In Calvin’s day, the primary issue of the hour was authority in the church. Church traditions, papal edicts, and the decisions of ecclesiastical councils had taken precedence over biblical truth. But Calvin stood firmly on the chief cornerstone of the Reformation—sola Scriptura, or “Scripture alone.”

He believed Scripture was the verbum Dei—the Word of God—and it alone should regulate church life, not popes, councils, or traditions. Sola Scriptura identified the Bible as the sole authority of God in His church, and Calvin wholeheartedly embraced it, insisting that the Bible was the authoritative, inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God.

Calvin believed that when the Bible was opened and rightly explained, the sovereignty of God was directly exerted over the congregation. As a result, he held that the minister’s chief mandate was to preach the Word of God. He wrote, “Their [ministers’] whole task is limited to the ministry of God’s Word; their whole wisdom to the knowledge of His Word; their whole eloquence, to its proclamation.”ⁱ

J. H. Merle D’Aubigné, the revered historian of the Reformation, notes, “In Calvin’s view, everything that had not for its foundation the Word of God was futile and ephemeral boast; and the man who did not lean on Scripture ought to be deprived of his title of honor.”ⁱⁱ With this deep conviction about biblical authority, Calvin repeatedly entered the pulpit to minister exclusively from “the pure foundation of the Word.”ⁱⁱⁱ

The Genevan Reformer knew that the authority of his preaching did not lie within himself. He said, “When we enter the pulpit, it is not so that we may bring our own dreams and fancies with us.”^iv He saw the preacher—and especially himself—as merely a dispatched messenger with the divine message.

He knew that “as soon as men depart, even in the smallest degree from God’s Word, they cannot preach anything but falsehoods, vanities, impostures, errors, and deceits.”^v It is the expositor’s task, he believed, to bring the supreme authority of the divine Word to bear directly on his listeners.

In this, Calvin admitted that he had no authority over others beyond what Scripture taught: “A rule is prescribed to all God’s servants that they bring not their own inventions, but simply deliver, as from hand to hand, what they have received from God.”^vi

He was sure that ecclesiastical status was no license for adding to God’s Word. For Calvin, any Bible teachers, small or great, who decide to “mingle their own inventions with the Word of God, or who advance anything that does not belong to it, must be rejected, how honourable soever may be their rank.”^vii

This understanding of the preacher’s role produced a profound sense of humility in Calvin as he rose to preach. He saw himself as standing under the authority of the Word. As Hughes Oliphant Old explains: “Calvin’s sermons . . . [reveal] a high sense of the authority of Scripture. The preacher himself believed he was preaching the Word of God. He saw himself to be the servant of the Word.”^viii

T. H. L. Parker agrees: “For Calvin the message of Scripture is sovereign, sovereign over the congregation and sovereign over the preacher. His humility is shown by his submitting to this authority.”^ix

Calvin’s high regard for biblical authority also fueled a deep reverence for Scripture. “The majesty of Scripture,” he said, “deserves that its expounders should make it apparent, that they proceed to handle it with modesty and reverence.”^x His admiration for the Bible was driven by its blend of simple teachings, profound antinomies, plain language, intricate nuances, and cohesive unity.

In Calvin’s view, to explore the height, depth, width, and breadth of the Bible was to revere its supernatural Author. Philip Schaff, the highly regarded Protestant historian, writes, “[Calvin] had the profoundest reverence for the Scriptures, as containing the Word of the living God and as the only infallible and sufficient rule of faith and duty.”^xi

For Calvin, then, handling Scripture was a sacred responsibility. Old captures it well when he observes that “the very fact that [Calvin’s] ministry was to expound the Word of God filled him with a profound reverence for the task before him.”^xii

As Calvin resolutely stated, “We owe to the Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God because it has proceeded from Him alone, and has nothing of man mixed with it.”^xiii This was the unshakable foundation of Calvin’s preaching—the authority of divinely inspired Scripture. He firmly believed that when the Bible speaks, God speaks.

—Steven J. Lawson, Expository Genius of John Calvin (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust, 2007), p25-27.

Pastor Jim McClarty of Grace Christian Assembly talks about this section of the book:

Footnotes

1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536 edition), trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975), 195. [↩]
2. J. H. Merle D’Aubigné, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Vol. VII (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1880, 2000), 85. [↩]
3. Calvin, as quoted in J. Graham Miller, Calvin’s Wisdom: An Anthology Arranged Alphabetically by a Grateful Reader (Carlisle, PA, and Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1992), 254. [↩]
4. Calvin, as quoted in T. H. L. Parker, Portrait of Calvin (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1954), 83. [↩]
5. Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Lamentations, Vol. 2, trans. John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1979 reprint), 226–227. [↩]
6. Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Lamentations, Vol. 1, trans. John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1979 reprint), 43. [↩]
7. Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Vol. 2, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1979 reprint), 284. [↩]
8. Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Vol. 4: The Age of the Reformation (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, England: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002), 131. [↩]
9. Parker, Calvin’s Preaching (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992), 39. [↩]
10. Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Vol. 1, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1979 reprint), 227. [↩]
11. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VIII (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1910, 1984), 535. [↩]
12. Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Vol. 4: The Age of the Reformation, 132. [↩]
13. Calvin, as quoted in J. I. Packer, “Calvin the Theologian,” in John Calvin: A Collection of Essays, ed. James Atkinson, et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1966), 166. [↩]