You made it to the end, and this is our last class on the Christian life. We're going to do a review. If you don't have an outline, grab one, because I wanted you to have a little gift from me. It's on the back chair when you come in. It's basically a summary of Calvin's Institute's, the 1559 version, so the fuller version. And it's just an overview of Calvin's view on the Christian life. So, it is a little packet, a little gift from me to thank you for all of your hard work and your faithfulness. We're going to go over a few of the things in it today, but it's six pages long, very good and thorough and full. And so, we're going to just look at it as a picture, all right? So, I'm going to draw the picture for you. especially inviting our younger students. You've been so faithful, younger students, to hang in there and to listen and to learn. And so today, we're going to honor them by having a picture. And I think everybody will learn from this picture. Pictures are, you know, well, it's worth a thousand words, right? And it can be. So it's very helpful. And then we're going to situate Calvin's Institutes or Calvin's doctrine of the Christian life in the larger history of the church, okay? So we're going to look and do a little contrast comparison with two great bestsellers. If you were to think of the top ten list of Christian bestsellers from the early church, to the present, your list might include John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Your list might include Augustine's Confessions, and those two should be on that list. Your list might include Thomas Akempis' Imitation of Christ. That should be on your list. And then the other on your list would be the Golden Book of the Christian Life by John Calvin. And so what we're going to do today is we could compare Calvin and Augustine, but that's pretty consistent, you know, to look at the Christian life. You know, Calvin was quite consistent and built upon Augustine. We could contrast and see Bunyan's influence from Calvin, which we might do one day in a future seminar, and I encourage you to do that. There's a lot of Calvin in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. But today, what I thought would be helpful, since Calvin's primary concern about the Christian life was in a conversation or a conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, using conversation because that's more of a word we use today, you know, having a conversation about it. But in a conversation, conflict with Roman Catholicism, we're going to compare John Calvin's teaching on the Christian life with Thomas Akimpas. And you can't go wrong with looking and comparing those two men. And I encourage you to do that. So we're going to look at the two. And when we get there, I'll say more about Thomas Akimpas. And I'll try to situate Calvin and Akimpas relationally or personally, how Akimpas or Thomas Akimpas influenced Calvin. All right? So today, what we're going to do is we're going to look together at the Christian life. We're going to look at a picture of the Christian life as Calvin teaches it. And then we're going to look at a contrast between Calvin and St. Thomas. Oh, I keep wanting to say that. And Thomas Akimpas. All right. If you have your Bibles, turn to Titus 2, 11 through 14. Titus 2, 11 through 14. I want to read that. And this is a helpful scripture to have as a summary scripture for what we've learned about Calvin on the Christian life. You may remember in the first class that, or in the last class I should say, on the Christian life, that really Calvin's doctrine of the Christian life is a meditation on, exposition of, exegesis of Matthew 16, 24. Matthew 16 24 says if anyone will follow me he must what he must pick up his cross He must pick up his cross die daily and and and follow me. All right So it's the three elements of denying oneself. I didn't put that first did I? If anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. Those three things are the things we see in Calvin's Doctrine of the Christian Life. Self-denial, Cross-bearing and meditation on the future life. All right walking with Jesus and so really Matthew 16 24 is the Very important verse that Calvin, you know draws all of his teaching most of his teaching on the Christian life from But there is also this Titus 2 11 through 14 passage I encourage you to memorize it very helpful. Listen to it for the grace of God has appeared and bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works. Okay? You notice again we see that we are gods. We belong to Christ. That is, we're possessed by Christ. We're a people possessed. Possessed by Christ with his spirit for the sake of good works. To purify for himself a people. To make us clean and then to possess us so that we be zealous for good works and to live the way that we were created to live. That's what redemption is. All right, so let's pray. And we will draw a picture to explain Calvin on the Christian life. And this is especially to honor our younger folks who I commend you for who've hung in there and you've been there every class. And I'm very grateful. I'm so thankful for so many of you who completed quite a bit of the work, a lot of it for young students. And so we're gonna look at that. We're gonna look at a picture. I think that'll be helpful for you to draw and take away with you to memorize And then the second day, we're going to contrast Calvin and Thomas Akimpas on his imitation of the Christian life, imitation of Christ, I should say. All right, let's pray. Our Father and our God, we're grateful for your love for us, and we're thankful to be a people who have been possessed by you, by your Holy Spirit. in order to be zealous for good works, in order to aspire after godliness and holiness. We thank you that you are a God who loves your people and you're our shepherd. And we thank you that you lead us to Christ. that you sent our good shepherd to lay down his life for us, who was willing to come and willing to be mistreated and to die in our place, to be raised for our justification, to be seated at your right hand as our mediator, our prophet, priest, and king, as the one full of grace and truth, the one Lord Jesus who is fully possessed of the Holy Spirit, so that you might pour out your spirit upon us and make us like yourself, to cause us to be imitators. calls us to be zealous for good works. We pray that you would continue to work in our lives. Thank you for all who have taken this class, whether they've taken it once or every one of the classes, whether they've done a little of the work or all of the work, we pray that you would bless and make useful this class so that you'll have more faithful stewards in your kingdom who are not seeking to be successful so much as they're seeking to be faithful, that everything that Those who can hear me and those who have been in this class that everything they do would be from love out of a pure heart a clear conscience and a sincere faith for you and when it's not that there'd be repentance and a Finding grace that they need and mercy from Jesus Christ. We pray that you would help us answer our prayers We thank you that so many of us want to be more like Christ and and we pray that you would hear those prayers we pray that you'd help us to pray and commune with you and To take all the things we've learned The seed has been sown, Father. Now we pray through the Lord Jesus and by the Holy Spirit that you would cause that seed to flourish and thrive, and that we would bear fruit, fruit that will last for your glory and our good. In Jesus' name, and all the church said, amen. All right, all right. So let's draw a picture. So this is Calvin on the Christian Life, and if you have an outline, we'll look at that in a moment. The outline that I gave you that's on the back chair is an outline to give you an overview. It's a gift from me to you. It's just an overview of Calvin on the Christian Life from his final 1559 version. And I hope it'll be of use to you. We won't look at it all today, but that is something to say thank you so much for coming and paying attention. And maybe that will whet your appetite to then read the larger 1559 edition one day. So let's get started by drawing a picture. All right, what we want to do is understand Reformed spirituality. And we learned last week that the Reformation of the 16th century was not merely a reformation of doctrine. It was a reformation of life, and so it was a reformation of how to live the Christian life, because doctrine matters, and you must always have doctrine, or right doctrine, in order to have life. And Paul, the apostle, often tells pastors particularly, like Timothy and Titus, but others as well, that to watch your life and your doctrine closely. So the life and the doctrine are connected. Calvin calls this piety. And if you remember from one of our first classes, Calvin didn't seek to write a systematic theology in the institutes. He sought to write a summary of piety, a summa pietatis. He wanted to write a summary of piety, a pastoral handbook for ministers and for other people in the congregation who would understand basic scriptural doctrine and know how to live for Jesus. Okay, so this is how Calvin set up. And if you're reading this, this is chapter 17 of the 1541 version that we're doing. And this is book 3. picture of Book 3, chapters 6 through 10, I believe it is, from the 1559 version. So this is chapter 17 of what we're doing on the Christian life is Book 3. Now Calvin called the Christian life piety. because piety was a word, particularly from Latin, that we get from Latin, that just means godly. So he's talking about reformed godliness, or how to live the Christian life, how to be godly. So when we look at Calvin, we want to look at a timeline. We want to see this timeline, and this is what we'll call eternity. This is glory. This is our goal. This right here would be the time of regeneration. All right. This is when we're not looking for God, but we're made alive with Christ. And if we're going to call this the Christian life, then let's remember that when Calvin speaks of the Christian life, what's the word that he uses? What's the concept he says defines the whole Christian life? Do you remember? He's even more clear about this in book three of the 1559, because he titles book three using this word. Do you know the word? Would you know? The Christian life is basically the regeneration life. It's the new creation that's begun, and regeneration equals a life of repentance. So Calvin, for Calvin, the Christian life, regeneration, as not just a moment in time, we're gonna look at that in a moment, but as a state. is a life of repentance. You can see how he's affirming not only scripture, but what Martin Luther said. His first 95 theses was that repentance was the whole of the Christian life. So this is really, really, really contrary to what medieval Roman Catholicism would have taught about what repentance is. So so for Calvin the Christian life is is another way of saying Regeneration the new creation the new life and that is a life of repentance Okay, so what happens in time? All right, so we'll put at a specific place in time We're regenerated by the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit begins the work okay apart from us and what happens is we're granted faith and repentance now all this is in Calvin it's just helpful sometimes to see it I think faith and repentance our response when we're regenerated is faith and repentance in home it's faith in Christ right all right and it's repentance from sin all right now for Calvin this circle represents what he calls union with Christ. Union with Christ and all his benefits. I'm just so union with Christ and all his benefits. OK, so what the in regeneration, what happens is the believers united to Jesus Christ. Possessing faith and repentance, faith and repentance are the means, humanly speaking, that we see, okay, in our response to regeneration, right? Regeneration always precedes faith and repentance, is that correct? All right. Faith and repentance does not produce regeneration, does it? No, no. So the Holy Spirit, Sovereign Spirit, comes and then He unites us to Jesus Christ, okay? Now, in that union, this is very important for Calvin, in that union, two things are possessed. And that is, one is justification, justification and sanctification. And you see for Calvin, if you see it like this, you realize that there is no one who's going to be justified who's not also being sanctified. There's no one who's going to be justified in union with Christ who's also not sanctified and being sanctified, okay? And so here, we'll put this as a box. Justification and sanctification then are what are the dual blessings of union with Christ. If you had to come up with one center to Calvin's theology, it would be union with Christ, which is also the Apostle Paul's central theology. Always talking of in Christ, always talking of believers in Christ. Paul refers to himself, at one point he says that they were believers in Christ before me, emphasizing union. Union of course in the famous passage in Ephesians 1 3 that that we've been united with Jesus Christ in chapter 2 of Ephesians We've been seated with him in the heavenly places Colossians 3 1 if you have been united with Jesus Christ if you have been raised with Christ all of those things so the dual blessings of union with Christ are justification and sanctification And within that, there are two distinctions. Justification is an imputed righteousness. That's imputed righteousness from Christ alone. That's just that it's not your righteousness, it's not mine. It's strictly the imputation of Christ's righteousness. But because sanctification is distinct from, but never separated from justification, there's infusion of righteousness as well. So an imputation of righteousness, but an infusion. In other words, if you have the imputed righteousness of Christ, you've been declared righteous before Christ, before God the Father in Christ, then he's begun a good work in you to infuse in you sanctification, the new life that will produce good works. It's a couple of images. John 15, I am the vine, you are the branches. That's infused life. In our backyard, there's this tree that we had trimmed back and there's obviously some kind of water source beneath the surface because there's been this abundant amount of water that has been coming out of the branch. It reminds me of life. There's a wonderful picture of the Triune God, the Father being the roots of the tree, the Son being the tree itself and producing the life, and then the Spirit being the fountain, the water that comes forth out of that tree. And you really saw this when we had that late freeze, because you look back and there was this white waterfall. on the side of the tree, and you realize there's a lot of life that's dripping out of this tree. That's infusion. That's what Jesus infuses in us, so that he's putting all his blessings, all his righteousness, not just as a place where we stand, but in us by his Spirit, making us bear fruit, fruit that will last. That's John 15. Very clear, right? And here, we want to stop for a moment and say that we're always going to make a distinction between imputation and infusion. Okay? I could take time to show you how Roman Catholicism changes that around, but we did that. So let me just remind you, Roman Catholicism tends to emphasize the infusion and not the imputation. And so one has this infused until they're justified. But that's not correct. In union with Christ, you get both. But what must always proceed is justification, right? That's right standing before God. All right. Now here's two other things to remember As we continue to draw this picture everybody following so far All right. All right, the the next thing to remember is that when you possess this, you know God as father very important for Calvin To to to call the Holy Spirit the spirit of adoption the spirit of sonship and that we can call God Abba father Romans 8 Amen But there's also the importance of, in this, understanding he's also master and lord. And you see how this corresponds? Father with justification, master lord with sanctification, obedience. Here, the father is obedient, let's say, the kind of obedient, joyful love expressed. By this you will know they're my disciples, that they love one another. If you love me, keep my commandments. Again, John 15. Lots of good stuff in John 15, right? We're coming up there in the evening service. We won't ever get out of John 15. We won't get out of there very easily, will we? All right, so obedient, joyful love. Father. And then Master Lord concentrates us on the fear of God. And that is most important for Calvin, to emphasize Father and Master, obedient, joyful love and fear of God. And you can see it corresponds. Obedient, just love because we've been justified. And then fear of God because we're being sanctified. We want to be obedient. We want to produce good fruit. And you can see how this is confused. You could also see how it's imbalanced sometimes. You sometimes can go to congregations where this is all that's emphasized, or even home. Or this is all that's emphasized, and you don't get the balance. Every time you go there, you're hearing about, fear God, fear God, fear God, do this, and it becomes like a morality play, just moralism. Here, you're talking about father, father, but you're never told what to do, really, as a son. So you need both. That's Calvin. Calvin says, if you know the Christian life, you're gonna know him as father, and you're gonna fear him. Okay, everybody following that so far? All right, the next thing we wanna do is we wanna show what comes out of... So this whole union with Christ, I'm trying to emphasize union while making the distinctions, okay? So that's what this means, okay? It doesn't mean that this is somehow apart from, I'm just trying my best to show distinctions without separation. Is that clear? All right. Everybody okay? You're following? Okay. So what comes out of justification and sanctification For Calvin, very important are two things that happen because of our union with Christ, okay? Let's see, we can have more room here. Let's take more room. Let's tie it there and let's do it like this, okay? Because that way we'll have more room. So what comes out of that are these two things, mortification and, can anyone guess? Very good. Vivification. Very good. So mortification, vivification. All right. That that is mortification is you're dying to sin. Or a vivification, you're living the new life, living unto righteousness in Christ. All right. Everybody follow me. All right, and this mortification, vivification comes out of this. So the true Christian who's in union with Christ, who possesses the dual blessings of union with Christ, who has the imputation of Christ's righteousness and is experiencing the infusion of Christ's righteousness, is someone who is characterized by mortification and vivification. You're dying to sin and you're living unto God. And when you don't, you confess your sins, knowing He's faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. But remember, remember this, beloved, that mortification and vivification is really the Christian life, right? It's regeneration. It's the repentant life, okay? Let's stop there for a moment. You don't have to follow me. I'm just going to get a sip of water. My mouth gets dry. I'll let you catch up there. And this mortification, vivification, manifests itself in three particular ways. Now, this is all Calvin, alright? This is not my idea. This is just how orderly his mind is. And I thought, you know, it's not only very helpful to see an orderly mind, but I think it's helpful to get a picture of something like this and to say, wow, you know, I mean, this is all built into this. I mean, this is, after thinking about Calvin over the years, this is exactly what he had in his head. Now, out of this, and I'm trying again, everything's flowing from union with Christ, okay? Here's the fount. Actually, the fount would be what? The decree of God, right? But I'm talking about in time, union with Christ, united with Jesus Christ. Justification, sanctification, and then living out mortification, vivification, and within these, distinct but not separated, are three things we learned last week. What's the first one? Do you remember? The three ways that we primarily manifest our Christian life. What's the first one? Self-denial. Very good. Self-denial, which includes self-control, and of course, fruits of spirit. What's the second one? Cross-bearing. The cross-centered life. which is suffering, trials that bring about good things. And what's the third? Meditation on the future life. Meditation on the future life that then Calvin talks about, you know, gratitude, right, in the way that we live. He talks about He makes a distinction between a hatred of the world and a contempt of the world. It's very hard to translate him on these things sometimes, but what he's trying to get at is he's trying to get lesser and more. He's trying to say we don't despise God's creation, but compared to heaven, we lived in contempt of it. Does that make sense? He's hard to get on that sometimes. It's just like his teaching of depravity. He says that we're not exhaustively depraved, but God's image has been erased. But then he'll say that his image is what we have in common with the unbeliever. So it's a translation problem. Going back to the erase, he doesn't mean erased as if nothing left, of course, in the larger reading. He means that we are depraved wholly from the root. but not exhaustively. We're not as bad as we could be. So that's what he's saying with that language. With this language, what he's saying is that we're to love the world and be in the world, but not be of the world. It's just very simple. He's saying that compared to heaven, this life is nothing compared to heaven. It's a comparative thing more than anything. self-denial, cross-bearing, meditation on the future life. Now, this is where Calvin really, really, I think, gets good. And this is, again, this is all of chapter 17 in picture form or book three of the 1559. But this is where Calvin really shows the practical application. So here, what he talks about within these three are, first of all, the life of vocation. So the way that we serve our neighbors. So we live out mortification, vivification in our vocations. So he's showing us the context of our lives, where we live out our Christian lives. Then he talks of the family. Then he talks of the church. I'll try to box these. And then he talks about the individual's responsibility, of course, the individual as one before God. So the union with Christ is through justification and sanctification. that will show itself in a regenerate, repentant life of mortification, vivification, that then includes these three elements, primarily self-denial, cross-bearing, and meditation on the future life. Jesus says in Matthew 16, 24, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. All right, so deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. All right, and so in the vivification, mortification, vivification, we have our vocations, our job, our work, right, that God gives us. And so in the work, we live it out. In the family, we live out these things. In the church, we live out these things. And in the individual, we live out these things. All right, Calvin is trying in his theology to fix the imbalances between sacramentalism on one hand and individualism on the other. If the Roman Catholics emphasized ecclesiasticism, you know, church, at the expense of the individual, the antinomians or the radical reformers emphasized the self, the individual, over the church. And we still see that struggle today, beloved, that Calvin's Christian life will help us. If you know that there's always going to be this imbalance, there's going to tend to be an imbalance if people aren't aware of this. scriptural balance, that your preacher, your teachers, your fathers, your mothers, whatever, are going to emphasize sometimes too much father and not enough master lord, too much love, not enough fear. And both of these have to be in place at all times, in preaching, in teaching, in passing on the Christian faith, because they include a father who's also a master. It includes a God who's of love, who's also to be feared. And then you see the imbalance between the emphasis on church sometimes over the individual, and then usually that person who's had that imbalance tends to swing to the other side and just focus on his own devotional life. and disregards the church. You don't want to do that. You don't want to be the individual focused on just devotional life and then go to Rome, which is a typical pathway to miss the Reformation. So many people miss the Reformation because of Satan's ploys, Satan's deception. They go right back to the early church as if they're going to get something better than what we had in the Reformation. The greatest revival of all time? You're going to not educate yourself on it. You're not going to know you're Calvin before you make your trip from Protestantism to Rome? It's crazy. So we need to know. He was a father, a very important father. We have to emphasize father and fear of God. We have to emphasize church and individual as a balance. That's why he has this. But then the church and the individual doesn't mean that you don't have vocations. You do, and it doesn't mean you don't have family. And that's what he's arguing against the Roman Catholic error of the medieval period. All right, so final, you ready? Everybody got the picture? All right, so the two things that this is to do in Calvin's theology, the two things, if you know what Reformed spirituality is and you know that there's a balance between father and fear, love of God and fear, father and master, and you know there's a balance between the church and the individual, okay, and you've got that going, then you need to remember two last things, two last things. What's the purpose of this? Number one, soli deo gloria, Glory to God. God has possessed us for His own glory so that our lives might demonstrate to the world that He's not only a loving God, He's a God to be feared. And if you're not showing that, if you're not teaching that, you don't have, well, functionally you don't have the biblical God completely. You're not given the complete picture, and not a complete picture is going to affect your life. It is, beloved, it's going to affect your life. Because you're going to be careless with your life if you emphasize this and not this. And if you emphasize this and not this, you're going to be legalistic and harsh. You've got to repent. We've got to repent. We've got to as a church. That's the problem with the church today. So people will say, I always heard about the love of God, but they didn't ever tell me how to live out the life. I got caught up in sin because I wasn't watchful. So they slip over to just fearing God, and then they become legalists. And these, oh man, my parents, they were always talking about the fear of God. My pastor was always telling me to be watchful and careful, but he didn't tell me about God being my father. And so I've slipped over to the other side to find where everything's merry, everything's joyful, everything is good. God is good all the time and there's no sin and there's no suffering and there's no really instruction for you Christians either on how you should live your life. Listen, when you try to do father because you think there's fear, you're gonna trip over your own foot. Central here that you must see is union with Christ in union with Christ you get both But if you say oh, I'm fearing God too much I've got to now put father you're gonna you're gonna trip into legalism or antinomianism You've got to put it on Christ Christ has to be central. That's for Calvin, the centrality, that all of this flows out of Christ. Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. I'm going to do this the rest of the day until we get it. Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. Somehow I think the Holy Spirit is working harder when I'm doing this. All right, Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. All right, Christ, Christ. You get it? Everything flows out of Christ. So you want to know how to emphasize both Christ, Christ, emphasize Christ. but not a half gospel of Christ, a whole gospel of Christ, a Christ who saves and a Christ who sanctifies. Amen. Amen. Let me hear an amen. All right. And that's to the glory of God. And then the second one, the second one, very important. You remember that big gap between God's holiness, that Grand Canyon between God's holiness and our sin? Well, guess what? After the glory of God, the second thing is closing the gap. closing the gap between God's perfect holiness. That's it. So this is Calvin, and this whole thing has to do with Jesus Christ. If I could have made this bigger, I would have. So star, star, star, star. Spirit, Christ. Spirit, Christ. Spirit, Spirit, Spirit, Spirit, Spirit, always focusing on Christ. Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. Christ. Alpha and omega, beginning and end, to the end of your life. Amen? All right. So there's Calvin on the Christian life. And when we get that, I think when we begin to think about it like that, it really does, well, by God's grace, it helps us. All right. I worked up a sweat there. All right. So let's look now at a contrast. What we're going to do now is we're going to do a contrast If you take up your outline, I gave you a couple of ways to remember Calvin's definition and understanding of true piety or spirituality. In the middle there of Roman number one, Calvin defines piety. Piety is reverence or fear of God joined with a love of God, which the knowledge of his benefits induces. So as we do this, you try to see it on the board. You see, where is this on the board, beloved? Where is this on the board? Right here? Okay. So piety is reverence or fear of God joined with love together as father. And then he says in the quotation right below it, the gist of true piety does not consist in a fear which would gladly flee the judgment of God, but rather in a pure and true zeal which loves God altogether as Father and reveres Him altogether as Lord. Okay? So Father and Lord. Do you see that? Oh, by the way, just to apply this a little bit more. This is application, by the way, but just to apply it. Where are you? That's two questions. Those are very questions. Where are you between Father and Master Lord? Know that. Know where you tend to lean. And don't try to lean in the other direction because I don't know that you will balance yourself out. Know where you lean and then focus on Christ and both of these elements flowing from Christ. In other words, wherever you lean, be aware of it. Note all of the Scriptures. Say you lean on the fear of God. Note the Scriptures that Jesus mentions of His Heavenly Father and how kind and good He is. And if you're too much on the Father, as if you could be, but too much in the sense that you lean more in that direction and not fear, then look at Jesus' comments about, you know, if any man would follow me, consider the cost. If you love me, keep my commandments. But focus on Jesus is the point. And you'll see both of these elements in the Lord Jesus. That's the thing. Jesus lived the Christian life. He was the, to put it in a, he was the true Christian. He's the anointed Christian. So he's the anointed, the Christian believer par excellence, is he not? He was truly human, right? He truly had faith? He wasn't fallen, wasn't sinful, but he truly lived the life of obedience that he calls us to. Now, down at the bottom of one, there's a couple things about Calvin's piety. And at that last place where it says summary characteristics, look at the comment right above that. I said, Calvin's piety or spirituality is a via media or a middle way between individualism and sacramentalism. OK? Because the individualism was expressed in the Reformation, post-Reformation, in Quakers. Antinomians, they often called the shwarmer or the the fanatics, the swammer, German word, Luther said the swammer has swallowed the Holy Ghost's feathers and all. You know, that's Luther's colorful language. But they were radical individualists, me and my Bible people, me and my Bible. Rejected the church, that sort of thing. And that's evangelicalism. But on the other side, there's Roman Catholicism that overemphasizes the scriptures. So summary characteristics of Calvin's spirituality or piety are that they're Christ-centered. Very important, right? Very important. That's how you keep central. Keep Christ in the focus. Word-shaped. Word-shaped. In other words, it's the word that tells you how to live the Christian life. This is just a summary. You know this. A love for God's church because it is his embassy on earth. Look. The world knows how to represent other kingdoms by giving embassies in the capitals of countries to represent them. Every visible manifestation of Christ's church that is faithful to word and sacrament is an embassy. And at every one of the embassies, you've got an ordained ambassador. That's a pastor. A pastor is an ambassador. So you have an embassy of the kingdom at every faithful church. and you have an ambassador, and you have citizens of that kingdom. And that's what the visible church, we need to emphasize that. The only thing that ambassador has that's worth saying is what the king has said, okay? You know, you don't care. We know we shouldn't care, you know, what the what the person of the ambassador thinks about something so much as we care about what the king says and what the ambassador does as a representative of the king. What has the king said? That's what we need to know. That's what the world needs to know through his embassy. So this is an embassy of heaven. An embassy means you have citizenship. Citizenship not in just this world, Elizabeth, Citizenship not just in this world, but citizenship that's from heaven ultimately. Then Calvin believed in experience that was tethered to holy scripture or truth. There was true experience in the Christian life. You should truly experience the Christian life, okay? And then he made, he emphasized love of God and fear of God. And I'll leave that for you. All right, so what you have in Roman numeral three of your outline to the end are just the overview of Calvin's book three of the Christian life. But I want to focus you now. on Roman numeral two, Calvin's piety as particularly a reformed and reforming Catholic. Okay, so here's the continuities and discontinuities between Calvin and medieval spiritualities, okay? And I told you earlier that you could think of the greatest hits or the greatest influential books of the church, and on the top 10 list would be Augustine's Confessions, Pilgrim's Progress, Calvin's Golden Book of the Christian Life, and Thomas Akimpas' Imitation of Christ, Imitation of Christ. So we're going to look at the two. And I think this is a wonderful way to close the class, is by looking at what Calvin was doing, not only in reforming doctrine, but life. Now, Calvin, during lunchtime, when he was being raised a Roman Catholic, he would go to private schools, private colleges. And in those colleges, he was being taught Roman Catholicism. And one of the things that he was greatly influenced by from a youth was Thomas Akempis' writing, The Imitation of Christ. So Calvin knew about the imitation of Christ. He could have memorized it. They would have lectures at these schools and colleges Calvin was a part of when he was a young man where there'd be lectures on the imitation of Christ that he would have heard. and have been aware of. And so you can see in this that Calvin's really building on, but so there's a continuity with him and Akimpas, there's a continuity with him and Thomas, but there's also a discontinuity, okay? All right, let's look together. Number one, in Akimpas you have this medieval Roman Catholic conception of grace. All right, so in this you have a medieval conception of grace, which is you have an infused righteousness until you're made righteous. And that's why in reading Thomas Akimpas, if you're reading it as a book on sanctification, you can't go wrong. If you're reading it as a book on the Christian life, you can't go wrong. But the problem is that Thomas' theology was not such. Thomas was writing that as a manual of how you become right before God. Okay? So it wasn't saying now, live and do this, so much as it was do this and you shall live. Okay? And that's wrong. And so in Calvin, number one, grace is always mediated through Christ. Always mediated through Christ. So Christ is central. So any kind of mediation of Christ will include all of Christ. both justification and sanctification. See how this is in picture form here? So you can see that now. All right, number two. Christ's example is primary for a campus. So you go into the scriptures, and the primary thing is, say, you look at the cross, you go, look at the love of God. Yeah. What about substitutionary atonement? What about the justice of God in the salvation of sinners? What about propitiation? What about expiation? Nothing. Nothing it's just and he is that but not just that and not primarily that Primarily he's a mediator and he earned something for us and that's important All right. So the cross is not first the love of God so much as it is the love wisdom justice of God through a mediator a Substitutionary atonement that brings propitiation of God's wrath and the expiation or the taking away of sins That's what the cross is and you have to emphasize that and so he again Christ the mediator The priority is on Christ the Mediator. Christ the Mediator. That is His person and His works, and then His example. His person and His work for sinners, then His example. His person and His work, which Thomas doesn't have. Okay? You see? Person of Christ and His work. Who is He and what has He done for sinners? Number three. As you can imagine, when you read Thomas, he's weak on justification, he's strong on sanctification. You get that, right? Calvin, union with Christ brings justification and sanctification. All right, everybody look. Union with Christ brings justification and sanctification. You see the difference? All right. Number four, Thomas pivots on love rather than faith, which is typical of Roman Catholicism. Talking about reaching some kind of love mark that then produces faith and hope. See, it pivots on love. Calvin and the Reformers always pivot on faith, receiving the love of God. There's a big difference. So if I emphasize love, I'm always going to emphasize God's love for you, for all sinners, and then your love that you show for God until you're justified. That's tricky. Lots of Baptistic people and evangelicals do this too, by the way. And this is why there's a confusion sometimes between these two. So don't think it's just in the Roman Catholic Church. And what Calvin does is he pivots on faith. All the Reformers do. Faith alone. Faith alone. Faith alone. So he starts with, if you're going to be united with Jesus Christ, it's not about growing in love toward God. It's about believing that God first loved you in Christ. We haven't loved God, 1 John 4. God loved us first. And when he did, he gave me faith to receive his love in Christ. You see the difference? It's tricky, isn't it? But this will keep you from error. This will keep you from error. This will keep us from error. This contrasting, these two things, will tell you why you're, hopefully, by God's grace, will make you proud and thankful, grateful, deep, deep within that you're a Reformed spiritual person and not a Roman Catholic. All right? It's not a matter of pride here. It's a matter that God has made it clear to you that Christ is central to everything. And you're happy about that, okay? I'm happy about that. Are you happy? Yeah? Yeah? No? No? You can't hear that and say, yeah, I'm kind of tired. No, you got to take that. You got to say, oh, that's exciting. Yes, that's life itself, faith alone, not love, because we don't have any. All right, five. Thomas is weak or not, not very specific on the work of the Spirit. You go through Thomas' Ecclesiastes, he talks about you. He talks about you. He talks about me. He doesn't talk about the Holy Spirit. And Calvin, he's called the theologian of the Holy Spirit for a reason, because everything begins with the Holy Spirit's sovereign work and overcome our carelessness with regard to the love of God. Holy Spirit. Number six, in a campus, well, you knew this was coming. There was a priority on the imperative. That is, there's a priority on the commands of what God expects of creatures. Whereas, again, with Calvin, number six, the priority is on union with Jesus Christ. Union with Jesus Christ. That includes the right standing, justification, and the imperative, which is sanctification. The imperative are the commands, right? The emphasis is on both, who you are in Christ, and what he's done for you, and how you're to live for him. And then finally, number seven, here's where the change here, watch this, everybody see the picture? In this, this is, Thomas Akimba's book was for monastic formation. It was for the contemplative life. It was for the monastic life. Calvin, it's a common man spirituality. All right, so for Thomas, what he's writing that he doesn't reveal to you, you look at his hand, he's talking primarily that a compass is for monks. It's not for your average Christian. It's for those higher life guys who are set apart into the ministry. Medieval Roman Catholicism. Real bad, real evil. Calvin is vocation, family, church, and individual. And that's what he's arguing against. That's what's so important about Calvin's contrast with Akempis are those seven things that I hope you'll remember. And again, Thomas Akempis is the best of Roman Catholic medieval spirituality. The best. Hands down. I don't know that you can give me any better book. At least not any better, more popular book that has ever been written by a medieval Roman Catholic. OK? your average lay person has at least read portions of the Imitation of Christ. And your average lay person, even non-religious people, know of Imitation of Christ. Tremendously influential scripture. Now, the rest of this is a gift to you to enjoy. I've really appreciated all of you being in the class, and I'm grateful. I hope that the picture and I hope that the outline I made for you will be a good, helpful introduction, maybe not only a review of the Christian life, but also an introduction to reading the 1559 version. I encourage you to do that. There's four books in that one, and you've done so well in doing this that that surely that will be next on your list. So for reformed spirituality and piety, that's what Calvin does. And he has order, biblical order throughout. And there is a very important... When he's writing, he's not only thinking biblically, but he's thinking of error. And that's what a good teacher does, right? Preach the word in season, out of season, correct, rebuke, Admonish. And remember 2 Timothy 2, verse 21, correct your opponents with gentleness. Going to end with just saying one thing about Calvin. At the end of his life, he wished he'd have been more gentle. Because he's not always gentle in his writings. And that does come across and sometimes that pushed people away. And he didn't mean to. Well, yeah, he did mean to, but he was a sinner. Jesus Christ was Calvin's heart. And Jesus Christ is our heart. And Jesus Christ was Calvin's hope. Jesus Christ is our hope. But Calvin wasn't perfect. And the one thing that he could have done better that he repented of, actually, on his deathbed, was he said, I'm sorry, I've been cranky. I've been impatient. I'm using modern language, but that's what he said. And I've been often impatient with you. And I could have been a little bit more gentle. The very thing that Calvin says is the heart of the Christian life, gentleness of Christ, is the very thing that he seems to have not been able to possess. And it just shows us that we're to get our eyes off Calvin and put them on Jesus Christ. All right? But it shows us that we got a good man, a good teacher in Calvin, no doubt, but he's not a perfect man. And while you can be a really good teacher, you can be qualified, Forgive me for my lack of gentleness sometimes and impatience. That's one thing I can see in Calvin, not only my love for the truth that he's taught me, but it's also sometimes a lack of gentleness. Right, girls? So, a little in there. I do want to say a couple things. We do have a question and answer class next week, but I want to take a moment to just honor three people. I want to honor all of you, many of you, most of you, next week, all right? But today, I want to honor three, all right, particularly, that have rose above, two students and one helper, two students and one helper. The first thing I want to do is I want to say, aw, thank you, sweet. I want a big round of applause for her. Mrs. Turner has done so much work behind the scenes to help this class, and we're thankful for you, Mrs. Turner. Thank you for all the work you've done and all the help you've been given and there are two of my favorite books here Tim Keller's the songs of Jesus its devotions on the psalms and this is a Calvin theologian reformer by Joel Beakey edited by Joel Beakey got to take the class and There's a dr. Ferguson essay in there worth gold. So about the Holy Spirit in Calvin's theology So that's some of the best essays ever right there. You got it I want to also, two of our students have just been, they get special recognition today. The first one is a young lady who's worked very hard, and she's getting as a gift today, Zeal for Godliness, which is devotions on Calvin's Institutes, and Michael Horton's newer book, newest book, I believe, Calvin on the Christian Life. It's hard to find out where Michael Horton's newest book is, because they're coming out so quickly. But Calvin on the Christian Life, you get to read. And this is to Alyssa Turner, if you'll come forward. You completed more work than any other young lady in our class, and we're thankful. and did it with great joy. So this says, Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, in special recognition, honor your participation and successful completion. All right. A Providence Prep Seminar. We commend you and thank you. Thank God for you. And then at the bottom, I offer you my heart promptly and sincerely. There you are. We love you. Bless you. Bless you. Thank you so much. Yeah, these are lots of fun books right here. Lots of good meditations and devotions. All right. And then the young man. who's exceeded for all the expectations and if I had to choose the top of the class, it'd be this young man, Thomas Peter TJ Mora. This guy's been unbelievable. I mean, thank you brother, love you man. This guy, this brother has... Not only done the work, but done it well and written it out with editing, exceptional editing. You've been faithful. You've given me feedback. You've known your material. And you're getting Church History 101, Sinclair Ferguson, Joel Beakey. You're getting a theological guide to Calvin's Institutes, one of the best books ever. And you're getting Gerhardus Voss's Biblical Theology for next year. Thank you. God bless you. All right, let's give a round of applause. That's wonderful. Oh, it's wonderful. Oh, I'm so delighted. I'm so delighted. Well, all of you have done so well. There's so many wonderful things you've done, and I'm grateful that you've been through this class. And I have been praying for you, according to your prayer requests that you've sent recently and the ones in the beginning. I still have. And I'd like to recognize many of you next time. and at the last class. But I wanted to really thank God for Mrs. Turner, for TJ, and for Missy Turner for their hard work and exceptional. Just wonderful. All right. Are there any questions about today before we close? And next week will be question and answer, so you can save it. And if you haven't gotten to me my response, the thing I ask you about, the work that you've done, please do. And if I've overlooked someone who has completed everything, done all the outlines, so if I have, please let me know that, OK? All right. Yes, that's great. Sure. Yeah, that's a good question. I think what we'd say fairly there is, and maybe all of us have experienced this in evangelical circles, is it's really the influences of the pastor-teachers that we have, I think, primarily, or the congregations we're a part of, that overall In evangelicalism today, when somebody asks me what's the greatest threat to the church today, it's not outside the church. It's in. It's not a Saul. I'm sorry, it's not a Herod so much as it's a Saul. And I would say that it is antinomianism. It's taking for granted the love of God the Father without any kind of real fear of God, real reverence. That's just not taught. And any commands are oftentimes spoken of as kind of legalism, when the commands are the whole reason why we're created, and, well, very important reason why we're created, or instruction for our lives, and reason for our redemption. And they usually start with command number four, tearing it down. and saying that it's gone, it's no longer important. So that tendency of antinomianism you can find in different churches, but the way I see, if I'm hearing your question correctly, with justification and sanctification, these are tied together. When justification Let me say it like this. When justification is rightly emphasized, it will always be rooted in the Spirit's work in our union with Jesus. In other words, it's a blessing of union with Christ that we have. But it's always wed to sanctification. And it's distinct from never separated. Distinct but never confused. If we were to say that Roman Catholicism, this has just got to be a caricature for time, right? So let's say that in Roman Catholicism, this is confused. Because sanctification tends to go in front of justification for Roman Catholics. For evangelicals, the tendency is that they're separated. Justification and sanctification are separated. And it really took off in the 90s when John MacArthur was heading this really wonderful polemic against easy-believism. That's an old form of antinomianism. And John MacArthur wrote that classic book that still stands today. Love John MacArthur. John MacArthur, God bless him. That was called The Gospel According to Jesus. And what he was trying to show in that book is that these two are always wed together. You know, so he was giving a popular way. Michael Horton joined the voices along with R.C. Sproul in the late 90s saying that easy believism has to stop. You know, that if we're going to talk, and easy believism is not the best term, I don't think, with all respect. And I understand what it means, but when we hear it, sometimes we think, well, isn't it easy to believe? Well, what they're emphasizing is it's hard for a sinner to believe. We have to have the sovereign work of the spirit. That's what they're getting at. But when we hear easy believism, we go, why are they making Faith hard, but they're not okay, so the better work I shouldn't take better another way of looking at it is saying that and from Calvin is that Christ gives us the dual blessings of justification and sanctification and so what this means is God is a father as well as a master and so he's to be loved but he's also to be feared all right and And those things have to be held together. With easy-believism, they're emphasizing, or the easy-believism people tend to say that one is a Christian and they can live carnal lives, for instance. They can live in sin. And that's just not true. They're giving assurance to people who are, they can be giving assurance to people who aren't really Christians. And that's very dangerous. I don't know. It's a big discussion, but it's a good question. I just don't know if I'm doing... I think so. And I think that lack, that shallowness, is what leads to the shallow lives. They're attracted like moths to a flame at an entertaining worship service. But they'll fall asleep the minute you start reading the Bible. They will. It's just their apathetic hearts. You know, people just don't get excited about the Word, the truth, the Spirit. They want experience, but they don't want the Word through the experience. Or they don't want the experience through the Word. They just don't. So that's the big problem in evangelical today. People who are gospel-believing Christians, who are overemphasizing one or other of these without emphasizing union with Christ, and who are oftentimes separating justification. So they're saying, oh, you can be justified sanctification may come later. That's just not true. You may not be justified if you're not being sanctified. Well, I'd say, biblically speaking, if somebody's not on the way to being sanctified, they're not justified. That's the truth. They're not. Yes. And it's a loving thing to tell them, isn't it? It's very loving, though it doesn't attract them as much as the entertainment. Absolutely. No, not at all. Oh, I see. Okay. Yep. That's very true. And assurance for us is part of Calvin's teaching and part of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It's actually a separate chapter in chapter 18 that shows us that as Reformed people, we can have assurance that's based on simple faith in Christ. as we are justified, we're also being sanctified, and as we can see fruit to some degree. Now, you know, there's going to be better seasons in our lives, right? There's going to be good seasons, there's going to be bad seasons, right? There's going to be hard seasons. But overall, the true Christian has a trajectory, right? Though there's ups and downs, he has a trajectory of godwardness that's undeniable, unmistakable. that leads to an assurance of faith, to some degree. But the Westminster Divines say very clearly that assurance is not of the essence of faith. And what they mean by that is that not every Christian is assured of their faith. And it could be the Christian's fault, because they're not believing enough. It could be the Christian's circumstances are just hard. Lots of things have to be taken into consideration. But assurance is something to seek after. It's not of the essence of faith. Somebody can have true faith and not be assured of it. And there are seasons when we're more assured than others, right? And more assured means more joy. But I would say, if I had to, that the problem today, as I see it and hear it, is a separation between justification and sanctification. The same old problem in the East and in the West, Roman Catholicism, is that they confuse justification and sanctification. Same old problem. But the problem that continues, in the evangelical churches, baptistic churches, bible churches, tends toward a separation. Now, with this, I'll leave with one last piece of good news. Together for the gospel this year, lots of evangelical, bible church, baptist, lots of people come to that. And thanks be to God, because there does seem to be a movement of, and this year's topic was holiness. And I almost went with my good friend Clark and Tim. I was unable because of different things in my schedule. they went, they go every year or every time it's held. And this year was holiness. And that's wonderful. That's good news, because that tells me that a lot of pastors are probably being introduced for the first time, the concept of holiness and the fear of God, and hearing it as something that's from grace and not so much law. So that means that's going in a good direction. You can thank God for people like, you know, D.A. Carson and Tim Keller and, of course, the young man, Kevin de Young, that wrote The Hole in Our Holiness, that wrote a very popular book about holiness that has gotten a rather large audience. So God's doing something about it is all I'm saying. He's answering our prayers, and that's a good thing. So that may not be the problem for long, but I think it's been the problem for a long time. God's good, we gotta end, all right? So let's do some more question and answer. Ask me more about these things. I think they're good. I think they're very helpful for us to talk about. And I'll try to be candid and honest and try to be gracious about it. But I think those are the things that we're up against still in our church and in our own hearts, really, in our own hearts. So we wanna see Christ and we wanna see the Father and the Lord that Christ reveals to us, amen? All right, so let's hear Jesus speak and then we'll pray. Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. All right, let's pray. Our Father and our God, we're grateful for this opportunity to study John Calvin, to study the theology, study about the Christian life, study scriptures. Lord, we pray that as the seed has been sown that you will cause us all to flourish. Father, help us to know and be confident in our union with Christ that is a gift from you through the Holy Spirit. And help us to see that life in union with Christ through our faith and through our repentance, living out the Christian life. Help us to see it in being justified and also being sanctified, growing in Christlikeness, and to doing that through dying to sin and living unto righteousness through obedience. Help us by your Holy Spirit to live the life that Christ lived. to some degree, or at least aspire to it. Now help us in all of our callings, in our vocations, in our family, in our church, and as individuals, that we will live out the life of self-denial, of cross-bearing, and of meditating on the future life. And give a blessing, Lord, to the studies that we've had here. And reform your church today. We know that we are reformed, but always reforming according to Scripture. We pray that we'd not only be reformed in our doctrine, but reformed in our lives. We pray these things in Jesus' holy name and all the church said, Amen.