This Day in History: The Death of John Calvin | Crossway Articles

In several online places today it was noted that May 27 marks the anniversary of John Calvin’s death (1509-1564). Crossway was one of those sites with a featured article on it.

Dr. Robert Godfrey wrote a fine, brief summary of Calvin’s life and work from the viewpoint of its end, and it is that article that we reference this Sunday night. One of the sections of the article mentions Calvin’s own life of suffering and how that helped him as a pastor to identify with God’s suffering people. He also wrote about Calvin’s “unshakeable confidence” as he faced the end of his life:

The struggles of his life tested his faith. At the heart of his faith was the confidence that for the sake of Jesus, God was his loving heavenly Father. But that confidence had to surmount the temptations and sins, the frustrations and losses, the weakness and death that made up so much of his life. He knew that his struggles were the very ones that all God’s children faced: “The pious heart, therefore, perceives a division in itself, being partly affected with delight, through a knowledge of God’s goodness, partly distressed with sorrow, through a sense of its own calamity; partly relying on the promise of the gospel; partly trembling at the evidence of its own iniquity; partly exulting at the expectation of life; partly alarmed by the fear of death.” But faith overcomes that division. With great assurance Calvin declared, “For the invariable issue of this contest is that faith at length overcomes those difficulties, from which, while it is encompassed with them, it appears to be in danger.”²

Late in his life, as his health deteriorated and his strength ebbed, his friends pled with him to work less diligently, but he refused. By early 1563 he at times was unable to walk due to gout and arthritis. By early 1564 it was clear that his strength was failing seriously. In early February 1564 he gave his last lectures and sermons. Calvin prayed that his mind would remain clear to the end so that he could work. From his bed he continued to dictate letters and his final commentary, on the book of Joshua. His fellow ministers appealed to him to get more rest. He responded, “What! Would you have the Lord find me idle?”³ He was determined to work hard to the end.

You would do well to read the other parts of Godfrey’s article, including Calvin’s expression of thanks to God in his last will and testament and his farewells to his friends (cf. link below). Godfrey ends by quoting Calvin’s close friend and associate (and successor in Geneva), Theodore Beza, who wrote this about Calvin’s final days:

The interval to his death he spent in almost constant prayer. . . . In his sufferings he often groaned like David, “I was silent, O Lord, because thou didst it.” . . . I have also heard him say, “You, O Lord crush me; but it is abundantly sufficient for me to know that this is from your hand.”⁷ Calvin may also have remembered the words that he had written long ago in his Catechism: “For death for believers is now nothing but passage to a better life. . . . Hence it follows that death is no longer to be dreaded. We are rather to follow Christ our leader with undaunted mind, who, as he did not perish in death, will not suffer us to perish.”⁸

Source: This Day in History: The Death of John Calvin | Crossway Articles