We come back now to Calvin. We have six more classes, and we're going to move to lecture. See what the number is 18 today. There's a little bit more to do with election and reprobation, but rather than risking getting started on that again and getting further behind. I think I will wait on that critique. You see on the previous, the end of the previous lecture, the critique, I will work that in at some point in the course before we end. I'd like to go on today to Resurrection, the chapter on the final resurrection. It may be that we could even get back to the critique of Calvin's doctrine of election and reprobation today, but if we don't do it today, we'll do it another day. Okay, we come to chapter 25 of book three, which is the last chapter of book three. It's called the final resurrection. This is Calvin's treatment of eschatology. Calvin is famous for his treatment of election. People identify that with Calvin very quickly. He's not so famous for his treatment of eschatology. In fact, Calvin's eschatology is largely overlooked, but it's important in the institutes and in Calvin's thought. So we want to give it adequate attention today. It's just one chapter here. At the end of book three, an important chapter. Let's look to the Lord in prayer as we pray in the words of John Calvin. Grant Almighty God, since we have already entered in hope upon the threshold of our eternal inheritance, and know that there is a mansion for us in heaven. Since Christ our head and the first fruits of our salvation has been received there, grant that we may proceed more and more in the way of your holy calling. Until at length we reach the goal and so enjoy the eternal glory of which you have given us a taste in this world by the same Christ our Lord. Fondel in his treatment of Calvin's theology calls this chapter, chapter 25, the Crowning Act, the Crowning Act of book three. And indeed we could see it as the Crowning Act of the first three books. We have looked at God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We've looked at creation and providence in the coming of Christ and the work of Christ and the application of redemption. And this is the Crowning Act of all of that as we come to Calvin's eschatology. This first section, section one of chapter 25, you read that through carefully. You will find that so many of the themes that Calvin has already talked about earlier, he mentions again in these sentences that make up section one of chapter 25. Reminds me of the great West window at Princeton University Chapel at beautiful neo-Gothic chapel constructed in 1925. It has a lot of impressive stained glass windows. But the West window is the second coming of Christ as you look around the chapel. You see different events, biblical events and historical events in the stained glass windows of the chapel. And then turn and look at the West window, the second coming of Christ, you'll find many of those themes and pictures presented again in the West window under the general idea of the second coming of Christ. And so as we look at the beginning of Calvin's chapter 25 here, many of the ideas that he's already addressed will be repeated very, very briefly in these words. You might say that for Calvin eschatology is not simply the end of all things. The word, of course, means last things in Calvin doesn't use that word. He talks about the final resurrection, but using that title, he is dealing with what we commonly call eschatology, a study of last things. But it's not merely for Calvin the end of all things, but it's a kind of majestic summing up of all things, like the West window in the Princeton University Chapel. It's a kind of majestic summing up of the whole scope of biblical and post-biblical history as depicted in the windows of the chapel. One writer has put it this way for Calvin a fruitful consideration of the eternal glory of the believer in Christ was the logical end and crown of an orderly theological discussion on God's grace. So book three has been about God's grace, book two about God's grace, book one about God's grace, but certainly book three about God's grace. And here we have the logical end of God's grace and the crown of an orderly theological discussion of God's grace. So I think we could say, despite the fact that people generally think that eschatology is not very important for Calvin and that he does it to make much use of it, that it is a topic that concerned Calvin and has a place in the institutes. By the way, not only 325 is about eschatology, but book three, chapter nine, meditation on the future life. So you should note those two places not only here, but earlier in book three, as we were looking at Calvin's practical description of the Christian life, and one of those chapters tells us to focus our attention on heaven, it's a chapter that could be linked with 325 as summing up Calvin's eschatology. I think you find too the importance of this doctrine for Calvin, not only by reading the institutes, especially 399 and 325, but other places too, but in reading Calvin's letters, it's impressive when you read the letters of Calvin stealing often with real serious problems, writing to people in difficulty, persecution, even facing death. How often Calvin will point them to heaven or to the judgment, to the summing up of all things by God as source of comfort and encouragement for those who are facing as Calvin says right at the beginning of chapter 25, 25 hard military service, which is description of what we're up against in this life, hard military service. But there's an end to it, and not just an end, but a glorious consummation and a victorious summing up of all things. We can look forward to that end, even as we move through this life with its problems and its difficulties. Another place where you see Calvin's interest in times or better to put it, I think, in Calvin's language, the final resurrection is in his prayers. I don't know if you've noticed, but as I've been using Calvin's prayers, the beginning of each of these lectures, I think every single prayer that I have used, and almost every prayer that I have read from Calvin ends in heaven or ends in the second coming of Christ. I'll go back to all of those, but if I just turn back to the prayer that I used beginning the lecture on election, just break into that toward the end, we may be led to Christ only as the fountain of the election in whom also is set before us, the certainty of our salvation through the gospel. Until we shall that length be gathered with him into that eternal glory which he has procured for us by his own blood, amen. So the prayer ends in heaven. Turn back to the lecture on justification until at last we stand spotless before the end that day when Christ shall appear for the salvation of all his people, amen. And I think if you made a study of Calvin's prayers, we have really scores of Calvin's prayers, perhaps a hundred and more, you would find that every single prayer, I think, almost every single prayer, found very few that don't follow this form, lead us right up to the coming of Christ and to the glories of heaven.
So for Calvin, this is all important and wonderful and strengthening and something that Christians should turn their thoughts to continually. Another way to put in context, Calvin said chapter 25 is to think of it as his theology of hope. He begins in 325-1 by saying that we are grievously exercised under hard military service. And we then must cling to what is elsewhere taught concerning the nature of hope. Book 3 begins with faith, you remember, short chapter on the Holy Spirit and then that long section on faith. And then we move to repentance and then justification and then prayer, then election. And now the final resurrection, so we have gone from faith to hope in book 3. Calvin's catechism, the one that he did in 1537 or Geneva, is very beautiful and expresses this idea in a powerful way. I'll read just a little bit of that. Thus faith believes that God is real, hope awaits the opportune time for him to demonstrate his reality. Faith believes that God is our father, hope believes that he will always act as such toward us. Faith believes that eternal life is given to us, hope awaits the time when it will be revealed. Faith is the foundation on which hope is supported, hope nourishes and entertains faith. So faith, we have hope too. And so we come to the final resurrection, we move to Calvin's theology of hope. Yes, Calvin's catechism, 1537, there are a number of books that include Calvin's writings in the library. I don't know that I can give you the title of one that would have it. But something like Calvin's catechism, if you can't find it, check with me again and I'll let you know for sure. Calvin's catechism of 1537. Another interesting point, an important point I think here in Calvin's chapter on the final resurrection is how Christoscentric it is. He says we must keep our eyes fixed on Christ as we wait upon heaven. So our focus is on Christ and not really on heaven, it's on Christ, although we meditate on the future life and we look forward to heaven, but we do that by fixing our attention on Christ. Because Calvin is going to be very concerned to warn us against undue curiosity, speculation, date setting, all of that. Calvin has no use for any of that. Now you know he's going to rail against undue speculation or useless questions or trifling curiosity. So the focus of our attention is on Christ and he pictures Christ in this chapter as the mirror. We'll see that in which we see our own resurrection. It's interesting that in his treatment of Election, Christ is the mirror in which we see our election. Remember we can't depend on our good works to give us assurance, totally, in themselves, because those good works are weak and faltering. And we don't have access to the decree directly. We can't go directly to God the Father and see our name in a book or have access to his mind. But Christ is the mirror of our election as we look at Christ then we see ourselves as elect. And Christ is also the mirror of our resurrection. As we look at Christ we see heaven, we see heaven assured for us. So he is the mirror of our election and also the assurance of our hope. Look to the past to our election, we see Christ, we look to the future to heaven, we see Christ. And Calvin has encouraged us both in his treatment of Election and in his treatment of the final resurrection to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. Warning against curiosity and speculation, let me go into that again because Calvin is so concerned about it. 325-11, he says, I not only refrain personally from superfluous investigation of useless matters thinking particularly now about the tales of the end times and heaven and hell. But I also think I ought to guard against contributing to the levity of others by answering them. So he's not going to entertain trifling questions. What we get here in 325 and elsewhere is a cautious, restrained, practical handling of the end times. And that is all the more remarkable because in the 16th century there was a pretty feverish preoccupation with eschatology and a lot of speculation. We get some in Luther, even Malanthan who is cautious and maybe overly cautious at times, he doesn't want to get into election because of the questions that it raises much to Calvin's dismay. But Malanthan will get into eschatological speculation. And the English Protestants who came to the continent during the reign of Barry Tudor in England for runners of the Puritans were very much into eschatological writings. And above all, many of the radicals in extreme ways were involved in eschatological speculation including setting dates and locating places where Christ would come back and rule. So it's not that there's no interest generally out there in all of this. And what is remarkable is that at a time when there was this feverish preoccupation with such matters, Calvin is so sober and restrained and cautious. He says, let this then be our short way out to be satisfied with the mirror and its dimness until we see him face to face. Here he uses mirror again but it's not for Christ here, it's now we see through a glass darkly the image that Paul gives us. The mirror by the way can be both a mirror in which you see a reflection and a glass which you see through in Calvin's use of the word it's not one or the other can be either. And sometimes he can use the word that translated mirror in it kneel battles as glass and other times as mirror in the use that we are accustomed to. Everybody knows that Calvin did not write a commentary on Revelation. One older writer has praised Calvin for that Thomas Philpott said Calvin expounded all the books of Scripture except the Revelation at over states of the Betty did not actually write a commentary on every single book some of the shorter books. And don't have commentary from Calvin, all the major books do. But Philpott said Calvin expounded all the books of Scripture except the Revelation which his not doing of was an excellent commentary according to this older writer. And Calvin said that he did not write a commentary on Revelation because he did not understand it and people have praised him for that and some have blamed him for that. One writer said almost wise Calvin not writing a commentary on Revelation. But Andrew Davis I think has a good point. Davis is listed on the last page of the outline for today. Andrew Martin Davis, a new assessment of John Calvin's eschatology which was his PhD dissertation at Southern Baptist Seminary which he did in 1998. And by far the best treatment of Calvin's eschatology that we have. There are one or two older works that treated also but Davis is superior in his treatment of Calvin's eschatology. Davis says Calvin failed to go right up to the limits of what God had tindered to us thus leaving some of the field of Scripture until and unfruitful. So Davis doesn't praise Calvin for not writing a commentary on Revelation but if this is part of the Bible then it's a value. And for Calvin not to write on Revelation according to Davis silly part of Scripture until and unfruitful. But I would still defend Calvin on this point because Calvin did not say that nobody should write on Revelation. He just said I'm not going to do it because I don't understand it but he encouraged others to do it. So he's not saying this is a useless book that we should not be concerned about. But he did not feel that he had the grasp of the book, undoubtedly he had studied it in order to be able to say that. He did not have a way of understanding it that he felt would be valuable to the church. And so he restrained himself from doing something that he felt would not be of great use at the same time encouraging others to do that. Do we have a copy of Davis's work? Yes, we do have that in the library. Yes, I had ordered that to the library and that's available in the library. He does have a commentary on Daniel and you have to look at the prophetic parts of that but he seemed to have a handle on that and feel that he understood how to apply that. Yes, that's right. Not for Revelation but as I recall his treatment of Daniel, it's more historical. Daniel looks ahead and then you see the fulfillment coming in the various empires that follow up leading up to the Roman Empire. Calvin seemed to feel more comfortable with that than Revelation which could be futurist or preterist or just different possibilities of interpreting that book. He did also handle Ezekiel which is not an easy book but Calvin did not complete that. He died before he was able to complete his commentary on Ezekiel. Well, what I think I'd like to do in talking about this chapter is simply to take some themes specific topics and go through those one by one with you beginning with the idea of the last days. Calvin uses this language to describe the whole New Testament period I think following carefully. How the Bible uses the New Testament uses and the Old Testament to this language the time from Christ coming to the day of judgment. That could be called the last days or it could be called the end times or it could be called the last hour which means that we're living in the last hour. So did Calvin live in the last hour? We're living in the end times and we're living in the last days. The way Calvin explains this the reason God chooses to speak of this time from the coming of Christ to the day of judgment this whole period as the last days is so that we would be content with the perfection of Christ teaching. Now I'm quoting here not from 325 but from book 4 chapter 8 section 7 that's 487 that's come to book 4 the rest of our course as we look at Calvin's doctor of the church primarily in book 4. But Calvin says there and elsewhere that we live between the coming of Christ this first coming second coming we live in this period between the coming of Christ and we are satisfied with the last closing word of Christ. I think his emphasis here is that the last word has come God has given us the last word gave us many words leading up to the coming of Christ and then the last word is the word of Christ and Calvin's understanding that's the New Testament not only the words of Christ but the epistles that apply and explain and elaborate on the word. It's written by the followers of Christ so we don't expect another word that's all there is that's all there needs to be and so we live in the last days so these last days are these days are called the last days presumably if they were call something else we might think another word was coming. So Calvin's concern here is to say this language which so final and in a way seems strange to us because the last hour has been going on over a long time but it reminds us not of the duration of the time or anything like that but it reminds us that God has finally spoken in his son and that is the last word the great closing word of the gospel this period of the last days will be marked however long the period extends by the worldwide advance of the gospel internally and externally in other words. The church will advance externally throughout the world and God's people will advance internally through sanctification so that's happening now church is spreading and God is working in the hearts of his people not only is God working in this period that we can call the last days but somebody else is working too and that is antichrist during this period not only will there be the spread of the gospel and the deepening of the commitment of Christians to the Lord but there will be constant opposition to both of these movements constant opposition to the spread of the gospel and constant opposition to personal individual righteousness and the figure the word that's used by Calvin for that is antichrist. Calvin never really sees antichrist as one person doesn't see antichrist as the pope doesn't apply that to an individual pope or to all of the popes but Calvin uses that word as a summary word for whatever the source of opposition is. This is because of the advance of the Christian faith externally or internally. Now of course in his view Roman Catholicism of his day was one source of opposition but it was not the only source of opposition in his commentary on second Thessalonians 2.7 where you would go to find further information from Calvin on his understanding of antichrist he says the name antichrist does not designate a single individual but a single kingdom so the word is not a reference to an individual but a kingdom which extends throughout many generations. So antichrist is the force of evil the work of the devil in its various expressions that operates during this entire period in opposition to the advance of the gospel externally and internally. Generally 16th century figures and even Westminster confession of faith in the 17th century identified Protestant figures identified the Pope as antichrist but we don't have that in Calvin. And that expression as an abandon I think largely as far as applying it only and specifically to the pope the Westminster confession of faith in the form that we use does not identify the Pope as antichrist. How does Calvin understand how other people have understood antichrist or is this an original idea with Calvin. I don't know I don't think it's an original idea with Calvin the first thing I want to check is what does Augustine hold here and I'm sure Augustine doesn't identify antichrist as one single individual but as a force of evil so I expect Calvin is so often is deriving his interpretation from Augustine. There were people prior to Calvin however that did hold to the idea that a single individual was antichrist John Wickliffe believe that the Pope was antichrist. So did Dante certain popes were antichrist so you can get even within the Catholic tradition the idea that the Pope were antichrist. I expect that Dante and Wickliffe would have said there could have been more than one antichrist at the same time but they did apply those two individuals. But I don't see Calvin ever doing that he's not saying the Pope is antichrist or Sodom who saying is antichrist or somebody else Hitler is antichrist he sees this as a movement of evil in opposition to the good work that God is doing. Well it's come to the idea of millennium next Calvin in our section for today opposes the killiest he calls them the killiest or the millenarians. It depends on whether you use the Greek form or the Latin form killiest is the Greek form for people that believe in the thousand year reign of Christ on earth and millenarians would be the Latin form for the same thing literal thousand year reign of Christ on earth. I don't think we should try to understand Calvin in terms of pre-millennialist, post-millennialist or omelennialist those are more modern designations for different theories related to the millenium. But it's hard in any case to see Calvin as espousing anything close to what would be called pre-millennialism. Calvin opposes the idea of thousand year reign of Christ on earth primarily because he doesn't want to limit Christ reign that way. In other words Calvin also says Christ is reigning now. It's not that he's going to reign someday on earth but he is reigning now on earth. That makes him sound much more like a homelennialist and again he follows a gustan in this. The gustan was the one who changed the history of interpretation from something that may have been more like modern pre-millennialism to something much more like modern omelennialism. Calvin as a gustan tell that the thousand years that's a reference of course to Revelation 20 depicts not a thousand years to come at the end of the church age in other words we're now in the end times and at the end of the end times there will be a thousand year reign of Christ on earth. But a gustan first and then Calvin identify the millennium as the reign of Christ during the church age. In other words we've already seen that in the end times the gospel will advance both internally and externally through the work of Holy Spirit and through the reign of Christ and that's the millennium. It's taking place now the 16th century and now in the 21st century. Next the intermediate state what happens to people when they die is there an intermediate state. Calvin was very concerned about this point gives much more attention than he gives almost any other question related to either the end times or the fate of the soul and the body. What Calvin teaches as he explains it in 3256 is that when a believer dies that believer is taken directly to heaven and enters into blessed rest he says, blessed rest 3256. That rest is not soul sleep. It is a conscious sharing of God's presence while awaiting Calvin says the enjoyment of promised glory. So there's consciousness, there's rest, but there's something yet to come. There is rest but not yet glory. It's reading a book just over the last few days in which the writer in the preface was talking about his mother believer in England who had since died and he put it this way she has entered into the closer presence of Christ. I've not heard it express that way before but really responded to that idea. We're always in the presence of Christ we're in the presence of Christ now. But in heaven we'll be in the closer presence of Christ and I think that is in line with Calvin's thought here. We're taken to heaven, enter into blessed rest conscious sharing of God's presence awaiting the enjoyment of promised glory. The place one place where Calvin deals with this outside of the institutes is his book called Psychopanachia. That was 1534. It's the first book of a theological nature that Calvin wrote on soul sleep. The original title of Psychopanachia was the souls of the saints who die in the faith of Christ do not sleep but live in Christ. In Calvin said he was writing this his first book before the first edition of the institutes first theological book he had written earlier on Seneca but his first theological book pretty close to the date of his conversion we would have to say. His book on soul sleep in which he is attempting to refute certain anababdist. It's not clear from 16th century history that anababdist all believed in soul sleep but apparently there were some radicals or anabdist who believed in soul sleep that Calvin had encountered and was attempting to refute them in this book. Their idea would be that at death the soul is unconscious and awaits the resurrection. Calvin argues in Psychopanachia that the scriptures state that the soul is capable of a separate existence apart from the body. In other words he says there's evidence that the soul can exist separate from the body and also he believes that after death scripture teaches that there is a conscious blessedness. So it doesn't exist in a conatose state or state of sleep but in a state of conscious blessedness from the part of the righteous as it awaits the union with its resurrection by. When you turn to the souls of the reprobate Calvin says in our chapter here in the institutes that they are held in chains and suffer such torment as they deserve 3256 until given over to the full punishment appointed for them. So in this intermediate state souls of the righteous rest consciously in the presence of Christ await the future glory. Souls of the reprobate suffer held in chains but they await to something to come and that is the full punishment appointed for them. What about purgatory? Well of course Calvin is dead sad against such teaching as harmful and unbiblical which to him are the same thing. Calvin's most thorough refutation of purgatory doesn't occur here. He doesn't really discuss purgatory in any length in 325 but you might recall in book 3 chapter 5 there is a chapter in the context of Calvin's treatment of repentance, a refuting both indulgences and purgatory that chapter is taken up for those two Roman Catholic teachings. Repentance is not buying indulgences and then that involves implies purgatory so true repentance is something else. So in 325 sections 6 through 10 to be specific we get his refutation of purgatory. In that entire chapter he argues first against indulgences and shows that he shows that indulgences are false and then he says purgatory. So purgatory also falls with the indulgences. This is how Calvin puts it in 356 book 3 chapter 5 section 6. Since the blood of Christ is the sole satisfaction for the sins of believers, the sole expiation, the sole purgation. What remains but to say that purgatory is simply a dreadful blasphemy against Christ. So it's not scriptural, harmful. It's blasphemous teaching because it undermines the idea that what Christ is under the cross is completely sufficient to take away our sins. We don't need an extended period of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years to purge away the sins that remain because Christ's expiation is sufficient. He is the sole purgation because it needs to be another purgation, another cleansing. The second coming of Christ, Calvin here is restrained and cautious but he certainly is clear that he believes in a literal physical return of Christ. There's no interest though in trying to guess the date. Some of the Anababdists were doing and he shines away from describing it in detail in terms of its nature. To Calvin, the second coming of Christ will majestically display Christ glory and will vindicate the church is really the summation I think of his ideas there. And the practical nature of Calvin's eschatology comes out here when he says that it serves to keep us alert, stimulate us to Christian living and to Christian service. There should be continual expectancy but at the same time patience and diligence. So we wait patiently but we don't lose hope and we're diligent as we wait. I remember Steve Smallman preaching in chapel here several years ago in which he described that his wife was talking about preaching in his own church in McLean in Virginia when a certain Sunday in his wife was not present. The church said because she was home waiting for her mother to come. Her mother was going to arrive from out of town and Steve's wife was home waiting for her mother to come. And he said that the way she was waiting was to be sure that Alice was clean and fresh flowers were in the Vases dinner was cooking and everything was ready. So he applied it to our waiting for the second coming of Christ saying we don't wait for the second coming of Christ like a man waits for a bus on the street corner. I'm just twiddling his thumbs checking the time nothing to do until the bus arrives. But we wait like my wife is waiting, diligent working, preparing. Yes, those would be important verses for Calvin here and his concern or practical nature of theology would come into play too because this teaching the return of Christ is not just theoretical. It affects what I'm doing today. Then we come to the general resurrection Christ returns. There will be the resurrection of the just and the unjust. Calvin here states that even non Christians in their burial rights witness to the resurrection. He looks at non Christians doesn't have a lot of sources that he can use but he knows that that non Christians to some references in the Old Testament that other contemporary sources respect the body of their dead. And go through certain rights in terms of burial. More than the non Christian practice for him however is the burial rights of the patriarchs to read the Pentateuch. You get a good bit of material on burying people. I've just been rereading Genesis and particularly studying the life of Jacob and it's really amazing how much in the Bible is about getting ready to bury somebody. Where they're going to be buried, how they're going to be buried and the words that are spoken. And Calvin says that this is a rare and precious aid to faith so we read those sections in the Old Testament which may seem at first glance a little irrelevant. But Calvin thinks about that. Here are the patriarchs testifying to the resurrection in some early sense. Of course there's not that much teaching of the resurrection of the Old Testament. But he thinks that the care with which the patriarchs buried their dead is an indication of the beginning of faith in general resurrection. The doctrine is confirmed by two things for Calvin. One is the omnipotence of God. That is people might say well how could this be that a body can be put in the grave decay and then be raised again. Calvin's first answer is the omnipotence of God. God is God and so small thing for the God who made the body in the first place out of dust to remake it and bring it once again to life. Ed's his first argument, his second argument is Christ's resurrection. He does briefly describe evidences for the resurrection, the empty tomb, the post resurrection appearances of Jesus. And especially the power of the gospel. Suppose those are the three standard traditional arguments that we would use for the resurrection of Christ. The tomb is empty. The living Christ appears and then the church advances. Well that third point Calvin says now truly it was not by a dead man's power that Paul was thrown prostrate on the road. That's 3253. Christ's evidence is his resurrection by his action in the conversion of Paul. But his Calvin's chief point here is not to argue for the historicity of Christ's resurrection although he does that briefly but to point out that Christ rose again that he might have us as companions in the life to come. So in Christ's resurrection we see our own, we see the mirror again. Look at Christ and we see Christ raised from the dead and that is a proof in guarantee of our resurrection. Calvin does make a little bit to do with those references in the gospels that when Christ rose there were bodies that came out of the tombs in Jerusalem, kind of a strange event that took place. Some of the tombs broke open and bodies came forth. Calvin says that Christ's resurrection, many bodies of the saints, came out of the tombs as a prelude to and a pledge of our resurrection. Just a little kind of preview of what's coming in Jerusalem, some of the tombs broke open. Some of the dead came forth and that was just a tiny prelude to the worldwide resurrection of the dead that shall someday take place. He actually again uses the mirror image here in this mirror that is Christ's resurrection. We look at Christ's resurrection, it's a mirror, in this mirror the living image of the resurrection of our resurrection is visible to us. So as we have just celebrated Easter and the resurrection of Christ, we've looked at that, we've seen our own resurrection, it's a guarantee of the resurrection of our bodies as well. Calvin does deal somewhat with the nature of our resurrection bodies, but as you would expect with a good bit of restraint, basically he says same yet different. Same body that we have here dies and is buried as it's raised again, it's the same body, but it's different. He uses a couple of illustrations here, he says human flesh and animal flesh are the same in substance, but not in quality. I don't really know about that, I suppose some people may know, but is human flesh different from animal flesh in quality, it's my flesh really a lot better than my cat's flesh, well don't know if that's a good illustration or not. His other illustration is about the stars, he says the stars are all alike, but some are brighter than others, that may be a little safer illustration to use the stars are alike. I suppose they are, Calvin really didn't know that much about astronomy and I don't know a whole lot about it either, but some people know a lot about it, maybe stars are different in quality, I don't know, but Calvin thought they were the same in material but different in brilliance. So basically what he's saying is yes it's the same but there's something different, more glorious about the resurrection body. Calvin in this chapter as he has done elsewhere in the institutes will use expressions which seem to denigrate the body, he talks of prison house of the flesh and he calls the body a hut. In this section we have this hut that we live in, but he balances that with more scriptural ideas, he says God has dedicated our bodies to himself as temples. So once you might think of your body as a hut, it's better to think of your body as a temple that belongs to God. And Calvin says in the scripture we see the spirit no less attentive to the burial rights, goes back to that idea of scripture, the spirit giving attention to the burial rights. We see the spirit no less attentive to the burial rights than to the chief mysteries of the faith. That's 3258 which is Calvin saying the Bible has all these stories about burial rights and gives a lot of attention to those and that shows the importance of the body. So you can't say that Calvin completely denigrates the body and elevates the soul. There are biblical references that compare the body to clay and Calvin is following those references but he certainly understands the significance of the body and the future of the body. The bodies of both Christians and non-Christians will be raised at the general resurrection. The Calvin says the main emphasis is on the resurrection of Christians and he has this sentence in 3259 which I think is striking. That is, you can think of the general resurrection, Christians are raised, non-Christians are raised but we put much more emphasis and our attention is focused on the raising of the bodies of believers, not the raising of the bodies of the reprobate. Because Calvin says properly speaking Christ did not come to destroy but to save the world 3259. I think we need to underscore those words and apply them to the section on election that we have just studied properly speaking Christ did not come to destroy but to save the world. Final judgment, what Calvin is particularly concerned about here I think is to balance the idea of present temporal judgment with judgment to come. Almost always when he talks about final judgment it's in the light of the consummation of judgment, the finishing of judgment. There will be a final judgment day but judgment goes on all the time so there's temporal continual judgment and there's a final judgment day but that final judgment day is delayed. Calvin says by God deferred in order to give time for repentance. The fact that we haven't had the second coming yet and the fact that we have not come yet to the final judgment day should not be a source of concern for us. Is it ever going to happen but a source of gratitude to God because he is deferring judgment. When that comes there will be no more opportunity for people to turn from their sins and to turn to Christ but now there is that opportunity.
The final judgment believers will be judged but not in the sense that our sins will be judged. That has already been done. Judgment for sin has already been born by Christ and the wicked will receive the final judgment. Having been judged already the completion of judgment will take place in the final judgment. Well, heaven and hell quickly in the last few minutes. Heaven, real, literal, eternal, same is true for hell. Calvin says avoid trifling and harmful questions. The physical descriptions, the streets of goal and the pearly gates and for hell, the fire and the darkness and the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, Calvin feels that all of these are figurative. We should not really try to understand heaven or hell according to these descriptions. This is as far as language can go but they do point to the reality which is beyond the light. Basically the reality of heaven is that God is there and we are in the presence of God. The reality of hell is that God is absent and those who are in hell are separated from God forever. Yes, so the 325, 10 and 12. So not much about heaven, what it's going to be like, what it's going to look like, have to go to paradise regain to find out that. John Milton who's much more apt to speculate on all these things than Calvin is. Let me just as I close read the last sentence of chapter 25 because Calvin is talking about hell but he doesn't he doesn't end on that somber note. The last sentence 325 says on this point the 90th song has a memorable statement although by his mere glance he scatters and brings to not all mortal man he urges his own worshippers own. The more because they are timid in this world that he may inspire them burden with the cross to press forward until he himself is all in awe. So one last challenge to us to look to the Lord and to not give up and to press forward whatever we might face in this world. Now you might say at the end of this chapter we have come to the hell to the end times to heaven and to hell to the last days but we've come to the end times but we haven't come to the end of the institutes. It's because we have a big book for to go and I go study this in quite the detail that we have studied the first three books but that moves us into the church, into the fellowship of the church, into the work of the church and then the last chapter into the state, into the civil government. So even though we've reached the crown you might say in Calvin's prepen of eschatology he doesn't let us go to heaven yet. We've got to do our work here on this earth now as members of the church and as citizens of the state. That's what we'll look at next by classes.