John Calvin Commentary Ezekiel 16:21

"that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through [the fire] unto them?" — Ezekiel 16:21 (ASV)

He reinforces the same statement and more clearly explains that they offered their sons and daughters by cruelly sacrificing them when they passed them through the fire. This was a kind of purifying, as we have seen elsewhere. Therefore, when they passed their children through the fire, it was a rite of purification and expiation; and they brought them to the fire, as I have recently explained, in two different ways.

Here the Prophet speaks especially of that cruel and brutal offering. We have already mentioned the sense in which God claims a right in the sons of His people, not as members of the Church, strictly speaking, but as adopted by God. And here again, we must hold to what Paul says: that not all the descendants of Abraham were legitimate sons, since a distinction must be made between sons of the flesh and sons of promise (Romans 9:7–8).

This is still partially obscure, but it can be briefly explained. We may note that there was a twofold election of God: for, speaking generally, He chose the whole family of Abraham. For circumcision was common to all, being the symbol and seal of adoption: because when God wished all the sons of Abraham to be circumcised, from the least to the greatest, He at the same time chose them as His sons. This was one kind of adoption or election.

But the other was secret, because God took to Himself from that multitude those whom He wished. These are sons of promise; these are remnants of gratuitous favor, as Paul says (Romans 11:8). This distinction, therefore, now removes all doubt, since the Prophet speaks of the unbelievers and the profane who had departed from the worship of God.

For this, their unbelief was a complete abdication. It is true, then, that as far as they themselves were concerned, they were strangers, and so God’s secret election did not flourish in them. Yet they were God’s people regarding external profession.

If anyone objects that this circumcision was useless, and therefore their election without the slightest effect, the answer is readily available: God, by His unique kindness, honored those miserable ones by opening a way of approach for them to the hope of life and salvation through the outward testimonies of adoption.

Then, regarding their being strangers at the same time, that happened through their own fault. Therefore, we may briefly maintain that the Jews were naturally accursed through being Adam’s seed. However, by supernatural and unique privilege, they were exempt and free from the curse, because circumcision was a testimony of the adoption by which God had consecrated them to Himself. Therefore, they were holy; and regarding their being impure, this could not, as we have said, abolish God’s covenant.

The same thing ought at this time to hold true in the Papacy. For we are all born under the curse, and yet God supernaturally acknowledges as His sons all who descend from the faithful, not only in the first or second generation but even to a thousand generations. And so Paul says that the children of the faithful are holy, since baptism does not lose its efficacy, and the adoption of God remains fixed (1 Corinthians 7:14), yet the greater part are outside the covenant through their own unbelief.

Meanwhile, God has preserved for Himself a remnant in all ages, and at this day He chooses whom He wills from the mixed multitude.

Now let us go on. I had omitted at the end of the last verse the phrase, Are thy fornications a small matter? By this question, God wishes to press the point home to the Jews, since they had not only violated their conjugal fidelity by prostituting themselves to idols but had also added the cruelty we have seen in slaying their sons. Lastly, He shows that their impiety was desperate.