The title of Calvin's book, Institutes of the Christian Religion, we're so used to talking about Calvin's Institutes that it sounds right to us, but if you stop to think for a moment, it does seem like a strange thing for a book, doesn't it, Institutes. The singular, the Latin Instituteo, which used in the 1536 edition of the Institutes, it's the first edition, we'll talk about these different editions, but the translation has almost always been plural in English, so rather than talking about the Institute of the Christian Religion, we talk about the Institutes of the Christian Religion, but what the Latin word means is not exactly what the word Institute means to today, Institute today is like a school or perhaps a seminar or something like that, it's related to that, but the word simply means instruction, instruction in the Christian religion, or maybe something like manual of Christian doctrine, or the medieval term that was almost always used was summa, summa theologii, if I'm not mistaken, it says summary of theology, and Calvin uses the word summa in his text, but he doesn't use it for his title, so the title is simply instruction in Christian doctrine, or in Christianity, I think if we were trying to modernize the title a bit, we'd say something like basic instruction in the Christian faith, that we're used to Institutes of the Christian Religion, and so that's what we'll use, importance of the Institutes, I'm teaching a Sunday school class at Central, it's the seminary on Sunday class, and my wife's a member of Central, so whenever I'm not preaching elsewhere, I attend Central, but I started the Sunday school class at Central a couple of weeks ago, and these are lay people studying the Institutes, I'm not having them read all of this, that would intimidate them, and I end up with no students, but there's a nice abridged edition that Donald McKim has come out with, a little paperback, and it doesn't get everything in, of course, but it includes the major material of the Institutes, we meet at eight o'clock, Central on Sunday morning, I was going for 13 weeks, and I began two weeks ago with this question, why would anybody, it was a very cold morning, why would you, why would anybody want to get up and be at church eight o'clock in the morning, study a book written in Latin, written 500 years ago, that's what they were doing, and that's what you're doing, too, so you have to give an answer to that, and I've included two thoughts here, as an answer to that question, importance of the Institutes, two quotations, one from John T. McNeil, who is the editor of our urgent of the Institutes, McNeil says that Calvin's book holds a place in the short list of books that have notably affected the course of history, and that's true, and I think you can make a case for that, then one reason to study Calvin's Institutes is that you're studying one of the most important books in history, not many books, like this, short list of books that have notably affected the course of history, so to be an educated person knows something about history, to be able to talk about one of the most important books that have affected the course of history, we need to read the book, so that's one answer why it's worthwhile to do this, the second is a quotation from Stephen Osmett, historian at Harvard University, he says it's the Reformation's most eloquent theological statement, so not only is it a book that has affected the course of history, but it's the most eloquent, most important, most complete statement of theology from the 16th century, century of the Reformation, it's not the only theology from the 16th century, but Stephen Osmett says it's the most eloquent, and I would add the most important, Luther, as you know, did not write a systematic theology, Luther wrote a lot, but Luther's writings were never organized systematically, his colleague and young friend Philip Malanthin did write systematic theology, it's called the Los Act communists, that's a medieval Latin term that was often used for books like that, common places, we would translate it, Malanthin wrote that in 1521, that's 15 years before the first edition of Calvin's Institutes, Calvin, not even not even Protestant in 1521, in fact he was just a little boy in 1521, comes on a bit later, was born in 1509, so he's part of the next generation of reformers, but when you look at Malanthin's Los Act communists, which is a significant work and does summarize and embody Luther's theological thinking, Luther loved it, said it, should be included in the canon, and Luther was kind of weak on canonicity, but he said maybe not in the canon, but if it's not St. Paul, it's next to St. Paul, and that was because Malanthin was putting forth Luther's theology in the Los Act communists, but compared to Calvin's Institutes, it is so far inferior, it's not well organized, it doesn't really have the power of Calvin's Institutes.
Swingley did not write a systematic theology, he did write a commentary on true and false religion, but it doesn't have the breadth of Calvin's work, came out in 1525, the closest that we have to a systematic theology on the reform side, which would parallel the Los Act communists of Malanthin is the Sommeir, the summary of theology written by Calvin's friend William Farrell, which also came out in 1525, but Farrell, great preacher, and a kind of dynamic Christian evangelist, sometimes called a gospel worship, was not gifted with Calvin's gifts, Dr. Chapel yesterday and Chapel was talking about different gifts in the church and how we rejoiced in that, and we rejoiced in Farrell's ability, certainly, but we also rejoiced in Calvin's ability, and Farrell did that later when Calvin's Institutes came out, Farrell wrote his friends and said, don't read my book anymore, read Calvin's, this is a book you need to read, so Farrell could get things done, plan a church and stir up people, but it took Calvin to come alongside of him and provide the organization and the stability and the theology that we see in the Institutes of the Christian religion. Okay, I won't go further with that, I think at Calvin's seminary people know that Calvin's Institutes is important and so I won't keep making that point out in the church or just out talking to people in general, it's a point you have to make because they're not convinced that there's anything worth reading in an old book like this. Let's go on to general characteristics of the Institutes, I've taken some words here, to summarize the Institutes, beginning with the word biblical, priority of scripture. I think as you read and study this book, you'll see that upfront is the Bible. In fact, the other day in Sunday School at Central, I was lecturing on knowledge of God in Calvin which I'll do excuse the here and more detail and one of the women in the class after a while said, well, this sounds like a book of Romans to me and that's then, well, it's what it is. What Calvin is doing is basing his thinking on scripture and as Dr. Battles says Calvin is a scriptural theologian first and a user of philosophy, logic, rhetoric, all human tools of organization only second. Sometimes people get the idea, put forth the idea that this is a very logical iron clad logic system and that everything is forced into a logical framework but that really misunderstands what Calvin is doing. He's really attempting to use scripture to set forth a theology that would be organized and systematic but basically scriptural. His use of scripture is astounding. There are probably, well, there are 7,000, almost 7,000 references to scripture in the institutes and in the back of volume two there's a biblical references index so you might note that there are a number of indices here that help us in various ways but just thumbing through this, you'll see those 7,000 references to the institutes. John T. Neil in our introduction says that Calvin's readiness in bringing scripture passages to bear upon each point of argument is astounding. And has perhaps never been surpassed and to quote one of my favorite writers on Calvin, the old Southern Presbyterian theologian R.C. Reed who taught at the old Columbia Seminary in South Carolina, wrote a little book called The Gospel as taught by Calvin. I'll show you a reference to that in a moment but Dr. Reed said Calvin was a whole sail plagiarist from Moses and David, Isaiah and Ezekiel, Jesus and John, Peter and Paul. That was where Calvin's plagiarism is coming in. He's just bringing in all of this scripture. And Calvin uses all of scripture. It's really remarkable how adept he is in Old Testament, as well as New Testament, in the prophets as well as the poetical books in the epistles as well as in the gospels. He has a working canon which is as big as the Bible itself. Most of us, in the few more at home in some part of the Bible, preach more on certain sections of the Bible. Don't have the breadth of Calvin in being able to handle well all of the Bible. Priority of scripture, use of scripture, exegesis of scripture. Sometimes I've read books on theology or on something in which the writer will make a point and then in parentheses at the end of the sentence have about fifteen Bible quotations. And I get the feeling after a while that that's all there just sort of to impress somebody. That may not be the motive of the writer but I don't get that feeling with Calvin. When Calvin uses a scripture text, he's using it appropriately. He's using it well. He's not just building up a lot of text in order to cause people to think that he is being biblical in his teaching. We not only need to add text but we need to know what those text say and exegiate them appropriately and well and that's what Calvin does. The scripture text are not decorative. They are a real purpose. Warfield says that Calvin was the creator of a genuine exegesis and for that reason his commentaries even today are very valuable. If you read commentaries from medieval theologians and from even some reformation era theologians, you'll find them still in old fashion. Not too useful but that is not truth of Calvin. Some people think that Calvin became such a masterful exegiate of the text of scripture because his study after he completed his study at the Sorbonne which was a degree in we would say the liberal arts. His study then was in law. He studied law in two universities in France, at Orléans and at Bourge. The study of law at this time was more advanced in terms of understanding and setting forth the true meaning of a text than the study of theology was and so Calvin learned from his law professors to approach a text directly and to interpret it within the linguistic and historical parameters of its context and to apply it. So what we need to do with scripture that's what he did with scripture. One of the most recent and most recent biography of Calvin by the French historian Côte Très says Calvin had a French passion for clarity reinforced by his legal education. I don't know about French passion for clarity but Dr. Côte Très says that the French have a passion for clarity so I will accept that but certainly reinforced by his legal education. We can thank God for that development in Calvin's life because that prepared him for the kind of work that he would do with the text of scripture. Textual criticism Calvin doesn't always get this right because he is 16th century and we're 21st century so textual criticism has advanced considerably since Calvin's time but for his time he's a pretty able textual critic. He knows the good manuscripts from the not so good manuscripts. He's able to argue which word is the best in a particular text or sentence and we can if not always trust him there feel fairly certain that Calvin is going to come out on the right side of an issue of textual criticism. And then a word about Calvin's commentaries I've already said they're still valuable and useful to us today. Calvin first wrote the institutes, first editions 1536. He wrote it with the purpose to have it served mainly as an introduction to his biblical commentaries so in one sense his life work he felt would be to write commentaries on all of the books in the Bible. He didn't complete that few New Testament books some of the smaller books he did not do and several Old Testament books he did not complete. He was writing on Ezekiel his commentary on Ezekiel when he died I think he got to chapter 22 and it was very very ill. There's only 55 but he was very ill most of his life suffered greatly from all kinds of physical problems to read his letters to his doctors. There's a hair-raising experience because Calvin describes his symptoms in painful detail and of course the doctors in those days didn't really know what to do about almost anything but Calvin was dying greatly. He had his friends help him to sit up in his bed and he carried on with his Ezekiel commentary. Some of those friends felt that he was overdoing it and said you know you need to rest and Calvin's reply was but would you have the Lord come and find me idle? Well maybe Calvin should have rested he was a kind of workaholic and even though it's inspiring to think about Calvin dying and writing to the very end in fact an unfinished sentence in that Ezekiel commentary mark almost the last day of Calvin's life. The commentaries were important to him and his goal in all this was I think in the commentaries comprehensive brevity. You look at the whole show full of Calvin's commentaries and you wonder about the brevity but Bible is a big book and when you start reading in those commentaries you realize that Calvin was successful in what he did. In fact as you compare his work to others you see that point being made Calvin's commentary on Genesis one volume, admittedly pretty large volume but Luther wrote eight volumes of Genesis and Calvin has a single commentary, a single volume on Romans. His friend Busser, Martin Busser, wrote four volumes on Romans and when Calvin was writing his commentary on Romans he introduced it this way he said Busser is too long to be read and haste and too high to be easily understood by the low and those who do not consider things too closely. So Busser it's fine if you've got a lot of time and if you're smart but Calvin says my commentary is briefer you can read it more quickly and if you are not the kind of person who can follow things too closely you're better off with me. Calvin often made the point that it's good to be brief, don't go on too long about things. One of my students a few years ago made a bookmark for me with a quotation from Calvin's institute which says by nature I love brevity.
Well that's interesting but when you discover that quote is found on page 685 of the institutes and you begin to wonder about the brevity of Calvin but I keep that bookmark to remind me that Calvin thought he was being briefed anyway. Okay let's come to the word theological.
Alasemar Grya talks about the institutes as highly systemized and structured theology so we really have to add the word theological to the word biblical. What Calvin wants to do is to produce an orderly arrangement of biblical themes and he struggles with that. How do you put together the message of the Bible? In fact Calvin begins in 1536 with his first edition and then goes through various revisions. Does not find himself satisfied until 1559. He says like last I figured it out as to how to arrange the material. It's not that the ideas are changing or the theology is changing but the arrangement as I'll point out in a few minutes is changing. So orderly arrangement of biblical themes. Some people have spent a lot of time trying to discern if Calvin had a central theme. What's this book all about? What is the central theme? Some have suggested sovereignty of God, decrees of God, others have suggested Christ or union with Christ or something else as the central theme of the institutes. But I think Calvin scholars now are agreed by and large that we really don't have to look for a central theme. Calvin doesn't have one idea that he is putting forth. It's not even the covenant as important as that is for Calvin. We'll get into that. Was he a covenant theologian or not? He doesn't take one idea and say this is how I'm going to structure theology. He actually starts in the very first sentence by saying almost all of our wisdom is composed of two parts, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. That's not exactly a central theme but that's the kind of overarching description of what Calvin will set out to do in the institutes. Dr. Dowie and one of his books on Calvin knowledge of God in the theology of Calvin talks about clarity of individual themes in comprehensibility of their interrelations. I think that pretty well captures what we find here. Calvin is very concerned to be very clear about themes of the Bible that he is not concerned to always explain how these themes can interrelate. In fact sometimes he just stops, says I can't go any further because he thinks the Bible doesn't go any further. And in those moments the way I say it is he sings the doxology, praises God for the wisdom of God. His judgments are pass-finding out because he doesn't really force together all of these themes. He is very clear and comprehensive in developing the themes but he will allow them to stand side by side even if he cannot totally reconcile, say human responsibility and divine sovereignty. Another point that I'd like to make here under theological is what battle skulls antithetical structuring. And what battle means by that is that Calvin as he deals with different topics will say now this is what the Bible teaches, this is what we should believe but then he will oppose that with and this is what we should not believe, this is wrong, this is false. So there's antithetical structuring in the institutes that battles deals within some detail in his analysis. In other words Calvin will contrast the truth as he sees it with Roman Catholic teaching or without a Baptist teaching or with Acyander or with somebody and that means that the institutes is a polimical document but I think even though that is true we find Calvin saying something like this too it ought to be enough simply to state the truth and then move on to something else and that's what Calvin loves to do but he says because of false teaching we can't do that so he finds himself required to not only state the truth but to attack false teaching. Calvin is his polimical but he doesn't rejoice in polinics he doesn't enjoy it as much as he does setting forth the truth positively but he feels that to be faithful Christians have to say not only this is right but they have to say also this is wrong. There was reading a sermon by Dr. Gresham mentioned yesterday on Galatians Paul in Galatians and it was called a man who could say no and as Paul the man who could say no something was wrong in Galatia and Paul would say no so we need to say yes but we also sadly need to say no and we'll get that in the institutes. Next point restraint. Calvin doesn't answer all the questions sometimes people that think institutes as a book of great theological logic are disappointed when they actually begin to read it because things they thought would be answered or not answered. Warfield says whether the Bible took him, Thither he went, where scriptural declarations failed him there he stopped short and I think that perhaps the best place to find Calvin expressing this in his own words is in 3214 where he says we should not investigate what the Lord has left hidden some things we don't know about. God hasn't chosen to tell us about and so we shouldn't pry into those things but we should not neglect what he has brought into the open so it goes far as scripture goes and then we stop. Calvin wants to avoid excessive ingratitude he says that is we can be ungrateful if we don't go as far as the Bible goes. He wants to go as far as the Bible goes and Calvin doesn't think that he necessarily has the last word on this. He at times will urge his readers to go further than he goes if they can in their understanding of the Bible. When he's talking about the Eucharist the Lord's Supper he said I urge my readers not to confine their mental interest within these two narrow limits. Now after we read Calvin for 100 pages in the Lord's Supper we wonder if anything else could possibly be said about it but he says don't confine yourself within these two narrow limits but strive to rise much higher than I can lead you so his goal is not to say here it is this is the last word but this is the best I can do and if you can go further in the scripture then you must go further so avoid excessive ingratitude that's just we don't use what we've got so we can't be grateful to God for it but also avoid excessive curiosity. Calvin hates curiosity you know somewhere we'll see him bring out that famous story from Augustine when a student asked an old man what was God doing before he created the heavens and the earth and the old man said he was making hell for the curious and Augustine really doesn't like that answer but Calvin is kind of sympathetic toward that answer so he doesn't really like theological curiosity he says that's to get into a LeBrennt amaze you get into these questions that are just curious questions that we don't have any way of answering and you get into this maze you know what amaze is a LeBrennt you get lost in there so avoid excessive curiosity which the LeBrennt for him is a picture of human attempt not to search out God beyond the word and Calvin advocates what he calls a learned ignorance
you know notice both words learn ignorance and not an ignorant ignorance but a learned ignorance that's where we come out after we've done everything that we can we come out with a learned ignorance sometimes rather astounded to think that we give students we give you a degree which says master of divinity and master of divinity and div maybe we should change it to him l i master of learned ignorance when you graduate that would be more in keeping with Calvin's thought Calvin doesn't answer all the questions he takes us as far as he can and then he stops in wonder of before the mystery their examples of that in 159 related to the doctrine of God 3211 related to the doctrine of election for 177 related to the word supper in many places where Calvin says it's as far as I can go and what we need to do now is worship not answer questions that we can't answer next point accommodation Calvin's theological treatment is orderly santathetical it shows proper restraint and it also illustrates the principle of accommodation what that is and it's an idea that appears before Calvin but Calvin certainly picks up on it and uses it is the concept that God accommodates himself in his word to the level of our understanding I think it goes back as far as origin who suggests that God faced much the same problem in addressing sinful humanity as a human father or a human mother would face in trying to communicate to small child you know it's a challenge you know my daughter and son-in-law and their little one-year-old 80 Ian visited us last weekend they live in Chicago we had Ian's birthday here it was kind of fascinating to see John and Isabelle trying to communicate to Ian it's just one year old things that he should not do and how to do that and how to try to get through to him by well it's not easy it's not easy so God is communicating to us and he accommodates himself to human capacity if you want to article on that Dr. Battles wrote one called God was accommodating himself to human capacity discussing this point in John Calvin many examples in the institutes have given some references there in which God accommodates himself or as we'll see when we come to Calvin's doctrine of Scripture of God lists when he speaks to us or we can translate it God talks baby talk so the bible is God's baby talk we God could have given a book that we could not possibly have begun to understand I mean the baby talk is hard enough and you come to seminary and learn Greek and Hebrew and exegesis and try to learn how to interpret the baby talk but it could have been impossible it's a challenge now but at least it is possible so we'll see Calvin using this frequently in the institutes the principle of accommodation and Calvin says it really goes beyond God coming down to us to our level to speak to us in stories, poems, parables, things that we can grasp but we must as is not in the institutes as is in Calvin's commentary on Romans we must therefore consider what questions each is able to bear and accommodate our doctrine to the capacity of the individual that's an application homologics or to counseling you see this is God accommodating himself to our level Calvin says we accommodate ourselves to the level of the people that we're called to teach it's very possible it's all too possible for seminary graduate to go out and teach and preach and nobody will have the slightest idea of what you're talking about unless you learn to accommodate what you learn now to the level of the people that you're to serve rhetorical and devotional the time is slipping by so we may not get through all of this today but I can do some of it next time too by rhetorical we mean this Calvin does not embrace the scholastic form of presentation if you want to know what that is like just read the first few pages of the Thomas Aquinas and the Summa Theologia there you get scholastic scientific theology Calvin is much more in the mode of humanist rhetoric he can be very critical of the scholastics and we find Calvin himself using the principles of humanism and that's not modern secular humanism but that is 16th century literary rhetorical humanism and what rhetorical means here is that language is to be used in a way that will move persuade in other words it's not enough just to set forth the truth it must be set forth in a powerful way a moving way a eloquent way and we'll find passages of a great eloquence in the institutes where Calvin is using his rhetorical skills learn from his humanist training in the arts and in law in order to persuade he's not just showing off displaying his ability here but he wants words to come alive and become powerful and mighty in their use let me just read a few sentences from his preferatory address violent page 13 in the institutes for what is more confident with faith than to recognize that we are naked of all virtue in order to be clothed by God that we are empty of all good to be filled by him that we're slaves of sin to be freed by him blind to be illumined by him lame to be made straight by him weak to be sustained by him to take away from us all occasion for glory that he alone may stand forth gloriously and weak glory in him you know you kind of get the force of those words don't you if you could say that in a much more pedantic way but he builds up the power of his utterance by the beauty and power of his words somebody has said that Calvin invented the short sentence and Calvin does write in a very comparatively speaking crisp modern form not a lot of subordinate clauses sentences move on nicely short sentences it might sometimes look long to us but they're not nearly as long as the paragraph long sentences that you'll find in some of his contemporaries and Calvin values figurative language he values illustrations he values anything that he can use in order to set forth the truth as powerfully and as clearly as he can okay we'll have to stop there we still have the word devotional to look at and then the purpose of the institutes and a little bit more that we can get into the beginning of class on Tuesday okay thank you see you on Tuesday