What Were Some of the Differences between Calvin and Luther’s Theology?

When it came to the gospel and the authority of God’s Word, Martin Luther and John Calvin stood in total agreement. But they differed on some theological issues as well. Today, Stephen Nichols considers points of disagreement between these two Reformers.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM:

Joining us this week is the President of Reformation Bible College, Dr. Stephen Nichols. Dr. Nichols, what were some of the differences between Calvin and Luther’s theology, aside from the issue of the Lord’s Table that we’re more familiar with?

DR. STEPHEN NICHOLS:

Yeah, that’s the one that gets all the attention. But as you look at the two of them, there were differences. Another area is church and state, and specifically, even the magistrate. Luther said, “Listen, if you can’t do anything else, if you fail at everything in life, go ahead and be a magistrate.” It’s one way of saying he didn’t have necessarily a high view. That wasn’t true in all instances for him. Of course, he admired Frederick the Wise and was very honorable towards him. But he had that view.

Calvin, on the other hand, he was very quick to say the civil magistrate is a calling. And if God calls you to that as a Christian, you need to see that as your calling, and you need to be the best civil magistrate this earth has ever had, because that’s your duty as a Christian. It extended beyond that as well—and just a more positive relationship, in Calvin’s view, between the church and the state. Luther had a bit of a sharper division between the two. That was a very crucial issue, as you can imagine, coming out of Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire. That was a crucial difference.

Another difference impacted the liturgy in the worship of the church, and that was regarding music. Calvin, of course, was what we call “psalmody,” and held to this view that the worship of the church—following a strict view of the regulative principle—that the worship of the church should be the Psalms, the hymnal of the Bible. Luther, of course, wrote hymns. We sing his hymns. Luther took the text of “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” to see that those are three different things that can be worked into the liturgy and worship of the church. Luther was not an exclusive psalmody person. He was for hymns.

Another area is the law. I’ll qualify this with saying I think some people make more of this than there is, but there’s still a difference. Sometimes we talk about the three uses of the law. The first use is the law as schoolmaster. It shows us our failings. It shows us what we can’t keep. And of course ultimately, by being a schoolmaster, it teaches us to look to Christ. Both Reformers agreed with that, of course. The second use is the civil use of the law and how that governed the civil life. And that’s true even for property rights and personal rights that we can draw from the Ten Commandments and from other of the law of the Old Testament. The third is the positive use of the law. And Calvin, I think, had much more room for that in the life of the believer—and as part of the believer’s sanctification—than Luther did.

Now, I think some people go too far here and say Luther had no room for a positive use of the law. It’s not true. If you just go read Luther’s catechism and what he says about the Ten Commandments, he sees it as having that positive use. So it’s not true that he had no room, but I do think it’s true that he didn’t have as much room for it as Calvin did. Sometimes we speak of a difference between the Lutheran tradition—stemming from Luther of course—and the Reformed tradition—stemming from Calvin—of the law/gospel, law/grace distinction.

Those three differences though—and throw in the Lord’s Supper as well—I think we have to realize too while we’re talking about these differences, let’s go ahead again and stress what united them and what bound them together, as well as binding the Reformers together of the Anglican tradition, or the Reformers together of the Presbyterian tradition and coming out of Knox in Scotland, and then at Westminster and through the Westminster Standards. All of them had this deep commitment to the solas. All of them recognized the call of the church to the true worship of God and how that then filters back and impacts every area of our theology and every area of our biblical interpretation.

So, Luther, Calvin had their differences. You throw in the other Reformers into the mix. They had their differences too. But also there were significant, rich, deep theological commitments that bound them together. And we can certainly celebrate that as we think of these Reformers.