Calvin and Missions - World Evangelical Alliance

Chaney: The Missionary Dynamic in the Theology of John Calvin (1964) 99
order to bring into the church the Gentiles from all parts of the world.” 122
However, Calvin did not mean by this that every particular people and tribe
had had the gospel preached to them. This meant, rather, that no group was
excluded from God’s mercy. God now had presented “himselfe to all the
worlde … to great and small, as well to the Gentiles now, as to the Iewes
before.” 123
Calvin knew quite well that not even the slightest report concerning
Christ had reached the “Antipodes” and other distant nations. He maintained
that the preaching of the gospel to the whole world in the time of the
Apostles did not “absolutely refer to every portion of the world.” 124
He affirmed:
The Kingdom of Christ was only begun in the world, when God commanded
the Gospel to be everywhere proclaimed, and … at this day its course
is not as yet completed. 125
The office of the apostle was an extraordinary ministry, not intended to
be perpetual in the church. But Calvin avowed that God might still call
others to that office when the necessity of the times required it. 126 In fact,
Calvin confessed that God had occasionally raised up apostles even in his
own time. 127
Whether or not God did or would call and send out other apostles, Calvin
insisted that still each individual Christian should have a part in the
gathering of the church. Commenting on Isaiah 2:3, Calvin said:
By these words he first declares that the godly will be filled with such an
ardent desire to spread the doctrines of religion, that everyone, not satisfied
with his own calling and his personal knowledge, will desire to draw others
with him … This points out to us also the ordinary method of collecting a
church, which is, by the outward voice of men; for though God might bring
each person to himself by a secret influence, yet he employs the agency of
men. 128
122 Commentary on Psalms 22:28, Works, v. 8. p. 386.
123 Sermons of M. John Calvin on the Epistles of S. Paule to Timothie and Titus,
(London: Imprinted for G. Bishop and T. Woodcoke, 1579), p. 150.
124 Commentary on Matthew 24:14, Works, v. 33, p. 129.
125 Commentary on Micah 2:1-4, Works, v. 28, p. 265.
126 The Institutes, IV, iii, 4.
127 Ibid.
128 Works, v. 13, p. 94.