John Calvin Commentary Acts 22:14

"And he said, The God of our fathers hath appointed thee to know his will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice from his mouth." — Acts 22:14 (ASV)

The God of our fathers. As nothing is more suitable to motivate us joyfully to go forward toward God than when we know that God precedes us with His free goodness, so that He may call us back from destruction to life, so Ananias begins here. God, he says, has ordained you to know His will.

For by this Paul is taught that God had regard for him when he went astray and was completely an enemy to his own salvation. And so God’s predestination abolishes all preparations which sophists imagine, as if man anticipated God’s grace by his own free will.

In calling Him the God of the fathers, Ananias renews the remembrance of the promises, so that the Jews may know that the new calling of Paul is joined with them, and that those who pass over to Christ do not fall away from the law. Therefore, Paul confirms by these words what he declared before himself: that he had not departed from the God of Abraham, whom the Jews had worshipped in the past, but that he continues in the ancient worship which the fathers used, which he had learned from the law.

Therefore, when the question is about religion, let us learn by the example of Paul not to imagine any new God (as the Papists and Muslims have done, and as all heretics usually do), but let us retain that God who has revealed Himself in the past to the fathers, both by the law and also by various oracles. This is the antiquity in which we must remain, and not in that of which the Papists boast in vain, who have invented for themselves a strange God, since they have forsaken the lawful fathers.

The same is to be said today of the Jews, whose religion, since it disagrees with the law and the prophets, means their God must also be degenerate and false. For He who was known in the past as the God of Abraham and of the fathers, finally appeared in the person of His Son, so that He may now be called by His own name or title, the Father of Christ.

Therefore, he who rejects the Son does not have the Father, who cannot be separated from Him. And Ananias says that it happens through the free election of God that the truth of the gospel now appears to Paul; from which it follows that he did not attain this by his own effort, as the event itself also showed.

For nothing was more stubborn than Paul until Christ tamed him. And if we desire to know the cause and beginning, Ananias calls us back to the counsel of God, by which he was appointed and ordained. And surely it is a more precious thing to know the will of God than that men can attain it by their own effort.

What Ananias affirms concerning Paul ought to be applied to all: that the treasure of faith is not common to all, but it is offered specifically to the elect. Furthermore, it appears more plainly by the following statement what this will of God is: For God spoke at various times and in many ways by His prophets, but last of all, He revealed and made known His will and Himself wholly in His Son (Hebrews 1:1).

To see the Just. Since virtually all Greek manuscripts agree on the masculine gender, I wonder why Erasmus would rather translate it in the neuter, Which is Just—a sense which readers find cold and far-fetched. Therefore, I do not doubt that Just is taken in this place for Christ, and the text flows very well this way, because it follows immediately after, and hear a voice from his mouth.

And it is certain that all the godly and holy men most of all desired that they might see Christ. From this flowed that confession of Simeon,

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; because mine eyes have seen thy salvation (Luke 2:29).

Therefore this seeing, which godly kings and prophets most earnestly desired, as Christ Himself witnesses (Luke 10:24), is rightly extolled as a unique benefit of God. But because the sight of the eyes would profit little or nothing (which we know was deadly to many), Ananias adds the hearing of the voice.

Ananias states the reason why God granted Paul such great honor: namely, that he might be a public witness for His Son. And God thus prepares him, so that he may learn not only for himself alone, but so that he may be all the more careful to benefit others, because he will be the teacher of the entire Church.