While studying Ephesians 2, I began to read the commentary by Calvin and came across this paragraph on verse 1 regarding "you who were dead". The bolded part is quite interesting to me because it seems that Calvin himself is not going so far into total inability as do modern Calvinists, who (imu) say that man is completely dead with no will at all. That is to say, Calvin seems to disagree with Calvinists!The Papists, who are eager to seize every opportunity of undervaluing the grace of God, say, that while we are out of Christ, we are half dead. But we are not at liberty to set aside the declarations of our Lord and of the Apostle Paul, that, while we remain in Adam, we are entirely devoid of life; and that regeneration is a new life of the soul, by which it rises from the dead. Some kind of life, I acknowledge, does remain in us, while we are still at a distance from Christ; for unbelief does not altogether destroy the outward senses, or the will, or the other faculties of the soul. But what has this to do with the kingdom of God? What has it to do with a happy life, so long as every sentiment of the mind, and every act of the will, is death? Let this, then, be held as a fixed principle, that the union of our soul with God is the true and only life; and that out of Christ we are altogether dead, because sin, the cause of death, reigns in us.
Calvin, J., & Pringle, W. (2010). Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians (pp. 219–220). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
