In the last couple of days I have been reading about the reformation debate between Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto (Bishop of Carpentras in southern France) and John Calvin.  Following Calvin’s banishment from Geneva in April of 1538, Cardinal Sadoleto wrote a letter (March, 1539) to the Genevans with the intent of restoring them back to the Catholic Church.  The following August Calvin replied to Sadoleto in a letter that reveals the keys issues in the reformation debate, including the doctrine of justification.

The following is some of what Calvin wrote in his letter about justification:

First, we bid a man begin by examining himself, and this not in a superficial and perfunctory manner, but to cite his conscience before the tribunal of God, and when sufficiently convicted of his iniquity, to reflect on the strictness of the sentence pronounced upon all sinners.  Thus confounded and amazed at his misery, he is prostrated and humbled before God; and, casting away all self-confidence, groans as if given up to final perdition.  Then we show that the only haven of safety is in the mercy of God, as manifested in Christ, in whom every part of our salvation is complete.  As all mankind are, in the sight of God, lost sinners, we hold that Christ is their only righteousness, since, by His obedience, He has wiped off our transgressions; by His sacrifice, appeased the divine anger; by His blood, washed away our sins; by His cross, borne our curse; and by His death, made satisfaction for us.  We maintain that in this way man is reconciled in Christ to God the Father, by no merit of his own, by no value of works, but by gratuitous mercy.  When we embrace Christ by faith, and come, as it were, into communion with Him, this we term, after the manner of Scripture, the righteousness of faith.

There is nothing new under the sun, including the latest craze over Twitter.  You may be surprised to know that people were tweeting before there was Twitter.  Of course they didn’t call it tweeting, it was called journaling.  I have been reminded of this lately in my reading of Andrew Bonar’s The Life of Robert Murray M’Cheyne.

Be challenged and blessed by the following journal entries of M’Cheyne:

June 27, 1832-“Life of David Brainerd.  Most wonderful man!  What conflicts, what depressions, desertions, strength, advancement, victories, within they torn bosom!  I cannot express what I think when I think of thee.  To-night, more set upon missionary enterprise than ever.”

July 19, 1836-“Died, this day, W. M’Cheyne, my cousin-german, Relief minister, Kelso.  O how I repent of our vain controversies on Establishments when we last met, and that we spoke so little of Jesus!  O that we had spoken more one to another!  Lord, teach me to be always speaking as dying to dying.”

April 9, 1837-“Evening.-A very pleasant quietness.  Study of the Epistle to the Hebrews.  Came to a more intelligent view of the first six chapters than ever before.  Much refreshed by John Newton; instructed by Edwards.  Help and freedom in prayer.  Lord, what a happy season is a Sabbath evening!  What will Heaven be!”

April 16, 1837-“Sabbath Evening.-Much prayer and peace.  Reading the Bible only.”

June 2, 1837-“Much peace and rest to-night.  Much broken under a sense of my exceeding wickedness, which no eye can see but thine.  Much persuasion of the sufficiency of Christ, and of the constancy of his love.  O how sweet to work all day for God, and then to lie down at night under his smiles.”

Sept. 28, 1837-“Devoted chief part of Friday to fasting.  Humbled and refreshed.”

What a rich blessing it is to have these journal entries from a man who sought so hard after God.  May the Lord help us to commit to the discipline of journaling and thereby encourage another generation of Christian pilgrims.

“Because of the rudeness and weakness that is in us, we must allow ourselves to be governed by God’s Spirit, which is the chief key by which the gate of paradise is opened to us.” – John Calvin, Sermons on Ephesians, 1562

Our Reformation forebears understood clearly that the church constantly needed reforming according to the Word of God.  Their rallying cry became “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda” (“the church reformed, always reforming”).  Reformation was their goal and their strategy, all in accord with the plumb line of God’s infallible Word.

In our day, however, the Reformers’ rallying cry has faded into a distant and indistinguishable whisper.  On the one hand, many exhibit zeal for reforming the church, but not according to the Word of God.  They appear to prefer business techniques, psychology, and cultural trends as standards of reform over the Word of God.  They are zealous, but not according to knowledge.  Then there are those who seem to think the church is not in need of reform at all.  Many are indifferent to the cancerous infections of worldliness and doctrinal drift.  Where the Reformers would have taken up arms, today some church leaders and Christians shrug in disinterest and carry on without recognizing the great eclipse of biblical truth that is taking place among us.

What the church needs today is a recovery of the vision and zeal of men like Calvin – a vision and zeal informed from first to last by the loftiness, centrality, authority, and glory of God’s Word… What we seem to be missing, which Calvin comprehended, is a firm commitment to the necessity of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of sinners, as well as a deep dependence upon the ongoing work of the Spirit in the Christian life and the church…

It is really no wonder, then, that evangelism and gospel preaching appear to be largely non-existent and ineffective in some quarters today.  Instead, outreach and preaching seem to be designed around the persuasiveness of the preacher and emotional appeal rather than the sovereign and secret working of the Holy Spirit.  We desperately need to recover a biblical view of conversion and the Holy Spirit’s sovereign working in saving sinners so that we might free ourselves from the tyranny of methodological pragmatism and faddish trends.”

Above Excerpted from Chapter 10, John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, & Doxology, edited by Burk Parsons with contributions by Iain Murray, Derek Thomas, Sinclair Ferguson, Steven Lawson, W. Robert Godfrey, Phillip Johnson, Eric Alexander, John MacArthur, Thomas Ascol, Jay Adams, Phillip Ryken, Michael Horton, Jerry Bridges, et al.   A thoroughly enjoyable and edifying work, it went back into my library leaving me greatly challenged and bowing in worship.

In reflection and celebration of the Protestant Reformation in October, this past Sunday I preached “The Five-Solas of the Reformation Gospel.” You can listen to its recorded message here or read the transcript here.

Theses 91 to 95:

91. Now if pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of the pope all these questions would easily be disposed of; nay, they would not arise.

92. And so let all those prophets depart who say to Christ’s people ‘Peace, peace’ and there is no peace.

93. And farewell to all those prophets who say to Christ’s people ‘the cross, the cross’ and there is no cross.

94. Christians are to be exhorted to endeavour to follow Christ, their head, through pains, deaths, and hells.

95. And so let them trust to ender heaven rather through many tribulations than through the false confidence of peace.

Theses 86 to 90:

86. The pope’s riches at this day far exceed the wealth of the riches millionaires, cannot he therefore build one single basilica of St. Peter out of his own money, rather than out of the money of the faithful poor?

87. What does the pope remit or dispense to those who through perfect contrition have the right to plenary remission and dispensation?

88. What greater good would be gained by the Church if the pope were to do a hundred times a day what he does once a day; i.e. distribute these remissions and dispensations to any of the faithful?

89. If the pope by means of his pardons now seeks the salvation of souls rather than payment, why does he suspend letters and pardons formerly granted, since they are equally efficacious?

90. To suppress these careful arguments of the laity merely by papal authority, instead of clearing them up by a reasoned reply, is to expose the Church and the pope to the ridicule of the enemy and to render Christians unhappy.

Theses 81 to 85:

81. This wanton preaching of pardons makes it hard even for learned men to defend the honour of the pope against calumny, or at least against the shrewd questions of the laity.

82. They ask: Why does not the pope empty purgatory on account of most holy charity and the great need of souls, the most righteous of causes, seeing that he redeems as infinite number of souls on account of sordid money, given for the erection of a basilica, which is a most trivial cause?

83. Why do requiems and anniversaries of the departed continue, and why does he not return the benefactions offered on their behalf, or suffer them to be taken back, since it is now wrong to pray for the redeemed?

84. What is this piety of God and the pope, in allowing the impious and hostile to secure, on payment of money, a pious soul, in friendship with God, while they do not redeem of free charity a soul that is of itself pious and beloved, on account of its need?

85. The penitential canons have long been repealed and are dead in effect and by disuse. Why then are dispensations from them still conceded by indulgences, for payment, as if they were still in full force?

Theses 75 to 80:

75. To hold that papal pardons are of such power that they could absolve even a man who (to assume the impossible) had violated the mother of God is to rave like a lunatic.

76. We say, on the contrary, that papal pardons cannot take away the least of venial sins, as regards guilt.

77. To say that not even if Saint Peter were pope could he give greater graces, is a blasphemy against Saint Peter and the pope.

78. We say, as against this, that any pope, even Saint Peter, has greater graces than these, to wit, the Gospel, virtues, graces of administrations [or of healings], etc. as in 1 Corinthians 12.

79. It is blasphemy to say that the cross adorned with the papal arms is as effectual as the cross of Christ.

80. Bishops, curates and theologians who allow such teaching to be preached to the people will have to render an account.

Theses 69 to 74:

69. Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of the apostolic pardons with all reverence.

70. But still more are they bound to apply their eyes and ears to the task of making sure that they do not preach the figments of their own imagination instead of the pope’s commission.

71. If any one speaks against the truth of the apostolic pardons, let him be anathema and accursed.

72. But blessed be he that strives against the wanton and disorderly preaching of the sellers of pardons.

73. As the pope justly inveighs against those who by any device contrive the detriment of the business of pardons.

74. So much the more he intends to inveigh against those who use the pretext of pardons to contrive the detriment of holy charity and truth.