Both Luther and Zwingli were very intelligent men who wrote extensively, formulating principles of teaching such as Zwingli's "Sixty-five Articles," and Luther's "Ninety-five Theses," and Smaller and Larger Catechisms. They even corresponded with each other, often heatedly arguing the nature of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper, an argument that led to them meeting in Marburg, Germany, in 1529. At this "Marburg Colloquy," they agreed to fourteen of fifteen articles proposed by the Lutherans, articles which in themselves summarize the Reformation faith. They disagreed sharply, however, on whether Christ is physically "in, under, and through" the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, or present spiritually, which was and is the Reformed position. Both these great men had very able helpers, Melanchthon for Luther, and Henry Bullinger for Zwingli. Bullinger should be noted much more than he is for writing The One and Eternal Testament (or Covenant) of God, in 1534, a complete covenant theology, and for writing the excellent Second Helvetic (Swiss) Confession.
It was into this Reformation that was well under way, and yet in many ways incomplete, that Calvin stepped to become one of the greatest Bible teachers of all time. Whatever other superlatives we can attribute to Calvin for systematic thinking and writing, for a vast grasp of great principles and small details, for an undying energy to carry on his work in sickness and health, he was above all a Bible teacher. This is why he was so important to the church of the Reformation, to the church of all time, and to the condition of the world over the five hundred years since he was born. His desire was to present his heart to God freely and completely, and he carried this out by studying, teaching, and applying the Bible to every aspect of doctrine and life. He carried out Sola Scriptura to its logical conclusion.
Calvinism Today:
Calvin's Writings
There is a bit of humor in the fact that I was asked to write on the influence of Calvinism today, when just thirty years ago Elder Jake Fisher and I were handing out advertising pens that proclaimed, "Hope Reformed Church, Where Calvinism is Alive and Well in Kansas City." We got a bit of notoriety about that in conservative Presbyterian circles because, while there were Calvinists around, many of them were somewhat ashamed to admit it.
When we think of Calvin and Calvinism, it is hard to decide in which ways Calvin is most influential today. We cannot go wrong, however, by beginning with Calvin's writings. Over the past fifty years there has been a massive resurgence of interest in America and around the world in reading Calvin. Calvinism, the theology that stresses the absolute authority of Scripture and the sovereignty of God in all things, has once again become a major force as many church denominations have been formed or separated from their traditional affiliations.
Faithful Christians have rejected modernism (also called "liberalism," which is the idea that the Bible is merely man's words and is not inspired directly by God). Such Bible-believing denominations are found all over the world, from Europe to Korea, and including the United States. These churches have found Calvin's writings to be exceedingly helpful as they have struggled to re-establish biblical church and family life among their members.
One of the great reasons for the usefulness of Calvin's writings is that he addressed virtually every subject covered in the Bible. He accomplished this not by spending infinite hours at a desk with pen in hand, although he did plenty of that too, but having several secretaries around him at all times to record what he said. Calvin's contemporaries in Geneva recognized that he possessed such a powerful command of Scripture and an amazing ability to express its teaching accurately, in whole and in part, that they recorded every lecture, many of them in his bedroom during times he was too ill to stand before a class or congregation.
The result was that Calvin produced not only several editions of his systematic theology in the Institutes of the Christian Religion (the fourth edition in 1559 was four times the length of the first in 1536), but commentaries on every book of the Bible except Revelation. He also produced literally hundreds of letters and treatises (which have been gathered in into seven volumes). The nature of these writings makes them very valuable for every serious student of the Bible, and they are accessible to virtually anyone in the Western world through translations into many languages.
The number of Bible students, theologians, and ordinary believers who may be studying Calvin virtually every day must run in the thousands. Like virtually every Reformed or Presbyterian pastor, this writer has more books by Calvin and about Calvin in his library than by any other human person, and he consults them virtually every day.
Indeed it has come to the point where Calvin's writings are a little dangerous. There are some who treat Calvin as though he were inspired, and had the last word on every subject. This, of course, is to set Calvin on a pedestal he himself would have abhorred. He often refers to earlier theologians as he writes, including especially the early Church Fathers. Calvin was indeed fallible, and giving him too much honor does despite to a number of very fine theologians that were his contemporaries and immediate predecessors. How many of us even know, for example, that Henry Bullinger was the father of covenant theology?
To say these things, however, should not detract from the usefulness of Calvin's writings today. As reported above, Calvin was above all a student and teacher of the Bible. Furthermore, Calvin used sober and honest principles when exegeting Bible teaching. Thus while we do not treat him as infallible, it would be to our own detriment to ignore what he has to say. All in all, it has to be said that no one before or since has exceeded Calvin as a student and teacher of the Bible.
Calvinism Today and
the Reformed Churches
One of the most important contributions of John Calvin is his place as the premier theologian of the Reformed/Presbyterian movement that is represented by Calvinistic churches all over the world to this day. Indeed, as Christianity has spread around the globe, and is today moving into the farthest reaches of Africa, South America, and Asia, Calvinist churches and parachurch organizations are very much a part of the continuing spread of the gospel. The spiritual descendants of Calvin and his predecessors in the Reformation are no longer mostly in European and European-descended ethnic groups. It could not be any other way than that these Swiss, German, Dutch, Scottish, and Hungarian churches were the first to hold to Reformed theology and Presbyterian church government because the Reformation occurred on the continent of Europe.
Nevertheless, from their very beginnings, these European churches of a Calvinistic character were involved in carrying the gospel to the much larger world beyond their borders. Calvin himself evidenced interest in bringing the gospel to the native peoples of South America.
The Dutch East Indies Company, chartered early in the seventeenth century, was required to include a Reformed pastor on each of its voyages of exploration for the purpose of "providing regular worship for the ship's company, and to preach the gospel to the native peoples" they would find. While some nations saw the pagan natives as subhuman creatures suitable only to be slaves, Reformed explorers and settlers, such as the English Puritans in New England, saw them as legitimate objects for the preaching of the gospel.
Our own Reformed Church in the U.S. was involved during the nineteenth century in mission works in such widely separated places as Iraq and Japan, and among the Winnebago Indian people in Wisconsin. Even today our small remnant of the RCUS is involved in missions in Kenya, the Congo, and the Philippines. Today, several nations such as South Korea (Presbyterian) and Hawaii (originally Congregational Calvinist) have large Reformed and Presbyterian churches that include substantial numbers of the native peoples.
One of the great stories of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the establishment of Christian churches all over the world among emigrants from Europe to the less-developed areas of the world in the Americas, in Africa, and in several other parts of the world. While Roman Catholics began transferring their teachings to the Americas already in the fifteenth century (especially in South and Central America, and along the west coast of North America), there was a great influx of Protestant Christians to the British colonies established on the East Coast of North America, among whom were large numbers of Reformed and Congregational Calvinists.
Twelve of the original thirteen American colonies invited immigrants of "the Protestant Christian Religion," and were thus filled with Episcopalian, Reformed, and Lutheran immigrants who established strong denominations in the New World. The same thing happened in Southern Africa where the Dutch Reformed and later Anglican British founded large churches filled with European immigrants and their descendants.
Thus there arose a company of "Western nations" in Europe, the United States, Canada, and South Africa that became the leading economic and political nations of the world. While Reformed and Presbyterian churches were not always the most numerous in these nations, their covenant ideas of family, church, and state often became the dominant political and economic philosophies of the nations in which they lived. Thus Germany, England, the Netherlands, and the United States and Canada have become the great Christian missionary nations of the world. Our Reformed Church in the United States, for example, is a product of one of the greatest Reformed missionary organizations of all time, the Classis Amsterdam of the Netherlands. Calvinism is indeed alive and well in many of the descendants of these immigrant churches, even though many of their original denominations have fallen prey to the unbelieving new paganism of theological Liberalism.
Calvinism and the Rise
of Republican Nations
Another great result of Calvinism upon the world has been in the nature of government and economics. The "divine right of kings," established by the Roman Catholic Church in medieval times, is dead but has been replaced by the dictatorship of pagan fascist leaders often "elected" by the citizens of nations. Nevertheless, during the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, the application of biblical principles to the elections of leaders by citizens, and of government limited by covenant between leaders and people (see especially Deut. 17:14ff.) have brought immense progress to the lives of many nations. (Even Communist dictatorships are forced by public sentiment to hold show "elections" of their leaders, even though these are not free at all).
These principles, growing up in Europe, especially in countries like Switzerland, Germany, and England, and fully applied in the founding of the United States, grow right out of Reformed church government. (There is an excellent book that argues that the U.S. Constitution of 1787 is a Reformed covenantal document-Fountainhead of Federalism: Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant Tradition.) The Belgic Confession, for example, teaches the election of elders, deacons, and ministers and limits their authority to none being in any way higher than another.
The American system of constitutions, legislatures to make laws, and presidents (who are really term-limited kings in a republican sense, such as commander-in-chief of the military, executor of laws and constitution), came out of England and the Netherlands into a nation without a state church.
These principles, while little understood and indeed often rejected, have had a vast influence on the world today. They are the foundations of private property and free enterprise, marriage as a sacred covenant, inventions as intellectual property, righteous and just laws for the state, personal liberty and limited government, freedom of press and religion (freedom of religion does not mean equality of religions), an educated citizenry, and just principles of war (the Geneva Conventions come out of the Bible), to name a few. In other words, the best principles and practices of our modern world grow out of the Bible rightly understood, which was one of the great gifts God gave the world through John Calvin and his Reformed predecessors and followers.
"The gods of the heathen are indeed idols" (Psalm 96). They lead to oppression, approval of man's vicious nature, and culturally and economically deprived lifestyles. Calvinism has given the world a better viewpoint and a better way. It is a great privilege for us today to walk in the footsteps of our Reformed fathers, including Zwingli, Bullinger, Bucer, and especially John Calvin.
