John Calvin Commentary Acts 2:39

"For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, [even] as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him." — Acts 2:39 (ASV)

For the promise pertains to you. It was necessary that this should be expressly added, so that the Jews could be certain and persuade themselves that the grace of Christ belonged to them as well as to the apostles. And Peter proves it in this way: because the promise of God was made to them.

For we must always look to this, because we cannot otherwise know the will of God except through His word. But it is not sufficient to have the general word, unless we know that it is appointed for us. Therefore Peter says that those benefits which they see in him and his fellows in office were previously promised to the Jews; because this is necessary for the certainty of faith, that everyone be fully persuaded of this: that he is included among those to whom God speaks.

Finally, this is the rule of a true faith: when I am so persuaded that salvation is mine because that promise belongs to me which offers it. And by this we also have greater confirmation, when the promise is extended to those who were previously far off. For God had made the covenant with the Jews (Exodus 4:22). If its force and fruit also come to the Gentiles, the Jews have no reason to doubt that they will find God's promise firm and stable.

And we must note these three degrees: first, the promise was made to the Jews; then, to their children; and finally, it is also to be imparted to the Gentiles. We know the reason why the Jews are preferred over other people; for they are, as it were, the firstborn in God’s family. Indeed, they were then separated from other people by a unique privilege. Therefore Peter observes a good order when he gives the Jews pre-eminence. When he joins their children to them, it depends on the words of the promise: I will be your God, and the God of your seed after you (Genesis 17:7), where God reckons the children with the fathers in the grace of adoption.

This passage, therefore, abundantly refutes the manifest error of the Anabaptists, who do not want infants, who are the children of the faithful, to be baptized, as if they were not members of the Church. They perceive a loophole in the allegorical sense, and they explain it in this way: that by 'children' are meant those who are spiritually begotten. But this gross impudence does not help them at all. It is plain and evident that Peter spoke in this way because God adopted one nation specially. And circumcision declared that the right of adoption was common even to infants. Therefore, just as God made His covenant with Isaac, while he was still unborn, because he was the seed of Abraham, so Peter teaches that all the children of the Jews are contained in the same covenant, because this promise is always in force: I will be the God of your seed.

And to those who are far off. The Gentiles are named in the last place, who were previously strangers. For those who refer it to those Jews who were exiled far off (and driven) into distant countries are greatly deceived. For he is not speaking here of physical distance; but he notes a difference between the Jews and the Gentiles, that the Jews were first joined to God because of the covenant, and so, consequently, became part of His family or household; but the Gentiles were banished from His kingdom.

Paul uses the same language in the second chapter of Ephesians (Ephesians 2:11): that the Gentiles, who were strangers from the promises, are now drawn near to God through Jesus Christ. Because Christ (the wall of separation being taken away) has reconciled both (the Jews and Gentiles) to the Father, and, coming, He has preached peace to those who were near and to those who were far off.

Now we understand Peter’s meaning. For, so that he may amplify the grace of Christ, he so offers it to the Jews that he says the Gentiles are also partakers of it. And therefore he uses this word call, as if to say: Just as God has gathered you together into one special people previously by His voice, so the same voice will sound everywhere, so that those who are far off may come and join themselves to you, when they will be called by a new proclamation.