John Calvin Commentary Genesis 21:12

"And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy handmaid. In all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice. For in Isaac shall thy seed be called." — Genesis 21:12 (ASV)

In all that Sarah hath said unto thee. I have just said that although God used the ministry of Sarah in such a great matter, it was still possible that she might fail in her method of acting. He now commands Abraham to listen to his wife, not because He approves her disposition, but because He intends for the work, of which He Himself is the Author, to be accomplished.

And He thus shows that His designs are not to be subjected to any common rule, especially when the salvation of the Church is concerned. For He purposely inverts the accustomed order of nature, so that He may prove Himself to be the Author and the Perfecter of Isaac’s vocation.

But because I have previously declared that this history is more profoundly considered by Paul, its main points are to be briefly summarized here. In the first place, Paul says that what is read here was written allegorically—not that he wishes all histories to be indiscriminately tortured into an allegorical sense, as Origen does, who by hunting everywhere for allegories corrupts the whole Scripture, and others, too eagerly emulating his example, have extracted smoke from light.

And not only has the simplicity of Scripture been impaired, but the faith has been almost subverted, and the door opened to many foolish speculations. The design of Paul was to raise the minds of the pious to consider the secret work of God in this history, as if he had said that what Moses relates concerning the house of Abraham belongs to the spiritual kingdom of Christ, since, certainly, that household was a living image of the Church.

This, however, is the allegorical comparison that Paul commends. Since two sons were born to Abraham, one by a handmaid and the other by a free woman, he infers that there are two kinds of persons born in the Church: the faithful, whom God endows with the Spirit of adoption so that they may enjoy the inheritance; and hypocritical disciples, who pretend to be what they are not and usurp for a time a name and place among the sons of God.

He therefore teaches that there are some who are conceived and born in a servile manner, while others are, as it were, from a freeborn mother. He then proceeds to say that the sons of Hagar are those who are generated by the servile doctrine of the Law, but that those who, having embraced gratuitous adoption by faith, are born through the doctrine of the Gospel, are the sons of the free woman.

Finally, he moves to another comparison in which he compares Hagar with Mount Sinai, and Sarah with the heavenly Jerusalem. And although I allude here in few words to those things that my readers will find copiously expounded by me in the fourth chapter to the Galatians (Galatians 4:1), yet, in this short explanation, what Paul intends to teach is made perfectly clear.

We know that the true sons of God are born of the incorruptible seed of the word. But when the Spirit, who gives life to the doctrine of the Law and the Prophets, is taken away, and the dead letter alone remains, then that seed is so corrupted that only adulterous sons are born in a state of slavery.

Yet, because they are apparently born of the word of God (though corrupted), they are, in a sense, the sons of God.

Meanwhile, none are lawful heirs except those whom the Church brings forth into liberty, having been conceived by the incorruptible seed of the gospel. I have said, however, that the perpetual condition of the Church is represented in these two persons. For hypocrites not only mingle with the sons of God in the Church but also despise them and proudly appropriate to themselves all the rights and honors of the Church.

And as Ishmael, inflated with the vain title of primogeniture, harassed his brother Isaac with his taunts; so these men, relying on their own splendor, reproachfully assail and ridicule the true faith of the simple: because, by arrogating all things to themselves, they leave nothing to the grace of God.

Hence we are admonished that none have a well-grounded confidence of salvation except those who, being called freely, regard the mercy of God as their whole dignity. Again, the Spirit furnishes the consciences of the pious with strong and effective weapons against the ferocity of those who, under a false pretext, boast that they are the Church.

We see that it is no new thing for persons who are nothing but hypocrites to occupy the chief place in the Church of God. Therefore, while today the Papists proudly exult, there is no reason we should be disturbed by their empty and inflated boasts. As for their glorying in their long succession, it means just as much as if Ishmael were proclaiming himself the firstborn.

It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the true and the hypocritical Church. Paul describes a mark that they are never able, with their cavils, to obliterate. For as large bottles are broken with a slight blast, so by this single word all their glory is extinguished: the sons of the handmaid shall not be eternal inheritors.

In the meantime, their insolence is to be patiently endured, as long as God shall loosen the rein to their tyranny. For the Apostles, formerly, were oppressed by the Jewish hypocrites of their age with the same reproaches that these men now cast upon us. In the same way, Ishmael triumphed over Isaac, as if he had obtained the victory. Therefore, we must not wonder if our own age also has its Ishmaelites.

But lest such indignity should break our spirits, let this consolation perpetually come to mind: that those who hold preeminence in the Church will not always remain within it.