What Did the Reformation Give Us?

00:00:00.000 | This week we celebrate Reformation Day, October 31st, the day Martin Luther boldly banged

00:00:08.560 | his 95 theses on the church door with nails and a hammer, October 31, 1517. Of course,

00:00:15.760 | he more likely glued the document with poster paste and he probably left the decoupage to

00:00:21.100 | an assistant actually. So theatrics or not, the date marks the ignition of what would

00:00:26.120 | grow into the Protestant Reformation. Last time in episode 1387, we looked at whether

00:00:31.300 | or not we should read dead white guys or are they now irrelevant. And as we enter our way

00:00:36.260 | closer to Reformation Day this year, we take a look at the legacy of a reformer, John Calvin.

00:00:40.080 | And to do it, I will share a clip from Pastor John's 1997 biography on John Calvin and his

00:00:44.060 | role in shaping the Reformation and our reformed tradition as we know it today. Here's what

00:00:48.920 | Pastor John had to say.

00:00:51.240 | His view of Scripture, which defined the remainder of his ministry, was very high. He said, "We

00:00:57.160 | owe to the Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God because it proceeded from him

00:01:06.160 | alone and has nothing of man mixed with it." His own experience had taught him, "The highest

00:01:13.920 | proof of the Scripture derives in general from the fact that God in person speaks in

00:01:21.840 | it." Those were the incontrovertible truths for John Calvin. The Scriptures were the voice

00:01:29.200 | of God. God vindicates God by bringing us to life by his majestic witness. We see him

00:01:37.840 | in his Scriptures and he and they then become authoritative immediately for our lives and

00:01:45.680 | what kind of life is born for Calvin. It was a life of invincible constancy in the exposition

00:01:52.720 | of Scripture.

00:01:53.920 | Tracts, institutes, commentaries, commentaries on every New Testament book except Revelation,

00:02:01.180 | numerous Old Testament books, but all of it, all of it, including these two books here,

00:02:08.720 | is exposition of Scripture. Dillenberger says Calvin assumed that his whole theological

00:02:15.280 | labor was the exposition of Scripture. He wrote at the end of his life, "I have endeavored

00:02:23.080 | both in my sermons and also in my writings and commentaries to preach the Word purely

00:02:31.000 | and chastely and faithfully to interpret his sacred Scriptures." Everything was exposition

00:02:40.080 | of Scripture. That was the kind of ministry that was unleashed by his experience. And

00:02:45.880 | preaching then became the main vehicle. Calvin's preaching was of one kind and it never, ever

00:02:58.560 | changed. It was sequential, expository preaching through book after book after book. On Sunday

00:03:09.880 | morning he always took New Testament, afternoon New Testament, sometimes a Psalm on Sunday,

00:03:17.440 | during the week three times, always Old Testament. There are only fewer than half a dozen instances

00:03:28.440 | where he broke pattern for any church year event. So, Don Whitney, if you wonder what

00:03:36.240 | to do on Christmas, preach on Deuteronomy 29-23 or whatever happens to be next. That's

00:03:45.240 | what Calvin did. Every Easter, every Christmas he plowed right on through with fewer than

00:03:53.140 | half a dozen exceptions. Now, to give you an idea, picture this. It's August 25, 1549

00:04:01.920 | and he begins a series of messages on the book of Acts. We know this because that was

00:04:06.000 | the first time when he had a stenographer who was taking down his sermons. He preached

00:04:11.260 | totally without notes and without anything, straight from the Greek and straight from

00:04:14.920 | the Hebrew, right there in front of him. He begins Acts on August 25, 1549. He ends Acts

00:04:21.960 | on Sunday morning in March, 1554. So, from 49 to 54 he's preaching on Acts, straight

00:04:32.960 | through. And then, after that, he picks up Thessalonians, 46 sermons, Corinthians, 186

00:04:41.400 | sermons, Pastorals, 86 sermons, Galatians, 43 sermons, Ephesians, 48 sermons, until May

00:04:49.840 | of 1558 when he has to quit for half a year because he's sick. As you can well imagine,

00:04:55.120 | he might be with the relentless schedule that he's kept. He begins then in 1559, the harmony

00:05:02.360 | of the Gospels and he dies while he's doing it in 1564. Now, during that time, during

00:05:10.880 | the week, he's preaching 159 sermons on Job, 200 on Deuteronomy, 353 on Isaiah, 123 on

00:05:18.960 | Genesis and so on. The numbers are phenomenal. The point is, this is no accident. He chose

00:05:26.560 | to do this. Here's the story that I love that shows how completely self-conscious he is

00:05:32.240 | in this. On Easter Day, 1538, he's banished out of Geneva that first time, remember? He's

00:05:41.120 | been preaching for about a year. He's banished for three years to minister in Strasbourg.

00:05:50.080 | They call him back. He comes back in September 1541 and walks into the pulpit and picks up

00:05:58.680 | at the next verse. And he comments on the fact that he wanted them to know that it was

00:06:09.080 | just an interlude in his exposition of the Word of God. Why? Why that kind of preaching?

00:06:19.840 | Luther didn't do that. Luther preached the Gospel and the Epistle. Spurgeon didn't do

00:06:26.640 | that. Shamon Spurgeon, maybe or maybe not. Why did he do it this way? Three possible

00:06:34.560 | reasons. Number one, Calvin believed the lamp of the Word had gone out in Europe. The Word

00:06:45.480 | had been taken away. Here's what he said. He's confessing his own sin to the Lord. He

00:06:51.480 | says, "Thy Word, which ought to have shone on all thy people like a lamp, was taken away

00:06:59.600 | or at least suppressed as to us. And now, O Lord, what remains to a wretch like me but

00:07:08.000 | earnestly to supplicate thee not to judge according to my deserts that fearful abandonment

00:07:15.720 | of thy Word from which in thy wondrous goodness thou hast delivered me?" So you feel in his

00:07:24.880 | conversion the horror he felt. He saw by the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit the majesty

00:07:33.040 | of God revealed in the Word and he looked across the church and he said, "What a fearful

00:07:40.040 | abandonment of the holy precious Word." And his whole life then became, "I am going to

00:07:47.880 | lay this Word out every day for the rest of my life. It is so precious." That's reason

00:07:53.760 | number one. Number two, THL Parker says, "Calvin had a horror of those who preached their own

00:08:07.040 | ideas in the pulpit." Oh, we need that horror today. He says, "When we enter the pulpit,

00:08:17.240 | it is not so that we may bring our own dreams and fancies with us." So evidently he believed

00:08:25.480 | that the best safeguard against bringing my fancies into the pulpit is to systematically

00:08:32.120 | work my way through God's ordered, inspired, majesty revealing Word. Finally, the third

00:08:40.760 | reason brings us full circle back to the majesty of God in the Word. He really believed that

00:08:50.160 | when the Word was faithfully exposited, God in His majesty stood forth in the congregation.

00:09:00.520 | Listen to this great exhortation to you from Calvin. "Let the pastors boldly dare all things

00:09:07.640 | by the Word of God. Let them constrain all the power, glory, excellence of the Word to

00:09:15.680 | give place to and to obey the divine majesty of this Word. Let them enjoin every one by

00:09:22.960 | it from the highest to the lowest. Let them edify the body of Christ. Let them devastate

00:09:27.460 | Satan's reign. Let them pasture the sheep, kill the wolves, instruct, exhort the rebellious.

00:09:34.120 | Let them bind and loose thunder and lightning if necessary, but let them do all according

00:09:40.760 | to the Word of God." In other words, the key phrase there is the divine majesty of His

00:09:48.040 | Word. Calvin believed that if his goal in life was to illustrate the glory of God, and

00:09:56.760 | if the glory of God is uniquely and self-authenticatingly revealed in the Word of God, then the full

00:10:05.560 | display of the Word would be the fullest display of the glory. I think that's the way he reasoned.

00:10:14.520 | And my own personal conviction when I ask myself the question, "Can it be done any other

00:10:20.240 | way besides preaching? How about just teaching with an overhead? How about small group

00:10:26.520 | discussions? How about lectures? How about books? How about computer CDs sent to China?"

00:10:36.920 | What's to become of preaching? And this is my conviction. I don't know what Calvin would

00:10:41.880 | say, but I'm a preacher and I have to believe in what I'm doing. And so I want to know why

00:10:49.040 | I am so drawn to do it. And I believe the answer is nothing will ever replace preaching.

00:10:57.160 | The reason I believe that preaching uniquely, not teaching per se, not reading the Bible

00:11:05.120 | per se, but preaching to the congregation over a text will always be there is because

00:11:12.800 | God means for Himself in the fullness of His glory to be extolled and glorified and honored

00:11:20.840 | and cherished. And something about that event of worship beckons for more than analysis.

00:11:30.760 | It beckons for more than explanation. It beckons for expository exaltation. That's what I like

00:11:39.520 | to call it. Preaching is the worshipful moment over the Word. It is expository exaltation.

00:11:50.920 | And wherever God-centeredness is alive, wherever the supremacy of God reigns in the hearts

00:11:58.840 | of a people, something inside will say, "Oh, pastor, do more for us than explain it to

00:12:07.440 | us. Love it over us. Cherish it over us. Taste it over us. Revel in it over us. Exalt in

00:12:16.560 | it over us because we need to see it come alive and burn in you." And that is what

00:12:23.040 | is called preaching.

00:12:24.720 | Amazing legacy. What a rich tradition we share in the Reformation owing to this man, John

00:12:30.200 | Calvin and his ministry from the pulpit. For the full message, see DesiringGod.org and

00:12:35.480 | look for the title, The Divine Majesty of the Word, John Calvin, the Man and His Preaching,

00:12:41.080 | recorded at the 1997 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors.

00:12:44.960 | And thank you to all the Calvinist preachers out there listening along. Be sure to follow

00:12:48.080 | us by subscribing to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app or in YouTube.

00:12:53.600 | Next time, we're going to look at the challenges Christians face who have to work on Sundays

00:12:56.880 | sometimes. Of course, for the first three centuries of the church, pretty much every

00:13:01.360 | Christian had to work on Sunday. So what about doctors, nurses, and first responders who

00:13:05.840 | work on Sundays today? What advice would Pastor John have for them? That's next time. I'm

00:13:10.720 | your host Tony Rehnke. We'll see you on Friday.

00:13:12.480 | [END]

00:13:13.480 | 1

00:13:13.480 | The Bible, in the New Testament, is a revelation of the Lord's message. In the New Testament,

00:13:14.480 | the Bible is a revelation of the Lord's message. In the New Testament, the Bible is a revelation

00:13:15.480 | of the Lord's message. In the New Testament, the Bible is a revelation of the Lord's message.

00:13:16.480 | In the New Testament, the Bible is a revelation of the Lord's message. In the New Testament,

00:13:17.480 | the Bible is a revelation of the Lord's message. In the New Testament, the Bible is a revelation

00:13:18.480 | of the Lord's message. In the New Testament, the Bible is a revelation of the Lord's message.

00:13:19.480 | In the New Testament, the Bible is a revelation of the Lord's message. In the New Testament,

00:13:20.480 | the Bible is a revelation of the Lord's message. In the New Testament, the Bible is a revelation

What Did the Reformation Give Us?

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