Calvin and Ordination

In his recent book on image and word in Calvin, Randall Zachman describes Calvin’s shifting views on ordination. Early on, he sarcastically rejects the notion that the laying of hands in the Roman Church constitutes a sacrament. By 1543, however, he has changed both his tone and his position. He still thinks that Roman ordination is corrupt, but he says that the laying of hands “is a ceremony, first taken from Scripture” and that it is “one that Paul testifies not to be empty nor superfluous, but a faithful token of spiritual grace.” Yet he does not “put is as number three among the sacraments because it is not ordinary or common with all believers, but is a special rite for a particular office.”

A bit later in the 1543 edition of the Institutes , he adds: “There remains the laying on of hands. I concede that it is a sacrament in true and lawful ordinations, so I deny that it has a place in this farce [of Roman ordinations], where they neither obey Christ’s command nor consider the end to which the promise should lead.” It has no power or efficacy in itself, of course, but does have power and efficacy that “depend solely on the Spirit of God.”