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John Calvin
John Calvin (1509–1564). Born on July 10, 1509, in Noyon, France, John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor, and reformer whose teachings shaped Protestantism. Initially studying law at the University of Orléans, he embraced Reformation ideas by 1533, fleeing Catholic France after a crackdown. In 1536, he published Institutes of the Christian Religion, a seminal work articulating Reformed theology, emphasizing God’s sovereignty and predestination. Settling in Geneva, he became a preacher at St. Pierre Cathedral, implementing church reforms, though he was exiled in 1538 over disputes, only to return in 1541. Calvin’s sermons, often expository, drew thousands, and he founded the Geneva Academy in 1559 to train pastors. His writings, including commentaries on nearly every Bible book, influenced global Protestantism. Married to Idelette de Bure in 1540, he had no surviving children and was widowed in 1549. He died on May 27, 1564, in Geneva, saying, “Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit.”
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John Calvin preaches about the hidden life of the faithful in this world, drawing parallels to trees in winter that appear dry and lifeless but show strength in spring. He emphasizes the need for believers to die daily to worldly desires and decay outwardly, embracing sickness, poverty, and shame as reminders of life's transient nature. Calvin stresses the importance of daily spiritual renewal and looking to the resurrection of Jesus to find hope and sweetness in the face of death.
It Is a Faithful Saying: For if We Be Dead With Him
It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: —II Timothy 2:11 While we live in this world, our life is hidden, even as the life of trees is hidden in winter. Behold, trees are dry, we see no strength in them, a man would think it were but dead wood; but yet their strength shows itself in the springtime. Even so it is with the faithful. For while they are in this world, their life is shut up in hope. Now that which we hope for is not seen, the eye of man cannot attain unto it. It follows, then, that in dying we must live; not only with one kind of death, but we must die daily, we must decay, as touching the outward man; as he says, sickness, poverty, shame, and such things, serve us to renounce this world and feel that our life is but a shadow, that it is nothing, yes, and that we receive so many messages of death when things do not go as we would have them. And therefore let us note well that Paul meant here not simply that we must die once, and then live; but while we live that we are daily buried as it were; that we see death present as it were; that we are like sheep that have the knife at their throats. For it is not enough for us to die so, but we must follow the standard of the Son of God and look to his resurrection, which is sufficient to make the bitterness of death sweet to us. —Sermons
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John Calvin (1509–1564). Born on July 10, 1509, in Noyon, France, John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor, and reformer whose teachings shaped Protestantism. Initially studying law at the University of Orléans, he embraced Reformation ideas by 1533, fleeing Catholic France after a crackdown. In 1536, he published Institutes of the Christian Religion, a seminal work articulating Reformed theology, emphasizing God’s sovereignty and predestination. Settling in Geneva, he became a preacher at St. Pierre Cathedral, implementing church reforms, though he was exiled in 1538 over disputes, only to return in 1541. Calvin’s sermons, often expository, drew thousands, and he founded the Geneva Academy in 1559 to train pastors. His writings, including commentaries on nearly every Bible book, influenced global Protestantism. Married to Idelette de Bure in 1540, he had no surviving children and was widowed in 1549. He died on May 27, 1564, in Geneva, saying, “Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit.”