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Institutes of the Christian Religion

Also Known As InstitutesOriginal Term Institutio Christianae Religionis
Theological Treatises

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The Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin's systematic presentation of Protestant theology, first published in Basel in 1536 as a compact handbook and expanded through successive editions to the definitive Latin text of 1559, four books and eighty chapters. Organised around the knowledge of God the Creator, God the Redeemer in Christ, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the church and its means of grace, it gave the Reformed movement its most complete and orderly statement of doctrine. Calvin's own French translations, beginning in 1541, carried the work beyond the learned world and stand among the founding monuments of French prose. It remains the central text of the Reformed tradition.

Facts
Origins
Era of Composition
1536 to 1559 1
Era of Composition
First edition 1536, definitive edition 1559 1
Language
Latin 1
Latin, with the author's French translations
Attributed Author / Compiler
John Calvin 1
Text
Literary Form
Systematic Theology 1
Literary Form Detail
A systematic exposition of Reformed Christian doctrine, organized in its final form into four books following the structure of the Apostles' Creed, expanded by Calvin across several editions from a short handbook into a full theological summa. 2
Structure
Structure
Four books and eighty chapters in the 1559 edition 1
Learn More
From Pocket Catechism to Four-Book Summa

The Institutes grew for twenty three years alongside its author. The first edition of 1536, published when Calvin was twenty six and newly exiled from France, was a small book of six chapters patterned on Luther's catechisms, treating the law, the creed, the Lord's Prayer, the sacraments, and prefaced by a bold open letter to King Francis I defending French evangelicals against the charge of sedition. Each revision reorganised as well as enlarged.

The 1539 Strasbourg edition tripled the size and turned a catechism into a theology textbook; the 1543 edition added material on the church; and the final Latin edition of 1559, produced while Calvin was ill and racing his own strength, recast everything into four books whose order follows the Apostles' Creed: the knowledge of God the Creator, the knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ, the way the grace of Christ is received through the Holy Spirit, and the external means by which God invites and sustains, the church, the sacraments and civil government. Calvin translated the work into French himself, beginning in 1541, in a plain vigorous style that historians of the language treat as a landmark, and he described the whole as a guide and key for readers of Scripture, the doctrine gathered in one place so his biblical commentaries could stay lean.

The Doctrine of the Institutes

The Institutes opens with a sentence that frames everything after it: nearly all our wisdom consists of two parts, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves, and each entails the other. From that double knowledge Calvin builds his account of a God majestic and self-revealing, known truly though not exhaustively in Scripture, whose word is confirmed in the believer not by the church's authority but by the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, one of the book's most influential moves. Human beings, created good and fallen totally, cannot ascend to God, so God descends: the second book traces redemption through the law and the covenant to Christ, whom Calvin presents in the threefold office of prophet, priest and king. The third book, the longest, describes the Spirit uniting believers to Christ through faith, and treats justification by faith alone, sanctification, prayer, and, placed deliberately late as a pastoral doctrine rather than a speculative first principle, predestination, God's eternal election of some to life.

The fourth book gives the Reformed doctrine of the church, its ministry and discipline, reduces the sacraments to baptism and the Supper, in which Christ is received truly though spiritually, and ends with civil government, honoured as God's ordinance yet bounded, since obedience to rulers must never become disobedience to God.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Calvinism (Reformed), Denominations

Not scripture, but John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, first published 1536 and expanded to its definitive edition in 1559, is this tradition's own foundational systematic exposition of Reformed doctrine.

Source Institutes of the Christian ReligionJohn Calvin
Christianity, Religions
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Element Of

Anglicanism, Denominations

The Institutes shaped the English reformers and left its mark on the Articles of Religion, without the Church of England ever adopting it as a standard.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Calvinism (Reformed), Denominations

Not scripture, but John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, first published 1536 and expanded to its definitive edition in 1559, is this tradition's own foundational systematic exposition of Reformed doctrine.

Source Institutes of the Christian ReligionJohn Calvin
Church of Scotland, Denominations

The Church of Scotland's reformation was carried out on the Genevan pattern and the Institutes is the book behind its confession and its polity alike.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account
Dutch Reformed Church, Denominations

The Dutch Reformed tradition took the Institutes as its systematic ground, and the canons of Dordt argue from within it.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account
Presbyterianism, Denominations

Presbyterian theology descends directly from the Institutes through the Westminster standards, which restate its doctrine in confessional form.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account

Critiqued Here

Lutheranism, Denominations

Lutheran teaching parts from the Institutes on the presence of Christ in the Supper and on the extent of election, so the book is read across a confessional boundary rather than within one.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Methodism, Denominations

Wesleyan teaching refuses the unconditional election the Institutes argues for, and the movement named its own magazine for the position it took against it.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Rejected Here

Roman Catholicism, Denominations

Calvin's works were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, and the Council of Trent answered the Institutes point by point on justification, the sacraments and the authority of scripture.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
2. Institutes of the Christian Religion
John Calvin, 1559View the Source
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