Commentary on Ezekiel Chapters 1-20 John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
of light created darkness; for by the feint of speaking in God's name, they darkened men's minds. That sacred name is, as it were, a fount of splendor, so as far to surpass the light of the sun; nay, whatever light exists, is made apparent and refulgent by it. But, as I have said, the servants of Satan turn light, into darkness, because they audaciously boast that God has said so. This passage and similar ones show us how diligently we ought to guard against Satan's fallacies. This is their astounding boldness to bring forward God's name while they so wantonly trifle with his judgments. For to boast that God has spoken is as if we wished, by impious profanation, purposely to draw him into a dispute. For how can God bear us to turn his truth into lie? But there have been impostors in all ages who have thus thoughtlessly flown in the face of God. We are not surprised at the heathen doing so; but in the chosen people, it was certainly an incredible prodigy and an intolerable disgrace, when they had access to all heavenly doctrine for the guidance of their conduct, and when God was daily calling forth prophets, as he had promised by Moses, to see these impious dogs who barked so, and you pretended so proudly to speak in God's name.
(Deuteronomy 18:15-18.) Admonished, then, by this caution, let us be on our guard when we see Satan's servants endued with such arrogance. It follows ---
Ezekiel 13:8-9
8. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord GOD.
8. Propterea sic dicit Dominator Iehovah, eo quod locuti estis vanitatem, et vidistis mendacium, 280 propterea ecce ego contra eos, dicit Dominator Iehovah.
9. And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
9. Et erit manus mea contra prophetas qui vident vanitatem, et qui divinant mendacium: in consilio populi mei non erunt, et in scriptura 281 domus Israel non scribentur: et ad terram Israel non redibunt: et cognoscitis quod ego Dominator Iehovah.
Here at length he begins to pronounce judgment against the false prophets. Hitherto, under the form of a complaint, he shows how wickedly they had corrupted and profaned his sacred name: then how impiously they had rendered prophecies contemptible by their lies, and how cruel they were to the people whose safety ought to be their first care, and how they drew on the miserable to destruction. For after God has so narrated their sins, he now denounces punishment; and, first, generally he says that he was their adversary. This clause is by no means superfluous, since such carelessness would not have besotted the impious, unless they thought themselves free from all dealings with God; hence they utterly reject all fear and sin with freedom. But this could not happen, unless they determined that God either sleeps, or does not behold human affairs or trifles as they do. Since, therefore, false prophets very licentiously corrupt God's word, when they pretend it to be a pleasant sport; God, on the other hand, pronounces Himself their adversary; as if he said, your con-
280There is a change of expression here, since he had formerly said, "you have spoken a divination of falsehood and have seen a vision of vanity." — Calvin.
281That is, "in the catalogue." — Calvin.
EZEKIEL
test shall not be with men, but I will be the avenger of so wicked a profanation of my name.
Besides, he afterwards points out the punishment; my hand, says he, shall be against the prophets. For although God threatens to become an adversary to the reprobate, yet this is not sufficient to terrify them, they are so stupid. But it is necessary to use another stimulus, namely, that God should display his power. This is the reason why he now adds, his hand should be against the false prophets. The hand is sometimes taken for a blow: but because God sees the impious torpid amidst their sins, he says that he would not only be their enemy and an avenger of his glory, but he brings forward his own hand into the midst. It follows, they shall not be in the counsel of my people. Some explain the noun {,}סודsod, more subtlety than they need for that experience of God which is offered to the elect for their salvation.
But this explanation is forced, for they are deceived in thinking that the Prophet's meaning is different in the second clause, where he adds, they shall not be written in the list of the house of Israel: he repeats the same thing in different words: in the first place he had said, they should not be in the secret of the people: for {,}סוד sod, signifies a secret, but it is taken for counsel: they shall not be therefore in the assembly of the people: afterwards he adds, they shall not be in the catalogue of the house of Israel. He mentions a catalogue, because judges and others elected to any office were written in a list. We see, therefore, what the Prophet intends --- for I am compelled to break off here --- namely, that those impostors who wished to enjoy the prophetic title, were altogether without the Church, since God had cast them off.
PRAYER.
Grant, Almighty God, since we are so torpid in our vices that excitements are daily necessary to rouse us up, first, that our destined pastors may faithfully call us to repentance; then, that we in our turn may be so attentive to their exhortations, and so suffer ourselves to be condemned, that we may be our own judges: Grant also, that when you chastise us severely, the taste of thy paternal goodness may never be so lost to us, so that a way may always be open to us to seek reconciliation in Jesus Christ our Lord. --- Amen.
Lecture Thirty-Fifth.
We explained yesterday what the Prophet meant when he pronounces that the impostors who deceived the people should not be in the counsel of the pious nor in their catalogue, and we said that this was twice repeated. Now the question arises, did the Prophet speak of the secret election of God, or only of an external state?
For although these traitors were at the greatest distance from the Church, yet we know that they boasted in a common title like Ishmael, who, until he was cast out of his father's house, proudly boasted in his right of birth. (Genesis 21:9.) And at this day, we see how the Papists claim to themselves the name of ``the Church,'' since they pretend to the perpetual succession: and truly we are compelled to confess that the ordinary ministry is with them. But because they have tyrannically abused their power, and have altogether overthrown that method of governing the Church
JOHN CALVIN
which the Lord had appointed, we may safely laugh at their boastings. 282 There was the same haughtiness in the false prophets of old, who asserted that they held no mean rank among the people, because they were created prophets by God. Hence, therefore, we gather that these words are not used of any external state, because a place among the elect people was always conceded to them. Without doubt, then, we must understand the contrast between the true members of the Church and hypocrites, who pretend to the name of God. And for this reason it is said in Psalm
15:2, as well as Psalm 24:4, that not all who go up to the mount of God have a perpetual seat there, unless they are pure in heart and hand. The sum of the whole then is, although false prophets thunder forth their boasts with inflated cheeks, and claim the prophetic name, yet they thought not to be reckoned in that rank, as they are altogether without the elect people.
But a second question arises out of this. If the Prophet denies their right to be included in the council of the pious, he ought not to speak in the future tense: because as God's election is eternal, so his sons were written in the book of life before the creation of the world. But he says they shall not be written, and this seems absurd.
But Ezekiel here accommodates his language to the usual custom of mankind. The language of the psalm is harsher: let them be blotted from the book of life, since they are not written among the just. (Psalm 69:28.) For it cannot happen that he who is once written in the book of life can ever be blotted out. But in the second clause the Prophet explains himself --- that they be not written with the just; that is, that they be not written in the catalogue of the just. So also Ezekiel now says: they shall not be in the secret of my people, and they shall not be written in the writing of the house of Israel: because for a time they seemed to be in the number of the pious: hence a change of expression is here used, but only in accommodation to the rudeness of our mind.
This passage is useful in this sense. The Holy Spirit admonishes us that it is not sufficient to suppose men members of the Church because the greater number seem to excel others, just as the chaff is above the wheat and suffocates it: thus hypocrites bury the sons of God whose number is small, while they shine forth in their own splendor, and their multitude makes them seem exclusively worthy of the title of the Church. Hence let us learn to examine ourselves, and to search whether those interior marks by which God distinguishes his children from strangers belong to us, viz., the living root of piety and faith. This passage also teaches that nothing is more formidable than to be rejected from God's flock. For no safety is to be hoped for, except as God collects us into one body under one head. First, all safety resides in Christ alone; and then we cannot be separated from Christ without falling away from all hope of safety: but Christ will not and cannot be torn from his Church with which he is joined in all indissoluble knot, as the head to the body. Hence, unless we cultivate unity with the faithful, we see that we are cut off from Christ: hence I said that nothing was more to be feared than that separation of which mention is here
282The subject of "the perpetual succession" being so fully discussed in the present day, this admission of Calvin's is worthy of notice. The Latin has ordinarium ministerium: the French, "le ministere ordinaire." The reasons which he gives for rejecting such pretensions would be deemed by many unsatisfactory.