Join us at Ligonier Ministries' 2009 National Conference to study the holiness of God and for a mini-conference on the life and influence of John Calvin, whose 500th birthday we celebrate in 2009.
Steven Lawson on "Calvin's Life and Legacy"
Calvin was primarily a preacher, a biblical expositor of the highest order. Indeed, the German Reformer Philip Melanchthon labeled him simply “the theologian,” an indication of the respect Calvin was accorded for his abilities as an interpreter of Scripture. In his years in Geneva, Calvin viewed the pulpit as his principal responsibility, the first work of his pastoral calling. Thus, this magisterial Reformer gave himself to the exposition of the Word as perhaps no one else in history. He esteemed and elevated biblical preaching to be of highest importance, and so he made it his lifelong commitment.
As a result, apart from the biblical authors themselves, Calvin stands today as the most influential minister of the Word of God the world has ever seen. No man before or since has been so prolific and so penetrating in his handling of Scripture. Calvin’s exegetical insights address most of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament except Revelation. By overwhelming consent, he remains the greatest biblical commentator of all time. On his deathbed, when Calvin reviewed his many accomplishments, he mentioned his sermons ahead of even his vast writings. For Calvin, preaching was job number one.
This estimation of the priority of biblical preaching in Calvin’s ministry is not novel. No less an authority than Emile Doumergue, the foremost biographer of Calvin, stood in the great Reformer’s pulpit in 1909 to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of Calvin’s birth, and said: “That is the Calvin who seems to me to be the real and authentic Calvin, the one who explains all the others: Calvin the preacher of Geneva, moulding by his words the spirit of the Reformed of the sixteenth century.” In that same memorable address, Doumergue remarked: “While he has come to be remembered as a theologian who recovered the doctrinal landmarks which had been buried under the debris of confused centuries, or as a powerful controversialist whose name opponents have sought to fasten upon beliefs which they judged odious, the truth is that Calvin saw himself, first of all, as a pastor in the church of Christ and therefore as one whose chief duty must be to preach the Word.”
D’Aubigné has likewise affirmed the primacy of Calvin’s preaching amid his many ministries. Calvin’s principal office, D’Aubigné remarked, was the one he assigned to the minister: to proclaim the Word of God for instruction, admonition, exhortation, and reproof. To this end, Calvin’s preaching was replete with practical instruction and application, which he saw as a fundamental necessity. Thus, according to D’Aubigné, Calvin’s chief mission was the explication and application of the Holy Scriptures. This was the real Calvin—the biblical expositor who considered the pulpit to be “the heart of his ministry.”
Excerpt taken from The Expository Genius of John Calvin, by Steven J. Lawson
Read Celebrating 500 Years of John Calvin, Part 1
Read Celebrating 500 Years of John Calvin, Part 2
Read Celebrating 500 Years of John Calvin, Part 4
Read Celebrating 500 Years of John Calvin, Part 5
Watch The Holiness of God, Part 1
Watch The Holiness of God, Part 2
Watch The Holiness of God, Part 3
Watch The Holiness of God, Part 4
Watch The Holiness of God, Part 5
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