John Calvin Commentary Genesis 17

And when Abram was ninety years old and nine. Moses passes over thirteen years of Abram’s life, not because nothing worthy of remembrance had occurred in the meantime, but because the Spirit of God, according to His own will, selects those things which are most necessary to be known.

He purposely points out the length of time that had elapsed from the birth of Ishmael to the period when Isaac was promised, to teach us that Abram long remained satisfied with that son who would eventually be rejected, and that he was, as it were, deluded by a deceptive appearance.

Meanwhile, we see the roundabout course by which the Lord led him. It was even possible that Abram brought this delay upon himself by his own fault, in having hastily entered into a second marriage; yet as Moses declares no such thing, I leave it undetermined. Let it be enough to accept what is certain: namely, that Abram, being content with his only son, ceased to desire any other seed.

The lack of offspring had previously stirred him to constant prayers and longings, for the promise of God was so fixed in his mind that he was ardently driven to seek its fulfillment. And now, falsely supposing that he had obtained his wish, he was led away by the presence of his son according to the flesh, from the expectation of a spiritual seed.

Again, the wonderful goodness of God reveals itself, in that Abram himself was raised, beyond his own expectation and desire, to a new hope; he suddenly heard that what he never thought to ask was granted to him. If he had been daily offering up persistent prayers for this blessing, we would not have seen so plainly that it was conferred upon him by the free gift of God, as when it is given to him without his either thinking of it or desiring it. Before we speak of Isaac, however, it will be worthwhile to notice the order and connection of the words.

First, Moses says that the Lord appeared to him, so that we may know that the oracle was not pronounced by secret revelation, but that a vision was also added to it. Besides, the vision was not speechless but had the word attached, from which word Abram’s faith might receive benefit. Now that word, in summary, contains this declaration: that God enters into covenant with Abram. It then unfolds the nature of the covenant itself and finally applies the seal to it, with the accompanying attestations.

I am the Almighty God. The Hebrew noun El, which is derived from power, is here used for God. The same remark applies to the accompanying word שדי (shaddai), as if God were declaring that He had sufficient power for Abram’s protection.

Our faith can only stand firmly while we are certainly persuaded that God’s defense is alone sufficient for us and can sincerely despise everything in the world that is opposed to our salvation. God, therefore, does not boast of that power which lies concealed within Himself, but of that which He manifests towards His children; and He does so in order that Abram might derive from this a basis for confidence. Thus, in these words, a promise is included.

Walk before me. The force of this expression we have explained elsewhere. In making the covenant, God stipulates for obedience on the part of His servant. Yet He does not prefix in vain the declaration that He is ‘the Almighty God’ and is furnished with power to help His own people, because it was necessary that Abram should be recalled from all other means of help, so that he might entirely devote himself to God alone.

For no one will ever turn to God except the one who keeps created things in their proper place and looks up to God alone. Indeed, once the power of God has been acknowledged, it ought to transport us with such admiration, and our minds ought to be so filled with reverence for Him, that nothing should hinder us from worshipping Him.

Moreover, because the eyes of God look for faith and truth in the heart, Abram is commanded to aim at integrity. For the Hebrews call him a man of perfections who is not of a deceitful or double mind but sincerely cultivates rectitude. In short, the integrity mentioned here is opposed to hypocrisy.

And surely, when we have to deal with God, no place for pretense remains. Now, from these words, we learn for what purpose God gathers a church for Himself: namely, that those whom He has called may be holy. The foundation, indeed, of the divine calling is a freely given promise; but it immediately follows that those whom He has chosen as a special people for Himself should devote themselves to the righteousness of God.

For on this condition He adopts children as His own, so that He may, in return, obtain the place and the honor of a Father. And as He Himself cannot lie, so He rightly demands mutual fidelity from His own children. Therefore, let us know that God manifests Himself to the faithful so that they may live as in His sight and may make Him the arbiter not only of their works but also of their thoughts. From this we also infer that there is no other method of living piously and justly than that of depending upon God.

And I will make my covenant He now begins more fully and abundantly to explain what he had alluded to briefly before. We have said that the covenant of God with Abram had two parts. The first was a declaration of gratuitous love, to which was added the promise of a happy life.

But the other was an exhortation to the sincere effort to cultivate uprightness, since God had given only a slight taste of his grace in a single word; and then immediately had descended to the design of the call: namely, that Abram should be upright.

He now adds a fuller declaration of his grace, so that Abram might more willingly strive to shape his mind and life, both to reverence for God and to the cultivation of uprightness. It is as if God had said, ‘See how kindly I am gracious to you: for I do not require integrity from you simply on account of my authority, which I might justly do; but since I owe you nothing, I graciously condescend to enter into a mutual covenant.’

He does not, however, speak of this as something new; rather, he recalls the covenant which he had made before, and now fully confirms and establishes its certainty.

For God is not accustomed to speak new oracles that might destroy the credibility, obscure the light, or weaken the effectiveness of those that came before. Instead, he continues, with consistent continuity, those promises that he has once given.

Therefore, by these words, he intends nothing other than that the covenant of which Abram had heard before should be established and ratified; but he expressly introduces that main point concerning the multiplication of seed, which he later frequently repeats.

And Abram fell on his face. We know that this was the ancient rite of adoration. Moreover, Abram testifies, first, that he acknowledges God, in whose presence all flesh ought to keep silence and be humbled; and, secondly, that he reverently receives and cordially embraces whatever God is about to speak.

If, however, this was intended as a confession of faith, we must observe that the faith which relies upon the grace of God cannot be separated from a pure conscience. God, in offering his grace to Abram, requires of him a sincere disposition to live justly and holily. Abram, in prostrating himself, declares that he obediently receives both.

Let us therefore remember that, in one and the same bond of faith, the gratuitous adoption in which our salvation is placed is to be combined with newness of life. And although Abram utters no word, he declares more fully by his silence than if he had spoken with a loud and sounding voice, that he yields obedience to the word of God.

As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee. Those who translate the passage, ‘Behold, I make a covenant with thee,’ or, ‘Behold, I and my covenant with thee,’ do not seem to me to faithfully represent the meaning of Moses. For, first, God declares that He is the speaker, so that absolute authority may appear in His words.

For since our faith can rest on no other foundation than His eternal veracity, it is, above all things, necessary for us to be informed that what is proposed to us has proceeded from His sacred mouth. Therefore, the pronoun ‘I’ is to be read separately as a preface to the rest, so that Abram might have a composed mind and might engage, without hesitation, in the proposed covenant.

From this a useful doctrine is deduced: that faith necessarily relates to God, because, even if all angels and men should speak to us, their authority would never appear great enough to confirm our minds. And it is inevitable that we should at times waver, until that voice sounds from heaven, ‘I am.’

From this it also appears what kind of religion the Papacy is, where, instead of the Word of God, the fictions of men are the sole subject of boast. And those who depend on the word of men are justly exposed to continual fluctuation, acting unjustly towards God by ascribing more to them than is right. But let us have no other foundation for our faith than this word ‘I’—not as spoken indifferently by any mouth whatever, but by the mouth of God alone. If, however, myriads of men set themselves in opposition and proudly exclaim, ‘We, we,’ let this single word of God be sufficient to dissipate the empty sound of multitudes.

And thou shalt be a father of many nations. It is asked, what is this multitude of nations? It obviously appears that different nations had their origin from the holy Patriarch: for Ishmael grew into a great people; the Idumeans, from another branch, were spread far and wide; large families also sprang from other sons, whom he had by Keturah.

But Moses looked still further, because, indeed, the Gentiles were to be, by faith, inserted into the stock of Abram, although not descended from him according to the flesh—a fact of which Paul is to us a faithful interpreter and witness.

For Paul does not gather together the Arabians, Idumeans, and others for the purpose of making Abram the father of many nations; rather, he extends the name of father so as to make it applicable to the whole world, so that the Gentiles—in other respects strangers and separated from each other—might from all sides combine into one family of Abram.

I grant, indeed, that for a time the twelve tribes were like so many nations, but only to form a prelude to that immense multitude which, at length, is gathered together as the one family of Abram. And that Moses speaks of those sons who, being regenerated by faith, acquire the name and pass over into the stock of Abram, is sufficiently proved by this one consideration.

For Abram’s carnal descendants could not be divided into different nations without those who departed from the unity being immediately considered strangers. Thus the Church rejected the Ishmaelites, Idumeans, and others, and regarded them as foreigners.

Abram, therefore, was not called the father of many nations because his seed was to be divided into many nations, but rather because many nations were to be gathered to him. A change of his name is also added as a token. For he begins to be called Abraham, so that the name itself might teach him that he would not be the father of only one family, but that a progeny should rise up for him from an immense multitude, beyond the common course of nature. For this reason, the Lord so often renews this promise, because its very repetition shows that no common blessing was promised.

And thy seed after thee. There is no doubt that the Lord distinguishes the race of Abraham from the rest of the world. We must now see what people He intends. Now they are deceived who think that His elect alone are pointed out here, and that all the faithful are indiscriminately included, from whatever people, according to the flesh, they are descended.

For, on the contrary, Scripture declares that the race of Abraham, by direct descent, had been especially accepted by God. It is the evident doctrine of Paul concerning the natural descendants of Abraham that they are holy branches which have proceeded from a holy root (Romans 11:16).

And so that no one should restrict this assertion to the shadows of the law, or evade it by allegory, he elsewhere expressly declares that Christ came to be a minister of the circumcision (Romans 15:8). Therefore, nothing is more certain than that God made His covenant with those sons of Abraham who were naturally to be born of him.

If anyone objects that this opinion does not at all agree with the former, in which we said that they are considered the children of Abraham who, being grafted in by faith into his body, form one family, the difference is easily reconciled. This can be done by establishing certain distinct degrees of adoption, which may be gathered from various passages of Scripture.

In the beginning, before this covenant, the condition of the whole world was one and the same. But as soon as it was said, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee, the Church was separated from other nations, just as in the creation of the world, the light emerged out of the darkness.

Then the people of Israel was received as the flock of God into their own fold; the other nations wandered like wild beasts through mountains, woods, and deserts. Since this dignity, in which the sons of Abraham excelled other nations, depended on the word of God alone, the gratuitous adoption of God belongs to them all in common.

For if Paul deprives the Gentiles of God and of eternal life on the ground of their being aliens from the covenant (Ephesians 4:18), it follows that all Israelites were of the household of the Church, sons of God, and heirs of eternal life.

And although it was by the grace of God, and not by nature, that they excelled the Gentiles, and although the inheritance of the kingdom of God came to them by promise and not by physical descent, yet they are sometimes said to differ by nature from the rest of the world.

In the Epistle to the Galatians (Galatians 2:15) and elsewhere, Paul calls them saints by nature, because God was willing that His grace should descend by a continual succession to the whole seed. In this sense, those who were unbelievers among the Jews are yet called the children of the heavenly kingdom by Christ (Matthew 8:12).

Nor does what Paul says contradict this: namely, that not all who are from Abraham are to be considered legitimate children, because they are not the children of the promise, but only of the flesh (Romans 9:8).

For there, the promise is not taken generally for that external word by which God conferred His favor upon the reprobate as well as upon the elect, but must be restricted to that efficacious calling, which He inwardly seals by His Spirit.

And that this is the case is proven without difficulty. For the promise by which the Lord had adopted them all as children was common to all, and in that promise, it cannot be denied that eternal salvation was offered to all.

What, therefore, can be the meaning of Paul when he denies that certain persons have any right to be counted among children, except that he is no longer reasoning about the externally offered grace, but about that of which only the elect effectively partake?

Here, then, a twofold class of sons presents itself to us in the Church. For since the whole body of the people is gathered together into the fold of God by one and the same voice, all without exception are in this respect accounted children; the name of the Church is applicable in common to them all. But in the innermost sanctuary of God, no others are counted the sons of God than those in whom the promise is ratified by faith.

And although this difference flows from the fountain of gratuitous election, from which faith itself also springs, yet since the counsel of God is in itself hidden from us, we therefore distinguish the true from the false children by the respective marks of faith and of unbelief.

This method and dispensation continued even to the proclamation of the gospel; but then the middle wall was broken down (Ephesians 2:14), and God made the Gentiles equal to the natural descendants of Abraham.

That was the renovation of the world, by which those who had previously been strangers began to be called sons. Yet whenever a comparison is made between Jews and Gentiles, the inheritance of life is assigned to the former as lawfully belonging to them, but to the latter, it is said to be acquired.

Meanwhile, the prophecy was fulfilled in which God promises that Abraham should be the father of many nations. For whereas previously, the natural sons of Abraham were succeeded by their descendants in continual succession, and the blessing which began with him flowed down to his children, the coming of Christ inverted the original order.

This introduced into his family those who before were separated from his seed. At length the Jews were cast out (except that a hidden seed of the election remained among them) so that the rest might be saved.

It was necessary that these things concerning the seed of Abraham should be stated at this point, so that they may open to us an easy introduction to what follows.

In their generations. This succession of generations clearly proves that the descendants of Abraham were taken into the Church in such a manner that sons might be born to them who should be heirs of the same grace. In this way the covenant is called perpetual, lasting until the renovation of the world, which took place at the coming of Christ.

I grant, indeed, that the covenant was without end and may properly be called eternal as far as the whole Church is concerned. However, it must always remain a settled point that the regular succession of ages was partly broken and partly changed by the coming of Christ. This was because the middle wall being broken down, and the sons by nature being at length disinherited, Abraham began to have a race associated with himself from all regions of the world.

To be a God unto thee. In this single phrase we are plainly taught that this was a spiritual covenant, not confirmed in reference to the present life only, but one from which Abraham might conceive the hope of eternal salvation, so that being raised even to heaven, he might lay hold of solid and perfect bliss.

For those whom God adopts to Himself from among a people—seeing that He makes them partakers of His righteousness and of all good things—He also constitutes heirs of heavenly life. Let us then mark this as the principal part of the covenant: that He who is the God of the living, not of the dead, promises to be a God to the children of Abraham.

It follows afterwards, as an addition to the grant, that He promised to give them the land. I confess, indeed, that something greater and more excellent than itself was foreshadowed by the land of Canaan; yet this is not at variance with the statement that the promise now made was an addition to that primary one, I will be thy God.

Now, although God again affirms, as before, that He will give the land to Abraham himself, we nevertheless know that Abraham never possessed dominion over it. But the holy man was contented with his title to it alone, although the possession of it was not granted him; and therefore, he calmly passed from his earthly pilgrimage into heaven.

God again repeats that He will be a God to the descendants of Abraham, so that they may not settle upon earth, but may regard themselves as trained for higher things.