Calvin's Instittues: January 27

John Calvin's Institutes in a Year · Jan 28, 2026 · 5m

Here Calvin traces idolatry to its true source: the human desire to make God tangible. Once the mind fashions a visible form of God, worship inevitably attaches itself to that form, no matter how carefully the act is explained or renamed. Calvin exposes the long-standing defense that images merely assist devotion, showing that the same arguments were used by ancient idolaters and rejected by Scripture. Whether one claims to worship God through an image or merely to honor it, the act remains the same—divine reverence is transferred to what is created. Calvin is especially sharp in dismissing…