The Third Sermon on the First Chapter - John Calvin

God’s Election and Predestination
Ephesians 1:4-6:
God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world to the end that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; Who has predestinated us to adopt us to Himself by Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He has accepted us in His well-beloved.

The Misuse of God’s Election
I began to show you earlier that it is not lawful for us to indulge in loose living with the excuse that God has elected us before the creation of the world, as though it were right for us to give ourselves over to all manner of evil because we cannot perish, seeing that God has taken us for His children. For we must not put things asunder which He has coupled together. Seeing then that He has chosen us to be holy and to walk in purity of life, our election must be as a root that yields good fruits. For so long as God lets us alone in our own natural state, we can do nothing but all manner of wickedness, because there is such great corruption and perversity in man’s nature that all that men ever think of doing is contrary to God’s righteousness. Therefore, there is no other way but to be changed by God. And whence comes this change but only through the grace that we spoke of, namely, that He elected and chose us for His children before we were born into the world.

God’s Purpose in Delay
Yet we must note further that God lets His elect ones go for a time so that they seem to be astray and utterly lost, and yet He brings them home again to His flock when it pleases Him. And this serves to humble them the more and to make His goodness and mercy so much the better known to the whole world. If God should make all His elect ones behave perfectly from their very childhood, it would not be so clearly discerned that such behavior comes through that grace of His Holy Spirit. But when wretched people that lived loosely and for a time were given to all kinds of evil are changed, it cannot happen without God working and putting forth His hand. Thus we see that the reason why God delays the calling of those whom He has elected is (I say) to give them life by His Holy Spirit that He may make them walk in obedience to Him. For when we see them suddenly reformed beyond the common expectation and opinion of men, we perceive thereby that God has displayed His power in them, as I said before. And again, on the other hand, every one of us is convinced by experience that we are indebted to God for all the good that is in us. For when we are naturally inclined to any vice and afterwards it is corrected, we well perceive that God has looked mercifully upon us.

Humbling Ourselves Before God’s Grace
We perceive then that we have so much more reason to be humbled, seeing that we were in the way of perdition till He had drawn us out of it. And it is essential for us to note that well, for there are some fanciful heads which imagine that God so guides His elect by His Holy Spirit that they are sanctified beforehand, even from the time they are born into the world, as soon as they come out of their mother’s womb. But the contrary appears, and indeed we see how St. Paul in another passage, speaking to the faithful, says, ‘Some of you were plunged in covetousness, some were given to cruelty, some were scorners, some were whoremongers and loose-livers, and others were gluttons and drunkards; and, in short, you were full of all uncleanness; but God, having changed you and made you clean from such filthiness and infection, has dedicated you to Himself’ [I Cor. 6:10-11]. Again, he says to the Romans, ‘You ought to be ashamed of the life which you led before God drew you to Himself’. So then, whereas it is said in this passage that God chose His servants to make them walk in holiness of life, it is not meant that He is bound to govern them by His Holy Spirit even from their childhood. For (as I have already said) experience shows that He lets them go astray till the opportune time has come to call them.

The Call to Holiness and Perseverance in God’s Grace
But yet we must always bear in mind that God’s electing of us was in order to call us to holiness of life. For if He should let us alone still as wretched castaways, surely we could do nothing but all manner of wickedness according to the corruption that is in us. The good, then, proceeds from His free mercy which He has already displayed towards us before we were born, yes and before the world was created. Thus we see in effect what we have to learn from this passage. And so the blasphemies of such as would obscure God’s praise are put down, that is, of such as make a conflict and, as it were, a divorce between God’s free election and a seeking to live well. ‘Really,’ they say, ‘has God elected us? Then let every one of us do what he likes, for we cannot perish!’ And what does it matter whether we do either good or evil, seeing that our salvation is grounded upon God’s grace alone and not upon any virtue in us?

The Relationship Between Election and Good Works
The answer to this is easy, namely, that if there were no such thing as God’s election, corresponding to as many thoughts and appetites as might be found in us, just so many rebellions would there be against all righteousness. For all of us tend to evil, and we are not only inclined to it, but we are, as it were, boiling hot with it. We run to it with frantic impetuosity because the devil possesses all who are not reformed by God’s Holy Spirit. And so we must needs conclude that our giving of ourselves to do good is because God guides and leads us to it by His Holy Spirit, and all because of His election. Therefore (as I said before) we must not separate the things that God has joined together. For we are not elected to give ourselves over to permissiveness, but to show by our deeds that God has adopted us to be His children and taken us into His keeping in order to dwell in us by His Holy Spirit and to unite us to Himself in all perfection of righteousness.

The Process of Sanctification
Moreover, let us also observe that though God has reformed us and set us in the good way and made us to feel that He has worked in us already to subdue us to His Word and to make us serve Him obediently in all things, yet it does not therefore follow that we are fully reformed on the first day, no, nor yet in our whole lifetime. St. Paul does not say that God brings His elected and faithful ones to the fullness of perfection, but that He draws them towards it, and so we are but in the way thitherward even to our death. Therefore, as long as we live in this world, let us learn to profit and go forward more and more, resting assured that there is still always very much that is blameworthy in us. For they that imagine any perfection are as good as bewitched by hypocrisy and pride, or rather, have no feeling or fear of God in them, but they are far-gone mockers. For he that examines himself shall always find such a store of vices that he shall be ashamed of them if he seriously consider them.

The Imperfection of Human Nature
They then which say that we can reach any perfection while we dwell in this mortal body clearly show that either they are utterly blinded with devilish pride, or else that they are profane people, void of all religion and piety. As for us, let us note (what I touched on before) that God has elected us that we should be blameless, but that we are not able to be so till we are fully rid of all our infirmities and departed out of this prison of sin in which we are now held fast [Rom. 7:24]. And therefore, when we feel any vices in us, let us fight bravely against them, and let us not be down-hearted as though we were not God’s children because we are not yet faultless before Him, and our sins, which make us blameworthy, are always before our eyes.

The Journey Toward Perfection in Christ
Although, then, we find never so many miseries in ourselves to thrust us out of the way, yet let us go on, still assuring ourselves that as long as we live here in this lower world we have our journey to pursue. We must always keep going forward and are not yet come to the end of the way. See how the faithful ought to take heart and strengthen themselves although they are not perfect; and let that fact also cause us to groan and sigh under the burden which we are driven to feel. For the perfection of the faithful and of God’s children is to acknowledge their own weakness and to pray God not only to amend all their misdoings but also to bear with them in His infinite goodness and not call them to account with extremity of rigor. You see, then, that our place of refuge and succor is God’s mercy by which He covers and buries all our sins, because we have not yet attained to the mark to which He calls, that is, to a holy and faultless life. But, be that as it may, let us still go forward and take good heed that we do not get enticed from the right way.

The True Righteousness of Christians
If this word ‘love’ has reference to men, then St. Paul meant to note what is the true righteousness of Christians, namely, to walk in faithfulness and uprightness. For we know that the hypocrites would always appease God with ceremonies and fanfares, as they are called; and yet some of them are given to acts of robbery, some are full of envy, malice, cruelty, and treason; some are drunkards and others are whoremongers and loose-livers, giving rein to all kinds of wickedness. And yet, despite all this, they think all is safe if they put on a few holy looks and pretend some show of holiness by these ceremonies. St. Paul, to make an end of all such nonsense, says that we must walk in love (which is the bond of perfection and the fulfilling of the law) if we mean to have our life approved of God. And so you see what we have to learn from this passage.

Acknowledging Our Debt to God’s Grace
Furthermore, let us notice that in this place St. Paul exhorts us to acknowledge ourselves indebted to God for all the virtue and goodness that is in us. For example, if we have any good zeal, if we fight against our own vices, or if we walk in obedience to God, how does it come about? Even of this source, that He purposed it, that is, that God elected us beforehand. Let us consider, then, that the praise for it is due to Him and let us not defraud Him of His right. For although we lived as perfectly as angels, yet if we were so foolish as to think that such living comes from our own free will and self-effort, we miss the chief point of all. For to what purpose serve all our good works but to glorify God? And if we regard ourselves as their authors, we see that they are marred thereby and are turned into vices so as to be nothing else but ambition. We see, then, that the thing at which St. Paul aimed in this sentence is to bring us back always to God’s gratuitous election that we might know that all good issues from that source.

Predestination and Adoption through Christ
He adds immediately that ‘we are predestinated by adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will.’ When he says that God has predestinated us by adoption, it is to show that if we be God’s children, it is not through nature but through His pure grace. Now this pure grace is not in respect of anything that God foresaw in us (as I mentioned earlier) but because He had marked us out beforehand and appointed us to such adoption, yes, even in such a way that the cause of it is not to be sought elsewhere than in Himself. And that is the reason why St. Paul adds that He did it ‘in Himself and according to the good pleasure of His will.’ He repeats also the same thing that I previously explained, namely, that all was done in Jesus Christ. You see therefore that what we have to note in this passage is that no other cause makes us God’s children but only His choice of us in Himself. For we have no such status by birth or inheritance, neither does it come of flesh and blood, as it is said in the first chapter of St. John, insomuch that all that can ever be looked for in our own selves is excluded and utterly abolished. And this is to show us that if men are left alone in their former plight, they have no communion at all with God but are utterly cut off from His kingdom.

God’s Sovereignty and Our Salvation
It is true that our father Adam was created after the image of God [Gen. 1:26] and that he was excellent in his first state, but after the coming in of sin we all became utterly helpless, so that even Adam did not have any strength in himself, and his free will that was given him served him to no other purpose but to make him the more inexcusable. For he fell wilfully and through his own malice. But by this we see what sort of constancy he had in him, for, having been created with the utmost care, he fell, and ruined himself, and ourselves with him. Now, then, we are all born the children of wrath and cursed of God [Eph. 2:3].

God’s Free Call to Adoption
And so, as long as we remain in our former state and plight there is nothing but eternal death in us. Therefore God must freely call us to Himself, for are we able to purchase such a high calling? Where is the gold or silver to buy it? Where are the virtues with which to recompense God for so great and excellent a privilege? To be brief, (as has been said already on this matter) it comes neither of flesh nor of blood, that is to say, it does not come of anything we can find in this world, but only of God’s adoption [Jn. 1:13]. For the word which St. Paul uses means that God constitutes us children. When a man adopts a child, he chooses him to be his heir, and all the goods that he has afterwards are passed on under that title. So it is with us who are heirs of the heavenly life because God has adopted and chosen us for His children. And further, St. Paul is not contented with having so far magnified God’s grace, but he says moreover that God has also predestinated us and determined the matter beforehand.

God’s Grace in Our Election
We see, then, that St. Paul gathers together everything that may crush the foolish imaginations which we might conceive of bringing anything to God, or of advancing ourselves towards Him to make ourselves acceptable to Him. Therefore everything must be brought to nought so that God’s grace only may be acknowledged in this respect. And that also is the reason why he repeats ‘through Jesus Christ.’ If it be demanded, then, why and how we are predestinated by God to be His children, it is because He was pleased to look upon us in Christ. For (as I have said before) this is, as it were, the register in which we are written to attain to the heritage of life and salvation. For although God had pitied our miseries, yet we should always be as it were execrable in His sight if Jesus Christ did not come before Him, because all of us being descended from Adam are of one measure, all of us alike and equal. Now some are accounted reprobates: and why is that but because God, looking upon them in themselves, passes them by. But He chooses us in our Lord Jesus Christ and looks upon us there, as in a mirror that is pleasing to Him. And so you see how the difference comes about. Nevertheless, to express the matter even better, He says that God’s choosing of us was ‘in Himself.’ It is true that God does all good Himself, but here St. Paul meant to show that which is not seen in all the ordinary works of God, namely, that no other cause moved Him to elect us than His own will. St. Paul, therefore, takes away all respect of persons when he says that God elected us in Himself. If He had found any merit or worthiness, if He had found any disposition or goodness or virtue, or (to be brief) if He had found one drop of anything He might like and approve of, He would not have elected us in Himself but we ourselves should have had some partnership with Him.

The Nature of God’s Election and Our Response
Seeing then that St. Paul locks up in God’s counsel all things which belong to our salvation, and says that our election also is shut up in that purpose, it is as if he said that men grossly deceive themselves when they presume they are worth anything or have advanced or prepared themselves to the reception of such grace. Therefore we must be carried up on high if we would know that on which our salvation is grounded and what is its true origin and beginning and its sovereign and only cause. And so you see what is meant by this saying that God did it in Himself.

The Good Pleasure of God’s Will
But St. Paul adds even further, ‘according to the good pleasure of His own will.’ If he had set down no more but only the word ‘will,’ it would have been enough, as we have seen and declared before, that St. Paul had been elected according to the will of God. And how so? Because he was neither fit nor worthy to have such a status except that it pleased God to choose him. St. Paul, therefore, does not brag that he had obtained the apostleship, but with all mildness acknowledges it to be the free gift of God. Thus you see what the word ‘will’ signifies, not in any one place alone but throughout all the holy Scripture. Therefore whenever God’s will is afore-mentioned it is to show that men cannot advance anything of their own. Nevertheless, St. Paul sets down here a term of superabundance and says, ‘according to the good pleasure’; as if he had said, ‘It is true that God’s will is the cause of our salvation; we should not flit to and fro seeking other reasons or means for it. However, since men are so unthankful and wicked that they would always darken God’s glory, and would continually take more to themselves than belongs to them, if they are not sufficiently persuaded of God’s will let them understand that it comes of the good pleasure of His will, that is to say, of a free will which does not depend upon anything other than itself, nor has any respect one way or another, but vouchsafes to choose us freely because it is pleased to do so.

The Praise of God’s Grace
Now we see why such as seek to establish the cause of God’s election of us would (if it lay in them) overthrow His eternal purpose, for the one is inseparable from the other. If God has chosen us, as is shown here, then nothing can depend upon our deserts or upon anything we might have to bring forward, but God did it according to His own free will and did not find any other reason than His own good pleasure. If anyone thinks this strange, it is because they would treat God in an over-familiar manner. And in this appears their devilish audacity in that they cannot allow God to reign in pure liberty so that what is pleasing to Him might be received as good, just, and rightful without contradiction. But let such people bark like dogs as much as they will, yet is this decree irrevocable which the Holy Spirit has uttered here by the mouth of St. Paul, namely, that it is not for us to look for any further cause of our election than the good pleasure of God, that is to say, than His own free will by which He has chosen us, though we were not worthy. His sole motive in so doing lies in the words, ‘thus it pleased me.’ And so we see in effect what we have to gather from these words of St. Paul.

The Glorious Grace of God’s Election
Now St. Paul immediately says that it is ‘to the praise of the glory of His grace.’ Here he shows the final reason that moved God to elect us, namely, that His grace might be praised by it, yes, not after a common and ordinary manner, but with a certain glory. For He coupled those two things together so that we should be ravished when we see how God has drawn us out of the bottom of hell to open to us the gate of His kingdom and to call us to the heritage of salvation. Here we see once more the matter I dealt with previously, namely, that all who would do away with God’s predestination or are loath to hear it spoken of, thereby show themselves to be mortal enemies of God’s praise. It seems to them that that passes away and vanishes. Yes, but who is the competent judge of that? Do they think themselves to be wiser than God who has spoken clean contrary to that which they allege? O (they say), that would be the way to open the mouths of many men to blaspheme God. Now, as for the wicked, it is certain that they will always find something to blaspheme about, and they cannot be stopped from doing so. But, for all that, God will have enough with which to justify Himself, [Rom. 3:4] and all who so defy Him and His righteousness will be confounded [Ps. 51:4].

The Need for Humility in Acknowledging Election
Be that as it may, it is not said here without cause that God is duly glorified and His high praise maintained, when we acknowledge that He has freely elected whom He willed, and that there is no other cause of difference between man and man, so that they whom He has reprobated perish because they deserve it, and they whom He calls to salvation ought not to seek the cause of it anywhere else than in this gratuitous adoption. Furthermore, by these two words, St. Paul meant also to stir us up to a greater and more fervent earnestness in praising God. For it is not enough for us to confess coldly that our salvation springs from God’s pure liberty, but we must be, as it were, inflamed to give ourselves wholly to His praise, as if we were wholly dedicated to it, according as St. Peter shows that since we are drawn out of the darkness of death, there is good reason for us to be speaking of the unutterable praises of God [I Pet. 2:9]. And by this he gives us to understand that when the faithful have strained themselves to the uttermost to acquit themselves in praising God’s goodness, yet they shall never perfectly accomplish it because it is an incomprehensible thing [Lk. 17:10].

The Christian’s True Source of Confidence
Note well therefore what we have to bear in mind. And so, from this goodness or grace of which he speaks, we must learn that men will never yield to God His due glory till they are utterly brought to nothing, so that there remains in them not a single drop in which they may boast. Let us suppose that God’s election had never been thought of, should He therefore cease to be praised? No! No! For that is only a part of His praise. For if men should say no more than that God causes His sun to shine upon them, it were a reason to praise Him [Matt. 5:45]. And when we open our eyes to look upward and downward upon the wonderful works He shows us, there is indeed reason enough to exercise us in His praise all our life long. Moreover, when His gospel is preached to us, there also we have reason to praise Him though no mention at all is made of His election. I say there is enough in respect of us, but then He would be robbed of His chief praise and we should yield Him but a portion of that which is due to Him. And why? For the faithful would think that they had faith through their own impulse and free will. I told you earlier that faith is a fruit of election. For there is no other difference between us and unbelievers but that God reached out His hand and drew us to Himself by a secret means at such time as we were turning our backs upon Him and were making ourselves strange to Him [Rom. 5:10].

Faith and Assurance of Salvation
To be brief, it is not without reason that St. Paul says here that God’s praise shall never be glorified as it ought to be till we acknowledge His election to be the cause of all the benefits He bestows upon us, and that if He had not adopted us by His infinite mercy according to His eternal counsel, we should take part of the praise to ourselves which is due to Him. And so God would be reduced and deprived of so much of His right. In short, we see well enough what is said here, that men must be utterly abased in order that God may have His right and no man be made a co-partner with Him, but that all men may confess that He is both the beginning and the perfection of our salvation.

The Assurance of Election in Christ
We must also note carefully how St. Paul adds that ‘of His own grace He has accepted us in His well-beloved.’ By this He makes it even clearer why our salvation is grounded upon God’s mere election and free grace. For men will never quit their foolish presumption if they are not so overcome that they do not have one more word with which to answer back. St. Paul, therefore, to bring us to such reason, tells us that we are damned and lost in ourselves. Now when such a thunderbolt falls upon our heads, it is not for us to demonstrate our insolence. If men will then be so foolish as still to search everywhere, looking for something belonging to and reserved for themselves apart from the grace of God alone, no more than this saying is needed to turn them from it, namely, that we were not in God’s favour till we were in Jesus Christ, because we are utterly damned and accursed in our own persons.

Christ as the Well-Beloved of God
This matter were sufficiently expounded already, if we were not so slow in understanding that which is so needful and which ought to be clear to us. And in truth, even experience ought to teach us in this matter. And, in fact, if hypocrisy did not blind us too much, we should well perceive that there is nothing but wickedness in us, and God’s wrath would strike us with such fear that we should be at our wits’ end. But God must compel us to obedience by a strong hand, or else we cannot find in our hearts to relinquish all praise from ourselves to Him. Let us therefore note well what is meant by this statement in which it is said that we were taken into favor in Jesus Christ, because He is the well-beloved. And why is Jesus Christ called God’s well-beloved, as He is termed in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew [v. 5] and in other places, and also is shown to be so in the prophet Isaiah? [Isa. 43:4] It is thereby shown us that God justly hates and abhors us so long as we remain in our own natural state.

The Mediator and Our Reconciliation
For if that title were not peculiar to Jesus Christ, then it was said in vain, ‘This is My well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased’ [Lk. 3:22]. But if it is peculiar to Jesus Christ, then no other creature can claim it, insomuch that, although God loves His angels, yet they cannot be loved by Him to perfection but by means of Jesus Christ. And as for us, there is indeed another consideration to be taken into account. For (as I have said already) we are hated, and Jesus Christ is the mediator to set the angels at full accord with God, insomuch that there would be no steadfastness or constancy in them if they were not upheld by Him [Col. 1:17–20]. And besides, their righteousness should not be perfect except they were blessed and elected in Him. So much for one point.

The Reconciliation of Fallen Humanity in Christ
As for us, seeing we are estranged from God through sin, He must needs take us as His enemies and be an adversary to us. Jesus Christ therefore is the only well-beloved among men, and as for all the rest of us, God detests and disclaims us, even so far as to say that it repented Him that He had made man [Gen. 6:7], which saying of His means that we are not worthy to be numbered among asses, dogs, and other beasts. For they remain still God’s creatures in the same state that He created them, but we are so wretched and perverse that we deserve to be cut down and to have the remembrance of us cursed and execrable before God. Now let us go on bragging and boasting, and seeking our coats of arms to ennoble ourselves, for we see how the Holy Spirit degrades all such as think themselves to be worth anything. Wherefore, let us consider that if we are enemies unto God, we are in a worse state than if we had never been created.

John Calvin