John Calvin: Quotes about God

John Calvin was French Protestant reformer. Explore interesting quotes on god.

John Calvin: 322 quotes20 likes

“The name of Christ is used here instead of the Church, because the similitude was intended to apply—not to God's only-begotten Son, but to us. It is a passage that is full of choice consolation, inasmuch as he calls the Church Christ; for Christ confers upon us this honour —that he is willing to be esteemed and recognised, not in himself merely, but also in his members. Hence the same Apostle says elsewhere, (Eph. i. 23,) that the Church is his completion, as though he would, if separated from his members, be incomplete.”

John Calvin

Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 12:12. <br class="br">Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, 1848, Rev. William Pringle, tr., Edinburgh, Volume 1, p. 405. http://books.google.com/books?id=tQsOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA405&dq=%22calls+the+church+christ%22&hl=en&ei=w3_pTZW2CYLx0gGl2L2WAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=%22calls%20the%20church%20christ%22&f=false <br class="br">Epistles to the Corinthians

“For just as soon as a visible form has been fashioned for God, his power is also bound to it. Men are so stupid that they fasten God wherever they fashion him; and hence they cannot but adore. And there is no difference whether they simply worship an idol, or God in the idol. It is always idolatry when divine honors are bestowed on an idol, under whatever pretext this is done. And because it does not please God to be worshiped superstitiously, whatever is conferred upon the idol is snatched from him.”

John Calvin

Institutes 1.11.9 as quoted in War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin by Carlos, M. N. Eire p.217

“No one has rightly denied himself unless he has wholly resigned himself to the Lord and is willing to leave every detail to his good pleasure. If we put ourselves in such a frame of mind, then, whatever may happen to us, we shall never feel miserable or accuse God falsely because of our lot.”

John Calvin

Page 44.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“[Elizabeth] calls Mary the mother of her Lord. This denotes a unity of person in the two natures of Christ; as if she had said, that he who was begotten a mortal man in the womb of Mary is, at the same time, the eternal God…. This name Lord strictly belongs to the Son of God 'manifested in the flesh,' (1 Timothy 3:16,) who has received from the Father all power, and has been appointed the highest ruler of heaven and earth, that by his agency God may govern all things.”

John Calvin

John Calvin. "Commentary on Luke 1:43". Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 1. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke

“It is not lawful for you to make a compromise with God: to try to fulfill part of your duties and to omit others at your own pleasure.”

John Calvin

Page 22.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“The wicked do not fear God from any unwillingness to offend him, provided they could do so with impunity. … But believers, as has been said, dread the offense even more than the punishment.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 3, Chapter 2, Section 27, p. 480
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

“We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer. Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God, setting aside all irrelevant thoughts.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book III Ch. 20 First Rule, para. 1 and 2.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

“If we follow our divine calling, we shall receive this unique consolation that there is no work so mean and so sordid that does not look truly respectable and highly important in the sight of God”

John Calvin

Coram Deo!
Gen 1:28; Col 1:1ff
Page 94.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book III Ch. 19 sect. 2.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

“For he [David] confesses that prosperity had so stupefied and benumbed his senses that he disregarded the grace of God on which he should have depended, relied on himself instead, and imagined that he could not fall.”

John Calvin

Page 50.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble. Let us keep our end in view, let us press forward to our goal. Let us not indulge in pride, nor give in to our sinful passions. Let us steadily exert ourselves to reach a higher degree of holiness till we shall finally arrive at a perfection of goodness which we seek and pursue as long as we live, but which we shall attain then only, when, freed from all earthly infirmity, we shall be admitted by God into his full communion.”

John Calvin

Page 23.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him?”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Prefatory Address to King Francis as translated by Henry Beveridge, p. 16.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

“Moreover, a true Christian will not ascribe any prosperity to his own diligence, industry, or good fortune, but he will acknowledge that God is the author of it.”

John Calvin

Page 43.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“If all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 3, p. 52
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

“This is the highest honour of the Church, that, until He is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. What consolation is it for us to learn, that, not until we are along with him, does he possess all his parts, or wish to be regarded as complete! Hence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when the apostle discusses largely the metaphor of a human body, he includes under the single name of Christ the whole Church.”

John Calvin

Commentary on Ephesians 1:23. <br class="br">Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, 1854, Rev. William Pringle, tr., Edinburgh, p. 218. http://books.google.com/books?id=i3o9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA218&dq=%22reckons+himself+in+some+measure+imperfect%22&hl=en&ei=sHrpTcfgN4fX0QH2hMSSAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22reckons%20himself%20in%20some%20measure%20imperfect%22&f=false <br class="br">Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians

“But a faithful believer will in all circumstances mediate on the mercy and fatherly goodness of God.”

John Calvin

Page 45.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“Where is our acknowledgement of God if our thoughts are fixed on the glamour of our garments?”

John Calvin

Page 85.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“It is easy to see how superstition, with its false glosses, mocks God, while it tries to please him.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 4, p. 54
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

“Warned by such evidences of their spiritual illness, believers profit by their humiliations. Robbed of their foolish confidence in the flesh, they take refuge in the grace of God. And when they have done so, they experience the nearness of the divine protection which is to them a strong fortress”

John Calvin

Ps 30:6-7
Page 51.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)