John Calvin Quotes

178 Sourced Quotes

We are not to look to what men in themselves deserve but to attend to the image of God which exists in all and to which we owe all honor and love.

John Calvin
Christ is the most perfect image of God, into which we are so renewed as to bear the image of God, in knowledge, purity, righteousness, and true holiness.

John Calvin
When God designs to forgive us he changes our hearts and turns us to obedience by His Spirit.

John Calvin
The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.

John Calvin
If everything proceeded according to their wishes, they would not understand what it means to follow God.

John Calvin
The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits... [The Scripture] teaches us that we must not think of man's real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love.

John Calvin
It having been said above that God bends all the reprobate, and even Satan himself, at his will, three objections are started. First, that this happens by the permission, not by the will of God. To this objection there is a twofold reply, the one, that angels and men, good and bad, do nothing but what is appointed by God; the second, that all movements are secretly directed to their end by the hidden inspiration of God...

John Calvin
Scripture points out this difference between believers and unbelievers; the latter, as old slaves of their incurable perversity, cannot endure the rod; but the former, like children of noble birth, profit by repentance and correction.

John Calvin
We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.

John Calvin
But as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God.

John Calvin
Moreover, a true Christian will not ascribe any prosperity to his own diligence, industry, or good fortune, but he will acknowledge that God is the author of it.

John Calvin
The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.

John Calvin
A soul, therefore, when deprived of the Word of God, is given up unarmed to the devil for destruction

John Calvin
It must be plain also that we should not anxiously strive for riches and honors by relying on our own diligence or cleverness or by depending on the favor of men or by trusting in the notion of good luck, but that we should always expect the Lord to direct us to the lot he has provided for us.

John Calvin
Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

John Calvin
The world was no doubt made, that it might be a theatre of the divine glory.

John Calvin
The whole comes to this, that Christ, when he produces faith in us by the agency of his Spirit, at the same time ingrafts us into his body, that we may become partakers of all spiritual blessings.

John Calvin
To be Christians under the law of grace does not mean to wander unbridled outside the law, but to be engrafted in Christ, by whose grace we are free from the curse of the law, and by whose Spirit we have the law engraved upon our hearts.

John Calvin
You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others.

John Calvin
The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ efficaciously unites us to himself.

John Calvin
Hatred grows into insolence when we desire to excel the rest of mankind and imagine we do not belong to the common lot; we even severely and haughtily despise others as our inferiors.

John Calvin
It is entirely the work of grace and a benefit conferred by it that our heart is changed from a stony one to one of flesh, that our will is made new, and that we, created anew in heart and mind, at length will what we ought to will.

John Calvin
Faith is a knowledge of the benevolence of God toward us, and a certain persuasion of His veracity.

John Calvin
Pagan philosophers set up reason as the sole guide of life, of wisdom and conduct; but Christian philosophy demands of us that we surrender our reason to the Holy Spirit; and this means that we no longer live for ourselves, but that Christ lives and reigns within us (Rom 12:1; Eph 4:23; Gal 2:20).

John Calvin
When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the minutest portion of it from any other quarter.

John Calvin
It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.

John Calvin
Faith consists, not in ignorance, but in knowledge, and that, not only of God, but also of the divine will.

John Calvin
As by the revolt of the first man, the image of God could be effaced from his mind and soul, so there is nothing strange in His shedding some rays of grace on the reprobate, and afterwards allowing these to be extinguished.

John Calvin
It is only the goodness of God sensibly experienced by us which opens our mouth to celebrate His praise.

John Calvin
Can true repentance exist without faith? By no means. But although they cannot be separated, they ought to be distinguished.

John Calvin