lord's table and
it is fenced off from those who are living in open sin and will
not confess and repent of their sin. And the people of Geneva,
although they had voted to become Reformed, had not yet been regenerated. And they threw off this yoke
of discipline and John Calvin after two years in 1538, he was
run out of his pulpit. For any of you here today who
have ever gone through the agonizing, painful experience of being put
out of your church ministry, I have gone through such an experience. It is very painful. And John
Calvin was put out of his ministry for standing on the Word of God. They put out Pharaoh as well. And John Calvin, quite frankly,
was relieved. He now thought he was...had been
excused from public life and now he could withdraw and go
to Strasbourg and now sit in private and study the Word of
God and write commentaries and to be left alone. And so, 1538,
for the next three years, he went to Strasbourg, he pastored
there, he pastored a church of French speaking people there. He wrote his first commentary
on Romans and he married his wife, Idelette. The church...or
the city fathers in Geneva gradually became more Reformed during that
three-year period of time and they issued an invitation for
Calvin to return to be the pastor at Geneva and Calvin declined. He said, literally, quote-unquote,
I died a thousand deaths upon the cross every day I was in
Geneva. Geneva was the last place in
the world that he wanted to go. They presumed upon him a second
time. He said, No, a third time. And the council of other godly
men there in Strasbourg said, You must go back. And John Calvin at that point in his life, he
saw his entire life in a very unique way as being entirely
offered up to God. There was a logo, his own personal
emblem that came out of that experience. You know, Luther
has the Luther rose that represented his life. Calvin's emblem is
a hand and in the hand that is being offered up to God, there
is a heart. And it is Calvin's heart being
offered up to God that he will obey God promptly and sincerely.
We wonder why God used John Calvin so strategically to affect western
civilization. B.B. Warfield was right, no man
was ever so surrendered to do the will of God as John Calvin. Reluctantly he went back to Geneva
in 1541 where he remained the rest of his life. And it was
there that John Calvin in essence became John Calvin. Geneva became
the hub of the Reformation, refugees from all over the Reformed world,
a world that was gradually becoming Reformed, under great duress
and persecution, believers from France, from Scotland, from England,
from surrounding areas in Europe. began to come to Geneva for political
asylum and there in the providence of God, they came under the teaching
and the influence of John Calvin. And then when Scotland or England
or the political condition changed in those other places, the people
would go back. And as they would go back, they
would take the teaching that they had received from the Word
of God under the ministry of John Calvin and his influence
in that part of the world was instantly spread. He opened the Geneva Academy
which became a training place for men in the ministry and out
of the Geneva Academy There were men that went back to their homelands,
many of whom knew that when they went back, they would be facing
a martyr's death. The Geneva Academy became known
as Calvin's School of Death because upon enrolling The men would
come under such conviction and influence of the Word of God,
they felt such a sacred stewardship of the truth that had been entrusted
to them. They felt compelled that I cannot
remain here where I am with the truth, I must go back to my native
land there to preach the Word of God and there to plant churches.
And historians tell us that some one thousand churches were planted. as a result of men who went back
to their homes. There the Geneva Bible was also
translated into the English language. It became the first study Bible
ever written, the notes rather than being at the bottom of the
page, the notes were on the side margins and it preceded the King
James Version of the Bible. In fact, the King James Version
of the Bible came about as a violent reaction against the Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible with the study
notes, Calvin had taught that man owes greatest allegiance
to God and not to the King. And King James did not like that.
He wanted greatest allegiance to be given to him. And so, his
counselors told him that you need to come up with your own
translation of the Bible into the English language so that
the Christian world will stop reading these study notes and
no longer give greatest allegiance to God. The Geneva Bible became
the very Bible that the pilgrims carried on the Mayflower as they
came to America and it was the Bible of greatest influence for
the next hundred years. Calvin died May 27, 1654. This incredibly humble man requested
that he be buried in an unmarked grave. so that all glory alone
would be given to God. It's a brief overview of his
life and before we come to his preaching, I want to talk just
for a moment about the Reformation of preaching because what the
Reformation was, was in its practical unfolding, it was a Reformation
of the pulpit. It was a referendum on the pulpit. And John brought us in his wonderful
work on the history of preaching, noted that there were four marks
of the Reformation. It was, he said, a Reformation
of preaching to this time as the church came out of the dark
ages. Preaching was no more. In fact,
the pulpit was moved over to the...to the side and the communion
table which was perceived to be a means of saving grace was
put in the very center and the Word of God was displaced. And the priest would not even
speak in the language of the people, would conduct this in
Latin Adam and what Luther did and what Calvin did brought about
a revival of just sheer preaching. The revival that in the Reformation
that took place under Calvin, preaching once again was moved
back to the very center place of the church. In fact, the architecture
of the church changed in the Reformation and they took the
pulpit and they brought it back to the very center of the building
so that every sight line and every line was brought to the
center place where there would be an open Bible laying on the
pulpit and it was a statement of faith, sola scriptura, Scripture
alone. That's what the Reformation brought
about. And not merely a revival of preaching, but a revival of
biblical preaching. And there was a restoration of
expository preaching. And Zwingli began to preach through
Matthew and Martin Luther would preach on Sundays. A professor
during the week lecturing verse by verse through books in the
Bible and then on Sundays at the college church began to preach
verse by verse through the gospel of John and Romans and Galatians
and the Psalms and Calvin and we'll speak in a moment. This
luminous expositor, John Calvin, began to systematically preach
through the Word of God and he brought a total of four thousand
sermons in Geneva. It was also a revival of controversial
preaching. Whenever you preach the full
counsel of God, it will be provocative. It will be challenging. And the
Reformation became known for its declaration of the entirety
of the Word of God. Not only was there sola Scriptura,
Scripture alone, but there was also tota Scriptura, meaning
all of Scripture. Nothing was skipped over. And
as they would preach verse by verse through books in the Bible,
they preached all of the hard sayings of Scripture. It was
controversial preaching. And finally, it was a revival
of preaching upon the doctrines of grace. You cannot preach through
the Bible without preaching the sovereignty of God in salvation. And the doctrines of grace flourished
because these men came back to the book and came back to preaching
the supremacy of God. And so it was a revival of preaching,
of biblical preaching, of controversial preaching and preaching upon
the doctrines of grace. So I want us to talk about the
expository genius of John Calvin. I want us to talk about the kind
of preaching that he brought to the pulpit at Geneva. And so, as we think first about
his approach to the pulpit, step number one, all of our preaching
is first marked by our presuppositions and our commitments before we
ever step into the pulpit. You tell me what is the fire
in your bones and what is the commitment of your soul before
you ever step into the pulpit to preach and I will tell you
the direction that your preaching will go. And so, with John Calvin,
there were certain core values that shaped and marked his preaching. And number one, he was committed
to biblical authority. He said, quote, the minister's
whole task is limited to the ministry of God's Word. That
is a radical paradigm shift from what had been going on in the
church as they were preaching the authority of the Pope and
as they were preaching the authority of ecclesiastical councils and
as they had been preaching the authority of the church fathers,
now Calvin and the other Reformers said, no, the pastor's sole commitment
is to the authority of the Word of God. Merle Dubinet, the great
church historian said, in Calvin's view, everything that had not
for its foundation the Word of God was futile. Calvin said,
when we enter the pulpit, it is not so that we may bring our
own dreams and fancies with us. Calvin said, as soon as men depart,
even in the smallest degree from God's Word, they cannot preach
anything but falsehoods, vanities, errors and deceits. It begins with biblical authority. Hughes Oliphant Old explains,
quote, Calvin's sermons reveal a high sense of the authority
of Scripture. T.H.L. Parker who is probably
the most renowned authority on the preaching of Calvin said,
quote, for Calvin the message of Scripture is sovereign. Sovereign
over the congregation and sovereign over the preacher, his humility
is shown by submitting to this authority. So it begins with
biblical authority. Schaff said Calvin had the profoundest
reverence for the Scriptures. In fact, Calvin said, we owe
to the Scripture the same reverence that we owe to God. And he went
on to say, quoting Augustine, when the Bible speaks, God speaks. Second, divine presence. Calvin believed that in the preaching
of the Word of God as the church would gather together and the
man of God would stand up with the Word of God empowered by
the Spirit of God, that there was an extraordinary manifestation
of the glory of God put on display through the truth that was being
preached. Calvin believed in a literal
presence in the taking of the Lord's Supper in the sense that
there was a unique and special manifestation of God to the people. God was making Himself known
by the Word and by the Spirit and he believed this about the
preaching of the Word of God. As Calvin put it, so often as
the Word of God is set before us, we must think that God is
present. and doth call us." Every time
I step into the pulpit, or not every time but most every time,
I have one thought. There are two who are standing
in this pulpit. And God is with me and God has
never been more with me than when I stand before His people
with an open Bible to proclaim His message. God stands in His
messenger to enable him to preach His Word. This is what Calvin
believed. Old writes, according to this
doctrine of real presence, God is present in the reading and
preaching of His Word. It's not a mystical thing that
Calvin believed, he simply believed that God unusually was putting
His glory on display and that God was unusually speaking to
the hearts of His people whenever His Word was being properly handled
and proclaimed. That was Calvin's view. And so,
whenever he stepped into the pulpit, he believed he was stepping
onto holy ground. to open the holy Bible and that
this was a sacred task that had been entrusted to him and the
power of the Holy Spirit would accompany the ministry of the
Word. He also believed in the pulpit,
the priority of the pulpit or pulpit priority. He was a stickler
on this. Calvin said, whenever we see
the Word of God purely preached and heard... And the sacraments
administered according to Christ's institution, there it is not
to be doubted a church of God exists. In other words, a group
that calls itself a church but does not preach and teach the
Word of God is not really a church. It's just a social club. There
is only a church where the Word of God is proclaimed and the
voice of God is heard. Calvin wrote, quote, the truth
of God is maintained by the pure preaching of the gospel. God
will have His church trained up by the pure preaching of His
Word. James Montgomery Boyce noted
this, quote, when the Reformation swept over Europe in the sixteenth
century, there was an immediate elevation of the Word of God
in Protestant services. John Calvin particularly carried
this out with thoroughness. Now listen to this, ordering
that the altars along the centers of the Latin Mass be removed
from the churches and that a pulpit with a Bible on it be placed
at the center of the building. This was not to be on one side
of the room but at the very center where every line of the architecture
would carry the gaze of the worshiper to the book which alone contains
the way of salvation and outlines the principles upon which the
church of the living God is to be governed. He believed in the
centrality and the primacy of the Word of God. And by the way,
Luther said... There is one non-negotiable for
any worship service and it is the preaching of the Word of
God. Luther went on to say, the church has no business to ever
meet when the Word of God is not taught. Calvin embraced that. And then fourth, still by way
of his approach to the pulpit, sequential exposition. He believed
in sequential exposition, meaning verse by verse, phrase by phrase
through the Scripture. I have listed on the overhead,
the expositions of Calvin's preaching and it's very clear to see this
man was committed to preaching verse by verse through books
in the Bible. I dare say any man in the history
of the church could ever rival this kind of a commitment. And
as we look at this, you may be doing the math on this and saying
there's no way one man could preach this many sermons in the
age...in that he had to live here upon the earth, but we must
understand that Calvin preached from the New Testament on Sunday
morning, he preached from the New Testament or Psalms on Sunday
afternoon and then he preached every morning of the week, every
other week. He would preach the Old Testament
Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning,
Friday morning at 6 And so therefore, while he prioritized
the New Testament, he preached many more sermons out of the
Old Testament because there are obviously more days of the week.
Then there are Sundays. But note this, 89 sermons from
Acts, 65 from the gospels, that's where he died. He died preaching
the synoptic gospels. He preached through Jeremiah,
Lamentations, the minor prophets and Daniel, 174 consecutive sermons
through Ezekiel. 159 sermons through Job and you can
still buy those in their original typesetting from Banner of Truth,
through Deuteronomy 200 consecutive sermons. Isaiah 353 consecutive
sermons. In fact, while he was in the
middle of this sermon, of this series, he became ill and was
out of the pulpit for six months and when he came back, he picked
it up at the next verse. Genesis 123 sermons, short series
on Judges. 1 Samuel 107 sermons, 2 Samuel 87 sermons, a series on 1 Kings,
46 on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians 186 sermons,
you can see this. The Pastoral Epistles, 86 sermons,
Galatians 43, Ephesians 48 and interestingly, when John Knox
was on his deathbed, he asked his wife to bring a copy of Calvin's
sermons through the book of Ephesians and to sit by his bedside as
he spent his last lingering days upon this earth in his last hours
and John Knox had his wife read out loud for the encouragement
of his soul, Calvin's sermons on Ephesians. Micah 28, Psalm
119, 22, divinity of Christ, 20, Ten Commandments, 16 sermons,
he was committed to consecutive exposition. Men, I want to encourage
you as I know surely most of you are so encouraged. to preach
verse by verse through books in the Bible because God sets
the menu for the church when you do it that way. The full
counsel of God is already built into the way the Word is written. Now, step two, preparing the
heart. I'm going to have to pick up
the pace here a little bit. As Calvin stepped into the pulpit,
he understood that To preach the Word of God requires a commitment
of the entire inner man. You bring all that you are to
the pulpit to preach the Word of God and nothing is more demanding
than the exposition of Scripture. And so, he was committed to having
a diligent mind. He was thorough in his study
of the Word. He said, the pastor ought to
be prepared by long study for giving to the people as out of
a storehouse a variety of instruction concerning the Word of God. He
said, we must all be pupils of the Holy Scripture. And he went
on to say that whenever the pastor ceases studying the Word of God,
he ceases owning the power of God upon his ministry. It's interesting, his commitment,
this diligent mind to the study of the Word of God in the institutions
that he wrote, the institutions of the Christian religion, there
are more than three thousand Scripture references or quotations
in that work. He wrote commentaries on the
Bible as they originally were printed. It was a 45-volume set. each volume containing some 400
pages. He was voluminous in his mind
being focused on the Word of God. But he also had a devoted
heart as well. And at the very...at the very
center place of his heart there was a zeal for the glory of God. He was passionate for the glory
of God. In fact, he saw his entire ministry
as being that of a guardian of the glory of God. And he was
inflamed in his soul and his heart. He was a man of prayer. He held God with such reverential
awe. His devotion was so strong. He said, I offer my heart to
God as a true sacrifice to the Lord. Do not think of Calvin
as a cold, clinical, stoic professor sitting in an ivory tower disconnected
from the heat of passion for the glory of God. He was a man
who was alive and full of zeal for God. also relentless will. And that just leaps off the page.
In fact, as you study church history, the men whom God uses
the most, this is a reoccurring theme, they are driven men for
the glory of God. They are relentless. Last year
we looked at George Whitefield together and the man abounded
in energy to serve God. John Calvin, it was...he was
unwavering in his determination to minister the Word of God to
the people of God and that despite much difficulty in his life. We no doubt have heard of all
the physical infirmities that Calvin had to face, colic, spitting
of blood. asthma, migraine headaches, kidney
stones, gout, hemorrhoids, etc. The man lived with such physical
affliction and yet it would not stop him in his determination
to carry out the ministry of God. In fact, toward the end
of his life as he became bedridden, the elders of the church would
come to his house. and literally put him in a chair
and carry him in the chair to the church and carry him to the
pulpit. And that is how resolved he was
to preach the Word of God. He was not even going to call
in sick. And later when he could not even be in the chair, they
picked him up in the bed and carried him in his bed to the
church that he might minister the Word of God. This man was
full of abounding energy to serve God. And he also faced much opposition. Don't think that Calvin was a
hero in his own congregation and in his own city of Geneva. The people in Geneva were...Calvin
was controversial in his own city. The people began to name
their dogs Calvin and would call out, Calvin, Calvin in the Others nicknamed Calvin Cain. Others would fire rifle shots
over the roof of his house. Others would threaten him in
the pulpit. Calvin said, dogs bark at me
on all sides, everywhere I am saluted with the name of Heretic. Spurgeon said, I do love that
man of God, suffering all his life long, enduring not only
persecutions from without but a complication of disorders from
within and yet serving his Master with all of his heart. Now, note
the launching of the sermon. Let's talk just a moment about
Calvin's launching of the sermon. It had a very direct beginning
and by that I mean it was a very short introduction. He did not begin by giving a
compelling quote from someone out in the world or someone out
in culture. He did not begin with an antidote,
he simply jumped immediately into the immediate context of
the passage and I have listed in my notes here the opening
sentences that I just took virtually randomly from his sermons from
the book of Micah and these are the introductory sentences from
these sermons. Yesterday we saw how Micah proclaimed
God's judgment against all unbelievers. There's a lot of curb appeal
in that opening sentence. Or the next message, it began
this way, in this passage, Micah demonstrates in whose name he
speaks, saying that he attributes such power and authority to the
Word of God. Or this morning we saw that when
God united us to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, He was
calling each of us to be a living sacrifice. Or we saw last time
that we need to have confidence in the fact that the gospel is
true. Or this morning we made a thorough
examination of the fact, although the law could not justify us
or make us acceptable to God, it was not established in vain. So, a very short porch to get
into a large house. He wanted to immediately get
into the Word of God as fast and as quick as he could with
very little courtship on the front end. Next, you need to
know he had an extemporaneous delivery, by that meaning he
had no written manuscript in the pulpit in front of him, neither
did Calvin have any sermon notes before his eyes. We should not think that he was
not prepared to preach for he had long studied over the Word
of God and many of these books he had already written a commentary
on. But as he stood in the pulpit to preach, he wanted to speak
in a natural delivery, is what he said, and use very familiar
words. And the church in this day had
been deadened by pastors who just coldly read their notes
in the pulpit and Calvin said, no, I will stand in total dependence
and reliance upon the Holy Spirit of God who will give me assistance
in preaching the Word. No sermon notes. I have sermon
notes, I want you to know that. I remember when I was at Reformed
Theological Seminary, R.C. Sproul was my professor, he urged
me and the whole class to preach without any sermon notes. And
you are a naked man as you step into the pulpit in utter reliance
upon the Holy Spirit. That was John Calvin. He would
establish the scriptural context. Here's an example from one of
his sermons on Galatians. Earlier we saw that the Galatians
had gone astray despite having been faithfully taught by Paul.
And what he would do would be summarize last week's message
and the last several weeks' message and give an overview of the historical
setting and the theological focus of these previous verses and
as he would preach through an epistle, He would preach either
one verse, two verse, maybe three verses. If he was preaching through
a prophetic section like the Minor Prophets, it would be a
little bit larger section, maybe four or five or six verses. And
if he was preaching narrative like out of Samuel, for example,
he might preach ten verses. But he would summarize and pull
it forward very much as John MacArthur does for us. And then
he would state the theme, the central thrust. And great preaching
always has this laser beam that runs through the very heart and
center of the sermon that begins with the introduction and goes
all the way to the conclusion and the entire sermon stays on
message. And there is no deviation and
there is no wandering away from the central thrust of the message. That was Calvin. And with that
brilliant mind, he stayed on target as he preached the Word
of God. He was riveted as he was continually
coming back to the next phrase in the text before him. Having
laid this foundation in an introduction, then step number four, expounding
the text itself. Calvin had a specific text that
he was always expounding and as I just said, the epistles,
it would be one or two verses, usually maybe three, sometimes
two sermons on one or two verses. With the minor prophets or the
major prophets, he would open that up a little bit and then
with narrative, he would take in a few more verses. T.H.L. Parker observes, quote, Calvin's
text will vary in length from a single verse to a whole passage
of perhaps ten or a dozen verses. Not infrequently he will preach
two or three consecutive sermons on one verse. But the general
rule was for two or three verses A sermon to be in the message. Clause by clause, verse by verse,
the congregation was led through the epistle or the prophecy or
the narrative. And by the way, I would really
encourage you to read the sermons of Calvin. because they read
much differently than his commentaries. His commentaries are technical. His commentaries are somewhat
academic, very much attention given to the original language
and the exegesis of it and you're just hammering that out. But
the sermons, the sermons are directed to the common man sitting
in the pew. There is much pastoral warmth.
There is encouragement. There is passion. The sermons
have energy. The sermons have life. The sermons
have the warmth of Calvin as he preaches. He did so, next,
with exegetical precision. And it was Schaff who said, Calvin
is the founder of the modern grammatical, historical, exegetical
method. Calvin believed it was the expositor's
first duty to exegete the text and determine, quote, the one
definite thought behind the biblical author, unquote. Calvin was so determined to do
this that even when he set up his Geneva Academy, and this
was unheard of, there was an emphasis upon Hebrew, Greek and
Latin. and to dig it out of the original
languages. Calvin said, let me give you
this quote as I move quickly, since it is almost the interpreter's
only task to unfold the mind of the writer whom he has undertaken
to expound, he misses his mark or at least strays outside his
limits by the extent to which he leads his readers away from
the meaning of his author. And previous to Calvin, you know,
there was the four different levels of interpretation, the
fourth being allegory. And Calvin dashed all of the
allegory and said all that matters is what does the text say. Literal interpretation. Calvin
was committed to, as I just said, a legitimate use of Scripture
and the actual meaning of words in their historical grammatical
context. Next, cross-references. He believed
in the analogy of faith. The Reformers called it the analogy
of Scripture, that Scripture interprets Scripture and all
the Bible speaks without any contradiction and speaks with
one voice as it speaks. And so, cross-references were
brought to bear. Persuasive reasoning, time does
not permit me, I don't think, to read examples of his persuasive
reasoning. But he's doing far more than
just word studies, far more than just cross-references. He is...he
is using that powerful mind to force the listener to think and
he would be setting truth at juxtaposition with error and
showing how unreasonable it is to assume this false understanding
of what the Scripture is teaching and instead this is the truth
and he would polarize and he would take thoughts to their
logical conclusion and show how irrelevant and how irrational
error is as he expounds the text of Scripture. And then also he
used reasonable deductions. His next step, fifth step, crafting
the sermon. I want to talk about this. This
will be good for us to understand some of this. Good for me to
be reminded of this. He used familiar words. Calvin could have very easily
shot over the heads of the people and never hit them. He was preaching
to Huguenots who had fled for their life out of France. He
was preaching to Marian exiles who had to flee Scotland and
England. And as they came and found themselves
seated in the pew at Geneva, He spoke to them in the vernacular
tongue of the day. His vocabulary is rich but it
is never obscure. He used an ordinary style. He
used familiar language. There is little rhetorical flourish. He was not an orator. He was
an expositor. His words are straightforward.
The sentences are simple. It is basic sentence structure
that is easy to digest and yet he would not give up the high
ground of using biblical language. As you read his sermons, you
hear the biblical vocabulary of justify, elect, redeem, sin,
repentance, grace, prayer, judgment. vivid expressions. He used the
power of the metaphor. He painted pictures in the minds
of people that were drawn from biblical images as well as the
images of the day. His humor was very, very scarce
because he felt the pulpit was not a place to play. He used
stimulating language and at times biting sarcasm and he used vivid
language. And he would ask provocative
questions. Sometimes the most powerful way
to communicate in the teaching of the Word of God instead of
making straightforward statements is to put it in the form of a
question which causes the listener to give the answer. Here's an
example. Calvin said, quote, what can
a dead man do? And surely we are dead until
God quickens us again by means of faith and by the working of
His Holy Spirit. Now if we are dead, what good
can we do? Another time he said, in that
light, do we still want Jesus Christ to be our King? Do we? But we must ask, do we want God
to acknowledge us as His people? Do we want Jesus Christ to declare
us His own? Do we want Him to be our King? And with the asking of the questions,
he was drawing the people into the text. and causing their minds
to be stimulated. He often used simple restatements. And as I have studied his sermons,
there are certain phrases that are repeated and I have detected
this in John MacArthur's preaching. I've often said that Dr. MacArthur
is the master of the restatement, to read the verse and then to
restate it in vernacular language. Calvin's signature phrase to
introduce a restatement was, quote, it is as if the prophet
were saying, or in effect he is saying and then restated in
other words. In fact, he would often introduce
these restatements by saying, in other words. In other words,
what the prophet is saying And there were very few quotations.
He rarely mentioned the name of another person and cited them
in his sermon, although he had such an encyclopedic mind that
he would often quote the church fathers and just draw from his
memory and state what they said in a paraphrase and he had no
notes in front of him from which to read. He also spoke without
an outline. He had no homiletical outline. Now he had major headings of
thought and those were contained in his own thoughts but he did
not have a polished homiletical outline. He wanted there to be
a natural sense to the flow of the message, so he literally
is just flowing phrase by phrase. through the text of Scripture
and he used seamless transitions. He had this masterful classical
education and he sewed together paragraphs with some of these
phrases. I jotted them down at the same
time. Furthermore, but let us consider,
it is time now to summarize. In addition, we might wonder
why. Now it is quite true that On the contrary, from this example
it can be seen that. Accordingly, we should infer
from the foregoing that. But on the contrary, one finds,
we now come to what the prophet adds. In the meantime, let us
note. That is, I say, is how proud
and presumptuous. Now the prophet specifically
says to them. He was a master at moving from
paragraph to paragraph and using these statements of transition. He had a focused intensity and
this was part of the genius of his preaching. It has been noted
that other Reformers had a more captivating personality. He was
very bashful and very shy, yet no one was more intently focused. focused in the pulpit preaching
the Word than Calvin which begged for the attention of the listener. They were caught up in his concentration
upon the text. And that is a part of him maintaining
this laser beam that ran through the center of the message as
he stayed on the focus and did not let his mind deviate, he
spoke with this kind of intensity. Step six, he was applying the
truth of the Scripture. He used pastoral exhortations
and as he did, he most often spoke with plural pronouns, us
and we. He included himself in the application
of Scripture and included himself with the congregation. He was
not distancing himself but saying, this is what we must learn, this
is how we must live, this is what we must do in response to
the Word. And he put himself in the very
center of the application that he was calling upon the church
to embrace. He called for personal examination. Here are just some examples from
one sermon. We must all therefore examine
our lives, not against one of God's precepts, but against the
whole law. How can any of us truly say that
we are blameless? He said, the way to apply this
text of Paul's to our instruction is as follows, inasmuch as we
are unaware of the sins that lurk within us, it is necessary
for God to come and examine our lives. In short, an examination
of our lifestyle cannot lie. He was continually calling upon
His hearers to examine themselves whether they be in the faith.
He often used loving rebuke. Time does not permit me to read
these many loving rebukes. But for some of the French Huguenots
who came to Geneva and escaped the Catholicism of France, and
as some of them came, they continued in their same manner of lifestyle.
And he said, for example, in this sermon that is before my
eyes here, he just said, it would have been better if you had stayed
in France rather than come here and continue to live with such
open sin against God. It would have been better for
you to have remained in the Catholic Church and under the lies of
the Pope than to come and sit under the sound teaching of the
Word of God and be merely a hearer of the Word but not a doer of
the Word." Calvin was continually bringing such loving, provocative
rebuke. And then he used polemical confrontation. at times against the enemies
of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. And then as the final step, step
seven, concluding the exposition, the sermons were building and
building and building in their momentum as they approached the
end and he would conclude with a succinct As He would tell the people what
they have learned today as the Apostle Paul has spoken to us
in His Word and He would restate and as we said yesterday, synthesize
and summarize the text of Scripture. And then he would bring a pressing
appeal and he would press the truth of the Word of God before
them and this is how he concluded virtually every sermon, with
this statement. Now let us fall before the majesty
of our great God, acknowledging our faults and praying that it
may please Him to make us increasingly conscious of them that we might
seek a better repentance. or this pressing final conclusion,
now let us fall before the majesty of our great God. And he would
become at times very evangelistic and very passionate in calling
sinners to faith in Jesus Christ. Listen to this example. Here
Calvin at the end of his powerful exposition, he would preach for
almost an hour. We need to have such fear that
we cannot find rest until the Lord Jesus has saved us. See therefore how good it is
for us to be heavy laden, that is to say to hate our sins and
to be in such anguish over them that we feel surrounded by the
pains of death so that we may seek God in order that He might
ease our burden. We must, however, seek Him in
the knowledge that we cannot obtain salvation full or in part
unless it is granted to us as a gift. Paul is not saying that
we may find something of what we lack in Christ and supply
the rest ourselves. He says, we cannot be counted
righteous through our own merits or works but only through faith
in Christ. Let us therefore understand that
there is no salvation whatsoever outside of Jesus Christ, for
He is the beginning and the end of faith and He is all and in
all. Let us continue in humility knowing
that we can only bring condemnation upon ourselves. Therefore we
need to find all that pertains to salvation in the pure and
free mercy of God. We must be able to say that we
are saved through faith. God the Father has appointed
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He might be both the author
and finisher of our salvation. We are to deny ourselves and
give ourselves to Him wholly and completely that all the praise
might belong to Him. And then he concludes by saying,
now let us fall before the majesty of our great God, acknowledging
our sins and asking that He would make us increasingly aware of
them, that we may hate them more and more and grow in repentance,
a grace that we need to exercise all our lives. May we learn so
to magnify His grace as it is seen to us in the Lord Jesus
Christ that we might be completely taken up with it. May we grow
in that trust until we are gathered up into our eternal home where
we shall receive face reward. May He not only grant this grace
to us, but to all peoples. and the passion and the energy
of his soul in the preaching moment as he was in the pulpit
and addressing this congregation before him. He pleaded for their
souls. And then finally, the concluding
prayer. Calvin, as he would come to the end, we have the record
of his closing prayers. And what Calvin would do in these
closing prayers, as he would call upon the congregation to
bow their heads with his pastoral prayer, he would literally usher
them up into the very presence of God and there leave them coram
Deo, face-to-face with God. Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
seeking that sense in antiquity, it has always pleased You to
extend Your grace towards Your people as perverse and rebellious
as they are. Grant us Your grace today. That Your same Word may resound
in our ears and if at first we should not profit from Your holy
teaching as we ought, nevertheless, do not reject us. But by Your
Spirit, subdue and so reign over our minds and affections that
being truly humbled and brought low, we may give glory to You
that Your majesty...that the majesty that is due You. so that
being clothed by Your love and fatherly favor, we submit ourselves
totally to You while at the same time embracing the goodness which
You have provided and offered us in the Lord Jesus Christ,
that we might never doubt again that You alone are our Father
until that day that we rejoice in Your heavenly promise which
has been acquired for us by the blood of Your Son Our Lord Jesus
Christ, amen. And with that closing pastoral
prayer following his exposition, and it was a lengthy pastoral
prayer that was God-centered, it was God-focused as he left
the people literally in the presence of God. I agree with Charles Haddon Spurgeon
who said so long ago, we want again Luther's, Calvin's, Bunyan's,
Whitefield's, men fit to mark eras whose names breathe terror
in their foeman's ears. I pray that out of this gathering
of strong men that the Lord will raise up expositors of the Word
of the living God. and that we will stand in a long
line of godly men who have preceded us, who have stood on the authority
of the Word of God and have seen their pulpit as holy ground,
who have nothing to say but the Word of God and who will bring
the straightforward teaching and preaching of the Word of
God in such a way that the glory of God is magnified and that
sinners are brought low and humbled under the majesty of the God
on high. And that we, like John Calvin, will preach with all
the passion of our soul and all the fervency of our heart and
plead for men and women to submit their lives under the authority
of the supreme Lordship of Jesus Christ. and be that mouth for
God that would offer on behalf of Him the free grace that only
Christ Jesus gives to sinners as they will but acknowledge
their sin and call upon His name. This is the expository genius
of John Calvin. And I believe that we who are
so attracted to Grace Community Church and John MacArthur and
the Shepherds Conference and sequential verse by verse preaching
through books in the Bible that John Calvin is the Reformer with
whom we most identify. for he was more committed than
any of the other Reformers to the sequential, continual, consecutive
exposition verse by verse through the pages of Scripture. Is it
any wonder that through the influence of this man that Scotland was
shaken, England swayed under the influence of Calvin's pulpit? And when the pilgrims washed
up on shore in New England of this land, they brought this
Reformed view of God, the sovereignty of God who rules and reigns in
the heavens over all. May God bring about a new Reformation
in this hour and God may He make you and may He make me to be
expositors just like John Calvin. May the Lord bless you and may
the Lord encourage you and may you be a giant for God in your
pulpit as you herald His Word. Let us pray. Almighty God, we
humble ourselves under the great Shepherd of the sheep. We understand
that we are but under shepherds. that Christ has bought the flock
of God with His own blood. He has laid down His life for
the sheep and they have been entrusted to our care that we
might feed them the Word of God. May You use us to rightly divide
Your Word and to graciously and pastorally feed them words of
life. May our pulpits be a lamp unto
their feet and a light unto their path. And may the Word of God
be in us, a fire within our bones. And may we live by eating on
every word that proceeds out of Your mouth. Lord, I thank
You for these men, their fidelity and their faithfulness to the
gospel ministry and I pray that You would make them stand strong
in the tradition of John Calvin. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. God bless you. You've reached the end of this
audio presentation. For more audio, or for more information
on the Shepherds Conference, please visit shepherdsconference.org.

On the Shoulders of Giants -- John Calvin

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about preaching?

How do we know Calvin's theology is true?

Why is expository preaching important for Christians?

What was John Calvin's contribution to preaching?

Why is the sovereignty of God important in Reformed theology?

Sermon Transcript

About Dr. Steven J. Lawson

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On the Shoulders of Giants -- John Calvin

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about preaching?

How do we know Calvin's theology is true?

Why is expository preaching important for Christians?

What was John Calvin's contribution to preaching?

Why is the sovereignty of God important in Reformed theology?

Sermon Transcript

About Dr. Steven J. Lawson

Comments

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