Institutes of the Christian Religion

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Quotes (872)

The Anthropomorphites, who dreamed of a corporeal God, because mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are often ascribed to him in Scripture, are easily refuted. For who is so devoid of intellect as not to understand that God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses do with little children? Such modes of expression, therefore, do not so much express what kind of a being God is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. In doing so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height.

John Calvin
1509-1564

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John Calvin on James 2:24 and Romans 3:28–

“It appears certain that [James] is speaking of the manifestation, not of the imputation of righteousness, as if he had said, ‘Those who are justified by faith prove their justification by obedience and good works, not by a bare and imaginary semblance of faith.’ In one word, he is not discussing the mode of justification, but requiring that the justification of all believers shall be operative. And as Paul contends that men are justified without the aid of works, so James will not allow any to be regarded as Justified who are destitute of good works … Let them twist the words of James as they may, they will never extract out of them more than two propositions: That an empty phantom of faith does not justify, and that the believer, not contented with such an imagination, manifests his justification by good works.”

–John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3:17:12