Commentary on Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians Thessalonians Timothy Titus and Philemon John Calvin (continued)
CHAPTER 3
that they impede the right course of the pious by worthless amusements. 602
1. If ye are risen with Christ. Ascension follows resurrection: hence, if we are the members of Christ we must ascend into heaven, because he, on being raised up from the dead, was received up into heaven, (Mark 16:19,) that he might draw us up with him. Now, we seek those things which are above, when in our minds 603 we are truly sojourners in this world, and are not bound to it. The word rendered think upon expresses rather assiduity and intensity of aim: ``Let your whole meditation be as to this: to this apply your intellect --- to this your mind.'' But if we ought to think of nothing but of what is heavenly, because Christ is in heaven, how much less becoming were it to seek Christ upon the earth. Let us therefore bear in mind that that is a true and holy thinking as to Christ, which forthwith bears us up into heaven, that we may there adore him, and that our minds may dwell with him.
As to the right hand of God, it is not confined to heaven, but fills the whole world. Paul has made mention of it here to intimate that Christ encompasses us by his power, that we may not think that distance of place is a cause of separation between us and him, and that at the same time his majesty may excite us wholly to reverence him.
2. Not the things that are on earth. He does not mean, as he does a little afterwards, depraved appetites, which reign in earthly men, nor even riches, or fields, or houses, nor any other things of the present life, which we must use, as though we did not use them, (1 Corinthians 7:30, 31) 604 but is still following out his discussion as to ceremonies, which he represents as resembling entanglements which constrain us to creep upon the ground. ``Christ,'' says he, ``calls us upwards to himself, while these draw us downwards.'' For this is the winding-up and exposition of what he had lately touched upon as to the abolition of ceremonies through the death of Christ. ``The ceremonies are dead to you through the death of Christ, and you to them, in order that, being raised up to heaven with Christ, you may think only of those things that are above. Leave off therefore earthly things.'' I shall not contend against others who are of a different mind; but certainly the Apostle appears to me to go on step by step, so that, in the first instance, he places traditions as to trivial matters in contrast with meditation on the heavenly life, and afterwards, as we shall see, goes a step farther.
3. For ye are dead. No one can rise again with Christ, if he has not first died with him. Hence he draws an argument from rising again to dying, as from a consequent to an antecedent, 605 meaning that we must be dead to the world that we may live to Christ. Why has he taught, that we must seek those things that are above? It is because the life of the pious is above. Why does he
602"Par des amusemens plus que pueriles;" — "By worse than childish amusements." 603"De cœur et esprit;" — "In heart and spirit." 604See Calvin on the Corinthians, vol. 1, p. 257. 605"C'est a dire de ce qui suit a ce qui va deuant;" — "That is to say, from what follows to what comes before."