John Calvin Commentary Acts 17:28

"for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." — Acts 17:28 (ASV)

For in him. I grant that the apostles, according to the Hebrew phrase, often take this preposition in for by or through; but because this statement, that we live in God, has greater force and expresses more, I thought I would not change it. For I do not doubt that Paul’s meaning is that we are in a way contained in God, because He dwells in us by His power.

And, therefore, God Himself separates Himself from all creatures by this word Jehovah, that we may know that, properly speaking, He is alone, and that we have our being in Him, inasmuch as by His Spirit He keeps us in life and upholds us.

For the power of the Spirit is spread throughout all parts of the world to preserve them in their state. He ministers to heaven and earth that force and vigor which we see, and motion to all living creatures.

This is not as deluded men frivolously claim, that all things are full of gods, or even that stones are gods; but it is because God, by the wonderful power and inspiration of His Spirit, preserves those things which He has created out of nothing. But mention is made in this place properly of men, because Paul said that they did not need to seek God far, as they have Him within them.

Furthermore, since the life of man is more excellent than motion, and motion excels essence (mere existence), Paul puts that which was most important in the highest place, so that he might go down by steps to essence or being, saying thus: We not only have no life but in God, but not even motion; indeed, no being, which is inferior to both.

I say that life has pre-eminence in men, because they not only have sense and motion as brute beasts do, but they are also endowed with reason and understanding.

Therefore, the Scripture for good reason gives that singular gift which God has given us a title and commendation by itself. So in John, when mention is made of the creation of all things, it is added separately, not without cause, that life was the light of men (John 1:4).

Now, we see that all those who do not know God are ignorant, because they have God present with them not only in the excellent gifts of the mind, but in their very essence. For it belongs to God alone to be, and all other things have their being in Him.

Also, we learn from this passage that God did not create the world once and then depart from His work; rather, it stands by His power, and the same God who was the Creator is also its governor. We must reflect well on this continual comfort and strengthening, so that we may remember God every moment.

Certain of your poets. He cites half a verse from Aratus, not so much for authority’s sake, as to make the men of Athens ashamed; for such sayings of the poets came from no other source than nature and common reason. Nor is it any marvel if Paul, who spoke to men who were unbelievers and ignorant of true godliness, used the testimony of a poet in which there was a confession of that knowledge which is naturally engraved in men’s minds.

The Papists take another course. For they lean so heavily on the testimonies of men that they set them against the oracles of God. They not only make Jerome, or Ambrose and the rest of the holy fathers, masters of faith, but they will just as readily tie us to the vile answers of their Popes as if God Himself were speaking. Yes, what is more, they have not been afraid to give such great authority to Aristotle that the apostles and prophets were silent in their schools rather than he.

Now, to return to the sentence at hand, it is not to be doubted that Aratus spoke of Jupiter; nor does Paul, in applying to the true God what Aratus spoke unskillfully of his Jupiter, twist it to a contrary sense.

For because men naturally have some perception of God, they draw true principles from that source. And though as soon as they begin to think about God, they go astray into wicked inventions, and so pure seed degenerates into corruptions, yet the first general knowledge of God nevertheless still remains in them.

In this way, no one of a sound mind can doubt applying to the true God what we read in Virgil concerning the sovereign and false joy, that All things are full of joy. Indeed, when Virgil meant to express the power of God, through error he used a wrong name.

Regarding the meaning of the words, it may be that Aratus imagined that there was some particle of the divinity in men’s minds, as the Manichees said, that the souls of men are of the nature of God. So when Virgil says concerning the world, The Spirit nourishes within, and the mind being dispersed through all the joints, moves your whole huge weight, he rather plays the philosopher, and subtly disputes in the manner of Plato, than purely means that the world is supported by the secret inspiration of God.

But this fabrication ought not to have hindered Paul from retaining a true maxim, though it was corrupted with men’s fables: that men are the offspring of God, because by the excellence of their nature they resemble something divine.

This is what the Scripture teaches: that we are created after the image and similitude of God (Genesis 1:27). The same Scripture also teaches in many places that we are made sons of God by faith and free adoption when we are engrafted into the body of Christ, and, being regenerated by the Spirit, we begin to be new creatures (Galatians 3:26).

But as Scripture gives the same Spirit diverse names because of His manifold graces, so it is no marvel if the word sons is taken in different ways.

All mortal men are called sons in a general sense, because they draw near to God in mind and understanding. But because the image of God is almost blotted out in them, so that scarcely any slender lines (lineaments) appear, this name is by good right restricted to the faithful, who, having the Spirit of adoption given to them, resemble their heavenly Father in the light of reason, in righteousness, and holiness.