John Calvin is known as a theologian and influential Protestant reformer, but he is less often described as a passionate preacher who longed to see the French-speaking world know Christ as Lord and Savior.
After joining the Reformation movement, Calvin wrote a preface to the New Testament in French. This preface begins with an overview of the Scriptures which focuses on Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament and center of the New Testament.
Calvin then exhorts the French-speaking laity to read, study, and learn from the Scriptures. He encourages his readers to embrace the truths of Scripture with a pastor’s heart. He then urges the secular and religious leaders to allow the laity to have the true food of the Word by granting them access to the Bible in French.
I’d like to introduce you to this young, zealous John Calvin by way of 20 quotes from his preface to the French New Testament of 1535. These quotations have been slightly modernized and edited for spelling and punctuation.
I hope you will be encouraged by the words of a theologian, pastor, and translator who loved his Lord and the Scriptures enough to write this preface and devote his life to feed the flock with the Word.
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But when the fullness of time had come and the period foreordained by God was ended, this great Messiah, so promised and so awaited, came; he was perfect and accomplished all that was necessary to redeem us and save us.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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Thus, he is our only Savior, to whom we owe our redemption, peace, righteousness, sanctificiation, salvation, and life; who died for our sins and rose again for our justification; who ascended to heaven for our entry there and took possession of it for us…
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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In short, all the elements and all the creatures have given Jesus Christ the glory. At his command, the winds ceased, the raging sea subsided, and the fish brought two drachmas in his belly, …
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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All these things were announced, manifested, written, and signed in this Testament, by which Jesus Christ has made us his heirs in the Kingdom of God his Father, and declares to us his will…
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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Now we are called to this inheritance without respect for persons; male or female, little or great, servant or lord, master or disciple, cleric or layman, Hebrew or Greek, Fench or Latin speaking.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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Without the Gospel, everything is useless and vain…
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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But by the knowledge of the Gospel we are made children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, fellow townsmen with the saints, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong, the fools wise, the sinners justified, the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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…without the Gospel all wealth is poverty, all wisdom folly before God; strength is weakness, and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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The Gospel is the Word of life and truth.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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Blessed are all they who hear the Gospel and keep it; for in this way they show that they are children of God. Miserable are those who will not hear it and follow it; because they are children of the devil.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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There is but one way to life and salvation, and that is faith and certainty in the promises of God which cannot be had without the Gospel; for by hearing it and knowing it, living faith is provided, together with sure hope, and perfect love for God and a lively love toward our neighbor.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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Where then is your hope, if you have contempt for the holy Gospel and refuse to hear, see, read, and retain it?
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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…we must not refuse to be despised, mocked, humiliated, and rejected before men. For it is thus that we shall be honored, prized, glorified, and exalted in God’s judgment.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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Will there be afflictions, prisons, tortures, torments? But we know by the example of Jesus Christ that this is the way to arrive at glory.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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…if we have Jesus Christ with us, we shall come upon nothing so accursed that he will not turn it into a blessing…
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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And we have a still greater and a more sure consolation, when we turn our eyes away from this whole world and set aside all that we can see before us, to wait with patience for the great judgment of God, by which in one moment all the machinations of men against him shall be struck down, brought to nought, and overturned.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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For this is eternal life; to know the one and only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, whom he has established as the beginning, the middle, and the end of our savlation.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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O you who call yourselves bishops and pastors of the poor, see to it that the sheep of Jesus Christ are not deprived of their proper pasture; and that it is not prohibited and forbidden to any Christian to be free to read, discuss, and interpret this holy Gospel in his own language…
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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Scripture also calls it Gospel, that is, new and joyful news, because in it is declared that Christ, the sole true and eternal Son of the living God, was made man, to make us children of God his Father, by adoption.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
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This book we have translated as faithfully as we were able according to the truth and the style of the Greek language, to enable all Christians, men and women, who know the French language, to understand and acknowledge the law they ought to obey and the faith they ought to follow.
John Calvin, Preface to the New Testament, Olivétan Bible, 1535
