John Calvin on Spiritual warfare
Through the usual means of the Christian life: Scripture, prayer, faith and watchfulness, including asking God to deliver the afflicted
"Having instructed the Ephesians to put on their armor, he now enjoins them to fight by prayer. This is the true method."
THE POSITION
The devil is a real enemy, already overcome by Christ's death, who wars against believers until death and can wound them but never conquer them. The fight is vigilance, perseverance, the armour of Ephesians 6, and above all prayer. He scorns the Roman order of exorcists as an office with no power: "Who ever heard of those fictitious exorcists having given one specimen of their profession?"
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
11 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Reformer of Geneva and the most systematic of the first-generation Reformers. This entry rests on the 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion in Henry Beveridge's translation, checked section by section, with Calvin's own commentaries on 1 John, John, the Harmony of the Evangelists, the Psalms and the Harmony of the Law used where the Institutes are thin.
Cite this page
"John Calvin on Spiritual warfare", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/calvin/spiritual-warfare (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/calvin/spiritual-warfare).