John Calvin, the Gospel, and Grace

20120807-004551.jpgHere are a couple of interesting quotes from John Calvin. Did John Calvin believe that humans are robots, or is that an unfair characterization?

And now there is another reason we must extend this teaching a bit further. It is, as I have already said, that, seeing that men are created in the image of God and that their souls have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, we must try in every way available to us to draw them to the knowledge of the gospel.

– John Calvin, Sermons on Acts 1-7, Sermon 41, Acts 7:51, p., 593.

Yet sometimes he also causes those whom he illumines only for a time to partake of [grace]; then he justly forsakes them on account of their ungratefulness and strikes them with even greater blindness.

– Institutes of Christian Religion, 3.24.8.

One response to “John Calvin, the Gospel, and Grace

  1. Calvin speaks of Jesus, but we know he means the one who did not die for the sins of the whole world (limited atonement).

    If I am non-elect, but believe in the Jesus who did not die for my sins, how can I be punished for eternity? Aren’t I believing correctly in the true Jesus as taught by Calvin?

    Or was Calvin a capricious idolator, promoting a false christ?

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