At the recent 11th International Congress on Calvin Research held 24-27 August 2014 at Zurich Pierre Hildebrand presented a paper comparing Bullinger and Calvin on Genesis 17.
Hildebrand presented some of Bullinger’s unpublished sermon notes on Genesis. The manuscripts are kept in the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Those who were present were not surprised to learn that in these handwritten notes he links together the themes of election, justification and sanctification which is not clearly evident in De testamento but expounded in his other works.
The relevant section of the sermon notes (dated somewhere between April 1536 and November 1537) reads as follows:
“We should be holy and irreproachable before God. (According to) Ephesians 1 (we are) elected before (the creation of) the world to be unblamable. The foundation of the covenant is the gracious admission into the covenant. It requires faith, so that we become perfect by faith. We should understand (here) the absolute perfection of Christ, which is imputed to us. Thereupn we are regenerated into integrity through the whole of life.”
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