John Calvin Commentary Leviticus 26:3

"If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;" — Leviticus 26:3 (ASV)

ITS REPETITION

If you walk in my statutes. We now have to deal with two remarkable passages in which he expressly addresses the rewards that the servants of God may expect and the punishments that await transgressors. I have indeed already observed that whatever God promises us on the condition of our walking in His commandments would be ineffectual if He were to be rigorous in examining our works. From this it follows that we must renounce all the covenants of the Law if we desire to obtain favor with God. But since, however defective the works of believers may be, they are nevertheless pleasing to God through the intervention of pardon, hence also the efficacy of the promises depends, namely, when the strict condition of the law is moderated. While, therefore, they reach forward and strive, reward is given to their efforts although imperfect, exactly as if they had fully discharged their duty; for, since their deficiencies are put out of sight by faith, God honors with the title of reward what He freely gives them. Consequently, “to walk in the commandments of God” is not precisely equivalent to performing whatever the Law demands; but in this expression is included the indulgence with which God regards His children and pardons their faults. The promise, therefore, is not without fruit as respects believers, while they endeavor to consecrate themselves to God, although they are still far from perfection. This is according to the teaching of the Prophet: I will spare them as a man spares his own son that serves him (Malachi 3:17); meaning that their obedience would not be acceptable to Him because it was deserving, but because He regards it with His fatherly favor. From this it appears how foolish is the pride of those who imagine that they make God their debtor, as if according to His agreement.

The restriction of the recompense mentioned here to this earthly and transitory life is a part of the elementary instruction of the Law. For, just as the spiritual grace of God was represented to the ancient people by shadows and images, so the same principle also applied to both rewards and punishments. Reconciliation with God was represented to them by the blood of cattle; there were various forms of expiation, but all outward and visible, because their substance had not yet appeared in Christ. For the same reason, therefore, because such clear and familiar acquaintance with eternal life and the final resurrection had not yet been attained by the Fathers as now shines forth in the Gospel, God for the most part showed by external proofs that He was favorably disposed to His people or offended with them.

Because nowadays God does not openly take vengeance on sins as in former times, fanatics infer that He has almost changed His nature. Indeed, on this pretext, the Manicheans²⁰⁷ imagined that the God of Israel was different from ours. But this error springs from gross and disgraceful ignorance, for by not distinguishing His different modes of dealing, they do not hesitate impiously to cut God Himself in two.

The earth does not now split open to swallow up the rebellious;²⁰⁸ God does not now thunder from heaven as against Sodom; He does not now send fire upon wicked cities as He did in the Israelitish camp; fiery serpents are not sent forth to inflict deadly bites. In a word, such manifest instances of punishment are not daily presented before our eyes to make God terrible to us. This is because the voice of the Gospel sounds much more clearly in our ears, like the sound of a trumpet, by which we are summoned to the heavenly tribunal of Christ. Let us then learn to tremble at that sentence which banishes all the wicked from the kingdom of God.

So, on the other hand, God does not appear, as in former times, as the rewarder of His people by earthly blessings. This is because we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God; because it is fitting for us to be conformed to our Head, and through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of heaven. Thus, the greater the adversities that oppress us, the more cheerfully we should lift up our heads until Christ gathers us into the fellowship of His glory, and pursue the course of our calling for the hope that is set before us in heaven; in a word,

denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:12–13).

I admit, indeed, the truth of what Paul teaches, that “godliness” even now has “the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come,” (1 Timothy 4:8); and assuredly believers already taste on earth of that blessedness which they will hereafter enjoy in its fullness. God also inflicts His judgments on the ungodly in order to remind us of the last judgment; but still the distinction to which I have referred is obvious, that since God has opened to us the heavenly life in the Gospel, He now calls us directly to it, whereas He led the Fathers to it as it were by steps. For this reason Paul elsewhere teaches that believers are afflicted in this world as

a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that they may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which they also suffer, seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense, etc. (2 Thessalonians 1:5–6).

In short, let us not wonder anymore that the Israelites were only attracted and alarmed by temporal rewards and punishments, than that the land of Canaan was to them a symbol of their eternal inheritance, in which, nevertheless, they confessed themselves strangers and pilgrims; from which the Apostle correctly concludes that they desired a better country (Genesis 47:9; Psalms 39:12; Hebrews 11:16). And thus the wild absurdity of those is refuted who suppose that the Fathers were contented with perishable felicity, as if God merely gorged them in a tavern.²⁰⁹ Still the distinction which I have noted remains, that God manifested Himself more fully as a Father and Judge by temporal blessings and punishments than since the promulgation of the Gospel.

²⁰⁷ “Through him (Manes) Christianity was to be set free from all connection with Judaism.” — Neander’s Church Hist., (Rose’s Transl.,) vol. 2, p. 145. “The theological error which naturally and immediately flowed from these principles, (i..e., the principles of Dualism,) was the entire rejection of the authority of the Old Testament. In respect to this question, Manes was compelled by his adoption of the oriental philosophy to reject the theosophy of the Jews.” — Waddington’s Hist. of the Church, vol. 1 p. 154.., the principles of Dualism,) was the entire rejection of the authority of the Old Testament. In respect to this question, Manes was compelled by his adoption of the oriental philosophy to reject the theosophy of the Jews.” — Waddington’s Hist. of the Church, vol. 1 p. 154.

²⁰⁸ “Comme Core, Dathan, et Abiram.” — Fr..

²⁰⁹ “This discussion, which would have been most useful at any rate, has been rendered necessary by that monstrous miscreant Servetus, and some madmen of the sect of the , and some madmen of the sect of the Anabaptists, who think of the people of Israel as they would do of some herd of swine, absurdly imagining that the Lord gorged them with temporal blessings here, and gave them no hope of a blessed immortality.” — Institutes, B. 2. ch. 10. sect. 1. Cal. Soc. Trans., vol. 1, p. 501., who think of the people of Israel as they would do of some herd of swine, absurdly imagining that the Lord gorged them with temporal blessings here, and gave them no hope of a blessed immortality.” — Institutes, B. 2. ch. 10. sect. 1. Cal. Soc. Trans., vol. 1, p. 501.