# “Smoothing out wrinkles and cleansing spots” by John Calvin

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2014/10/09/smoothing-out-wrinkles-and-cleansing-spots-by-john-calvin/
- Published: 2014-10-09T19:00:56-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“If we are not willing to admit a church unless it be perfect in every respect, 
we leave no church at all. True, indeed, is Paul’s statement:

‘Christ … gave himself up for the church that he might sanctify her; he cleansed
her by the washing of water in the word of life, that he might present her to himself
as his glorious bride, without spot or wrinkle,’  [Eph. 5:25–27].

Yet it also is no less true that the Lord is daily at work in smoothing out wrinkles
and cleansing spots. From this it follows that the church’s holiness is not yet 
complete.

The church is holy, then, in the sense that it is daily advancing and is not yet
perfect: it makes progress from day to day but has not yet reached its goal of holiness.”

–John Calvin, [_Institutes of the Christian Religion_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0664220282?tag=toletaupanre-20),
ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian
Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), IV.i.17; p. 1031.

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