Calvin’s angelology has not garnered the same amount of attention as other aspects of his theology. In her 1983 Ph.D. dissertation, Susan Schreiner said that Calvin’s angelology has “not been the most popular aspect of Calvin’s theology.”^[1] Almost forty years later, Herman Selderhuis, writing in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Journal, agreed with Schreiner when he wrote, “To be clear from the beginning: Calvin’s views concerning angels is not really spectacular. That might be the reason that not much has been written on the subject.”^[2] As you can see, even as early as last year, a Calvin scholar acknowledged that Calvin’s angelology is still not a popular aspect of his theology. 

When scholars do give attention to Calvin’s angelology, they primarily focus on Calvin’s view of angels in his Institutes of the Christian Religion—the book that set the stage for the Reformed Tradition of angelology—and they give less attention to his commentaries and sermons.^[3] This is why Selderhuis concluded his article on Calvin’s angelology mentioning that “continued research on his works and especially his commentaries and sermons will add substantially to our knowledge of Calvin’s theological thoughts about angels.”^[4] In making this comment, Selderhuis urged his readers to continue studying Calvin’s theological thoughts about angels, especially his thoughts about angels in his commentaries and sermons.

My Next 5 Blog Posts

In this series of blog posts, I will take heed to Selderhuis’ counsel—I will cover Calvin’s views concerning elect angels in his Institutes, commentaries, and sermons. Calvin’s commentaries and sermons, like his Institutes of the Christian Religion, will not offer new insights into the world of angels or present a new, reformed angelology. However, angels will appear frequently enough in Calvin’s writings to enable us to better understand Calvin’s view of angels.

In my upcoming blog posts, I will give attention to five aspects of Calvin’s angelology: (1) Calvin’s approach to angelology, (2) Calvin’s view of the creation, essence, order, and number of angels, (3) Calvin’s outlook on the function and work of angels, (4) Calvin’s view of angels appearing as men in both the Old and New Testament, and (5) Calvin’s belief that the angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Christ. If you are a Christian and have not spent much time thinking about angels, perhaps these blogs will stimulate you to develop a biblical view of angels.

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^[1] Susan E. Schreiner, “The Theatre of His Glory: Nature and Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin” (PhD diss., Duke University, 1983), 95-96, accessed March 1, 2022, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.

^[2] Herman Selderhuis, “Calvin’s View of Angels,” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 25, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 75, accessed March 7, 2022, http://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/equip/uploads/2022/01/SBJT-25.2-complete.pdf.

^[3] Dustin Benge, “Nobles and Barons of the Court of Heaven: A Survey of Angelology from the Patristic Era to the Eighteenth Century with Particular Emphasis Given to Jonathan Edwards” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2018), 92, accessed March 1, 2022, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.

^[4] Herman Selderhuis, “Calvin’s View of Angels,” 83.