The Latest on Calvin

[Windmill Charge]

Windmill,

In August 1553, Servetus, the anti-Trinitarian heretic, travelled to Geneva. There he was recognized and at Calvin’s request he was imprisoned by the city magistrates.

The trial of Michael Servetus lasted until October 1553 when the Council of Geneva condemned him to death. Servetus was burned at the stake on October 27, 1553. The Calvinists and the Catholics both wanted him dead, but the Calvinists got to him first. Who was the Calvinist who reported him in Geneva? Calvin!

The condemnation and death of Michael Servetus has been a black mark on John Calvin’s reputation for centuries. Was the burning of Servetus justified, or was it cold-blooded murder? God will judge. In contemplating the history of Calvin and Servetus, it is good to remember the following facts:

– The laws in Switzerland made heresy punishable by death; Servetus’ death was thus justified in the eyes of the Geneva Council. Plus, the councils of Berne, Zurich, Basle, and Schaffhausen were consulted, and they all encouraged the verdict and punishment.

– Calvin agreed with the sentence of death passed on Servetus; however, he urged that in mercy Servetus be executed by the sword, not by burning. The council rejected his suggestion.

– Michael Servetus was the only heretic ever executed in Geneva in Calvin’s lifetime (Source: Got Questions).

I consider it is naive to state that Calvin 'had very little influence over the civil courts' when it was Calvin who reported Servetus to the magistrates.

Oz

Please read your reply. The courts found him guilty ( as had numerous courts in other countries who also had condemned him to death.) Thje same courts did not listen to Calvin when he asked for mercy for him.

Yet everyone blames Calvin.

 

[GodsGrace]

Please read your reply. The courts found him guilty ( as had numerous courts in other countries who also had condemned him to death.) Thje same courts did not listen to Calvin when he asked for mercy for him.

Yet everyone blames Calvin.

Maybe because Calvin is to blame?
The inquisition was also decided by the secular courts....
Did this excuse the Christians that used the inquisition?

John Calvin presented evidence AGAINST Servetus.
Without this evidence S would never have been burned at the stake.
What Calvin did was to ask that he be beheaded instead...
BUT knowing full well that the penalty was burning.

We should all stop protecting what cannot be protected.
Calvin was a cold and unloving person.
He had no spirituality in him as far as I can tell.
He showed no love for anyone....and so he taught that God also had no love for His creation.

God looked at His creation and said that it was good.
Calvin looks at creation and says that it's depraved,,,totally.

Who is right?

God gave to man a remedy when he fell.
Genesis 3:15

As far as Calvin is concerned, there is no remedy and we're at the mercy of a God that is without love.

 

[Enoch111]

Enoch,
Could you provide some definitions of 'heresy' and 'false teaching' that inform what you've stated here?
Titus 3:10 (NASB) states, 'Reject a factious man after a first and second warning'. 'Factious' is the adjective for the noun and the NIV translates as 'divisive'. It comes from the noun, heraesis.
What is its meaning? One of the early church fathers, Irenaeus, wrote an outstanding refutation of heresy, Against Heresies. What kind of false doctrine was he dealing with?
Does that help us to understand the difference between heresy and false teaching?
Oz

The Greek word in Titus 3:10 is hairetikos, and as you can see below it literally means a schismatic (one who causes divisions), but biblically it means one who follows (and therefore promotes) false doctrines.
Strong's Concordance
hairetikos: causing division
Original Word: αἱρετικός, ή, όν
Part of Speech: Adjective
Transliteration: hairetikos
Phonetic Spelling: (hahee-ret-ee-kos')
Definition: causing division
Usage: disposed to form sects, sectarian, heretical, factious.
Thayer's Greek Lexicon
STRONGS NT 141: αἱρετικός
αἱρετικός, (ή, (see αἱρέω);
2. schismatic, factious, a follower of false doctrine:Titus 3:10.

But we know from the second epistle of John that it is far more serious than that since false doctrines manifest the spirit of antichrist:
7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

The doctrine of Christ is comprehensive, since it not only includes the deity of Christ and the triunity of the Godhead, but it includes all Gospel truth: And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Tim 3:16)

Therefore Paul says in Galatians 1 that even if an angel were to bring "another gospel" let him be anathema (accursed = damned).

In Against Heresies, Irenaeus states that the Church has a group of fundamental doctrines (as below), so those who attack or pervert these doctrines are heretics:
The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father "to gather all things in one," and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess" to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send "spiritual wickednesses," and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies / Adversus Haereses, Book 1 (Roberts-Donaldson translation)

So the difference between heresy and false teaching is whether the fundamentals of the faith are under attack.

 

[Enoch111]

Seeing that 3.4 BILLION ppl out of 7.1 BILLION haven’t heard the gospel(this was as of 4/2018), how can ALL HUMANITY obey the gospel?

That is hardly the point. And only God knows how many have heard the Gospel. There is not a nation on earth where "Christ", "Christian", "Gospel" or "church" have not been heard. And today the Gospel is freely available of the Internet which is also pervasive. But the Bible is clear about these basic truths:

1. All humans beings are sinners

2. Christ died for the sins of the whole world

3. God commands all men everywhere to repent

4. God commands all men to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved

5. Jesus Himself is the narrow (strait) gate and His commandments are the narrow way. But not all will enter the narrow gate and take the narrow way.

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Happy birthday Nancy!!!

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Boy, do I love that beard
I need to grow one like that
I'll Have Farouk put an "I Like Jack" tatoo on me.

 

[Enoch111]

It was wicked of the Reformers to persecute and kill those who did not believe as they did, yet were true Christians. They themselves became wicked rulers or accomplices of wicked rulers.

'Totally frustrated with the Radicals [those who taught believer's baptism exclusively], the city council warned them in March, 1526, that the penalty of rebaptizing was death by drowning—the cruel irony imposed by the Reformed church and Catholic Church, as if to say, “You want to be re-baptized? Okay. Here it is, but it will be your last.” Of course, the Anabaptists refused to submit their consciences to a secular council that had usurped the prerogatives of the church. They continued preaching. Mantz was rounded up, had his hands and feet bound together and was dropped into Limmat River—the first of six Anabaptists leaders drowned in the Limmat from 1527 to 1532 (Schaff, p. 3793). Blaurock was beaten and released, only because he was not a citizen of Zurich; otherwise, he would have suffered the same treatment as Mantz. He made it to Innsbruck, was rounded up by the Catholics and burned at the stake. Grebel avoided execution by dying of the plague in the summer of 1526. Hubmaier, after a rough handling by Zwingli and a forced recantation, was released only to be burned at the stake in 1528 by the Catholics. His wife was drowned three days later (Needham, “Flowers for the Bees: the Radical Reformation” in Two Thousand Years of Christ’s Power—Part Three: Renaissance and Reformation)'

http://www.christcommunitystudycent...igious-Persecution-During-the-Reformation.pdf

 

[bbyrd009]

Nothing but unsubstantiated slander. You don't know Calvin. Please don't make so many idle words to have to give account for, you've given too much already.

Rocky 3, p4t 0
bye p4t

 

[bbyrd009]

P.S. You reminded me of how longsuffering God is:

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

God wishes for all to come to repentance,,,but alas,,,,not all will because they refuse to believe.

or at least have faith anyway, huh?

 

[OzSpen]

Please read your reply. The courts found him guilty ( as had numerous courts in other countries who also had condemned him to death.) Thje same courts did not listen to Calvin when he asked for mercy for him.

Yet everyone blames Calvin.

My reply stated: "at Calvin’s request he was imprisoned by the city magistrates".

So the people ought to blame Calvin for Servetus's capital punishment. He was the one who initiated it with the magistrates.

 

[SovereignGrace]

Oh my goodness SG,

Are you saying that every person in the whole world that has not heard of Jesus cannot go to heaven?

Okay guys and gals. Read the above. @GodsGrace is saying ppl can get to heaven by some other entrance than the Christ, who is the Door into the kingdom. She is saying thieves and robbers(context of John 10:1-2) gain entrance there by climbing in some other way. Forget the fact that the Christ said...

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”[John 14:6]

She is denying this. Flat out denying it. In her detestation of Calvinism, she has joined ranks with hyper-Calvinists, as they too, deny God uses solely the gospel to save ppl.

Yet the Christ went on to say ”If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”[John 14:7] The Christ affirmed the only Way to know the Father is to know the Son. But @GodsGrace denies this biblical truth in her diatribe as she assaults Calvinism.

 

[SovereignGrace]

1. John Bunyan possessed the spirituality he professed
2. John Calvin did not.

In my own Pentecostal Holiness church I know many who have graduated the cemetery (oops! I meant seminary) and come out of there all John Calvin like. Possessing not the spirituality they profess through the mind.

1. John Bunyan I love
2. John Calvin I do not

It is one thing to understand doctrine... It is another thing for it to take hold inside the spiritual man. Two men I love...

1. Baptist - Lester Roloff
2. Pentecostal - RW Schambach

Simply because these gentlemen possessed the spirituality they professed.

You must hate King David, too. He was a believer guilty of murder, bruh.

 

[SovereignGrace]

That is hardly the point. And only God knows how many have heard the Gospel. There is not a nation on earth where "Christ", "Christian", "Gospel" or "church" have not been heard. And today the Gospel is freely available of the Internet which is also pervasive. But the Bible is clear about these basic truths:

1. All humans beings are sinners

2. Christ died for the sins of the whole world

3. God commands all men everywhere to repent

4. God commands all men to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved

5. Jesus Himself is the narrow (strait) gate and His commandments are the narrow way. But not all will enter the narrow gate and take the narrow way.

But not every single solitary person has heard the gospel before they died.

 

[Preacher4Truth]

You must hate King David, too. He was a believer guilty of murder, bruh.

But he doesn't hate David, he has a hate for a brother named John Calvin. That, mixed with slander. In fact, he holds disdain for all the Reformed and has set himself up as judge and executioner.

 

[SovereignGrace]

But he doesn't hate David, he has a hate for a brother named John Calvin. That, mixed with slander. In fact, he holds disdain for all the Reformed and has set himself up as judge and executioner.

He said he loved RW Schambach. I watched him on TBN more than once and he seem to keep looking off towards something. I honestly think he had a TelePrompTer he read from. I don’t know that he could even quote scripture without it.

 

[Preacher4Truth]

But not every single solitary person has heard the gospel before they died.

Haven't you heard? Those who haven't heard go to heaven, which is why we send out missionaries so they can hear in order for them to go to hell.

Funny, isn't it, that they're going to heaven already? But we preach the Gospel so those already going to heaven can go to heaven. Makes sense. Lol!!!!

 

[OzSpen]

Please read your reply. The courts found him guilty ( as had numerous courts in other countries who also had condemned him to death.) Thje same courts did not listen to Calvin when he asked for mercy for him.

Yet everyone blames Calvin.

Windmill,

It was Calvin who wrote in a letter to Farel, Reformer and preacher who brought the Gospel to French-speaking Switzerland:

Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church.... Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that I would like to kill again the man that I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face.​

Calvin could not be clearer in his theology of agreeing to the capital punishment of 'heretics and blasphemers' and he is 'indifferent' to those who 'spit in my face'. He did not back off his association with capital punishment for these people.

Calvin also opposed the Anabaptists (now Mennonites) who promoted believers' baptism (regarded as re-baptism) and not infant baptism.

Oz

 

[Preacher4Truth]

He said he loved RW Schambach. I watched him on TBN more than once and he seem to keep looking off towards something. I honestly think he had a TelePrompTer he read from. I don’t know that he could even quote scripture without it.

I've heard him. He sure put on a show.

 

[GodsGrace]

or at least have faith anyway, huh?

Right.
We are saved through faith.
And God does not impose His will on us.
He leaves the choice to us based on
Acceptance of His conditions:
Believe and obey.

I like Rev 3:20