Repentance

Calvin's treatment of repentance, book three, chapter three, and not so much reading for today, only 29 pages, but you'll notice that some more hefty assignments are coming up. Christian life, that's not such a heavy assignment, 41 pages, but the next assignment is 106 pages, so think about that, and if you can get a bit ahead in the reading, it'll make it a lot easier if you can do that. So we come to Calvin's treatment of repentance. We'll come to the Lord in prayer using a prayer from John Calvin, let's pray. Almighty God, we never cease to cut ourselves all from you by our sins, and yet you gently urge us to repentance and promise also to hear our prayer with favor. Grant we may not stubbornly keep in our sins and be ungrateful to your great generosity, but may return to you in such a way as to witness by our lives to the genuineness of our repentance, and may so rest in you alone as to resist being buffeted, hither and thither by the perverse lust of our flesh. Rather, grant we may stand firm and fast in a right purpose, and so endeavor to obey you throughout our lives, at last receiving the fruit of our obedience in your heavenly kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. And think about repentance. It's appropriate to think about Calvin's own testimony, which appears in the preface to the commentary on the book of Psalms that he wrote. Calvin does not often speak of himself or say too much of a personal nature, very much unlike Luther who often does that, but in this preface to the Psalms commentary, Calvin does give his testimony, and that sense forth is his understanding of the Christian life. And conversion for him was the beginning of a lifelong process in which God's will and purpose would be supreme. Calvin says in the section of the institutes that we'll read next, we're not our own conversely, we are gods. And his repentance was a lifelong race, as Calvin expresses it in which he turns away from his selfishness and turns to God, symbolized by that motto which Calvin adopted of the hand holding the heart. And the words, my heart, I give unto you, O Lord, promptly and sincerely. So for Calvin conversion his repentance, which is the work of the Holy Spirit and which last as long as life itself, you can find the commentary on the Psalms. Calvin wrote this late in his life, but he reflects back on his early experiences and tells us something at least of the factors and the events that led up to his conversion to his repentance and to the beginning of his Christian life. So we come to this topic, remember we start book three with the Holy Spirit, all of book three is about the Holy Spirit, but there is that short chapter one in which the Holy Spirit is set forth in the work that the Spirit accomplishes in the redeemed. And then Calvin follows that with faith, which is the principle work of the Holy Spirit. Then he says this in 3, 3, 19, the whole of the gospel is contained under these two headings, repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Sometimes this is spoken of as Calvin's double grace, repentance and forgiveness of sins. He says we can sum up all of the gospel under those two headings, repentance and forgiveness of sins. It's important, I think, to realize how Calvin is using these words because we can get a bit confused if we're not clear on this. Calvin will use justification in the same way that he uses reconciliation, forgiveness, acceptance, justification equals reconciliation. For forgiveness of sins, acceptance with God. That's one of the graces that he's talking about here when he says the whole of the Christian experience can be summed up under these two points, forgiveness of sins and repentance. And he uses sanctification to equal regeneration, repentance and conversion. So these are synonyms, sanctification, regeneration, repentance and conversion for Calvin as justification, reconciliation, forgiveness of sins and acceptance or synonyms. The reformed tradition is not always followed Calvin in this different theologians will use more precise definitions for these different terms. But as we re-Calvin, I think we need to keep this in mind so that we can understand what he is saying, Calvin's double grace. Repenates, I think, is Calvin's favorite term for sanctification. He doesn't really use the word sanctification all that much, but he uses repentance for the whole process, the whole lifelong process by which God enables the center to turn from sin and to turn to God himself. And progress then in holiness, and we would say in sanctification, there is a more restricted meaning in later reformed theology, but sometimes the lifelong process is preserved and reformed theology. We find statements in the Westminster Confession, chapter 11, chapter 13, and in the Shorty Catechism, questions 35, questions 87, where repentance is used in this broader sense, repentance used for the lifelong work of the spirit in our hearts, conforming us more and more to Christ. So with those terms in mind, we're ready to proceed with Calvin. Calvin's Ordo Saludis, so I call it here, his order of salvation, and Calvin says something very important and very striking in the beginning of his treatment of repentance. This is 331. He says, now both repentance and forgiveness of sins. That is, newness of life and free reconciliation. That is, everything in the first group of words, everything in the second group of words, all of this, these two things that can be expressed in these various ways. New things are conferred on us by Christ, and are both attained by us through faith, as a consequence, reason, and the order of teaching demand that I begin to discuss both at this point. Calvin says, faith comes through the work of the Holy Spirit, and faith then brings these two graces, this double grace, repentance and forgiveness of sins, or to put it in more traditional language, justification and sanctification. So Calvin says, I need to talk about both things at this point. Calvin's very concerned about order, and what follows what topic or doctrine in the institutes, and here he says, it would really be necessary to talk about both at the same time, but that's not possible. He has to choose one topic in order before the other. So he says, our immediate transition will be from faith to repentance, and that is what surprises us because we would not think that Calvin would have gone in that direction. He says, we could move from faith to justification, or we could move from faith to sanctification, but we can't talk about both justification and sanctification at the same time. So Calvin's order is this, faith, sanctification, and then justification. It doesn't mean that sanctification leads to justification, but in Calvin's order, faith is going to come first, and then he will discuss sanctification and then justification. Calvin knows and certainly affirms that this is the theological order, justification and then sanctification. Theologically, if he's thinking strictly, theologically or in terms of logic, it would be faith, justification, sanctification. But for a reason that he explains to us, he's going to reverse that and deal with sanctification before he deals with justification. And what's the reason for that? Calvin is very concerned about something that he feels needs to be addressed in the very order of the institutes here. Well, in the context in which Calvin was working, as soon as faith, justification by faith was mentioned, there were rolling Catholic objections to that doctrine, that that would then mean that salvation is by faith and is devoid of good works. And it is to stand against that Catholic objection that Calvin might say, waste no time moving from faith to the good works and then he'll come back to justification, which logically and theologically should proceed sanctification. But in order to forestall Catholic objections, people that would say, well, wait a minute, what about good works? Calvin says, I'm going to talk about good works first, and then we'll come back to justification by faith alone, which is the basis for those good works. The way Calvin puts it here is that actual holiness of life is not separated from free imputation of righteousness. That's three, three, one. So he moves from faith to actual holiness of life in order to stress in a rather dramatic way that holiness is not separated from free imputation of righteousness, which is his way of expressing justification. That's the way Calvin says that justification by faith alone here. Calvin says that justification is more lightly touched upon in three through 10, actually it's not going to be until chapter 11 that he will get to the doctrine of justification by faith in his more complete sense. So we'll have a number of chapters on the Christian line, a number of chapters on sanctification so that nobody can miss the point that the Christian is a person who lives a godly life and then he comes to justification by faith alone. Justification was more lightly touched upon in these seven chapters because it was more to the point to understand first how little devoid of good works is the faith through which alone we obtain free righteousness by the mercy of God. And what is the nature of good works of the saints? That's 3111 so finally when he is finished with his treatment of sanctification he says this is the reason I've done it that way. So before he does it, after he does it he explains that he is doing this in order to stress the fact that the Christian life through the work of the spirit, principal work of the spirit is working faith in us so that we're justified by faith alone. That doesn't mean that we didn't do whatever we want to. So sanctification first, then justification as a kind of order of teaching, here's another way we could diagram what Calvin is doing. It's all the work of the Holy Spirit working faith in us and that faith leads to repentance, lifelong repentance, sanctification and the Holy Spirit working faith in us leads us to the acceptance of the gift of God's forgiveness in Christ. And I would put a little arrow here showing that it is that forgiveness that then leads to this repentance. That's a kind of cyclical view that is expressed in Calvin's order. There is a work of the Holy Spirit out of which faith arises, faith leads to repentance or regeneration, but is based on forgiveness and justification. Calvin will not allow the effects to become the grounds. He's not mixing this up theologically, so the effects, the good works, don't become the grounds for our acceptance. But he stresses the importance of the effects by dealing with that topic first before he deals with justification to meet the criticism that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is just a fiction. There is no effect. It doesn't produce a change. After we have been through seven chapters of the great change it continues to produce in the Christian's life, then those objections seem quite feeble in Calvin is ready then to move to justification by faith. So theological order faith justification sanctification is order of teaching for the reason that I have just expressed faith sanctification and justification. I think it's interesting to see how Calvin moved these topics around in the various editions of the institutes. We use this chart. You can see that maybe. This is 1536. And here you have Calvin's treatment of justification and then way down here is treatment of repentance or sanctification. And then here's a chapter on Christian freedom. But in 1539 he moves this topic here, so it precedes then for the first time his treatment of justification. So 1536 he did not have this order. That was his first and youthful production of the institutes. And I expect what has happened between 1536 and 1539 when Calvin was in Geneva the first time is that people were saying, well does your teaching of justification mean that people can live anyway they want to. So as a kind of a pastoral response to misunderstanding and questions that were being asked he reverses the order and then that continues right through these editions all the way down to 1559 with repentance first and then justification by faith next. He brings in a section beginning in 1539 for the life of the Christian that was the last part of the institutes in 1539 and in these intermediate editions. But in 1559 he moved this up to follow his treatment of repentance really to continue his treatment of repentance. So we're going to read next time a life of the Christian. That's a very wonderful section in the institutes of practical application of sanctification in very down to earth ways. And I think you'll enjoy that reading very much. Perhaps the most beloved section of the institutes sometimes called Calvin's golden booklet of the Christian life with a separate publishing history. You can still might as still in print but don't think you're getting something that you don't already have because all that is in the institutes. It's not another writing from Calvin. It's just excerpted from the institutes 36 through 10. So that gives us something of Calvin's concerns and his his care in terms of location of teaching. Questions on that before we go into his actual treatment of repentance. Notice again that the order stresses against the charge of the Roman Catholics that actual holiness of life is not separated from free imputation of righteousness. That's what he's concerned about. Okay. Calvin's treatment of sanctification and repentance. A brief outline of 3, 3, 3 through 10. First of all, what sanctification is. It's a true turning of our life to God. So short definition that we'll look at later in its fuller form. What sanctification is or what repentance is. True turning of our life to God. And then Calvin follows that with what it's not Calvin often has this arrangement of antithesis in which you'll say this is what is true and this is false. Not that Calvin loves polymics all that much, but he is concerned that it's important for the Christian pastor not only to set forth the truth but to refute error. So what it is, what it's not, and the two big points under what it's not are one perfectionism. It's not perfectionism, which was the teaching of the anababdist or at least some of them in the 16th century, and it's not sacramentalism. It's not just trying to make the sacramental system of the Catholic Church work and Calvin spends considerable effort in answering these two false views of repentance. And then comes to the life of the Christian or the golden booklet of the Christian life, which is his practical description of what it means to live a life of repentance. Relation of faith and repentance, repentance follows faith. Calvin says faith is the principal work of the spirit and then as faith is worked in us so as repentance. There have been discussions on whether faith comes before repentance or repentance comes before faith in various expressions of reform theology. But for Calvin faith comes and repentance follows, repentance is born of faith, repentance cannot stand apart from faith. So we have the central doctrine of faith, which we've already looked at, and from faith flows repentance. Even though they cannot be separated, they ought to be distinguished Calvin says so in one sense you really can't separate, can't have faith without repentance, can't have repentance without faith. So these two works of God in us cannot be separated, but they ought to be distinguished. He's already talked about faith and now he will talk about repentance. This is all said in the context of the medieval doctrine that repentance is necessary for forgiveness. And of course at every point Calvin objects to this, objects to the Catholic ideas that repentance or penance as it was called in Catholic theology, comprising contrition, confession and satisfaction were necessary for forgiveness. God forgives and out of forgiveness of God flows repentance. Calvin says nothing is more miserable or deplorable for us than this medieval doctrine. But one thing there is never any assurance in it, there's never any certainty that the person has done what is required, because there seems to be always more that has to be done, cannot ever know that I've done enough in order to deserve God's forgiveness. And then Calvin says there's nothing more miserable or deplorable than that. Okay, let's move to see what Calvin says repentance is. In here is his definition, the turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of him, and it consists in the mortification of our flesh and of the old man, and in the vivification of the spirit, three, three, five, just like we did for the doctrine of faith, with the definition of faith, let's do the same thing now with repentance in which we look at this definition in its various parts, first the true turning of our life to God. And Calvin says that this arises from a pure and earnest fear of God, that's the true turning which arises from a pure and earnest fear of God. Calvin does discuss, as you know, from your reading, what is sometimes called legal repentance versus evangelical repentance, that is a distinction which he had inherited from Malanthin and from Martin Muser and from others. And this is what he means by that, there is a legal repentance or a repentance of the law which arises from fear and dread of God's judgment. In other words, there can be a kind of repentance which takes place because of the fear of the judgment of God. And biblical examples of this would be the repentance of teen after the murder of Abel, the repentance of Saul, the repentance of Judas when he tries to return the money because of fear of judgment.

But Calvin describes this kind of repentance this way, their repentance was nothing but a sort of entry way of hell. So this is not what he's talking about, he talks about true repentance. It's not just stark terror, a kind of outward change based on sheer terror of what will happen if I don't repent. But what true repentance is, what a true turning is, it's not this turning, but a repentance of the gospel and there are biblical examples that Calvin gives here, Hezekiah, the Ninevites, David, Peter, people at Pentecost, where you have a true turning. Calvin doesn't deny that this true turning can be partly based upon fear of judgment, it's not totally based upon fear of judgment. Like legal repentance would be, Calvin speaks of the necessity of God's threats of judgment, for it would be vain for him gently to allure those who are asleep. There are the threats of judgment that come in the Bible, and we read those, and we are moved by those, and we need those, Calvin says, you can't just whisper to us because we're asleep and we need the shouts of judgment to awaken us. But there is more than that in repentance of the gospel, it is not simply fear of judgment, it is hatred of the sin itself, part of the judgment, and this is what will distinguish evangelical repentance from legal repentance. There is a certain fear of God, as Calvin puts it in the definition that arises from a true and earnest fear of him, but it moves on to a hatred of sin. This is what Calvin says is meant by 2 Corinthians 7 and 10, the sorrow according to God. That's true repentance, the sorrow according to God comes when we not only abhor punishment, but hate and abominate sin itself, because we know that it displeases God. So a person has moved beyond sheer fear of punishment to a hatred of the sin, because it is a contrary to the character of God, and because it displeases God. Then that is what is a true evangelical repentance, that is a true turning. Not only is the turning a true turning, but it's a total turning, Calvin says, not only in outward works, but in the soul itself. He doesn't need a perfectionism here, because he will object to that in his rebuttal of the anavabdist, so it's not a perfect turning, but it is a total turning. And Calvin says, not only in outward works, but in the soul itself. In other words, there could be an external turning, kind of obvious repentance in which a person would change certain practices, but that would not be repentance in the sense that Calvin is using the word unless it is in the soul itself. He talks about hypocrites who were actively striving after outward repentance in ceremonies. This is a reference to the Old Testament to the book of Isaiah, or people who were trying to outwardly keep the ceremonies, while they made no effort to undo the burden of injustice with which they bound the poor. There were certain outward works, or set forth there, but there were other outward works that they failed to observe, so it was not a total turning, even in the outward works. But even more than the outward turning, or in addition to the outward turning, there should be a turning in the soul itself. Men must cleanse away secret filth in order that an altar may be erected to God in the heart itself. This is what he means by a total turning, not just conduct, but attitude, alter, erected in the heart itself, not just cleaning up our actions, but loving an obeying God from the heart. As repentance then inwardly extends to one's inmost soul, so it extends chronologically throughout the extent of one's life. And this is the third point. It's a continual turning, true turning, total turning, continual turning, and here's where Calvin uses one of the most impressive of his figures concerning repentance. It is a race, a race of repentance, a race of repentance, which we are to run throughout our lives, three, three, nine. Calvin, at this point and a little later, this section will criticize the anababdist and the Catholics, I think he particularly has the Jesuits in mind here, for a kind of limited repentance, that repentance is something that is done once and for all, and that's the sum of the matter. So repentance is something that a Christian has never finished with because we have a race of repentance, we run a race of repentance. In criticizing the anabdist and the Jesuits, Calvin says that giddy spirit, which brings forth such fruits, that it limits to a paltry few days, a repentance, that for the Christian ought to extend throughout his life. So we never stop repenting because we are running a race of repentance. And then the last part of his definition states that repentance, true turning, total turning, continual turning to God, consists in the modification of our flesh and in the vivification of the spirit. We need to spend a little bit of time on these words. Calvin has found this same division in the Most High Communists of Philip Malanthan, 1521. That was the first Protestant systematic theology, and Calvin's first edition of the Institute comes 15 years later, so Calvin is familiar with Malanthan. And follows Malanthan here in talking about the Christian life as consisting of modification of our flesh and vivification of the spirit. Calvin doesn't mean to make these two separate categories, these are two ways of looking at the same experience. So we could say repentance equals at the same time modification of our flesh and vivification of the spirit. By mortification, he means this, in fact he says we could sum it up this way, cease to do evil, mortification means that we stop doing evil. Calvin says it is expressed clearly, although simply and rudely, in accordance to the capacity of carnal folk, that's 338. It's one of the places in the institutes where Calvin states he does this quite often, that the Bible God accommodates himself to our level of understanding. And we can understand these words, cease to do evil, stop doing evil. So Calvin sees the Bible here as baby talk again, I mean even babies can understand, usually stop. Parents teach them the meaning of that word, it doesn't take longer babies to grasp the meaning of stop, don't do that anymore. And so God speaks to us like that too, that's mortification. Why is it called mortification? It's called mortification because by Christ's death our old man is crucified, that is our old sinful nature is crucified, our common nature must die. So that's mortification, our old self is crucified. And therefore we must deny that old nature, it's not only that we say well yes the old nature is crucified, but in true repentance we deny the old nature as well. We refuse to accept its urging and its direction for our lives. Now if you read carefully you'll realize that this is not a curtailment of true humanity in Calvin, Calvin is not saying that we deny what we are as human beings. But it is a denial of the sinful correction of humanity. We don't become less human but we become less sinful as a result of mortification.

And Calvin realizes that this indeed is a difficult task that is before us. He talks about, indeed the very word, mortification warns us how difficult it is to forget our previous nature. For for a mortification we infer that we are not conformed to the fear of God and do not learn the rudiments of piety unless we are violently slain by the sword of the spirit and brought to naught. As if God had declared that for us to be reckoned among his children our common nature must die. So Calvin speaks of the difficulty of this but it's important to recognize that what he is saying here is not that our humanity must die. But that our sinful desires and our sinful will must die and that indeed is difficult. We are not our own, we are the Lord's. Calvin says there is a twofold mortification. The former relates to those things around us, the other is inward. Now I get this more from the commentaries than from the institutes but let me explain what he means here. There is an inward mortification. The Christian must die to self like Jesus did, direct operations of the Holy Spirit on our lives producing self-denial. Of course the inward mortification that Jesus experienced had nothing to do with sin but it did have all to do with self-denial and inward mortification for the Christian will lead to self-denial as well. That is we put to death these desires we deny them as they stand against the will of God in relation to our attitude and relationship to God himself and also our relationship to other people. That is inward mortification, self-denial and there will be a whole chapter on self-denial in the next section where Calvin will spell this out in some detail. What does it mean to deny ourselves? But there is also outward mortification and what Calvin means here is that through affliction, suffering, we are brought closer to Christ through the experiences of life. In which we are brought into times of trial and times of suffering those prodigential pressures on the outward man will bring us closer to Christ and will develop our race of recundits. So inward mortification deals with the inward man and outward mortification deals with the outward man or woman. Calvin will have a whole chapter on this too. It is called cross varying. So as you read the next section it is a chapter on self-denial. It is one of the qualities of the Christian life denying ourselves but there is the outward mortification as well which is taking up our cross and varying the cross. We deny ourselves and we bear the cross. Well, mortification is not an end in itself. It leads us to vivification, certainly part of sanctification that would be incomplete without vivification. Mortification means stop doing evil and we have seen that it also has that external component in which the experiences of life will lead to cross varying as well as the inward emphasis of stop doing evil. But all that leads us to move on with Calvin to say we should do good. Yes. He just also had to deny himself. It seems like all the things that he has done as far as denying himself would fit into outward mortification rather than inward because he doesn't have any simple issues to do. He doesn't have simple nature to do that is right. But there is still a self-denial. He doesn't serve himself. He doesn't look after his comforts. He doesn't do his own will, even will that is not simple. He gives way in all places of his life, not my will, but dine be done. He says to the father and to other people we see the same thing as he sacrifices comfort and what he could legitimately claim as a human being, not sinful human being, but as a human being, there is self-denial. I think there is category. There is a place for self-denial even in a sinless person. Certainly self-denial for us is complicated with our sinful desires. So we do not have simply our humanity but we have our sinful humanity to struggle against. So we are to turn from evil and to do good. That's vivification. And by Christ's resurrection, we are raised up into newness of life. By his crucifixion, we crucify our old nature, and then we deny that nature. And by vivification, by Christ's resurrection, we are raised up into newness of life and therefore we put on the new man. You can see that sanctification for Calvin is both what God does for us and what we do in response. Things that we do, we stop doing evil. We put on the new man that come to justification. After sanctification, I will see that that is entirely a gift of God. All we do is receive it. But in sanctification, there is both God's work and our work as well. Both things that is mortification and vivification happen to us by our participation in Christ. So that's a kind of theme that runs through these chapters and that is union with Christ. It's not a separate category but you can see it coming up again and again. We die to stand by union with Christ because through his crucifixion, we have put to death the old nature. And by his resurrection, our raised in newness of life, so union with Christ is a very cardinal teaching of Calvin. In many parts of the institute, certainly, here in a supreme way. Yes, do you? And the mortification is cease to do evil and do good. That's what we should do but it's the vivification that we understand currently that enables us to be. I would say it's union with Christ that enables both. And it is the work of the Holy Spirit that unites us to Christ. So it's the Spirit's work. Faith is the instrument that the Spirit uses which means simply receiving what God has done for us and what God is giving to us. And consequently, we're united to Christ which then enables us to die to sin and to live the righteousness. Okay, let's move on to the last two points and that is what sanctification or repentance is not perfectionism and is not sacramentalism. And as I said, when Calvin is dealing with perfectionism, he's thinking about sun and about this. Who believe that the sway of sin is abolished in the believers? 3, 3, 11. Where to cease to do evil, Calvin says, but there's always, but then knows that tendency, that desire, that old nature, that will lead us to do evil if we do not resist and crucify the old nature. But there were some who taught that we no longer have to worry about that. The sway of sin is abolished in the believers. The Calvin says, but there still remains in a regenerate man a fountain of evil continually producing irregular desires which allure and stimulate him to the commission of sin. So that fountain is there and we're never free from it. Another image that Calvin uses in the same section, 3, 3, 10, is a smoldering cinder of evil. There's something that still smoking hasn't gone out. It's still there in the believer or the other image of fountain that's constantly turning up evil temptations and desires within us. I found this quotation in Cornelius Plantica. It said, eruption in 16th century Protestant confessional literature is a sort of diseased fruitfulness or a polluted streaming. These images are often used to introduce another. Our hearts are corrupt. They keep pumping out both malice and whitewash. We're not merely retail outlets for sin. We're a megawatt generators of it. Well, that's the picture of human, simple nature. But with the Christian, there is the mortification and the vivification, but not the elimination. The same is still there. Calvin is not talking about those inclinations which God so engraved upon the character of man at his first creation. He again says, I'm not talking about natural God-given inclinations. I'm not talking about how we would be if Adam had not sinned, but only those bold and unbridled impulses which contend against God's control. So there is always sin there in our hearts and in our lives. Those vestiges remain. Calvin says to humble believers by the consciousness of our own weakness. God hasn't brought us yet into complete perfection. One reason he hasn't is to keep us humble. We are united to Christ, and there is given to us therefore the strength to cease to do evil and to do good. But vestiges of sin remain, and it's all too easy for us to fall into sin by faltering in our race of recurrence. It's a race that we have to run every day and every minute of every day, and it's possible to stumble and even to fall down in that race. And we're humbled by that. We realize that we're simple. The confession says, send daily word and thought indeed, and not only daily, but hourly. So Calvin rejects the idea of perfectionism. He speaks of concupacence which is another way of talking about sinful nature. Calvin doesn't relate that. So we already saw just to sinful desires relating to our physical flesh. He desires related to the mind or the emotions. So concupacence is used in a much broader sense in Calvin than in medieval theology where it almost always was limited to sins of passion and lust. But sin is still there, and it produces sin. In us when we do not resist it and allow it to have its sway in our lives. But for Calvin, I think you can see in 3, 3, 12 that this sinful nature is sin itself. It's not just that it is something there and it might flare up into sin. But sinful desires, sinful feelings, the old man is sinful. And it's not potentially sinful. It is sinful. Calvin did not say there's Luther did, but Calvin would agree. Christian is always sinning, always repenting, and always forgiven. And I think that that would be very much in line with what Calvin is saying here. There is within us sin. But there is within us also the power to overcome sin. But we will not do that perfectly. So there is always within us or given to us God's forgiveness. Calvin sees the Christian life as a life of gradual growth. There is always sin in believers until they are divested of mortal bodies. That's 3, 3, 10. But there's also gradual growth. This restoration does not take place in one moment or one day or one year, but through continual and sometimes even slow advances, God wipes out in his elect the corruptions of the flesh. So gradual growth amid much weakness and failure so much so that we can at times become very discouraged. But Calvin says that when today outstrips yesterday, the effort is not lost. We should be discouraged if we're slipping back. But if we can make even just a little bit of progress so that today outstrips yesterday, more mortification, more vivification today than there was yesterday, then the effort is not lost. But perfection itself will not be reached until heaven. This warfare will end only at death. Our life is like a race course. We must not therefore become worried after a short time, like him who stops short in the middle of the race course. But instead of this, death alone must put a period to our running. So we run until the end. So Calvin says true repentance is not perfectionism. Neither is it sacramentalism. And we'll conclude with this today. Calvin will deal with sacramentalism, Catholic sacramentalism here in some brief fashion and then in a great detail in before the institutes, when he comes to the doctrine of the church. But his sarcasm, you might say, reaches new heights in this section as he not only rejects, but ridicules the Catholic sacramental teaching. He refutes the sacramental system with its various parts, penance, indulgences, purgatory, all of this comes within scope of his discussion here and much more in book four. Calvin says Catholics teach that these things are necessary to attain forgiveness of sins. It is penance, indulgences, and even purgatory, which cleanses sin, which is left over after our death. They teach that these things are necessary to attain forgiveness of sins. If forgiveness of sins depends upon these conditions, which they attach to it, nothing is more miserable or deplorable for us. Because what does this mean, except our repentance is based upon doing many things, outward acts, and there is no real assurance that comes from this, that we have done what is required. Even the first step is slippery. The first step in penance is contrition. And that means genuine sorrow for sin. Luther came to the conclusion that no one could be really sure of the integrity of his own confession. If we had to be sure that contrition was perfect, and there was absolute and perfect sorrow for sin, in order for the system to take its next step, which would be verbal confession and then satisfaction. That puts us in a long and difficult process from which we never will emerge. If forgiveness of sins depends on the center's sheer contrite sincerity, and if assurance of forgiveness depends on the certainty of one's sincerity, then nobody can enjoy certainty or assurance. And indeed that was the case in Catholic medieval theology, assurance was not ever available to anyone except by a direct revelation of Holy Spirit. We will look next at the life of the Christian in which we see many of these same themes dealt with in a very practical and moving way.