This afternoon Dr. Clark is giving a paper at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in San Diego. He has a great title: Caspar Olevianus and the Old Perspective on Paul.

This paper is the fruit of his ongoing work of translating Olevianus’ massive (760 octavo pages) 1579 _Commentary on Romans_—a commentary that was edited and published by Theodore Beza (1519–1605), who called it “not unprofitable” and “more than a little learned."

I was struck by Olevianus' words concerning the ministry, so here are some extracts from Dr. Clark's translation of Olevianus' own pen:

On Romans 1:11—"Observe that God wills to be efficacious through the ministry, to give heavenly gifts to men."

On Romans 1:16—"Men are saved through the ministry of the gospel” which is the “means and instrument through which God gives faith to the elect." He also said the “purpose” for which “God instituted the ministry of the Gospel” is that through it, "he might he might lead powerfully the believers to salvation, sealing to their hearts the gracious remission of their sins and renovating the heart to the image and beginning in them eternal life.”

On Romans 1:18—"Whoever would stand before God, it is necessary that he be righteous, either by a proper righteousness, i.e., a righteousness of proper strength, of which sort the law of God itself either written or unwritten, by right of creation requires from us, or an alien righteousness, i.e., of God imputed to the believer."

On Romans 1:17–21—"It is to be observed that it most possible to distinguish between the law and the gospel. The righteousness of God is to be sought in the gospel. For that is perfection of the sort of sanctity which is able to stand before God and it is called the righteousness of God not only because it is freely given by God and on account of the Son but also because it is only able to bear the rigor of the divine judgment."