John Calvin was a French theologian, pastor, and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism, including its doctrines of predestination and of God’s absolute sovereignty in the salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation.
Calvinist doctrines were influenced by and elaborated upon the Augustinian and other Christian traditions. Various Congregational, Reformed, and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as the chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world. These John Calvin quotes will motivate you.
Best John Calvin Quotes
- “When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.” ~ John Calvin
- “Faith is like an empty, open hand stretched out towards God, with nothing to offer and everything to receive.” ~ John Calvin
- “We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.” ~ John Calvin
- “For the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.” ~ John Calvin
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“Humility is the beginning of true intelligence.” ~ John Calvin
- “A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” ~ John Calvin
- “I gave up all for Christ, and what have I found? Everything in Christ.” ~ John Calvin
- “Prayer doesn’t change things – God changes things in answer to prayer.” ~ John Calvin
- “Peace is not to be purchased by the sacrifice of truth.” ~ John Calvin
- “Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.” ~ John Calvin, John Calvin quotes on worship
- “If a preacher is not first preaching to himself, better that he falls on the steps of the pulpit and breaks his neck than preaches that sermon.” ~ John Calvin
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“Whatever a person may be like, we must still love them because we love God.” ~ John Calvin
- “Nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity.” ~ John Calvin
- “We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.” ~ John Calvin
- “We cannot rely on God’s promises without obeying his commandments.” ~ John Calvin
- “Let our chief goal, O God, be your glory, and to enjoy You forever.” ~ John Calvin
- “The Scriptures should be read with the aim of finding Christ in them. Whoever turns aside from this object, even though he wears himself out all his life in learning, he will never reach the knowledge of the truth.” ~ John Calvin, John Calvin quotes on scripture
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“Scripture is like a pair of spectacles which dispels the darkness and gives us a clear view of God.” ~ John Calvin
- “There is no group or type of people anywhere in the world that is excluded from salvation because God desires that the gospel be proclaimed to all without exception.” ~ John Calvin, John Calvin quotes on salvation
- “While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.” ~ John Calvin
- “The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light.” ~ John Calvin
- “While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.” ~ John Calvin
- “God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.” ~ John Calvin
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“When I took the leap, I had faith I would find a net; Instead I learned I could fly.” ~ John Calvin
- “The Lord has not redeemed you so you might enjoy pleasures and luxuries or so that you might abandon yourself to ease and indolence, but rather so you should be prepared to endure all sorts of evils.” ~ John Calvin
- “Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.” ~ John Calvin
- “Whenever the Lord holds us in suspense and delays his aid, he is not, therefore, asleep, but, on the contrary, regulates all His works in such a manner that he does nothing but at the proper time.” ~ John Calvin
- “Satan is an astute theologian.” ~ John Calvin
- “To be Christians under the law of grace does not mean to wander unbridled outside the law, but to be engrafted in Christ, by whose grace we are free from the curse of the law, and by whose Spirit we have the law engraved upon our hearts.” ~ John Calvin
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“True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.” ~ John Calvin
- “The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.” ~ John Calvin
- “There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.” ~ John Calvin
- “The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life.” ~ John Calvin
- “The happiness promised us in Christ does not consist in outward advantages-such as leading a joyous and peaceful life, having rich possessions, being safe from all harm, and abounding with delights such as the flesh commonly longs after. No, our happiness belongs to the heavenly life!” ~ John Calvin, John Calvin quotes on happiness
- “God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word.” ~ John Calvin
- “men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success” ~ John Calvin
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“The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.” ~ John Calvin
- “How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ.” ~ John Calvin
- “The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.” ~ John Calvin
- “The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.” ~ John Calvin
- “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.” ~ John Calvin
- “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.” ~ John Calvin
- “No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.” ~ John Calvin
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“For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself?” ~ John Calvin
- “We may rest assured that God would never have suffered any infants to be slain except those who were already damned and predestined for eternal death.” ~ John Calvin
- “We must make the invisible kingdom visible in our midst.” ~ John Calvin
- “Let it stand, therefore, as an indubitable truth, which no engines can shake, that the mind of man is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God that he cannot conceive, desire, or design any thing but what is wicked, distorted, foul, impure, and iniquitous; that his heart is so thoroughly envenomed by sin that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally make a show of goodness, their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and deceit, their soul inwardly bound with the fetters of wickedness.” ~ John Calvin
- “Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.” ~ John Calvin, John Calvin quotes on faith
- “Where God’s Spirit does not reign, there is no humility, and men ever swell with inward pride.” ~ John Calvin
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“Joy is a quiet gladness of heart as one contemplates the goodness of God’s saving grace in Christ Jesus.” ~ John Calvin
- “We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment” ~ John Calvin
- “No man can come to God but by an extraordinary revelation of the Spirit.” ~ John Calvin
- “All true knowledge of God is born out of obedience.” ~ John Calvin
- “That man is truly humble who neither claims any personal merit in the sight of God, nor proudly despises brethren, or aims at being thought superior to them, but reckons it enough that he is one of the members of Christ, and desires nothing more than that the Head alone should be exalted.” ~ John Calvin
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“If God does nothing random, there must always be something to learn.” ~ John Calvin
- “It is a most blessed thing to be subject to the sovereignty of God.” ~ John Calvin
- “We should never insult others on account of their faults, for it is our duty to show charity and respect to everyone.” ~ John Calvin
- “Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.” ~ John Calvin
- “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man” ~ John Calvin, John Calvin quotes on predestination
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“A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.” ~ John Calvin
- “When God designs to forgive us he changes our hearts and turns us to obedience by His Spirit.” ~ John Calvin
- “Prayer unaccompanied by perseverance leads to no result.” ~ John Calvin
- “When the Bible speaks, God speaks.” ~ John Calvin
- “Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings for reproaches. It is that we remember not to consider men’s evil intention but to look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them.” ~ John Calvin, John Calvin quotes on love
- “The grace of God has no charms for men till the Holy Spirit gives them a taste for it.” ~ John Calvin
