Born into a Swiss bourgeois family that was noted for successive generations of ministers and preachers, Monod studied theology at Geneva from 1820 to 1824. Following a personal religious crisis, Monod began to emphasize Reformed theological doctrines that he felt had long been neglected, such as the certainty of damnation for those who did not accept biblical truths in seeking salvation. He served as minister at the Reformed church of Naples (1826) before transferring to Lyons, where he was soon dismissed for his insistence on older, traditional Reformed theology, which was not emphasized by his more liberal contemporaries.

Monod consequently founded the Free Evangelical church at Lyon, in 1833, but he left for Montauban three years later to become professor in a seminary of the French Reformed church. In 1847 he succeeded his brother Frédéric as minister at the church of the Oratoire, Paris. Among his writings are Sermons (1844), Saint Paul (1851), and Explication de l'épître aux Ephésiens (1866; “Explication of the Letter to the Ephesians”).