Calvin and the Priesthood of all Believers

Abstract

A Mong those elements of Christian doctrine which surged anew to the forefront of Christian thinking during the early sixteenth century was that biblical idea which, in more modern times, we have come to call the ‘priesthood of all believers’. Luther used the doctrine almost as a battle-axe, to hew away at the pretensions of the Roman hierarchy and sacramental system. Almost invariably, it is Luther's name which we find linked to this doctrine in studies of the Reformation period. However, any serious study of the idea of the priesthood of God's people would do well to include an examination of the way in which John Calvin dealt with it, and indeed, the way in which the idea found certain expressions within his system of ecclesiastical organisation. It is our purpose here to see what Calvin taught in relationship to this biblical idea, and what elements of the life of the Genevan church may be considered to be, at least in part, an expression of the idea.