Calvin's Institutes (1559)
Book 3 of 4 - How We Receive the Grace of Christ
Book 3 of 4 - How We Receive the Grace of Christ
1-4 - The doctrine
1. 2 Tim 1:10; John 5:24; Eph 2:6. The resurrection hope is unseen - Rom 8:25; Heb 11:1; 2 Cor 5:6; Col 3:3-4; Titus 2:12-13. This means we have to lift our thoughts to heaven, a hard and rare thing - 1 Pet 1:8-9; Col 1:4-5; Matt 6:21; Phil 3:14.
2. We ought to long and strive for union with God, the goal of resurrection - Phil 3:20; Rom 8:19, 22-23; Heb 9:28.
3. This is critical. "The authority of the gospel would fall... in its entirety" if the resurrection were untrue - 1 cor 15:13-14, 19. The natural mind does not believe it easily. Two helps are God's omnipotence, and the parallel of Christ's resurrection. "It was not for Himself alone" that He died and was raised. 2 Cor 4:8-10; 1 Cor 15:16; Eph 1:20; Ps 16:10; Acts 2:27; Phil 3:20-21; Col 3:4; Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 15:23. "Scorners will treat as a fairy tale what the Evangelists relate as history" [Christ's resurrection]. Why didn't Christ appear to Pilate or the Jews? "They were deprived of a sight of Christ as well as of other signs [Jesus' other miracles]." Were the guards overpowered by the disciples? The guards, "by their silence or their lying, became the heralds of the same resurrection." Other proofs: Luke 24:38, 40; John 20:27; Acts 1:3, 9; 1 Cor 15:6; Acts 9:4; 7:55. "To discredit so many authentic evidences is not only disbelief but a depraved and even insane obstinacy."
4. God's power is our other help in believing the resurrection - Phil 3:21. The picture of sowing, where fruit comes from burial, also helps - 1 Cor 15:36. You can't believe in the resurrection without believing God's power - Isa 26:19; Ps 68:20; Job 19:25-27; Ezek 37:1-10; John 5:28-29. God is ABLE to bring justice and life - 2 Tim 1:12; 4:8; 2 Thess 1:6-8, 10.
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