John Calvin Commentary Acts 28:4

"And when the barbarians saw the [venomous] creature hanging from his hand, they said one to another, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped from the sea, yet Justice hath not suffered to live." — Acts 28:4 (ASV)

As soon as the barbarians saw. This judgment was common in all ages: that those who were grievously punished had grievously offended. Nor was this persuasion conceived from nothing; but it came instead from a true feeling of godliness. For God, so that He might make the world without excuse, willed this to be deeply rooted in the minds of all people: that calamity and adversity, and especially notable destruction, were testimonies and signs of His wrath and just vengeance against sins.

Therefore, as often as we call to mind any notable calamity, we also remember that God is sorely offended, seeing He punishes so sharply. Nor did ungodliness ever gain such an upper hand without all people still retaining this principle: that God, so that He may show Himself to be the Judge of the world, notably punishes the wicked.

But an error almost always crept in here, because they condemned as wicked all those whom they saw roughly handled. Though God does always punish people’s sins with adversity, yet He does not punish every person according to their deserts in this life; and sometimes the punishments of the godly are not so much punishments as trials of their faith and exercises of godliness.

Therefore, those people are deceived who make this a general rule to judge every person according to their prosperity or adversity. This was the state of the controversy between Job and his friends (Job 4:7): they affirmed that the person whom God punished was a reprobate and hated by God; and Job, on the other hand, alleged that the godly are sometimes humbled with the cross.

Therefore, lest we be deceived in this point, we must beware of two things.

1. The first is that we do not give rash and blind judgment of things unknown according to the outcome alone, because God punishes the good as well as the bad. Indeed, it often happens that He spares the reprobate and sharply punishes those who are His. If we wish to judge correctly, we must begin with something other than punishments—namely, that we inquire into their life and deeds.

   If any adulterer, any blasphemous person, any perjurer or murderer, any filthy person, any swindler, or any bloodthirsty beast is punished, God points out His judgment, as it were, with His finger. If we see no wickedness, nothing is better than to suspend our judgment concerning punishment.

2. The second caution is that we wait for the end. For as soon as God begins to strike, we do not immediately see His direction and purpose; but the eventual outcome declares that those who seem alike in people’s eyes in the likelihood of punishment actually differ greatly before God.

If anyone objects that it is not in vain that it is so often repeated in the Law that all private and public miseries are the scourges of God, I indeed grant that this is true. But I still deny that it keeps God from sparing whom He will for a time, though they are the worst of all people, and from punishing more sharply those whose fault is lesser.

Nevertheless, it is not our duty to make perpetual what happens often. We see now how the men of Melita were deceived: namely, because not having examined Paul’s life, they judge him to be a wicked man only because the viper bites him; and secondly, because they do not wait for the outcome, but give judgment rashly.

Nevertheless, we must note that those are detestable monsters who try to pluck out of their hearts all sense of God’s judgment, which is engrafted in all of us naturally, and which is also found in barbarians and savage people. As for their thinking that Paul is guilty of murder rather than of any other offense, they follow this reasoning because murder has always been most detestable.

Vengeance does not suffer. They conclude that he is a wicked man, because vengeance persecutes him though he has escaped the sea. And they imagined that the avenging goddess sat by the throne of Jupiter, whom they commonly called Δίκη; crudely, I grant, as people ignorant of pure religion, and yet not without some acceptable meaning, as if they had depicted God as the Judge of the world. But by these words the wrath of God is distinguished from fortune, and so the judgment of God is affirmed against all blind chance. For the men of Melita take it to be a sign of heavenly vengeance, in that though Paul was saved, yet he could not be safe.