Currently Reading:Calvin: A Biography (by Bernard Cottret)

I wanted to share an interesting quote that I just came across from a recent biograpny of John Calvin which I am reading as part of an assignment in my Church History class. He comments (from a historian’s point of view) on the role of Romans and Hebrews in the process of reformation:

Two books of the Bible played a special role in the reforms of the sixteenth century, the Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Hebrews…Romans, meditated on at length by Luther, also gave French evangelism its special themes: justification by faith and the supremacy of grace over law…

Hebrews, on the other hand, is entirely concerned with the somber mystery of metaphysical atonement. The unique sacrifice of Christ the redeemer became for partisans of the Reformation the definitive argument against the Catholic Mass. How could the clergy dream of reenacting an expiation of sins that took place once for all time? The Mass, from this perspective, expressed an idolatry which must be forsaken without further delay.