John Calvin Commentary Hebrews 8:11

"And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For all shall know me, From the least to the greatest of them." — Hebrews 8:11 (ASV)

And they shall not teach, etc. We have said that the third point is, so to speak, a part of the second, included in these words, I will put my laws in their mind; for it is the work of the Spirit of God to illuminate our minds, so that we may know what the will of God is, and also to bend our hearts to obedience.

For the right knowledge of God is a wisdom that far surpasses the comprehension of human understanding; therefore, no one is able to attain it except through the secret revelation of the Spirit.

Therefore Isaiah, in speaking of the restoration of the Church, says that all God’s children would be His disciples or scholars (Isaiah 28:16). The meaning of our Prophet is the same when he introduces God as saying, They shall know me. For God does not promise what is in our own power, but what He alone can perform for us.

In short, these words of the Prophet are the same as if he had said that our minds are blind and destitute of all right understanding until they are illuminated by the Spirit of God. Thus God is rightly known only by those to whom He, in His special favor, has been pleased to reveal Himself.

By saying, From the least to the greatest, he first indicates that God’s grace would be poured out on all ranks of people, so that no class would be without it. Secondly, he reminds us that no unrefined and ignorant people are precluded from this heavenly wisdom, and that the great and the noble cannot attain it by their own acuteness or by the help of learning. Thus God connects the humblest and the lowest with the highest, so that the ignorance of the former is no impediment, nor can the latter ascend so high by their own acumen; but the one Spirit is equally the teacher of them all.

Fanatical people use this as an opportunity to do away with public preaching, as if it were of no use in Christ’s kingdom; but their madness can be easily exposed. Their objection is this: “After the coming of Christ everyone is to teach his neighbor; away then with the external ministry, so that a place may be given to the internal inspiration of God.” But they overlook this: the Prophet does not wholly deny that they would teach one another, but his words are these, They shall not teach, saying, Know the Lord; as if he had said, “Ignorance shall not, as previously, so possess the minds of people as not to know who God is.” But we know that the use of teaching is twofold: first, that those who are wholly ignorant may learn the first elements; and secondly, that those who are initiated may make progress.

Since then Christians, as long as they live, ought to make progress, it surely cannot be said that anyone is so wise that he does not need to be taught; so that no small part of our wisdom is a teachable spirit. And what is the way of making progress if we desire to be the disciples of Christ? This is shown to us by Paul when he says that Christ gave pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11). Thus it appears that the Prophet by no means intended to rob the Church of such a benefit. His only object was to show that God would make Himself known to small and great, according to what was also predicted by Joel 2:28. It should also be noted in passing that this light of sacred knowledge is promised specifically to the Church; therefore this passage belongs only to the household of faith.