We recently interviewed Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, author of In Christ Alone (Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007) and speaker at this week’s 2008 National Conference:
You begin your book In Christ Alone with a poetic treatment of a passage from John Calvin’s Institutes.
Many folks have a view of Calvin that he was cold, stern, and rigid.
Yet, you clearly appreciate Calvin’s contribution to the everyday
Christian life. In every chapter, your book exudes a practical and
passionate view of the Christian life. Has Calvin been misunderstood?
I think you are right in
suggesting that Calvin’s reputation gives a very lop-sided view of the
man. In some respects he was “stern.” (I think I would be if I suffered
from as many serious illnesses as he did.) He was always in earnest
about spiritual things. But the passage I re-translated from his
Institutes is a piece of prose that sings like poetry and really does
underline that — like many serious, even “stern” people — he had a
poetic spirit, born out of his love for Christ.
We need to remember that
Calvin was a man who, in his early twenties, knew that his life was
forfeit because of his Gospel convictions. He was on the run! In his
mid-twenties he was already a significant author and theologian, having
spent much of the second half of his life training young people for a
life of cross-bearing consecration and even martyrdom. I have never
forgotten a Korean doctoral student I once had who began a seminar on
Calvin’s teaching on “Life under the Cross” by saying: “I am so grateful
for the opportunity to have studied these chapters. They have helped me
understand my grandfather. You see, he was a martyr.” Actually, in my
own view probably no theologian has understood the deep humanity of the
Lord Jesus better than Calvin. It seems to me that is often the measure
not only of a man’s mind, but also of his heart. Continue at Chris Larson
