John Calvin Commentary Romans 2:17

"But if thou bearest the name of a Jew, and restest upon the law, and gloriest in God," — Romans 2:17 (ASV)

Behold, you are named a Jew, etc. Some old copies read εἰ δὲ, though indeed; which, if it were generally received, would meet my approval. However, since the greater part of the manuscripts are opposed to it, and the sense is not unsuitable, I retain the old reading, especially since it is only a small difference of one letter.

Having now completed what he meant to say about the Gentiles, he returns to the Jews. So that he might, with greater force, beat down their great vanity, he grants them all those privileges by which they were immeasurably carried away and inflated. Then he shows how insufficient these privileges were for attaining true glory, indeed, how they turned to their reproach.

Under the name Jew, he includes all the privileges of the nation, which they vainly pretended were derived from the Law and the Prophets. And so he includes all the Israelites, all of whom were then, without distinction, called Jews.

But when this name first originated is uncertain, except that it undoubtedly arose after the dispersion. Josephus, in the eleventh book of his Antiquities, thinks that it was taken from Judas Maccabeus, under whose leadership the liberty and honor of the people—after having fallen for some time and been almost buried—revived again.

Although I consider this opinion probable, yet, if there are some for whom it is not satisfactory, I will offer them a conjecture of my own.

Indeed, it seems very likely that after being degraded and scattered through so many disasters, they were not able to retain any certain distinction regarding their tribes. For a census could not have been taken at that time, nor did a regular government exist, which was necessary to preserve an order of this kind. They lived scattered and in disorder; and having been worn out by adversities, they were undoubtedly less attentive to the records of their lineage.

But even if you do not grant these things to me, it still cannot be denied that a danger of this kind was connected with such a disturbed state of affairs. Therefore, whether they meant to provide for the future, or to remedy an evil already experienced, they all, I think, assumed the name of that tribe in which the purity of religion remained the longest. This tribe, by a peculiar privilege, excelled all the rest, as the Redeemer was expected to come from it; for it was their refuge in all extremities to console themselves with the expectation of the Messiah.

However this may be, by the name of Jews they declared themselves to be the heirs of the covenant which the Lord had made with Abraham and his descendants.

And you rest in the Law, and glory in God, etc. He does not mean that they rested in attending to the Law, as though they applied their minds to keeping it. On the contrary, he reproves them for not observing the purpose for which the Law had been given. For they had no concern for its observance and were inflated on this account only—because they were persuaded that the oracles of God belonged to them.

In the same way they gloried in God—not as the Lord commands by His prophet, to humble ourselves and to seek our glory in Him alone (Jeremiah 9:24). Instead, being without any knowledge of God’s goodness, they claimed Him—of whom they were inwardly destitute—as peculiarly their own. They presumed to be His people merely for the purpose of vain ostentation before men. This, then, was not a glorying of the heart, but a boasting of the tongue.