John Calvin the Theological Work Term Paper

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Calvin finds that His "royal unction" is not set out, then, by the standard representations of a man-king, but instead of one more holy. It is in his office as King, Calvin says, that man finds the ultimate pardon. "Thus, while we wander far as pilgrims from God, Christ interposes, that he may gradually bring us to full communion with God."

The completion of his analysis was not only connecting the man Christ with his works, but endowing them with the holy beliefs of the Christian faithful. He related the life of Christ to the life of the Christian, with baptism and resurrection serving as the joint fountainheads of the active faith. To Calvin, in life, a person is damned by the total depravity of man; death is the ultimate freedom from it, since the body can then no longer be physically tempted. Death through salvation is the final escape from the body enslaved to sin, which Baptism strengthens in its lifelong fight.

Through baptism Christ makes us share in his death, that we may be engrafted in it. and, just as the twig draws substance and nourishment from the root to which it is grafted, so those who receive baptism with right faith truly feel the effective working of Christ's death in the mortification of their flesh, together with the working of the resurrection in the vivification of the Spirit."

Calvin saw Christ in this light as the consummate King, ruling wisely, attentively, and finally. Calvin reconciles the conflicting biblical ideas of what and when Christ becomes King by asserting that he rules as a God-man over the Cosmos, and upon his return will exert final decision and claim over all souls and their actions; it is at that point that Christ will assume the office of the King of Kings, as set forth by Revelations 19:16.


Baptism, along with the other basic sacraments of the Christian church, is fundamental to the salvation of the person in reckoning with Christ; without it, the body is more tempted to fall to sin, but with it, the soul inside the body is empowered by the strength of Christ to be good.

The Eucharist furthered the presence of Christ in a person throughout a life after Baptism, Calvin asserted. Like Zwingli, he rejected the idea of transubstantiation, deeming if physically impossible for the bread and the wine to, at any point during of after consumption, morph into anything other than simply bread and wine. However, like Luther, he accepted the concept that the presence of Christ in the sacrament was more than just symbolic, but it was real. Calvin, ever the logician, decided that the manner by which this happened was a scientific mystery known only to God, and that accepting His presence in the tools of the Eucharist was a matter of earnest faith.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book II, Ch. XV. John T. McNeil, ed. The Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1960.

Emerson, Everett H. "Calvin and Covenant Theology." Church History. Vol. 25, No. 2. (Jun., 1956.) p. 134-144.

McCarthy, David B. "Calvin's Wisdom: An Anthology Arranged Alphabetically by a Grateful Reader." Sixteenth Century Journal. Vol. 26, No. 2. (Summer, 1995.) p. 491.

Miller, Richard a. "Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharist of Theology by John Calvin." The Journal of Religion. Vol. 75, No. 1. (Jan., 1995.) p. 119-121/

King James Bible, Standard Version.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book II, Ch. II.

All biblical citations from the King James version, in its standard form.

Ephesians 1:15-23.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book II, Ch. V.

Calvin,….....

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