John Calvin Commentary Hebrews 11:26

"accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of reward." — Hebrews 11:26 (ASV)

Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches, etc. This clause should be carefully noticed, for we learn here that we should shun as a deadly poison whatever cannot be enjoyed without offending God. For he calls the pleasures of sin all the allurements of the world which draw us away from God and our calling.

But the comforts of our earthly life, which we are allowed to enjoy with a pure conscience and God’s permission, are not included here. Let us then always remember that we should know and understand what God allows us. There are indeed some things in themselves lawful, but the use of which is prohibited to us, due to circumstances related to time, place, or other things. Therefore, regarding all the blessings connected with the present life, what must always be considered is that they should be helps and aids for us to follow God, and not hindrances. And he calls these pleasures of sin temporary, or for a time, because they soon vanish away together with life itself.

In opposition to these, he sets the reproach of Christ, which all the godly should willingly undergo. For those whom God has chosen, he has also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his own Son; not that he subjects them all to the same kind of reproaches or the same cross, but that they are all to be so resolved as not to refuse to take up the cross in common with Christ.

Let everyone then bear in mind that, as he is called to this fellowship, he must throw off all hindrances. Nor should we fail to mention that Christ counts among his reproaches all the ignominious trials which the faithful have had to endure from the beginning of the world; for as they were members of the same body, so they had nothing different from what we have.

As all sorrows are indeed the rewards of sin, so they are also the fruits of the curse pronounced on the first man. But whatever wrongs we endure from the ungodly on account of Christ, these he regards as his own. Hence Paul gloried that he made up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ. If we rightly considered this, it would not be so grievous and bitter for us to suffer for Christ.

He also explains more fully what he means in this clause by the reproach of Christ, by what he has previously declared when he said that Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God. He could not have otherwise avowed himself as one of God’s people unless he had made himself a companion to his own nation in their miseries. Since, then, this is the purpose, let us not separate ourselves from the body of the Church: whatever we suffer, let us know that it is consecrated on account of the head. So, on the other hand, he calls those things the treasures of Egypt, which no one can possess otherwise than by renouncing and forsaking the Church.

For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward, or, he looked to the remuneration. He proves by the description he gives that Moses’s magnanimity of mind was due to faith, for he had his eyes fixed on the promise of God. For he could not have hoped that it would be better for him to be with the people of Israel than with the Egyptians if he had not trusted in the promise and in nothing else.

But if anyone therefore concludes that his faith did not rest on God’s mercy alone because he had respect to the reward, to this I answer: the question here is not about righteousness or the cause of salvation. Rather, the Apostle generally includes what belongs to faith.

Therefore, faith, when it comes to righteousness before God, does not look to reward but to the gratuitous goodness of God; not to our works, but to Christ alone.

However, faith, apart from justification, since it extends generally to every word of God, does have respect to the promised reward. Indeed, by faith we embrace whatever God promises. Since he promises reward to works, faith also lays hold of this.

But all this has no place in free justification, for no reward for works can be hoped for unless the imputation of gratuitous justification comes first.