Now he gave us that sure communion with himself, when he testified through the preaching of the gospel that he had been given to us by the Father to be ours with all his benefits [Rom. 8:32]. We are said to put on him [Rom. 13:14], to grow together into him [Eph. 4:15], that we may live because he lives. Frequently this doctrine is repeated: that the Father did not spare his only-begotten Son [cf. Rom. 8:32; John 3:15] “that whoever believes in him may not perish” [John 3:16]. But “he who believes in him” is said to have “passed out of death into life” [John 5:24]. In this sense, he calls himself “the bread of life” [John 6:35]; he who eats this bread will never die [John 6:51, 58]. He, I say, was our witness that the Heavenly Father will count as his sons all those who have received him in faith. If we desire anything more than to be reckoned among God’s sons and heirs, we have to rise above Christ. If this is our ultimate goal, how insane are we to seek outside him what we have already obtained in him, and can find in him alone? Moreover, since he is the eternal wisdom of the Father, his unchangeable truth, his firm counsel, we ought not to be afraid of what he tells us in his Word varying in the slightest from that will of the Father which we seek. Rather, he faithfully reveals to us that will as it was from the beginning and ever shall be. The practice of this doctrine ought also to flourish in our prayers. For even though faith in election prompts us to call upon God, still, when we frame our prayers, it would be preposterous to thrust this upon God or to bargain upon this condition: “O Lord, if I have been chosen, hear me.” For it is his will that we be content with his promises, and not inquire elsewhere whether he will be disposed to hear us. This prudence will free us from many traps if we know how to apply to a right use what has been rightly written; but let us not inconsiderately draw out hither and thither what ought to be kept within limits.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1 & 2, The Library of Christian Classics (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 3.24.5.
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