Calvin on Christ as High Priest

"Regarding the priestly office, Calvin highlights the twofold work of Jesus as outlined in Hebrews - namely, the reconciliation and intercession of Jesus. 

First, “as has been said, we or our prayers have no access to God

unless Christ, as our High Priest, having washed away our sins, sanctifies us and obtains for us that grace from which the uncleanness of our transgressions and vices debars us. Thus we see that we must begin from the death of Christ in order that the efficacy and benefit of his priesthood may reach us. It follows that He is an everlasting intercessor: through His pleading we obtain favor” (Calvin, p. 502). 

Christ inaugurated a new covenant wherein He is both priest and sacrifice: Unlike the other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people. 

He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered Himself (Hebrews 7.27). 

The mediatorial work of the Levitical priesthood, in itself insufficient to atone for sins in an ultimate way, anticipated the final work of salvation completed by Jesus’ perfect sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9.26). 

Jesus’ sacrifice fulfilled God’s righteous demands: But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises (Hebrews 8.6).
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 

Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not His own, for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. 

But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 

In the Jewish temple there were no chairs because the priest’s work was never done. By contrast, the author of Hebrews informs us that when Jesus finished His work He sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10.12)." 

MyEvenSong

Calvin on the Law

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. Romans 7:7
"The law has sustained no diminution of its authority, but ought always to receive from us the same veneration and obedience." 

Calvin

The Clothed

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Isaiah 64:6

"We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except that we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own." 

Calvin

Puritan Corner - Pastor's 2 Voices

 “The pastor ought to have two voices; One for gathering the sheep;

and another for driving away wolves.”

by John Calvin (1509-1564)

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Matthew 7:15

Calvin on Obedience

He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool:
Preverbs 28:26

"The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves." 

Calvin

Puritan Corner - The 2 Voices of a Pastor

"The pastor ought to have two voices; 

One for gathering the sheep;
and another for driving away wolves."

by John Calvin (1509-1564) 

.....where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock? Jeremiah 13:20

Bearing FALSE WITNESS Against Calvin For...Sodomy?

 Thou shalt not bear false witness...... Exodus 20:16

 

"Jerome Bolsec, an ex-Carmelite friar who embraced the reformed faith in Paris, settled in Geneva and served as a physician. He publicly attacked Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, was banished from Geneva, and eventually returned to catholicism. 

His “revenge was to publish in 1577 a scurrilous biography of Calvin, accusing him among other things of sodomy, which

continued to be an arsenal for anti-Calvinist polemics for the next two centuries” (Lindberg, 266).

 

The more specific charge, to which reference is now made, was formulated thirteen years after Calvin’s death, by Jerome Hermes Bolsec . . . that Calvin had been convicted of heinous moral turpitude . . . No evidence has ever been produced of the existence of such a document as Bolsec alleges. 

*Jacques Desmay, the earnest Catholic writer who used his stay as Advent and Lenten preacher at Noyon in 1614 and 1615 to learn all he could of Calvin’s life there by records and tradition, found nothing of it. An equally determined Roman historian of Noyon, Jacques Le Vasseur, in his Annales of 1633, expressly repudiated it; and careful modern Roman Catholic scholars, such as Kampschulte and Paulus, reject it as “unworthy of serious refutation."

 

Dr. Moulin observes, that not one of Calvin’s innumerable enemies ever carped at the purity of his life, but this profligate physician, whom Calvin had procured to be banished from Geneva, for his wickedness and impieties."

DaveArmstrong

From Whence That Filthy Mire of Error ?

"The manifestation of God is choked 

--by human superstition 

--and the error of the philosophers.

 

Hence arises that boundless filthy mire of error wherewith the whole
earth was filled and covered. 

For each man’s mind is like a labyrinth, so that it is no wonder that individual nations were drawn aside into various falsehoods; and not only this—but individual men, almost, had their own gods. 

 

Surely, just as waters boil up from a vast, full spring, 

so does an immense crowd of gods 

flow forth from the human mind, 

while each one, 

in wandering about with too much license, 

wrongly invents this or that about God himself.'"

John Calvin

Calvin on Philippians 2:5-11 Series PAGE

 Calvin on Philippians 2:5-11 Series PAGE

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 Philippians 2:9-11

 

vs.5 

https://master1844-dc.blogspot.com/2022/10/calvin-on-philippians-2-series-vs5.html

vs.6

https://master1844-dc.blogspot.com/2022/10/calvin-on-philippians-2-series-vs6.html

vs.7,8

https://master1844-dc.blogspot.com/2022/10/calvin-on-philippians-25-11-series-vs78.html

vs.9-11 

https://master1844-dc.blogspot.com/2022/10/calvin-on-philippians-25-11-series-vs9.html

What Spiritual Composure Entails......

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

Matthew 10:38

 

"For truly, Christians ought to be a kind of men born to bear slanders and injuries, open to the malice, deceits, and mockeries of wicked men. 

And not that only, but they ought to bear patiently all these evils. 

That is, they should have such complete spiritual composure that, having received one offense, 

they make ready for another, 

promising themselves throughout life nothing but the bearing of a perpetual cross. 

Meanwhile, let them also do good to those who do them harm, and bless those who curse them [Luke 6:28; cf. Matt. 5:44], and (this is their only victory) strive to conquer evil with good [Rom. 12:21]. (Inst. 4:20:20)." Calvin

Calvinistic Predestination vs. Free Will: Who is right?

 God DESIRES that ALL be Saved.....

.....who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 2:4 ESV 

 

But--He gives us Free Will to Choose.....

How long halt ye between two opinions? 

if the LORD be God, follow him: 

but if Baal, then follow him. 

.... choose you this day whom ye will serve.....

1 Kings 18:21/Joshua 24:15

Reformers Divided on Christmas

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

LUTHER - Pro-Christmas

"In his sermon entitled ‘To Us a Child Is Born’ (preached on 25th December, 1531), Luther honed in upon the faith of the shepherds who, “in spite of what their five senses told them […] concluded: this

is the King, the Savior, the great joy of the people. There was nothing great in the hearts of those shepherds save for the words of the angel. In fact, they were so great that except for them the shepherds saw nothing else. They were filled with those words just like drunkards and they made them known without being in the slightest bit concerned about what the great lords in Jerusalem and the Sanhedrin would have to say. On the contrary, without an inkling of fear, they preached of the poor Christ”.

 

ZWINGLI - Anti-Christmas

"At the other end of the Evangelical spectrum was Ulrich Zwingli.
Zwingli got rid of every ecclesiastical festive day in Zurich. Given that Zwingli embraced the regulative principle of worship, that is, churches should only do that which is explicitly commanded in Scripture, he opposed any celebration which was not mentioned in the Bible."

 

CALVIN - Neutral

"Although Calvin accepted the regulative principle of Zwingli and not Luther’s normative principle, he believed that each local

congregation could decide how best to celebrate (or not celebrate) the festive season. In spite of the fact that some have asserted that Calvin was in the anti-Christmas camp, the Frenchman wrote two letters in January 1551 and March 1555 outlining his stance with respect to Christmas.

In the January 1551 letter, Calvin explained that the Geneva authorities had done away with festive days before he arrived in the city whilst openly confessing that he did –personally speaking- celebrate “the birth of Christ”. In the March 1551 letter, Calvin hit out at those who criticized certain churches which opted to commemorate the festive period. According to the Geneva Reformer, such questions were “matters of indifference”.

EvangelicalFocus

SDA Issues- Calvinism vs. Adventism

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord... Acts 3:19

"For Calvinists, their Five Points' yardstick controls all aspects of their soteriology. 

--Their understanding of the utter depravity of mandkind rests on

their notion of original sin and, thus, the companion doctrine that all men and women are born sinners. 

--Their only explanation for the sinfulness of mankind was simply to declare that we all are sinners because Adam sinned. 

-- Because of their controlling "sovereignty of God" principle, mankind could not possibly have free will and thus any responsibility. 

-- If anyone were to be "saved," it would have to be due to God's sovereign choice, not man's response.

*Therefore, for the Calvinist, if Jesus is man's Savior, He would have to die for those who are already elected to be saved. 

Further, our Lord could not have inherited, as we do, the genetic stream of His ancestors, because, if so, He too would have been born a sinner. 

The Calvinistic solution: Jesus had to be "exempt" from all inherited tendencies to sin—just as Roman Catholics had concluded. 

Thus, to make their major premise work, the elect would be those who were "given" faith and thus the "ability" to profess gratefulness for Christ's substitutionary atonement. Because they had been foreordained to be saved, the elect could not fall out of grace; they could never be "unsaved." 

 

*Obviously, Seventh-day Adventists should have great difficulty trying to harmonize their understanding of salvation with their

Calvinist friends, no matter how nuch linguistic gymnastics they could muster.....when Jesus paid the indebtedness of the repentant sinner, He did not give him license to continue sinning but to now live responsibly in obedience to the law. Calvinists are not able to process this fundamental thought.

 

Uriah Smith added a theological dimension to the Adventist criticism of Calvinism. In his discussion of the atonement, he argued that the Calvinist teaching that the atonement was completed at the Cross can be valid only if one accepted the Calvinist concept of predestination. Since Adventists and the rest of the Arminian world do not subscribe to the doctrine of predestination as taught in Calvinism, Smith asserted that it is wrong to say that the atonement was completed at the Cross. 

Then he connected the Arminian doctrine of free will and atonement with the Adventist teaching of the investigative judgment. He argued that the Cross was only a prerequisite of the post‑1844, antitypical atonement taking place in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary. Therefore, it would be erroneous to state, as the Calvinists do, that the atonement was completed at the Cross." 

Herbert Douglass/PerspectiveDigest

Puritan Corner - One Way to Punish a Nation

When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.

By John Calvin  (1509-1564) 

Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.

Proverbs 14:32

Creation Moment 10/31/2021 - Calvin on Creation

For He spake, and it was done; 

He commanded, and it stood fast.

Psalm 33:9

"Calvin asserts a strictly creative act by the Triune God, by which all things outside Himself, ‘not only the visible world, but also the invisible spirits’, were brought into being out of nothing. ‘

 

--The world is not eternal,’ he claims against the Manichaean dualists, ‘but was created by God.’ 

 

--In opposition to Deism, he states that ‘God created the world at once, in such a manner as to be its perpetual Governor.’

 

--The Pantheistic notion that God is the ‘soul the world’ he dismisses as ‘utterly vain and worthless.’

 

Both from Moses’ use of the word ‘bara’ rather than ‘yatsar’, and from the strict meaning of the verb ‘to create’, Calvin deduces that ‘the world was made out of nothing,’ for ‘creation is . . the origination of essence out of nothing.’" multiscreen

Puritan Corner - Where Christ Subdued

There is no tribunal so magnificent, no throne so stately, no show oftriumph so distinguished, no chariot so elevated, as is the gibbet on which Christ hath subdued death and the devil.

by John Calvin (1509-1564) 

 

And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby... Ephesians 2:16

Calvin on Romans 1:21

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 

Romans 1:21

 

"It is indeed evident, that it is an evil which has prevailed in all ages

— that men have allowed themselves every liberty in coining superstitions. 

The arrogance then which is condemned here is this — that men sought to be of themselves wise, and to draw God down to a level with their own low condition, when they ought humbly to have given Him His own glory. 

For Paul holds this principle, that none, except through their own fault, are unacquainted with the worship due to God." Calvin

Calvin on Gen. 2:1-3 [interesting admission on Vs.3]

Verse 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished.

 

"Moses summarily repeats that in six days the fabric of the heaven
and the earth was completed. ....God, therefore, did not cease from the work of the creation of the world till He had completed it in every part, so that nothing should be wanting to its suitable abundance."

Verse 2. And he rested on the seventh day. 

"The question may not improperly be put, what kind of rest this was. The solution of the difficulty is well
known, that God ceased from all His work, when he desisted from the creation of new kinds of things. On the whole, this language is intended merely to express the perfection of the fabric of the world; and therefore we must not infer that God so ceased from his works as to desert them, since they only flourish and subsist in Him. 

....the Architect, the bountiful Father of a family, who has omitted nothing essential to the perfection of His edifice."

Verse 3. And God blessed the seventh day . 

"Moses, by adding the word sanctified, ....thus all ambiguity is

removed, ...For sdq (kadesh,) with the Hebrews, is to separate from the common number.  

God therefore sanctifies the seventh day, when He renders it illustrious, that by a special law it may be distinguished from the rest. 

---Whence......six days were employed in the formation of the world; not that God, to whom one moment is as a thousand years, had need of this succession of time, but that He might engage us in the consideration of his works. 

---He had the same end in view in the appointment of His own rest, for he set apart a day selected out of the remainder for this special use. 

 

-*-*-Wherefore, that benediction is nothing else than a solemn consecration, by which God claims for Himself the meditations and employments of men on the seventh day."

Calvin

Reformer Calvin Looks at Esau in Hebrews 12:16,17

"Lest there be any fornicator or profane person, etc.  

---As he had before exhorted them to holiness, 

---so now, that he might reclaim them from defilements opposed to it, 

---he mentions a particular kind of defilement, and says, “Lest there be any fornicator.” 

 

But he immediately comes to what is general, and adds, “or a

profane person;” for it is the term that is strictly contrary to holiness. 

The Lord calls us for this end, that He may make us holy unto obedience: this is done when we renounce the world; but any one who so delights in his own filth that he continually rolls in it, profanes himself. 

 

As Esau, etc. This example may be viewed as an exposition of the word profane; for when Esau set more value on one meal than on his birthright, he lost his blessing. 

 

 That we indeed set a high value on things which are nearly worth nothing, arises from this, — that depraved lust dazzles our eyes and thus blinds us. 

*If therefore we would hold a place in God’s sanctuary, we must learn to despise morsels of meat of this kind, by which Satan is wont to catch the reprobate. 

 

When he would have inherited the blessing, etc. He at first regarded as a sport the act by which he had sold his birthright, as though it was a child’s play; but at length, when too late, he found what a loss he had incurred, when the blessing transferred by his father to Jacob was refused to him. 

---Thus they who are led away by the allurements of this world alienate themselves from God, and sell their own salvation that they may feed on the morsels of this world,....When too late their eyes are opened, so that being warned by the sight of their own wickedness, they become sensible of the loss of which they made no account. 

 

While Esau was hungry, he cared for nothing but how he might have his stomach well filled; .... The word “rejected” means that he was repulsed, or denied his request.

For he found no place of repentance, etc.; that is, he profited nothing, he gained nothing by his late repentance, though he sought with tears the blessing which by his own fault he had lost." Calvin

Puritan Corner - Warning for What's about to Come

We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.

by John Calvin (1509-1564)

 

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12