John Calvin (1509-1564), is undoubtedly the most important Protestant theologian of all time and remains one of the truly great men who have ever existed. An excellent theologian, renowned professor, ecclesiastical stateist and courageous reformer, Calvin is regarded by many as the greatest influence on the Church since the first century. In addition to the Bible writers themselves, Calvin is the most influential Minister of the Word the world has ever seen. Filipe Melanchthon revered him as the most skilled interpreter of the scriptures in the church and therefore simply called him. The theologian? (JH Merle d’Aubigné, Histoire de la Réforme en Europe au temps de Calvin, vol. 7 [1880; repr. , Harrisonburg, Va. : Sprinkle, 2000], 82). And Charles Spurgeon stated that Calvin told the truth more clearly than any other man who has lived, who knew more about the scriptures, and explained them more clearly?(C. H. Spurgeon,? Laus Deo ?, The Pulpit of the Metropolitan Tabernacle: Sermons preached by C. H. Spurgeon.
Calvin was born on 10 July 1509 to Gérard and Jeanne Cauvin, in the French city of Noyon, about 60 kilometres north of Paris. Gerard was a notary, or financial administrator, of the Catholic bishop of the diocese of Noyon and therefore a member. At the age of fourteen, John entered Europe’s main educational institution, the University of Paris, to study theology for the priesthood, where he immersed himself in the early Renaissance, humanism and academic studies. young scholar, obtained his master’s degree in 1528.
- Shortly after Calvin’s graduation.
- Gerard conflicted with the Bishop of Noyon.
- And this disagreement with the church led him to redirect his brilliant son to law study at the University of Orleans (1528) and then to Bourges (1529).
- Greek and honed his analytical thinking skills and persuasive argumentation.
- Skills he would use wisely in the Geneva Chair.
- But in the face of Gérard’s unexpected death (1531).
- Twenty-one-year-old Calvin returns to Paris in search of his great love.
- The study of classical literature.
- Later.
- He returned to Bourges.
- Where he completed his studies and obtained his law degree in 1532.
While studying at the University of Orleans, Calvin found some of the first ideas of reform through Martin Luther’s writings that were widely discussed in academic circles. Later, Calvin converted to Christ, Calvin recorded a testimony of his conversion into the preface. to his Commentary on the Book of Psalms (1557):
In this quest [the study of the law], I tried to apply myself faithfully, in obedience to my father’s will; But God, by the secret conduct of his providence, gave me a different direction. First, as I was too stubborn in the superstitions of papism to be easily freed from a mud abyss, God, by a sudden conversion, dominated and made my mind teachable, which was very such a thing of this you could expect from someone in my youth; having thus received a certain appreciation and knowledge of true piety, I was immediately angry at such an intense desire to progress that, although I did not neglect other studies, I always looked for them with less fervor (Jean Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms [John Calvin, commentary on the book of psalms] Trad. James Anderson [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003], 1: xl?xli).
In November 1533, Nicolas Cop, dean of the University of Paris and a friend of Calvin,” delivered the opening address of the winter period at the university. The message was a call to New Testament-based reform and a bold attack on scholastics. Theologians of that time. Cop found strong resistance to his views “like Luther. “Calvin is believed to have collaborated with Cop in the speech, because there is a copy of the manuscript in Calvin’s writings. As a result, Calvin was forced to flee Paris before being arrested. He retired to the estate of Louis du Tillet, a man sympathetic to the cause of the Reformation. There, in The Tillet’s vast theological library, Calvin read the Bible with the writings of the Fathers of the Church. , especially Augustine. Through hard work, genius and grace, Calvin became a self-taught theologian of great stature.
In 1534, Calvin moved to Basel, Switzerland, which became a Protestant fortress to study alone. He wrote the first edition of what would become his theological masterpiece and the most important book written during the Reformation, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. He outlined the foundations of the Protestant faith and presented a compelling argument for the reformed interpretation of the scriptures. Surprisingly, Calvin began this work at the age of twenty-five, just one year after his conversion. The book was published when he was twenty-five. six years old.
In 1536, Calvin decided to move to Strasbourg, southwestern Germany, to continue his studies as a solitary researcher, but a war between Francis I and Charles V, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, prevented him from taking the most direct route. Calvin was forced to deviate to Geneva, where he planned to spend only one night, but when he entered the city, he was immediately recognized as the young author of the Institutes, who sympathized with the Reformation introduced him to Guilherme Farel, who led the Protestant movement in Geneva for ten years. Geneva had recently voted to leave the Roman Catholic Church and become a reformed city, but it desperately needed a teacher capable of articulating reformed truths. The impetuous Farel challenged Calvin to take up the task; when Calvin hesitated, Farel resorted to a non-preventive threat. Calvin recounts the episode as follows:
Farel, who was burning with extraordinary zeal for the advancement of the gospel, immediately did his best to stop me and after realizing that my heart was determined to devote me to private studies, for which I wanted to move away from other activities, and see nothing I would gain with begging, I began to proclaim that God would curse my isolation and the tranquility of the studies I sought , if I retired and refused to attend, when the need was so urgent; this curse affected me greatly and invaded me with such terror that I abandoned the journey that had begun (Calvin, Commentary to the Book of Psalms, 1: xliii).
Calvin began his ministry in Geneva as a teacher and then as a pastor; With Farel began the task of subjecting the life and practice of the Church to the teaching of the scriptures, among the reforms he implemented was the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline at the Lord’s Supper. This was not well seen by the eminent citizens of Geneva, many of whom lived a sinful life. This crisis culminated on Easter Sunday, April 23, 1538, when Calvin refused to administer communion to some eminent people living in manifest sin. Tensions increased so much that Calvin and Farel were forced to leave Geneva.
Calvin retired to Strasbourg, where he had planned to visit two years earlier, with the aim of escaping public attention. But Strasbourg’s main reformer, Martin Bucer, insisted that Calvin continue to hold the position of preacher of the prosecution and threatened him greatly, as Farel had already done.
However, this exiled theologian also had time and freedom to write in Strasbourg. Calvin wrote his Commentaries on the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans and expanded his institutes, translating them into French. At the same time, he wrote what was hailed as the greatest. apology of the Reformation, a response to Sadoleto. After Calvin left Geneva, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto wrote an open letter to the inhabitants of the city, inviting them back to the Roman Catholic Church. with his Answer, a convincing defense of God’s glory in the gospel of grace. During his stay in Strasbourg, he also married Idelette de Bure, a widow of two, who brought him much happiness.
After Calvin spent three happy years in Strasbourg, the nobles of the city of Geneva wrote to him asking him to return as their shepherd. In his absence, the religious and political situation deteriorated. Calvin initially had no intention of coming back. In a letter to Farel on March 29, 1540, he said, “Would I submit more to death a hundred times than to that cross on which someone must die a thousand times a day?”(Joo Calvino, Tracts and Letters, vol. 4). : Letters, Part I, 1528-1545, ed. Julios Bonnet, trad. David Constable [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009], 175). But Calvin finally changed his mind, despite the many dangers he knew awaited him in Geneva. A hand that holds a heart, with the motto: “My heart, I give you, Lord, promptly and sincerely”. he submitted to what he believed was God’s will and returned to his shepherd in Switzerland.
Calvin arrived in Geneva on 13 September 1541, after an absence of three and a half years; in his first sermon, he resumed his scripture exhibition in the next verse after the last one he had exhibited before he was exiled. it was intended to be a bold statement that the preaching of the Word verse by verse would take the top spot in his ministry.
Calvin’s second pastorate in Geneva had two terms, the first being the years of opposition (1541-1555), where he suffered much resistance and difficulty, the opposition began to manifest itself in the form of the Patriots, the oldest and most influential families in Geneva. Calvin did not like him in large part because he was a foreigner, but he also faced the resistance of the libertines, antinomian Ginebrinos, who lived in open sin and immorality; however, his greatest demand was the torment caused by Miguel Servet in 1553. This well-known heretic was burned by the nobles of the city after Calvin was called as a witness. Among other tribulations during this period, Calvin’s son James died just two weeks after his birth in 1542, and Calvin’s wife, Idelette, died. in 1549, after only nine years of marriage.
This fierce opposition finally gave way and the last nine years of Calvin’s life (1555-1564) could be described as years of support. Eventually Calvin won the support of the city’s nobles. With this support, he created the Academy of Geneva in 1559, below. The example you saw in Strasbourg. The academy had a private elementary school and a public school offering more advanced studies in biblical languages and theology to train ministers, lawyers, and physicians. Also in 1559, the fifth and final edition of the Institutes was launched. In 1560, the Geneva Bible was released; an English translation that was the first Bible with theological notes in the margins. This monumental work, performed by men under Calvin’s teachings, presented a worldview of God’s sovereignty over all creation.
Calvin sent French-speaking pastors, whom he trained for the ministry of the Gospel, from Geneva to other French-speaking provinces of Europe; most went to France, where the reformed movement grew to a tenth of the population. One hundred missionaries trained in Geneva went to France. In 1560, more than a hundred churches were established in France by men sent from Geneva. In 1562, the number of churches increased by 2,150, with more than 3 million members. reached thousands. This growth produced a Huguenot church that nearly defeated the Catholic counter-reformation in France. In addition, have Geneva-trained missionaries established churches in Italy, Hungary, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Scotland and the Rhine?And even in Brazil.
In early 1564, Calvin fell seriously ill. The last time he preached from the pulpit at St. Peter’s Cathedral was on Sunday, February 6. By April, it was clear he wouldn’t live long, Calvin, at fifty-four, faced death while facing the pulpit?with great resolution. The strength of his faith, built on God’s sovereignty, appears in his last will and testament. On April 25, 1564, Calvin taught the following words:
I thank God, not only because he took pity on me, his poor creature, for taking me out of the abyss of idolatry in which I was submerged, to bring me into the light of his gospel and to become partakers of doctrine. of salvation, of which I was completely unworthy, and continuing his mercy, supported me in the midst of so many sins and faults, which were such that I deserved to be rejected by him a hundred thousand times?however, until now he has extended his mercy on me, in order to use me and my work to proclaim and proclaim the truth of his gospel (John Calvin, Treaties and Letters, Vol. 7, 365-366).
Three days later, on April 28, 1654, Calvin called his fellow ministers to his bed and gave them his farewell address. Calvin warned them that the battles of the Reformation were not over, but that they were just beginning: “Will they be in But be brave and strengthen you, for God will use this church and maintain it, and surely protect it?(Calvin, Treaties and Letters, Vol. 7, 375). With these words he passed the torch with his weak hands to theirs.
Calvin died on 27 May 1564 in the arms of Teodoro Beza, his successor. Calvin’s last words, “How long, Lord,” were the same words of Scripture (Psalms 79. 5; 89. 46). He died quoting the Bible he preached. For so long as such, this humble servant was buried in a common cemetery in an anonymous grave at his request.