Calvin and Missions - World Evangelical Alliance

70 Calvin and World Mission
The spiritual writings of Ignatius were written for an inner circle; Calvin
wrote for the whole Christian public (pp. 70-74).
In another portion of his book Frohlich speaks of Calvin’s cosmopolitan
correspondence and how he kept in touch with the Reformation in every
part of Europe. He writes to someone in Great Britain, “God has created
the entire world that it should be the theater of his glory by the spread of
his Gospel.” In these words he shows his longing and desire for the spread
of the mission of the Church and its message everywhere. His letters to
John Knox in Scotland, to the Polish king Sigismund, to friends of the
Reformation in England, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, testify to the
outreach of his ecumenic soul.
In 1538 Calvin actually proposed in a letter to Bullinger a plan for a
general synod of all Protestant Churches to meet together for consultation
to strengthen each other and to agree on the proper attitude toward the
power of the State. The author adds, “This great idea was never realized.
History has not conferred on him the honor, but the idea continued to live
as a heritage for later generations, for Calvin believed that the Kingdom of
Christ should be extended not only inwardly but outwardly in every part of
the world, for this is the will of God.”
The result of his correspondence and his efforts can be seen in the strong
character of Reformers such as John Knox and Coligny, in Oliver Cromwell
and the heroes of the Netherlands. It was the spirit of Calvin that made
them advocates of the extension of the Kingdom of Christ in their attempts
for colonial expansion.
Calvin’s view of the heathen world is based upon two doctrines – that of
man’s creation in God’s image and that of common grace. In the former he
teaches that by creation all men have a knowledge of God and a germ of
religion (Inst. I, 3: 1). But sin has darkened this gleam of truth. The soul of
man is a labyrinth. Man made his own gods and superstitions (Inst. I, 5:
12). Nevertheless, the heathen mind retained a knowledge of a High-god
(Inst. I, 12: 1). This is very like the idea vindicated in our day by one of the
greatest anthropologists, Wilhelm Schmidt in his six-volume work, Der
Ursprung der Gottesidee, in contrast to the common evolutionary view of
the origin of religion.
Calvin at the very outset of his Institutes (I, 3: 1-2) lays down a great
missionary principle, namely, man’s natural instinct for God. “The human
mind by natural instinct possesses some sense of Deity – God hath given to
all some apprehension of his existence which he frequently and insensibly
renews.” Men universally know that there is a God and that he is their