"For it is a rare thing for those who are always happy to sympathize with the sorrows of others…"

Calvin, commenting on Hebrews 2:17:

"And it is the true teaching of faith when we in our case find the reason why the Son of God undertook our infirmities. For all knowledge without feeling the need of this benefit is cold and lifeless. But he teaches us that Christ was made subject to human affections, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest…

"For in a priest, whose office it is to appease God’s wrath, to help the miserable, to raise up the fallen, to relieve the oppressed, mercy is especially required, and it is what experience produces in us. For it is a rare thing for those who are always happy to sympathize with the sorrows of others…

"The Son of God had no need of experience that He might know the emotions of mercy. But we could not be persuaded that He is merciful and ready to help us had He not become acquainted by experience with our miseries. But this, as other things, has been as a favor given to us.

"Therefore whenever any evils pass over us, let it ever occur to us, that nothing happens to us but what the Son of God has Himself experienced in order that He might sympathize with us; nor let us doubt but that He is at present with us as though He suffered with us…

"An acquaintance with our sorrows and miseries so inclines Christ to compassion, that He is constant in imploring God’s aid for us."

How to Eat the Lord's Supper Worthily

"Therefore, this is the worthiness – the best and only kind we can bring to God – to offer our vileness (and so to speak) our unworthiness to him so that we might be lifted up by him; to accuse ourselves so that we may be justified by him; moreover, to aspire to that unity which he commends to us in his Supper; and, as he makes all of us one in himself, to desire one soul, one heart, one tongue for all… How could we, needy and bare of all good, befouled with sins, half-dead, eat the Lord’s body worthily?  Rather, we shall think that we, as being poor, come to a kindly giver; as sick, to a physician; as sinners, to the Author of righteousness; finally, as dead, to him who gives us life.  We shall think that the worthiness, which is commended by God, consists chiefly in faith, which reposes all things in Christ, but nothing in ourselves."

~ John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion

(HT: IXMarks)

John Calvin on Abortion

"...for the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is almost 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 (1509-1564), Commentary, Exodus 21:22.

Calvin on Christ's "I am" in the Garden

I came across this provoking comment in John Calvin's commentary on John, while preparing to preach John 18:1-12 this Sunday. Calvin is meditating on John 18:6, where upon Jesus' identification of himself, the soldiers drew back and fell to the ground:

We may infer from this how dreadful and alarming to the wicked the voice of Christ will be, when he shall ascend his throne to judge the world. At that time he stood as a lamb ready to be sacrificed; his majesty, so far as outward appearance was concerned, was utterly gone; and yet when he utters but a single word, his armed and courageous enemies fall down. And what was the word? He thunders no fearful excommunication against them, but only replies, "It is I." What then will be the result, when he shall come, not to be judged by a man, but to be the Judge of the living and the dead; not in that mean and despicable appearance but shining in heavenly glory, and accompanied by his angels?

Isaiah 11:4 ...and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

2 Thessalonians 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.