Calvin’s “Reply” in 1539 was shaped by his passion for the glory of God and by the peace with God that he had experienced in Christ after his recognition of the seriousness of his sin. He was convinced that only through the Bible and the work of the Holy Spirit had he come to know this peace in Christ. He was certain that the old church had gravely distorted the truth and needed thorough reform.

These certainties that guided the life and work of John Calvin developed out of his own experience. They met needs in his life that were theological but were also deeply personal. For him personally his struggles of conscience were relieved by the certainty of the gospel of grace. Theologically the certain church of the Middle Ages was replaced by the certain Scripture of the Reformation. These certainties to which Calvin had come gave him a clear focus amidst the anxieties and changes of his life. One scholar called Calvin “a singularly anxious man.”²³ While such a statement may be somewhat exaggerated, Calvin did have anxieties that emerged both from his personal experiences and from the rapid changes that society was undergoing in the sixteenth century. In response to these anxieties Calvin found great certainties in religion reformed by the Bible. Those certainties brought a stability to his life that is reflected in the clarity of his thought and his great productivity as pastor and theologian. Calvin lived out the faith about which he had written to Sadoleto, a faith that was “that full and firm assurance commended by Paul, which leaves no room for doubt, and does not hesitate and waver among human arguments about which party to join. Rather it maintains its consistency though the whole world oppose it.”²⁴

Introduction Footnotes:

1. Will Durant, The Reformation (The Story of Civilization, Part VI), (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 490.
2. Theodore Beza, The Life of John Calvin, in Selected Works of John Calvin, Vol. 1, ed. H. Beveridge and J. Bonnet (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1983), xcvii. 3Beza, in ibid., cc.
4. John Calvin, “Letters,” July 28, 1542, in Selected Works of John Calvin, Vol. 4, ed. H. Beveridge and J. Bonnet (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1983), 339.
5. In order to make Calvin’s eloquence clearer to the contemporary reader, his commentaries and treatises have often been modernized.

Chapter One Footnotes:

1. Theodore Beza, The Life of John Calvin, in Selected Works of John Calvin, Vol. 1, ed. H. Beveridge and J. Bonnet (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1983), xxxv.
2. John Calvin, Commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia, trans. F.L. Battles and A.M. Hugo (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969), 29.
3. John Calvin, “Reply to Sadoleto,” Selected Works of John Calvin, Vol. 1, ed. H. Beveridge and J. Bonnet (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1983), 33, translation altered.
4. Ibid., 52, translation altered.
5. Ibid., 41.
6. Ibid., translation altered.
7. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. John Allen (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of
Christian Education, 1816), II, 16, 1.
8. Ibid., I, 1, 1, altered.
9. Calvin, “Reply to Sadoleto,” 61, translation altered.
10. Ibid., 62, translation altered.
11. Ibid., 64, translation altered.
12. Ibid., 42, translation altered.
13. Ibid., 42ff., translation altered.
14. Ibid., 53, translation altered.
15. Ibid., 57, translation altered.
16. Ibid., 53, translation altered.
17. Ibid., 66, translation altered.
18. Ibid., 65, translation altered.
19. Ibid., 50, translation altered.
20. Ibid., 60, translation altered.
21. Ibid., translation altered.
22. Ibid., 36ff., translation altered.
23.William J. Bouwsma, “The Quest for the Historical Calvin,” Archiv fuer Reformationsgeschichte, 77 (1986), 53.
24. Calvin, “Reply to Sadoleto, 53, translation altered.

John Calvin: Pilgrim and Pastor
Copyright © 2009 by W. Robert Godfrey 
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