This article is about John Calvin as preacher and his view on preaching.

Source: Witness, 2009. 3 pages.

John Calvin - The Preacher of St Pierre

In obedience to Jesus’ command: ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature’ (Mark 16:15), the apostolic church placed preaching at the forefront of its efforts. Its emphasis was on ‘prayer and the ministry of the word’ (Acts 6:4). However, this emphasis soon declined, and for many centuries, with certain notable and noble exceptions, preaching was relegated to a secondary place behind the sacraments or suffered the damaging effects of an increasingly-unrestrained allegorical method of preaching. Luther and other first generation Reformers returned the proclamation of God’s Word to its rightful place. Therefore, when Calvin entered the pulpit, determined to put the Bible first, he was following in the footsteps of others. ‘Before him there was a Luther, a Bernard, an Augustine and an Origen’ (T H L Parker).

Calvin had not intended to preach when, in 1536, he arrived in Geneva. However, in God’s providence, the passionate entreaties and vehement imprecations of William Farel turned the shy young scholar from his journey to Strasbourg. He had hoped that in Strasbourg he might write in defence of the Reformation in relative peace and tranquillity. Instead, he found himself on a path which would be marked by ceaseless labours and continual opposition.

The course of his life was changed. Not just geographically, but vocationally. Never again would Calvin work in what he called the “tranquillity of studies”. From now on, every page of the forty-eight volumes of books and tracts and sermons and commentaries and letters that he wrote would be hammered out on the anvil of pastoral responsibility.J Piper

Thus, suddenly and unexpectedly, John Calvin was thrust into the role of a preacher of the Gospel.

Calvin’s Estimation of Preaching🔗

Calvin felt a deep sense of wonder when he considered the condescension of God in entrusting the ministry of the Gospel to men. He wrote:

Those who think the authority of the Word is dragged down by the baseness of the men called to teach it disclose their own ungratefulness. For, among the many excellent gifts with which God has adorned the human race, it is a singular privilege that He deigns to consecrate to Himself the mouths and tongues of men in order that His voice may resound in them.

He viewed preaching with the utmost seriousness and solemnity and never lost his sense of accountability to God and responsibility to his hearers. The great privilege that he should ‘preach the unsearchable riches of Christ’ did not allow him to stand above the Word. ‘For Calvin the message of Scripture is sovereign over the congregation and over the preacher. His humility is shown by submitting to this authority’ (T H L Parker). It is clear that for Calvin the pulpit was no place for mere professionalism. He stated that, for the preacher, ‘It would be better for him to break his neck going up into the pulpit if he does not take pains to be the first to follow God’.

The tendency of many to portray Calvin as a cold, rather aloof figure, content to wrestle with abstruse points of theology, is a caricature unworthy of any well-informed and honest individual. While he carefully and calmly preached to his hearers the truths of Scripture, he burned with a deep conviction that he and his fellow Reformers were engaged in a most important work.

With Scripture as our guide, we are calling men back to the knowledge and preaching of the grace of Christ alone.

Throughout his life this passionate conviction shaped the great Reformer of Geneva’s pulpit ministry. He called for pulpits to be filled with the type of preaching by which men and women were ‘touched to the quick, and that they feel that what the Apostle says is true (Hebrews 4:12), that “the Word of God is a two-edged sword, piercing even through the thoughts and affections to the very marrow of the bones”. I speak thus Monseigneur, because it appears to me that there is very little preaching of a lively kind in the kingdom, but that the greater part deliver it by reading from a written discourse’. Geneva had in John Calvin a man who sought to strike the Word of God into the hearts of all who heard him.

Calvin’s Example as a Preacher🔗

One of the first things to strike you in the sermons of John Calvin is their profound reverence for Scripture. He writes: ‘Our wisdom ought to be in nothing else than to embrace with humble teachableness… whatever is taught in Sacred Scripture’. In particular, we note Calvin’s frequent warning that preachers are not to preach their own ‘dreams and fancies’. He states:

Therefore, let those who desire to be wise with sobriety, and to teach others well, appoint themselves these bounds, that they utter nothing but out of the pure fountain of the Word.

His method of systematic expository preaching was a direct result of his belief that ‘the Scripture is the fountain of all wisdom, from which pastors must draw all that they place before their flock’. Year after year, book by book, section by section, Calvin sought to unfold the meaning of the Bible to the St Pierre congregation. T H L Parker explains ‘Almost all Calvin’s recorded sermons are connected series on books of the Bible… he preached on a New Testament book on Sunday mornings and afternoons (although for a period on the Psalms in the afternoon) and on an Old Testament book on weekday mornings’. Calvin was banished from the pulpit of St Pierre’s on Easter day, 1538, and only returned to the same pulpit over three years later. When he re-entered the pulpit in September, 1541, he simply picked up at the next verse in his exposition and continued as if he had never been away.

In preaching Calvin studiously avoided difficult words or complicated sentences. His intention was to make Scripture understood by all that heard him. He had a brilliant mind and a first-rate knowledge of classical literature, but he refused to flaunt his learning. Favouring the use of illustrations drawn directly from Scripture or daily life he also preferred the use of familiar words and images. When explaining the nuances of the text he rarely mentioned the original language and completely avoided the use of Greek and Hebrew words in the pulpit. He frequently engaged the minds of his hearers by asking searching questions. The combination of his legal training, classical education, and piercing intellect enabled him to use such questions to great effect. He might by this means expose the folly of erroneous teaching, reinforce the logical coherence of a particular truth, encourage his hearers to think more deeply on the topic in hand or forcibly apply the passage to the hearts of the congregation.

In applying the text he sought to declare the gracious message of the Gospel to the hearts of wounded sinners:

Now let us fall down before the face of our good God, with acknowledgement of our sins, praying Him to make us so to feel them, as being right cast down as we ought to be, we may repair to the sovereign refuge of His infinite goodness which He has promised to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, and there take so sure foundation, as we may not doubt of His favour towards us.

Calvin also sought in his application to exhort his hearers to live good and godly lives and not to be hearers only:

Then if God give us any authority, or so replenish us with this Holy Spirit, as we be honoured among other men: It is not for us to advance ourselves, nor to overrule them like Lords (for that were an abusing of God’s gifts, and a wresting of them clean contrary to His meaning:) but it behoves us to know that our Lord employs us to the comforting of the poor and afflicted … that such as seek to serve God with all lowliness of heart may be cheered by hearing and seeing us.

The church of our day stands in need of a generation of preachers possessed of similar convictions. Too often men imagine that faithful Biblical exposition and fervent Gospel proclamation cannot dwell together. The result is either dry and heartless commenting on the words of the Bible, or superficial appeals based on little or no deep acquaintance with the Word of God. Calvin’s preaching shows us that far from being incompatible, faithful pastoral instruction and fervent Gospel application are most effective when united in truly powerful preaching.

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