The Insolence of Devotion to Mary the Mother of Jesus

John Calvin stood against the grossly inappropriate titles for Mary the mother of Jesus by the Roman Catholic Church.  This too is not strictly old theology that has been done away with by the more modern Vatican II Roman Catholic Church.  The Catechism states the following:

"971 'All generations will call me blessed': 'The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.'  The church rightly honors 'the Blessed Virgin with special devotion.  From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored wiht the title of 'Mother of God,' to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs....This very special devotion...differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration.'  The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an 'epitomy of the whole Gospel,' express this devotion to the Virgin Mary."  Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part I, Section II, Chapter III, Article 9.

More disturbing language comes a bit earlier in the Catechism:

"969 This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect.  Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation....Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix."  Catechism of the Catholic Church, ibid.

There is an attempt to clean it up with qualifiers in the next section in 970 but it remains blasphemy.  Titles like these for Mary made John Calvin cringe.  He wrote in his commentary on Luke 1:48, which contains Mary's Magnificant the following:

"Now observe, that Mary makes her happiness to consist in nothing else, but in what she acknoledges to have been bestowed upon her by God, and mentions as the gift of his grace.  'I shall be reckoned blessed,' she says, 'through all ages.'  Was it becuase she sought this praise by her own power or exertion?  On the contrary, she makes mention of nothing but of the work of God.  Hence we see how widely the Papists differ from her, who idly adorn her with their empty devices, and reckon almost as nothing the benefits which she received from God.  They heap up an abundance of magnificent and very presumptuous titles, such as, 'Queen of Heaven, Star of Salvation, Gate of Life, Sweetness, Hope and Salvation.'  Nay more, to such a pitch of insolence and fury have they been hurried by Satan, that they give her authority over Christ...None of these modes of expression, it is evident, proceeded from the Lord...If it was her duty to praise the name of God alone, who had done to her wonderful things, no room is left for the pretended titles, which come from another quarter.  Besides, nothing could be more disrespectful to her, than to rob the Son of God of what is his own, to clothe her with the sacrilegious plunder."  Commentary on Matthew, Mark, Luke - Volume 1.

Jesus, not Faith, is the Christian's Righteousness

Theodore Beza, a disciple of John Calvin, points out that the faith alone that saves, is not simply, faith as a vague energy, but faith in Jesus alone: 

"Here is the explanation of our justification by faith alone: faith is the instrument which receives Jesus Christ and, consequently, which receives His righteousness, that is to say, all perfection...we do not say that faith is a virtue which makes us righteous, in ourselves, before God.  For this would be to put faith in the place of Jesus Christ who is, alone, our perfect and entire righteousness...

It is established that to be assured of one's salvation, through faith, is not only neither presumption nor arrogance, but, on the contrary, is the sole means of stripping oneself of all pride, to give all glory to God...Because faith alone teaches us to go out of ourselves, and compels us, to earnestly acknowledge that in ourselves there is nothing but cause for complete damnation.  Thus it sends us away to Jesus Christ, and it teaches us and assures us that we shall find salvation before God through His righteousness alone.  Truly, all that is in Jesus Christ, that is to say, all the righteousness and perfection (in Him there was no sin and moreover He has fulfilled all the righteousness of the Law), is placed to our account and gifted to us as if it were our own, provided that we embrace Him by faith."  (Source).

The Shameful Indulgences of the Roman Catholic Church

Another great Protestant Reformer was John Calvin, and his Institutes of Christian Religion is known as one of the greatest written works in Christian history.  One key major disagreement that Calvin and the other Reformers had against the Roman Catholic church was indulgences, and lest you think the Roman Catholic church has changed its tune in regards to indulgences, take a look at their Catechism straight off the Vatican's web-page:

"1471 What is an indulgence? 'An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.'"  Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part II, Section II, Article IV, X.

Calvin displayed the great error of this doctrine, free from the shackles of our modern politically correct tone, in his Institutes of Christian Religion:

"From the dogma of satisfaction that of indulgences takes its rise.  For the pretence is, that what is wanting to our own ability is hereby supplied; and they go to the insane length of defining them to be a dispensation of the merrits of Christ, and the martyrs which the Pope makes by his bulls...They give the name of treasury of the Church to the merits of Christ, the holy Apostles and Martyrs.  They pretend, as I have said, that the radical custody of the granary has been delivered to the Roman bishop, to whom the dispensation of these great blessings belongs in such a sense, that he can both exercise it by himself, and delegate the power of exercising it to others...These, to describe them truly, are a profanation of the blood of Christ, and a delusion of Satan, by which the Christian people are led away from the grace of God and the life which is in Christ, and turned aside from the true way of salvation.  For how could the blood of Christ be more shamefully profaned than by denying its sufficiency for the remission of sins, for reconciliation and satisfaction, unless its defects, as if it were dried up and exhausted, are supplemented from some other quarter?...What is this but merley to leave the name of Christ, and at the same time make him a vulgar saintling, who can scarcely be distinguished in the crows?  He alone ought to be preached, alone held forth, alone named, alone looked to, whenever the subject considered is the obtaining of the forgiveness of sins, expiation, and sanctification." Book III, chapter 5, 572-574

Self-Righteousness Needs a Big Axe

In honor of the ever-hastening Reformation Day I will be doing some posts from leaders of the Protestant Reformation.

Here is Martin Luther on the evil of self-righteousness, the axe, and the remedy:

"When the Law was instituted on Mount Sinai it was accompanied by lightning, by storms, by the sound of trumpets, to tear to pieces that monster called self-righteousness.  As long as a person thinks he right he is going to be incomprehensibly proud and presumptuous.  He is going to hate God, despise His grace and mercy, and ignore the promises in Christ.  The Gospel of the free forgiveness of sins through Christ will never appeal to the self-righteous.

This monster of self-righteousness, this stiff necked beast, needs a big axe.  And that is what the Law is, a big axe...

The business of the Gospel, on the other hand, is to quicken, to comfort, to raise the fallen.  The Gospel carries the news that God for Christ's sake is merciful to the most unworthy sinners, if they will only believe that Christ by His death delivered them from sin and everlasting death unto grace, forgiveness, and everlasting life."

Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter III, 127

Happy Reformationstag II

The Swiss Reformer John Calvin would like a say as well this Reformation Day. (Or at least I would like to give him voice.) The following is from his renowned Institutes of Christian Religion on the subject of faith and works:

"13. But since a great part of mankind imagine a righteousness compounded of faith and works let us here show that there is so wide a difference between justification by faith and by works, that the establishment of the one necessarily overthrows the other. The Apostle says, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith,” (Phil. 3:8, 9). You here see a comparison of contraries, and an intimation that every one who would obtain the righteousness of Christ must renounce his own. Hence he elsewhere declares the cause of the rejection of the Jews to have been, that “they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God,” (Rom. 10:3). If we destroy the righteousness of God by establishing our own righteousness, then, in order to obtain his righteousness, our own must be entirely abandoned. This also he shows, when he declares that boasting is not excluded by the Law, but by faith (Rom. 3:27). Hence it follows, that so long as the minutes portion of our own righteousness remains, we have still some ground for boasting. Now if faith utterly excludes boasting, the righteousness of works cannot in any way be associated with the righteousness of faith. This meaning is so clearly expressed in the fourth chapter to the Romans as to leave no room for cavil or evasion. “If Abraham were justified by works he has whereof to glory;” and then it is added, “but not before God,” (Rom. 4:2). The conclusion, therefore, is, that he was not justified by works. He then employs another argument from contraries—viz. when reward is paid to works, it is done of debt, not of grace; but the righteousness of faith is of grace: therefore it is not of the merit of works. Away, then, with the dream of those who invent a righteousness compounded of faith and works."

(Source)

Happy Reformationstag I

Happy Reformationstag.

We must not forget that issues in regards to the nature of the human will was one of the key issues of the Protestant Reformation. For those who think Biblical conclusions over the nature of the human will are unimportant and simply speculative: stand corrected from Mr. Martin Luther. The following quote is from his Bondage of the Will:

"Therefore, it is not irreligious, curious, or superfluous, but essentially wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know, whether or not the will does any thing in those things which pertain unto Salvation. Nay, let me tell you, this is the very hinge upon which our discussion turns. It is the very heart of our subject. For our object is this: to inquire what “Free-will” can do, in what it is passive, and how it stands with reference to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatever of Christian matters, and shall be far behind all People upon the earth. He that does not feel this, let him confess that he is no Christian. And he that despises and laughs at it, let him know that he is the Christian’s greatest enemy. For, if I know not how much I can do myself, how far my ability extends, and what I can do God-wards; I shall be equally uncertain and ignorant how much God is to do, how far His ability is to extend, and what He is to do toward me: whereas it is “God that worketh all in all.” (1 Cor. xii. 6.) But if I know not the distinction between our working and the power of God, I know not God Himself. And if I know not God, I cannot worship Him, praise Him, give Him thanks, nor serve Him; for I shall not know how much I ought to ascribe unto myself, and how much unto God. It is necessary, therefore, to hold the most certain distinction, between the power of God and our power, the working of God and our working, if we would live in His fear."

(Source)