John Calvin on Prayer by Sproul
Image via WikipediaPerhaps no theologian of the church has been more viciously maligned by critics than John Calvin. Scurrilous distortions of his character have portrayed him as being stern, severe, unfeeling, rigid, and austere.
So widespread and deeply entrenched is this caricature that I tread in fear and trembling when I assign readings from the Institutes of the Christian Religion to my seminary students.
To cut through the false mask of Calvin, I ask my students to begin reading the Institutes not at chapter 1 but at book III, chapter 20.
This is Calvin’s treatment of prayer—a classic study not only in this godly exercise on faith but of Calvin himself. It reveals a man whose heart soars in adoration, a man who has a passion to be pleasing to God.
For Calvin prayer was like a priceless treasure that God has offered to His people:
To prayer, then, are we indebted for penetrating to those riches which are treasured up for us with our heavenly Father. For there is a kind of intercourse between God and man, by which, having entered the upper sanctuary, they appear before Him and appeal to His promises, that when necessity requires, they may learn by experience, that what they believed merely on the authority of His word was not in vain.
Accordingly, we see that nothing is set before us as an object of expectation from the Lord which we are not enjoined to ask of Him in prayer, so true it is that prayer digs up those treasures which the Gospel of our Lord discovers to the eye of faith.
Image via WikipediaThe first rule of prayer for Calvin was to enter into it with a full awareness of the One to whom we are speaking. The key to prayer is a spirit of reverence and adoration.
Let the first rule of right prayer be, to have our heart and mind framed as becomes those who are entering into converse with God.
Calvin speaks of how easy it is for our minds to wander in prayer. We become inattentive as if we were speaking to someone with whom we are easily bored. This insults the glory of God:
Let us know, then, that none duly prepare themselves for prayer but those who are so impressed with the majesty of God that they engage in it free from all earthly cares and affections.
The second rule of prayer is that we ask only for those things that God permits. Prayer can be an exercise in blasphemy if we approach God entreating His blessing for a cooperation with our sinful desires.
I lately observed, men in prayer give greater license to their unlawful desires than if they were telling jocular tales among their equals.
The third rule is that we must always pray with genuine feeling. Prayer is a matter of passion:
Many repeat prayers in a perfunctory manner from a set form, as if they were performing a task to God.… They perform the duty from custom, because their minds are meanwhile cold, and they ponder not what they ask.
A fourth rule of prayer is that it be always accompanied by repentance.
God does not listen to the wicked; that their prayers, as well as their sacrifices, are an abomination to them. For it is right that those w
Image via Wikipediaho seal up their hearts should find the ears of God closed against them.…Of this submission, which casts down all haughtiness, we have numerous examples in the servants of God. The holier they are, the more humbly they prostrate themselves when they come into the presence of the Lord.
If I can summarize Calvin’s teaching on prayer succinctly I would say this: The chief rule of prayer is to remember who God is and to remember who you are. If we remember those two things our prayers will always and ever be marked by adoration and confession.
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