The Ten Commandments in Calvin’s Institutes, Part 5: The greatest commandment.

God created man in his own image. “God has depicted his character in the law that if any man carries out in deeds whatever is enjoined there, he will express the image of God, as it were, in his own life” (Pg, 415). The question then is what will the Christian’s life look like? Simply, love. Love is the fulfillment of the law.

Calvin concludes Book II, Chapter 8 by explaining how love is the fulfillment of the law.

1. The summation of the Ten Commandments is explained in a four letter word - love (Rom 13:10; Gal 5:14). “If the love of God is shed abroad in your heart, it pours out and over everyone,” wrote J.H. Gerstner in his Handout Theology.

2. One cannot love Christ without loving his law. That is, loving the very nature and character and excellence of Christ.

3. In the law we find “all the duties of piety and love” (Pg., 415).

4. Calvin gives sound biblical teaching when he writes that a person “keeps the commandments not by loving ourselves but by loving God and neighbour…he lives the best and holiest life who lives and strives for himself as little as he can…and no one lives in a worse or more evil manner than he who lives and strives for himself alone, and thinks about and seeks only his own advantage” (Pg., 417).

5. We are to love our neighbour’s; but who is he or she? “We ought to embrace the whole human race without exception in a single feeling of love.....whatever the character of the man, we must yet love him because we love God” (Pg., 419).

6. The whole law is contained in loving your neighbour as yourself (Gal 5:14). But should we not love God more than man? Yes, but when we love man as we should it is because we love God as we should.

7. Loving our friend and our enemy reveals that we fear God. See section 52-57, pgs 416-15 for an excellent dissertation on loving our neighbour.

8. All sins are mortal because they are against God and his law. “Let the children of God hold that all sin is mortal. For it is rebellion against the will of God, which of necessity provokes God’s wrath, and it is a violation of the law, upon which God’s judgment is pronounced without exception” (Pg., 423). [Rom 6:23; Ezek 18:4,20]

9. “The sins of the saints are pardonable, not because of their nature as saints, but because they obtain pardon from God’s mercy” (Pg., 423).

10. Augustine said, “Let Him give what He commands, and command what He wills.” “To be Christians under the law of grace does not mean to wander unbridled outside the law, but to be engrafted in Christ, by whose grace we are free of the curse of the law, and by whose Spirit we have the law engraved upon our hearts [Jer 31:33]” (Pg., 421).

The Ten Commandments in Calvin’s Institutes, Part 4: The last six Commandments.

A few weeks ago, in my ongoing summarizations of Calvin’s Institutes, I summarized Calvin’s understanding of the first four Commandments. Today I move ahead to the last six.

I don’t think these commandments were arranged by chance or accident. As the first table indicates, man and his relationship with God is cardinal. But this in no way diminishes man’s responsibility to love each other. Actually, loving God and loving our fellow man are so connected that how we treat each other, to a very large extent, reveals our relationship with God. If we love God we will love our neighbour. If we do not love God we will not love our neighbour. Why, because we fail to see the image of God in them, and because we love our selves more than we ought to.

On with the summary.

1. The fifth commandment (Ex 20:12). Mankind is to respect those whom God has placed over them.

2. Calvin: “This then is the sum: that we should look up to those whom God has placed over us, and would treat them with honour, obedience, and gratefulness. It follows from this that we are forbidden to detract from their dignity either by contempt, by stubbornness, or by ungratefulness” (Pg., 401).

3. The sixth commandment (Ex 20:13). Life is a gift from God. Therefore, to steal that life, either with the hands or with the heart, in an evil fashion is murder.

4. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment is: the Lord has bound mankind together by a certain unity; hence each man ought to concern himself with the safety of all. To sum up, then, all violence, injury, and any harmful thing at all that may injure our neighbour=s body are forbidden to us” (Pg., 404).

5. The seventh commandment (Ex 20:14). Sex is a gift of God given to the married. To those who practice it outside the marriage relationship violates this commandment.

6. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment is: because God loves modesty and purity, all uncleanliness must be far from us. To sum up, then: we should not become defiled with any filth or lustful intemperance of the flesh. To this corresponds the affirmative commandment that we chastely and continually regulate all parts of our life” (Pg., 405).

7. The eighth commandment (Ex 20:15). “The purpose of this commandment is: since injustice is an abomination to God, we should render to each man what belongs to him [Rom 13:7]. To sum up: we are forbidden to pant after the possessions of others, and consequently are commanded to strive faithfully to help every man to keep his own possessions” (Pg., 408).

8. The ninth commandment (Ex 20:16). “The purpose of this commandment is: since God (who is truth) abhors a lie, we must practice truth without deceit toward one another. To sum up then: let us not malign any one with slander or false charges, nor harm his substance by falsehood, in short, injure him by unbridled evils peaking and impudence....we should faithfully help everyone as much as we can in affirming the truth, in order to protect the integrity of his name and possessions” (Pg., 411).

9. The tenth commandment (Ex 20:17). Loves is the fulfilling of the law. Covetousness comes from a heart empty of love; hence, when we covet we break all the laws of God (Rom 7:7).

10. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment is: since God wills that our whole soul be possessed with a disposition to love, we must banish from our hearts all desire contrary to love. To sum up, then: no thought should steal upon us to move our hearts to a harmful covetousness that tends to our neighbours loss.....whatever we conceive, deliberate, will, or attempt is to be linked to our neighbour’s good” (Pg., 413).

The Ten Commandments in Calvin’s Institutes, Part 3: The first four Commandments.

1. The first commandment (Ex 20:2-3). No other gods at all!

2. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment is that the Lord wills alone to be pre-eminent among His people, and to exercise complete authority over them. To affect this, He enjoins us to put far from us all impiety and superstition, which either diminish or obscure the glory of His divinity” (Pg., 382).

3. What belongs to him is adoration, trust, invocation and thanksgiving.

4. The second commandment (Ex 20:4-5). They that worship God must worship him in spirit, not by vain imaginations of the mind.

5. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment, then, is that He does not will that His lawful worship be profaned by superstitious rites. To sum up, He wholly calls us back and with draws us from petty carnal observances, which our stupid minds, crassly conceiving of God, are wont to devise. And then He makes us conform to His lawful worship, that is, a spiritual worship established by Himself” (Pg., 383).

There are curses and promises connected to this command. This last phrase is repeated throughout God’s word (Num 14:18; Ex 34:6-7; Jer 32:18). Its blessing and curse are not limited only to this present life; they have eternal ramifications.

6. The third commandment (Ex 20:7). The mind and tongue are forbidden to speak God’s name without meaning, or with cursing.

7. Calvin: “The purpose of this commandment is: God wills that we hallow the majesty of His name. Therefore, it means in brief that we are not to profane His name by treating it contemptuously and irreverently......we ought to be so disposed in mind and speech that we neither think nor say anything concerning God and His mysteries, without reverence and much soberness; that in estimating His works we conceive nothing but what is honourable to Him” (Pg., 388).

If every idle word will be brought into judgment - how much more terrible the judgment of idle words about God. See Matthew 12:36-37.

8. The fourth commandment (Ex 20:8-10). The whole universe is God’s, including all the days. But one day in seven is a holy convocation to and for the Lord from the work He has given us to do.

9. Calvin did not affirm the Christian Sabbath. At the Lord Jesus’ coming the ceremonial part of the command was abolished. Christians should meet on Sundays, not because God commands it, but simply because that is what the church has done since her beginning. Christians must do spiritual service on the day the church meets. He writes, Athe purpose of this commandment is that, being dead to our own inclinations and works, we should meditate on the Kingdom of God, and that we should practice that meditation in the ways established by him” (Pg., 394).
“The purpose of this commandment,” Calvin writes, “is that, being dead to our own inclinations and works, we should meditate on the Kingdom of God, and that we should practice that meditation in the ways established by Him” (Pg., 394).

The Ten Commandments in Calvin’s Institutes, Part 2: The Two Tables, and love.

Scripture in Ecclesiastes 12:13 says, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man,” or as the New American Translation has it, “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.”

This law of God which is summarized for us in the Ten Commandments is divided into two tables so as to leave nothing unaddressed. God has so designed the Ten Commandments so as to contain the whole of righteousness. The first table (Commandments number 1 through 4), address our relationship to God (particularly concerning the worship of God’s majesty), and the second table (Commandments number 5 through 10) address our relationships with our neighbour.

But to obey both tables requires faith-filled love. As Christ said there are only two commandments ultimately: love God; and a by-product from that: love your fellow man as you love yourself [Mark 29-31]. Paul in a sense reduces all Ten Commandments to one commandment, namely love. [Rom 13:10; Gal 5:14].

Chapter 8 of the Institutes is a study on each of the Commandments. Here is entry number of 1, summarizing the first few sections. This is one of those long chapters in the Institutes so there will be a number of summaries.

1. Is the law sin and against the promises of God? God forbid. [Rom 7:7; Gal 3:21]

2. This law calls us to reverence God for His majesty and holiness. This law reveals our depravity and reproves our impotence. Calvin correctly remarks. “Our nature, wicked and deformed, is always opposing His uprightness; and our capacity, weak and feeble to do good, lies far from His perfection” (Pg., 367).

3. God is our Creator. He is Father and Lord. Therefore, by right and Being, he can and does command us to obey his commandments. It is a sin to follow the caprice of our minds in deciding what commandments are suitable.

4. The law is good! Because it is so severe it aids in showing us our foul deadness which prompts us to seek mercy from God. Because of its promises and threats we are warmed to virtue and hateful against vice. Because of it’s righteousness it is sufficient we need not to dream of our own way to do good works. The law is given to teach us true and perfect righteousness.

5. God is a Spirit and his law is spiritual (Rom 7:14). Human laws demand only physical obedience, but God requires heart (spiritual) obedience. God requires obedience of soul, mind and will. “For since He is a spiritual lawgiver, He speaks no less to the soul than to the body” (Pg., 372).

6. Jesus, who knows what is in man, interprets the law correctly. The law must be obeyed in the man with and in love for the law to be truly obeyed. [Matt 5:28; 1 Jn 3:15; Matt 5:21-22, 43; Matt 16:6, 11]

7. Before Calvin gives his commentary on the law he explains why the Commandments tell what man should and should not do; or in reformed and Presbyterian way of saying it, “what the law requires and forbids.”

He explains it this way, One, “Through the law man’s life is moulded not only to outward honesty but to inward and spiritual righteousness” (Pg., 372). Two, “The commandments and prohibitions always contain more than is expressed in words” (Pg., 374). For Calvin’s in-depth explanation on interpreting the law see sect., 8, 9 10. Pg, 374.

The Ten Commandments in Calvin’s Institutes, Part 1: The grace of the law.

John Patton, Presbyterian missionary to the New Hebrides followed Calvin’s pastoral method in presenting the gospel to men. After learning the language of the people he began to teach them to memorize Scripture; the first were the Ten Commandments.
Calvin’s reason for giving an exposition of the law after explaining man’s original sin is simply because Jesus “came to seek and save that which is lost.” Mankind must know they are lost before they will come to the Saviour. From the beginning of the world God has willed that all his people look to Christ alone for their salvation, but before they will look to him they must be lead to him; and it is the law that leads us to Christ. For the gospel’s sake Calvin expounded the Ten Commandments in chapter 7 and 8 of his Institutes.


1. Moses and the laws he communicated were not agents of legalism. They were spokesmen of God’s grace, speaking in types and foreshadows of the Messiah; Christ the Mediator. [Acts 7:44; Heb 8:5; Heb 9; Ex 25:40]

2. What of the moral law? This holy and good law is a perfect expression of righteousness which in turn teaches us our unrighteousness. Calvin explains. “Because observance of the law is found in none of us, we are excluded from the promises of life, and fall back into the mere curse” (Pg., 352). [Gal 3:10] [See section 4, pg, 352]

3. The Scriptures clearly explain that sinful man is cursed because he cannot fulfill the law. [Rom 3:10, 23; Eccl 7:21; 1 Kgs 8:46; Ps 143:2; Job 9:2; 25:4; Gal 3:10; Deut 27:26]

4. The moral law has 3 functions. All in the reformed tradition have held Calvin’s position more or less. Here it is in summary.

First, “while it shows God’s righteousness, that is, the righteousness alone acceptable to God, it warns, informs, convicts, and lastly condemns, every man of his own unrighteousness” (Pg., 354).

Second. The moral law of God written in the Word and conscience of men restrains evil. Yet, as Calvin has this caveat, “They are restrained, not because their inner mind is stirred or affected, but because, being bridled, so to speak, they keep their hands from outward activity, and hold inside the depravity that otherwise they would wantonly have indulged” (Pg., 358).

Third. The moral law of God is a tool of the believers’ sanctification. “Here is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord’s will to which they aspire, and to confirm them in the understanding of it” (Pg., 360).

5. Some have said that the moral law has been abrogated. We are not under law but under grace is their slogan, and by it they mean freedom from it’s worth and obligation. Calvin called these people “ignorant persons.” Why? They do not understand the distinctions between the law as a curse unto death and the law as a divine course in the life of grace. Calvin in no uncertain terms said this has damaged the church.


6. “Through Christ the teaching of the law remains inviolable; by teaching, admonishing, reproving, and correcting, it forms us and prepares us for every good work [ 2Tim 3:16-17]” (Pg., 363).

7. Are believers under the laws curse? No, Christ has redeemed the elect from the curse of the moral law by becoming a curse for us. [Gal 3:13; 4:4-5]

8. What of the ceremonial laws of Moses? Christ the Mediator is once again the answer. They pointed to and pictured him, and he has honoured their purpose and so they have no more use; other than to still point us to Christ even as the church reads and preaches from these Scriptures today. [Col 2:17; Heb 10:1; Lk 16:16; Jn 1:17; Eph 2:14-15]