History of the Reformation and Reformed Churches — Unit 3: John Calvin and Geneva: Teacher, Pastor and City

Key Verse

"For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen." (Romans 11:36, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Trace the main stages of John Calvin's life from Noyon to Geneva, Strasbourg and back to Geneva.

2. Describe the Institutes of the Christian Religion and its four books.

3. Explain the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 1541, the four offices, and the work of the Consistory.

4. State the main criticisms of Calvin and Geneva, including the case of Michael Servetus, and give the Reformed answer.

5. Explain how Geneva became a school for pastors, a refuge for exiles and a center of Reformed missions.

The Voice of This Course

This unit is written from inside the Reformed tradition. We honor Calvin as a great teacher of the church, but we do not treat him as a saint beyond criticism. He was a sinner saved by grace, as we are. Where he and the city of Geneva did wrong, we say so. Where critics misrepresent him, we answer them. The only infallible teacher is Scripture, and Calvin would be the first to say so.

A Frenchman Who Did Not Want to Be a Reformer

John Calvin was born in 1509 in Noyon, in northern France. His father worked for the cathedral there and wanted his son to enter the church. Calvin studied in Paris and then law at Orléans and Bourges. He was a quiet, studious young man trained in the humanist way, which meant close reading of ancient texts in their original languages. His first published book was a commentary on a work by the Roman writer Seneca.

At some point in his early twenties Calvin came to evangelical faith. He tells us only a little about it. Looking back, he said that God brought him to a teachable heart by a sudden conversion, though he does not give a date or say how. Historians have debated the timing, and we do not need to settle it. What we know is that Calvin became a follower of the gospel and that, for this reason, he could no longer live safely in France. In the 1530s the French crown was persecuting evangelicals. Calvin left the country and moved among several cities, eventually reaching Basel in Switzerland.

In 1536, when he was still a young man in his twenties, Calvin published the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. It was a small book at first, written to teach the faith and also to defend persecuted French evangelicals. He addressed it in a preface to King Francis I of France, explaining that those the king was punishing were not rebels or heretics but Christians who believed the Bible. He never imagined that the book would become the most influential statement of Reformed theology.

Farel, Geneva and Exile

Calvin planned to travel through Geneva on his way to Strasbourg and stay only a night. In Geneva a French pastor named Guillaume Farel was struggling to lead the young Reformation in the city. Farel urged Calvin to stay and help. Calvin refused, saying that he wished to study. Farel then warned him in strong words that God would curse his quiet life if he did not help. Calvin later said that he felt as if God had laid a hand on him from heaven. He stayed.

His first period in Geneva was short and stormy. Calvin and Farel tried to bring discipline to the church, including the rule that unrepentant sinners should not come to the Lord's Supper. The city council did not agree that the church should hold this authority. In 1538 the two men were told to leave the city.

Calvin went to Strasbourg, where he was welcomed by Martin Bucer. These three years were among the happiest and most useful of his life. He pastored a congregation of French refugees, lectured on the Bible, and learned from Bucer's way of organizing a church. He also married. His wife was Idelette de Bure, a widow with children, and they were married in 1540. Calvin regarded marriage as a good gift from God, and by all accounts his home was a place of affection. Idelette died in 1549. Calvin grieved her deeply, and he wrote with tenderness about her.

In 1541 the Geneva council, which had come to see that it needed him, asked Calvin to return. He came back unwillingly. He remained in Geneva for the rest of his life.

Order in the Church: The Ordinances of 1541

Soon after his return, Calvin and the council wrote the Ecclesiastical Ordinances. These set down the pattern of the church in Geneva. They described four offices based on the New Testament:

• Pastors, who preach, administer the sacraments and care for souls.

• Teachers (doctors), who teach Scripture and train others.

• Elders, who watch over the life of the congregation.

• Deacons, who care for the poor and the sick. In Geneva they helped run the hospital and provided for those in need.

The pastors met together as a body called the Company of Pastors. The pastors and the elders, who were chosen from the city's leading bodies, formed the Consistory. The Consistory met each week to oversee the life of the church. It called members who were in open sin, whether through quarrels, drunkenness, neglect of worship or other matters, and sought to bring them to repentance. Marriages were to be honored and families were to be kept in good order. The Consistory could admonish and could keep a person away from the Lord's Supper. It could not impose civil punishments. Those belonged to the city council.

This system rests on a principle that lies behind Presbyterian government: that Christ has given His church officers, and these officers are not simply appointed by the state. Course 4 will study it in detail. In Geneva the relationship between church and council was not always clear, and Calvin spent years in conflict with those who wished to keep the power of discipline in civil hands.

The Institutes and the Commentaries

Calvin continued to revise the Institutes for the rest of his life. He expanded the book in later editions, and the final Latin edition was published in 1559. A French edition followed in 1560. By then the book had grown to four books, following the order of the Apostles' Creed:

1. The knowledge of God the Creator.

2. The knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ.

3. The way we receive the grace of Christ, including faith, repentance, justification and election.

4. The outward means by which God calls us into the society of Christ and keeps us in it: the church, the sacraments and the civil government.

Calvin intended the Institutes as a guide for reading the Bible. He wrote it, he said, so that students could understand Scripture and then go to the commentaries for the explanation of the text. He also preached many times each week and wrote commentaries on most books of the Bible. His method was plain and brief: explain the meaning of the passage, with attention to the original languages and the setting, and then apply it. In this he gave the Reformed churches a model for the explanation and the application of Scripture. His whole aim was the one expressed by Paul in the key verse: the glory of God.

A School for the Reformation

Geneva became a school for the Reformed world in two ways.

Refugees and exiles. Many believers fled persecution in France, Italy, England and Scotland and found shelter in Geneva. They were taught, they worshiped, and many returned to their homelands to lead churches. Among them was John Knox, whose story we will study in Unit 5. Printers in Geneva produced Bibles and books that were sent to other countries.

The Academy. In 1559 Calvin helped found the Genevan Academy, with Theodore Beza as its first rector. It trained pastors and other leaders. Many of its students went back to France and to other lands, often at great risk. Geneva also supported the singing of the Psalms in the congregation. The Genevan Psalter put the Psalms into metrical verse in French, with the help of poets such as Clément Marot and Theodore Beza, so that ordinary people could sing the Word of God.

Calvin was not strong. He suffered from illness for many years, and he continued working through it. He died on 27 May 1564. Beza became his successor as leader of the Company of Pastors, and the work continued.

Criticisms of Calvin and Geneva

A pastor should be ready for the questions that Calvin's critics raise, and we should hear them fairly.

Objection 1: Calvin was a tyrant who made Geneva a harsh dictatorship.

Some writers have described Geneva as a kind of "Protestant Rome" under the rule of one man, and the Consistory as a moral police. Calvin, they say, controlled everything.

Our answer. Calvin did not hold civil office. For many years he was not even a citizen of Geneva. The city was governed by its councils, which he often opposed and which sometimes opposed him. The discipline of the Consistory was applied to rich and poor, and its main aim was repentance and restoration. Yet we do not claim that Geneva was a perfect city. The laws of the day, like those of every European city, included civil penalties for offenses against religion and morals, and these laws were enforced by the council, not by the church. Historians note that Geneva was not unusual in its day, but that is not the same as saying that everything was right. The church must call people to Christ with the Word, not force them with a sword.

Objection 2: Calvin killed Michael Servetus.

This is the most serious charge. Servetus was a Spanish physician and writer who denied the doctrine of the Trinity and wrote against it. He had been condemned by the Catholic authorities in France, escaped, and came to Geneva. He was arrested, tried by the Geneva council, and burned at the stake on 27 October 1553. Calvin had written against his views, and he supported the charges. The Swiss Reformed cities that the council consulted also agreed that his teaching was dangerous.

Our answer. We need to say two things together. First, the sixteenth-century view that the state should punish heresy with death was held by Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed alike. Servetus was in danger from many sides, and the sentence was passed by the civil council. Historians report that Calvin asked for a less cruel form of execution, though the council did not agree. Second, we do not defend it. The Bible gives the church the weapons of the Word and of discipline, not the sword (2 Corinthians 10:4). The Reformed churches later made this clearer: the Westminster Confession teaches that God alone is Lord of the conscience, and in the late eighteenth century American Presbyterians revised the chapter on the civil magistrate to deny that the state has any right to rule in matters of faith. Calvin was right that the Trinity must be defended. He was wrong to defend it in this way. The error belongs to Calvin and his age. It does not belong to the Reformed faith.

Objection 3: Calvinism caused capitalism and the love of money.

In the early twentieth century the German sociologist Max Weber argued that Reformed ideas about work and calling helped to shape modern capitalism. The idea became popular.

Our answer. Historians remain divided about Weber's thesis, and many have criticized it. Calvin himself warned strongly against greed, and Geneva's deacons gave regular care to the poor. Reformed teachers did teach that every honest work is a calling from God, and we gladly teach this. But that is very different from teaching that wealth proves salvation. Course 5 will return to vocation and the common good.

Pastoral Application

A young pastor in a Presbyterian church in Mexico is visiting a family. The father, a member of a Pentecostal church, says, "You follow Calvin, the man who killed Servetus. How can you trust a man like that?"

The pastor does not become defensive. First, he admits that the charge is serious and that Servetus did die in Geneva in 1553. Second, he explains the facts calmly: the trial was held by the city council, Calvin urged condemnation but is reported to have asked for a milder death, and the age was one in which almost every government punished heresy. Third, he says plainly that we do not defend what was done, and he points out that the Reformed churches later wrote into their confessions that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Fourth, he explains that we follow Christ and His Word, not Calvin, and that the best way to honor Calvin is to read what he wrote, beginning with his teaching on the glory of God. He invites the father to read the first chapters of the Institutes with him. He ends by asking how the family is, and he prays.

Summary

John Calvin, born in 1509 at Noyon, became an evangelical in his early twenties, published the first Institutes in 1536, and was drawn into the work in Geneva by Guillaume Farel. Expelled in 1538, he served French refugees in Strasbourg under Martin Bucer, married Idelette de Bure in 1540, and returned to Geneva in 1541. The Ecclesiastical Ordinances set out four offices (pastors, teachers, elders, deacons) and created the Consistory for discipline. The final Institutes of 1559, in four books, became the standard summary of Reformed teaching. The Genevan Academy, founded in 1559 with Theodore Beza as rector, and the refugees who passed through the city made Geneva a school for the Reformed world. Critics charge Calvin with tyranny, with the execution of Servetus in 1553, and with fathering capitalism. We answer that Calvin held no civil office, that the Servetus case was the act of a council in an age when heresy was punished by the state, and that we do not defend it. We honor Calvin as a teacher, but we confess that Scripture alone is our authority.

Further Reading

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Books 1 and 3 (Beveridge translation, 1845), a primary source.

• John Calvin, Ecclesiastical Ordinances (1541), a primary source.

• The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), for the faith that Calvin's students carried abroad.

• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 20, on Christian liberty and liberty of conscience.

• Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1872-73), for a classic Reformed treatment of the doctrines Calvin taught.

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