Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew Mark and Luke John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
find it explained under the tenth chapter of Matthew. 1077
And then will he render to every one according to his actions. The reward of works has been treated by me as fully as was necessary under another passage. 1078 It amounts to this: When a reward is promised to good works, their merit is not contrasted with the justification which is freely bestowed on us through faith; nor is it pointed out as the cause of our salvation, but is only held out to excite believers to aim at doing what is right, 1079 by assuring them that their labor will not be lost.
There is a perfect agreement, therefore, between these two statements, that we are justified freely, (Romans 3:24,) because we are received into God's favor without any merit; 1080 and yet that God, of his own good pleasure, bestows on our works a reward which we did not deserve.
28. Verily, I say to you. As the disciples might still hesitate and inquire when that day would be, our Lord animates them by the immediate assurance, that he will presently give them a proof of his future glory. We know the truth of the common proverb, that to one who is in expectation even speed looks like delay; but never does it hold more true, than when we are told to wait for our salvation till the coming of Christ. To support his disciples in the meantime, our Lord holds out to them, for confirmation, an intermediate period; as much as to say, "If it seem too long to wait for the day of my coming, I will provide against this in good time; for before you come to die, you will see with your eyes that kingdom of God, of which I bid you entertain a confident hope." This is the natural import of the words; for the notion adopted by some, that they were intended to apply to John, is ridiculous.
Coming in his kingdom. By the coming of the kingdom of God we are to understand the manifestation of heavenly glory, which Christ began to make at his resurrection, and which he afterwards made more fully by sending the Holy Spirit, and by the performance of miracles; for by those beginnings he gave his people a taste of the newness of the heavenly life, when they perceived, by certain and undoubted proofs, that he was sitting at the right hand of the Father.
1077Harmony, vol. 1 p. 466. 1078"Alibi is a general reference, but en un autre passage is more specific; and the passage to which he probably refers the reader for a distinct exhibition of his views, and in which, so far as I remember, he handles this subject more fully than in any other part of the Gospels, is John 4:36." — Ed. 1079"A faire bonnes oeuvres;" — "to do good works." 1080"Sans que nous en soyons dignes, ou l'ayons meritd;" — "without being worthy of it, or having deserved it."