Before You Call Yourself A Calvinist

by Paul A. Bailey
 

In certain circles today it is fashionable to declare one's five point Calvinistic credentials with incautious pride. Having talked with many Calvinists, however. the writer has found very few who actually know what Calvin believed! It is not wise to use the label "Calvinist"' without knowing what Calvin taught, so before you declare yourself a Calvinist, please note the following:
 

I)  John Calvin believed and taught that Christ is present in the emblems of the bread and wine at the Lord's supper, and that spiritual life is communicated through partaking of these.

Even the Calvinist R. l. Dabney admits this error of Calvin:
 

"We reject the view of Calvin concerning the real presence (recognising our obligation to meet and account for the scriptures he quotes in a believing and not rationalistic spirit): first because it is not onIy incomprehensible. but impossible ... The bread broken and wine poured out symbolise the body broken and slain and blood shed by death ... Now, according to Calvin, it is mystical union which is sealed and applied in the Lord's supper, so as to propagate spiritual life: and throughout John 6, where His life-giving flesh is so much spoken of, it is not the Lord's supper. but the believer's union to Christ which is described. Well, how unreasonable it is to suppose spiritual life communicated through the actual corporeal substance of Christ's body, at the very stage at which the body itself is lifeless."

Calvin was so confused about the ordinance of the Lord's supper (despite writing pages about it in his Institutes), that even the Reformed expert Louis Berkhof confessed that he was unable to fathom him out:

"His [Calvin's] representation is not entirely clear, but he seems to mean...That influence. though real. is not physical but spiritual and mystical."

Do you believe in the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine? Calvin did.
 

2) John Calvin believed and taught that all children of believers are regenerate in the womb, and are to be sprinkled as a sign of the regeneration that has already taken place.

Calvin taught with the greatest vehemence, that infant baptism was a holy ordinance of God. His extreme view is explained by a-millennial Calvinist Peter Masters:
 

"Calvin's view was radically different from Luther's. He believed that all the children of believers were spiritually regenerate in the womb. and did not need baptism to bring this about."

 

In fact, so doggedly did Calvin hold to the error of infant baptism. that it would have possibly been fatal to oppose him on it. If you had taught that a person who had been born again should be baptised by immersion (because their infant baptism was not valid), it could have cost you your life had you lived in Geneva during Calvin's reign there. The Reformers were all baby-sprinklers. and often persecuted the ana-Baptists over that issue. Do you believe babies of believers are born again in the womb? Calvin did.

There is a double irony about 20th century Calvinism. Firstly, most people who call themselves Calvinists are not true Calvinists. because they reject Calvin's views on the Lord's Supper and baptism (given above). Secondly, most modern Calvinists do not know that Calvin, although he taught that the atonement of Christ was limited, in at least one place correctly taught that Christ suffered for the whole world. In his commentary on I John 2: 2 he says:
 

"Here the question may be asked as to how the sins of the whole world have been expiated. I pass over the dreams of the fanatics, who make this a reason to extend salvation to all the reprobate and even to Satan himself. Such a monstrous idea is not worth refuting. Those who want to avoid this absurdity have said that Christ suffered sufficiently for the whole worId. but effectively only for the elect. This solution has commonly prevailed in the Schools. Though then I allow that what has been said is true, yet I deny it is suitable to this passage."
 

Calvin was inconsistent, but if you are a Calvinist ask yourself. "Do I believe Christ suffered sufficiently for the whole world"? Calvin once said he did.

from the book THE SUPREME IRONY, by Paul A. Bailey
Penfold Book and Bible House