John Calvin's Code Of Moral Law

In John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion he talks about “the law given, not to retain a people for itself, but to keep alive the hope of salvation in Christ until his advent”. The chapter starts by describing how the entire “system of religion” was given to Moses to get people ready for Christ’s coming (Calvin 215). This resulted in new rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices of animals. Jews saw these as acts of vanity rather than acts of worship; they thought that God did not instruct them to do so. They had believed that God would have opened their minds to a greater worship over the earthly worship in which they pursued. Their thought was later proved correct, Calvin states “being a spirit, he is delighted only with spiritual worship” (Calvin 216). The Prophets had seen the Jews as dumb for thinking

Though some completely disregard the Law of Moses, others have thought of it as unchristian and have given the law a message of death. Moses has favorably shown a doctrine of a law that can only create death in sinners, and this doctrine should have had a better effect on people (Calvin 223). This heresy needed to be abolished or else the aim of the Mosaic Law would be distorted. The repeal of the Moral Law was mainly caused by the belief of the law as a curse. The law was believed to “condemn and destroy” sinners, but had not completed the action (Calvin 223). Paul had shown that the law would not have been repealed if had not been a popular idea among the Jews. This chapter of Calvin’s Institutes essentially finalizes by stating that Moral and Ceremonial Laws were abolished because they separated Jews and Gentiles; but also because they were ideas used to provide evidence of the people’s guilt and escape from