Sermons on the Acts of the Apostles: Chapters 1-7

A reading of any or all of these forty-four extant sermons on Acts by John Calvin will help the reader determine whether his conscience is at peace or simply asleep! Calvins vigorous presentation of the gospel in its full extent shows the sixteenth-century expositor understood the ramifications of New Testament theology. Calvin mixes biblical teaching and its demands on the believers life together so closely that the theology and its effects cannot be easily separated. Divine judgment and mercy underlie this effects theology, and it is the sense of judgment versus the promises of and the conditions for forgiveness and acceptance that informs the readers conscience whether he is indeed forgiven and at peace, a member of the body of Christ. On the other hand, the reader of the sleeping conscience, by comparison and self-examination, will be incited to awaken to a new or renewed relationship with the pressing demands of Christian effects theology. Calvin pulls no punches. If belief does not end in an increasingly Christlike character, it is as good as no belief, no theology. The reader is either at peace or asleep.