Calvin's Institutes

The first edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion had been published in 1536. The first edition had only six chapters. Over the years, Calvin kept revising the Institutes as time went by. In 1559, five years before Calvin died, the final form of the Institutes had been published. It had eighty chapters. In twenty-three years, on the one hand, Calvin worked as a pastor to participate in the life of a congregation. On the other hand, Calvin educated the congregation to think doctrinally and act ethically as a theologian. The fact that the Institutes had been expanded from six chapters to eighty chapters did not happen out of an ivory tower or out of Calvin’s theological speculation. Rather, it happened out of the exercise of his pastoral office.

Ford Lewis Battles said,

“Calvin claimed a double pastoral intent for the Institutes: (1) to introduce neophytes to the study of the Scriptures; (2) to justify the French evangelicals before a hostile government and…to hearten these evangelicals in their effort to lead a Christian life under harsh circumstances.”[1]

Calvin developed his theology while he was developing the congregation as a pastor. Calvin’s theological development, in other words, was driven by his pastoral concern. One of the reasons why he developed the doctrine of predestination later in the Institutes was to assure the salvation of believers under harsh circumstances. Believers doubted the love of God and their own salvation. Calvin assured them with God’s sovereign election. It was out of Calvin’s pastoral intent that the controversy of the doctrine of predestination was given birth.

Bruce Gordon said,

“The 1559 Institutes was a masterpiece of organization and clarity, despite Calvin’s serious illness. His goal in this work is to present a comprehensive account of doctrine in a clear, brief and persuasive manner. This doctrine, he maintains, is what the true Church has always taught. His purpose is to explain the teachings of the Church in the right order so that the faithful might understand. This does not replace scripture, but is intended to act as a guide to key topics to be founded in the Bible…The purpose is to bring people to God. And the constant revising of the Institutes reflects Calvin’s continuing struggle to find a better way of educating and edifying.”[2]

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[1] Ford Lewis Battles, Interpreting John Calvin. Edited by Robert Benedetto, with Introductory Essays by I. John Hesselink and Donald K. McKim (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), p. 301.

[2] Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 302-303.