John Calvin Commentary John 9:22

"These things said his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man should confess him [to be] Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue." — John 9:22 (ASV)

The Jews had determined. This passage shows that the custom of excommunication is ancient and has been observed in all ages. For excommunication was not then invented for the first time, but it was a custom that had been previously used against apostates and despisers of the Law, and was turned against the disciples of Christ.

We learn, therefore, that the practice of excommunication arose from the most ancient discipline of the Church. We also learn that it is a crime—not of recent origin, nor peculiar to a single age—that wicked and unbelieving men should corrupt the holy ordinances of God by their deeds of sacrilege.

God determined, from the beginning of the world, that there should be some form of correction by which rebels would be restrained. The priests and scribes not only abused this power in a tyrannical manner to oppress innocent men, but eventually they basely attacked God himself and his doctrine. The truth of Christ being so powerful that they could not put it down by law or by a regular course of proceedings, they launched the thunders of excommunications to crush it.

The same thing has also been done to the Christian people. For it is impossible to express the barbarous tyranny that the pretended bishops have exercised in enslaving the people, so that no one dared to whisper; and now we see with what cruelty they throw this dart of excommunication against all who worship God. But we ought to believe that excommunication, when it is violently applied to a different purpose by the passions of men, may safely be treated with contempt.

For when God committed to his Church the power of excommunicating, he did not arm tyrants or executioners to strangle souls, but laid down a rule for governing his people, on the condition that he himself should hold supreme authority and that men should be his ministers. Let the pretended bishops then thunder as they think fit; by their empty noises they will not terrify anyone except those who wander about in doubt and uncertainty, not yet having been instructed by the voice of the Chief Shepherd about what the true fold is.

In short, nothing can be more certain than that those who, we see, are not subject to Christ are deprived of the lawful power of excommunicating. Nor should we dread being excluded by them from their assembly, since Christ, who is our life and salvation, is banished from it.

Far from having any reason to dread being thrown out, on the contrary, if we desire to be united with Christ, we must, of our own accord, withdraw from the synagogues of Satan.

Although the ordinance of excommunication was so basely corrupted in the ancient Church, Christ still did not intend that it should be abolished by his coming, but restored it to its purity, so that it might be in full vigor among us. Thus, although today a base profanation of this holy discipline prevails in Popery, instead of abolishing it, we ought rather to apply the utmost diligence to restore it to its former completeness.

There will never be such good order in the world that even the holiest laws of God will not degenerate into corruption through human fault. Assuredly, it would give too much power to Satan if he could reduce to nothing everything that he corrupts. We would then have no Baptism, no Lord’s Supper, and, in short, no religion, for there is no part of it that he has left uncontaminated by his pollutions.