Calvin's Reformed Preaching

Calvin’s preaching is first and foremost theological. John H. Leith said, “Calvin understood preaching to be the will of God for his church…Preaching is rooted in the will and intention of God. The preacher, Calvin dared to say, was the mouth of God. God does not wish to be heard but by the voice of his ministers.”[1] The preacher preaches the Word of God as if God himself spoke in person in front of the congregation. That’s why the reformers emphasized the importance of the proclamation of the Word.

Preaching “is not simply the preacher’s discourse about Christ...Rather, as Bayer summaries, ‘the preached Word that comes to us by word of mouth is Jesus Christ himself now present with us.’”[2] Calvin said, “The preaching of the heavenly doctrine has been enjoined upon the pastors…But as he did not entrust the ancient folk or angels but raised up teachers from the earth truly to perform the angelic office, so also today it is his will to teach us through human  means.”[3] Human ministers have been entrusted with “the preaching of the heavenly doctrine.”

For the reformers, preaching the Word was teaching, but it was more than that. The reformed preachers preached as if God spoke to the congregation here and now. Human ministers were God’s accommodated means of grace to reach down to the congregation. Preaching the Word was a holy encountering.

Nowadays, the pulpit is often turned into a place where preachers talk, share, and teach. Preaching, for the reformers, was a life-and-death matter, for “the Word not only describes salvation, but also conveys it.”[4]

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[1] John H. Leith, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Proclamation of the Word and Its Significance for Today,” in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of Reform. Edited by Timothy George (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), p. 210.

[2] Michael S. Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 47.

[3] Institutes, 4.1.5.

[4] Michael S. Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, p. 48.