Calvin’s Institutes: Calvin’s Theology of Christian suffering.

In the previous post on Calvin’s Institutes, Calvin explained how Jesus Christ set sinners free to live a life of glad self denial. In this chapter (Chapter 8, Book 3), he sets up Jesus Christ as an example of godly self denial. For Calvin Jesus is the human example for us because he became and still is, human.

1. Jesus “learned obedience through what He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). His disciples can now can deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him. As Calvin writes, “In harsh and difficult conditions (Rom 8:28), regarded as adverse and evil, a great comfort comes to us: we share Christ’s sufferings in order that s he has passed from a labyrinth of all evils into heavenly glory, we may in like manner be led through various tribulations to the same glory (Acts 14:22)” (Pg., 702).

2. Why must we have and be under the weight of suffering? Calvin gives five reasons from Scripture.

3. First, because we have a “stupid and empty confidence in the flesh” (Pg., 703). Sinners by nature want to say “I did it my way.”

Well, cross bearing “can best restrain this arrogance when he proves to us by experience not only the great incapacity but also the frailty under which we labor....Thus humbled, we learn to call upon his power, which alone makes us stand fast under the weight of afflictions” (Pg., 703).

4. Secondly, cross bearing teaches us patience and obedience. (Rom 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 1:4; Gen. 22:1,12; 1 Peter 1:7)

5. Thirdly, cross bearing is medicine for our pride and love for comfort. If God were to make everything rosy for us, we would be like fattened horses. That is, “fattened and made flabby, we kick against him who has fed and nourished us” (Pg., 705).

Suffering keeps us thankful and dependent upon him. Calvin writes, “The Lord himself, according as he sees it expedient, confronts us and subjects and restrains our unrestrained flesh with the remedy of the cross” (Pg., 706).

6. Fourthly, cross bearing is fatherly chastisement. “For he afflicts us not to ruin or destroy us but, rather, to free us from the condemnation of the world...When we have fallen away from him, God destroys us unless by reproof he recalls us” (Pg., 706).

7. Fifth, cross bearing is suffering for righteousness sake. “Therefore, whether in declaring God’s truth against Satan’s falsehoods or in taking up the protection of the good and the innocent against the wrongs of the wicked, we must undergo the offences and hatred of the world, which may imperil either our life, our fortunes, or our honour” (Pg., 707).