On the Christian Life (eBook)

A New Translation

John Calvin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
96 Seiten
Crossway (Verlag)
978-1-4335-9255-3 (ISBN)

Infos

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

John Calvin (1509-1564) was one of the most influential theologians of the Reformation. Known best for his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he also wrote landmark expositions on most of the books in the Bible. 

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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.5 They 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 Imitation of 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.10 In 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...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.8.2024
• Einführung: Anthony Lane
• Übersetzer: Raymond A. Blacketer
• Verlagsort: Wheaton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Moraltheologie / Sozialethik
• Schlagworte: Arminian • Bible study • Biblical • Calvinist • Christ • Christian Books • Church Fathers • Doctrine • Faith • God • Gospel • hermeneutics • History • John Calvin • Martin Luther • Pastoral Resources • Prayer • Reformed • seminary student • Systematic Theology • Theologian
• ISBN-10: 1-4335-9255-X / 143359255X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-9255-3 / 9781433592553