J.I. Packer on Calvin’s Institutes

J.I. Packer, ‘Foreword’, in David W. Hall and Peter A. Lillback (eds.), A Theological Guide to Calvin’s Institutes: Essays and Analysis, The Calvin 500 Series (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008), ix-xiv.

J.I. Packer provides the foreword to a collection of essays on Calvin’s Institutes, averring that the 5th edition (1559) edition is one of the wonders of (1) the literary world, (2) the spiritual world, and (3) the theological world.

The literary world

‘… of writers and writing, of digesting and arranging heaps of diverse materials, of skillful proportioning and gripping presentation’ (ix).

For Packer, ‘as grand-scale exposition of a very large body of integrated thought, the Institutio is truly a marvel’ (ix), and it remains ‘a literary masterpiece, a triumph of the didactic writer’s art, and when read seriously it makes a very winning impact on the mind and heart, even today’ (x). It grew to five times its original length during its five editions. In the 5th edition, the titles of the four books reflect the division of the Apostles’ Creed…

• ‘of the knowledge of God in his works and qualities… as Creator and sovereign Governor of the world’
• ‘of the knowledge of God the Redeemer as he has shown himself in Jesus Christ’
• ‘of the manner of participating in the grace of Jesus Christ’
• ‘of the external means of aids which God uses to draw us to Jesus Christ his Son and to keep us in him’

The spiritual world

‘… of doxology and devotion, of discipleship and discipline, of Word-through-Spirit illumination and transformation of individuals, of the Christ-centered mind and the Christ-honoring heart’ (xi).

The Institutes began as a catechetical account of Protestant Christianity, and didn’t lose this discipling focus in subsequent editions. ‘Real, intelligent commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior, Lord, and God, to the fellowship of the church as one’s proper milieu for life, and to self-identification as pilgrims through a world that is not our home to a heaven that is, must ever be catechizing’s direct goal’ (xi).

The theological world

‘… of truth, faithfulness, and coherence in the mind regarding God; of combat, regrettable but inescapable, with intellectual insufficiency and error in believers and unbelievers alike; and of vision, valuation, and vindication of God as he presents himself through his Word to our fallen and disordered minds’ (xii).

Packer holds that justification by faith is central to the Institutes – spatially and theologically, with what precedes as ‘what must first be known before we can grasp it’, and what follows as, in effect, ‘a program for our spiritual health as justified sinners’ (xii).

Beyond even this, ‘doxological theocentrism shaped everything’, with Calvin’s ‘compassionate concern that everyone should know God’s grace’ itself rooted in a ‘deeper desire that everyone should glorify God by a life of adoring worship for the wonder of his work in creation, providence, and salvation’ (xii-xiii).