i

WHEATON COLLEGE GRADUATE SCHOOL

Distinction without Separation: The Milieu of John Calvin’s Doctrine

of Union with Christ and the Duplex Gratia of Justification and Sanctification

A Thesis Submitted To The Faculty Of The Graduate School In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Master Of Arts

Department of Bible and Theology

by

Gretchen N. Ellis

Wheaton, Illinois

March, 2009

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Distinction without Separation: The Milieu of John Calvin’s Doctrine of

Union with Christ and the Duplex Gra tia of Justification and Sanctification

by Gretchen N. Ellis

Approved:

____________________________________ ______________________ Professor David E. Lauber, First Reader Date

____________________________________ ______________________ Professor Jennifer P. McNutt, Second Reader Date

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Disclaimer

The views expressed in this thesis are those of the student and do not necessarily express the views of the Wheaton College Graduate School.

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WHEATON COLLEGE Wheaton, Illinois

March, 2009

Distinction without Separation: The Milieu of John Calvin’s Doctrine of Union with

Christ and the Duplex Gratia of Justification and Sanctification

Wheaton College

Department of Bible and Theology

Master of Arts Degree

Permission is herewith granted to Wheaton College to make copies of the above title, at its discretion, upon the request of individuals or institutions and at their expense. ________________________________ Gretchen N. Ellis Extensive quotation or further reproduction of this material by persons or agencies other than Wheaton College may not be made without the expressed permission of the writer.

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To Robert Lee Jones, my loving father. Your deep love of the Word, daily evidenced, inspired me to study theology so that I might

follow in your footsteps. I love you so much. More importantly, I love God more because of your love for Him and for me.

Thank you.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep and heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has made this work

possible. First and foremost, this work has only been possible because of my Lord and my

Redeemer. Without His work of redemption, this paper would not exist. I am highly

indebted to my readers—Dr. Jennifer McNutt and Dr. David Lauber—for their continued

exhortation, guidance and constructive criticism throughout this process. I am especially

grateful to Dr. McNutt for challenging me to pursue more in-depth historical research,

without which this thesis would have turned out very differently. I am also indebted to the

research pursued by my fellow colleague, Clement Wen. I am grateful for the conversations,

encouragement and free exchange of resources we pursued together.

On a personal level, I must thank my husband Ryan, who sat through many cranky,

sleep-deprived evenings with me plugging away at my work, yet somehow, he managed to

love me through them and graciously fetch me tea; I am forever thankful for his support and

love. I am also grateful for the love, care and encouragement from both my parents—Robert

and Kate Jones—as I pursued my graduate work. It is to my father that I dedicate the

present work, with love and gratitude for his role in my life.

Finally, as this year marks the 500th anniversary of his birth, I must express my deep

gratitude for the man himself, John Calvin. No student of the Reformation could hope for a

more deeply pious, more intellectually rigorous or more humble theologian from whom to

learn the wonder of the grace found from God, in Christ through the Holy Spirit. His

reverence for the paternal care and mercy of God have deepened my own faith and

encouraged me to pursue true godliness in response to the grace and mercy of our loving

Father.

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ABSTRACT

Recent literature has cited the importance of union with Christ in Calvin’s theology,

however, little scholarly research is devoted to discovering the historical and theological

factors contributing to the growth and integrity of this doctrine within Calvin’s theology,

especially the relationship of this doctrine to Calvin’s doctrine of the duplex gratia (double

grace) of salvation in justification and sanctification. This thesis will investigate John Calvin’s

development and defense of his doctrine of union with Christ against the backdrop of the

‘antinomian’ question raised by Luther’s formulation of justification and good works. The

first chapter addresses the historical context of the Lutheran-Catholic controversy over the

place of good works in salvation and ensuing impasse with a view to understanding the

theological context in which Calvin found himself. Calvin’s perception of the social context

in Geneva preceding his exile in Strasbourg and the formative work accomplished—a

commentary on Romans and revision of the Institutes—provide the immediate backdrop for

his creative formulation of the duplex gratia grounded in union with Christ. Based on the

importance Calvin accorded to Paul, especially the epistle to the Romans, chapter two traces

Calvin’s development of union with Christ from the 1536 Institutes and the Strasbourg exile

through his later commentaries to the final edition of the Institutes in 1559 as expansions on

an initial Pauline theme. Finally, the integrity of Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ and

the success with which it responded to the Lutheran impasse is addressed through an

investigation of three influential controversies Calvin engaged in: his debate with Pighius

over free will, the Eucharistic controversies with Westphal and his response to Osiander in

his 1559 Institutes. From the perspective of Calvin’s historical and theological environment

early in his career, his doctrine union with Christ takes on a new shape as the doctrine

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necessary for allowing the ‘distinction without separation’ of justification and sanctification

in salvation.

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CONTENTS ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................... vii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................. ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................................................ xi

CHAPTER ONE: CONTEXTUAL CONCERNS: LUTHER, GENEVA AND ROMANS ................................ 1 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 1 Luther and ‘Antinomianism’ ................................................................................................. 2 Justification and Good Works in Luther’s Early Theology ................................ 3 Catholic Accusation and Response......................................................................... 7 Melanchthon’s Reformulations and Continuing Debate..................................... 12 Calvin and Geneva.................................................................................................................. 15 The Early Years ......................................................................................................... 16 Calvin in Geneva: 1536-1538................................................................................... 18 Romans..................................................................................................................................... 26 Calvin’s Program: Institutes and Commentaries ..................................................... 27 A Pauline Order for the Institutes............................................................................. 31 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 35

CHAPTER TWO: TIES THAT BIND: FORM AND DEVELOPMENT OF UNION WITH CHRIST IN CALVIN’S THEOLOGY................................................................................................................... 38 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 38 1536-1540: The Shaping of a Doctrine................................................................................ 40 Union with Christ in the 1536 Institutes .................................................................. 40 Union with Christ in the 1540 Commentary on Romans ................................... 45

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Union with Christ in the 1539 Institutes .................................................................. 50 1540-1556: Expansion of a Locus through Commentaries................................................ 53 1559: Summation and Final Form........................................................................................ 64 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 73

CHAPTER THREE SUCCESS OR FAILURE: THE INTEGRITY OF UNION WITH CHRIST WITHIN CALVIN’S THOUGHT..................................................................................................................... 77 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 77 Calvin Against Pighius............................................................................................................ 78 Calvin Against Westphal ........................................................................................................ 85 Calvin Against Osiander ........................................................................................................ 96 Conclusion: An Evaluation of Calvin’s Doctrine of Union with Christ......................... 108 CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................... 116 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................................ 120

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ABBREVIATIONS Beveridge John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. 1 vol. Translated by

Henry Beveridge. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989. Comm. Commentary/ies CTS John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries. 22 vols. Reprint ed., ed. Calvin

Translation Society. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2005. Institutes John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Ford Lewis

Battles. Library of Christian Classics, v. 20-21, ed. John T. McNeill. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960.

LW Martin Luther, Luther’s Works. 55 vols. Philadelphia and St. Louis:

Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House, 1958-1986. TT Calvin, John. Tracts and Treatises. Translated by Henry Beveridge. 3

vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958. Wevers John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion of John Calvin, 1539: Text

and Concordance, vol. 1, ed. Richard F. Wevers (Grand Rapids: Meeter Center for Calvin Studies at Calvin College and Seminary, 1988).

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CHAPTER ONE:

CONTEXTUAL CONCERNS: LUTHER, GENEVA AND ROMANS

Introduction

John Calvin gained recognition as a leading Protestant theologian in a time when

various Protestant groups found themselves caught in a tension between justification sola fide

and the necessity to encourage holy living, a tension which began prior to Calvin’s arrival in

Geneva in 1536. Long before Calvin articulated his unio duplex gratia and the grounding of

faith in union with Christ, others wrestled with the place of good works in Christian life,

including Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon. Indeed, the place of good works in

Protestant theology and its relationship to justification was an ongoing conversation among

the Reformers of Europe in the face of growing Roman Catholic opposition and accusations

against them for encouraging moral decline and rejection of civil authority. The Roman

Catholic concern with the place of good works eventually gave way to formal discussion of

‘sanctification’ as the process of transformation either initiated by or simultaneous to

justification. During Calvin’s first years as a theologian, however, the Reformers were still

responding to the need to address the Roman Catholic charge of neglecting good works.

This thesis seeks to explore Calvin’s development and defense of union with Christ, with a

view to his use of the doctrine to safeguard the distinct but inseparable graces of justification

and sanctification. It will explore the ways in which Luther provided the background against

which Calvin’s doctrine takes shape and the Apostle Paul, the framework of union with

Christ derived from Romans and applied intertextually across both testaments. Finally, it will

address how specific debates in Calvin’s lifetime created opportunities for Calvin to refine,

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reexamine, and reassert his exegetical and theological conclusions; this last section will seek

to utilize these controversies to assess the success or failure of Calvin’s doctrine in

responding to the theological impasse created by Luther.

By the time he arrived in Geneva in 1536, Calvin had articulated his own ideas

regarding the relationship between justification and sanctification—much along the lines of

Luther—in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Just as one cannot separate Christ from His

Spirit, so one cannot separate the forgiveness of sins wrought by Christ’s work on the cross

and the regeneration brought about by the indwelling of the Spirit. Union with Christ is

mentioned, but not highlighted and there is no mention at all of what contemporary

theologians call the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification through that union. In

1539, Calvin published his second edition of the Institutes, arguing for a stronger sense of

union with Christ leading to the double grace of justification and sanctification. This chapter

will discuss the theological context in which Calvin found himself and what happened in the

intervening five years to develop Calvin’s theology along the trajectory found in his 1539

edition. It will address this question by examining the historical context in which Calvin

developed his concept of union with Christ: the Catholic-Lutheran debate over good works

and the place of sanctification in the Christian life, Calvin’s experience in and expulsion from

Geneva, and Calvin’s 1539 commentary on Romans.

Luther and ‘Antinomianism’

The roots of the Protestant tension between justification and sanctification date to

Luther’s initial articulation of justification by faith alone in the face of rigorous moral

legalism in the Augustinian tradition on the one hand and the moral laxity and lasciviousness

of the Pope and many prominent Roman Catholic priests on the other. Luther concerned

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himself with the recovery of the gospel message of justification by faith alone, without works,

a doctrine the Roman church perceived as precluding good works and a sanctified life from

Christian teaching altogether.1

July 4-14, 1519, Luther met with John Eck at Leipzig to debate the German

reformer’s burgeoning evangelical ideas. Though Eck was the perceived winner in the

debate, the controversy served as a forum for Luther to publicly declare his commitment to

the sole authority of the Word of God in Scripture over against the authority of the Church.

After the debate, Luther returned to Wittenberg where, six months later in 1520, he

published his treatise The Freedom of a Christian. As his first major publication regarding his

views on Christian liberty resulting from justification by faith, the treatise serves as a useful

starting point into his theology of justification and its relation to good works and

sanctification.2

Justification and Good Works in Luther’s Early Theology

Against the Roman Catholic Church, Luther claimed that no external action has any

influence upon the internal righteousness or unrighteousness of the sinner. Good works do

not make a person good nor do evil works make a person evil. Rather, the status of the

person coram deo determines the moral quality of the ensuing works: a good person produces

good works and an evil person, evil works. Only faith justifies the sinner and this faith

1. See below for fuller discussion of the Roman accusations against Luther. 2. Very little of the interchange between Luther and his Roman critics use the word ‘sanctification’.

Much of the debate regards the place, or lack thereof, for good works in the Christian life of faith. For both sides, good works served as a reference point for or sign of regeneration/renewal. Therefore, ‘good works’ will serve as shorthand for the broader category of sanctification and holy living.

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“cannot exist in connection with works.”3 Works contribute nothing to salvation.

Does this lead to a rejection of good works in the life of the believer? Luther’s

responded adamantly in the negative. The promises of God offered in the gospel not only

set the believer free, but also intoxicate and so saturate her that “Just as heated iron glows

like fire because of the union of fire with it, so the Word imparts its qualities to the soul.”4

Additionally, although justification is primarily passive with regard to the believer, the giving

of the Spirit accompanies justification thereby empowering the believer to do good works.5

The life of faith necessarily and spontaneously produces works of love in response to the

passive reception of Christ’s righteousness. As a good tree bears good fruit without requiring

instruction, the soul freed from sin is captivated by the wonders of God’s grace, and

therefore freely and voluntarily offers itself to God in obedience and righteousness.

Luther also bespoke the exchange wherein Christ makes all that is his the property of

his bride and Himself bears the weakness, sin, death and hell belonging to her by “the

wedding ring of faith.”6 The freedom wrought by this exchange leads to service to God and

neighbor. Insofar as a Christian is free, Luther claimed, he needs and does no works.

However, because the Christian is also a dutiful servant, he serves God joyfully and out of

spontaneous love and gratitude. These works further serve as a means to both occupy idle

3. LW 31:346. 4. Ibid., 349. 5. Mann argues that Luther sees God as imparting two separate blessings on the believer: “God does

not come to the sinner presenting merely the faith that justifies, but provides two different things. In the act of justification the believer receives by virtue of Christ’s work on the cross first gratia, or grace, and secondly donum, or gift. The grace of God is that forgiveness of sins which reconciles us with our Creator and assures us of salvation. The gift is the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives that provides the strength to stop sinning and to live a God-pleasing live of piety.” Jeffrey K. Mann, Shall We Sin? Responding to the Antinomian Question in Lutheran Theology, American University Studies. Series VII, Theoloty and Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 2003).

6. LW 31: 351.

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hands and to train the sinful body in righteousness. Consequently, Luther adamantly rejected

the notion that works should be condemned. On the contrary, works were to be cherished

and taught, though not as a means to salvation.7 Luther concluded his treatise with a warning

against taking his discussion of works out of context, that is, using it as a license to sin. His

argument, full of lively polemic, deserves quotation in full:

Finally, something must be added for the sake of those for whom nothing can be said so well that they will not spoil it by misunderstanding it. It is questionable whether they will understand even what will be said here. There are very many who, when they hear of this freedom of faith, immediately turn it into an occasion for the flesh and think now all things are allowed them. They want to show that they are free men and Christians only by despising and finding fault with ceremonies, traditions and human laws . . . they neglect the weightier things which are necessary to salvation, and quarrel so noisily about trifling and unnecessary matters.8

Here, Luther proves he both understood the possibility of some using justification as a

license to sin, and rejected it. In Luther’s view, any legitimation of sinful behavior argued

from Christian freedom was an aberration and misunderstanding of his teaching.

However much Luther averred that he did not condone the rejection of the law or

good works, some of his later writings appear to support it. Five years after the publication

of The Freedom of a Christian (1520), Luther published a treatise on How Christians should regard

Moses (1525) wherein he discussed the authority of the Old Testament for the ongoing life of

the Christian. Luther distinguished between the law as directed solely to behavior—what

people do—and the gospel that directs one towards what God has done in Christ. In sum, “the

gospel teaches exclusively what has been given us by God, and not—as in the case of the

law—what we are to do and give to God.”9 The law of Moses, therefore, no longer binds

7. “Our faith does not free us from works but from false opinions concerning works, that is, from the

foolish presumption that justification is acquired by works…our righteousness is not in them [works], but in faith; and yet those works of the body are not to be despised or neglected on that account.” Ibid., 372.

8. Ibid., 371-2. 9. LW 35: 162.

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Christian behavior because it was given only to Israel. 10 The law was God’s provision for

Israel and Christians “will not have Moses as ruler or lawgiver any longer. Indeed, God

himself will not have it either.”11 According to Luther, Moses is dead because his rule ended

at the advent of Christ. Therefore, he is no longer of any service to Christians unless they

willingly and gladly accept a law from Moses as befitting their life before God. In other

words, Christians are not bound to keep the law of Moses but may freely do so if they so

desire. Finally, Christians read Moses and the Old Testament not because he directly applies

to them—that is, one must obey the laws given therein—but rather because Moses agrees

with the natural law written upon their hearts, providing a useful guide and rubric by which

to measure their progress.12 Though not an explicit contradiction of Luther’s argument in

The Freedom of a Christian, Luther here advocated a negligible place for Moses (i.e., law) in

Christian life, likely to eschew any formal cause between obedience to the law and one’s

justification.

In his other writings, Luther defined the primary use of the law as the second use or

usus theologicus: “the law shows us our sins spiritually, terrifying and humbling us, so that

when we have been frightened this way, we acknowledge our misery and damnation. And

this latter is the true and proper use of the Law.”13 Of the three uses of the law: (1) civil, (2)

moral or theological and (3) didactic, Luther fixated on the second. For Luther, the law

10. In its larger scope, “law” refers not primarily to a body of legal requirements or a legal code.

Rather, “the law…consists of whatever makes us aware of our finitude, depravity, and impotence in the face of the eternal.” Mann, Shall We Sin?, 5. However, Luther refers specifically to Moses rather than ‘law’ more generally; Luther’s claim that Moses no longer applies to the Christian walk aside from individual agreement with particular aspects of the law is a rejection of the so-called “third use” of Mosaic law.

11. LW 35: 164. 12. LW 35: 172-3 (paraphrased). 13. LW 26, 337.

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primarily functions as a precursor to hearing the good news of the gospel; it awakens one to

sin and reveals human depravity before a righteous God by functioning as a mirror to the

human soul. In this way, law broadly refers to that which makes us aware of sin.14 What

Luther rejected in the Mosaic law is the ongoing use of the law in Christian life as a standard

for moral righteousness, that is, the third use or usus didacticus.15 Luther’s position regarding

the necessity of good works in The Freedom of a Christian left no room for good works

contributing in any way to salvation, as How Christians should regard Moses, clearly professes.

This rejection of the law as the standard for Christian righteousness, coupled with his

emphasis on human freedom incited a flurry of Catholic responses in the decades following

the publication of his works.

Catholic Accusation and Response

In 1525, John Eck published his Enchiridion of Commonplaces Against Luther as a

response to the growing body of Luther’s teachings. Against Luther, Eck encouraged sinners

to perform good works rather than to draw back from them, “something the Lutherans,

haters of all good, do.”16 Even sinners should exercise works of piety and charity because

they are effective in obtaining temporal goods and may diminish eternal punishment. Eck

summarized his view of Luther’s teaching by saying, “good works are not meritorious of

14. Cf. the Formula of Concord (1577): “Therefore, everything that condemns sin is and belongs to

the proclamation of the law.” Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2000), 500.

15. In his 1513-15 lectures on the Psalms, Luther defines the proper subject of theology as “man

guilty of sin and condemned, and God the Justifier and Savior of man the sinner. Whatever is asked or discussed in theology outside this subject is error and poison.” The third use of the law ill-fits this definition of the theological task. See LW 12: 310.

16. John Eck, Enchiridion of Commonplaces Against Luther and Other Enemies of the Church, trans. Ford

Lewis Battles (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), 55.

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grace; therefore neither of eternal life; therefore they are nothing.”17 According to Eck, by

denying that good works merit eternal life, Luther ultimately rejected the performance of

good works at all. Moral conduct cannot bring about salvation; therefore, one need not live a

moral life.

Eck further attacked the false works of those who do not live a life of grace and love,

for example, heretics, especially Lutherans. Though not explicitly antagonizing Luther, Eck

acidly remarked, “for fornicators and adulterers, thieves and robbers (insofar as they falsely claim

to be evangelical and Pauline) do not ‘have inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God,’

nor do they follow him.”18 Eck’s statement addressed two perceived problems in the

Lutheran polemic against the church: (1) a (supposed) claim to Pauline authority that is

belied by their (2) immoral lifestyle and sinful behavior. Luther and his followers may claim

an evangelical basis but, according to Eck, they are immoral and therefore subject to God’s

judgment.19

Eck’s polemic continued in 1530. That year, the German princes met at Augsburg to

discuss diverse matters of state; when Elector John of Saxony arrived with Philip

Melanchthon in tow, Eck took the opportunity to pursue his invective against the doctrine

of justification by faith alone by publishing Four Hundred and Four Articles for the Imperial Diet

at Augsburg. In his articles, Eck cited various reformers’ positions regarding works, the law,

and justification by faith. Articles 198-202 reference various views against works. Article 202

17. Ibid., 56. 18. Ibid., emphasis added. 19. Whether such behavior truly applied to Luther and his supporters is of little consequence for the

argument of this thesis. Eck’s argument betrays the Roman Catholic perception of Luther’s behavior in relation to his teachings on good works and the law. This perception frames the continued polemic against the Protestant teaching of justification by faith. Cf. Mann, “Luther and his disciples were subject to repeated accusations by Rome of either fomenting libertine lifestyles among their hearers, or themselves living in a manner that took little account of the will of God.” Mann, Shall We Sin?, xvi.

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states, “God does not care about our works. Luther.”20 In articles 333-4, Eck cited Luther’s

The Freedom of a Christian—Christians are free from the laws of all people and “no laws can be

imposed on Christians by any legal right . . . unless the Christian desire them”21—as evidence

that Luther was against obedience and the authority of princes.22 Eck continued with a

section of “Seditious Expressions” (Articles 342-8) including: God wants to end the

authority of princes as well as monasteries (342); secular rule has as little authority as

ecclesiastical tyranny (343); and a statement regarding the wisdom of the ‘common folk’ that

will result in a ‘powerful shock’ for the princes (346).23 In articles 381, Eck cited Luther’s

claim that no government may be properly administered through the use of laws. Article 382

claims “it is impossible to hold to both the Gospel and human laws at the same time,”24 and

article 383 abolishes human laws altogether in order to rule all things according to the

Gospel. The overall picture is that Luther rejects both secular and religious authority,

despises human laws, and opposes their ability to oversee human life and morality.

Furthermore, Luther bolstered his claims by means of the doctrine of justification by faith

alone: since God does not care about works for salvation, there is no need for any kind of

authority, law or power to oversee Christian life.

Hoping to call Luther and Melanchthon to debate, Eck published the articles to

20. John Eck, “John Eck’s Four Hundred Four Articles for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg,” in Sources

and Contexts of the Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and James Arne Nestingen. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2001), 56.

21. Ibid., 73. 22. The title of articles 332-41 found in subsequent editions is “Against Obedience and Princes.” 23. Eck likely hopes to imply that Luther supports peasant rebellion against the princes’ authority. See

Eck, “Four Hundred and Four Articles.” 74. 24. Ibid., 79.

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force the reformers to give a more extensive explanation of their teachings.25 Eck’s ploy

worked. Soon after the imperial diet in 1530, Luther and his fellows drafted the Augsburg

Confession, which responded to Eck’s accusations of heresy. However much they falsely

accuse Luther of certain sins or thoughts regarding good works, Eck’s accusations

influenced subsequent Catholic polemic against the reformers, giving rise to a constant need

to defend themselves on the subject of justification and good works. Christian good works

specifically and moral living more generally were publicly called into question by attacking

Luther’s personal morality, the morality of his followers and the theological relationship

between good works and justification by faith. If Luther’s teaching gave rise to sedition and

immorality, what place could good works or righteousness have in the life of the justified

sinner? To his opponents, good works seemed doomed to be theologically negligible. Luther

indeed vigorously defended the need for and presence of good works in the Christian life,26

but his argument from necessity lacked robust exposition and his overemphasis on Christian

passivity left room for Catholic attack. Mann summarizes, “the lack of priority which

sanctification receives in Luther has contributed to a less than satisfactory response to the

[antinomian] problem.”27

25. Not all of his articles accurately reflect the teachings of their respective authors. Eck sometimes

cited quotations falsely or purposefully misconstrued the author’s intent to demonstrate the extent of Lutheran aberration from accepted Catholic teaching. Others may be taken out of context and result in the ascription of false teachings to the purported author. In other instances, Eck may only be guilty of misunderstanding Luther’s teaching rather than willfully misrepresenting them. When analyzing Eck’s citations, one must take all this into account, deferring judgment as to whether Eck accurately reflects Luther’s teachings, if he twists them for his own ends or if he simply misunderstands. This thesis will not attempt to uncover Eck’s motives in the following accusations but rather point to the importance of the fact that such accusations were made against Luther and continued to be made in subsequent Protestant-Catholic interactions.

26. See his arguments in “The Freedom of a Christian” and “On Good Works.” 27. Mann, Shall We Sin?, 36. Again, the Roman Catholic Church attacked him for his (lack of a)

doctrine of good works. However, in the Protestant camps, similar charges against Luther surfaced from the Anabaptists and even Osiander (see chapter 3). Though utilizing the term ‘sanctification,’ the Protestants were concerned with essentially the same problem: righteous living, moral transformation, and obedience.

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Furthermore, certain trends in the development of Lutheran beliefs appear to

validate the Roman Catholic concern. In 1529, Luther himself wrote concerning the lack of

education found among the laity regarding evangelical beliefs as well as their base lifestyle,

comparing them to pigs and cattle. In the preface to the Small Catechism, Luther concluded,

“They have mastered the fine art of misusing all their freedom.”28 In an enlightening and

controversial article, Gerald Strauss chronicles the ‘failure’ of the German Reformation.29

Citing the accounts of visitors—those sent to determine the level of catechetical instruction

in a given region or town—Strauss claims the Lutheran movement itself came to believe it

had been defeated. Luther and his fellow reformers truly believed that learning would occur

throughout the laity and that “evangelical principles could not fail to come to permeate

personal and social life.”30 According to Strauss, the reformers measured their success by the

degree to which the laity assimilated not only doctrinal information but also improved their

moral lifestyle. The lack of such knowledge and improvement, therefore, marks a failure of

the German Reformation to pass on their ideals to immediate generations.31

28. Kolb and Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord, 348. 29. Strauss’ article stirred up a flurry of responses in the decades following its publication. James

Kittelson has succeeded in proving that the ‘failure’ Strauss emphasized was not quite as pervasive as Strauss maintained. See James M. Kittelson, “Successes and Failures in the German Reformation: The Report from Strasbourg,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 73 (1982); James M. Kittelson, “Visitations and Popular Religious Culture: Further Reports from Strasbourg,” in Pietas et Societas: New Trends in Reformation Social History, Essays in Memory of Harold J. Grimm, ed. Kyle C. Sessions and Philip N. Bebb. (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1985). Geoffrey Parker details the more widespread ‘failure’ in other areas of Europe and England, Geoffrey Parker, “Success and Failure During the First Century of the Reformation,” Past and Present 136 (1992).

30. Gerald Strauss, “Success and Failure in the German Reformation,” Past and Present 67 (May, 1975), 42. Strauss does take into account the tumultuous political atmosphere of much of Germany at the time. Lack of education among the clergy due to inadequate educational systems for ministers, frequent conquest and ‘conversion’ of territories and the refusal of many cities to allow visitations all contributed to the general perception of failure. Though he willingly admits the visitors may have deliberately painted a worse picture than actually existed, Strauss still argues the data is sufficiently accurate to allow for his opinion.

31. See especially page 50ff. Strauss’ evidence from the visitation records illuminates the tragic state of

affairs in the village of Brandenburg in 1583, “the visitors found everywhere evidence of prodigious drinking, horrible blasphemy, whoring, witchcraft and soothsaying, and widespread contempt for the clergy.” Ibid., 51.

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Despite Luther’s admitted pessimism regarding human nature, Strauss appears to

have overemphasized the Lutherans’ optimistic hope for concrete change in the laity.32

However, the lack of improvement in lay morals may point to a deeper theological concern.

Under the Roman Catholic Church, the necessity of good works for salvation provided

sufficient incentive to explain the need for good behavior—or at least a superstitious attitude

regarding actions and their consequences, generating fear of misbehavior.33 Luther’s

abolition of good works for salvation brought the place of works into question; the

subsequent lack of moral improvement among the laity only fueled the Roman Catholic cries

of antinomianism and heresy. If Luther spoke truth, why did his Gospel not bring about

righteous behavior? Could it be Luther’s theology failed to give an adequate account of

Christian life post-justification? Is ‘necessity’ and ‘spontaneous gratitude’ enough? As

Luther’s companion and successor, Melanchthon sought to give a more adequate account of

sanctification.

Melanchthon’s Reformulations and Continuing Debate

Melanchthon attempts to respond to the Catholic accusation by emphasizing the

improvement of life in society and introducing a more positive role of the third use of the

law as the means to accomplishing this goal. He believed more obedient behavior would

32. Given Luther’s own pessimism about human nature, one could question Strauss’ emphasis on

Lutheran belief that the laity would change for the better. Indeed, such is the argument Scott Hendrix advances in his response to Strauss’ work. See Scott H. Hendrix, “Luther’s Impact on the Sixteenth Century,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 16, no. 1 (1985).

33. Laity may not, in fact, have been more moral, prior to Luther, but they were more superstitious and

‘religious’ about their behavior. However, even if they were equally immoral under the Roman Church, one could argue that Luther failed to bring about moral improvement, i.e., the laity were no more upright than before. See Parker, “Success and Failure During the First Century of the Reformation,” where he argues that subsequent failure of the German reformation was partly due to the Protestant abolition of local practices and popular, folk religion.

13

follow from more exposure to the law as a moral guide. By 1521, Melanchthon established a

place for the third use of the law not found in Luther; however, the second use remains

primary, as it had with his predecessor. Regarding good works, Melanchthon does not stray

too far from the Lutheran emphasis on necessity. In his Loci Communes, Melanchthon argues,

“the righteousness of a good conscience or of the good works which God has commanded

us, must necessarily follow our reconciliation…thus we are born again in reconciliation so

that the new obedience might be begun in us.”34 Like Luther Melanchthon argues such

works are only possible through the work of the Holy Spirit;35 however, he does not

elaborate upon the simple fact of necessity. Again, like Luther, good works follow necessarily

and spontaneously from justification; in other words, they ‘just happen.’ One could argue

that his failure to go substantively beyond Luther in this regard leaves him open to the same

criticism as Luther.36 Indeed, subsequent Lutheran tradition continues to reflect moral

lasciviousness rationalized under the guise of justification by faith. In 1615, Thomas

Fitzherbert, a prominent Jesuit of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cites the

following invective against Lutheran morals, “and to that end, that all the world may

acknowledge them to be no papists, nor to confide any thing at all in good works, they do

not exercise any.”37

34. Phillip Melanchthon, Loci Communes (1543), trans. J. A. O. Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing

House, 1992), 97. 35. “Therefore, in order that love may arise, faith must precede, that is, trust in God’s mercy of which

we have been speaking. And we also must understand that when our terrified minds are guided by faith, then at the same time the Holy Spirit is given who arouses in our hearts new desires which are in harmony with the law of God.” Ibid., 98.

36. Cf. Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology, Studies in

Christian History and Thought (Colorado Springs: Paternoster, 2008), 105: “Rooting renewal or sanctification in justification as effect to cause exposes Melanchthon anew to the Roman charge that the ‘Lutheran novelty' leads to licentiousness.”

37. Thomas Fitzherbert, The Second Part of a Treatise Concerning Policy and Religion, ed. D. M. Rogers,

14

In other aspects of his theology, Melanchthon moves substantively beyond Luther,

establishing a distinctively positive role for the third use of the law and a more pronounced

civil and societal morality following from it. Both insights may have permitted more forceful

stress upon moral behavior, but his continued emphasis upon necessity failed to completely

erase the tension between justification and sanctification in Luther’s thought, apparent in the

continued struggle to promote good works and morality in the community. As documented

by Strauss, the struggle with moral reform in Germany continued well into the seventeenth

century. However, Melanchthon’s insights were not in vain; the stronger place he gives for

the third use of the law most likely influenced Calvin’s similar, but more prominent,

development of the same topic.38

Such was the theological atmosphere Calvin lived and matured in as a young man

pursuing the knowledge of God. The boundary lines between Protestant and Catholic

confessions regarding good works and justification had begun to take shape.39 The

accusations had been pronounced and responded to, with little result. The Roman Church

continued to accuse the Reformers of sanctioning moral lasciviousness and the latter

continued to emphasize justification sola fide. All seemed to hinge on the relationship

between justification and sanctification—was the latter necessary in order to receive salvation or

only necessary because of justification in Christ? A causal relationship between sanctification

and salvation compromised Christian assurance before God and the once-for-all nature of

English Recusant Literature: 1558-1640 (London: Scholar Press, 1974), 562; transcription from Old English added. Sadly, the quotation originates from the mouth of a Lutheran pastor, Ioannes Andreas.

38. Melanchthon published his first edition of the Loci Communes in 1521 and most historians agree

that Calvin would have read it before he published his 1536 edition of the Institutes. 39. Confessional lines were not officially drawn until after the failure of Regensburg in 1541 (which

Calvin attended), just five years before Luther died. The Council of Trent, 1545-1563, established the official Roman Catholic position on justification as a response to the failed attempt at reunion at Regensburg.

15

Christ’s work on the cross, making forgiveness contingent upon human moral response, in

other words, semi-Pelagianism. At the same time, an inadequate account of sanctification

and good works in the Christian life appeared to sever the relationship between Christ and

the Spirit, making Christ’s work ‘dead’ and the believer’s faith, as the book of James warns, a

dead one. The question Calvin faced was how to account for significant moral change

without making that transformation a condition of justification. Too far in either direction

would lead either to heresy or an unbiblical account of the Christian life of faith. Yet it was

not only the theological controversy that influenced Calvin’s subsequent theological

formulations. A closer examination of his life, especially the time period in which he wrote

and revised the Institutes, provides insight into his underlying motivations.

Calvin and Geneva

Calvin arrived in Geneva in 1536, yet scholars know little about his early life before

then. Commenting on Calvin’s early life, Alister McGrath refers to him as an enigma, due to

Calvin’s lack of detailed recollections.40 One such account occurs in his commentary on the

Psalms, and his reply to Sadoleto may have more autobiographical background to it than

pure rhetorical flair. Other information may be gleaned from his letters, though even there

he rarely discusses his early life. Reticent regarding his own life in both personal

correspondence and theological writings, information must be gleaned from friends, early

biographers, and historical records other than his own, especially that which concerns his life

prior to his involvement in the Reformation.

40. See Alister E. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin: A Study in the Shaping of Western Culture (Oxford: Basil

Blackwell, 1990), 14.

16

The Early Years41

Born July 10, 1509 to a prosperous notary in Noyon named Gèrard Cauvin, Calvin’s

father ably provided for the education of his four boys, purchasing a benefice for John when

he was twelve years old.42 Not requiring his presence to run the church, the chaplaincy

provided a tidy sum to pay for Calvin’s schooling and training for the priesthood, which was

his father’s intention.

Much scholarly debate centers around Calvin’s university education in Paris between

the years of 1523 and 1528. Little is known directly and even the earlier biographies

contradict each other. From what is known, Calvin studied Latin under Marthurin Cordier,

who was at the time affiliated with the Collège de la Marche and Sainte-Barbe.43 Calvin

pursued a course of study at Collège de Montaigu, most likely in the Arts.44 After finishing at

41. The following biography draws primarily from the most prominent English sources for the life of

the reformer: Theodore Bèza, The Life of John Calvin, Living Classics for Today (Durham, UK: Evangelical Press, 1997); William James Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Alexandre Ganoczy, The Young Calvin, trans. Franz Steiner (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987); McGrath, A Life of John Calvin ; Francois Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, trans. Philip Mairet (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1950); William James Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Alexandre Ganoczy, The Young Calvin, trans. Franz Steiner (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987); McGrath, A Life of John Calvin; Francois Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, trans. Philip Mairet (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1950). Shorter or more specialized treatments of Calvin’s life and experience in Geneva include: J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and The Gift: The Activity of Believers In Union With Christ, Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Quirinus Breen, John Calvin: A Study in French Humanism, 2nd ed. (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1968); Harold J. Grimm, The Reformation Era: 1500-1650, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1973); David Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin, Geneva and the Reformation: A Study of Calvin as Social Reformer, Churchman, Pastor and Theologian (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1988).

42. The name ‘Calvin’ comes from the Latinized form of his name—Calvinus. The use of Latin forms

was common among academics, including Luther. 43. Cordier’s affiliation with the two schools, and others, need not necessitate Calvin’s enrollment in

any of the colleges. It is equally likely he studied Latin privately under Cordier. McGrath gives several reasons why the change of schools is unlikely, further arguing from the conflicting accounts of Beza and Colladon that both likely misunderstood Calvin’s tutelage from Cordier to mean he attended one of the two collages mentioned above. See McGrath, A Life of John Calvin.

44. A lively debate exists as to whether or not Calvin studied theology while at the University of Paris.

Earlier histories assume he did and Grimm calmly asserts that Calvin studied scholasticism at Sorbonne.

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Montaigu, Calvin pursued a course in law at Orlèans rather than theology, due to his father’s

influence. His subsequent years of study at Orlèans and Bourges brought him into contact

with French humanism, continuing his education in the classical languages by learning both

Greek and Hebrew to supplement his Latin. In 1532, Calvin published his first work, a

commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia. In 1533, a close friend, Nicholas Cop, was forced to

flee Paris due to an academic address with seemingly Lutheran leanings, an address possibly

penned by Calvin himself. Calvin soon followed his friend out of Paris and settled in

Saintonge where he developed a strong friendship with Louis du Tillet. It is possible he

drafted the Institutes here and some historians date his “sudden conversion” to his time in

Saintonge.45

The “Affair of the Placards” in October 1534 dramatically shifted the French court’s

attitude regarding Protestants. A number of impassioned men, including Antoine de

Marcourt, posted placards publicly attacking the Catholic mass and its ‘horrific and

insupportable’ abuses, placing them around Paris and four other cities overnight. They even

successfully posted one on King Francis I bedchamber. Incensed, the king ended his

previously conciliatory policies toward the Protestants and the persecution of French

Protestants began in earnest. Calvin fled France for Strasbourg and arrived in Basle in early

1535 where he met and associated with numerous prominent reformers including Wolfgang Grimm, The Reformation Era, 256. However, the growing scholarly opinion rejects any definitive claim that Calvin formally studied theology. McGrath argues that the usual course of studies would have been five years in the Arts before specializing in law, theology or medicine, which is precisely what one finds in examining Calvin’s education. Cf. Bouwsma, John Calvin, 9; Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History of Calvinism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 82-3; Billings Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 27. Interestingly, the earliest biography, that of Bèza, states merely that he studied “philosophy.” Bèza, The Life of John Calvin, 18.

45. For example, Grimm. The historical incident associated with Calvin’s “sudden conversion” is

unknown. Ganoczy argues for a different interpretation; the phrase “sudden conversion” is Calvin’s commentary upon his early career as a whole rather than a specific incident. Ganoczy, The Young Calvin, 252-66. McGrath counters that the search for a date is inevitable despite Calvin’s hesitancy to divulge one; the attempt is appropriate and intriguing, given the vague nature of Calvin’s remark.

18

Capito, Simon Grynaeus, Oswold Myconius, Heinrich Bullinger and Pierre Viret. He

devoted himself to theological education, no doubt thriving in the intellectual environment

provided by close proximity to many of the Reformation’s greatest minds. In March 1536,

Calvin published his first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion with a preface

dedicated to King Francis I, auspiciously in response to the continued persecution of the

French Protestants. Seeking to reconcile the king to Protestant ideas, Calvin defends them

by rejecting the accusations of sedition and attempting to establish a closer bond between

the Protestant faith and the Church Fathers.

Calvin soon left Basle for Italy to visit Princess Renée of France—the wife of the

Duke of Ferrara and younger sister to Claude, Queen of France. Sympathetic to the

evangelical cause, she sheltered Calvin in her court. He stayed only a short while before

returning to Paris to settle his family accounts, yet he remained in contact with Renée de

Ferrara throughout his career. In June, he attempted a journey to Strasbourg, but military

blockades—part of the second war between Francis I and the Emperor—prevented a direct

route, forcing Calvin to stop overnight in the nearby city of Geneva.

Calvin In Geneva: 1536-1538

Calvin had no intention of staying long in Geneva; his heart was set on private

theological study. Upon hearing of his presence in the city, Guillame Farel entreated the

young man to stay and help him with the reform in Geneva. In his Preface to the Commentary on

the Psalms (1557), Calvin recalls:

And after having learned that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies, for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement, and the tranquility of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refuse to give

19

assistance, when the necessity was so urgent.46

Struck with terror, Calvin agreed to stay and assist Farel in his work, becoming a ‘doctor’ or

reader of Scripture. He thereupon began lectures on Paul’s epistle to the Romans and within

a year, was promoted to the position of pastor and was given a parish to supervise.

As Farel indicated, the need for assistance in Geneva was great. Only recently

brought under the official banner of Reformation, Geneva was beset with social and political

tension. Geneva was one of the largest Swiss cities of the sixteenth century and a crossroads

for international trade. Pre-Reformation, the nearby duchy of Savoy and the resident bishop,

who was under the duchy’s control, governed the city. In 1519, a revolutionary party called

the “Eiguenots” sought to free the city from foreign control. The rebellion failed and the

leader, Philip Berthelier, was executed. In 1526, the city contracted an alliance with the

neighboring cities of Fribourg and Berne and during the ten years following the move, the

religious and social climate changed dramatically. Though initially favoring a reformed

Catholicism,47 the city steadily moved toward Protestantism in the face of the bishop’s

treacherous dealings with the Duke of Savoy. Political resistance to foreign domination

quickly became resistance to the Catholic religious system. In 1533, Bern sent Farel and two

others to proclaim the Protestant faith in the city, leading to religious rioting and the death

of a Catholic priest. When a woman poisoned the Protestant leader Viret in 1535, Farel

convinced the city to hold a religious disputation between the two faiths. The Catholic side

was undermanned and under trained; Farel and Viret were declared the winners and the

ensuing iconoclasm resulted in a decisive break with Rome. The Mass was suspended, the

46. Comm. on the Psalms, xlii-xliii. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations of Calvin’s Commentaries

taken from CTS edition. 47. See William C. Innes, Social Concern in Calvin’s Geneva (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications,

1983), 64-5.

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bishop was expelled, and most of the Catholic clergy fled the city.

Political events continued to roil within the city. With Catholicism expelled from

Geneva, Fribourg broke its alliance. The Duke of Savoy, with the help of the former bishop,

laid siege to the city, which was forced to appeal to Berne for military help. Afraid the

French king would overtake Geneva in the mounting tension between Emperor Charles V

and France, Berne intervened. Although it demanded the rights formerly held by Savoy,

Berne eventually negotiated a treaty that allowed for Genevan freedom. Free for the

moment, the protracted political turmoil left an indelible mark on the city. Naphy writes,

“the break with Savoy and Geneva’s international situation made the city very wary of

foreign domination.”48 Embroiled in factional disputes, political intrigue and newly

converted to the Protestant cause,49 Geneva needed strong hands to guide it. In the midst of

this turmoil, Farel sought out and won over Calvin to the Genevan cause.

The political, social and religious friction continued throughout Calvin’s first few

years in Geneva. In October of that year, the Bernese held a disputation in newly acquired

Lausanne to win the population over to the evangelical cause. Farel and Viret presented the

case for reform, bringing along the young Calvin with them. After a few days of hard-going

debate, Calvin intervened, turning the tide of the debate and soundly defeating the Catholic

clergy using his keen memory for the church fathers.50 By this time in Geneva, the political

48. William G. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Louisville, KY:

Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 20. 49. On May 21, 1536, the city unanimously voted to live according to the evangelical law and word of

God and to abandon the Catholic Mass, ceremonies and idols. Calvin arrived only shortly thereafter, in August of that same year.

50. McGrath notes that Calvin took many of his quotations out of context, omitting those portions of

the citation that would lend credence to a different interpretation. Ultimately, the turning point of the debate was due not only to the dramatic effect of Calvin’s voluminous quotations but also to the inability of the Catholic clergy to adequately respond to Calvin’s oration. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin, 97.

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arena had organized into a party supporting Farel, the Guillermins, and an opposing party,

later known as the Articulants. Because the ministers were little more than civil servants,

Farel, Viret and Calvin’s positions in the city were precarious. Much depended on the

Guillermins being in power and by early 1537, all four new syndics of the city were of the

pro-Farel party. That same year, Calvin and Farel constructed a catechism for the newly

Reformed church, requiring all citizens to affirm their allegiance to the church and the

confession. The anti-Farel faction balked. Soon afterward, Calvin faced his first serious

opposition since arriving in Geneva in the form of Peter Caroli.

Peter Caroli, a former French preacher and refugee in Switzerland, had been

preaching regarding the efficacy of prayers for the dead in Lausanne, to the detriment of

Viret. Incensed, Calvin wrote to him to condemn his preaching and Caroli replied by

accusing Viret, Farel and Calvin of spreading Arianism. Calvin responded by quoting the

newly drafted Genevan catechism, which affirmed the Trinity. Unsatisfied, Caroli demanded

Calvin affirm his adherence to the Athanasian Creed. Calvin replied to the effect that he

believed in God, not Athanasius, whose creed had never been approved by any legitimate

church—aiming a barb at the Roman Catholics. The affair dragged on; Berne showed

distrust for both sides and deferred on a synod until May of 1538. In the end, Caroli was

deposed, Calvin exonerated and declared orthodox, and the case dismissed. Calvin’s

troubles, however, were not at an end.

In February of 1538, four anti-Farel syndics replaced the Guillermins who had held

office and the council urged the city to accept the Bernese pattern of religious affairs,

including: the use of unleavened bread, the celebration of four holy days—Christmas, Easter,

Ascension and Pentecost—and the use of the baptismal font. In March, Bern called a synod

in Lausanne to convince Geneva to accept the Bernese order. Calvin and Farel went to the

22

synod, where Bern informed them of the unanimous decision to introduce the Bernese

ceremony to Geneva. In the meantime, a fellow preacher accused the syndics of the

Genevan council of usurping the minister’s authority in church matters; the syndics retaliated

by threatening him to discontinue preaching. Upon the return of Calvin and Farel from

Lausanne, Geneva’s ‘Small Council’ summoned the two to state whether or not they would

institute the Bernese ceremony in their parishes. They deferred—refusing to adopt the

Bernese ceremony until the upcoming second synod of German-speaking pastors in Zurich

had reached a decision on the matter—and placed themselves in solidarity with their fellow

brother who had been excused from his position. The council sought compromise and the

reformers promised only to do as God commanded them. On April 21, they refused to

administer the sacraments on Easter due to the tense atmosphere of the congregation. In

three days time, the city councils voted for the banishment of Farel and Calvin.

In the political tension leading up to Calvin’s expulsion from Geneva, moral stricture

and legalism are often cited as reasons for the Genevans’ distaste. Kingdon claims, “[the

Genevans] did not want to trade Catholic clerical tyranny for a new Protestant yoke.”51

McGrath goes further, claiming, “the Genevans also resented the imposition of what they

saw as harsh and legalistic measures,”52 and Bouwsma points to the presence of Anabaptists

in the city drawn by the religious freedom “threatened by Calvin’s activism.”53 Bouwsma

further cites the Genevans resistance to Calvin’s discipline and moral stricture as one of the

major causes of tension between the reformer and the recalcitrant city.

51. Robert M. Kingdon, “Was the Protestant Reformation a Revolution? The Case of Geneva,” in

Church and Society in Reformation Europe. Variorum Collected Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), 214. 52. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin, 99. 53. Bouwsma, John Calvin, 20.

23

The traditional understanding of Calvin’s expulsion revolves around the city’s

distaste for Calvin’s moral severity and legalism. Naphy, however, questions the centrality of

the moral question in the affairs leading up to Calvin’s expulsion. 54 He admits that initially,

the Genevan crisis seemed to center around the need to solidify religious order in the city.

However, he regards the reaction against the confession of faith in 1537 as a matter of

xenocentrism rather than moral license. Having just won independence from foreign rule,

the Genevans resented civil and social affairs being regulated by a religious confession

drafted by foreign ministers. At the same time as the confession dispute, Berne and Geneva

butted heads over the control of certain lands under disputed jurisdiction—St. Victor and

the Chapter. Furthermore, Berne was possessive of Geneva, feeling itself as an authority

figure due to its involvement in Geneva’s fight for freedom from Savoy. Eager to maintain

self-government, the Genevan civil authorities grew increasingly concerned over the internal

conflict, fearful that the Bernese would step in and impose their rule to establish peace

within the tumultuous city. Possibly, resistance to the Confession stemmed from eagerness

to maintain peace and avoid conflict with their benefactors, for the Genevans still depended

on the military might of Berne to protect them from Savoy, the French and Fribourg.

In 1538, Geneva elected new syndics—all opposed to Farel and Calvin—but perhaps

not opposed to reform. By examining the prosecution records for January 1536-January

1540—a span that covers both Calvin’s presence in Geneva and a time when, supposedly,

the ‘morally lax’ oversaw Geneva in his stead—Naphy presents a different account of

Genevan morals. Laws against blasphemy, card-playing, and shops being open during service

hours were passed before and during Calvin’s arrival in Geneva. Naphy shows that these

54. See Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation, chapter 2, “Factionalism: The

Genevan Disease,” especially pp. 28-36.

24

laws were not abolished, but rigorously upheld throughout Calvin’s absence. Moreover,

Naphy points to an increase in criminal prosecutions and penalties in the time period of

1538-1540—when Calvin was in Strasbourg. He concludes, “it is almost impossible to see

how these cases could imply any other conclusion except that morality continued to be

controlled with at least the same enthusiasm and rigour (sic) after 1538 as it had been

before.”55

Naphy notes the centrality of the power struggle between religious and secular

authority in Geneva. Rather than being primarily concerned with morals, the issue for the

Genevan magistrates was whether their governance over the church would be modeled after

the other Swiss cities, including control of sermon content and the authority to

excommunicate church members. The magistrates interpreted Calvin and Farel’s hesitancy to

conform to the Berne liturgy in 1538 as direct defiance of their authority over the church.

Their refusal to offer communion in April was flagrant disobedience. In this light, the

election of the anti-Farel party occurred in order to maintain secular authority over the

church rather than allow the ministers the freedoms they desired.

Naphy’s account of political motivations undermines the perspective perpetuated by

Calvin’s own interpretation of the events.56 Calvin viewed the events as the Genevan

defiance against the moral authority of the church. Freedom for the ministers meant

freedom over morality; resistance to Calvin and Farel meant a resistance to their moral

authority as ministers of the Word of God. One must remember that Calvin arrived with

little knowledge of the preceding political struggles of the city. He only initially intended to

55. Ibid., 32. 56. Naphy asserts that the disparity between an historical account of what happened and Calvin’s

interpretation does not mean Calvin purposefully twisted the details of the events in his favor: “no one should infer that Calvin is accused of intentionally misrepresenting the events in Geneva in his period.” Ibid., 33.

25

stay one night; the prior political tensions were of no great concern at the time. He was a

religious refugee and theologian, not a politician. His interpretation of the events as a

struggle against moral authority fit the religious tenor of the time period, and without further

evidence to the contrary, he likely saw himself as the eye of the storm rather than another

casualty of it. One must also note that Calvin again takes this same stance against those who

resist him in 1541, when he returns to establish order in the church and shore up its

deplorable state. When he returns to Geneva, he bemoans the state of the church, rife with

‘unclean spirits’ who “in order that they may escape from healthy discipline, which they can

in no way submit to, seek every sort of pretext for slipping away from the authority of the

Church.”57

Naphy concludes that the major factor in the expulsion of Farel and Calvin was not

religious disagreement but the need to preserve unity in the face of encroaching Bernese

interest as well as the magistrates’ uneasiness regarding greater independence for the

ministers. Calvin, however, interpreted his expulsion as the efforts of certain men to throw

off the moral constraints of the church, an interpretation he stuck by due to his ignorance of

Genevan history prior to his arrival. He saw the rise of the Articulant party as an attempt to

promote moral laxity under the guise of Reform. The truth of the matter, however, is likely a

combination of the two interpretations. Naphy rejects any religious significance of the

events, overlooking significant evidence to the contrary in the form of Calvin’s recollections

and the strongly religious flavor of all political events in the sixteenth century, including the

Bernese encroachment on Geneva. Further research is necessary in this area, but one must

not reject any possible interpretation out of hand, whether religious or sociopolitical. Calvin

57. John Calvin, The Letters of John Calvin, trans. Jules Bonnet, 4 vols., vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Thomas

Constable and Co., 1857), 316.

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and Farel’s expulsion was more likely than not a complex combination of religious and

political events. Most important for this thesis is Calvin’s own perception of the religious

importance of the events in Geneva.

That such an event precipitated—in Calvin’s mind—his expulsion from Geneva may

have influenced his subsequent theological and exegetical work in Strasbourg, that is, his

Commentary on Romans and the second edition of the Institutes. Already faced with the Catholic

accusation that the Reformation principle of sola fide led to lasciviousness and moral laxity

among the Protestant churches, the necessity to respond with an adequate account of the

unity between justification and holiness was made more acute by Calvin’s interpretation of

the events in Geneva. Possibly, the Genevan exile provided a case-in-point of the Catholic

charges. Paul’s necessary inseparability between the two on account of the believer’s union

with Christ would have made that much deeper of an impression upon Calvin’s young mind.

Paul’s theological assertions stood in sharp relief against the backdrop of the Genevan

religious struggles. Within Paul’s epistle, Calvin discerned a solution not only to the much

wider problems of the Catholic accusations, but a solution to the much more immediate

crisis of his expulsion from Geneva in the face of what he perceived as the desire for moral

laxity. His experience in Geneva made the need for resolution of this theological difficulty

more acute. Calvin’s reading of Paul stood in stark relief against what he saw as the turmoil

of Genevan morality.

Romans

Calvin left Geneva with no intention of returning to the pulpit. Safely ensconced in

Basle, he questioned his vocation as a minister and hoped to return to the private study he

had neglected in order to help in the Genevan crisis. His solitude did not last long, for

27

Martin Bucer wrote to him in the summer to offer him a place of ministry in Strasbourg,

declaring him an offence to God should he allow the events in Geneva to prevent him from

taking up the ministry elsewhere. By September, Calvin was established in Strasbourg as the

minister to the growing French-speaking congregation. His time there was peaceful,

productive and highly educational. He learned from Bucer firsthand how church governance

could be practiced with charity and relative peace.58 He accompanied the local pastors to

colloquies at Worms and Ratisbon, where he met and interacted with Melanchthon. In

Ganoczy’s words, “he was no longer a student but a colleague.”59 Calvin also enjoyed literary

productivity; he published his second edition of the Institutes in 1539 while at the same time

working on his first commentary, Paul’s epistle to the Romans, which he subsequently

published in 1540. His simultaneous work of exposition and theological teaching marked the

beginning of a new relationship between commentary and Institutes.

Calvin’s Program: Institutes and Commentaries

During his stay in Strasbourg, leisure time afforded Calvin the opportunity to refine

his program of biblical and theological exposition. He published a second and dramatically

revised edition of the Institutes. What was once a “small treatise containing a summary of the

principal truths of the Christian religion”60 blossomed into a truly ‘systematic’ work.

Accompanying his second edition of the Institutes was Calvin’s commentary on Romans,

which he hoped to follow up with others that would function in a symbiotic and reciprocal

58. Cf. McGrath, A Life of John Calvin, 102: “The Reformed church and community which had existed

only in his mind at Geneva in 1538 were not concrete realities. Abstract theory and pure day-dreaming had given way to practical and concrete experience.”

59. Ganoczy, The Young Calvin, 127. 60. Calvin, Comm. on Psalms, xliii.

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relationship to his theological treatise.61 An analysis of the accompanying prefaces to his

works in 1539-40 reveal the degree to which Calvin saw himself as initiating a new program

that would span the rest of his theological career.

Calvin’s express purpose for the initial publication known as the Institutes was to

“transmit certain rudiments by which those who are touched with any zeal for religion might

be shaped to true godliness.”62 His work was primarily catechetical but also apologetic

insofar as Calvin submitted the work to King Francis I as a Protestant confession, that he

might end the persecution of French Protestants. Calvin models the 1536 edition off

Luther’s Catechism—though Calvin’s Institutes is markedly longer than Luther’s work—

signaling again the catechetical intention behind the earlier work. By 1539, Calvin’s

understanding of the nature of the Institutes had shifted. In the latter preface, he describes his

work as “a summary of religion in all its parts” created “to prepare and train students of

theology for the study of the [Scriptures].”63 Piety/Godliness was no longer a principal focus

of the work nor was it written primarily for the laymen seeking education in the rudiments of

Protestant theology. Calvin now writes for students of theology—that is, candidates for

ministry—rather than the laity. However, Calvin did not abandon his concern for ‘those with

zeal for religion’; the shift in Calvin’s intended audience signals a more precise distribution of

61. Cf. Elsie Anne McKee, “Exegesis, Theology and Development in Calvin’s Institutes: A

Methodological Suggestion,” in Elsie Ann McKee and Brian G. Armstrong, eds., Probing the Reformed Tradition: Historical Studies in Honor of Edward A. Dowey, Jr. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989), 154-172. Her work reveals the degree to which Calvin’s biblical references in the Institutes function more as cross-references to his commentaries rather than ‘proof-texts’. If her argument truthfully reflects Calvin’s program, a much more intimate relationship exits between the Institutes and the commentaries than many modern interpreters care to notice.

62. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, Library

of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 9. Emphasis added. Unless otherwise noted, all citations of Calvin’s Institutes are from this edition.

63. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

1989). 21.

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work. The Institutes functioned as a manual for students of theology seeking to become

pastors. In its place, Calvin wrote and distributed catechisms in French and Latin for the

instruction of the laity. Calvin’s new program and refined understanding of genre allowed for

a more precise division of labor.

Calvin demonstrated his growing understanding of and appreciation for genre

distinction in the changes introduced to the titles of his various works. In 1536, he titled his

work Institutes of the Christian Religion Embracing almost the whole sum of piety, and whatever is

necessary to know of the doctrine of salvation: A work most worthy to be read by all persons zealous for piety,

and recently published. In 1539, he dropped the term ‘piety’ from his title altogether and offered

a critique of the original work by means of the subtitle of his second work. Significantly

reduced, the 1539 title read, Institutes of the Christian Religion, now for the first time truly

corresponding to its title. Thus Calvin signaled that he had finally arrived at a proper method to

correspond with the genre implied by the title of the work.64 Though his initial catechisms

contain the word ‘institute/institution’ in their title, he drops the word by 1541, preferring

“formulaire d’instruire” for the French catechisms and “formula erudiendi” for the Latin;65

he reserves the use of “institutio” for the Institutes, once again signaling his growing

distinction between genres.

By looking at the preface to Calvin’s commentary on Romans, one discerns that

content of the Institutes was not only determined by what it was not—namely, a catechism—

but also by its relationship to Calvin’s work in the commentaries. Calvin’s preface to his

commentary on Romans (1540) defines proper method and content of a commentary over

64. Cf. Muller’s discussion of the method and intention of Calvin’s Institutes in Richard A. Muller, The

Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition, Oxford studies in historical theology (New York: Oxford University, 2000), 102ff.

65. Ibid., 123.

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against his contemporaries.66 Calvin dedicated his first commentary to Simon Grynaeus,

whom he had met in Basle in 1536, and with whom he had discussed the “the best mode of

expounding Scripture.” Both, according to Calvin, agreed that the chief excellency of an

expounder consist[ed] in lucid brevity ”67 and the laying open of the author’s mind.68 To this

method, Calvin compared the work of Heinrich Bullinger, Bucer and Melanchthon. He

commended Bullinger for his ‘plainness’ but was dissatisfied with the work of the other

two.69 Bucer succeeded insofar as he provided a running commentary on the text, but was

“too diffuse for men in business to read, and too profound to be understood by such as are

simple.”70 In other words, Bucer failed in the aspect of brevity. Melanchthon, on the other

hand, excelled in brevity, but rather than offering a continuous commentary on the entire

text, gave only the principle points or loci such that “being occupied with these primary

things, he passed by many things which deserve attention.”71 Melanchthon preoccupied

himself with the doctrinal loci—major theological topics for discussion—to the detriment of

the other aspects of the text. In response, Calvin outlined a formula for his commentaries

66. For a fuller discussion of the methods of Calvin’s contemporaries, see T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s

New Testament Commentaries, 2nd, Revised and expanded ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 60-84. 67. Calvin, Comm. on Romans, xxiii. Emphasis original. 68. “Indeed, since it is almost his only work to lay open the mind of the writer whom he undertakes

to explain, the degree in which he leads away his readers from it, in that degree he goes astray from his purpose, and in a manner wanders from his own boundaries,” Ibid.

69. Unlike the other two Calvin mentions, Bullinger receives only praise for his commentary work.

This might lead one to wonder if Calvin follows Bullinger’s method more closely than the other two. In an insightful essay, Büsser remarks on the dissimilarity between the two, which points away from a direct correspondence between the two expositors. Both value plainness and simplicity in their exposition, but they diverge in other areas not mentioned by Calvin in his preface to Romans. See Fritz Büsser, “Bullinger as Calvin’s Model In Biblical Exposition: An Examination of Calvin’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans,” in Calvin and Hermeneutics, ed. Richard C. Gamble. Articles on Calvin and Calvinism: A Fourteen-Volume Anthology of Scholarly Articles (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992).

70. Calvin, Comm. on Romans, xxvi. 71. Ibid.

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that bypassed the extremes of saying too much a la Bucer and not enough a la Melanchthon.

Calvin’s program of “lucid brevity” via the laying open of the mind of the writer

displaced the discussion of doctrinal loci from the commentary. Unlike Melanchthon, whose

entire commentary was a set of loci derived from Paul’s epistle, Calvin deferred the

discussion of loci to the Institutes. Indeed, this is the fundamental relationship between

Calvin’s commentaries and the Institutes. Muller writes, “The lengthy discourses omitted from

the commentaries are collected ‘here’, in the Institutes.”72 Muller refers to Calvin’s preface to

the 1539 edition of the Institutes, where Calvin explained his lack of doctrinal loci in his

commentaries. His words indicate the fundamental relationship between the Institutes and the

commentaries and therefore deserve full citation:

I shall not feel it necessary, in any Commentaries on Scripture which I may afterwards publish, to enter into long discussions of doctrine, or dilate on common places [loci], and will therefore, always compress them. In this way, the pious reader will be saved much trouble and weariness, provided he comes furnished with a knowledge of the present work as an essential prerequisite.

The commentaries, therefore, provided a running commentary on the text so as to open the

mind of the author using the principle of lucid brevity. Doctrinal disputations and doctrinal loci

gained from his exposition were deferred to the Institutes. What Bucer located in his one

volume commentary on Romans, Calvin distinguished in two separate works. Thus Calvin

established the way in which his subsequent work was to be attended to: commentaries and

Institutes were to be read in conjunction.

A Pauline Order for the Institutes

With such a system, one expects that successive editions of the Institutes would be

expanded as Calvin’s exegetical task progresses. One would also expect the initial revision of

72. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, 105.

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the Institutes in 1539 to draw heavily from Calvin’s first and concurrent commentary on

Romans. Muller rightly notes, “the construction of doctrinal loci as a product of the work of

exegesis and the composition of doctrinal disputations in the course of polemic yields the

contents of a theology, but not its order and arrangement.”73 Calvin, however, claimed to

have placed the new edition of the Institutes into a clear and systematic order for the ease of

the reader, that she might discern the content and scope of Scripture.74 In his book, The

Unaccommodated Calvin, Muller documents the varying opinions regarding Calvin’s re-

organizational principle. Emphasis on the creedal form of the final edition, duplex cognitio dei

(twofold knowledge of God) or the twofold knowledge of God and humanity fail to account

for why Calvin chose to elaborate on some topics over against others.75 At certain points in

Calvin’s order, doctrines do not seem to fit the creedal model, that is, the resurrection.

Finally, Muller argues, too much is made of Calvin’s statement in the 1559 edition that, “I

was never satisfied until the work had been arranged in the order now set forth.”76 One must

recall that the 1539 order was the one Calvin was satisfied with for 20 years of his career as

opposed to 1536 edition that lasted four years and the 1559 edition, which lasted only five.77

What, then, influenced Calvin’s choice of loci? In the same work, Muller contrasts the

73. Ibid. 74. “[I] have digested it into such an order as may make it not difficult for any one, who is rightly

acquainted with it, to ascertain both what he ought principally to look for in Scripture, and also to what head he ought to refer whatever is contained in it.” Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Beveridge Edition, 21.

75. Serene Jones, Ganoczy, are two examples of those who defend the duplex cognitio theory. Ganoczy,

The Young Calvin; Serene Jones, Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety, 1st ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995). T. H. L. Parker defends the creedal form, T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959). In a completely different vein, Stephen Edmondson has argued for a ‘covenant historical’ order of the 1559 edition of the Institutes, based on Calvin’s work in the Old Testament prior to its being published. Stephen Edmondson, “The Biblical Historical Structure of Calvin’s Institutes,” Scottish Journal of Theology 59, no. 1 (2006).

76. Calvin, Institutes, 3. 77. Cf. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, 118ff.

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content of Calvin’s Institutes with several of his contemporaries. Rejecting Erasmus as a

source of order, Muller notes the similarity between the content of Calvin’s work and that of

Melanchthon’s Loci Communes. The latter emphasized the centrality of historical ordering of

soteriological concepts (e.g., sin, law, gospel) and, interestingly, the priority of Romans in

identifying doctrinal loci, a sentiment Calvin echoed as early as 1535.78 In his preface to the

Romans commentary, Calvin called Romans “an open door to all the most profound

treasures of Scripture,”79 thereby hinting at his own preference for Romans in the course of

understanding Scripture. While Calvin’s censure of Melanchthon’s method appears to

preclude any positive relationship between the two, one must also remember that Calvin had

censured Melanchthon for focusing on loci in Romans to the detriment of other important

points in Scripture. Melanchthon’s commentary therefore provided an ordered account of

the major loci to be derived from the epistle to the Romans. When one examines Calvin’s

1539 Institutes, a striking similarity appears between the new chapters inserted and the order

of loci Melanchthon elicited in his commentary on Romans.

A closer examination of the content of Calvin’s two editions reveals the integration

of a fundamentally Pauline order with the pre-existing catechetical order. In 1536, the

Institutes consisted of six chapters, beginning with the Law, followed by faith, prayer, the

sacraments, the false sacraments, and a final chapter including Christian freedom,

ecclesiology and political power. In 1539, he inserted two new chapters at the beginning—

78. Richard A. Muller, “Ordo docendi: Melanchthon and the Organization of Calvin’s Institutes, 1536-

1543,” in Melanchthon in Europe: His Work and Influence beyond Wittenberg, ed. Karin Maag. Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1999), 135. The exact document Muller refers to—Épître à tous amateurs de Jésus-Christ (Epistle to all lovers of Jesus Christ)—is unavailable in English.

79. John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul The Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, ed. David W.

Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. Ross MacKenzie, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 5.

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knowledge of God and knowledge of man; he developed justification as a separate locus from

faith and added chapters on repentance, similarity and difference between the Old

Testament and New, and predestination and providence. Additionally, several other topics

previously included under other headings became separate loci: baptism, the Lord’s Supper,

Christian freedom, ecclesiastical power, political authority, and Christian life. Calvin’s new

edition totaled a remarkable 17 chapters, almost three times the amount of his original

edition. Calvin placed these new chapters in an order reminiscent of Melanchthon’s

rhetorical analysis of Paul’s epistle to the Romans.80 Though not as important a theme in

Melanchthon’s commentary, one of the major topics Calvin developed in reference to

Romans and expanded throughout his career was his doctrine of union with Christ, drawn

heavily from Romans 6-8. Indeed, Romans was foundational for Calvin’s development of

the specific vocabulary of union with Christ, including participation, adoption, and

communion.81 In this and other key aspects of his theology, Calvin clearly associated his

second edition of the text of the Institutes with those topics he drew from his exegetical work

in the commentary on Romans.

Calvin revised his commentary twice in his career, once in 1551 and again in 1556,

each time significantly expanding his content, though most of his original insight remains

constant. In the second and subsequent editions of the Institutes, Calvin drew his reader’s

attention to his foundational and continuing exegetical work on Romans as evidenced by his

80. It must be remembered that both Calvin and Melanchthon elicit doctrinal loci from Romans and

pattern their theological compendiums on Pauline order and content. Neither the Loci Communes nor the Institutes are commentaries on Romans, so the order found in the former works does not always correspond one to one. In Calvin’s case, moreover, he is supplementing an already existing catechetical order with a Pauline order. Cf. Muller The Unaccommodated Calvin, 101ff. For a more detailed examination of the specific order of topics in the two editions, see pp. 119-121. For Muller’s argument regarding the similarity between Calvin and Melanchthon’s order, see Muller, “Order docendi,” 136-7.

81. See Chapter 2, below.

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increasingly expanded list of citations from the book. In 1536, he cites Romans 162 times

but by the final edition, it has swelled to 573.82 Of the 60 references printed in the sixth

chapter in the 1539 edition, “Of Justification by Faith,” 26 of them refer to passages from

Romans.83 Nearly half of Calvin’s biblical citations in reference to the important

Reformation doctrine of justification by faith refer the reader back to Calvin’s exegetical

work in Romans. As the final edition of the Institutes proves, Calvin’s preference for Romans

as a theological and hermeneutical starting point spanned his entire career.

Conclusion

Calvin’s theological and exegetical work did not exist in a vacuum; his unique

understanding of union with Christ grew out of numerous political, methodological and

polemical events spanning the time period of his first few years as a reformer. Prior to

Calvin’s entrance into the reformation movement, a healthy debate existed between the

Protestants and Catholics regarding the place of good works and sanctification in the

Christian life. Luther’s cry of sola fide let loose a torrent of Roman Catholic backlash. Luther

insisted on the necessity of good works in Christian life, but when called to relate

sanctification to justification, he could go no further than necessity: they exist because they

must. When the Roman Catholic Church charged the Lutherans with antinomianism and

breeding licentious behavior, Melanchthon responded with a greater emphasis on social

82. David Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 65. There is some

ambiguity in Steinmetz’s statement as to whether these refer to Calvin’s own citations of Romans (i.e., ones present due to Calvin’s own citation) or whether these are merely allusions or citations inserted by later editors of the Institutes. If the citations he mentions are Calvin’s own, his point about the influence Romans had in Calvin’s theology is well made. Moreover, given McKee’s insight that Calvin’s citations likely represent cross-references to his commentaries, the increase in cross-referencing points to Romans as one of the most important commentaries in Calvin’s series. It is also important to note that the exact number of citations in the 1539 edition is not stated.

83. Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology, 269.

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morality and the usus didacticus of the law in Christian formation. However, Melanchthon

failed to move beyond the impasse created by Luther’s insistence that the bond between

justification and sanctification was simple necessity. Subsequent inability to engender social

reform, as documented by historians such as Gerald Strauss, point to the lingering inability

of the Lutheran camp to provide a satisfactory grounding for sanctification.

Calvin would have been aware of the Protestant struggle to adequately respond to

the Roman polemic, just as others before him. Indeed, he interpreted his experience in

Geneva through precisely this lens. When the government exiled him and his good friend

Farel, Calvin bemoaned the moral state of affairs in Geneva. The new syndics resisted the

rightful authority of the ministers and rebelled against the authority of the church because

they disliked its moral authority in their lives. They wanted reform, that is, freedom from the

Roman Church, purely to satisfy their desire for moral laxity. As Naphy points out, such an

interpretation of events is arguably one-sided, but it proves the degree to which the tension

between justification and subsequent righteous behavior had pervaded Calvin’s thinking. It is

therefore unsurprising that Calvin would seek to establish a link between the two doctrines

that overcame the propensity to use justification as a license to sin. Calvin’s ensuing

exegetical work in Paul stood in sharp relief against the prior theological debate and what he

perceived as its dramatic manifestation in Geneva.

Calvin’s expulsion and ensuing ministry in Strasbourg gave him the leisure to

develop his theological program. Through interactions with other scholars, Calvin came to

see the need to distinguish between the expositional task of the commentary and the more

systematic arrangement of doctrinal loci in the Institutes, yet in what will become a hallmark of

Calvin’s theological enterprise, he repeatedly emphasized the integration of the two tasks—

distinction without separation. The second edition of the Institutes, published in 1539, reveals

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a dramatic shift in genre—from catechetical to ‘systematic’—and the very order reflects

Calvin’s expositional work on Romans begun in Geneva and culminating in his Commentary

on Romans (1540). Calvin supplemented his original model with loci elicited from his exegesis,

shaping the method, order, and content of the Institutes for the remainder of his life. In

Garcia’s words, there was a “vital relationship between Calvin’s work on Paul and this first

revision and major reorganization of the Institutes.”84 As shall be seen, Calvin’s work on

Romans not only shaped the order and content of loci but also his understanding of union

with Christ, especially as it provided a response to the ‘antinomian question’ in Lutheran-

Catholic debate and an answer to his recent experiences in Geneva.

84. Ibid., 89.

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CHAPTER 2

TIES THAT BIND: FORM AND DEVELOPMENT OF UNION WITH CHRIST IN

CALVIN’S THEOLOGY

Introduction

David Steinmetz writes, “to read Calvin in isolation is to misread him”; one must

therefore move beyond method to content.1 A study of Calvin’s 1536 Institutes reveals much

regarding the early development and influences of his understanding of union with Christ.2

Most likely patterned after Luther’s Small and Large catechisms, the treatise clearly follows a

catechetical order, though it lacks the common question-and-answer format found in the

Lutheran doctrines and in Calvin’s later catechisms. His assertions display both reliance

upon and independence from Luther, his “much respected father.”3 The basic Lutheran cast

of his theology is shown in his early conception of union with Christ and the relationship

1. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 74. Steinmetz here speaks regarding Calvin’s biblical exegesis, but the

idea of reading Calvin ‘in context’ equally applies to his theological, exegetical, pastoral and polemical endeavors. See also, Muller The Unaccommodated Calvin.

2. Contra Wendel, any discussion of union with Christ requires recourse to his dogmatic work post-

exegesis, the exposition of Scripture found in his commentaries, his polemical treatises and his weekly sermons. See Wendel, Calvin, 111. The scope of such an enterprise exceeds the bounds of this thesis, so the focus of this chapter will be the development of Calvin’s doctrine through his commentaries and successive editions of the Institutes.

3. Calvin to Martin Luther, January 21, 1545; Calvin, The Letters of John Calvin. The degree to which

Calvin was faithful to the Wittenberg reformer’s teaching is still a matter of debate. Wendel cites Lang, who claims, “that the central teaching of Luther on the justification of faith and regeneration by faith was preserved more faithfully and expressed more forcibly by Calvin than any other dogmatician of the Reform.” Cited in Wendel, Calvin, 133. On the other extreme are those who believe Calvin perverted Luther’s doctrine of justification by either emphasizing the forensic nature of justification or by abstracting it from the warmth and vitality of Luther’s approach. For example, Thomas Coates, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Justification,” in An Elaboration of the Theology of Calvin, ed. Richard C. Gamble. Articles on Calvin and Calvinism (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992), 193. Nevertheless, Calvin saw himself as a defender of Luther’s fundamental theological principles, a perspective that must be accounted for in his defense of union with Christ and the unity of justification and sanctification. Cf. Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, 84.

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between justification and sanctification. He lays a foundation from which he will draw much

of the basic outlines of his doctrine, and he establishes several key foci that he maintains

throughout his career, developing a unique understanding of the organic relationship

between justification and sanctification through union with Christ. Moreover, he often

accompanies such statements with explicit rejection of antinomianism—the idea that

justification by faith leaves no room for good works and sanctification.

In the period before the Romans Commentary, Calvin’s discussion of union with

Christ lacks the specific, unique terminology and theological depth found in later works.

Calvin’s 1539 Institutes, however, reflect a deeper integration of his thought and a profound

reliance upon Paul’s understanding of union with Christ as detailed in Romans. The 1559

Institutes, as—and only as—the culmination of numerous years of exegetical, polemical and

theological work, provide a standpoint from which to discern Calvin’s mature thought. A

closer examination of the doctrine in relation to Calvin’s exegetical task exposes the

centrality of Calvin’s early exegesis of Paul for his mature formulation of justification and

sanctification as the duplex gratia (double grace) of union with Christ.4 Grounded in Romans

6 but definitively expressed in 1 Corinthians 1:30, Calvin develops a uniquely Pauline sense

of the relationship between these two aspects of salvation. This chapter will discuss Calvin’s

original perspectives on union with Christ, the key place of Calvin’s interpretation of

Romans and Paul in his development of the doctrine, and the subsequent expansion of this

locus throughout the commentaries, culminating in his final edition of the Institutes in 1559.

4. “Calvin believed that Paul’s theological masterwork [Romans] was the most important biblical text

to grasp in preparing to read Scripture, and by extension he moved directly into the rest of the apostle’s work . . . Calvin has been seen as a Pauline theologian; nothing could be clearer in this regard than his choice to comment upon Paul’s complete corpus before turning to any other commentaries.” R. Ward Holder, “Calvin as Commentator on the Pauline Epistles,” in Calvin and the Bible, ed. Donald K. McKim. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 254-55.

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Tracing the locus throughout the entire course of his career will explain not only the doctrine

itself but also its place within Calvin’s pursuit of right doctrine and piety.

1536-1540: The Shaping of a Doctrine

As recent scholarship has emphasized, union with Christ was an important theme in

Luther’s theology and, given Luther’s influence on the early Calvin, it is unsurprising to find

the topic present in Calvin’s first major theological treatise.5 Like Luther, Calvin’s early

scholarship most often discusses union with Christ using the metaphor of the ‘wondrous

exchange’ between the sinner and Christ.6 In addition, Calvin had already begun to utilize a

wide vocabulary, including that of ‘engrafting,’ ‘participation,’ and ‘union’ throughout a

number of different loci—law, faith, prayer and the sacraments. Indeed, Calvin mentions

union with Christ in some form in each of his six chapters. Union with Christ, therefore, is

not wholly a product of his exegetical work in Romans—which would suggest a purely

Pauline influence rather than a previously established foundation—but is already present

prior to his self-imposed task of biblical exposition.

Union with Christ in the 1536 Institutes

In good Lutheran fashion, Calvin remarked that God offers the benefits of Christ—

forgiveness, reconciliation and peace with God—in Christ. Only by first partaking of Christ

does the believer receive any benefit from Christ or gain possession of eternal inheritance

5. For example, Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation

of Luther (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 6. For example, John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536 Edition), trans. Ford Lewis Battles,

Bibliotheca Calviniana (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, in collaboration with the H. H. Meeter Center for Calvin Studies, 1975), 103.

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and the Holy Spirit.7 In this early work, Calvin had not yet clearly defined or defended the

importance of the role of the Spirit. He described the Spirit’s role as teacher, illuminator, and

giver of grace in chapter 2, but his account was brief and lacked the precision of his later

theology.8 Reception of Christ by faith through the grace of the Spirit assures the believer of

salvation, for “Christ the Son of God is ours and has been given to us so that in him we also

may be sons of God, and heirs of his heavenly kingdom.”9 Note that for Calvin, the supreme

gift of faith is the reception of Christ rather than his benefits; believers partake of Christ’s

benefits derivatively, that is, only on account of the previously established communion with

the person of Christ. The supreme feature of partaking in Christ is the reception of his

righteousness through imputation. Through the gracious imputation of Christ righteousness,

God reckons believers as keepers of the law, for they have put on his righteousness in order

that God might view them through Christ. Justification, therefore involves a double

imputation: (1) “[Christ’s] righteousness is brought to us and imputed to us, just as if it were

our own,” and (2) “none of the filth or uncleanness of our imperfection is imputed to us.”10

For Calvin, there is no contradiction between justification through imputation and mystical

union with Christ.11

Imputation and union with Christ only occur through faith. By faith, believers are

reckoned righteous before God “inasmuch as [they] possess Christ’s righteousness through

7. Ibid., 18. 8. Ibid., 57. 9. Ibid., 36-7. Calvin preferred the first person plural to refer to all believers in Christ. In this chapter

and chapter three, the term ‘us’ to refer to ‘believers’ is utilized by the author of this thesis for ease of reading. 10. Ibid., 35. 11. Later in his career, Calvin faces the charges of Andreas Osiander, who argues that forensic

imputation is superfluous if union with Christ is to be taken seriously. The problem of imputation and union with Christ will be addressed in Chapter 3.

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faith.”12 Faith does not wander about in search of solace, rather it looks to God to be united

to him and cleave only to him. True faith places all hope and trust in God, believing the

promises of forgiveness, sanctification and salvation set for in his Word. Through faith, the

work of the Spirit, one apprehends the wealth of blessings stored up in Christ,13 because by

faith the believer receives Christ.14

Even at this early date, Calvin displayed an awareness of the ‘antinomian problem’—

that is, the argument that justification by faith led to lawless and licentious behavior—and

desired to circumvent its power in Christian circles. Christians engrafted into Christ have the

law engraved on their hearts by the Spirit.15 Furthermore, partaking of Christ’s righteousness

not only involves imputation, but a transformation by which believers are “made righteous

and become fulfillers of the law.”16 When the believer receives Christ, she also receives the

Holy Spirit who sanctifies her to a pure and holy life of obedience to the law. Calvin drew on

Melanchthon’s third use of the law as an “exhortation to believers” and a guide for how to

live rightly and be ruled by the Spirit.17 Calvin sees an intimate relationship between

justification and sanctification in that the giving of Christ in faith requires the gift of the

Spirit: justification requires subsequent holy life because Christ is never without his Spirit.

12. Calvin, Institutes (1536), 46. 13. Ibid., 57. In this particular section, Calvin extols the Trinitarian nature of grace as the actions

whereby God accomplishes salvation in the Son by the Holy Spirit. The Trinitarian cast of his soteriology will be highly important for his later defense of union with Christ, especially as regards the Lord’s Supper.

14. “For this we must ponder: for utterly nothing will be lacking to us which can conduce to our

salvation and good, if he is ours; that he and all things of his become ours, if we lean in sure faith upon him, if we rest in him, if we repose in him salvation, life, in sum, all our possessions, if we rest assured that he is never going to forsake us. For with ready hands he give himself to us only, that we may receive him in faith. . . . by faith we possess Christ and all that is his.” Ibid., 60. Emphasis added.

15. Ibid., 30. 16. Ibid., 34. Cf. 179. 17. Ibid., 36.

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Calvin sums up the relationship between believers and Christ in terms of the participation in

him, a concept not unlike Luther’s ‘wondrous exchange.’

Thus engrafted into him we are already, in a manner, partakers of eternal life, having entered the Kingdom of God through hope . . . In brief, because all things are ours and we have all things in him, in us there is nothing. Upon this foundation we must be built if we would grow into a holy temple to the Lord.18

In Christ, believers possess all things and he alone stands as surety for them before the

Father. In themselves, they have nothing; in him, they possess all things.

Calvin stresses the importance of Christ’s role as mediator for our union with him.

Christ took up the personhood of Adam—the head of the human race—and only through

the office of mediator brought about salvation. Christ was obedient on “[humanity’s] behalf,

to set our flesh as satisfaction for God’s justice, to pay in our flesh the penalty for sin.”19

Believers partake of Christ and his benefits only because Christ took up human flesh and

paid the penalty for sin in the place of humanity.

Finally, Calvin emphasized that union with Christ, the Head, requires union and

fellowship with the Church. God predestines those who will be his, and the elect “are so

united and conjoined in Christ that, as they are dependant on one head, they also grow

together into one body, being joined and knit together as are the limbs of one body.”20 The

benefits of Christ come to all who are a part of the Church, who themselves have

communion with each other only because of their communion with Christ. Especially

18. Ibid., 37. 19. Ibid., 51. For more on Christ’s role as substitute and the importance of his humanity in

redemption and spiritual union, see below. The major references for this topic are Trevor Hart, “Humankind in Christ and Christ in Humankind: Salvation as Participation in Our Substitute in the Theology of John Calvin,” Scottish Journal of Theology 42 (1989), and Paul Van Buren, Christ In Our Place: The Substitutionary Character of Calvin’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (Eugene, OR: Eerdmans, 1957, repr. 2002). For participation in the humanity of Christ over against a theory of union with the divine being, see Jonathan Slater, “Salvation as Participation in the Humanity of the Mediator in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion: A Reply to Carl Mosser,” Scottish Journal of Theology 58, no. 1 (2005).

20. Calvin, Institutes (1536), 58.

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important for the life of the Church are the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

By the former, Christ makes all believers partakers of his death and resurrection, resulting in

effective mortification of the flesh and new life in the Spirit.21 It is important to observe that

even at this early date, Calvin regards baptism as fundamentally related to union with Christ

and the events of his human life. Baptism assures Christians of their union with Christ, as

does the Lord’s Supper.22 For Calvin, the Lord’s Supper wonderfully expresses ‘the

exchange’ in which Christ is Christ truly present and offered to the believers who partake of

the Supper.23 Thus Calvin already had a place for union with Christ in his theology, as

evidenced by the 1536 Institutes, yet the outline is quite basic and fails to account for its

unique cast in Calvin’s more mature theology. Given the prominence the ‘exchange’ imagery

in Calvin’s early definition of union with Christ, one could infer that Calvin appropriated his

doctrine from Luther. However, Tamburello’s recent work on Calvin and Bernard points to

the possibility of a wider field of influence.24 Other scholars have noted the possibility that

Calvin was influenced by the “Brothers of the Common Life” and Thomas á Kempis.25 The

truth of the matter lies not in asserting one influence to the detriment of others, but in some

combination of several of these influences. Union with Christ was a prominent theme in

21. Ibid., 95. In this passage, Calvin draws primarily from Romans 6, a passage he will expound upon

at some length subsequent to his commentary on Romans in 1540. 22. For Calvin’s remarks on Baptism, see Ibid., 98; for the Lord’s Supper, see p. 102. 23. Ibid., 103. Calvin does not here argue for the true and real presence of Christ as he will in later

years, but the seeds of his ‘real’ conception of Christ’s presence show some signs of early life. 24. Dennis E. Tamburello, Union With Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard, ed. Shirley

Guthrie et al., Columbia Series in Reformed Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994). See also, Anthony N. S. Lane, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1999).

25. For example, Clive S. Chin, “Unio Mystica and Imitatio Christi: The Two-Dimensional Nature of

John Calvin’s Spirituality” (PhD diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002) and Lucien Richard, The Spirituality of John Calvin (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1974).

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many medieval traditions—mystical and otherwise.26 Luther and Calvin were not the only

Reformers to integrate the notion of communion with Christ into their soteriology; others

include Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli.27 Calvin was but one of many theologians

to speak of the believer’s communion with Christ. However, lest one dismiss the importance

of the doctrine due to Calvin’s lack of originality, one must remember that Calvin saw

himself as primarily an expositor of Scripture. In other words, the language and imagery

Calvin employed must be analyzed primarily in light of Scriptural language and imagery. The

doctrine may not be new, but Calvin’s definition bears a uniquely Pauline flavor that has

more to do with his work in Romans than his indebtedness to any one tradition over

another.28

Union with Christ and the 1540 Commentary on Romans

As discussed in chapter one, Calvin’s exile in Strasbourg marked a turning point in

his theological program.29 Given time and space to reflect upon his work, Calvin developed a

program consisting of detailed exposition of Scripture on the one hand, and dogmatic

teaching or loci developed from that exposition. Calvin viewed the resulting editions of the

Institutes as intimately connected to his exegesis. The fact that he had just finished his

commentary on Romans when he published the 1539 edition of the Institutes—his only

26. For a good overview of the various taxonomies, see Garcia, Life in Christ, 48-68. 27. Ibid., 78-80. 28. Tamburello references Calvin’s use of the marriage-union language of Ephesians to draw a parallel

between Calvin and Bernard on mystical union. Tamburello, Union with Christ, 87-93, 106. However, Garcia summarizes an alternate perspective on this evidence when he writes, “Calvin’s descriptions of union with Christ in terms of the Ephesians marriage-imagery may just as easily be due to his propensity to follow biblical language and imagery, especially in this case when it is a Pauline metaphor” Garcia, Life in Christ, 72-73.

29. See Chapter 1, sections 2-3.

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written commentary to date—coupled with the centrality Romans had in most Protestant

theology of that time period, one would expect Paul’s epistle to profoundly affect Calvin’s

second edition of the Institutes.30 Similarly, Garcia argues for a “vital relationship between

Calvin’s work on Paul and this first revision and major reorganization of his Institutes.”31

Calvin understood union with Christ to be a basic theme of Paul’s wider soteriology, acutely

described in Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Calvin’s understanding of Romans as a doorway to

all of Scripture meant that union with Christ—so central to his interpretation of Romans—

would become a prominent feature of his mature theology. The location and explication of

union with Christ within Paul’s argument in Romans urged Calvin to expand his concept of

union with Christ in terms of vocabulary, soteriological content, and interrelationships with

various other loci.32

In his prefaced Argumentum to the commentary, Calvin cited union with Christ as a

central theme in Romans, proving his recognition of its importance in Paul’s epistle.33

However, the body of the commentary more clearly explicated Calvin’s Pauline exegesis. In

his commentary on chapter 3, Calvin identified the righteousness of faith with the

righteousness of Christ, resulting in a ‘double imputation’ of righteousness to both the

believer and his works: “having been made partakers of Christ, we ourselves are not only

30. An extraordinary number of commentaries on Romans were published between the years of 1500-

1600, many of them Protestant. For a sampling of commentaries written during Calvin’s first few years as a reformer, see T. H. L. Parker, Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans 1532-1542 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986).

31. Garcia, Life in Christ, 89. 32. Without having access to the critical Latin editions, I am dependent upon Garcia for my

knowledge of what passages occur in the original 1540 edition of Romans. See Garcia, Life in Christ, 90-147. No doubt a fuller understanding of the relationship between these works would be available with knowledge of the original languages in which they were written. Unless otherwise noted, the following citations are from the CTS edition.

33. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on Romans, xxxii-xxxiii. Calvin wrote the Argumentum for the first edition of his

commentary in 1540 and it remained for the most part unchanged in subsequent editions.

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just, but our works also are counted just before God.”34 Calvin also utilized Aristotelian

categories to distinguish between the causes of justification; the efficient cause is the mercy

of God, the meritorious cause is Christ and the instrumental cause is faith. Thus Calvin

accounted for the various ‘causes’ involved in justification. By making faith the instrument

by which one receives Christ and attains his righteousness, he sought to maintain the

importance of faith without reducing it to another ‘work’ by which one is justified.35 In sum,

the meritorious cause of justification is Christ alone; faith serves as the human instrument by

which Christ and his righteousness are received. In other words, faith does not equal

righteousness; rather faith lays hold of Christ, who is our righteousness.

After explicating justification by faith and the reign of Christ as the New Adam in

chapters 3-5, Calvin exposited Paul’s definition of new life in chapter 6. Though justification

may appear to warrant the indulgence of human vice, “nothing can be more inconsistent

than that the grace of Christ, the repairer of our righteousness, should nourish our vices,” a

reference to the Roman Catholic accusations against Luther and the antinomian problem

present in many strains of Protestantism. 36 He argued “the faithful are never reconciled to

God without the gift of regeneration.”37 By 1556, Calvin heightened his rebuttal by arguing,

“They who imagine that gratuitous righteousness is given us by him, apart from newness of

life, shamefully rend Christ asunder.”38 These twin graces of God—remission of sins and

renewal—are so united within the person of Christ that to accept one without the other is to

34. Calvin, Comm. on Romans, 139. Cf., Garcia, Life in Christ, 98-114. 35. Cf., Calvin, Comm. on Romans, 138. 36. Ibid., 218. 37. Ibid., 219. Emphasis added. 38. Ibid., 217. Similar phrases occur in 8:9 and 8:13, also inserted in 1556.

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tear Christ to pieces. The language of 1540, however, is much milder, though still forceful in

its rejection of receiving one grace without the other. Rejecting the notion of infused grace,

Calvin argued that Paul refers to what God calls us to be post-justification, not what he finds

us to be.

In 6:5-6, Calvin defined the relationship between justification and sanctification,

grounding them both in union with and engrafting into Christ. By engrafting, Calvin

understood not merely conformity to an external example, but “a secret union, by which we

are joined to [Christ]; so that he, reviving us by the Spirit, transfers his own virtue to us.”39

By this Calvin referred not to imitation primarily, but to being intimately united and

conformed to the pattern of Christ’s life by the operation of the Spirit. The organic image of

grafting plants—derived from the Greek word συµφυτοι—connotes an efficacious union

between the two parties such that Christ’s life, death and resurrection become the pattern to

which believers’ lives are conformed. For, “not only [do] we derive the vigour (sic) and

nourishment of life from Christ, but we also pass from our own nature to his.”40 At this

point, Calvin rejected ontological fusion between Christ and the believer; rather, the

reference to passing into Christ’s nature referred to the efficacious work of the Spirit in

manifesting the mortification of the flesh and spiritual renewal in conformity to the historic

death and resurrection of Christ. In 6:8, Calvin explained, “if we roll again in our own filth,

we deny Christ,” grounding his assertion in union with Christ, “of whom we cannot be the

participators except through newness of life, inasmuch as he lives an incorruptible life.”41

39. Ibid., 222. The MacKenzie translation substitutes ‘power’ for ‘virtue’, clarifying Calvin’s assertion

that the Spirit’s work in uniting the believer to Christ efficaciously transforms the believer to Christ image. See Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, 124.

40. Calvin, Comm. on Romans, 223. 41. Ibid., 227.

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From the above passage, two important concepts emerge: (1) the inseparability of

justification and sanctification and (2) the patterning of human life after the historic life of

Christ. First, Calvin repeatedly stresses the necessary relationship between justification and

sanctification grounded in the believer’s union with Christ. As in his exposition of chapter 6,

Calvin saw Paul arguing for an organic, intimate connection between these two graces based

on union with Christ. Commenting on 6:14, Calvin interpreted “grace” as “both parts of

redemption—the remission of sins, by which God imputes righteousness to us—and the

sanctification of the Spirit, by whom he forms us anew unto good works.”42 Regarding ‘gift

of God’ in 6:23, Calvin again offers both justification and sanctification, “for being clothed

with the righteousness of the Son, we are reconciled to God, [= justification] and we are by

the power of the Spirit renewed unto holiness [= sanctification].”43 Calvin, therefore,

understood salvation in terms of a duplex gratia, or double grace, both attained through union

with Christ. Unlike Luther, for whom justification causes sanctification, Calvin articulates a

parallel giving of both in union with Christ.

Second, participation in Christ’s life meant for Calvin a holy life patterned after the

historical transition of Christ’s earthly life. In other words, the human life of sanctification

by the Spirit reflects Christ’s death to sin and consequent immortal, celestial life post-

resurrection. Commenting on 6:10, Calvin argued that the regeneration of the godly was a

type of Christ’s immortal life in the Kingdom of God. When believers possess and partake

of Christ’s death and resurrection, “there is nothing wanting to the completion of perfect

42. Ibid., 233. 43. Ibid., 243. Cf., comment at 8:2, “When we are renewed by the Spirit of God, we are at the same

time justified by a gratuitous pardon, that the curse of sin may no longer abide on us. The sentence then has the same meaning, as though Paul had said, that the grace of regeneration is never disjoined from the imputation of righteousness” 277.

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righteousness.”44 Christ’s resurrection guarantees sanctification and holy life and ratifies

God’s promised adoption in Christ. In other words, the death and resurrection of Christ

serve as the pattern for mortification of the flesh and vivification by the Spirit—the two-

pronged work of the Spirit in sanctification. Furthermore, the inseparability of justification

and sanctification rested on the indissoluble historical life of Christ in his death and

resurrection.45 From this foundation, Calvin will later argue that separating justification and

sanctification is to ‘tear Christ to pieces.’46

Union with Christ in the 1539 Institutes47

An analysis of the 1539 Institutes reveals that Calvin not only expanded and enriched

his theme of participation and union with Christ but also extended it to encompass more

doctrinal loci to underscore the importance of this theme for understanding Scripture.48 The

1536 edition began with an exposition of the law, but in the second edition, Calvin quite

famously began with his theory of ‘twofold knowledge’ of God (chapter 1) and humanity

44. Ibid., 185, at Romans 4:25. 45. For more on Christ as pattern for the life of faith, or what he calls the ‘replication principle’, see

Garcia, Life in Christ, 136-145. 46. This important phrase is added in Calvin’s major revision of the Romans commentary in 1556 and

occurs at 6:1, 8:9 and 8:13. The idea is also present in the 1559 edition of the Institutes and, significantly, Calvin’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:30.

47. I am indebted to the work of J. Todd Billings in this section. He helpfully lays out several specific

chapters within the 1539 edition in which Calvin expands, enriches, or adds the topic of union with Christ. Much of the following arguments are drawn from his analysis, especially as I do not have access to the Latin of the 1539 Institutes. See Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 76-84. He utilizes the 1539 edition edited by Wevers.

48. This statement is based on two factors: (1) Calvin regards Romans as a ‘doorway to Scripture’ and

(2) he regards union with Christ as a central image in Paul more generally and Romans in particular. Given these two factors, Calvin is able to apply the concept of union with Christ to doctrinal loci not originally associated with it.

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(chapter 2).49 Though much expanded by 1559, Calvin claimed that humanity was “created in

the image of God, thus suggesting that man was blessed, not because of his own good

actions, but by participation in God.”50 The imago dei consists of humanity’s ability to participate

in God and be blessed thereby. Humanity surpasses the animals in “his spiritual communion

with God in the hope of blessed eternity,”51 which is the high calling for which he was

created. Calvin conceived of this participation as a Trinitarian one: by the mercy of the

Father and the efficacious work of the Spirit, believers partake of Christ. In fact, the

Trinitarian dimension, especially the role of the Spirit, became a leading factor in his dispute

with Osiander in the 1550s. In 1539, Calvin spoke of participation in God by the Spirit

through whom we partake of justification, sanctification, truth, grace and all other good gifts,

“since it is from the Spirit alone that all good gifts proceed.”52 Salvation thus involves

participation in God and Christ through the Spirit and is a restoration of the initial divine

image lost by Adam post-fall. Supplementing his discussions of justification and the

wondrous exchange wrought thereby, Calvin appended the inseparability of justification and

sanctification in Christ. Oneness with Christ means participation in the whole Christ, “for in

what way does true faith justify save when it binds us to Christ so that, made one with him,

we may enjoy participation in his righteousness?”53 Calvin continued to emphasize the

49. These two chapters appear in the 1536 edition as the first two sections of his first chapter. 50. Wevers, 19. Cited in Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 79. Emphasis added. Interestingly,

Calvin gave a similar account of the imago dei in his “Reply to Sadoleto,” dated 1539. 51. John Calvin, Jacopo Sadoleto, and John C. Olin, A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s letter to the Genevans

and Calvin’s Reply, 14th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1966, repr. 2005), 59. The use of such similar arguments in the commentary on Romans, the 1539 Institutes and the “Reply” reveals that Calvin’s changed emphasis pervaded not only his exegetical and theological work, but also his polemical work and thus signals a true mental shift.

52. Wevers 102-3. Cited in Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 80. 53. Wevers 191. Cited in Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 81.

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necessary imputative aspect of justification, but he brought alongside it true oneness with

and participation in Christ as a necessary corollary.

Possibly due to Bucer’s influence, or simply as a result of further reflection on the

intimacy of union with Christ in baptism via Romans 6, Calvin heightened his language of

participation in Christ with regard to the Lord’s Supper.54 In the Supper, not only are

believers “quickened by the true partaking of him,”55 but the Lord also represents this

participation such that he “truly presents and shows his body.”56 The intensification in his

Eucharistic language parallels his intensification of the language of participation in Christ

more broadly, hinting at a more widespread influence of Pauline participation language than

that manifested in Calvin’s soteriology. In fact, Calvin’s Eucharistic doctrine evidenced

increasing intensification in the reality of Christ’s presence after his initial changes in 1539.

Of a piece with his 1539 additions, Calvin permitted discussion of participation in Christ’s

substance in his 1543 Institutes. Though later editions of the Institutes drop the use of

substantia—most likely dropped to avoid confusion or misinterpretation—Calvin retained the

use of substantia in two of his later commentaries: Ephesians and Corinthians. Billings

concludes, “the addition of Calvin’s new terms of emphasis and realism (vere praestat, vere

exhibitat, and substantia [true participation, truly shown, and substance]) are closely linked with

his intensifying language of participation in Christ.”57 Calvin’s work on Romans and the

54. Cf., Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 74, 82; Garcia, Life in Christ, 194; Hermann Sasse, This

is My Body: Luther’s Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959), 322; Willem Van ’t Spijker, “‘Extra Nos’ and ‘In Nobis’ By Calvin in a Pneumatological Light,” in Calvin and the Holy Spirit: papers and responses presented at the Sixth Colloquium on Calvin and Calvin Studies, ed. Peter De Klerk. (Grand Rapids: Calvin Studies Society, 1987).

55. Wevers, 293. Cited in Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 81. 56. Wevers, 295. Cited in Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 81. 57. Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift, 84.

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initial reorganization of the 1539 Institutes made a lasting impact on his subsequent

Eucharistic doctrine. In other words, Calvin’s intensified language of the Lord’s Supper was

part of a larger program of expansion and addition of participation language and union with

Christ into the Institutes grounded in his exposition of Romans, beginning in 1539.

In 1536, Calvin’s exposition of union with Christ lacked depth and robustness;

however, Calvin maintained continuity between his initial statements regarding union with

Christ and his later thought. Calvin’s first major addition and expansion of the topic in the

1539 edition followed his exegetical work in Romans. Prompted by his interpretation of

Paul, Calvin expanded his vocabulary and utilizes the terms participation, union,

communion, adoption and engrafting more freely. He located the double grace of

justification and sanctification within union with Christ, making them parallel gifts of grace

rather than relating them causally. Christ’s life, death and resurrection became the pattern

after which believers were to be conformed, by the Spirit, through the mortification and

vivification symbolized and initiated in baptism. Furthermore, Calvin extended the scope of

union with Christ to apply not only to salvation, but also to the imago dei and the Trinity.

Hereafter, Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ took on a much more sharply Pauline cast

to supplement the Lutheran bent found in his early writings.

1540-1556: The Expansion of a Locus through Commentaries58

After writing his commentary on Romans, Calvin was not at leisure to undertake

58. A fuller account of Calvin’s development in this period would involve recourse to the sermons as

well. Unfortunately, only some his sermons have been translated into English, so this thesis has focused attention on the commentaries. For works that take into account Calvin’s sermons, see John Calvin and Elsie Anne McKee, John Calvin: Writings On Pastoral Piety (New York: Paulist Press, 2001); Peter A. Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology, Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001); Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1959).

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another commentary until 1546. Parker has well documented Calvin’s original intent to

comment upon the entirety of the Pauline corpus followed by the Catholic Epistles, but the

situation in Geneva was not conducive to scholarly writing.59 The year 1551 marked a

turning point in his commentary production; in the dedicatory letter to his commentary on

the Catholic Epistles, he informed Edward VI of England of his intention to dedicate the

coming years more earnestly to his exposition of Scripture. He wrote, “I, indeed, have in an

especial manner resolved to devote myself to this work, as long as I live, whenever the time

and opportunity shall be afforded me…for though a small portion of time remains to me

from the duties of my office, yet that, how small soever (sic) it may be, I have determined to

devote to this kind of writing.”60 The high volume of commentaries published between 1551

and his death in 1564—totaling 14, not including a revision of the Pauline epistles in 1551

and a major revision of both the Pauline and Catholic epistles in 1556—attest to his

commitment.

Though unable to produce them with the speed he desired, the ensuing

commentaries prove he had time to reflect and expand upon his doctrine of union with

Christ in the intervening years. The degree of emphasis the doctrine received throughout the

commentaries points to the import he attached to it and in many cases, though he did not

add anything new, his reassertion also serves to underscore the doctrine’s importance within

his theology. The prominent images of union with Christ found in Romans—union with

Christ in death and resurrection, adoption as children of God, and engrafting by faith—recur

59. Parker, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, 15-17. Calvin did not produce another commentary

until 1546, when he published his commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. By 1548, he published commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and the Timothy correspondence, but it was not until 1550 that he completed the Pauline corpus, including Hebrews.

60. Calvin, Comm. on the Catholic Epistles, xx.

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throughout Calvin’s commentaries, even in unexpected locations.61 In the twenty years

between his second and final editions of the Institutes, Calvin expanded his doctrine of union

with Christ in six major areas: the humanity and deity of Christ, imitation of Christ, the

relationship between justification and sanctification, the relationship between faith and

repentance, covenant righteousness and adoption.

First, Calvin more clearly indicated that Christ’s humanity is the bond of humanity’s

union with God, rather than his divine nature. Calvin was careful to recall that Christ is also

God and that ‘the man Christ’ refers to the incarnate Mediator, yet “intending to point out

the bond of our union with God, [the Apostle] mentions the human nature rather than the

divine.”62 Calvin described Christ’s humanity as the ‘channel’ by which the benefits of God

flow, and although these benefits are not proper to Christ’s humanity, Christ’s flesh contains

life and righteousness because “in it was accomplished the redemption of man.”63 Insofar as

Christ was obedient, suffered, died and was raised in his human nature, redemption flows

from his human nature rather than his divine nature, though never separated from it.

Furthermore, union with Christ’s humanity—more precisely, union with ‘the man Christ’

who is the Mediator between God and man—mediates the believer’s union with God.64

61. Billings records a clustering of these images from Romans in many of Calvin’s commentaries, both

Old and New Testament, as well as the Institutes. See J. Todd Billings, “United to God Through Christ: Assessing Calvin on the Question of Deification,” Harvard Theological Review 98, no. 3 (2005), 322-3.

62. Calvin, Comm. on the First Epistle to Timothy, 57. 63. Ibid., 263. Cf., Calvin, Comm. on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 64; Comm. on the Epistle of James, 310;

Comm. on Isaiah, vol. 1374-6. 64. Contra Slater. See Slater, “Salvation as Participation in the Humanity of the Mediator,” who argues

union with Christ only involves union with Christ’s human nature. For Calvin, however, union with Christ is the means by which the believer is united with God, Father, Son and Spirit. It never results in dissolution of the Creator-creation distinction, (cf. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 2, 33) nor is it a direction union with the divine—contra Mosser and Habets in Carl Mosser, “The Greatest Possible Blessing: Calvin and Deification,” Scottish Journal of Theology 55, no. No. 1 (2002) and Myk Habets, “Reforming Theosis” in Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, Princeton Theological Monograph Series

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Union with Christ does not deny true “fellowship with the Father and the Son” for “the end

of the gospel [is] to hold communion with God.”65 Indeed, believers are unable to have

communion with Christ unless God abides in them.66 Christ’s human nature draws believers

to the divine, to God; therefore, Christ is the life-giving vine to which believers are engrafted

by the “vital sap” of the Holy Spirit.67

Calvin more freely utilized the language of being united to Christ’s ‘substance’ to

underscore the oneness of Christ and believer. As in Romans, participation in Christ

precedes participation in his benefits. Christ is obtained “when he dwells in us . . . when, in

fine, we are incorporated with him (so to speak) into one life and substance.”68 In the

Supper, Christ’s body is truly, albeit spiritually, present and his substance nourishes the souls

of the faithful. Commenting on Ephesians 5:31, Calvin wrote that the union between Christ

and his church “makes us partakers of his substance.”69 The use of substance language in

these commentaries paralleled the 1543 Latin and 1545 French Institutes, both of which

employ similar language, though it is later dropped.70 Far from being an assertion of divine-

human fusion, the use of substance emphasizes the efficacy of the Spirit to make believers

(Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2006), 146-167.

65. Calvin, Comm. on the First Epistle of John, 177. 66. “Men are so united to Christ by faith, that Christ unites them to God,” Calvin, Comm. on the First

Epistle of John 4:15. 67. Ibid., vol. 2, 111. This image recalls the tree metaphor Calvin takes up in Romans 6. In trees, sap is

what binds the branches to the roots, drawing the nutrients gathered from the soil to the branches so that they might bear fruit. For Calvin, the ‘sap’ of communion in Christ is the Spirit. In this richly organic metaphor Calvin depicts the relationship between the Spirit, Christ and those believers engrafted into Christ. Cf. ibid. 95; Calvin, Comm. on the Epistle to the Galatians, 74.

68. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 1, 379. 69. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistle to the Ephesians, 324. 70. Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 83.

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truly a part of Christ’s body so as to draw life from it.71 Substance, therefore, refers not to

Christ’s divine essence but to the life he imparts to his church because it is ‘bone of his bone

and flesh of his flesh.’

Second, Calvin argued that Christian regeneration involves imitatio (imitation):

Christ’s earthly death and resurrection are reflected in the mortification of the flesh and new

life in the Spirit. As members of the body of Christ, “we ought to become like Christ our

Head, that we may imitate his patience and submissiveness.”72 Calvin augmented the concept

of imitatio with twofold participation in Christ’s death as a distinction between the ‘old man’

and the ‘outer man’. The former consists of the mortification of the flesh—that is, death of

the sinful nature or ‘old man’ through self-denial—and the mortification of the ‘outer

man’—that is, bearing the cross through patient suffering of affliction.73 From this, Calvin

distinguished the ‘old man’ from the ‘outer man’. The former represents sinful human nature

and the latter, the earthly life. For Calvin, both must be mortified as a result of true

participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. Christ’s earthly life of obedience has value as

well, for “his obedience is imputed to us for righteousness,” binding justification more

closely to the human nature of Christ, rather than the divine.74 Union with Christ guarantees

71. Calvin argued that partaking in Christ’ substance does not follow from common human nature but

from the Spirit. This is contrary to Habets’ assertion that Calvin grounds union with Christ and participation in the divine nature in the incarnation. The incarnation makes union with Christ possible, but it is not the temporal beginning of the believer’s deification. See Habets, “Reforming Theosis,” in Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, Theosis, 149-50. See also, Chapter 3, 88 n.73.

72. Calvin, Comm. on Isaiah, vol. 4, 119. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 2, 16;

Comm. on the Epistle to the Colossians, 9; Comm. on the First Epistle of Peter, 120-1. Calvin reiterates the concept of being conformed to Christ’s image through suffering as a necessary part of union with Christ. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on the First Epistle of Peter, 40-1; Comm. on Isaiah, vol. 2, 273.

73. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistle to the Philippians, 99. 74. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 1, 93. For the significance of this claim in

reference to Osiander, see chapter 3.

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the believer’s future glorification inasmuch as Christ has already been glorified.75 Christ’s

ascension to heavenly glory will become important for Calvin’s argument regarding Christ’s

spiritual presence in the Lord’s Supper.

Third, Calvin belabored the unity and distinction between justification and

sanctification. In 1 Corinthians 1:30, Paul argues that Christ is made for us both

righteousness and sanctification; therefore, “we cannot be justified freely through faith alone

without at the same time living holily.”76 These two offices, though distinguishable, are not

to be separated from each other for their unity stems from Christ. However, Calvin

maintained the necessity of their distinction: “These two offices of Christ are conjoined in

such a manner as to be, notwithstanding, distinguished from each other. What, therefore,

Paul here expressly distinguishes, it is not allowable mistakingly (sic) to confound.”77 Calvin

seized upon Paul’s distinction between Christ being made righteousness and sanctification in

1 Corinthians 1:30 as the biblical witness par excellence to the distinction without separation of

the duplex gratia of salvation. Indeed, the single verse often functioned as shorthand for his

duplex gratia formulation, often citing or alluding to it in his replies to Sadoleto, Westphal and

Osiander.78

In Galatians, Calvin referred to Christ indwelling the believer in two ways: partaking

of his righteousness, that is, justification, and governing believers by his Spirit, that is,

75. “Christ will come, that he may be glorified in them; that is, that he may irradiate them with his glory,

and that they may be partakers of it.” Calvin, Comm. on the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, 318. Emphasis original.

76. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 1, 93. 77. Ibid., 94. 78. For more on Calvin’s use of this verse as shorthand for the duplex gratia of salvation in his

theology and debates, see Garcia, Life in Christ, 217-241. Garcia calls 1 Corinthians 1:30 Calvin’s “exegetical epicenter.”

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sanctification. In fact, “the entire blessing of redemption consists mainly in these two things,

remission of sins and spiritual regeneration,” and there is an inseparable connection between

the ‘two blessings of grace.’79 As in Romans, the union between the two blessings was often

accompanied by an explicit rejection of antinomian behavior. Ever aware of the problematic

assertions of those who seek to sever justification from good works, a well as the Roman

Catholic accusations, Calvin responded to the slanderous accusations against the Protestants

with 1 Corinthians 1:30. After discussing that justification by faith alone requires holy living,

he quips, “those, however, who slander us, as if by preaching a free justification through

faith we call men of from good works, are amply refuted from this passage, which intimates

that faith apprehends in Christ regeneration equally with forgiveness of sins.”80 Free

righteousness does not inaugurate a purely passive faith but produces good works, and those

who do not cease sinning after justification “render void the benefits derived from Christ.”81

He even claimed purity of life could be the evidence and proof of election, as long as one

remembers that the foundation of election rests upon Christ.82 Calvin was clearly concerned

to forego any accusation of licentious behavior due to free remission of sins.

Fourth, in the Evangelists and Acts, Calvin developed a more nuanced relationship

79. Ibid. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 1:30, Calvin writes that “these fruits of grace are connected

together, as it were, by an indissoluble tie, so that he who attempts to sever them does in a manner tear Christ to pieces,” Calvin, Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 1, 93. This statement parallels the 1556 insertions to Romans 6 and 8 and was likely added at the same time. Cf. ibid., vol. 1, 380-1; vol. 2, 275.

80. Ibid., vol. 1, 93-4. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on a Harmony of the Evangelists, vol. 2, 44. 81. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistle to the Philippians, 99 and Calvin, Comm. on the First Epistle of John, 209. Cf.

Ibid., 210-11, 243-5 and Comm. on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, 273-5. 82. Comm. on the Second Epistle of Peter, 377. “Purity of life is not improperly called the evidence and

proof of election, by which the faithful may not only testify to others that they are the children of God, but also confirm themselves in this confidence, in such a manner, however, that they fix their solid foundation on something else.” He proceeds with a pointed accusation, “it is evident how wickedly some vile unprincipled men prattle, when they seek to make gratuitous election an excuse for all licentiousness; as though, forsooth! we may sin with impunity, because we have been predestined to righteousness and holiness!”

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between faith and repentance. 83 He continually united the reception of God’s grace with

holiness of life. However, in the Evangelists and Acts he preferred the language of faith and

repentance to justification and sanctification, as the former terms spring more naturally from

the texts he interacts with than the latter.84 Calvin made the reception of faith inseparable

from regeneration, though he was at pains to distinguish them from each other, as Paul had.

He defined repentance as turning to God for obedience and faith as the reception of the

grace offered in Christ.85 Because one cannot obtain repentance without faith, it is vain to

speak of the former without the latter.86 He accused “those teachers of repentance who,

neglecting faith, stand only upon the framing of life, and precepts of good works,” that is,

the Roman Catholics, for teaching persons the right way to live, but refusing to offer the

means by which righteousness can be attained: faith in the righteousness of Christ alone.

Faith, for Calvin, was not a cold knowledge of God but included a “lively feeling of

conscience, not only the grace of adoption, but also renewing of life and the other gifts of

the Holy Spirit.”87 The presence of the Holy Spirit in faith forbids faith from being empty of

pious feeling and renewal. Faith truly justifies without works, but the faith that justifies is

never without works.88 Similarly, “repentance is an inward renewal of the man, which manifests

83. In other places, Calvin uses repentance in place of sanctification, referring to the life of holiness.

“The whole Gospel,” he writes, “consists of two parts—forgiveness of sins and repentance.” Calvin, Comm. on a Harmony of the Evangelists, vol. 1, 179. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on the Acts of the Apostles, 117. Faith and repentance, however, are not interchangeable with justification and sanctification. Though repentance is closely associated with new life in Christ and reformation unto holiness, i.e., sanctification, faith more properly refers to the reception of Christ in faith, not the remission of sins or justification.

84. Commenting on the thief on the cross, he explains, “[Christ] is satisfied with repentance and faith”

as all that is necessary for salvation. See Calvin, Comm. on a Harmony of the Evangelists, vol. 3, 313. 85. Ibid., 245. 86. Ibid. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on Isaiah, vol. 4, 268-9. 87. Calvin, Comm. on a Harmony of the Evangelists, vol. 3, 245.

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itself in the outward life, as a tree produces fruit.”89 The imagery of the tree provides an

interesting contrast with Luther’s use of the same image. For Luther good works are the

fruits of the tree of justification but for Calvin, the tree is repentance, rooted in the gift of

faith and regeneration of the Spirit.90 Rather than the effect of justification, repentance is a

parallel benefit of salvation by grace through faith. Calvin thus places the renewed life

evidenced in good works on equal grounds with justification through remission of sins.

Fifth, the righteousness that Christ requires of his followers consists of obedience to

the two tables of the law,91 and is thus inevitably bound up with covenant. The covenant is

“the source or spring of salvation” from which flow the benefits of adoption and newness of

life.92 Even Christians are called to the keeping of the covenant because “none are true

worshippers of God but those who reverently obey his Word.”93 For Calvin, true faith

renders one obedient to God in imitation of his righteousness, the original and renewed

stipulation of the covenant.94 Thus, the highest good of humanity is union with God through

conformity to him.95 This conformity, lost at the fall, is restored through union with Christ,

88. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on Ezekiel, vol. 2, 238; Comm. on the Epistle of James, 310-17. 89. Ibid., vol. 1, 190. Emphasis original. Cf, Calvin, Comm. on the Acts of the Apostles, 116-18; Comm. on

the Epistle of James, 310-17; Comm. on the Second Epistle of Peter, 377. 90. Cf. The Freedom of a Christian, LW, 31:361. 91. Ibid., vol. 1, 74-5, 142. 92. Calvin, Comm. on the Book of Psalms, vol. 3, 3 and Calvin, Comm. on the Book of Genesis, vol. 1, 444-5.

Cf. Comm. on the Twelve Minor Prophets, vol. 5, 340. 93. Calvin, Comm. on the Book of Psalms, vol. 4, 140. Cf. Comm. on Ezekiel, vol. 1, 374, 380-1. 94. Calvin, Comm. on Ezekiel, vol. 1, 316 and vol. 2, 176-7. For more on Calvin and the covenant, see

Lillback, The Binding of God. Lillback makes covenant out to be a fundamental feature in Calvin’s theology, and his extensive citations point to a more central place of this theme than has been acknowledged elsewhere. However, a qualification seems in order. Due to his use of the 1559 Institutes and the later commentaries, he has likely overstated the prominence of this theme in Calvin’s overall theology. The theme may have gained prominence in the final years of his life, but it is relatively lacking in the commentaries prior to the mid 1550s.

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bringing about the renewal of the divine image “so that man reflects, like in a mirror, the

wisdom, righteousness and goodness of God.”96 Not only does God freely pardon sins, he

also “form[s] us anew to his image, that we may live unto righteousness.”97 Regeneration

affects a ‘wonderful reformation’: believers become new creatures in whom the image of

God is repaired and refashioned.98 It is important to note that, for Calvin, being conformed

to God is not a matter of essence but quality. In a revealing passage, Calvin comments,

we shall be partakers of divine and blessed immortality and glory, so as to be as it were one with God so far as our capacities will allow . . . the image of God in holiness and righteousness is restored to us for this end, that we may at length be partakers of eternal life and glory as far as it will be necessary for our complete felicity.99

No higher blessing exists than conformity to God in righteousness and holiness so as to

partake of divine immortality and glory. Participation in God, however, always maintains the

distinction between Creator and creature, for union only occurs to the degree human

capacity allows.

Finally, to covenant righteousness and the renewal of the divine image, Calvin

attached the benefit of adoption. A key theme in Romans, adoption became a central focus

of his later commentaries. Interestingly, Calvin listed it first among the gifts of the Spirit,100 a

place of prominence and importance. In John, adoption was a key term describing the

effects of union with Christ by faith; for example, Calvin wrote, “having been ingrafted (sic)

95. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 98. 96. Calvin, Comm. on the Epistle to the Colossians, 212. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on the Book of Genesis, vol. 1, 94-6;

Comm. on the Epistles to the Corinthians, vol. 2, 187; Comm. on the First Epistle of John, 210. At 1 John 4:17, Calvin links the divine image with adoption, “we are then partakers of divine adoption, when we resemble God as children their father.”

97. Calvin, Comm. on the Second Epistle to Peter, 180. 98. Ibid., 218. 99. Calvin, Comm. on the Second Epistle to Peter, 371. Emphasis added. 100. Calvin, Comm. on the Gospel According to John, vol. 1, 44.

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into Christ by faith, we obtain the right of adoption, so as to be the sons of God.”101 Christ is

by nature the Son of God, and it is only insofar as believers are members of Christ himself

that they also become sons of God by grace. Being a son of God is not possible according to

nature, that is, natural birth or descent, but only because God willingly adopted his children

in Christ.102 The gracious adoption of men and women is the foundation for eternal

gratitude, and is always coupled with forgiveness of sins and the rule of the Spirit. 103

Together, forgiveness and the rule of the Spirit constitute the means by which God gathers

again those who were scattered from his kingdom, bringing them back into a reconciled

relationship with himself.104 As with forgiveness more generally, adoption entails the renewal

of the Spirit so that “we do not falsely address him as our Father.”105

Though many of his commentaries on the Old Testament were published late in his

career—many after the 1559 Institutes and some, post-humously—Calvin had already

developed his doctrine of union with Christ far beyond his original statements in 1536.106

Interacting with diverse biblical texts expanded his vocabulary. The more he reflected on

Scripture, the more he refined the definition and scope of union with Christ, encompassing

such diverse areas as imago dei, Trinity, justification, sanctification, eschatology, and the

person and work of Christ the Mediator. Late in his career, Calvin drew up the final edition

101. Ibid., 42. Emphasis original. Cf. Comm. on the Book of Genesis, vol. 1, 265-6; Comm. on the Book of

Psalms, vol. 2, 299; Comm. on Isaiah, vol. 3, 212. 102. Ibid., 42-3. 103. Calvin, Comm. on a Harmony of the Evangelists, vol. 1, 75. 104. Ibid., 178. Cf. Calvin, Comm. on Ezekiel, vol. 1, 381; Comm. on the Acts of the Apostles, 117. 105. Calvin, Comm. on a Harmony of the Evangelists, vol. 1, 180. 106. Calvin’s commentaries on Hosea, the Minor Prophets, Daniel, Jeremiah, Lamentations and

Ezekiel were actually lectures transcribed for later publication as a commentary, as Calvin was unable to write a separate commentary for these books.

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of the Institutes in 1559. As the culmination of over twenty years of theological reflection and

detailed work in Scripture, it can only be rightly understood in light of the previous years’

work. Keeping in mind the preceding insights from the commentaries, one arrives at a ‘final’

form of Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ in his 1559 edition of the Institutes.

1559: Summation and Final Form

One may arrive at the essence of Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ by asking

four basic questions: (1) to whom are believers united, (2) what is the nature of union with

Christ, (3) what is the bond of union with Christ, and (4) what are the benefits of union with

Christ. Debate over the presence of ‘deification’ in Calvin’s theology107 exposes the need to

more clearly define to whom Calvin believed Christians were united. Calvin himself faced this

question in his own lifetime when he responded to the accusation of being ‘Osiandrian’ in

his theology of justification, a debate more thoroughly discussed in chapter three. For now,

it is important to note that Calvin did not claim any form of essential union with the divine

Godhead.108 He rejected any notion of unmediated union with the essence of God that

would allow a “mixture of substances” of the divine nature with humanity.109 He took the

Chalcedonian formula seriously, and zealously guarded the ‘without confusion, without

change’ of the divine and human natures of Christ, especially in regard to the Lord’s Supper

and salvation, both of which included union with Christ.110 However, neither is union with

107. See Billings, “United to God Through Christ”; Habets, “Reforming Theosis” in Stephen Finlan

and Vladimir Kharlamov, Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology, Mosser, “The Greatest Possible Blessing”; Slater, “Salvation as Participation.”

108. Contra Habets and Mosser. Cf. Calvin, Institutes 1.15.5, 3.11.6-12. Unless otherwise noted, all

citations taken from the McNeill-Battles translation. 109. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.6.

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Christ a union only with the human nature of Christ. Rather, union with Christ involves

communion with the human and divine nature of Christ in his office as Mediator.111 Christ,

in the office of Mediator and “in accordance with the dispensation enjoined upon him,”

mediates humanity’s communion with the Triune God.112 Calvin argued that the benefits

Christ transmits to his Church flow from human nature, for Christ “shares with us all that he

has received from the Father.”113 However, one must not infer that the transfusion of

benefits from Christ’s human nature precludes union with the divine, because it is by means of

his humanity that Christ leads us to union with God. Christ “leads us little by little to a firm

union with God” in the office of Mediator, having purchased redemption and reconciliation

for us in our stead.114 Union with Christ can therefore also be described as participation in

the humanity of Christ insofar as humanity is united to God by means of this

participation.115 In other words, Christ communicates divine presence and blessing through

his humanity. In sum, Calvin argues for a real participation in the divine mediated by Christ

and the Holy Spirit, and an indirect but true communion with the Triune God on the basis

of redemption purchased by Christ, in his humanity, as our Mediator.

110. McCormack claims he defended the “without confusion, without change” more than the

“without, division, without separation,” but is important to remember that much of his defense arose from a polemical context. Seeing his opponents as too eager to confuse the divine and human natures, Calvin more readily emphasized their distinction. See Bruce L. McCormack, “For Us and For Our Salvation: Incarnation and The Atonement in The Reformed Tradition,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 43, no. 1-4 (1998).

111. Calvin, Institutes 1.13.24. Cf. 2.16.3; 3.11.5, 8, 9. 112. Ibid., 3.11.8. 113. Ibid., 2.14.4. Cf. 3.11.9; 4.17.9. 114. Ibid., 2.15.5. Paul Van Buren masterfully details the substitutionary aspect of reconciliation in

Calvin’s theology. In summary, he argues that in Calvin’s theology Christ has purchased redemption for us because, as the title suggests, he stood “in our place.” See Van Buren, Christ In Our Place. In this section, I use the word “our” for simplicity’s sake, as Calvin utilizes the personal plural to refer to the elect Church of Christ.

115. A la Slater and Hart. See Hart, “Humankind in Christ and Christ in Humankind.”

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Calvin was more hesitant to answer the question of what the nature of union with Christ

is. As seen above, union with Christ is not essential, but it is real and substantial. By the power

of the Spirit Christ transfuses his life-giving substance to his body, as a vine does its

branches.116 The Holy Spirit performs this transfusion; therefore union with Christ is rightly

called Spiritual. The term does not suggest the union is mental, ethereal and unreal; rather,

Spiritual refers to the bond of union: the efficacious power of the Holy Spirit.117 Because

union with Christ is founded upon the work of Christ as our Mediator, union with Christ

can be termed substitutionary.118 Christ lived a life of righteous obedience before the Father,

took upon himself the character of a sinner, suffered the punishment of sin in our place,

died a death to sin and was raised to new life in order that all these benefits might be

communicated to his church. Inasmuch as Christ lived, died, and rose, it was “to pay the

price of our liberation in order to redeem us.”119 Christ, the Son of God became a son of

man in order “to make what was his by nature ours by grace”—that is, the gift of sonship by

adoption.120 This would seem to imply a purely legal, representational union, but Calvin

moves beyond forensic union to a truly transformational, Spiritual union by which believers

are not only deemed righteous before God, but intimately joined to their Head—“with a

wonderful communion, day by day, he grows more and more into one body with us, until he

becomes completely one with us.”121 Finally, union with Christ is ‘mystical,’ that is,

116. Calvin, Institutes 1.15.5; 3.11.10. 117. Ibid., 4.17.33. 118. Again, see Van Buren, Christ in Our Place. 119. Calvin, Institutes, 2.16.5. 120. Ibid., 2.12.2. In the context of human participation in Christ, ‘sonship’ refers to inheritance,

communion and participation in the love and paternal care of the Father rather than maleness. Cf. 2.13.2.

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mysterious; in Calvin’s own words, “I rather experience it than understand it.”122 Ultimately,

human beings cannot comprehend the mode of union with Christ, and must be content with

what God has revealed about it instead of passing into labyrinthine sophistry.

The mystery of union with Christ arises, partly, from the ‘secret energy of the Spirit’

whose work far surpasses our ability to understand and vocalize. The Holy Spirit “is the

bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself.”123 The Spirit effectually unites things

divided by space, so although no mind comprehends how human persons can be united to

Christ in heaven, the Spirit accomplishes the ineffable and raises them to heaven to be joined

to their Head.124 This mystery is most fully expressed in the Lord’s Supper in which our

hearts are lifted to heaven in order to feed on Christ.125 Since “faith is the principal work of

the Holy Spirit,” faith is properly called the bond of our union with Christ, for by faith we

receive Christ as offered to us in the Gospel.126 This can be spoken of in terms of human

and divine perspectives. From a human perspective, faith is the bond of our union, for it is

by means of our faith that Christ engrafts us into him. Indeed, the saving efficacy of faith is

121. Calvin, Institutes 3.2.24. Cf. 3.11.10; 4.17.33. For the concept of purely legal union, see Paul Chul-

Hong Kang, Justification: The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness from Reformation Theology to the American Great Awakening and the Korean Revivals (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 74-75.

122. Calvin, Institutes 4.17.32. The context refers to union with Christ through the Supper, but the

sentiment can be suitably applied to the experience of union with Christ more generally. 123. Ibid., 3.1.1. Cf. 3.1.2; 3.2.34; 4.17.12 124. Ibid., 4.17.10. 125. See Calvin, Institutes, 4.17.31-33. Calvin disagreed with both sides of the Eucharistic controversy

on precisely this point. According to Calvin, the Lutherans claimed Christ must be “dragged down from heaven” in order to be present in the Eucharist. Calvin claimed the power of the Spirit drew believers up to heaven rather than bringing Christ down, for Christ is seated in heaven and will not come down until his second coming. Against the Zwinglian or Memorialist tradition, Calvin argued for the real presence of Christ through the Spirit. In speaking of the Spirit as the bond of union, Calvin seeks to find a middle way between the two: on the one hand, there is true participation in Christ’s substance for he is truly, Spiritually present. On the other, the Spiritual nature of this participation leads us heavenward rather than bringing Christ’s flesh down to earth in order to be eaten.

126. Calvin, Institutes 3.1.4. and 3.17.11.

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fundamentally linked to its function of uniting the believer to Christ.127 However, from the

divine perspective, it is only by the work of the Spirit that faith exists; therefore the Spirit is

more properly the source of our union with Christ. 128 In this way Calvin intricately bound

the divine initiative and human response; there is a fundamental compatibility of divine and

human action.129 Because humanity was created for communion with God and dependence

on the Spirit, there is no opposition between human and divine action unless sin interposes.

For Calvin, right and proper human action was designed to occur in response to

God’s mercy. Therefore, there is both an objective/passive and subjective/active aspect to

union with Christ corresponding to the work of the Spirit on the one hand and the, divinely

instigated, human response of faith on the other.130 Moreover, God provides helps by which

this bond is strengthened, that is, the Sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.131 In

baptism, we lay hold of the promised engrafting into Christ and participation in his body, the

Church.132 By means of baptism we truly perceive the intimacy of union with Christ and his

Church. As a continual aid to remind us of our ongoing nourishment through our

participation in Christ, God gave the Lord’s Supper.133 In it, we truly receive the flesh and

127. Garcia, Life in Christ, 119. 128. Calvin, Institutes 3.2.35. 129. Cf. Billings, “United to God Through Christ,” 319-21. For a more detailed analysis, see ch. 3 on

Calvin’s response to Pighius. 130. For the former, see Institutes 3.11.7; 3.13.5. For the latter, See 3.2.8; 3.3.1; 3.20.36. Billings

compares this twin aspect of faith to the distinction but unity of the two natures of Christ. See Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 108. See also, Cornelis P. Venema, Accepted and Renewed in Christ: The »Twofold Grace of God« and the Interpretation of Calvin’s Theology, Reformed historical theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 83-94.

131. Calvin, Institutes 4.14.9. 132. Ibid., 4.15.1, 5-6. 133. Ibid., 4.17.1.

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blood of Christ to nourish our souls unto immortality and exhort us to holiness,

righteousness and mutual love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. For Calvin, God

evidenced his paternal favor and mercy in not only binding us to himself through his Son

and Spirit but also providing external aids by which we might comprehend the mystery of

this union and be strengthened in and assured of our salvation.

The underlying assumption of Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ was that no one

receives the benefits of Christ without participating in Christ.134 Instead of focusing on the

secondary benefits from Christ, we must first direct our gaze to Christ, so as to be united to

him. To understand the benefits from union with Christ, one must remember to whom

believers are united: the divine-human Mediator who lived his whole life in our place and

received gifts—for example, justification, sanctification, resurrection and glorification—from

the Father that he might communicate them to his body. For Calvin, we receive from Christ

what he received directly from the Father. Of primary interest is the benefit of gratuitous

remission of sins and renewal of the Holy Spirit, in other words, justification and

sanctification, the “double-grace” of union with Christ.135 Ever aware that Luther’s

overemphasis on justification led to a problematic assessment of sanctification and righteous

living in the Christian life, Calvin masterfully reinterpreted the reception of both via union

with Christ. By faith, believers receive the “whole Christ”—that is, participates in the whole

134. Ibid., 3.11.24; 3.15.5-6. In the resulting ordo salutis Calvin downplays a temporal reference to the

benefits, choosing to focus on their interrelationships and mutual source in union with Christ. Cf. Richard B. Gaffin Jr., “Union with Christ: Some Biblical and Theological Reflections,” in Always Reforming, ed. A. T. B. McGowan. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 279. Many Calvin scholars have made much of Calvin’s placement of sanctification prior to justification in the Institutes, but in this case, it is better to defer to his own professed purpose of emphasizing the inseparability of holiness from justification by faith alone. See Institutes 3.3.1.

135. Calvin, Institutes 3.11.1. As opposed to the grace and gift discussion in recent Lutheran studies,

Calvin speaks of a double grace, i.e., twin aspects of the grace given through Christ. Cf. Tuomo Mannermaa, “Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective,” and Simo Peura, “Christ as Favor and Gift (donum): The Challenge of Luther’s Understanding of Justification” in Braaten and Jenson, Union with Christ.

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person of Christ—and that not outside themselves from a distance, but within them.136

Therefore, to assert justification without sanctification would be to “tear Christ asunder.”137

By placing both justification and sanctification within the person of Christ—grounded in the

historical experience of Christ—Calvin provides an organic relationship between the two

that cannot be easily severed. In his own words, “[Christ] is given to us for righteousness,

wisdom, sanctification and redemption . . . [therefore] these benefits are joined together by

an everlasting and indissoluble bond.”138 For Calvin, salvation consisted in justification and

sanctification rather than justification alone.139

The reception of Christ’s righteousness allows the sinner to be declared righteous

before God.140 For Calvin, justification always involves the imputation of Christ’s

righteousness, that is, the righteousness of the divine-human Mediator, purchased

throughout the “whole course of his obedience.”141 This is the divinely empowered human

righteousness corresponding to the eternal righteousness of God, flowing from “the secret

fountain of the Godhead.”142 Furthermore, not only the person, but also his or her works are

covered by the imputed righteousness of Christ so that when a believer performs good

136. Calvin, Institutes 3.11.9; 4.17.9. Cf. Institutes 3.13.5. For a helpful discussion of Christ without us

and Christ within us, see Van ’t Spijker, “‘Extra nos’ and ‘in nobis’ By Calvin in a Pneumatological Light.” 137. Calvin, Institutes 3.11.6, (Beveridge). 138. Calvin, Institutes 3.16.1. Cf. 3.2.8; 3.3.1; 3.11.11. Note his reference to the language of 1

Corinthians 1:30. 139. See Ibid., 3.3.19. According to Garcia, Calvin defines salvation “not [as] justification but the

duplex gratia of justification and sanctification.” Garcia, Life in Christ, 127. Gleason notes that Calvin has a teleological doctrine of salvation oriented towards the glory of God in transformed lives rather than justification for its own sake. Randall C. Gleason, John Calvin and John Owen on Mortification: A Comparative Study in Reformed Spirituality, Studies in Church History (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 53.

140. Calvin, Institutes 3.11.2, 23. 141. Ibid., 2.16.5; 2.17.3; 3.11.9; 3.11.23. 142. Ibid., 3.11.12 (Beveridge).

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works, she need not fear that the sin inherent in her work disqualifies her from God’s

gracious rewards. In this manner, far from inhibiting the performance of good works,

justification by faith alone provides a foundation for the performance of good works with

full assurance of their acceptance before God. Human works are covered by the

righteousness of Christ.143

Good works proceed from the inner renewal of the Holy Spirit—that is,

sanctification—since “to be a Christian under the law of grace does not mean to wander

unbridled outside the law, but to be engrafted into Christ, by whose grace we are set free of

the curse of the law, and by whose Spirit we have the law engraved on our hearts.”144 In

Christ, believers fulfill the law or covenant because it is their calling and purpose.145

Nevertheless, human obedience is only possible because Christ has already fulfilled the law

in our stead, covering our works with his purity and meriting righteousness on our behalf.146

Human obedience in Christ does not merit righteousness—for Christ has already received all

merit on our behalf—but conforms the believer to Christ. Patterned after the death and

resurrection of Christ to which believers are bound in baptism, their earthly life comprises

the daily mortification of the flesh—according to Calvin, self-denial and the bearing of the

cross—and renewal unto obedience and guidance of the Spirit.147 Regeneration, therefore,

143. Ibid., 3.16.1. 144. Ibid., 2.8.57; 3.17.1. Garcia points to the eschatological character of works in Calvin’s theology

consisting in the final vindication of the believer by means of good works as proof of God’s work in their lives. Garcia, Life in Christ, 112-13.

145. Calvin, Institutes 3.16.2. “Calvin insists that the covenant of grace includes perfect obedience to the

law as its stipulation.” Lillback, Binding of God, 186. However, perfect obedience is only possible because Christ’s atonement covers not only the believer but his or her works as well. Therefore imperfect obedience is accepted as righteousness and keeping of the law because God views those works through Christ. Cf. ibid., 185-193, 264-75.

146. Ibid., 2.17.5.

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signifies that we correspond to Christ.148 His life is the pattern after which we are to be

conformed, including his life of obedience before the Father, his death to sin, his

resurrection to new life and, finally, his exaltation in glory, which shall appear only at the last

day.149 Renewal of the Holy Spirit is therefore a daily process by which we “grow more and

more into conformity with Christ, as members to their head.”150 Included in this process is

the reformation of the divine image within us, resulting in true communion with God.151

Calvin grounds holiness in the renewal of the divine image, for the divine image consisted of

“true righteousness and holiness” by which Adam had communion with God.152 God is

holy; therefore, “holiness must be its bond [i.e., of union with God].”153 The word “our”

alerts the reader to Calvin’s corporate emphasis on union with Christ. For Calvin, union with

Christ necessitates union with the body of Christ, that is, fellowship with the Church.154 One

cannot be united to Christ without participation in the Church, and one of the benefits of

union with Christ is the formation of a community of faith in which one is strengthened in faith,

exhorted to holiness, and enriched by the gifts of the Spirit.155 One does not enter heaven

alone. Finally, union with Christ allows for the full assurance of faith, for “we embrace

147. Ibid., 3.7-8. 148. Ibid., 3.3.9. 149. Ibid., 3.6.3. Cf. Garcia, Life in Christ, 113. 150. Cf. Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1; 3.6.5. 151. Ibid., 2.15.4. 152. Ibid., 2.12.6; 3.3.9. 153. Ibid., 3.6.2. Cf. 2.10.8, 2.12.6. 154. Ibid., 4.1.2; 4.6.5; 4.17.23. 155. Cf. ibid., 4.1.3. In 4.1.1, Calvin wrote, “I shall start, then, with the church, into whose bosom

God is pleased to gather his sons, not only that they may be nourished by her help and ministry as long as they are infants and children but also that they may be guided by her motherly care until they mature and at last reach the goal of faith.”

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Christ not as appearing from afar but as joining himself to us that he may be our head, we

his members.”156

Conclusion

From the very beginning of his career, Calvin succinctly argued, “this alone is

salvation—to partake of Christ and be united with him.”157 The Institutes never lacked a

reference, however brief, to union with Christ. In 1536 he developed several loci within

which union with Christ functioned, for example, faith, justification, ecclesiology, the

sacraments, yet, his earliest definition lacks precision and union with Christ appears

incidental rather than foundational. Calvin assumed the necessity of its presence, but hardly

explicated it in depth. Important questions of detail—for example, whether humanity is

united to the person of Christ, the humanity of Christ or the divine being—were not

addressed at all. Certain distinctive features of his later theology are not present here:

justification and sanctification as a double grace, the emphasis on Christ’s humanity rather

than divinity, union with God as the imago dei, sanctification being tied to Christ’s person as

well as the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit as the bond of union by faith. His early exposition also

lacks specific terminology prominent in his later works—that is, participation, adoption, and

engrafting, as well as the use of union and communion to express the intimacy of fellowship

with God. However, given the early date and Calvin’s relative lack of protracted exegesis,

one cannot expect him to have developed far beyond his Lutheran roots.

One of the most impressive features of Calvin’s subsequent theological growth is the

degree to which he remains faithful to his earliest insights. Through detailed exposition of

156. Ibid., 4.17.6. 157. Calvin, Institutes (1536), 110.

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Scripture, Calvin developed the uniquely Pauline cast of union with Christ present from the

1539 Institutes onward, yet he remained faithful to his commitment to the Reformation

principles of justification by faith, imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the fundamental

role of the Scriptures in exposition and theology. Calvin’s 1539 Institutes retained the insights

gleaned from his earlier edition, but his commentary on Romans reshaped the method and

content of his theology to fit the loci gleaned from the epistle. Grounded in the Pauline

notions of engrafting, adoption, and participation in the historic experience of Christ in

death and resurrection, union with Christ became the source from which Calvin argued for

the organic relationship between justification and sanctification. Rather than subordinating

sanctification to justification as Luther and Melanchthon had done, Calvin reorganized the

benefits of salvation around the doctrine of union with Christ gleaned especially from

Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 1:30. According to the former, baptism functions as the

initiatory rite in which believers are united both to Christ and to the church, resulting not

only in death to sin but also in new living under the rule of the Spirit. Romans 6 successfully

intertwined justification, sanctification, the Church community and the sacraments with the

historic life of Christ. Life in Christ therefore evinced the mortification and vivification of

the flesh patterned after Christ’s historic death and resurrection because believers experience

a true participation in those events. For Calvin, union with Christ was a true and deeply

spiritual reality rather than an imaginary or purely legal one.

In 1 Corinthians 1:30, Calvin found a succinct summary of his perspective on union

with Christ and its relationship to justification and sanctification. Paul states that Christ was

made for us righteousness and sanctification. For Calvin, Paul’s formula was not redundant;

he speaks of two distinct but parallel benefits of union with Christ. In Christ, believers

apprehend both forgiveness of sins and regeneration, for the believer first and foremost

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receives Christ, in whom both offices are accomplished. Calvin even used this verse as a

summary of doctrine of the duplex gratia of salvation; an explicit quotation or allusion to it

served as shorthand for his assertion that union with Christ grounded the parallel reception

of justification and sanctification. His exposition of this verse was an important aspect of his

defense against the charges of Osiandrism in the 1550s and is present as early as 1539 in his

reply to Sadoleto.

In the face of Roman Catholic controversy and Protestant failure to adequately

respond, Calvin developed his doctrine of union with Christ with a view to providing a more

explicitly Scriptural, that is, Pauline, account of the relationship between justification and

sanctification in Protestant theology. Calvin’s doctrine of the duplex gratia of salvation

depends heavily upon his doctrine of union with Christ. Therefore, the success or failure of

Calvin’s response to the ‘Lutheran problem’ of sanctification and good works must be

assessed within the realm of the integrity of Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ. Calvin

never faced explicit attack for his doctrine, and his unique formulation of the duplex gratia

was largely overlooked by his contemporaries due to his involvement in several heated

controversies on other matters.158 However, Calvin’s involvement with debates regarding the

bondage of the will, the Eucharist and justification forced him to more clearly expound

doctrines intimately related to his doctrine of union with Christ. Therefore, in order to assess

the integrity of Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ, one must work utilizing Calvin’s own

terms rather than anachronistically importing theological distinctions found only subsequent

to the Reformation. As will be shown, Calvin’s debates with his contemporaries on the

158. Aside from an exchange of letters with Peter Martyr Vermigli in 1555, union with Christ is

relatively absent, in protracted form, in his letters as well. The English text of both letters can be found in George Cornelius Gorham, Gleanings of a Few Scattered Ears: During the Period of the Reformation in England and in the Times Immediately Succeeding, A.D. 1533 to A.D. 1588 (London: Bell and Daldy, 1857), 340-44 and 349-50.

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related matters of justification, free will and the Eucharist provide an excellent opportunity

to engage in a detailed critique of Calvin’s response to critical evaluations of his own work

on union with Christ and related doctrines.

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CHAPTER 3

SUCCESS OR FAILURE: THE INTEGRITY OF UNION WITH CHRIST WITHIN

CALVIN’S THOUGHT

Introduction

Despite his involvement in numerous controversies in his career, Calvin was never

specifically attacked for his doctrine of union with Christ. His response to Osiander

regarding union with Christ was fundamentally a debate over sacramentology; union with

Christ was an important element in this debate, but not the presiding issue. The concept of

union with Christ was never challenged in his lifetime. Other controversies, however, forced

him to address related issues such as the nature of humanity, God’s relationship to humanity

pre- and post-fall, Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, the work of the Spirit in uniting things

separated by space and the relationship between imputation and union with Christ. In certain

cases, Calvin himself did not find a direct relationship between the presiding issue and his

doctrine of union with Christ—that is, his debate with Pighius over free will—but from his

defense of other aspects of his theology, for example, free will and human corruption, one

may extrapolate how he would defend a related issue within the realm of union with Christ.

For example, Calvin’s defense of the bound will and ‘accidental’ corruption of humanity in

his controversy with Pighius also defends him against the charge of opposing divinity and

humanity in such a way that damages the integrity of union with Christ.1 Calvin’s debates

1. By ‘accidental’, Calvin alludes to the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident to

describe the fall of humanity and sin’s effects. ‘Accident’ therefore means ‘non-substantial’ rather than unintentional. See below.

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with Westphal concerning the Lord’s Supper were extremely important for Calvin’s detailed

articulation of the sacramental presence of Christ and the work of the Spirit. Furthermore,

Westphal accused Calvin of being ‘Osiandrian,’ which in turn led Calvin to more carefully

define the nature of union with Christ, especially regarding justification and imputed

righteousness. This chapter will discuss how these three debates—Calvin versus Pighius,

Westphal and Osiander—provide an avenue of assessing the integrity of Calvin’s doctrine of

union with Christ, including the degree to which he successfully utilizes this doctrine to

defend Protestantism from the charges of antinomianism leveled by the Roman Catholic

Church.

Calvin Against Pighius

Calvin’s 1539 edition of the Institutes quickly came under the scrutiny of the Roman

Catholic Church. Believing his doctrine on original sin and human freedom to be more

dangerous than Luther’s, Bishop Bernardus Cincius of Aquila and Cardinal Marcello Cervini

commissioned the Dutch Roman Catholic Albert Pighius to write a treatise refuting Calvin’s

doctrine. In August 1542, Pighius published his Ten Books on Human Free Choice and Divine

Grace as a response to chapters 2 (books 1-6) and 8 (books 7-10) of Calvin’s Institutes. Fearful

that a lack of reply would allow the Roman Church victory by default, Calvin hastened to

publish his response to Pighius by the 1543 Frankfurt book fair in March of that year. With

only a few short months to work, Calvin was only able to finish a reply to books 1-6, on

human free choice. The result of his labor is the treatise The Defence of the Sound and Orthodox

Doctrine of the Bondage and Liberation of Human Choice against the Misrepresentations of Albert Pighius

of Kampen—hereafter discussed as The Bondage and Liberation of the Will—published in

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February, 1543.2

In Calvin’s 1539 Institutes, his defense of human bondage to sin appeared to

completely efface human nature, both good and evil. According to Billings, “Calvin’s view of

sinful humanity in relation to an all-powerful divine will may give the impression that the

human side of the divine-human relationship has virtually vanished.”3 The apparent

opposition of the divine and human led Roland Bainton to assert, “For Calvin, God was so

high and lifted up, so unspeakably holy, and man so utterly unworthy, that no union between

God and man could be thinkable.”4 Concerned that the utter separation between God and

humanity led to a Manichean anthropology, Pighius vehemently rejected Calvin’s doctrine.

Though primarily concerned with the doctrine of human bondage to sin and free choice,

Calvin’s treatise in response to Pighius’ attack, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, developed

two concepts important to his doctrine of union with Christ in defense of the union between

humanity and divinity: the purity and goodness of unfallen humanity and the compatibility of

human and divine action through the Spirit.

According to Pighius, Calvin’s doctrine of original sin led to the conclusion that

humanity was created evil. If humanity was fallen in every aspect of human nature and

completely incapable of good prior to God’s grace, humanity must have been corrupt from

2. Calvin intended to respond to the remaining four books of Pighius’ treatise, i.e., those on

predestination, in time for the 1544 book fair, but Pighius death led him to drop the project. In 1551, his controversy with Jerome Bolsec renewed his defense of the doctrine of predestination. His response to Bolsec in 1552, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, allowed him to settle the score with Pighius as well. For more information on these controversies, see John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius, ed. A. N. S. Lane, trans. G. I. Davies (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), Introduction, xiii-xv.

3. Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 43. 4. Roland H. Bainton, Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus 1511-1553 (Boston: The

Beacon Press, 1960), 143. Similar charges are brought against Calvin by the “Gift” theologians—for example, John Milbank—a debate well documented in Billings’ book Calvin, Participation and the Gift. See especially chs. 1, 2 and 6.

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the beginning, says Pighius. Calvin responded to the accusation by claiming that he had

always taught the goodness of the original creation. Human nature was created good, pure

and righteous, and the subsequent corruption of the human nature dates to Adam’s

voluntary fall. The concept of original evil—that is, an evil human nature from creation—

derives from the Manichean heresy, to which Pighius charged Calvin of subscribing. In reply,

Calvin argued, “Adam was certainly created according to the image of God, and adorned

with remarkable gifts of righteousness, truth and wisdom.”5 However, Adam’s ingratitude

led to the loss of those gifts both for himself and for his offspring. Humanity is evil

according to Adam’s sinful act of disobedience, not according to Adam’s nature or origin.

Therefore, one may view humanity from two perspectives, “first in that condition of

innocence in which he was created, and second in that wretchedness into which he has fallen

through his own fault.”6 From his own perspective, Calvin “[was] not being ‘negative’ about

humanity, but ‘negative’ about sin.”7

In defense of the distinction between humanity as created and humanity as fallen,

Calvin utilized the Aristotelian distinction between substance and ‘accident.’ The substance

of humanity, that is, human nature qua human nature, is not evil—to believe such would be

to fall into the error of the Manicheans. Rather, sin, evil and corruption are ‘accidental’ to

human nature because they are extrinsic to the created substance of humanity. Calvin asked,

“What similarity…is there between substance and accident? Between God’s creation and

corruption brought on himself by man?”8 Adam’s fall is a “contingent [literally, ‘accidental’]

5. Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 46-7. 6. Ibid., 46. 7. Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 45. 8. Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 47.

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corruption” and Pighius’ failure to maintain the distinction between the original substance of

humanity and the subsequent ‘accidental’ corruption led to confusion.9 The term contingent

does not bear the connotation of being outside of God’s will. Bearing in mind Calvin’s use

of Aristotle, ‘contingent’ denotes that the Fall did not originate in Adam’s created nature.

Just as one may be anxious or content without ceasing to be human, so Adam and his

offspring became sinful through his act of disobedience without ceasing to be human.10

Were sin inherent to human nature would be to fall back into the error of Mani. In fact,

Calvin returned Pighius’ accusation of Manichaeism with one of his own. By claiming that

humanity lost no part of its natural abilities, only the supernatural gifts of God, Pighius failed

to adequately distinguish between the natural goodness of human nature and its ‘accidental’

corruption, making him liable to the charge of heresy.11

Calvin’s distinction between original and corrupt human nature allowed him to

interpret the Church Fathers in his favor. Where they spoke positively of free choice, they

referred not to fallen human nature, but unfallen. Irenaeus, for example, defended the

goodness of human free choice against the Manicheans and therefore referred to man’s

9. “Without this distinction, it is not surprising if he gets everything confused.” Ibid., 186. Cf., Calvin,

The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 75 n. 213, 84 n. 259 and 144 n.45. 10. The use of ‘contingent’ in the above citation belongs to the translator, which causes great

confusion as to whether he means ‘unplanned’ or, in the Aristotelian sense, ‘undetermined by nature’. By reading Calvin more fully, one understands that the latter interpretation of contingent is more appropriate; in which case, the author’s translation is unhelpful and may lead readers astray. In several other places in the text, Calvin utilizes the Latin terms accidisse and substantiale to contrast fallen and unfallen human nature. This usage clarifies Calvin’s intent to teach an ‘unnatural’ fall rather than one outside of God’s sovereignty. See also the translator’s introduction, where he discusses Calvin’s use of Aristotle in this treatise, Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, xxiv-xxvi.

11. Ibid., 186. Pighius’ doctrine of original sin was controversial in the Roman Catholic Church as

well. In 1624, his Free Choice was placed on the list of prohibited books, signaling the final rejection of his doctrine. For more on the history of his doctrine, see Anthony N. S. Lane, “Albert Pighius’s Controversial Work on Original Sin,” Reformation and Renaissance Review 4 (2000).

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original condition “at a time when he was still pure and possessed of the image of God.”12

The same argument holds true for Cyprian, Basil, Tertullian, and Origen. For those passages

that appeared to support human free choice, Calvin presented Pighius with a dilemma: either

the person in question referred to humanity in its unfallen state or he was ignorant of

original sin and equated uncorrupted with corrupted human nature, thereby falling into

heresy.13 In this manner, Calvin read Augustine’s later works against his earlier ones; those

sections that appeared to support human free choice referred to humanity’s created, unfallen

state.14 For example, to defend against the Manichean doctrine of original evil, Augustine

claimed that humanity is renewed through its capacity to control its desires. Pighius claimed

Augustine spoke of human free choice, but Calvin, reading the later Augustine, argued that

he referred not to human ability but to God’s gracious deliverance from bondage, resulting

in human freedom to overcome sinful desires by the Spirit. Indeed, the proper work of grace

“is to restore the nature that has fallen and has been overturned and make it stand upright.”15

What humanity lost in the fall, God restored in redemption.

This leads to the second important argument for union with Christ in Calvin’s

defense against Pighius, namely, that grace does not destroy human nature but enables it to

rightly respond to God’s prior action. In the 1539 Institutes, Calvin seemed to teach the

destruction of the will in redemption. To effect restoration, God destroys the human will,

12. Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 71. 13. Calvin’s requisition of the Church Fathers in defense of his own position can be found throughout

the treatise. Indeed, apart from the Institutes, this treatise contains the most patristic citations from any of Calvin’s works. For the use of the particular argument cited above, see pp. 69-72.

14. Augustine himself justifies such a reading in his Retractations, an argument of which Calvin

repeatedly reminds Pighius. Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 94, 99. 15. Ibid., 99.

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substituting a good will of his own creation.16 In other words, the human will is completely

effaced and replaced with something wholly of God.17 God must “wipe out what is ours” to

bring about restoration.18 If indeed humanity is completely fallen and incapable of doing

good, “he can of himself be nothing but evil,” thereby precluding any action on humanity’s

part in salvation.19 However, one must remember that Calvin was speaking of fallen human

nature. Humanity was created with a good will and the ability to do good. However, the will

is now captive to sin, unable to do anything but evil and in order to do good, it must be

renewed to its original nature by God. Because humanity is incapable of renewing itself to

repentance, God must perform the work wholly and completely. That God is the ultimate

source of regeneration is attested in Scripture, which “assigns the goodness of both root and

fruit entirely to God alone.”20 According to Calvin, God is the author of any good work, but

that does not result in the destruction of the will. To avoid such a conclusion, Calvin

distinguished between the ‘substance’ and ‘habit’ of the will. Calvin drew upon Bernard of

Clairvaux’s threefold distinction: to will, to will badly and to will well.21 The former refers to

the capacity to will or the ‘substance’ of the will, the other two ‘habits’ or qualities of the will

that may alternately be predicated of it. Calvin asserted that the former remains unchanged

despite the fall, whereas evil willingly results from the corruption of human nature. The

ability to will well is only restored by the regeneration of the Spirit. In sum, “the will is not

16. Calvin, Institutes, 2.3.7. 17. Calvin, Institutes, 2.3.6. 18. Calvin, Institutes, 2.5.15. 19. Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, 149. 20. Ibid., 200. 21. For Calvin’s use of Bernard and the ensuing discussion, see Ibid., 209.

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evil by nature (that is, by God’s creation) but by the corruption of nature, and [it] cannot be

otherwise until it is changed to be good by the grace of the Holy Spirit.”22 When Calvin

mentioned destruction of ‘what is ours,’ he meant “what we have in ourselves apart from

God’s creation”—that is, the corruption inherent in fallen human nature—rather than its

substance.23

The preceding discussion of Calvin’s treatise against Pighius highlights the

fundamental compatibility between God and humanity, despite evidence to the contrary.

According to Calvin, humanity is not opposed to God because of nature (i.e., creation) but

because of the fall. The “natural disposition” of opposition to God refers not to humanity’s

original state in the garden but to the ensuing, inherent corruption of the human race

stemming from Adam’s disobedience.24 One detects the influence of Calvin’s commitment

to the Pauline structure of theology in 1539. Destruction of the will corresponds to the death

of the ‘old man’, or flesh, through union with Christ via Romans 6. Thus humanity is not

naturally at odds with God, it is such only by ‘accidental’ corruption. Using the image of the

vine and branches in John 15, Calvin argued that humanity is only capable of producing

good works through communion with Christ.25 One must not divide the agency of salvation

between God and humanity, for the latter cannot even move toward God without the

prevenient grace of the Spirit.26 God bends the heart to assent to the Gospel, an assent

22. Ibid., 210. 23. Ibid., 212 and 227. 24. Cf. Ibid., 213. 25. “Just as the branch can neither bear leaves nor flower nor bring forth fruit when separated from

the vine, but quickly becomes completely dry [and] even on the vine requires constant care and pruning—so we apart from him have absolutely no strength or power to attain to true (that is, spiritual) life and the actions proper to it, but are altogether useless.” Ibid., 229-30.

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“properly called ours, but not in such a way that it should be understood to derive from

us.”27 Pighius seeks to honor human independent effort by splitting agency halfway between

God and humanity; Calvin’s opposition arose from his contention that humanity is

fundamentally united to God and only rightly constituted in relationship to God. Human free

choice does not compete with the work of the Spirit. On the contrary, the Holy Spirit

enables humanity to recover true freedom in its obedience to God and in union with him. In

sum, God created humanity for union with him, a union damaged by sin and restored via

redemption in Christ. Therefore, union with God is not only possible, but is the proper

result of salvation. Contrary to Bainton’s negative assessment of union with God in Calvin’s

theology, the arguments in The Bondage and Liberation of the Will attest that “one must not

think of full humanity as essentially independent or autonomous from divinity; the two must

be thought of together in a manner of interpenetration.”28 Calvin later defended the concept

of divine-human communion without confusion most vigorously in the Eucharistic

controversies of the 1550s.

Calvin Against Westphal

The genesis of Calvin’s disputes with Westphal was the agreement between the

churches of Geneva and Zurich regarding the Lord’s Supper, signed in May 1549. Fearing

the military encroachment of the Roman Catholic forces—which had already invaded

Constance and were poised to invade Zurich—Calvin and Bullinger sought to resolve the

26. For example, “The will conceives nothing except evil until it is preceded by the Spirit.” Ibid., 105. 27. Ibid., 120. Calvin here uses the term ‘proper’ in the Medieval Scholastic sense, ‘logically’ or

‘rightly,’ meaning it is logically appropriate to speak of human assent as a truly human action, though it is only possible because of God’s prior action in the Spirit.

28. Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 45.

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impasse created by the Marburg Colloquy by drawing up the Mutual Consent in Regard to the

Sacraments, or Consensus Tigurinus, which solidified both military and theological alliance.29

Calvin hoped a mutual consent between Geneva and Zurich would help heal the breach

between the Germans and the Swiss. However, when Westphal read the document the

authors’ statement regarding the absurdity of Christ’s physical presence—“we deem it no

less absurd to place Christ under the bread or couple him with the bread than to

transubstantiate the bread into his body”30—infuriated him. Inclined to a rigid interpretation

of Luther’s Eucharistic theology, Westphal deemed the Consensus a triumph of Zwingli’s

sacramentarianism; in the doctrine of the Eucharist presented in the Consensus, the Swiss left

nothing but empty signs. In 1552, he took up the offensive against the Swiss, especially

Calvin, by publishing Farrago of Confused and Divergent Opinions on the Lord’s Supper Taken from

the Books of the Sacramentarians, in which he sought to expose the confused and divergent

interpretations of the words of institution among his opponents. In 1553, he published an

exposition of 1 Corinthians 11 in an attempt to exposit what he saw as the correct

interpretation of the sacraments.

Westphal’s treatises did not come to the attention of the Swiss reformers until

months later, and even then, Bullinger, Calvin, Viret, and John Laski debated as to whether

29. Tylenda’s interpretation of the events leading up to the Consensus overemphasizes the theological

agreement and import when he writes, “as long as these [minor differences] remained undefined they proved a source of uneasiness.” J. N. Tylenda, “Calvin and Westphal: Two Eucharistic Theologies in Conflict,” in Calvin’s Books: Festschrift Dedicated to Peter De Klerk on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Wilhelm H. Neusner, Herman J. Selderhuis, and Willem Van ’t Spijker. (Heerenveen: J. J. Groen, 1997), 10. While theological differences had import for the agreement, political tension in the area supplied the momentum for overcoming those differences. Furthermore, the differences were hardly ‘minor’, though they were less divisive than the disagreement between the Zurichers and Lutherans. See Timothy George, “John Calvin and the Agreement of Zurich (1549),” in Calvin Studies IV, ed. John H. Leith and W. Stacy Johnson. 25-40. (Davidson, NC: Colloquium on Calvin Studies, Year); Paul Rorem, “Calvin and Bullinger on the Lord’s Supper, pt 1: The Impasse,” Lutheran Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1988); Paul Rorem, “Calvin and Bullinger on the Lord’s Supper, pt 2: The Agreement,” Lutheran Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1988).

30. Article 24. The English text of the consensus, as well as Calvin’s first defense against Westphal

appear under the title Mutual Consent in Regard to the Sacraments in TT 2:199-244.

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or not a response to Westphal was necessary and, if so, who should pen the reply. It was not

until December of 1554 that Calvin printed a reply—coupled with a dedicatory letter to the

churches of Saxony31 and the text of the Consensus itself, although it did not appear until

January 1555. Far from defeated, Westphal penned a response to Calvin entitled A Just

Defense against the False Accusations of a Certain Sacramentarian (1555). Though Westphal refused

to name Calvin, the latter was clearly the target of his accusation that the sacramentarians

leave nothing but empty signs in their denial of the physical (real) presence of Christ in the

Supper. By mid-January of 1556, Calvin published his Second Defense of the Pious and Orthodox

faith concerning the Sacraments in Answer to the Calumnies of Joachim Westphal.32 By this point, other

Germans had entered the debate and Theodore Beza feared the controversy would only

increase in ferocity rather than reach resolution, a fear borne out by the facts.33 Backed by

the support of the Saxon churches and armed with confessions from various other churches,

Westphal published The Confession of Faith on the Sacraments in 1557. Weary from the belabored

dispute, Calvin penned his final reply in August of 1557, The Last Admonition of John Calvin to

Joachim Westphal, who if He Heeds it not must henceforth be Treated in the Way which Paul Prescribed for

Obstinate Heretics.34 The title evinced Calvin’s determination to ignore any further polemics

Westphal offered. Indeed, when Westphal refused to back down, Calvin treated his Apology

concerning the Defense of the Lord’s Supper against the Errors and Calumnies of John Calvin (1558) with

31. Calvin hoped this gesture would win the support of Melanchthon and his followers among the

German churches. As Tylenda points out, Calvin underestimated the pervasiveness of Westphal’s interpretation and overestimated Melanchthon’s influence. See J. N. Tylenda, “The Calvin-Westphal Exchange: The Genesis of Calvin’s Treatises Against Westphal,” Calvin Theological Journal 9, no. 2 (1974), 196, 204.

32. The English text of this treatise appears in TT 2: 245-345. 33. Three other ministers penned replies to Calvin in 1556-7: Matthäus Judex, Erhard Schnepff, and

Paul Von Eitzen. Tylenda, “The Calvin-Westphal Exchange,” 203. 34. The English text appears in TT 2:346-494.

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disdain, choosing to bequeath the controversy to his successor, Beza.35 Though Calvin did

not see resolution of the conflict in his own lifetime, the endeavor left an indelible mark on

his theology. The years of rigorous debate forced Calvin to exposit more clearly his

Eucharistic doctrine, especially as Westphal frequently attempted to use Calvin’s own words

against him. Most important for his doctrine of union with Christ, the controversy prompted

Calvin to more forcefully defend the nature of true but non-substantial divine-human

communion. His major foci included the integrity of Christ’s human nature, the life-giving

properties of Christ the Mediator in both his divine and human nature, the unity and

distinction between sign (signum) and substance (res), and the ineffable work of the Holy

Spirit to unite things separated by space.

Calvin opposed the Lutheran doctrine of Christ’s presence because it violated his

perception of Christ’s human nature. After his ascension, “Christ has taken his crucified

body to heaven, and therefore it does not continue with us.”36 Calvin valued the historical

events of Christ’s life, especially his statements “I go to the Father” (John 16:10) and “you

do not always have me” (John 12:8). When Christ ascended, he took his body with him and

will not return physically until he comes again to judge the living and the dead; his body “has

been received into the heavens, [and] is absent from the earth,” to claim otherwise would be

to deny the integrity of Christ’s humanity.37 According to Calvin, Westphal utilizes the

35. In the remaining five years before he died, only once did Calvin return to address the issue of the

Lord’s Supper. In 1561, he penned The Clear Explanation of Sound Doctrine concerning the True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper to Dissipate the Mists of Tileman Heshusius (TT 2:495-572). After this reply, Calvin again deferred to Beza.

36. John Calvin, Second Defense of the Sacraments in answer to the Calumnies of Westphal (hereafter, Second

Defense), TT 2:287. 37. Calvin, The Second Defense, TT 2:327. Cf. Peter J. Leithart, “What’s Wrong with Transubstantiation?

An Evaluation of Theological Models,” Westminster Theological Journal 53, no. 2 (1991), 319: “Calvin’s basic concern was to emphasize that there has been a real progress in redemptive history; Christ is no longer in a

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communicatio idiomatum (communication of properties) to exempt Christ’s body from natural

properties, that is, circumscription to a place or locality, for “if we take away locality from

bodies they will be situated nowhere, and consequently not exist.”38 Calvin contends for the

reality and integrity of Christ’s humanity: human bodies are limited to one location at a time.

Since Christ has taken his body to heaven until the second coming, it remains in heaven and

cannot be locally or physically present in the Eucharist.

Calvin’s accusation that Westphal confuses the two natures of Christ reveals his

underlying motivation to safeguard the Chalcedonian formula of ‘without confusion, without

change.’ Calvin claimed a ubiquitous body violates the distinction of the two natures, for “if

the flesh of Christ is so conjoined to the Godhead that there is no distinction between the

immensity of one and the finite mode of existence of the other, why does Westphal contend

that Christ is present by his grace in any other way than by his Deity?”39 However, Calvin’s

opponents claimed that he dissolved the integrity of Christ’s personhood by circumscribing

Christ’s body to a specific location. In other words, they believed his distinction between the

divine and human natures of Christ voided the unity of Christ’s person. In response, Calvin

defended both the unity of Christ’s person and the distinction between the two natures.

Calvin contended that one must not rob the humanity of Christ of its proper qualities, yet

although Christ’s body dwells in heaven, “still he fills all things by his virtue and grace.”40

Circumscription of Christ’s physical body to heaven in no way denies Christ’s person of its

state of humiliation, but in a state of exaltation, having ascended and risen to the heavenlies.”

38. Calvin, Last Admonition to Joachim Westphal (hereafter, Last Admonition), TT 2:382. 39. Calvin, Last Admonition, TT 2:286. 40. Ibid., 421. This is the so-called extra-Calvinisticum. For a brief but useful overview of this topic, see

Heiko A. Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 234-258.

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life-giving properties. True and real communion with Christ “consists in our ascent to

heaven and requires no other descent in Christ than of Spiritual grace.”41 It is unnecessary

for Christ to move his body to give life to his members because he is present by the Spirit,

not by the flesh. Thus, Calvin attempts to safeguard the integrity of Christ’s two natures

without improperly confusing them or dissipating Christ’s human nature in favor of the

divine.

Calvin’s appeal to a true and real communion with Christ in the Supper rejected the

local presence of Christ’s flesh in the Supper but maintained that Christ’s flesh and blood

was its life-giving ‘substance.’ Christ alone is the spiritual food “by whose substance our

souls are fed and live,”42 and “the body and blood of Christ are truly offered to us in the

Supper in order to give life to our souls.”43 Just as bread and wine nourish the body, so

Christ vivifies the soul of the believer through the spiritual eating of his flesh and blood in

the Supper. Indeed, Christ assumes human nature for the purpose of “giving life to our souls

by communication with it.”44 Participation in Christ’s flesh, however, does not imply any

mingling of substance. Christ infuses life into his members by means of his life-giving flesh

and blood, but Calvin “den[ied] that there is any mingling of substance”45 because the entire

man Christ—that is, his divinely incarnate body—remains in heaven. Believers are fed when

Christ infuses life into them by means of the spiritual communion with his flesh and blood

in the sacraments. In other words, believers are nourished when they are drawn to heaven to

41. Calvin, Second Defense, TT 2:281. 42. Ibid., 278. 43. Ibid., 248. Cf. Calvin, Last Admonition, TT 2:368, “the two things—the body of Christ, and the

vivifying food—are synonymous.” 44. Calvin, Last Admonition, TT 2:472. 45. Ibid., 401. See below for a discussion of how Calvin utilizes the term ‘substance’.

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participate in his eschatological life. One finds life only in Christ, that is, “not merely in

respect of his being God, as Westphal perversely misinterprets, but as the members must

always be united to the head so we hold that the Mediator who assumed our nature is

present with believers.”46 For Calvin, participation in Christ applied not merely to the divine

nature, as would a ubiquitous body, but to the entire Christ as the divine-human Mediator,

which required an intact human nature. Believers truly feed on the substance of Christ’s flesh

and blood, but this refers not to the mode of Christ’s presence (i.e., physical) but to the

efficacy of the life-giving properties of Christ’s flesh.

Calvin preserved a non-substantial union with Christ in the Supper by distinguishing

between the signum and res. Early in the debate, Westphal claimed the rejection of Christ’s

physical presence left only empty signs. Calvin responded with the accusation that Westphal

had too closely associated the signum of the Supper, the bread and wine, with the res, Christ’s

life-giving flesh and blood.47 For Calvin, “the bread is not the empty picture of an absent

thing, but a true and faithful pledge of our union with Christ.”48 The sacraments are seals

and testimonies and because God faithfully performs what he promises, one cannot claim

the sacraments are empty. One may distinguish between the outward sign and the inward

grace God effects, but “we do not disjoin the reality from the signs.”49 On the other hand,

one may not completely conjoin signum and res, something Calvin accused both the

Romanists and the Lutherans of doing. The sacramental signification Calvin argued for was

“a true identification of the signa with res by way of metonymy, indicat[ing] the closest

46. Ibid., 384. 47. “For Calvin, union with Christ in his flesh and blood is the res of the sacraments.” Garcia, Life in

Christ, 151. 48. Calvin, Second Defense, TT 2:276. 49. Ibid., 274.

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possible unity yet prevent[ing] confusion.”50 Christ is “truly exhibited,” or offered, in the

Supper but not such as requires his substantial, that is, physical or local, presence.51 Ubiquity

abolishes the intended anagogue between the earthly signs and heavenly reality.52 Calvin

insists on distinction,

that an analogy is drawn between the sign and the visible action and the spiritual reality. For to what end does Christ hold forth a pledge of his flesh and blood under earthly elements unless it be to raise us upwards? If they are helps to our weakness, no man will ever attain to the reality, but he who thus assisted shall climb, as it were, step by step from earth to heaven.53

According to Calvin, Westphal failed to adequately discern between the signum and res of the

Supper, resulting in the gross mixture Christ’s substance with the believer’s. For Calvin,

Eucharistic communion did not involve transfusion or mixture of substances; however, the

communion he spoke of was no less real.

Calvin agreed with Westphal that God offers true communion with Christ in the

Supper by means of the presence of Christ’s flesh and blood. Nevertheless, he rejected

Westphal’s assessment of the mode of Christ’s presence. For Westphal, the mode was carnal

and physical but Calvin declared it to be spiritual. Far from imaginary or mythical, the

spiritual nature of the sacrament meant the Holy Spirit’s special role in accomplishing

communion with the risen Christ, since “it is owing to the secret and incomprehensible

50. Garcia, Life in Christ, 162. 51. Calvin defended the authority of the 1540 edition of the Augsburg confession, known as the

Variata. In this later version, the section in question reads, “Concerning the Lord’s Supper, they teach that with bread and wine are truly exhibited the body and blood of Christ to those that eat in the Lord’s Supper.” This differs from the original, unaltered version (Invariata) of 1530-31, which Westphal defended against Calvin. It read, “Concerning the Lord’s Supper, they teach that the body and blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed (communicated) to those that eat in the Lord’s Supper. And they disapprove of those that teach otherwise.” Emphasis original, to show the differences in language., Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom: With a History and Critical Notes, 4th ed., 3 vols., vol. 1 (New York: Harper, 1877) 237.

52. For a helpful discussion of Calvin’s use of analogy and anagogy, see Randall C. Zachman, John

Calvin As Teacher, Pastor, and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 209-229.

53. Calvin, Second Defense, TT 2:250.

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virtue of the Spirit that Christ truly feeds our souls from heaven with the substance of his

flesh and blood.”54 Though present in heaven, Christ feeds his followers on earth with his

flesh, overcoming the distance of space by “employing the agency of his Spirit to inspire life

into us from his flesh.”55 The Spirit alone is the sacred bond between Christ the head and his

members, “raising our souls upward by faith, [to infuse] life into us from the heavenly

head.”56 Note the similarity with Calvin’s concept of union with Christ more generally: no

extent of space interferes with this communion, the Spirit alone bridges the gap by bringing

Christ down to the communicant at the same time as he raises her upward to feed on the

flesh and blood of Christ and thus participate in heavenly life with him.57 Though dwelling

on the earth, human persons commune with Christ through the secret energy (or bond) of

the Spirit. The link between salvation and the sacraments is clear in that “the sacraments

signify the reality which is the content of the unio Christi-duplex gratia [union with Christ,

double grace] construction.”58 The Spirit is the bond of Eucharistic communion in particular

and the mystical union with Christ more generally.59

One detects a further similarity in Calvin’s argument against promiscuous

54. Calvin, Last Admonition, TT 2:486. 55. Calvin, Second Defense, TT 2:287. 56. Calvin, Last Admonition, TT 2:390. 57. Billings argues for a non-spatial understanding of ‘space’ or ‘distance’, claiming Calvin regards

‘distance’ as “not literally one of space, but one of transcendence” Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 137-9. Rather than being enclosed or contained, spiritual nourishment through Christ’s body is given or offered so that believers might proleptically taste the life-giving power of heaven on earth. Calvin’s statement regarding Christ’s (non-)locality after the ascension supports Billings’ assessment, “our reason for denying that Christ is concealed under the bread is, not because he is not properly inclosed (sic) by place, but because superior to all elements he dwells beyond the world.” Calvin, Second Defense, TT 2:290. Christ’s physical presence in heaven, then, refers not to a place “midway among the spheres” (i.e., a physical location similar to a city or church) but the palace of God that transcends “all this world’s fabric.” Ibid.

58. Garcia, Life in Christ, 153. 59. Cf. Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1.

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participation in the Supper—the idea, advanced by Westphal, that unbelievers participate in

the flesh and blood of Christ. According to Calvin, if the Spirit “transfuses into use the

vivifying influence of his flesh,”60 and Christ is never without his Spirit, participation in the

flesh and blood of Christ must, of necessity, be life-giving. Calvin objected to the separation

of Christ’s substance from its effect because by doing so “Christ is rendered lifeless and is

severed by sacrilegiously divorce from his Spirit and all his virtue.”61 The Supper is a pledge

of union with Christ; therefore, “if the Eucharist is the means of growing in faith and

confirming our union with the Head, how can an unbeliever who is not united to Christ,

receive it?”62 In attempting to apply the substance of Christ—his life-giving flesh and

blood—to the Supper without the subsequent vivifying effects, Westphal and his followers

severed Christ from the Spirit. In order to preserve the economic unity between the Son and

Spirit, Calvin distinguished between Christ offered and Christ received. The flesh and blood

of Christ are offered to all yet “believers alone enjoy the inestimable treasure”63 because

“there is a wide difference between offering and receiving,”64 stemming from faith. The gifts

God offers for salvation are received by faith alone, therefore only believers partake of

Christ and his benefits, including communion with his flesh and blood in the Supper. While

this may appear to make Christ’s presence dependent upon the faith of the communicant,

Calvin rejected the implication by again asserting the difference between offering and

receiving. Christ is always offered in the sacraments, just as forgiveness is truly offered to all,

60. Calvin, Second Defense, TT 2:282. 61. Ibid., 303. 62. Kilian McDonnell, John Calvin, the Church, and the Eucharist (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1967), 186. 63. Calvin, Last Admonition, TT 2:402. 64. Calvin, Second Defense, TT 2:304.

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yet only faith makes one a partaker of Christ but not in such a way as negates the offer. In

other words, the offer is always valid, but reception of the benefits is contingent upon faith.

Contrary to Westphal’s assertion, true communion with the risen Christ in the sacrament

must therefore be limited to those who have the Spirit dwelling within them.

Calvin’s protracted controversy with Westphal regarding the ‘true’ nature of Christ’s

presence in the sacrament clarified his concept of true, non-substantial divine-human

communion. As in his doctrine of union with Christ, Calvin eagerly safeguarded the ‘without

confusion, without change’ of the Chalcedonian formula. He contended ubiquity confused

the Christ divine nature with his ascended human nature, resulting in the former overriding

the latter. Because Christ’s body is located in heaven, communion with the flesh and blood

of Christ in the Supper must be non-substantial. Nevertheless, life is found only in Christ,

therefore true communion with his flesh and blood must occur. Both these assertions

implicate his more general doctrine of union with Christ. The first safeguards the Creator-

creature distinction while the second asserts the reality of the communion despite its non-

substantial character. To more securely guard against substantial mixture of Christ with his

followers, Calvin distinguished between the signum and res of the sacraments without their

separation. Because union with Christ is the res of the sacrament, to argue for an unbelieving

communion with Christ’s flesh and blood in the sacrament severs Christ from his Spirit.

Christ is never without his Spirit, therefore eating the Supper must be vivifying in the same

way that union with Christ in justification requires subsequent sanctification. To dissever one

from the other effectively tears Christ (and his Spirit) to pieces. One cannot partake of the

objective presence or reality without subjective transformation. Calvin’s scrupulous defense

of non-substantial union with Christ against Westphal set the stage for his rejection of

Osiander, with whom he was associated during the Eucharistic controversy.

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Calvin Against Osiander

In recent years, Osiander has become the object of sustained academic inquiry,

leading to the publication of his works in German and a proliferation of articles rejecting or

defending his theological assertions.65 A theologian of some (mostly ill) repute,66 Osiander is

most widely known for his controversial doctrines of justification, the imago dei and union

with Christ. He was born in 1498 and ordained as a Catholic priest in 1520. Immediately

after being appointed to a parish in Nuremburg in 1522, he publicly aligned himself with the

Lutheran party. After refusing to sign the Augsburg Interim (1548) while pasturing his flock

at Nuremburg, he resigned his post. He arrived in Könisberg early in 1549, where he was

appointed a position as professor of theology at the university, due almost entirely to Count

Albrecht of Prussia’s fondness for him. In 1550 he published his controversial treatise on

justification—Disputatio de Justificatione—sparking a flurry of Lutheran response to his

proposal that justification occurs through the indwelling of the divine essence of Christ

rather than through a forensic declaration. He claimed Melanchthon taught a doctrine of

justification “colder than ice, that we are accounted righteous only on account of the

remission of sins, and not also on account of the righteousness of the Christ dwelling in us

65. Osiander’s works were published in German as Andreas Osiander d. Ä. Gesamtausggabe. 10 vols.

Vols. 1-6 ed. Gerhard Müller; vols. 7-10 commissioned by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, ed. Gottfried Seebass. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1975-1995. Unfortunately, the work is in German, as is much of the relevant literature, making it inaccessible for this thesis. The most significant works in English used in this study are: Julie Canlis, “Calvin, Osiander and Participation in God,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6, no. 2 (2004); Mark A. Garcia, “Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ: Calvin, Osiander, and the Contemporary Quest for a Reformed Model,” Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006); Mark A. Garcia, Life in Christ, 197-252; Carl J. Lawrenz, “On Justification: Osiander’s Doctrine of the Indwelling Christ,” in No Other Gospel: Essays in Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the Formula of Concord, 1580-1980, ed. Arnold J. Koelpin. (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1980); James Weis, “Calvin Versus Osiander On Justification,” The Springfielder 29 (1965); Patricia Wilson-Kastner, “Andreas Osiander’s Theology of Grace in the Perspective of the Influence of Augustine of Hippo,” Sixteenth Century Journal 10, no. 2 (1979).

66. Of the relevant literature surveyed, only Wilson-Kastner argues from a self-consciously positive

assessment of Osiander’s theology.

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by faith.”67 Justification by imputation left only a ‘legal fiction,’ whereby God justifies those

who are not, in fact, righteous. Claiming the support of Luther, Osiander argued from

Jeremiah 23:6—“The Lord is our righteousness”—to advance the idea that Christ is our

justification by means of his divine nature rather than his human nature.68 Justification is the

indwelling of the divine nature of Christ in the soul by faith, blurring the distinction between

justification and sanctification as well as minimizing the importance of Christ’s humanity and

his work on the cross. Deeply connected to these issues was Osiander’s assertion that God

created humanity in the image of Christ not only as regards the soul and its faculties (e.g.,

Calvin) but also according to the pre-ordained incarnation of Christ. For Osiander, Christ’s

future humanity served as the prototype for Adam’s humanity, and Christ would therefore

have become incarnate even if Adam had not fallen. His controversial understanding of

justification coupled with his differing insights into the imago dei and union with the

indwelling divine Christ made him the object of Lutheran polemic in the few years leading

up to his death in 1552.

What began as an intra-Lutheran debate over justification soon became an interfaith

controversy involving the Reformed camp when both Westphal and Heshusius accused

Calvin of touting a theology akin to Osiander. During the Eucharistic controversies of the

1550s, Westphal accused Calvin of despising a ‘humiliated Christ’ in favor of the exalted,

risen Christ.69 Heshusius accused him of rejecting the presence of Christ’s humanity in the

Supper, leaving only the divinity and thus associating himself with Osiander. Calvin’s

67. Quoted in Reinhold Seeberg, A Text-Book of the History of Doctrines, trans. C. E. Hay, 2 vols., vol. 1

(Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1905), 370. 68. Garcia helpfully sums up the Lutheran background and response to the issue Osiander raises

regarding Lutheran authority in Garcia, Life in Christ, 200-208. 69. For Calvin’s response to Westphal’s accusation see Last Admonition, TT 2:488.

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response to the latter is emphatic: “Osiander imagined that righteousness is conferred on us

by the Deity of Christ. I showed, on the contrary, that salvation and life are to be sought

from the flesh of Christ in which he sanctified himself, and in which he consecrated Baptism

and the Supper. It will be there also seen how completely I have disposed of his dream of

essential righteousness.”70 Calvin referred Heshusius to his previously published 1559 edition

of the Institutes in which he devoted numerous passages to refuting the various doctrines of

Osiander’s theology including the imago dei and incarnation (1.15.3-5 and 2.12.5-7) and the

locus of topics centered around justification, union with Christ, sanctification, and divine

indwelling (3.11.5-12).

One of Calvin’s most substantial additions to his final edition of the Institutes was his

lengthy refutation of Osiander’s doctrine of justification by essential indwelling, found in

3.11.5-12. Osiander, Calvin asserted, “has introduced some strange monster of ‘essential’

righteousness.”71 According to Calvin, Osiander rightly argued for union with Christ, but his

lack of recourse to the “bond of this unity”—that is, the Holy Spirit—led him to propose a

doctrine bordering on Manichaeism.72 For Calvin, Osiander’s fundamental error was his lack

of recognition of the Spirit’s role as the vinculum or bond of union with Christ. Without the

Holy Spirit to mediate the communion, Osiander transfuses the divine essence into

humanity. Instead of a Spirit-mediated union with the divine-human Mediator, Christ

indwells the believer according to his divine nature, transfusing into her his divine

righteousness for justification. Calvin accepted the former principle but denied any mixture

70. Calvin, The True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, TT 2:554. 71. Calvin, Institutes 3.11.5. 72. Ibid.

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of Christ’s essence with the believer.73 For Calvin, the presence and work of the Spirit

safeguarded against any confusion with or mixture of deity with humanity. When explaining

union with Christ, one must always consider the “manner of the indwelling—namely, that

the Father and Spirit are in Christ, and even as the fullness of deity dwells in him, so in him

we possess the whole of deity.”74 Believers are united to the Triune God in Christ, but it

does not occur through essential mixture but rather through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Calvin repudiated Osiander’s assertions of ‘essential righteousness’ but denied that

they would have been as pernicious had Osiander not also confounded justification and

sanctification. According to Osiander, ‘righteousness’ alluded not only to forgiveness of sins

but also to being made righteous. This ‘double righteousness’ followed from the indwelling

essence of God in Christ rather than by free imputation, negating the value of Christ’s

earthly obedience unto death and priestly mediation. The righteousness of Christ flows from

his eternal Godhead rather than his human obedience because in the Old Testament,

Yahweh himself promised to be ‘our righteousness’.75 Osiander rejection the forensic

definition of justification, preferring to assert that Christ, “make[s] us alive and just from the

death of sin, and that sin, which is already forgiven, but nevertheless still dwells and inheres

73. Contrary to Canlis’ assertion, Calvin is not fundamentally opposed to the language of ‘substance’

or ‘substantial’ participation. She claims, “whereas Osiander worked in substantial categories, Calvin worked in Spirit-categories”; Canlis “Calvin, Osiander and Participation in God,” 177. On the contrary, Calvin utilizes ‘substance’ in a positive way in his commentaries on 1 Corinthians and Ephesians, retaining the use of such language through their final editions. Canlis fails to account for Calvin’s differing use of the term ‘substance’. Wendel notes that Calvin uses the term in at least three different senses: the scholastic sense (i.e., a technical term akin to ‘essence’), with the sense of ‘foundation’ or with reference to spiritual gifts. See Wendel, Calvin, 341-42. Leithart on the other hand, argues that Calvin’s usage parallels patristic usage, where the term “was simply a way of emphasizing the reality of Christ’s self-communication.” Leithart, “What’s Wrong with Transubstantiation?” 316. For Calvin, the term refers to the efficaciousness and reality of communion rather than a physical mixture of essence. Calvin objects to the term substance when utilized by the Lutherans because they employ the term in its technical, Aristotelian sense. For Calvin, to say union with Christ involves his ‘substance’ means that it is real, not that it involves his essence.

74. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.5. 75. Jeremiah 23:6.

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in our flesh, may be altogether mortified and destroyed in us. And this, first of all, is the act

of our justification.”76 The verb ‘to justify’ meant not to declare righteous but to make

righteous. Osiander sought to defend the importance of regeneration for justification against

the accusation of a ‘legal fiction’, but Calvin charged him with collapsing the necessary

distinction between the two graces. Osiander’s organizing principle was that “justification

and vivification are inseparable, and in a real sense identical.”77 Calvin conceded the

fundamental union of the two, but denied their identification. Reminiscent of his

phraseology in Romans, Calvin argued “as Christ cannot be torn into parts, so these two

which we perceive in him together and conjointly are inseparable—namely, righteousness

and sanctification.”78 Rather than conjoining the two, Calvin grounded both of them in the

person and work of Christ himself. Using the metaphor of the sun, Calvin proposed that just

as light and heat are both indivisibly connected to each other because of their common

source and yet cannot be confused with the other, so the double-grace of justification and

sanctification must be distinguished, yet without separation. The Apostle Paul’s statement in

1 Corinthians 1:30—that is, that is made for us righteousness and sanctification—clearly

indicated to Calvin that “to be justified means something different from being made new

creatures.”79

Calvin also repudiated Osiander’s conjunction of faith with Christ. Faith, according

to Osiander, has no power to justify in itself and any reference in Scripture referring to

justifying faith utilized synecdoche—that is, using a part (faith) to represent the whole

76. Osiander, Concerning the Only Mediator, cited in Lawrenz, “On Justification,” 165. 77. Wilson-Kastner, “Andreas Osiander’s Theology of Grace,” 81. Emphasis added. 78. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.6. 79. Calvin, Institutes 3.11.6.

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(Christ). When Scripture speaks of faith justifying, it refers not to faith only but to Christ

apprehended by faith. Only “Christ in faith” justifies, never “naked faith.”80 Calvin accepted

Osiander’s definition of faith, calling it an empty vessel that receives Christ. Properly

speaking, God alone justifies the sinner, but insofar as believers apprehend or receive Christ

by faith, faith is improperly said to justify. However, Calvin accused Osiander of confusing

faith—the instrument for receiving righteousness—with Christ himself, the material cause,

author and minister of righteousness.81 Osiander equated faith with Christ, a concept

worsened by his assertion that Christ is our righteousness according to his divine rather than

his human nature. Faith per se does not justify, only Christ, that is, Christ in his divinity. In

reply, Calvin accused Osiander of dividing Christ. Though Christ could not have acquired

righteousness for us “had he not been eternal God,” he justifies not “according to his divine

nature but in accordance with the dispensation enjoined upon him.”82 Osiander deprived

Christ’s human nature with the office of justifying sinners, but Calvin defended Christ’s

death and resurrection, those works undertaken in his capacity as Mediator, as vehicles of

righteousness and life. It is Christ as the divine-human Mediator who accomplishes and ministers

righteousness, not Christ as eternal God. Were the latter true, the righteousness received by

faith would not be unique to Christ but also the righteousness of the Father and the Spirit.

Therefore, Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 1:30, that Christ was “made for us

righteousness and sanctification” would be an absurdity because Christ in his eternal deity

cannot be “made” anything on our behalf.83 In order for Christ’s economic activity to be

80. Osiander, De Unico Mediatore, quoted in Wilson-Kastner, “Andreas Osiander’s Theology of Grace,”

81. 81. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.7. 82. Ibid., 3.11.8.

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distinguished from his eternal divine essence, righteousness can only be properly predicated

of him as the Mediator. Furthermore, Paul declares Christ to be righteousness according to

his obedience (Rom. 5:19) not according to his divinity.84 Christ accomplishes justification by

his atoning work on the cross, “something that does not comport with his divine nature.”85

Calvin summarizes his teaching with reference to the sacraments:

although they direct our faith to the whole Christ and not to a half-Christ, they teach that the matter both of righteousness and salvation resides in his flesh; not that as a mere man he justifies or quickens by himself, but because it pleased God to reveal in the Mediator what was hidden and incomprehensible in Himself. Accordingly, I usually say that Christ is, as it were, a fountain, open to us, from which we may draw what otherwise would lie hidden in that deep and secret spring, which comes forth to us in the person of the Mediator. In this way and sense, I do not deny that Christ, as he is God and man, justifies us; and also that this work is the common task of the Father and the Holy Spirit; finally, that righteousness of which Christ makes us partakers with himself is the eternal righteousness of the eternal God—provided Osiander accept the firm and clear reasons I have brought forward.86

Calvin was willing to admit that believers receive the divine righteousness, but only within

the limits he prescribed, namely, that Christ justifies according to both the divine and human

natures but the main portion was to be directed to Christ’s flesh as an atoning offering for

sin. Christ’s humanity is the fountain from which believers partake of God’s righteousness in

such a way that it is not diminished or subsumed by the divine nature.

Christ, therefore, truly belongs to the believer who participates in life-giving

communion with her savior. Again, Calvin’s principal objection to Osiander was not the

reality of union with Christ, but the mode. In becoming ours, Christ makes us sharers in all

his benefits because he is the Head and we, the members of his body. Osiander offered a

physical union derived from the commingling of essences; Calvin regarded union to be from

83. Ibid. 84. Ibid., 3.11.9. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid.

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the Holy Spirit. Far from implying a doctrine ‘colder than ice’ Calvin’s conception of

justification united forensic justification with the warmth of vital union with Christ: “we do

not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness

may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in

short, because he deigns to make us one with him.”87 Osiander’s resistance to the starkly

extra nos flavor of Melanchthonian justification led him to reject the imputation of Christ’s

righteousness for justification. Calvin responded to Osiander by maintaining, “Christ extra

nos through the Spirit becomes Christ in nobis.”88 Faith seeks salvation outside itself in Christ

extra nos yet Christ does not remain so. Through union the believer clothes himself with

Christ’s righteousness and becomes one with him. In other words, “the iustia Christi, on the

basis of which a person is justified, is treated as if it were the believer’s possession in the

context of the intimate personal relationship of Christ with the believer.”89 Believers ‘put on’

Christ but Christ can never be confused with the believer.90

Far from making imputation redundant, as Osiander does, Calvin’s doctrine of

imputation safeguarded assurance and protected against a gross mixture of Christ with the

believer. According to Calvin, justification by an intrinsic righteousness of an infused divine

essence, inasmuch as sin is still present, robs believers of assurance and joy. If essential

righteousness were both justification and regeneration, the continued presence of sin would

87. Ibid., 3.11.10. 88. Van ’t Spijker, “‘Extra Nos’ and ‘In Nobis’ by Calvin in a Pneumatological Light,” 44. 89. Chin, “Unio Mystica and Imitatio Christi: The Two-Dimensional Nature of John Calvin’s

Spirituality,” 262. 90. Garcia relates imputation in salvation with the Chalcedonian formula, arguing that imputation

preserves the Creator-creature distinction through union in a way similar to the communicatio idiomatum through the person of Christ in the Chalcedonian formula. Though Calvin nowhere explicitly makes this connection, the conclusion naturally arises from what one does find present in his concern to preserve the union-with-distinction of Christ’s person, the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification and the believer and Christ. See Garcia “Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ,” 243-48.

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be a cause for fear: the believer would continually wonder if the ‘essential righteousness’

present within him were enough to cancel the lingering effects of sin in order to receive

forgiveness. Always pastorally minded, Calvin repudiated any doctrine of justification that

cast weak souls into despair. 91 Utilizing Paul’s claims in Romans 7-8, Calvin undermined

Osiander’s conjunction of justification and sanctification. According to Romans 7,

regeneration is always partial, tainted by the lingering effects of sin, that is, “O wretched man

that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” However, the righteousness of

justification flees to God’s mercy alone, accepting the declaration that none can bring a

charge against the elect (Romans 8:33).92 As regards regeneration, the believer is never

completely free from sin but as regards justification, God’s free mercy alone provides the

assurance of right standing before him. In sum, “whoever wraps up two kinds of

righteousness in order that miserable souls may not repose wholly in God’s mere mercy,

crowns Christ in mockery with a wrath of thorns.”93

Calvin’s responses to Osiander may be summarized as repeated injunctions to

preserve the proper ‘union with distinction’ within various theological loci. Fundamentally,

Osiander fell into confusion because he failed to adequately preserve the Sprit as the vinculum

of union with Christ. Without the proper bond, it is no wonder Osiander confused not only

justification with sanctification but also grossly mixes the essence of Christ and the believer.

Furthermore, Osiander confused Christ with faith, failing to observe the proper distinction

between the instrument (faith) and the material cause (Christ’s righteousness) of justification.

91. “Calvin claims that recognizing God’s free pardon in justification is essential for participating in

Christ through sanctification—so that the Christian life can be a life of gratitude and voluntary obedience to God” Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, 61.

92. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.11. 93. Ibid., 3.11.12.

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Osiander made Christ our righteousness according to his divine, rather than his human

nature. For Calvin, this violated the unity of the two natures in Christ’s role as Mediator.

Finally, essential righteousness blurred right understanding of union with Christ, thus

depriving the believer of the assurance of salvation.

Traditionally, Calvin has been understood as primarily concerned with refuting

Osiander’s aberrant doctrine of justification, thereby dissociating himself from the Lutheran

pastor with whom his detractors associated him.94 Wilson-Kastner argues that Calvin’s

central concern is to separate the divine and human, a theory echoed by others.95 However,

the controversy with Pighius—in which he contended for the fundamental unity of deity and

humanity pre-fall and post-redemption—sets Calvin’s concerns in context. One must also

remember the importance of the Chalcedonian definition in Calvin’s theology.96 Moreover,

Calvin penned his 1559 edition of the Institutes before or around the time Heshusius wrote

his diatribe against the Reformed doctrine of the Supper, making it extremely unlikely that

Calvin’s lengthy refutation of Osiander had that specific Lutheran accusation in view.

However, the context of these accusations—the Eucharistic controversies of the 1550s—

proves to be a more promising explanation for Calvin’s heated polemic against Osiander.97

Calvin’s response bore the weight of the accumulation of his thoughts regarding the

94. For example, Weis, “Calvin Versus Osiander On Justification,” Chin, “Unio Mystica and Imitatio

Christi,” 254, and Wendel, Calvin, 258-60. Interestingly, the latter also concludes that Calvin’s disagreement centered around “[his] fear of anything that might have led to the admission of any deification in man,” leading him to radically distinguish the divine and human natures in Christ. Ibid., 259.

95. For the opinion that Calvin responds to Osiander’s doctrine of justification, Wilson-Kastner,

“Andreas Osiander’s Theology of Grace,” 88. Garcia notes similar responses to Calvin’s work in Marjin de Kroon and Prof. Irena Backus. Both argue that Calvin objects to Osiander’s transgression of the ontological difference between humanity. Garcia, “Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ,” 237 n. 46.

96. Cf. Garcia, “Imputation and The Christology of Union with Christ.” 97. Cf. Garcia, “Imputation and The Christology of Union with Christ,” 236-40; idem. Life in Christ,

241-49.

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specifically Gnesio-Lutheran doctrine of the Eucharist and its implications for soteriology.98

Though he addressed Osiander directly, Osiander also served as a foil for addressing the

Eucharistic debates with Westphal and Heshusius in the 1550s. When read in light of the

Eucharistic controversies, it becomes clear that Calvin’s polemic against Osiander had a

more strongly Lutheran cast than would be required for refuting a singular aberrant

theologian.

According to Chin, “Calvin took issue with Osiander’s view of essential

righteousness which, allied with his Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity in the Lord’s Supper, sets for a

concept of justification that depends upon a mixture of the divine and human essences.”99

Calvin’s objection to the ‘mixture’ or ‘transfusion’ of essence paralleled his attack against the

infusion of Christ’s flesh in the Eucharist. The work of the Spirit, “[Osiander] reckons of

almost no importance unless Christ’s essence be mingled with ours.”100 Calvin’s attack on

Osiander as a Lutheran becomes apparent when he critiques his conjunction of justification

and sanctification. Utilizing the image of light and heat, he explains, “reason itself forbids us

to transfer the peculiar qualities of the one to the other,”101 a clear reference to the Lutheran account

of communicatio idiomatum. The Lutherans had utilized the communicatio in their defense of

Christ’s ubiquity, citing the direct transfer of attributes from one nature to the other,

allowing Christ’s flesh to be everywhere present with his divinity. Calvin sharply objected to

98. I distinguish here between the Lutheran’s as a whole and Calvin’s specific response to Westphal and Heshusius, who were both members of the Gnesio-Lutherans (or Strict Lutherans). Calvin frequently appealed to Melanchthon to enter the debate and support him in defending the Spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Therefore, Calvin’s specific response to the Eucharistic doctrine of ‘Lutheranism’ would have been limited to the Gnesio-Lutheran party. Sadly, Garcia does not make this distinction, which seems to imply Calvin rejected Lutheran Eucharistic theology as a whole, something which goes against Calvin’s clear reference to Luther as his father in the faith (38 n. 3). Compare Garcia, Life in Christ, 241-49.

99. Chin, “Unio Mystica and Imitatio Christi,” 268. Emphasis added. 100. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.5. 101. Ibid., 3.11.6. Emphasis added.

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this conception of the communicatio in the Eucharist and instead claimed that the ascendance

of Christ’s humanity to the right hand of the Father forbid dragging him down from heaven

to be present under the bread in the Supper. Calvin perceived Osiander’s application of the

same principle to union with Christ and justification: Christ’s essence is mingled with our

own, allowing for the direct transfer of his divine righteousness to the indwelled human

person as well as transferring the proper qualities of sanctification—that is, regeneration,

good works and the renewal of the divine image—to the divine act of justification. Although

Osiander claimed Luther as his source for the doctrine of the indwelling Christ, Osiander

failed to discern the context and content of Luther’s doctrine. For Luther, the indwelling

Christ was the fruit of justification, the motivation for transformation and the basis of

assurance. Osiander, however, set forth a Christ indwelling the believer through his essential

divine righteousness as the basis of justification. Not only did he misconstrue the relationship,

he imported the language of divine essential righteousness that was foreign to Luther’s

original assertions.102

Furthermore, Calvin’s primary accusation, consisting in Osiander’s failure to observe

the ‘bond of unity’, paralleled his accusation that the Gnesio-Lutherans fail to observe the

“mode of union” in the Lord’s Supper as Spiritual. On both counts, the Lutheran’s failure to

regard the Spirit’s involvement in mediating and enabling communion between Christ and

the believer led to confusion and ‘gross mixture’ of divine and human substance. Lack of the

Spirit’s involvement in both doctrines also devalued Christ’s humanity, which was

overridden by divinity in both doctrines. Calvin’s objection to Osiander’s Christology and

diminution of Christ’s humanity in salvation corresponded to his rejection of the improper

presence of Christ in the Supper. In other words, the Lutheran denial of Christ’s

102. Cf. Lawrenz, “On Justification,” 166-68.

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circumscribed humanity worked itself out in salvation as the denial of any useful

contribution of Christ’s humanity to justification. Osiander spurned the Spiritual bond of

unity, “forc[ing] a gross mingling of Christ with believers. And for this reason, he maliciously

calls ‘Zwinglian’ all those who do not subscribe to his mad error of ‘essential righteousness’

because they do not hold the view that Chris is eaten in substance in the Lord’s Supper.”103

Without the Spirit, Osiander professed, “God pours himself into us as a gross mixture, just

as he fancies a physical eating in the Lord’s Supper.”104 Without the Spirit to safeguard

against ontological confusion in salvation and the Supper, deity and humanity wrongly

intermingled either with regard to the believer and Christ or with regard to the two natures

of Christ. It is likely that Calvin viewed Osiander’s soteriology as the only consistent

outworking of the Gnesio-Lutheran Christology and sacramentology.105 Therefore, the

unique concept of the communicatio idiomatum defended by Westphal and Heshusius in the

Eucharistic controversies lay behind Calvin’s polemic against Osiander. By rejecting

Osiander on this point, Calvin sought to finally settle the Eucharistic debates, for, inasmuch

as Calvin deemed Osiander the only consistent Lutheran, proof of Osiander’s deviance ruled

out not only his controversial soteriology, but also the Lutheran concept of the Lord’s

Supper. The degree to which Calvin was successful, however, remains to be seen.

Conclusion: An Evaluation of Calvin’s Doctrine of Union with Christ

None of Calvin’s contemporaries criticized him directly regarding his doctrine of

union with Christ. However, many of the themes associated with it were attacked in other

103. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.10. 104. Ibid. 105. Cf. Garcia, “Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ,” 242.

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disputes. Therefore, rather than importing foreign categories of assessment to determine the

success or failure of Calvin’s doctrine, one may access the debate through these peripheral

sources. For example, Billings notes the contemporary criticism of Calvin’s negative

anthropology leveled by the ‘Gift’ theologians.106 Calvin, they claim, dialectically opposes

God and humanity, making union with God manifestly impossible in Calvin’s theology,

however much he spoke otherwise. Pighius leveled similar criticisms against Calvin’s

anthropology, associating him with the Manichees. Against the charge of fundamental

antipathy between God and humanity, Calvin asserted the original goodness of humanity in

creation. Far from dialectically opposing humanity and divinity, Calvin constituted Adam’s

pre-fallen state as union with God. Destroyed by the fall, Christ recreates this fundamental

union between God and humanity, including the reconstitution of the human will for

grateful obedience. In his 1539 Institutes, Calvin spoke strongly regarding the recreation of

the will, bordering on its destruction. Does he argue for the destruction of the will or its

renewal? Closer analysis proves that Calvin favors the latter. When he spoke of the abolition

of ‘what is ours’, he referred to what humanity possessed independently from God after the

fall, that is, sin. Calvin did not affirm the destruction of the human will or its substance;

rather he taught the recreation of the habit of the will. Prior to the fall, the will willed well.

Post fall, it willed evilly and only through Christ is it capable of again willing according to

righteousness. By distinguishing between original and fallen human nature as well as between

the substance and habit of the will, Calvin succeeded in defending himself against the charge

of Manichean original wickedness, the destruction of the human will in salvation and the

fundamental opposition of God and humanity.

106. Billings, Calvin, Participation and the Gift, ch 1. Ganoczy and Wilson-Kastner echo the accusation of

a diametrically opposed God and humanity in Calvin’s theology. See Ganoczy, The Young Calvin, 186-8, and Wilson-Kastner, “Andreas Osiander’s Theology of Grace,” 88.

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In the Eucharistic controversies of the 1550s, Calvin faced a new set of theological

dilemmas. His assertion as to the ‘location’ of Christ’s body in heaven raises the question of

how human persons on earth can be united to a heavenly Christ. Against Westphal, Calvin

asserted the Spiritual nature of the Eucharist, defending the reality of Christ’s ascended body

and resisting any confusion of the divine and human natures of Christ through the Lutheran

concept of the communicatio idiomatum. Substantial participation in the Eucharist unnecessarily

confuses the divine and human natures of Christ, but attention to the role of the Holy Spirit

solves the problem of Christ’s presence without resorting to ubiquity. By asserting the

Spiritual nature of the sacrament, Calvin sought to safeguard both the integrity of Christ’s

two natures and the proper analogy between signum and res. Regarding the former, Wendel

argues Calvin’s “unilateral interest in the divine nature and its exultation,” drove his polemic

against the Lutherans.107 Such a claim, however, makes little sense of Calvin’s belabored

resistance to any encroachment of the divine nature on the human with the express desire to

safeguard Christ’s humanity rather than his divinity. As regards the latter, Calvin sought the

middle way between Lutheran “Real Presence” on the one hand and Zwinglian memorialism

on the other. One may rightly ask if a ‘spiritual’ communion rightly preserves the union with

distinction Calvin prizes so highly. Westphal certainly found his reply inadequate and

continually dismissed Calvin’s claim for a true but non-substantial participation in the

Supper. Indeed, the necessity for so many treatises to defend and explain the basic tenants of

his argument may signal a lack of clarity or simplicity on Calvin’s part. In other words,

methinks he doth protest too much. Perhaps Calvin’s ‘solution’ only complicated matters

unnecessarily. However, perhaps Westphal (and many modern readers) was too bound by

conventional theological language to grasp the breadth of Calvin’s argument. What Calvin

107. Wendel, Calvin, 224-5.

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proposed stepped outside the bounds of medieval signification theory. According to

Leithart, “instead of hiding a pure symbolism under the language of substance, Calvin was

rejecting the centuries-old separation of figure and reality . . . by affirming that the Eucharist

was both symbolic and real, or, perhaps better, by offering a new understanding of the nature

of religious symbols.”108 Calvin’s Lutheran opponents still operated within these divisions

and were unable to see Calvin’s assertions as anything other than evasive at best and

heretical at worst. The fundamental problem in communication, therefore, was not

evasiveness on Calvin’s part, but the fact that he used old terms in a new way without

explanation. Furthermore, Calvin’s distinction between Christ offered and Christ received

allowed for the rejection of the promiscuous eating of the Supper by non-believers.

According to the Lutheran conception of substance, the fleshly presence of Christ in the

Supper involved a transfusion of the divine essence into the bread and, consequently, into

the soul of all who partake of the Supper. Calvin, on the other hand, restricted true partaking

of the life-giving flesh and blood of Christ to the elect. For Calvin, the res of the Supper was

union with Christ; because union with Christ is only possible by faith and the Spirit,

unbelievers are unable to partake of Christ’s flesh and blood. By definition, only believers

receive what God offers in the sacraments because only believers have the requisite faith. A

rejection of spiritual presence opens the door for possibility that non-believers partake of the

Supper equally with believers, something Calvin found repulsive. Either way one resolves

the tension, the conclusion bears not only upon Calvin’s Eucharistic doctrine but also his

doctrine of union with Christ. If his rallying cry of true but non-substantial union fails to

adequately account for Eucharistic communion, it almost assuredly fails in his doctrine of

108. Leithart, “What’s Wrong with Transubstantiation?”, 317. Leithart’s conclusions are intriguing, yet

a full-scale evaluation of his ideas is beyond the scope of this thesis. Needless to say, further research in this area would be enlightening for more intricately evaluating the success of Calvin’s theology at this point.

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union with Christ more generally, a statement borne out in Calvin’s debate with Osiander.

Calvin’s response to Osiander in the Institutes provided him a final opportunity to

respond to the Lutheran doctrines he found objectionable. For Calvin, the Chalcedonian

concept of ‘union with distinction’ allowed him to distinguish between justification and

sanctification without severing them. Union with Christ was the root from which flowed the

double grace of forgiveness of sins and regeneration, made possible through the bond of the

Holy Spirit between the believer and Christ. Osiander’s rejection of a significant role for the

Holy Spirit in union forced him to assert a commingling of essences that Calvin claimed

violated the proper distinction between Creator and creature. Keeping in mind his repeated

assertions to Pighius regarding the fundamental communion between humanity and God as

experienced by Adam before the fall, one sees that Calvin’s rejection of the indwelling divine

essence stems not from a dialectical opposition between humanity and God but from a

desire to preserve the proper differentiation between God and his creation. Humanity was

created for communion with God, but this communion does not abolish the natural

ontological difference between the two nor does it require the infusion of divine essence into

humanity. Any conclusions that fail to account for the polemical nature of Calvin’s response

to Osiander will misconstrue his intention, as evidenced by Wilson-Kastner and Wendel’s

assertions of Calvin’s fear of divine-human union. The polemical context of Calvin’s work

requires him to emphasize the distinction between humanity and God, but he also

everywhere values the real possibility of unity between them. Indeed, if Garcia’s assessment

of Calvin is correct, imputation and the work of the Spirit serve to allow true fellowship and

communion rather than negate it.109

Calvin’s defense against Osiander demonstrated the importance of the ‘union with

109. Garcia, “Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ,” 246-48.

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distinction’ formula for Calvin’s conception of justification and sanctification. Grounded in

1 Corinthians 1:30—“Christ was made for us righteousness and sanctification”—Calvin

defended the proper distinction between the two graces without separating them because to

do so would tear Christ (and the Spirit) apart. In other words, Calvin sought to defend

against the Melanchthonian separation of the two graces on the one hand and the

Osiandrian fusion on the other. Osiander correctly assessed the implications of too heavy a

reliance upon forensic justification without the corresponding emphasis on regeneration as a

distinct but related blessing rather than a cold, distant effect. However, Calvin faulted

Osiander for swinging too far in the opposite direction, bypassing the necessary bond of

union, the Spirit, and the union with distinction possible by the reception of Christ’s person

through faith. Spiritual union with Christ preserves the Creator-creature distinction yet

allows for true communion between God and humanity on the basis of that distinction,

reflecting the influence of the Chalcedonian language of distinction without separation. By

defending the spiritual presence of Christ by faith in both the Eucharist and more generally,

Calvin provided an alternative to what he perceived as the Lutheran divine-human fusion on

the one hand and the utter separation of humanity from God on the other comparable to his

defense of the both the unity but necessary distinction within the duplex gratia of salvation.

However, Calvin is not immune to the questions raised in his defense against

Westphal. Does Spiritual communion preserve the reality of the union or does it dissolve into

fantasy and sentimentalism? For Calvin, Spiritual presence is real presence because, post-

Pentecost, Christ is only present by means of the Spirit; the Spirit and Christ are

functionally-economically identical.110 One may object to such a scheme. Is Christ only

present in and through the Spirit or is Christ present in another way? Should the Spirit and

110. Cf. Leithart, “What’s Wrong with Transubstantiation?” 320.

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Christ be so closely identified that to speak of the presence of the Spirit is to speak of the

presence of Christ? These are valuable questions for assessing Calvin’s consistency, and

although they are beyond the scope of this thesis, they must be raised. Put briefly, if Richard

Gaffin correctly interprets the functional identity between Christ and the Spirit in Paul’s

theology, Calvin’s assertions regarding Christ’s presence by the Spirit would be validated.111

One may also object to Calvin’s use of Romans against Osiander. Romans 7 has been

interpreted in competing ways throughout the hermeneutical tradition, yet Calvin confidently

states Paul refers to believers torn by the continued presence of sin in their lives post-

justification. Indeed, Calvin partially grounds the distinction between justification and

regeneration on this passage and its relationship to chapter 8.112 If Calvin has misinterpreted

Paul, his defense of the “double-grace” theory may become suspect. Nevertheless, Calvin

utilizes many other passages of Scripture in his defense, most prominently 1 Corinthians

1:30.113 Therefore, the absence of Romans 7-8 would make little difference to Calvin’s

argument. Finally, the importance of the communicatio idiomatum and Chalcedon for Calvin’s

argument could be called into question by those who devalue the early Church councils.

Some recent scholarship has come to question the congruity between the early Church’s

faith and the solidification of the Chalcedonian definition as ‘orthodox’ Christology; Calvin’s

prominent defense of the formula would render his theological assertions suspect.114 The

111. See Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology, 2nd ed.

(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1987), 78-92. It is the view of the author of this thesis that both Gaffin and Calvin rightly interpret Paul’s perception of the role of Christ and the Spirit post-Pentecost. However, since the discussion lies beyond the scope of this thesis, the reader should refer to the respective authors and other resources in Pauline scholarship before reaching a conclusion.

112. Cf. Calvin, Institutes, 3.11.11. 113. For the importance of this verse in Calvin’s debate with Osiander, see Garcia, Life in Christ, 219-

227.

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validity of Calvin’s use of the Chalcedonian formula of ‘union without separation’ rests in

the assumption of the formula’s own validity and acceptance as ‘orthodox’. Rejecting such a

foundation destroys Calvin’s carefully constructed edifice. However, Garcia defends the

presence and use of the Chalcedonian formula within the Reformed tradition, arguing that

inasmuch as the beginnings of Reformed theology start with a profound dependence upon

Chalcedon, Reformed ‘orthodoxy’ cannot escape its influence.115 In other words, the success

or failure of Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ depends, at least partially, upon one’s

acceptance of the basic tenants of Reformed theology.

114. For example, Hans Schwarz, Christology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), cited in Garcia,

“Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ,” 250. 115. Ibid., 249-50.

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CONCLUSION

In an essay regarding the control of morals in Geneva, Robert Kingdon notes the

historical tradition of a high degree of moral rigor and social accountability among Calvinist

communities and wonders at its significance. “The real explanation,” writes Kingdon, “lies, it

seems to me, in the fact that early Calvinist communities enforced morality.”1 The moral

austerity characteristic of Calvinist communities stems from a social body committed to the

public and private enforcement of their moral standard, especially as embodied in the

Calvinist consistory.2 He continues his assessment with the argument that the campaign for

morality was imposed on many individuals “and the very fact of its frequent existence in

Calvinist communities gave a special sanction to the stern Calvinist education in morality

that internalized this austerity and passed it on to succeeding generations.”3 Calvinist

morality was, according to Kingdon, inherited from Calvin, and it was perpetuated by means

of the social enforcement of morality through the consistory and indoctrinization of the

young in the ‘stern Calvinist education’. The high morality of the Calvinist tradition is

therefore rooted in a primarily sociological phenomenon, that is, legislated and enforced

moral conduct.

Seemingly unrelated, the concerns of this thesis may be brought to bear on

Kingdon’s analysis. This thesis has explored Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ and its

1. Robert M. Kingdon, “The Control of Morals in Calvin’s Geneva,” in Church and Society in Reformation

Europe (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), 4. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., 12.

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implications for the relationship between justification and sanctification within the context

of antinomian controversy between Luther and the Roman Church. With this in mind, the

possibility of a more deeply theological motivation behind the consistent concern for

morality in Calvin’s theology arises. The debate regarding Calvinist faithfulness to Calvin’s

teachings lie beyond the scope of this thesis, but for the moment, one may assume that even

if the tradition deviated from its seminal theologian, Calvin himself had different motivations

than creating a system of socially enforced morality. As has been shown, Calvin’s concern

for sanctification and holy life was Scripturally rooted, giving rise to a doctrine of

sanctification grounded in true communion with the life-giving flesh of Christ. Faced with

the Roman Catholic charges of antinomianism against Luther’s functionally one-sided

emphasis on justification by faith, Calvin attempted a theological re-orientation of the

relationship between justification and sanctification through union with Christ. Instead of a

doctrinal afterthought born of necessity alone, sanctification had equal status with

justification in the reception of salvation by the believer. In most vivid terms, Calvin

contends, “we cannot be justified freely through faith alone without at the same time living

holily. For these fruits of grace are connected together, as it were, by an indissoluble tie, so

that he who attempts to sever them does in a manner tear Christ in pieces.”4 As Christ

cannot be torn apart or torn from his Spirit, so justification and sanctification are equally

inseparable.

For Calvin, moral conduct is grounded first and foremost in a profoundly

theological—yea, Christological—truth rather than a concern for social regulation. In other

words, “[Calvin’s] programme could be described as one of social sanctification rather than

of social reconstruction. A transformation first had to be brought about in the personal lives

4. Calvin, Comm. on 1 Corinthians, vol. 1, 93.

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of Geneva’s citizens. This was to be achieved chiefly by two means: through social discipline,

and through the sacramental power of the Word of God.”5 Social discipline had an

important place in the social life of Geneva, but only alongside and because of the

authoritative voice of Scripture and in the context of communal sanctification. Calvin’s

concern for the morality of Genevan society was impacted by his theological commitment to

the duplex gratia of salvation. More precisely, Calvin’s doctrine of union with Christ and the

parallel reception of justification and sanctification thereby provided the theological

foundation for a community committed to obedience to Christ as an outworking of their

continued life of faith and daily sanctification by the Spirit. By focusing on the purely

sociological phenomena, Kingdon overlooks the underlying doctrinal commitments found in

Calvin’s theology that more constructively explain the importance of moral stricture in

Calvinist societies. As shown in chapter one, concern for moral conduct was not absent

from other Protestant traditions, including the Lutherans. However, the apparent failure of

the leaders of these traditions to instill morality into their adherents points primarily to

theological differences, without neglecting the important social ones.6 Therefore, a study of

the theological roots of the sociological differences between the Lutheran and Reformed

Protestant traditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would be a promising

avenue of research only hinted at by this thesis.

This thesis has only scratched the surface on a number of other issues needing

further development and research. A study of Calvin’s consistency and rectitude as an

5. Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin, Geneva and the Reformation: A Study of Calvin as Social Reformer, Churchman,

Pastor and Theologian (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1988), 31. 6. For example, territorial conflict or war, form of government, the size of the territory in question,

number and quality of ‘enforcers’, and the economic prosperity of the region. All these and more play an important role in the sociological phenomena of Lutheran and Reformed manifestations of the Protestant tradition.

119

interpreter of Paul would allow a more adequate assessment of his faithfulness to Pauline

theology. Inasmuch as Calvin patterns his theological framework for the Institutes and his

doctrine of union with Christ on Paul’s epistle to the Romans, a more precise exegesis of

Paul would reveal the degree to which Calvin remains faithful to the biblical text and where

his context may have led him to misinterpret, or reinterpret, Paul. Secondly, there is need to

examine how his sermons, letters, prayers, and more occasional writings influenced his

theology of union with Christ and the duplex gratia of justification and sanctification. How

and in what way did Calvin’s changing pastoral concerns in Geneva and the rest of Europe

shape his theology of union with Christ? Examination of Calvin’s sermons and letters would

help to answer this query. In the end, this thesis has merely begun to explore the riches and

depth of Calvin’s duplex gratia and its relation to his historical context. One must, however,

remember the wellspring from which Calvin drew his profound doctrinal insights: the Holy

Scriptures. The more one reads Calvin, the more one understands that if he is to be named a

man of one book, let that book not be the Institutes, but the living and abiding Word of God.

120

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