On the Christian Life E-Book

John Calvin

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 122

Beschreibung

New Translation of John Calvin's Classic Work Explores What It Means to Live the Christian Life For centuries, Christians have read John Calvin's On the Christian Life to answer a fundamental question: What does it mean to live faithfully as a Christian? This fresh translation of what is often referred to as Calvin's "Golden Booklet" features an all-new introduction, robust citations, and explanatory footnotes—introducing a new generation of readers to a classic work of Christian spirituality. In the book—a portion of the Reformer's magnum opus, Institutes of the Christian Religion—Calvin suggests that a deep understanding of theology is worthless if the gospel has yet to "penetrate into the most intimate affection of the heart." Touching on essential themes like self-denial, submission to God, bearing one's cross, enduring suffering for the sake of righteousness, and meditating on the life to come, this accessible work will help believers reflect on their lives as Christians and lean on the grace of Jesus in everyday life. - A Brand-New Translation: Translated from the original Latin edition by Calvin scholar Raymond A. Blacketer—making this classic work more accessible to modern readers than ever before - A Fresh Introduction: Includes an all-new introduction by editor Anthony N. S. Lane, professor of historical doctrine at the London School of Theology - Helpful Resources: Includes robust source citations and explanatory footnotes to help pastors, students, scholars, and everyday Christians better understand Calvin's words and context - Explores the Christian Life: Addresses themes including self-denial, taking up one's cross, submitting to God, and suffering for the sake of righteousness

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“What a great gift we have in this new translation of John Calvin’s thoughts on the Christian life. Here we find the biblical foundation and the practical application of what it means to be a Christian. A helpful introduction and smooth translation by two experts on Calvin present us with a highly relevant and encouraging guide to living with Christ.”

Herman Selderhuis, Professor of Church History, Theological University Apeldoorn; President, The Reformation Research Consortium

“How can believers offer themselves to God as living sacrifices? Every Christian on the road to the heavenly city needs a faithful fellow traveler with whom to discuss the ups and downs of the sacrificial Christian life. John Calvin is one such companion from the past. In this freshly translated excerpt from his Institutes, the cream of classic Reformed orthodoxy, Calvin discusses how Christians can live all of life to the glory of God as living sacrifices, traversing fruitful topics such as self-denial, submission to God, divine sovereignty, affliction, cross bearing, and meditation on heaven. Take up and read this thoroughly experiential treatment of practical Christianity!”

Joel R. Beeke, Chancellor and Professor of Homiletics and Systematic Theology, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary; Pastor, Heritage Reformed Congregation, Grand Rapids, Michigan

“This new translation of a classic portion from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion brings his lucid and engaging prose to life. It is a breath of fresh air for twenty-first-century readers.”

Karin Maag, Director, H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies

“On the Christian Life is the first installment of a much-needed new translation of Calvin’s Institutes by Raymond Blacketer, under the editorship of Anthony Lane. The translation evidences close attention to the language and content of Calvin’s text and includes an apparatus superior to previous modern translations. This section of the translation—Calvin’s chapters on the Christian life—has long been a theological classic in and of itself. This well-wrought translation should bring renewed attention to this important work.”

Richard A. Muller, P. J. Zondervan Professor of Historical Theology Emeritus, Calvin Theological Seminary; Scholar in Residence for Reformation and Post-Reformation Studies, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

“Many might think that John Calvin is a dry intellectual who is remote from their experience as struggling Christians today. This picture is far from reality, as this fresh translation of a wonderful Christian classic reveals. I highly recommend this work!”

Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California

On the Christian Life

On the Christian Life

• A New Translation •

John Calvin

Introduced and Edited by Anthony N. S. LaneTranslated and Annotated by Raymond A. BlacketerWith Translation Consultation by Kirk M. Summers

On the Christian Life: A New Translation

© 2024 by Crossway

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2024

Printed in China

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4335-9253-9 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9255-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9254-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Calvin, Jean, 1509–1564, author. | Lane, A. N. S., writer of introduction. | Blacketer, Raymond Andrew, translator.

Title: On the Christian life : a new translation / John Calvin ; introduced by Anthony N. S. Lane ; translated by Raymond A. Blacketer.

Other titles: Institutio Christianae religionis. Liber 3. English

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2024] | Translation of: Institutio Christianae religionis. Liber 3. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023047135 (print) | LCCN 2023047136 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433592539 (Hardback) | ISBN 9781433592546 (PDF) | ISBN 9781433592553 (ePub)

Subjects: LCSH: Christian life. | Reformed Church—Doctrines.

Classification: LCC BV4501.3 .C355513 2024 (print) | LCC BV4501.3 (ebook) | DDC 230/.42—dc23/eng/20240308

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023047135

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023047136

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2024-05-22 03:00:55 PM

Contents

Editor’s Introduction

Abbreviations

Book 3

How We Obtain the Grace of ChristThe Benefits That Come to Us and the Fruits That Follow from That Grace

Chapter 6 The Life of a Christian First, the Arguments That Scripture Uses to Encourage Us to That Life

Chapter 7 The Sum of the Christian Life, in Which We Discuss the Denial of Ourselves

Chapter 8 Bearing the Cross An Aspect of Self-Denial

Chapter 9 Meditation on the Future Life

Chapter 10 How We Must Use the Present Life and Its Means of Support

General Index

Scripture Index

Editor’s Introduction

Anthony N. S. Lane

John Calvin’s concern to make the Institutes of the Christian Religion useful and practical is especially manifest in his teaching on the Christian life.1 He did not have a chapter on the Christian life in the first, short edition of the Institutes (published in 1536), but he added a concluding chapter on this topic in the second edition (published three years later in 1539). Calvin considered this material to be of such great importance that in 1550 he had it printed as a booklet on its own, both in Latin and in his native French.2

The final form of Calvin’s Institutes is comprised of eighty chapters spread across four “books.” Book 3, containing twenty-five of those chapters, expounds the manner in which Christians receive the grace of Christ, and this is where Calvin placed his material on the Christian life, now divided into five chapters (chaps. 6–10).

Chapters 6–7 discuss self-denial, and chapters 8–10 deal with bearing our cross, our view of the life to come, and the implications for our attitude toward this life. The new English translation featured here is taken from the definitive 1559 edition of the Institutes,3 written in Latin, where Calvin added a small amount of extra material.4

Chapter Summaries

In the first of these five chapters (i.e., chap. 6), Calvin sets out general principles about the Christian life and the factors that should motivate us to pursue it. He aims to enable the godly to order their lives aright by setting out a universal rule to determine their duties (3.6.1). The Christian life is a journey, and we should look for daily progress, but without expecting perfection (3.6.5).

The next two chapters are based on Jesus’s statement that following him involves denying oneself and taking up one’s cross (Matt. 16:24). In chapter 7, Calvin focuses on the need for self-denial, saying no to ourselves and yes to submission to God. This is the key to progress in the Christian life, whereas “wherever self-denial does not predominate, there either the most loathsome vices predominate without shame, or virtue, if there is any appearance of it, is negated by a corrupt lust for glory” (3.7.2). Those who deny themselves resign themselves totally to God’s will and allow every part of their lives to be governed by it (3.7.10).

Calvin continues his exposition of Matthew 16:24 with chapter 8 on bearing the cross, which is an aspect of self-denial. Bearing the cross involves patiently suffering whatever tribulations God may send our way. These have many purposes: to show us our weakness, to build up our character, to test our patience, to train us in obedience, to subdue our sinful flesh, and to discipline us. Greatest of all is suffering for the sake of righteousness, such as for the gospel (3.8.7–8).

Chapter 9 is devoted to the theme of meditation on the future life. Calvin shrewdly observes that although we all know in theory that we are mortal, “we relapse into our negligent confidence in earthly immortality, oblivious not only of death but of mortality itself, as if no rumor of it had ever reached us” (3.9.2). We should be grateful for the good things of this life, but in comparison with our future life they must be “entirely despised and scorned” (3.9.4).

It is only with this attitude that we can make correct use of the present life and earthly possessions, as Calvin explains in the final chapter (chap. 10). Here he sets out a middle way between the twin errors of affluent materialism and ascetic legalism. “This is a slippery subject, and there is a tendency to slide into either extreme.” Rather than lay down rigid rules, Calvin sees in Scripture general principles for “the legitimate use of things” (3.10.1). These principles are still of great value today.5They include a moderate use of the things of this world without enslavement to them, stewardship of all our possessions, and generosity in sharing our resources.

Calvin’s Audience and Aim

As a teenager, Calvin studied in the Collège de Montaigu in Paris, which was profoundly influenced by the late medieval Devotio Moderna (Modern Devotion)—a spiritual renewal movement emphasizing conversion, practical Christian living and holiness, meditation (especially on the life and death of Jesus), and frequent communion—exemplified especially by Thomas à Kempis’s Imitationof Christ (ca. 1418–1427).6 In these chapters of Calvin’s work, we see the clear imprint of the Devotio Moderna but translated from a medieval monastic to a Protestant “secular” setting. Calvin’s target readership is not monks in a medieval monastery but Christians living in society at large. Thomas’s asceticism undergoes a radical transformation in the light of Reformation doctrine.

These chapters illustrate clearly that Calvin’s aim in all his theology was not just to inform the mind but to form the heart through the mind.

The gospel . . . is not a doctrine of the tongue but of life. It is not grasped merely by the intellect and memory like other disciplines, but it is taken in only when it possesses the entire soul and when it finds a seat and place of refuge in the most intimate affection of the heart. . . . The gospel should penetrate into the most intimate affection of the heart, take hold of the soul, and have an effect on the whole human being. (3.6.4)

Translation History

The first time this material was translated into a language other than Latin was when Pierre de la Place, as early as 1540, rendered it into French, though it was never published. In 1549, Thomas Broke translated it into English and printed it in London.7 Calvin himself published a new Latin edition of the Institutes in 1550, and Jean Crespin extracted the material on the Christian life from this edition and published it separately in Latin, along with his own prefatory letter that exhorted Christians, as spiritual soldiers, to exercise loyalty to their captain and commander in chief, Jesus Christ.8 Crespin also published a French translation of the treatise that same year and reprinted it in a smaller format in 1552.9

It was not until the nineteenth century that the treatise began to be called “the golden booklet” of the true Christian life, when a translation from German to Dutch gave it that title.10In 1952, Henry J. Van Andel’s loose translation from Dutch to English was published by Baker Book House as Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life. Sixty-five years later, in 2017, a new translation appeared by Aaron Denlinger and Burk Parsons, A Little Book on the Christian Life, published by Ligonier Ministries.

This New Translation

This publication of On the Christian Life: A New Translation is a foretaste of the forthcoming new translation of Calvin’s Institutes, several years in the making, to be published by Crossway.11 This edition aims to serve lay readers, pastors, students, and scholars across the English-speaking world in the twenty-first century. The translation itself will be fresh, contemporary, and accurate; it will be based on the Latin text with reference in the footnotes to Calvin’s own French translation when it is significant. The edition will clearly indicate Calvin’s own citations, whether of biblical passages or other material, such as early and medieval Christian authors or Greek and Roman classical authors.

So in this present volume, Calvin’s biblical references are included in the body of the text in parentheses. Where corrections are made or additional data is added (especially verse numbers), these are included in square brackets, alerting readers to the fact that these are not from Calvin. Calvin’s biblical references include those given in editions other than the 1559 Latin—that is, in other Latin or French editions during Calvin’s lifetime. Where the editors wish to draw attention to a biblical passage that is not unambiguously cited by Calvin, they have included the reference in a footnote. Further, Scripture quotations in Calvin’s text are translations of Calvin’s citations and paraphrases, and thus biblical quotations do not precisely correspond to any English version. He also regularly combines two or more portions of Scripture (e.g., extracts from different verses, often from the same immediate context) in one quotation.

In this portion of the Institutes, Calvin has only one nonbiblical marginal citation, which is found in 3.8.4 (n. 7) and introduced with “Calvin’s marginal note.” The bracketed material in that footnote has been added by the editors to provide more precise citation information. The other footnotes in this volume reference original-language material in Latin and French, as well as explanatory notes where necessary, refraining from imposing modern categories into the text.

Reflecting typical conventions of early modern composition and printing, Calvin numbers each section. Modern style often requires the addition of further paragraph breaks within each section to aid readability. Where this translation divides a section into more than one paragraph, it is done by the editors in order to help readers understand the text more easily.

Finally, while Calvin provided titles for books and chapters, he did not provide section headings. These have been added by the editors to aid readers. To ensure that modern categories are not imposed on Calvin, these section headings are loosely based on those that first appeared in the 1587 edition of Thomas Norton’s English translation of the Institutes, paying special attention to the wording of the current translation.

1  For two helpful recent accounts of this teaching, see Randall C. Zachman, “‘Deny Yourself and Take Up Your Cross’: John Calvin on the Christian Life,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 11, no. 4 (2009): 466–82; Scott M. Manetsch, “John Calvin’s Doctrine of the Christian Life,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 61, no. 2 (2018): 259–73.

2  Geneva: Jean Crespin and Conrad Badius, 1550. The sections in the 1550 booklet follow those in the fourth edition of the Institutes (1550). The sections in this translation follow those in the 1559 Institutes.

3  Translated from the Latin text included in OS 4:146–81.

4  The chapter titles, a new section (3.7.3), and other new material.

5  I have expounded five principles that Calvin set out in Tony Lane,