John Calvin: Mankind Fallen BEFORE the Fall
Originally published December 22, 2013
For some time I have heard teachings coming from Calvinists that seem to insinuate that man was fallen before the fall. A popular teaching in the Patriarchy movement is the idea that Adam sinned before Eve bought into the idea that she needed a mediator between her and God. In fact, the need for mediation between man and God before the fall is very prevalent in Calvin’s writings. Francos Wendal, in his work, Calvin: Origins and Development of His Religious Thoughts (Presses Universitaires Defrance 1950) states the following on page 216:
“Indeed, for any contact to be established between the most holy God and sinful man, it was necessary for God to come right down to man, since man would never, of his own strength, have been able to raise himself up to God. ‘The majesty of God is too high,’ said Calvin, ‘For us to say that mortal men could attain to it, seeing that they can do no more than crawl over the earth like little worms,’*
“That, of course. Is the state of man since the Fall. But Calvin had no very high opinion of humanity even before the original sin. It is not so surprising therefore, that he could write:
‘Even If man had remained in his integrity, still his condition was too base for him to attain to God. How much less could he have raised himself so far, after having been plunged by his ruin into death and hell, after staining himself with so many defilements nay, even stinking in his corruption and all overwhelmed with misery?’** [The Calvin Institutes 2.12.1: Henry Beveridge translation varies slightly]”
The more Calvin is studied, the more it is realized that he sought to upend every element of truth in the Bible. The root of this is Calvin’s Platonist underpinnings that of course would have to see a problem with man before the fall because of his material essence.
Again, in regard to the pastorate of our day, who knew what and when? And in regard to those who didn’t know, why not?
paul
Endnotes
* Inst., 2.6.4. Among numerous similar passages, the Course upon Hosea, Opp. 42, 264: “Deum a nobis quaeri non posse, nisi in mediatore Ghristo. . . . Nisi Christus se medium nobis offerat qua via possemus ad Deum accedere?” Or again, the sermon on I Ephesians 1.1-3: “Without this Mediator, it is certain that we are all foreclosed [by God] and the majesty of God ought to make the hairs of our head stand on end.” Opp.9 51, 256.
Understanding God Requires an Exodus From the Institutional Church
I have been on a spiritual journey for eight years now. It started in 2007, and continues to this day. I was saved in 1983, and by the time 2007 came, I had lost hope that I would ever be part of a church that made a real difference in people’s lives. Indeed, as a new believer who was very zealous, I immediately found myself at odds with the institutional church on many levels. I am far from being part of a few that share this testimony.
The hardest part? Feeling alone amidst the compromise. By 2010, all of my mentors were no longer my mentors. The ones I knew personally threw me under the bus. However, I never lost hope in God. I always knew God wasn’t the problem; I knew church was the problem.
“Church” is a very valuable term. It is the common name of the institutional church which began to emerge in the 4th century. It made a distinction between itself and the Jewish model of home fellowships. Replacement theology not only proffered the idea that the Gentiles had replaced Israel as God’s chosen people, it also proffered the idea that institutions predicated on spiritual caste replaced the home fellowship model. The institutional church, or simply “church,” began with the Roman Catholic Church and its many offshoots including Protestantism.
Ancient paganism and mythological religions have always been temple based and Judaism was always the exception. I know what you are thinking, but please remember that there was always ONE holy temple that was obviously too small for corporate worship purposes. Now, each and every believer is that “temple” in which the Holy Spirit dwells, and there was only one place in the temple where God’s holiness could dwell—in the inner room, the most holy place, the Holy of Holies. God in us, the hope of glory, and if our bodies are God’s temple, then our bodies are the Holy of Holies. That is the only place God dwells in the temple.
Worship is not a place, it’s the person who is God’s temple. The institutional church makes worship a place—this is unavoidable in every regard.
Brick and mortar temple worship has always brought man low and made him the disdain of angry capricious gods, and church is no different. The undisputed hero of Protestantism, John Calvin, stated that men are but worms that crawl upon the earth. Luther and Calvin created the institutional model that thrives today among most denominations. Like all pagan gods before, the Protestant god created man for his self-glory and self-love, a god that created evil in order to glorify himself by contrast.
The most pious of Protestants beg and weep for mercy while not daring to have any promise of eternal life, but only the eternal torment they deserve. Yea, even the Christ who died for certain men will personally torment the ones he did not choose for eternity.
Though not all Protestants embrace this extreme, they pick and choose from the same orthodoxy resulting in lesser fears clothed in confusion and the debating over words.
When one believes that he/she really has the anointing of the Holy Spirit, when one turns off the Christian radio, when one makes the Bible the only authority for truth, as the seeking unfolds, a much different God emerges. What emerges is a God that is near us and in us. What emerges is a God who will leave His home in heaven and dwell among men. He is a God who created man from the dust, but became one with man in order to redeem him. God responded to sin by making man more than a creation—he responded by making man His very own family. He responded by casting our sin away into an infinite distance, and using that same infinite distance to measure His infinite oneness.
To remain a part of church is to trade God’s love for being a worm. It is tantamount to rejecting the new birth that makes God your literal Father. It rejects the gift of holiness for a weeping sinhood that falsely accuses God and appoints him with mythological tyrants.
John Piper once said that God entered history through Jesus Christ. Not so—God entered man through Jesus Christ and made it possible for man to be His literal eternal family in the here and now. We are not sinners, we are brothers with Christ and He is not ashamed to call us such.
Come out from among them and be separate. Seek to please the God who has made us family. Come to the realization of who you are as Christ’s brother and a citizen of God’s kingdom. And your brother is the king of the eternal kingdom, and He is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters.
We are heirs and not worms—come out from among them.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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