Transparent heart icon with white outline and + sign.

Life's busy, read it when you're ready!

Create a free account to save articles for later, keep track of past articles you’ve read, and receive exclusive access to all RP resources.

White magnifying glass.

Search thousands of RP articles

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth.

Open envelope icon with @ symbol

Get Articles Delivered!

Articles, news, and reviews that celebrate God's truth. delivered direct to your Inbox!

A A
By:

John Calvin’s Illustrated Institutes: Knowing God & knowing ourselves

Book 1 – Chapter 1-5
by Martin Williams and Joy Williams
illustrated by Paul Cox
P&R Publishing
2025 / 82 pages

Have you always meant to read Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and just never gotten off the starting blocks? You’re not alone, and help has arrived! Calvin’s weightiest work has been transformed into a much more accessible, but still substantive, comic book.

Or, rather, a good start has been had.

Husband and wife writers Martin and Joy Williams have teamed up with illustrator Paul Cox, (whose Reftoons comics have been featured in Reformed Perspective) on this ambitious project. In their first book they’ve covered the Institute’s first 5 chapters… which leaves them with 75 more chapters to cover in future editions.

Our guide is John Calvin himself, along with three companions: Theo is a boy, Geneva a girl, and the cute cat tagging along is named Luther. There isn’t a story, exactly. Theo comes across Calvin (and cat Luther) while studying on his computer. And somehow Calvin steps right out of the computer screen and they start talking about the nature of “true knowledge.”

To give you a taste of what’s discussed, here’s Calvin explaining that a true knowledge of God – really knowing God – is more than knowing facts about Him:

“Think about this: Satan knows a lot about God and even trembles (James 2:19)… [but] he doesn’t love God. That’s why fear without love isn’t true piety and love without fear isn’t true piety either. God’s children, however, both fear and love Him at the same time.”

This is a mighty abridgment of what Calvin says in his original, but it does cut to the heart of it. And each of the five chapters ends with 10 questions to aid in reflection, and with an encouragement to read the original to dive even deeper.

A few of the other issues covered include:

  • How we can only really understand ourselves when we know God
  • How a just God can judge people who have never heard of Him
  • Why there are no true atheists but there are so many idols

For another taste, here’s Calvin speaking to practical atheism – folks who “might admit there’s a God, but they strip Him of His majesty by denying His power and providence – like someone trying to block out the sun with their hands as if that could make it disappear. Even worse they outright reject God’s just judgment on the wicked.”

So who is this for? Anyone who’s wanted to study the Institutes – because we all know there is gold about our God to be mined there! – but who is understandably intimidated by the 1700+ page original. This is a way to start. And there is gold even here too. The nuggets are smaller, but Calvin loved our Lord, and that comes out even in this abridged form. These Illustrated Institutes really are for everyone… and for some it is going to be the perfect on-ramp to tackling the much bigger version (and for you, we’ve got recommendations on exactly what version you should get).

That said, even as this does a fantastic job of simplifying and illustrating deep truths about God, it still isn’t kiddish. The cartoon pictures might give the impression that this is aimed at young teens, and inside of a Bible or catechism class, 12 and up could tackle it. But this is still Calvin – meaty rather than milk – so not a lot of 13-15 year-olds are going to work through this if they aren’t being made to.

But an older crowd? Oh yeah. For all of the well-meaning Reformed folk out there who’ve bought a copy of the Institutes but it’s lying on the “to be read much later” pile, this will be such a fun way to learn what all the hype is about. It’s been almost 500 years since Calvin’s first edition of the Institutes was published, and there is a reason it is still being read today. Now we can all find out why!

And if you enjoy this effort, you’ll be interested to know that Paul Cox has also crafted The Illustrated Westminster Shorter Catechism. The illustrations are Cox’s same friendly style, though this is more picture book than comic – there are no characters taking us from one page to the next, and no dialogue – and the Catechism’s original 17th-century English has been lightly modernized. This could be a great tool for a family to work through the Catechism’s 107 Questions and Answers together.

Enjoyed this article?

Get the best of RP delivered to your inbox every Saturday for free.



Red heart icon with + sign.
Adult non-fiction, Book Reviews

Calvin's Institutes: Which edition should you read?

John Calvin published five different Latin editions of his Institutes, expanding on it with each new edition. The 1536 edition was just 6 chapters long, and the addition of 17 shorter chapters in 1539 doubled the book’s size. Four more chapters were added in 1543, and then only minor changes made in 1550. But the final, 1559 version was fully 80% larger than its predecessor. In addition to these Latin editions, Calvin also created French versions that, while very similar, were not strict translations – they taught the same doctrine, in the same order, but sometimes said things in different ways. It is the final Latin 1559 version that most translations are based on, including the two best-known English-language translations: the 1845 Henry Beveridge, and the 1960 Ford Lewis Battles (edited by John T. McNeill), translations. 1845 Beveridge One advantage of the Beveridge edition is that the copyright has expired on this translation, so it is readily available online for free (there is also a harder to find 1813 translation by John Allen also available online for free – Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3 – as well as in print). Cheap print and e-book copies are also available, but this is where you have to be wary, as some have crisp new type and a beautiful layout, and others look like they are copies of copies of the original 1800s publication, with dark text cramming every nook and cranny of the page. If you plan to be reading the Institutes front to back – all 1,700 some pages of it – then a nice airy, legible layout is important. So buyer beware – be sure that you can take a look at the inside of whatever edition you are buying. 1960 Battles This edition came a hundred years later, so as you might imagine, the language is somewhat more current. The editor, John T. McNeill also provides lots of helpful explanatory notes at the bottom of many pages. However, as Dr. Bredenhof notes in his Institutes review, McNeill's liberal theological bias comes out in some of these notes. 2014 White In addition to being the most modern translation (by Robert White and published by the Banner of Truth) this edition's main feature is one that will be regarded as a strength by some and a weakness by others – it is based on the much smaller 1541 French edition. It clocks in at just 920 pages, instead of the more than 1,700 pages of the final 1559 version. So, this would be the best one for those interested in checking out the Institutes but who would appreciate an abridgment...in this case, done by the author himself! Conclusion While it might seem a trivial thing, I really can't emphasize enough the importance of buying an edition with an inviting layout. You're going to be investing a lot of time with this book, whatever edition you buy, and if you get one with dense text, and a hard to read font, it will wear on you. And on that point, the White edition is beautiful, the Battles/McNeill seems good though not great, and the various editions of the Beveridge run the gamut from beautiful to atrocious. Jon Dykstra and his siblings blog on books at ReallyGoodReads.com....