Behold Nicodemus!

During the Reformation John Calvin was engaged in a controversy with various so-called Protestants who lived in France. The Roman Catholic Church dominated the society in France and was hostile to anyone who was sympathetic to the Reformed faith. Those with whom Calvin had a controversy said that they could worship outwardly in the Roman Catholic Church and not be corrupted by Rome’s doctrine, as long as they inwardly rejected the heretical doctrine of the popish worship. They claimed to hold to the truth of the Reformation but remained members of the Roman Catholic Church. They did so “in order to avoid being ostracized, or to keep from being persecuted for renouncing popish worship” and “to maintain their social standing.”¹ These people were termed Nicodemites. The moniker Nicodemites came from the appeal that Nicodemus did not declare openly to be Jesus’ disciple but secretly came to Jesus by night in order to avoid the reproach of the Jews and ruining his reputation.

Recognizing the command of God that every man is bound to join himself to a true church, Calvin admonished those members of the Roman Catholic Church to reform the church anew in their places or to flee to Geneva where they could join a true church. Calvin insisted that the outward practice of a believer must be consistent with the inner commitment to the truth. In one of his letters, he wrote,

There is no room, therefore, for anyone to indulge in crafty dissimulation, or to flatter himself with a false idea of piety, pretending that he cherishes it [the truth] in his heart, though he completely overturns it by outward behaviour.²

Upon receiving Calvin’s letters, excuses abounded. The Nicodemites complained that Calvin was too harsh, too severe, too demanding. “You would have us give up everything—our livelihood, our homes, our names, our reputations, our lives?” One such correspondent accused Calvin of cruelty, claiming that he “sent poor folks to the slaughter for the sake of piddling and childish trifles.”³

And the complaints turned to mockery: “One cannot get to paradise except by way of Geneva.⁴ Calvin, you think that you have the only true church. Calvin, you are saying that membership in a true church is the condition for salvation.”

But Calvin did not back down from the truth. He wrote,

It is not lawful for a Christian who knows the pure teaching of the gospel, when he lives in the midst of Popery, to pretend in any way to consent or adhere to the abuses, superstitions, and idolatries which reign in it.

The cowardice of those who pollute themselves with the abominations of the Papists (which are entirely contrary to the Christian religion) whom God has given to know the truth of the gospel…disavow, as far as they possibly can, the Son of God who has redeemed them.⁵

Does this not sound familiar? For some time there were members of the Protestant Reformed Churches who claimed to believe the truth of the gospel as it is preached in the Reformed Protestant Churches. They claimed to see the errors in the Protestant Reformed Churches. They claimed that they were “RP at heart.” But for whatever reason—and again, excuses abound—they remain in the Protestant Reformed Churches. False doctrine is preached off their pulpits, and they say, “Surely God does not require us to give up anything for the sake of the gospel. Surely we do not have to lose our names and reputations. We can stay in this church and not be corrupted by the false doctrine. We do not have to leave. We do not have to join a true church. We know what we believe in our hearts; it does not matter what is coming off the pulpits. We are fine.”

And when the Reformed Protestant Churches insist that obedience to God’s word includes membership in a true church, and that God will gather and preserve his elect people until the end of the world, the Protestant Reformed Nicodemites mock, as in Calvin’s day: “You think that you are the only ones saved. You think that you are the only true church. You are proud and hateful and unloving.”

To be clear, the Protestant Reformed Churches are Rome. Idolatries reign in the Protestant Reformed Churches, as they did in the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation, because false doctrine reigns in the Protestant Reformed Churches. False doctrine is idolatry, for it teaches that in some respect salvation (or the experience of salvation) belongs to the work of man, and therefore man puts his trust in something besides the one true God. The Protestant Reformed Churches teach that there is that which man must do to be saved. The Protestant Reformed Churches teach that man is justified by faith and by repentance. The Protestant Reformed Churches teach that a man cannot be forgiven unless and until he repents. The Protestant Reformed Churches teach that the living and the dead have not the forgiveness of sins unless they first repent.⁶

In the following excerpt from one of his letters written against the Nicodemites, Calvin removes the cloak from those who try to hide under the mantle of Nicodemus. Calvin clearly sets forth the truth about Nicodemus, that faith is infallibly kindled when the word of the gospel—Christ—comes to an elect child of God. Nicodemus did not remain in the darkness! When the gospel comes to a child of God and God works faith in that elect child’s heart and he believes the gospel, that child walks in the light. The inward confession of a man’s heart matches his outward walk, and that inward confession will be manifested in his outward walk and life. In the case of Nicodemus, he, along with Joseph of Arimathea, begged the body of Christ from the Jews in order to give Jesus an honorable burial. Today, when God sheds his light on his elect child’s heart through the power of the Spirit, that child does not remain in the darkness of his sin and in the false church, but he comes out and joins the true church, where the gospel shines forth Christ in all his glory.

Calvin also lays out what one really does who, for all his insistence that he believes the truth, remains in a false church: He puts Christ back in the grave and buries him. That is what the false doctrine of the Protestant Reformed Churches does, and that is what those who remain in the Protestant Reformed Churches do: They bury Christ. To give man and his repentance a place in man’s justification is to deny the resurrection, for Christ was raised because we were justified (Rom. 4:25).

There is no excuse for those who have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and who claim to believe that truth to remain in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Behold Nicodemus!

It seems to them that they still live honourably, as long as they can hide behind the robe of Nicodemus, which they make use of like the mantle of our Lady of Carmelites in Paris. For, I recall that there is a host of monks there like chicks under the wings of their mother. In this fashion, these people stretch out the mantle of good Nicodemus so far that they are all covered by it. Or at least, so they suppose. For, in truth, when each sought to pull a section over himself, they pulled it so much this way and that, that they have torn it all up, not merely into pieces, but into threads.

“How, then, can they hide themselves there?” someone will say. It happens with them as with the partridges, which think to be well hidden when they can find a hole to stick their head in. Thus this mantle of Nicodemus, under which they think to set themselves in safety, is only a false imagination with which they deceive themselves. As if they were to stop their eyes so that no one would see them.

For, what have they in common with Nicodemus? They say it’s that he came to see our Lord by night, and did not declare himself to be one of his disciples [John 3]. I grant them that Nicodemus, before his enlightenment, sought out the shadows. But once the Sun of righteousness had shone upon him [Mal. 4:2], did he still remain in his hiding place? No, on the contrary, we see the declaration he made, even when everything was hopeless: specifically, when he came with Joseph of Arimathea to request the body of our Lord from Pilate, in order to bury it [John 19:39].

Let us note the occasion. Behold the priests, Pharisees and all the other enemies of the truth, triumphant as if they had achieved a complete victory! The poor believers, on the other hand, are quite shocked and dismayed, seeing their master and Saviour, in whom they had had all their hope, dead, and his body hung on the gallows between evildoers and brigands. The Pharisees and scribes and priests are on the alert, to see if anyone dare say a word. For they are not satisfied with having put him to death. Rather they desire that the very memory of him be wiped out. They are still inflamed with the fury they used against his person and ready to deploy it against all his members. The people were also in a tumult, so that Nicodemus was quite certain that in revealing himself as a disciple or one who loved Jesus Christ, he would incite the rage of everyone against himself. He nevertheless makes his profession before all. He does not fear the scorn and shame. He does not fear the hatred. He is not afraid of riot. He is not afraid of persecutions. Behold Nicodemus: if we take Nicodemus the Christian, and not Nicodemus in his ignorance, before he knew what Jesus Christ was all about!

What then? These people wish to imitate the actions of Nicodemus during the time of his unbelief. However, as for the example he gives them after coming to know Jesus Christ, they do not wish to hear of it.

In short, Nicodemus came to Jesus Christ by night during the time of his ignorance. After being instructed, he confesses him openly, in the daylight; even at the time when it was more perilous than ever. Therefore, they who hide behind his example do him a great wrong, and it does them no more good than it would if a persecutor of Christianity were to excuse himself on the basis of St. Paul.

And, it was not only in this act that Nicodemus showed himself to be a Christian at great personal danger. He had already begun to risk himself for Jesus Christ when, in the assembly of the wicked, he maintained against them all that they should not condemn him without knowledge of the cause [John 7:50–51]. It is true that he was not yet making a complete confession. Yet it was a great step forward for him to stand alone against the raging tide of all the wicked.

Now three or four of these ‘Nicodemites’ will be present in an assembly, and suffer a poor Christian to be cruelly condemned to death without uttering a word. And God grant that none of them consent to it!…

Perhaps there is one point at which one might grant that they resemble Nicodemus: it is that they are now burying Jesus Christ, as Nicodemus once did. But there is a great difference between the two interments. For Nicodemus only interred the body, embalming it so that it might have a sweet and precious odor. These people inter body and soul, humanity and divinity. And all without honour. Nicodemus buried him while he was dead. These people wish to bury him after he has come back to life.

So let them from henceforth desist from making a shield of Nicodemus, saying that it is legitimate for them to hide their Christianity, to the point of defiling themselves by idolatry: seeing how Nicodemus showed a hundred times more steadfastness in the death of Jesus Christ than they all together do after his resurrection.

It is time to conclude and make an end of the present treatise. I believe that all those who have a drop of sound judgment plainly see that they have no reason to accuse me, as if I were too rough or harsh in requiring of Christians what our Lord expressly commands them in his word, and no more.

As for those whose ears are so delicate that they cannot bear this teaching, I answer that my doctrine is not hard. Rather, it is the hardness of their hearts which makes them find it so. If there is difficulty in doing it, that does not mean that it is not our duty…

If this is something offensive to their flesh, I am not surprised. However, if they know that what I tell them is good and salutary, let them determine to profit by it, rather than imitating hysterical patients by striking and hurting the doctor, who is taking pains to succour them. I take no pleasure in saddening them. Nevertheless, if I can bring them to a sorrow like the one St. Paul mentions—that is, one that will beget repentance in them—I will not repent of it (2 Cor. 7:10). For that will be their gain. If they sorrow in order to harm themselves, then I will be grieved. For I do not desire their ruin, and would not wish to be the cause of it. Yet the guilt of it will be imputed to them, and not to me.⁷

If there are any true Nicodemites remaining in the Protestant Reformed Churches, heed the warning that the Reformed Protestant Churches and her members have ceased not to shout to you for over five years now, which is the same warning that Calvin gave to those who remained in the false Roman Catholic Church of his day, which is the word that God himself rings out from heaven: “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). Harden not your hearts against this word of God. This word might be hard to the flesh, but the Spirit of Christ rejoices in and heeds this word. He who has an ear, let him hear.