Introduction
Do you know the names, Martial Alba, Bernard Seguin, Charles Faure, Pierre Navihères, and Pierre Escrivain? You should!
There is a long-standing tradition that claims that Calvin and the early Protestant movement took no interest in missions. Gustav Warneck wrote early in this century, “We miss in the Reformers not only missionary action, but even the idea of missions… [in part] because fundamental theological views hindered them from giving their activity, and even their thoughts, a missionary direction.” Ralph Winter, for instance, writes that the Reformers “did not even talk of mission outreach.” He maintained that “Protestant tradition plugged along for over 250 years minding its own business and its own blessing (like Israel of old).” For a Christian to say this is nothing short of criminal ignorance.
John Calvin & His Missionary Endeavors
In his comments on Psalm 2:8, John Calvin wrote, “the Father will deny nothing to his Son which relates to the extension of his kingdom to the uttermost ends of the earth.” Similarly on Matt.28:19 Calvin wrote, “the Lord commands the ministers of the gospel to go to a distance, in order to spread the doctrine of salvation in every part of the world.” Calvin saw this as the fulfillment of Isa. 49:6. In the preface to the first edition of The Institutes, 1536, Calvin wrote, “Our doctrine must stand sublime above all the glory of the world, and invincible by all its power, because it is not ours, but that of the Living God and His Anointed, whom the Father has appointed king that He may rule from sea to shining sea, and from the rivers even to the ends of the earth.”
It is a satanic lie that John Calvin took no interest in missions. In fact, through Calvin and his confederates in Geneva, hundreds of missionaries were sent to France, much of Europe, and even to Brazil (though the mission was not a grand and glorious success, but a tragic failure, four of the lay members wrote the country’s first Reformed confession 12 hours before they were hanged).
By 1555, Calvin and his Geneva supporters had planted five churches in France. Four years later, they had planted 100 churches in France. By 1562, Calvin’s Geneva, with the help of some of their sister cities, had planted more than 2,000 churches in France. Geneva was the leading missionary centre in Europe and it was Calvin who led the way in every part of the process: he trained, assessed, sent, counseled, corresponded with, and prayed for the missionaries and church planters sent out by the Genevan church.
The Aggressive Movement
Hopefully you know the name ‘Alexander Duff’. He was the first missionary sent out by the Church of Scotland after it had committed itself to world mission. In 1830 he went to India and blazed a trail for others to follow. In 1839, Duff gave an address that made a momentous impact of the missionary endeavour of the Reformed Church in Scotland and beyond, ‘Missions, the Chief End of the Christian Church’. Allow his words to impact your mind and heart:
The work of the Reformation was itself a grand evangelistic work. God, by his Spirit, put it into the hearts of an enlightened few to arise and make an ‘aggressive movement’ on the unenlightened many, by whom they were everywhere surrounded. Their first and paramount object was to rescue the Bible itself—the great instrument of the world’s evangelization—from the dormitory of dead and unintelligible languages; to emancipate its doctrines from the superincumbent load of Popish traditions and Aristotelian subtleties; to vindicate the rights of conscience in the perusal and interpretation of that Magna Charta of all civil and religious liberty; and, finally, to bring out, and separate from idolatrous Rome, a true Church, that might forever protest against all doctrines and rites whatsoever, that infringed, by one jot or tittle, on Christ’s supremacy, as the sole and all-sufficient Saviour of lost sinners,—a witnessing Church, that might reassume the great evangelistic function of preaching the Gospel as a testimony to all nations…when a Church ceases to be evangelistic, it must cease to be evangelical; and when it ceases to be evangelical, it must cease to exist as a true Church of God, however primitive or apostolic it may be in its outward form and constitution!
How Calvin Grew These Missionary Endeavors
During Calvin’s time, Geneva became a place of refuge for thousands of Christians fleeing Catholic persecution across Europe. The majority of them came from France, but they did not come only as asylum seekers. They also came to learn. Calvin took the opportunity to teach and train them so that they could carry the gospel back to their homelands.
Geneva was not only a refuge to Protestant fugitives, but, under Calvin’s influence and direction, it became the hub of a vast missionary enterprise.
The Company of the Missionaries
First, the Venerable Company of Pastors was established as Geneva’s missionary agency, sending an army of missionaries to Italy, Germany, Scotland, England, and especially to Calvin’s homeland, France. Calvin understood that a good missionary has to be a good theologian. So he gave daily Bible lectures to equip them for their future work. In 1559 the Geneva Academy was launched. Now, the training became more systematic. The academy was specifically set up to train missionary pastors to plant churches throughout Europe, but it had a particular vision and burden for France. By 1564 the academy had several hundred students. In addition to their studies at the academy, missionary candidates were given practical experience. Some served as preachers in village churches around Geneva; others worked as chaplains in the city or as tutors to well-to-do families.
Before a missionary candidate was allowed to leave for his assignment, he was interviewed by the elders of the Genevan church. They made sure that his theology was sound. They checked that he had mastered the biblical languages and heard him preach.
They also made sure that he was morally upright and of sufficiently robust constitution, for they knew the work of pioneering the gospel in unevangelized Europe would be arduous.
The Cost of the Missionaries
Second, Calvin understood that suffering and danger was the default of mission. We cannot be sure exactly when the mission to France began. It was some time between 1552 and 1555. Each year a number of men were sent as missionaries from Geneva, among these were The Five Martyrs of Lyon. These young men had been arrested for preaching the Reformed Faith. From June, 1552, to March, 1553, they were moved to Paris and taken from one dungeon to another. All this time, the authorities in the Swiss city of Berne attempted to intervene on their behalf. Finally, on March 1, 1553, they were transferred back to Lyons and received word that they were to be executed.
A stake was made at the Place des Terreaux. As they made their way, they cited texts of Scripture to each other and sang psalms.
The two youngest mounted the stake first. Last to climb onto the stake was the oldest of the five, Martial, having spent some time on his knees in prayer before ascending. He asked a favor, “that I might kiss my brethren before I die” (5:405n2). The favor was granted. The four already bound, Martial walked around the stake and kissed each in turn and said, “Adieu, adieu, my brother.” In French, adieu literally means “to God” — a fitting final encouragement for the soon-to-be martyrs
The fire was kindled; the voice of the five confessors was heard, still exhorting one another in the midst of the flames: Courage, my brothers; courage. . . . These were the last audible words of these five champions and martyrs of the Lord.
The Height of the Missionary Endeavors
Third, the peak years of missionary activity were 1561 and 1562, because of political developments in France at that time.
The French churches had been suffering severe repression at the hands of the Catholic establishment. But for those two years the authorities became preoccupied with rivalry between competing government factions. As a result there was a brief lull in the persecution and the Genevan church seized its window of opportunity.
The records of the Genevan church list 88 men by name who went as missionaries to France. However, it does not name every missionary. We know that in 1561 alone 142 missionaries left Geneva for France. But only twelve of these men are named in the records. That suggests that many hundreds of missionaries must have been commissioned during the final ten years of Calvin’s life. Of the 88 missionaries whose names we know, 62 were French by birth. That means that the other 26 were cross-cultural missionaries in the fullest sense of the term.
The Ecclesiology of the Missionaries
Fourth, mission meant the establishing of churches not simply the conversion of individuals (see Calvin in Matt.28:18-20).
When sufficient people were converted, a church was constituted. In the four years from 1555 to 1559, nearly 100 churches were planted and constituted. By 1562, that number had risen to well over 2000. One thing that stands out from this story is Calvin’s definition of a missionary. He used the term exclusively of a man who was an ordained preacher of the gospel, who planted churches and then pastored the flock. Essentially, a missionary was no different from any other full-time minister; it was merely that he was sent to a place further afield.
Conclusion: The Values of the Missionaries
But why this commitment to missions?
- The glory of God – “When a Church ceases to be evangelistic, it must cease to be evangelical; and when it ceases to be evangelical, it must cease to exist as a true Church of God, however primitive or apostolic it may be in its outward form and constitution!”
- The plight of the lost.
- Jesus’ command to go. – The grammar of our Lord’s command (an aorist participle, a participle of attendant circumstance), makes it clear that he is not saying, ‘As you go bear witness’. Rather, he is commanding his church to send out missionaries.
- ‘He is worth it’. – Why did William Carey, Adomiram Judson, William Chalmers Burns, John G. Paton, Amy Carmichael, ‘go’? Ultimately, it was because Jesus was worth it. His glory was supreme in their lives. Who he is, what he had done, was what fueled their desire to ‘go’. Yes, they saw the need of the perishing multitudes. But above all else, it was their desire to see their Saviour glorified that led them to say, ‘Here am I, send me’. Will you say that to your Saviour?
