Fred Sanders on Calvin on Union with Christ

Fred Sanders writes some terrific stuff.

Here, he unpacks one paragraph in Calvin's Institutes.

 

I hope this note helps me to find his article again!

Honouring John Calvin

I got this from Alan Reader, Tasmaniac and musician and preacher and lots of stuff I can't tell you, because that's all I know so far.

John Piper at the Resurgence National Conference 2008 - Text and Context

"I think the way to be faithful to John Calvin, insofar as he was true, is to stay faithful to his book, which is right here [the Bible], not The Institutes. And so the way to push the truth of any system that you think has got some truth in it, is not to wave the banner of the system, but to wave its foundations here, talk about [the Bible.]"

Good stuff, Al.

Reading Calvin's Institutes

Jim Beale, of the

so many books
so little time

T shirt and I have set up a Yahoo group for people who want to read and discuss John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. This has been prompted by the fact that next year is the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth.

I'm hoping to complete the project by the end of next year. I am guessing that it may be harder to keep at this task than it has been to read through the Bible and I'm hoping that doing this together in a group will help me to persevere.

So far I have read a mere 4 chapters, and have discovered that the puzzling title [to me, anyway] can mean

a digest of the elements of a subject, especially jurisprudence

but also that the original title was singular and probably means

Instruction in the Christian Religion.

The opening of the book reminds me very much of the second half of Romans chapter one. So Calvin seems to begin explaining the gospel where Paul began, by telling us that everyone knows there is a God and that everyone suppresses and distorts this knowledge, without God's gracious intervention.