Although Calvin viewed the church as the nursery of piety, he also emphasized the need for personal piety. The Christian strives for piety because he loves righteous­ness, longs to live to God’s glory, and delights to obey God’s rule of righteousness set forth in Scrip­ture. God Himself is the focal point of the Christian life — a life that is therefore carried out essentially in self-denial, particularly expressed in Christ-like cross-bearing.

For Calvin, such piety “is the beginning, middle, and end of Christian living.” It involves numerous practical dimensions for daily Christian living, which are explained thoroughly in Calvin’s Institutes, commentaries, sermons, letters, and treatises. Here’s the gist of what Calvin says on prayer, repentance, and obedience as well as on pious Christian living in Chapters 6-10 of Book 3 of the Institutes of 1559.

Prayer⤒🔗

Prayer is the principal and perpetual exercise of faith and the chief element of piety, Calvin says. Prayer shows God’s grace to the believer even as the believer offers praises to God and asks for His faithfulness. It communicates piety both privately and corporately.

Calvin devoted the second longest chapter of the Institutes (Book 3, Chapter 20) to prayer. There are six purposes of prayer, according to Calvin: To fly to God with every need, to set all our petitions before God, to prepare us to receive God’s benefits with humble gratitude, to meditate upon God’s kindness, to instill the proper spirit of delight for God’s answers in prayer, and to confirm His providence.

Two problems are likely to surface with Calvin’s doctrine of prayer. First, when the believer obediently submits to God’s will, he does not necessarily give up his own will. Rather, through the act of submissive prayer, the believer invokes God’s providence to act on his behalf. Thus, man’s will, under the Spirit’s guidance, and God’s will work together in communion.

Second, to the objection that prayer seems superfluous in light of God’s omniscience and omnipo­tence, Calvin responds that God ordained prayer more for man as an exercise of piety than for Himself. Providence must be understood in the sense that God ordains the means along with the ends. Prayer is thus a means to receive what God has planned to bestow. Prayer is a way in which believers seek out and receive what God has determined to do for them from eternity.

Calvin treats prayer as a given rather than a problem. Right prayer is governed by rules, he says. These include praying with:

• a heartfelt sense of reverence
• a sense of need and repentance
• a surrender of all confidence in self and a humble plea for pardon
• a confident hope.

All four rules are repeatedly violated by even the holiest of God’s people. Nevertheless, for Christ’s sake, God does not desert the pious but has mercy for them.

Despite the shortcomings of believers, prayer is required for the increase of piety, for prayer diminishes self-love and multiplies dependence upon God. As the due exercise of piety, prayer unites God and man — not in substance but in will and purpose. Like the Lord’s Supper, prayer lifts the believer to Christ and renders proper glory to God. That glory is the purpose of the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as well as other petitions dealing with His creation. Since cre­ation looks to God’s glory for its preservation, the entire Lord’s Prayer is directed to God’s glory.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Christ “supplies words to our lips,” Calvin says. It shows us how all our prayers must be controlled, formed, and inspired by the Word of God. That alone can provide holy boldness in prayer, “which rightly accords with fear, rever­ence, and solicitude.”

We must be disciplined and steadfast in prayer, for prayer keeps us in fellowship with Christ. We are also reassured in prayer of Christ’s intercessions without which our prayers would be rejected. Only Christ can turn God’s throne of dreadful glory into a throne of grace, to which we can draw near in prayer. Prayer is the channel between God and man. It is the way in which the Christian expresses his praise and adoration of God as well as asks for God’s help in submissive piety.

Repentance←⤒🔗

Repentance is the fruit of faith and prayer. Luther said in his Ninety-Five Theses that all of the Christian life should be marked by repentance. Calvin also sees repentance as a lifelong process. Repentance is not merely the start of the Christian life; it is the Christian life, he says. It involves confession of sin as well as growth in holiness. Repentance is the lifelong response of the believer to the gospel in outward life, mind, heart, attitude, and will.

Repentance begins with turning to God from the heart and proceeds from a pure, earnest fear of God. It involves dying to self and sin (mortification) and coming alive to righteousness (vivification) in Christ. Calvin does not limit repentance to an inward grace but views it as the redirection of a man’s entire being to righteousness. Without a pure, earnest fear of God, a man will not be aware of the heinousness of sin or want to die to it. But mortification is essen­tial because though sin ceases to reign in the believer, it does not cease to dwell in him. Romans 7:14-25 shows that mortification is a lifelong process. With the Spirit’s help, the believer must put sin to death every day through self-denial, cross-bearing, and meditation on the future life.

Repentance is also characterized by newness of life, however. Mor­tification is the means to vivifica­tion, which Calvin defines as “the desire to live in a holy and devoted manner, a desire arising from rebirth; as if it were said that man dies to himself that he may begin to live to God.” True self-denial results in a life devoted to justice and mercy. The pious both “cease to do evil” and “learn to do well.” Through repentance they bow in the dust before their holy Judge, then are raised up to participate in the life, death, righteousness, and intercession of their Savior. As Calvin writes,

For if we truly partake in his death, ‘our old man is crucified by his power, and the body of sin perishes’ (Rom. 6:6), that the corruption of original nature may no longer thrive. If we share in his resurrection, through it we are raised up into newness of life to correspond with the righteousness of God.

The words Calvin uses to describe the pious Christian life (reparatio, regeneratio, reformatio, renovatio, restitutio) point back to our original state of righteousness. They indicate that a life of pietas is restorative in nature. Through Spirit-worked repentance, believers are restored into the image of God.

Self-denial←⤒🔗

Self-denial is the sacrificial dimension of pietas. We have seen that piety is rooted in the believer’s union with Christ. The fruit of that union is self-denial, which includes the following:

1. The realization we are not our own but belong to God. We live and die unto Him, according to the rule of His Word. Thus, self-denial is not self-centered, as was often the case in medieval monasticism, but God-centered. Our greatest enemy is neither the devil nor the world but ourselves.
2. The desire to seek the things of the Lord throughout our lives. Self-denial leaves no room for pride, lasciviousness, and worldliness. It is the opposite of self-love because it is love for God. The entire orientation of our life must be toward God.
3. The commitment to yield ourselves and everything we own to God as a living sacrifice. We then are prepared to love others and to esteem them better than ourselves, not by viewing them as they are in themselves, but by viewing the image of God in them. This uproots our love of strife and self and replaces it with a spirit of gentleness and helpfulness. Our love for others then flows from the heart, and our only limit to helping them is the limit of our resources.

Believers are encouraged to persevere in self-denial by what the gospel promises about the future consummation of the kingdom of God. Such promises help us overcome every obstacle that opposes self-renunciation and assist us in bearing adversity.

Furthermore, self-denial helps us find true happiness because it helps us do what we were created for. We were created to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. Happiness is the result of having that principle restored. As Calvin says, without self-denial we may possess everything without possessing one particle of real hap­piness.

Cross-bearing←⤒🔗

While self-denial focuses on inward conformity to Christ, cross-bearing centers on outward Christlikeness. Those who are in fellowship with Christ must pre­pare themselves for a hard, toil­some life filled with many kinds of evil, Calvin says. The reason for this is not simply sin’s effect on this fallen world, but the believer’s union with Christ. Because His life was a perpetual cross, ours must also include suffering. In this we not only participate in the bene­fits of His atoning work on the cross, but we also experience the Spirit’s work of transforming us into the image of Christ.

Cross-bearing tests piety, Calvin says. Through cross-bearing we are roused to hope, trained in patience, instructed in obedience, and chastened in pride. Cross-bearing is our medicine and our chastisement. Through cross-bearing we are shown the feebleness of our flesh and taught to suffer for the sake of righteousness.

Happily, God promises to be with us in all our sufferings. He even transforms suffering associated with persecution into comfort and blessing.

The Present and Future Life←⤒🔗

Through cross-bearing, we learn to have contempt for the present life when compared to the blessings of heaven. This life is nothing compared to what is to come. It is like smoke or a shadow. “If heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile? If departure from the world is entry into life, what else is the world but a sepulcher?” Calvin asks. “No one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection,” he concludes.

Typically, Calvin uses the complexio oppositorum when explaining the Christian’s relation to this world. In other words, he presents opposites to find a middle way between. So, on the one hand, through cross-bearing we are crucified to the world and the world to us. On the other hand, the devout Christian enjoys this present life, albeit with due restraint and moderation, for he is taught to use things in this world for the purpose that God intended them. Calvin was no ascetic; he enjoyed good literature, good food, and the beauties of nature. But he rejected all forms of earthly excess. The believer is called to Christlike moderation, which includes modesty, prudence, avoidance of display, and contentment with our lot. For it is the hope of the life to come that gives purpose to and enjoy­ment in our present life. This life is always straining after a better, heavenly life.

How, then, is it possible for the truly pious Christian to maintain a proper balance, enjoying the gifts that God gives in this world while avoiding the snare of over-indulgence? Calvin offers four guiding principles:

1. Recognize that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. This should restrain our lusts because our gratitude to God for His gifts cannot be expressed by a greedy reception of them.
2. Understand that if we have few possessions, we must bear our poverty patiently lest we be ensnared by inordinate desire.
3. Remember that we are stewards of the world in which God has placed us. Soon we will have to give an account to Him of our stewardship.
4. Know that God has called us to Himself and to His service. Because of that calling, we strive to fulfill our tasks in His service, for His glory, and under His watchful, benevolent eye.

Obedience←⤒🔗

For Calvin, unconditional obedience to God’s will is the essence of piety. Piety links love, freedom, and discipline by subjecting all to the will and Word of God. Love is the overarching principle that prevents piety from degenerating into legalism. At the same time, law provides the content for love.

Piety includes rules that govern the believer’s response. Privately, those rules take the form of self-denial and cross-bearing; publicly, they are expressed in the exercise of church discipline, which Calvin implemented in Geneva. In either case, the glory of God compels disciplined obedience. For Calvin, the pious Christian is neither weak nor passive but dynamically active in the pursuit of obedience, much like a distance runner, a diligent scholar, or a heroic warrior sub­mitting to God’s will.

In the preface of his commentary on the Psalms, Calvin writes: “Here is the true proof of obedience, where, bidding farewell to our own affections, we subject ourselves to God and allow our lives to be so governed by his will that things most bitter and harsh to us — because they come from him — become sweet to us.” “Sweet obedience” — Calvin welcomed such descriptions. Calvin used words such as sweet, sweetly, sweetness hundreds of times in his Institutes, commentaries, sermons, and trea­tises to describe the life of piety. Calvin writes of the sweetness of the law, the sweetness of Christ, the sweetness of consolation in the midst of adversity and persecution, the sweetness of prayer, the sweetness of the Lord’s Supper, the sweetness of God’s free offer of eternal life in Christ, and the sweetness of eternal glory.

He writes of the sweet fruit of election, too, saying that ulti­mately this world and all its glo­ries will pass away. What gives us assurance of salvation here and hope for the life to come is that we have been “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). “We shall never be clearly persuaded ... that our salvation flows from the wellspring of God’s free mercy until we come to know the very sweet fruit of God’s eternal election,” he says.

Conclusion←⤒🔗

Calvin strove to live the life of pietas himself — theologically, ecclesiastically, and practically. At the end of his Life of Calvin, Theodore Beza wrote, “Having been a spectator of his conduct for sixteen years ... I can now declare, that in him all men may see a most beautiful example of the Christian character, an example which it is as easy to slander as it is difficult to imitate.”

Calvin shows us the piety of a warm-hearted Reformed theologian who speaks from the heart. Having tasted the goodness and grace of God in Jesus Christ, he pursued piety by seeking to know and do God’s will every day. He communed with Christ; practiced repentance, self-denial, and cross-bearing; and was involved in vig­orous social improvements. His theology worked itself out in heart-felt, Christ-centered piety.

For Calvin and the Reformers of sixteenth-century Europe, doctrine and prayer as well as faith and worship are integrally connected. For Calvin, the Reformation in­cludes the reform of piety (pietas), or spirituality, as much as a reform of theology. The spiritual­ity that had been cloistered behind monastery walls for centuries had broken down. Medieval spiritual­ity was reduced to a celibate, ascetic, and penitential devotion in the convent or monastery. But Calvin helped Christians understand piety in terms of living and acting every day according to God’s will (Rom. 12:1-2) in the midst of human society. Through Calvin’s influ­ence, Protestant spirituality focused on how one lived the Christian life in the family, the fields, the workshop, and the marketplace. Calvin helped the Reformation change the entire focus of the Christian life.

Calvin’s teaching, preaching, and catechizing fostered growth in the relationship between believers and God. Piety means experiencing sanctification as a divine work of renewal expressed in repentance and righteousness, which progresses through conflict and adversity in a Christ-like manner. In such piety, prayer and worship are central, both privately and in the community of believers.

The worship of God is always primary, for one’s relationship to God takes precedence over everything else. That worship, however, is expressed in how the believer lives his vocation and how he treats his neighbors, for one’s relationship with God is most con­cretely seen in the transformation of every human relationship. Faith and prayer, because they trans­form every believer, cannot be hid­den. Ultimately, therefore, they must transform the church, the community, and the world.