John Calvin the Theological Work

John Calvin

The theological work of John Calvin revolutionized the approach to Protestant Christianity, thoroughly examining it in a questioning and unflaggingly rational paradigm. Born Jean Chauvin in 1509 in Picardie to a French attorney, Calvin was sent to the University of Paris at a young age to be immersed in the study of humanities and the law. By 1532, he was serving as a Doctor of Law at Orlean's; his education endowed him with the clear sight of legal thought, which he applied not only to his own edition of Seneca's De Clementia, replete with commentary, but also to the changing seas of theology engaging Christian Europe. The power of his theological approach was not only the critical analysis he brought to the discussion, but in his application of mental reasoning to connect the man Christ and his work.

While Calvin spent his life analyzing the connection between Christ, the man of miraculous works, with the life of Christ the God, the crux of his understanding and connection of the two rests in the Three Offices of Christ. Calvin systemized the man and His works with the three-fold positions of Christ: first, as a Prophet, second as a Priest, and third as a King.

Moreover, it is to be observed, that the name Christ refers to those three offices: for we know that under the law, prophets as well as priests and kings were anointed with holy oil. Whnce, also, the celebrated name of the Messiah was given to the promised Mediator."

Christ served in each of the three offices at the same time as Calvin outlined in the Institutes.

The basis for the three-fold office was conceptualized for Calvin by the book of Deuteronomy. The first office, that of the prophet, comes from Deuteronomy 18:18, "I will raise up for them a prophet like you among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command."

John and Paul accepted Christ as the prophet, Calvin noted, even though the title was not included in the epistles. Yet, Calvin sees the biblical proof that they accepted him as such in John 1:18, which says that Christ was a man who "both gave revelation from God and was himself the quintessential revelation from God." It is in this manner that Calvin substantiates the Christian premise that Jesus Christ is different than the other prophets, also explaining his absences from the epistles.

Calvin called the second office of Christ that of the Priest. Jesus Christ the Prophet was God's representative to the people; as the Priest, he was their representative to God. In all of his analyses of the doctrinal Christian faith, Calvin singled out Jesus as separate from the standard positions that he did fill, only with abundance, of the Old Testament societies. As Priest, he was different than those normal to the Levitical order by not offering an animal sacrifice to God in repent for sin; Calvin argued that Jesus, himself, was the sacrificial lamb. Calvin said that Christ, as a Priest, entered the Holy of Hollies, the heavenly place, to lead in the people before the presence of God. Calvin says that Christ, as a man and Priest, is able to do so as other priests did, but as God, was able to live there forever. Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25 provide proof for his claim, saying that the Christ "ever lives to make intercession" for the weaknesses of man; in doing so, Calvin claims Christ as the eternal Priest.

Calvin finds the last office of Christ to be that of the King. While David rules Israel, Jesus exerts dominion over all Earth, Universe, and Church.

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in who believe, according to the working of his great might which accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

Calvin finds that His "royal unction" is not set out, then, by the standard representations of a man-king, but instead of one more holy. It is in his office as King, Calvin says, that man finds the ultimate pardon. "Thus, while we wander far as pilgrims from God, Christ interposes, that he may gradually bring us to full communion with God."

The completion of his analysis was not only connecting the man Christ with his works, but endowing them with the holy beliefs of the Christian faithful. He related the life of Christ to the life of the Christian, with baptism and resurrection serving as the joint fountainheads of the active faith. To Calvin, in life, a person is damned by the total depravity of man; death is the ultimate freedom from it, since the body can then no longer be physically tempted. Death through salvation is the final escape from the body enslaved to sin, which Baptism strengthens in its lifelong fight.

Through baptism Christ makes us share in his death, that we may be engrafted in it. and, just as the twig draws substance and nourishment from the root to which it is grafted, so those who receive baptism with right faith truly feel the effective working of Christ's death in the mortification of their flesh, together with the working of the resurrection in the vivification of the Spirit."

Calvin saw Christ in this light as the consummate King, ruling wisely, attentively, and finally. Calvin reconciles the conflicting biblical ideas of what and when Christ becomes King by asserting that he rules as a God-man over the Cosmos, and upon his return will exert final decision and claim over all souls and their actions; it is at that point that Christ will assume the office of the King of Kings, as set forth by Revelations 19:16.

Baptism, along with the other basic sacraments of the Christian church, is fundamental to the salvation of the person in reckoning with Christ; without it, the body is more tempted to fall to sin, but with it, the soul inside the body is empowered by the strength of Christ to be good.