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John Calvin, On the Christian Life. A New Translation by Raymond A. Blacketer (2024). Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024. 73 pages, $19.99.

Beveridge. Battles. Blacketer. Not a cryptic crossword clue, but the last three English-translators of Calvin’s final 1559-1560 edition of his Institutes.

Henry Beveridge’s 1845 work was the standard English translation until the 1960 McNeill-Battles edition, translated by Calvin-scholar Ford Lewis Battles. This is the edition Reformed pastors of the past two generations have had in their library.

A major new translation by Raymond Blacketer is now approaching completion. Blacketer is a pastor-scholar in the Christian Reformed Church (U.S.A.). His work is being edited by the historical theologian, Anthony N.S. Lane, and Latinist, Kirk Summers.

As an amuse-bouche, Crossway has published from the forthcoming translation chapters 6 to 10 of book 3 under the title: On the Christian Life. These chapters were in fact published separately in 1550 by the printer and translator Jean Crespin. In the nineteenth century, English translations of these chapters appeared under the title Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.

This 2024 edition is published as a high-quality sewn hardcover with beautiful gold embossing and thick cream paper. An excellent gift and a “keeper” for every Christian’s personal library.

There are two reasons to be very happy about this publication.

First, we can be very pleased that, after sixty-five years, there will be a new scholarly translation of the Institutes. As John Murray wrote, a little awkwardly, in his preface to a Beveridge reprinting in 1970: “another edition of the opus magnum of Christian theology is an event fraught with much encouragement.” We can hope that a new translation will stir up fresh interest, reading, and study of Calvin’s masterwork. For when readers come to grips with the Institutes, they come to possess a fresh and deeper grasp of Christian faith and life, a window through which we may view far more of the Bible’s treasures than we would be able to do unaided.

Second, On the Christian Life is a vibrant and practical Christian masterpiece in its own right.

Chapter 6, “The Life of a Christian”, is a call to holiness. The Christian faith “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.”

Chapter 7, “The Sum of the Christian Life, in Which We Discuss the Denial of Ourselves” focusses on the discipline of self-denial, both in the vertical and horizontal planes. Here Calvin probes deeply into the human heart and soul, exposing our deep and hidden abscesses of lust, pride, and egotism. We must deny our wants and wills for the sake of obeying God. And we must deny ourselves out of love for others:

We show them preference in honour before ourselves, so that we genuinely devote ourselves to looking out for their interests…. All the gifts that we possess in abundance have been entrusted and committed to our trust on the condition that they be dispensed for the good of our neighbours.

Chapter 8, “Bearing the Cross”, concerns suffering. Calvin shows how God uses suffering, deprivation, persecution, and humiliation for our good: to break our self-reliance and the love of the passing things of this world, and to drive us to a stronger and deeper faith in Christ.

This is why he afflicts us with disgrace, poverty, bereavement, sickness, and other adversities. Because we are vastly incapable of enduring these difficulties, as far as it depends on us, we soon collapse under them. Humbled in this way, we learn to call on his strength, which alone causes us to stand firm under the weight of suffering.

Chapter 9, “Meditation on the Future Life,” continues the theme of suffering, but calls us to lift up our eyes to the resurrection, last judgment, and glorification of God’s children: “For he will come as the Redeemer for us, and, rescuing us from the vast whirlpool of all evils and miseries, he will lead us into that blessed inheritance of his life and glory.”

Chapter 10 “How We Must Use the Present Life and Its Means of Support” is a brief guide to the right use of the things of this world. Calvin is not an ascetic. We receive all good things with thanks, yet remember that the things of this world are soon to pass away. This enables us to face lack and hardship without despair.

The final section on vocation urges Christians to find contentment where God has placed us, to faithfully undertake whatever duties he has given us: “It will be a considerable relief to their worries, struggles, troubles, and other burdens, when everyone knows that God is their guide through all these circumstances.”

The editors have provided well-written section headings which helpfully signpost the argument of each chapter. The footnotes draw attention to differences between Calvin’s Latin and French versions, as well as to classical references – Calvin was steeped in the works of Cicero, Seneca, and other ancient pagan writers, and draws from them freely when it helps to clarify his arguments.

The English is lucid and mostly smooth. Calvin’s sentences are typically complex so that even this modern translation requires effort on the reader’s part – effort that is richly repaid, however.

I heartily recommend this little classic as a biblical, logical, warm, and pastoral exhortation to a deeper faith in Christ in the face of life’s manifold trials and temptations.

We look forward very much to the full translation in the coming year.

– Campbell Markham