John Calvin Commentary Genesis 17:7

"And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." — Genesis 17:7 (ASV)

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.