Chapter 32: The New Zion in Geneva. After the conference in Chanforan, William Farel moved to Geneva, where he became friends with a gifted young preacher named John Calvin. Farel persuaded Calvin to write the foreword to the new Reformed translation that the Waldensians had agreed to use. Farel also convinced Calvin to remain in Geneva and lead the Reformation there. Soon, Geneva became the center of the Swiss Reformation. Like Zwingli, Calvin accepted the Constantinian hybrid without reservation.
Instead of bringing Geneva back to the Gospel of the Kingdom, Calvin desired to establish in Geneva a state similar to Israel of the Old Testament. All citizens of the state would have to accept the Reformation and attend church, and the state would be actively involved in establishing and maintaining true doctrine and godly living. To those who strongly supported Calvin, it was a dream come true. However, for those who didn't agree with Calvin or his reforms, it was a reign of terror.
To maintain discipline over the population, the Geneva Reformers established a body known as the Consistory. It was composed of all the pastors in the city, together with twelve presbyters. Citizens who opposed the accepted doctrine of Calvin, or who missed church services, were called before the Consistory for discipline. The Consistory went about its task with gleeful enthusiasm. Officers were set over various districts of the city in order to watch over the conduct of the population.
These civil officers reported anyone guilty of even the smallest infraction. They questioned children in order to obtain information about their parents. If any persons were suspected of being opposed to Calvin's rule, the authorities immediately searched their homes for any incriminating evidence. If no solid evidence was found, the authorities typically tortured the suspects to make them confess. Their confessions were then taken as incontrovertible evidence of their guilt. Let me share with you a few examples.
In June of 1546, someone left an anonymous note on the pulpit of Saint Pierre's Church in Geneva that condemned the Reformed preachers and threatened them with revenge. The city government went into immediate action. They arrested an irreverent free thinker named Jacques Gruet, purely on naked suspicion. They then searched his home. However, they found no evidence linking him to the anonymous note.
Nevertheless, when the authorities went through Gruet's private papers, they found a few of them that contained critical remarks about Calvin. That was enough to make Gruet a criminal. So they tortured him hideously until he confessed his crime. They then beheaded him. A few months later, a Reformation preacher named Jean Trolliet spoke against Calvin's doctrine of dual predestination as taught in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Trolliet pointed out that Calvin's doctrine essentially made God the author of sin. It meant that God was punishing the wicked, even though it was His decision that made them wicked. However, Calvin refused to discuss the issue with Trolliet or with anyone else. Instead, he heartily replied that the doctrines in his Institutes were put in his brain by God. He then had Trolliet traditionally banished from Geneva.
Calvin had sent a copy of his Institutes of the Christian Religion to a Spanish thinker named Michael Servetus. Servetus was a gifted scientist and geographer. In fact, he was the first person to accurately describe the human circulatory system. A man of many interests, Servetus also wrote some theological works. These works contain both insightful observations and erroneous speculations. By sending Servetus a copy of his theological work, Calvin hoped to set him straight.
Servetus read Calvin's work, making numerous marginal notes, criticisms, and refutations as he read. Three of the things he criticized were Calvin's teachings on infant baptism and predestination, as well as Calvin's explanation of the Trinity. Although Servetus believed in the deity of Christ, his understanding of the Trinity was a bit confused and was definitely erroneous on a number of points. Servetus then sent Calvin's Institutes back to him, with all of Servetus' comments.
Infuriated, Calvin remarked that if Servetus ever came to Geneva, he would never leave the city alive. However, the Inquisition caught up with Servetus before Calvin did. It arrested him in France, where he had fled, and sentenced him to be burned at the stake as a heretic. Nevertheless, Servetus escaped from prison and headed to Italy. On his way to Italy, Servetus unwisely passed through Geneva. He thought it would be interesting to hear Calvin preach, but Calvin recognized Servetus and ordered his arrest.
The authorities then threw him into a horrible dungeon with no heat or light and little food. At his trial, Servetus was denied the right to have an attorney. The authorities charged him with forty articles of heresy. Most of these articles concerned the Trinity, but others concerned the fact that he denied infant baptism and taught that little children are sinless until they come of age. The criminal indictment also charged Servetus with making insulting remarks about Calvin's theology.
The judge would not allow Servetus to explain or defend any of the things he had written. After hearing the evidence, the Geneva authorities condemned Servetus to be burned to death at the stake for his heretical teachings, even though he wasn't even a citizen of Geneva but was just passing through. William Farel, the man who had persuaded the Waldensians to join the Reformation, accompanied Servetus to the place of execution, loudly berating him the whole time for his heresy.
When they reached the place where Servetus was to die, Farel warned the crowd of observers, "Here you see what power Satan possesses when he has a man in his power. This man is a scholar of distinction, and he perhaps believed he was acting rightly, but now Satan possesses him completely, as he might possess you, should you fall into his traps." The executioners then chained Servetus to a stake and piled faggots of wood around him, about half of which were green.
Because of the green wood, Servetus died a slow, agonizing death while the crowd watched in amusement. Although Calvin had recommended that Servetus be executed by some means other than burning, he didn't use his influence to stop the burning. In fact, some months afterward, Calvin wrote, "Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that they allege I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face.
Whoever shall now argue that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt." I can't help but wonder what the Waldensians thought of all of these things. A few decades before, they were the ones being hunted down and burned at the stake. Now they were part of a movement that was doing the same thing to others. What had the Swiss Reformation gained?
To be sure, in the Reformed cantons, it had cleared the churches of the vast majority of Rome's additions to Scripture: Mariolatry, images, saints, popes, and cardinals, pilgrimages, and other unscriptural additions. And that was wonderful. However, Zwingli, Farel, and Calvin did nothing to further the Kingdom teachings of Jesus. In fact, Reformed theology was in some ways more antithetical to the Gospel of the Kingdom than was Rome's theology.
As we have discussed, Rome had relegated Jesus' Kingdom teachings to the realm of the perfect. If a Christian wanted to take the extra step of reaching for Christian perfection, then he should live by these teachings. In contrast, Calvin made the Kingdom teachings of Christ wholly irrelevant. Under Calvin's doctrine of predestination, it makes no difference whether a person lives by Jesus' teachings or not. That's because nothing he does can possibly affect the destiny that God has already determined for him.
More than that, Calvin, like Augustine, specifically denied that Jesus had introduced any new moral or lifestyle teachings beyond the Old Testament. Writing against Kingdom Christians of his day, Calvin said, "The only subterfuge left is to claim that our Lord requires a greater perfection in the Christian Church than He did of the Jewish people.
Now this is true with respect to the ceremonies, but that there exists a different rule of life with respect to the moral law than what the people of old had, this is a false opinion.
Therefore, let us hold this position, that with regard to true spiritual justice, that is to say, with regard to a faithful man walking in a good conscience and being whole before God in both his occupation and all his works, there exists a plain and complete guide for it in the law of Moses, to which we need simply cling if we want to follow the right path. Thus whoever adds to or takes anything from it exceeds the limits. Therefore, our position is sure and infallible.
We worship the same God that the fathers of old did. We have the same law and rule that they had, showing us how to govern ourselves in order to walk rightly before God. It thus follows that an occupation that was considered holy and lawful back then cannot be forbidden to Christians today." Like the Roman Catholics, Calvin taught that the Church and the civil government are simply twin parts of God's Kingdom.
So it was the duty of the state to establish the true faith, protect the Church, and compel the citizens of the state to conform their lives to the moral law of the Old Testament. This was expressly stated in the Second Helvetic-Swiss Confession of 1566: "We certainly teach that the care of religion belongs especially to the holy magistrate. Let him, therefore, hold the word of God in his hands and take care lest anything contrary to it is taught.
Likewise, let him govern the people entrusted to him by God with good laws made according to the word of God, and let him keep them in discipline, duty, and obedience. Let him exercise judgment by judging uprightly. Let him not respect any man's person or accept bribes. Let him protect widows, orphans, and the afflicted. Let him punish and even banish criminals, impostors, and barbarians, for he does not bear the sword in vain.
Therefore, let him draw the sword of God against all malefactors, seditious persons, thieves, murderers, oppressors, blasphemers, perjured persons, and all those whom God has commanded him to punish and even to execute. Let him suppress stubborn heretics who are truly heretics, who do not cease to blaspheme the majesty of God and to trouble and even destroy the Church of God.
And if it is necessary to preserve the safety of the people by war, let him wage war in the name of God, provided he has first sought peace by all means possible and cannot save his people in any other way except by war.
And when the magistrate does these things in faith, he serves God by those very works which are truly good and receives a blessing from the Lord." When some Christians questioned Calvin on whether it was really right for a Christian to take up the sword in the capacity of a magistrate, Calvin replied, "I ask, if this calling to fulfill the office of the sword or of temporal power is repugnant to the vocation of believers, then how is it that the judges in the Old Testament, especially good kings like David,
Hezekiah, and Josiah, and even a few prophets like Daniel, made use of it?" In other words, in Calvin's mind, nothing had changed with the coming of Christianity.
Everything except theology and ordinances was just the same as it had been in Israel. Like Josiah and Hezekiah, Christians should try to occupy the office of magistrate so that they could protect true religion with all the powers of civil authority, including the sword. Yet, Jesus had specifically said that his disciples had not fought to protect him for the very reason that his kingdom was not of this world.
So when saying that Christians should take up the sword to defend themselves and their Church, Calvin was acknowledging that the kingdom he sought to protect was of this world. His new Zion was a kingdom of this world, just like all other earthly kingdoms.