Many writers who reflect on the life of John Calvin are quick to criticize him and his later followers for their spiritual apathy, even coldness. These writers associate the Pastor of Geneva with a cold theology and a steely mind; rarely is he said to demonstrate a life of warmhearted devotion to God.

You can find such negative evaluations expressed about Calvin dating back to his own day. Consider, for example, Calvin’s one-time follower and friend, Jerome Bolsec. Later, after abandoning the evangelical faith and returning to Romanism, Bolsec claims that Calvin was little more than an arrogant, cruel and greedy man. He writes that as the Reformer lay on his deathbed, eaten by lice and vermin all over his body as divine punishment, he was cursing and blaspheming against God.¹ And so began a long tradition of Calvin-bashing, particularly among Romanist writers. A Calvin biography, authorized for reading by French Catholics well into the twentieth century, depicted him as a deceitful and despotic man with an unfeeling heart.²

With that kind of slander, no wonder that Calvin’s followers also have been treated with contempt by many writers even to the present day. Consider this line from a recent Associated Press story about the current political scene in the Netherlands:

Why is a country of 16 million people, one of the smallest and least vocal in Europe, at the forefront of liberal legislation? And why did it happen in a country that embraced the dourest, most regimented stream of Christendom namely Calvinism?³

Is it really true that Calvinists are the dourest (and sourest) among all Christians in the world today?

Or read what an American evangelical, Laurence Vance, has to say in his book entitled The Other Side of Calvinism:

Nothing will deaden a church or put a young man out the ministry any more than an adherence to Calvinism. Nothing will foster pride and indifference as will affection for Calvinism. Nothing will destroy holiness and spirituality as an attachment to Calvinism.⁴

Of course, we have to admit that critics of Calvinism can find examples of shipwrecked spirituality in its nearly five hundred year history. But these critics also have to agree that some immorality is found in all Christian movements throughout church history. In this regard, Calvinists are no different than other believers. Sin and temptation to sin are “equal opportunity employers,” recruiting people across denominational and theological lines.

In this article, I want to demonstrate how eagerly and intensely John Calvin focuses upon Christ centered godliness in his writings. Indeed, living a holy Christian life in response to God’s saving us from our sins through Jesus Christ is an important theme, if not the main theme, in Calvin’s thinking. The apostle Paul declares in Romans 12:1:

I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. Reflecting on these words, Calvin writes …we ought to meditate on holiness throughout the whole of our life.⁵

In Calvin’s writings, even in his deepest theological writings, you will find him often using the Latin word, “pietas.” Usually this word simply is given an English transliteration: “pietas” is rendered “piety.” But to our modern ears when someone speaks about “piety” or a “pious” Christian we think of an elderly grandmother, sitting quietly in her chair, reading her Bible for hours at a time. Many “pious” Christians today reserve one or even two “quiet times” for their devotions each day. Others, in their expression of “piety” might wear “WWJD” bracelets on their wrists or carry little crosses in their pockets. But is this what Calvin has in mind when he writes about Christian “pietas”? I would say, “No.”

The illustrations of “piety” given above have more to do with what church historians call “Pietism” than with “piety.” Pietism is the label given by church historians to a movement originating among German Lutherans in the late seventeenth century. This movement impacted Dutch Precianism and English Methodism later. Certain themes of Pietism were transported to America in the Second Great Awakening and later reappear in Pentecostal and Holiness movements. For many Christians today Calvin’s references to “piety” are liable to misunderstanding due to Pietism.

Calvin uses the Latin word “pietas” to render the biblical Greek word “eusebeia”, often translated in English as “godliness, worship or religion.” Given the historical baggage associated with Pietism I think it is preferable to render “pietas” as “godliness” or even “Christ likeness.” Indeed, when you read Calvin’s writings, you will be struck by how often he stresses godly living as “Christ likeness.” One of Calvin’s great ministry goals was to promote Christian pietas, urging believers to grow in the true piety of Christ likeness.

John Calvin employs pietas as a main theme in his magnum opus, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. The final edition of the Institutes was published in 1559, just five years before his death. As you may know, Calvin sent the first edition of his Institutes to the French king, Francis I, who had been growing increasingly hostile to the Reformers. Look at the first two sentences of the twenty-three page letter (in English translation) which Calvin sent to the king along with the Institutes:

When I first set my hand to this work, nothing was further from my mind, most glorious King, than to write something that might afterward be offered to Your Majesty. My purpose was solely to transmit certain rudiments by which those who are touched with any zeal for religion might be shaped to true godliness (pietas).⁶

There it is – pietas, godliness, Christ likeness – found already in the second sentence of what amounts to an introduction to the Institutes. Calvin explains that his purpose in writing is really twofold:

• To give a summary of basic Bible teachings, and, as a result of doing this,

• To help Christians be shaped unto “true godliness.”

Notice how Calvin connects “head” to “heart.” Right knowledge of God is inseparably linked to right living for God. Only the most unfair of critics can make the slanderous accusation that Calvin and later Calvinists destroy Christian godliness and holy living.

Calvin emphasizes pietas also in the opening pages of his Institutes. Book One, chapter one, serves as a brief three-page introduction to the entire work. Calvin here explains how the knowledge of God is connected to the knowledge of oneself. Then, just four pages into the thousand-page Institutes, Calvin declares:

Now, the knowledge of God, as I understand it, is that by which we not only conceive that there is a God, but also grasp what benefits us and is proper to his glory… Indeed, we shall not say that, properly speaking, God is known where there is no religion or piety [pietas].I.2.1; p. 39

God cannot be properly known, says Calvin, apart from pietas, that is, true godliness or Christ likeness.

Later, in that same section, Calvin gives his definition of biblical piety:

I call ‘piety’ [pietas] that reverence joined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces.I.2.1; p. 41

A reverence of God joined to a deep love for God – this is Christian piety in the best sense of the word. A few pages later, Calvin defines “real religion” as “faith so joined with an earnest fear of God that this fear also embraces willing reverence, and carries with it such legitimate worship as is prescribed in the law” (I.2.2; p. 43). Faith in God joined to reverential fear of God, which is accompanied by worship in the broadest sense: offering the whole self as a willing sacrifice, out of gratitude to God. This cannot be reduced to mere feeling – it is a feeling but it is also a lifestyle – living a holy life while moved by loving reverence for God.

In his earlier published catechism, Calvin emphasizes that the Christian’s exercise of piety towards a holy God ought not to arise out of terror of His judgment:

… true godliness [pietas] does not consist in a fear which willingly indeed flees God’s judgment, but since it cannot escape is terrified. True godliness [pietas] consists rather in a sincere feeling which loves God as father as much as it fears and reverences him as Lord, embraces his righteousness, and dreads offending him worse than death.⁷

By embracing God’s righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, the Christian must not be terrified of God’s condemnation. Though at times the Christian’s conscience is “harried by a disturbed alarm, and almost torn to pieces” thinking about God’s judgment upon his sin, yet in assurance of salvation through Christ the Christian must be “convinced by a firm conviction that God is a kindly and well-disposed Father toward him” (III.2.16; p. 562) It is out of that love for the Heavenly Father that the Christian will desire to live in true pietas before God. Any unbiased reader of Calvin’s works will be continually struck by his recurring theme of pietas: biblical godliness. Yes, Calvin was a rigorous thinker and theologian. But never did he set orthodox theology against holy Christian living. Indeed, just the opposite: correct Christian theology necessarily will lead to greater godliness:

… the only legitimate commendation of doctrine is that it instructs us in the reverence and fear of God. Thus we are taught that the man who has made most progress in godliness is the best disciple of Christ, and the only man who should be counted a real theologian is he who can build up men’s consciences in the fear of God.⁸

So may our biblical and Calvinist doctrines lead all of us to increasing godliness as disciples of Christ Jesus!

In the introduction to his best-seller The Book of Virtue: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories William Bennett writes that,

children must have at their disposal a stock of examples illustrating what we see to be right and wrong, good and bad.⁹

By means of such stories, along with explicit exhortation and precept, we will form better moral character within our children. By reading through his edited collection of stories which include Aesop’s fables and medieval morality lessons, the child, according to Bennett, will learn such things as “honesty is the best policy” and “good things come to him who waits.”

For John Calvin, however, and for the biblical Christian today, Bennett’s book or other forms of “moral education” will not result in true godliness. Though civil morality and Christian godliness might appear outwardly similar, yet inwardly they are entirely different. Consider the great difference in their motives. Whereas outward morality is often motivated by altruism or by social pressures, the motive and the source for Christian pietas is Jesus Christ. It is in the third book of the Institutes of the Christian Religion¹⁰ that Calvin specifically addresses the topic of Christian living. He begins this book with a discussion about the work of the Holy Spirit. Calvin writes that the “principle work of the Holy Spirit” is to enliven our natural, sin-deadened hearts and to produce in us saving faith in Jesus Christ (III.1.4; p. 541). Beyond this initial work of the Spirit in converting someone, the Spirit continues for the Christian as the “bond by which Christ effectually unites us to Himself” (III.1.1; p. 538). Through the Holy Spirit all of Christ and all the benefits of His finished work become ours as Christians.

One of the chief benefits obtained by Christ for us is the benefit of perfect righteousness–God’s righteousness, that is, full conformity to His law; perfect obedience unto His will; complete goodness in thought, word and deed. This righteousness is freely credited to the believer in justification. Justification, the crediting or imputing of Christ’s perfect righteousness to the believer is, as Calvin says:

… the main hinge on which religion turns … For unless you first grasp what your relationship to God is, and the nature of his judgment concerning you, you have neither a foundation on which to establish your salvation nor one on which to build piety [pietas] toward God.III.11.1; p. 726, emphasis mine

Unless that “main hinge” of justification is set right, the whole door will hang crooked! Without the “main hinge” of justification, we lapse into mere moralism, preoccupied with simply building better virtues in us and in others. Calvin’s teaching about Christian piety avoids this, though, we must admit, some later Calvinists did not. I have an old book on my shelf entitled Piety Versus Moralism. It is the author’s contention that the “old Calvinism” which taught total depravity, miraculous regeneration by the Spirit, and the gracious imputation of Christ’s righteousness in justification, eventually was replaced by a newer, gentler and kinder Calvinism. The newer Calvinists became, on the one hand, revivalists and Spirit-enthusiasts, and, on the other hand, became social gospel liberals, who busily proclaimed:

… the moral ideal set up by the ‘gentle Jesus;’ telling men of the dignity and the value of the human soul, its potential likeness to the perfectly good God, and its ultimate destiny in heaven. They were urging men to believe in ‘God, freedom, and immortality’ – to be good, to do good, and to live in peace with their fellowmen. They preached these things, and expected men to believe and practice them. They were great optimists.¹¹

In order to avoid this optimistic “do goodism” when we speak about biblical piety today, we must always begin with the “main hinge” of justification, as Calvin calls it. Only in Christ, united with Him by the Holy Spirit, credited with His perfect righteousness, can we even begin walking down the pathway of increasing godliness in our Christian lives.

Calvin has much to say in Book Three of his Institutes about cultivating Christian piety. Here he devotes three chapters, nearly thirty pages, to the topic of “The Christian Life.” That is more pages than he spends on the topic of election or infant baptism! In these chapters Calvin explains and applies Christ’s words:

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.Matthew 16:24

Calvin is not afraid (unlike some Calvinists today!), to speak repeatedly about our following Christ as our example and as our motivation for living godly Christian lives.

In this twenty-first century and among modern Christians, we especially need to hear Calvin emphasizing the place of the Church and her sacraments as “outward helps” towards Christian godliness. This is an almost forgotten teaching today. Or, if you hear it at all, it is almost a whisper. Christian pietas, godliness, is best strengthened in the life of the Christian by belonging to the visible church and there receiving the Word and the Sacrament. This is the main theme of the Institutes, Book 4:

… it is by the faith in the gospel that Christ becomes ours and we are made partakers of the salvation and eternal blessedness brought by him. Since, however, in our ignorance and sloth … we need outward helps to beget and increase faith within us, and advance it to its goal, God has also added these aids that he may provide for our weakness.IV.1.1.; p. 1011, emphasis mine

Contrast this teaching to what you find in most Christian bookstores today, or the bumper stickers for that matter, which tell people to get themselves to church on the Lord’s Day? Where will you find the bestsellers which urge weekly church attendance to receive more of God’s grace through the sermon and the Lord’s Supper? Among other things, Calvin calls the Church the “Mother of believers.” It is into her maternal bosom that

God is pleased to gather His sons, not only that they may be nourished by her help and ministry as long as they are infants and children, but also that they may be guided by her motherly care until they mature and at last reach the goal of faith. For those to whom He is Father the church may also be Mother.IV.1.4.; p. 1016

I quoted Calvin earlier, saying that we as Christians need the Church because of our continuing “ignorance and sloth.” Do we hear these words? Even as those regenerated by the Holy Spirit and professing faith in Christ, we still lean towards spiritual laziness! We need Mother Church to grow us up that we might be more active and productive and mature. To be sure, spiritual maturity requires the knowledge of right doctrine, and Mother Church provides that. But growth in piety and Christ likeness is also an essential part of spiritual maturity.

… those who turn to the cultivation of true godliness [pietas] are said [in the Bible] to inscribe their names among the citizens of Jerusalem… God’s fatherly favor and the especial witness of spiritual life are limited to His flock, so that it is always disastrous to leave the church.IV.1.4.; p. 1016, emphasis mine

The cultivation of true godliness takes place in the Church. And we must be reminded that Calvin is not referring here to the midweek Bible study, the women’s fellowship group, or the prayer meeting. The Church is the gathered and worshipping congregation under the supervision of the elders. These other activities – Bible studies, fellowship groups, prayer meetings – may contribute to the growth of godliness, but the primary means for growing in godliness are found in the assembly of God’s people gathered for worship on the Lord’s Day.

Isn’t this a needed reminder for Christians and churches today, even for us who are members of confessionally Reformed congregations? Do you want to grow in godliness? Do you want to advance in your sanctification? Don’t go to the Christian bookstore first. Don’t go to the Christian school first. Don’t go into a personal quiet-time first. Go to the Church first! Be found in worship on the Lord’s Day. Hear the Word preached and receive the Sacrament offered. This would be Calvin’s urgent counsel to us that we might grow in true godliness. “Believers have no greater help than public worship, for by it God raises his own fold upward step by step” (IV.1.5., p. 1019).

Whole books have been written about Calvin’s teaching about preaching and the sacraments. ¹² But consider briefly, Calvin’s high regard for the preaching of the Word as a means for growth in holy living. Quoting Calvin: “By His Word, God alone sanctifies temples to himself for lawful use” (IV.1.5., p. 1019). He is saying that God makes Christians more holy and we are formed more and more as his holy temples, when we hear the Word preached. Again,

'… the gospel is not preached only in order to be heard by us, but that it may radically reform our hearts' and by hearing that gospel preached we are led 'to an upright and a holy life.'¹³

And how valuable is the Lord’s Supper for the believer’s growth in godliness and strengthening for holy living? According to Calvin, among the several benefits of taking the Sacrament is this wonderful benefit:

the Lord’s Supper is a kind of exhortation for us, which can more forcefully than any other means quicken and inspire us both to purity and holiness of life.IV.17.38, p. 1414

More than any other external means (except for hearing the preaching of God’s Word) the Lord’s Supper enlivens and inspires us to godliness. No wonder, then, that Calvin earnestly desired each church to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on a weekly basis. We are built up by hearing the Word preached each Lord’s Day. We should also be built up by receiving the Sacrament each Lord’s Day. ¹⁴

We must never forget that the goal of our faith, the purpose of our salvation, is that we might lead holy lives, to the glory of God. As the apostle Paul puts it,

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.Titus 2:11-12

Or, as Calvin says so forcefully:

… the man who has godliness lacks nothing … Godliness is the beginning, middle and end of Christian living and where it is complete, there is nothing lacking … Thus the conclusion is that we should concentrate exclusively on godliness …¹⁵

By God’s Word and Spirit, through hearing sermons and receiving sacraments, may we Calvinists today show this same dedication to growing in Christian godliness, in Biblical pietas.