gcq3

Note: I hope to add, over time, many seminal quotes from the great Genevan Reformer on various controversial subjects. As will be apparent, these concern issues where it may be thought that Calvin held contrary opinions.

JOHN CALVIN ON CHRIST SEEKING TO BRING JUDAS TO REPENTANCE:

  "What thou doest, do quickly. The exhortation addressed by Christ to Judas is not of such a nature that he can be regarded as  exciting him to do the action: it is rather the language of one who views the crime with horror and detestation. Hitherto he had endeavored, by various methods, to bring him back, but to no purpose. Now he addresses him as a desperate man, “Go to destruction, since you have resolved to go to destruction;” and, in doing so, he performs the office of a, judge, who condemns to death not those whom he, of his own accord, desires to ruin, but those who have already ruined themselves by their own fault. In short, Christ does not lay Judas under the necessity of perishing, but declares him to be what he had formerly been." (Commentary on John 13:27)

MY COMMENT: John Calvin does two things here. First, he records Christ's evangelical love even to Judas Iscariot a reprobate sinner - one whom He knew was, and would ever remain, an unbeliever. If this should be seen to be an argument aginst Calvinistic predestination, then it is also an argument against Arminian foreknowledge. Secondly, Calvin observes that the damnation of Judas was not by necessity but that he perished purely and simply because of his own sin and unbelief of the truth. Man is ever the author of his own destruction.

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