Institutes of the Christian Religion

A refugee's handbook

John Calvin was born in 1509 at Noyon in Picardy and trained in law at Orléans and Bourges. He later wrote of a ‘sudden conversion’ by which God tamed his stubborn heart, giving no date; most scholars place it in the early 1530s. When persecution flared in France in the autumn of 1534 he left for Basel, and there in 1536 he published a small Latin book, the first Institutes.

Its six chapters followed, much as Luther's catechisms did, the law, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the sacraments, then Christian freedom and the powers of church and state. A preface to King Francis I defended the persecuted French evangelicals as heirs of the ancient church's faith, not rebels. The Latin ‘institutio’ means instruction, a manual.

That summer Guillaume Farel held him in Geneva, warning, as Calvin told it, that God would curse his quiet studies if he refused. Expelled in 1538, he served French refugees in Strasbourg beside Martin Bucer, then returned in 1541 to serve Geneva until his death in 1564. He enlarged the book again and again, and the final Latin edition of 1559, in four books and eighty chapters, satisfied him at last; he meant it to prepare readers for the study of Scripture. His life, and the burning of Servetus that darkens Geneva's story, are told in Zwingli, Calvin and Reformed theology.

Four books, eighty chapters

Book I treats the knowledge of God the Creator; Book II, of God the Redeemer in Christ; Book III, how we receive Christ's grace and what it yields; Book IV, the outward means by which God keeps us in Christ's fellowship: church, sacraments and civil government. The plan broadly follows the Apostles' Creed, as Calvin says: "Hitherto I have followed the order of the Apostles' Creed" 2.16.18. Sections are numbered, so 3.11.2 is Book III, chapter 11, section 2; the English is Henry Beveridge's of 1845.

The library holds eleven chapters at the great joints of Calvin's teaching: I.1, I.2 and I.3 on knowing God and ourselves, I.6 and I.7 on Scripture, II.7 on the law, II.16 on Christ's redemption, III.2, III.11 and III.21 on faith, justification and election, and IV.1 on the church. Left out are the Trinity and providence (I.13–18), the fall (II.1–5), the Ten Commandments (II.8), Christ's person and offices (II.12–15), the Spirit's uniting us to Christ (III.1), the Christian life (III.3–10), prayer (III.20), the rest of the teaching on election (III.22–24) and the sacraments (IV.14–19).

Knowing God, and finding everything in Christ

The first sentence sets the course: "Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves" 1.1.1. Our misery sends us to God, and only before his face do we know ourselves 1.1.2. Nor is this mere theory: "By piety I mean that union of reverence and love to God which the knowledge of his benefits inspires" 1.2.1.

Calvin holds that "a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart" 1.3.1, and "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1), but darkened minds misread them, so God added his word. Like the "glasses" of the aged 1.6.1, Scripture "shows us the true God clearly" 1.6.1. Without that thread we wander in a labyrinth, and "it is better to limp in the way, than run with the greatest swiftness out of it" 1.6.3.

Scripture's authority does not hang on the church's vote, for the church is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets" (Ephesians 2:20), so the doctrine came first 1.7.2; nor finally on argument, since "the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason" 1.7.4. Catholics hold that the church's teaching office serves the word rather than standing above it, while receiving Scripture and Tradition together as one deposit Dei Verbum.

The law, Book II explains, was given to keep Israel's hope alive until Christ came 2.7.1. It is "a kind of mirror" 2.7.7, showing our weakness and sending us to mercy; a bridle on the lawless 2.7.10; and, in its "principal use" 2.7.12, a daily teacher and spur for believers. There Calvin quotes the psalm:

The Law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is trustworthy, making wise the simple.

Psalm 19:7

In II.16 Calvin explains that Scripture speaks of God's wrath to show our plight, yet "it is because he first loves us, that he afterwards reconciles us to himself" 2.16.3. Christ redeemed us "by the whole course of his obedience" 2.16.5, condemned before Pilate and hung on the tree the law had cursed:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

Galatians 3:13

Christ bearing our penalty stands at the centre, yet the cross becomes "a triumphal chariot" 2.16.6. Calvin, and the Heidelberg Catechism after him Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 44, take the Creed's descent into hell as Christ's anguish under God's judgment: "he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man" 2.16.10. Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran Christians mostly read it as Christ going down to the dead in victory (Where was Jesus during the three days?). The chapter ends by finding every part of salvation in Christ: "if we seek redemption, we shall find it in his passion; acquittal in his condemnation; remission of the curse in his cross" 2.16.19.

Faith, justification, election and the church

Book III asks how Christ's work becomes ours, and answers with faith: "a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favor toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds, and sealed on our hearts, by the Holy Spirit" 3.2.7. It is not free of doubt, for "believers have a perpetual struggle with their own distrust" 3.2.17. Yet it wins, because "Christ is not external to us, but dwells in us" 3.2.24.

Calvin treats the Christian life (III.3–10) first, to show that justifying faith "is not destitute of good works" 3.11.1. Christ received by faith brings a "twofold benefit" 3.11.1: reconciliation, by which God becomes "instead of a judge, an indulgent Father" 3.11.1, and sanctification. Justification is "the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as if we were righteous; and we say that this justification consists in the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ" 3.11.2.

God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Justification and sanctification are inseparable but distinct, like the sun's light and heat: "are we therefore to say, that the earth is warmed by light and illumined by heat?" 3.11.6 Faith receives Christ, being only "a kind of vessel" 3.11.7. Against the Lutheran Andreas Osiander, who taught that Christ's divine essence in us makes us righteous, Calvin gives union with Christ "the highest rank" 3.11.10, but as the Spirit's bond, not a mingling of essences; Lutherans too rejected Osiander.

Lutherans confess with Calvin that we are "freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith" Augsburg Confession, art. 4, and Luther taught that faith "unites the soul to Christ, as the wife to the husband" Luther. Catholics hold with the Council of Trent (1547) that justification is also the inner renewal of the person by grace Council of Trent; in 1999 Lutherans and Catholics confessed together that we are accepted by grace alone, in faith in Christ, as the World Communion of Reformed Churches also did in 2017 Joint Declaration. Arminius was ready to subscribe to what Calvin wrote on justification in Book III Arminius, and for Wesley "Justification is another word for pardon" Wesley, though he was wary of talk of imputed righteousness that might excuse careless living. The Orthodox speak above all of theosis, becoming by grace "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), a life begun now in the sacraments and prayer.

III.21 comes after faith, justification and prayer, and begins with what anyone can see: "The covenant of life is not preached equally to all, and among those to whom it is preached, does not always meet with the same reception" 3.21.1. Election, Calvin says, shows salvation to be free mercy, humbles us and gives us confidence; Paul speaks of "a remnant chosen by grace" (Romans 11:5). He warns against curiosity, "Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning" 3.21.2, and against silence, since "Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit" 3.21.3:

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 29:29

His definition is stark: "By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man" 3.21.5; "some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation" 3.21.5. The elect are chosen of free mercy, the rest passed by through "a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment" 3.21.7, and "we regard calling as the evidence of election" 3.21.7. The Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession later confessed it (God's decree and predestination).

Lutherans confess election as wholly of grace, yet hold that God predestines no one to damnation, and bid us seek our election in Christ and his word Formula of Concord, art. 11. The Catholic Church confessed at Orange (529) that even the beginning of faith is grace and that no one is predestined to evil Council of Orange, and lets Thomists and Molinists explain grace and freedom differently. The Remonstrants (1610) held that God chose in Christ those who by grace would believe and persevere Articles of Remonstrance, and Wesley taught a prevenient or "preventing grace" Wesley, which enables all to answer God. The Orthodox, with John of Damascus, say that God foreknows all things but does not predetermine all things John of Damascus. All agree that salvation is grace from first to last, that God is not the author of sin, and that the gospel is offered sincerely to all (Grace and election).

Book IV calls the church a mother, "to those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother" 4.1.1, echoing Cyprian of Carthage; outside her "no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for" 4.1.4. Calvin distinguishes the church known to God alone from the visible church, where hypocrites mingle 4.1.7, and gives it two marks: the word of God "sincerely preached and heard" and the sacraments "administered according to the institution of Christ" 4.1.9.

The marks echo article 7 of the Augsburg Confession Augsburg Confession; Catholic and Orthodox Christians add the bishops' succession from the apostles. Calvin urges no one to leave a church that keeps word and sacraments, however flawed, and faults those who demand a spotless one, such as "some of the Anabaptists" 4.1.13, though they themselves sought a church of confessing believers who admonish one another Schleitheim Confession.

Reading it well

Read with the Bible open: Calvin wrote to help readers of Scripture and argues from it in almost every paragraph. Read election where Calvin placed it, as the thanks of those who have received grace; in III.24, not held here, he points the anxious to Christ, the mirror of our election.

Expect sixteenth-century polemic. ‘Papists’, ‘Schoolmen’ and ‘Sophists’ (scholastic theologians), Osiander and the Anabaptists are handled roughly and not always described as they would describe themselves: the faith ‘formed’ by love that Calvin attacks is, for Catholic theology, the "faith expressing itself through love" of Galatians 5:6. Yet he quotes Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux as allies throughout, meaning to recover the ancient church's faith. In Beveridge's English ‘prevent’ means to go before (God "prevents us with his mercy" 2.16.2), a cavil is a quibble, and in 2.16.6 the Greek and Hebrew are garbled.

Above all Calvin guards the truth that the whole of salvation is in Christ, our righteousness and our holiness 3.11.6:

It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God: our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

1 Corinthians 1:30