12
Stuermann raises a question that leads him to discuss this very point: "Can an
objection be sustained to the effect that, since faith is sometimes called a work, therefore
it is proper to speak of justification by works?" He then remarks that Calvin shuts the
door on such reasoning.
28
Indeed he does! Commenting on John 6:29's reference to faith
as the work of God, Calvin has this to say:
It is idle sophistry, under the pretext of this passage, to maintain that we are justified
by works, if faith justifies, because it is likewise called a work. First, it is plain
enough that Christ does not speak with strict accuracy, when he calls faith a work,
just as Paul makes a comparison between the law of faith and the law of works,
(Rom. iii. 27.) Secondly, when we affirm that men are not justified by works, we
mean works by the merit of which men may obtain favour with God. Now faith
brings nothing to God, but, on the contrary, places man before God as empty and
poor, that he may be filled with Christ and with his grace. It is, therefore, if we may
be allowed the expression, a passive work, to which no reward can be paid, and it
bestows on man no other righteousness than that which he receives from Christ.
29
The phrase, passive work, epitomizes Calvin's view of faith. There is a
voluntarist element. It is a work--a human activity, but it is a passive work. It is such a
work as simply presents "man before God as empty and poor, that he may be filled with
Christ."
The implication for the question. The main point here is that Calvin's classic
definition of faith makes no mention of obedience. This is the more striking because, as
we have seen, Calvin could describe faith as obedience and as the beginning of new
obedience. Yet when setting himself to define faith, faith as obedience--faith as
response to commandment--plays no part in his definition. Faith is defined as
knowledge, as gift, as assurance.
The fact surely is striking, but the reason for it is not hard to find. Calvin says
nothing about faith as obedience in his classic definition because to him the fact that faith
_______________________
28
Walter E. Stuermann, A Critical Study of Calvin's Concept of Faith (Ann Arbor, MI:
Edwards Brothers, 1952), 170.
29
Comm. John 6:29.