Calvin Denies the Cross?

After spending time interacting with EgoMakarios I decided to go to his blog to find out what he was about. I found a post that stated, "Calvin Denies the Cross Outright" and thought I would read it. This is the most explicit use of lying to make a point that I have seen in a long time, well, since the last time I read Dave Hunt. I am glad that he at least gave where in the Institutes he found this denial, so I decided to take a look. Calvin hits it dead on. Calvin's use of the Apostle's Creed and Jesus going to hell is one I don't ascribe to, but this is not the point of the section that Calvin is dealing with. Calvin's point is that if Christ merely died a physical death that would be empty of any worth for us sinners. I could not agree more. Christ's most excruciating time came at the wrath disposed upon him for our sins. He bore our sins, the just became the unjust, to be sin for us, this was the importance of the cross. I just couldn't believe what I was reading over on his blog so I had to mention it over here. This is why so many misrepresent Calvin without ever reading him or trying to honestly understand his teachings. Here is the entirety of the section that Calvin was concerned with:

10. But, apart from the Creed, we must seek for a surer exposition of Christ’s descent to hell: and the word of God furnishes us with one not only pious and holy, but replete with excellent consolation. Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgment, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death. We lately quoted from the Prophet, that the “chastisement of our peace was laid upon him” that he “was bruised for our iniquities” that he “bore our infirmities;” expressions which intimate, that, like a sponsor and surety for the guilty, and, as it were, subjected to condemnation, he undertook and paid all the penalties which must have been exacted from them, the only exception being, that the pains of death could not hold him. Hence there is nothing strange in its being said that he descended to hell, seeing he endured the death which is inflicted on the wicked by an angry God. It is frivolous and ridiculous to object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which preceded burial should be placed after it. But after explaining what Christ endured in the sight of man, the Creed appropriately adds the invisible and incomprehensible judgment which he endured before God, to teach us that not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price—that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.

Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Translation of: Institutio Christianae religionis.; Reprint, with new introd. Originally published: Edinburgh : Calvin Translation Society, 1845-1846. (II, xvi, 10). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.