This is our second post commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. John Calvin (1509-1564) was an influential French theologian, pastor and reformer during the Reformation, and the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion. He is remembered for his theological work around the doctrines of election, the sovereignty of God, and the indefectibility of grace.
Here are 12 quotes by Calvin, penned 5 centuries ago, that will, above all, remind you of the glory of Christ our Redeemer.
1. “Our assurance, our glory, and the sole anchor of our salvation is that Christ the Son of God is ours, and we in turn are in him sons of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, called to the hope of eternal blessedness by God’s grace, not by our worth.”
2. “Christ is much more powerful to save, than Adam was to destroy.”
3. “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
4. “We should therefore learn that the only good we have is what the Lord has given us gratuitously; that the only good we do is what He does in us; that it is not that we do nothing ourselves, but that we act only when we have been acted upon, in other words under the direction and influence of the Holy Spirit.”
5. “The cross of Christ only triumphs in the breast of believers over the devil and the flesh, sin and sinners, when their eyes are directed to the power of His Resurrection.”
6. “You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy.”
7. “No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.”
8. “Prosperity inebriates men, so that they take delights in their own merits.”
9. “Christ justifies no one whom He does not also sanctify. By virtue of our union with Christ, He bestows both gifts, the one never without the other.”
10. Having become with us the Son of Man, He has made us with Himself sons of God. By His own descent to the earth He has prepared our ascent to heaven. Having received our mortality, He has bestowed on us His immortality. Having undertaken our weakness, He has made us strong in His strength. Having submitted to our poverty, He has transferred to us His riches. Having taken upon Himself the burden of unrighteousness with which we were oppressed, He has clothed us with His righteousness.”
11. “To search for wisdom apart from Christ means not simply foolhardiness but utter insanity.”
