Commentary on Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah and Malachi John Calvin
MINOR PROPHETS
that Scripture sometimes concedes to them a name which they falsely claim. So also the word spirit is sometimes applied to them ---
the spirits, whether they are of God: every spirit that denies that Christ has come in the flesh, he is a liar.''
John doubtless adopted this mode of speaking according to common usage; for all false teachers claimed this title with great confidence, and maintained that all the errors they spread abroad were revealed to them by the Spirit.'' Be it so then, but ye are lying spirits.''
Now then as to this title, there is no obscurity in what the Prophet means: and by way of explanation he adds the unclean spirit, that he might distinguish those vile men from the faithful ministers of God; as though he had said, ``They indeed declare that they have drawn down the Spirit from heaven; but it is the spirit of the devil, it is an unclean spirit.'' Now as Zechariah declares, that this would be in the Church of God, we learn how foolish the Papists are, who are content with the mere title of honor, and claim to themselves the greatest power, and will have themselves heard without dispute, as though they were the organs of the Spirit. What right indeed do they pretend? that they have been called by the Lord. The same reason might have been assigned by these unprincipled men, whom it was necessary to drive away, in order that the Church might rise again. It then follows that we are not to consider only what name a person has, or with what title he is distinguished, but how rightly he conducts himself, and how faithfully he performs his duties and discharges the office of a pastor. Let us proceed -
Zechariah 13:3
3. And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.
3. Et erit, quum prophetaverit vir (hoc est, quispiam) adhuc, dicent ad eum pater ejus et mater ejus, qui eum genuerunt, Non vies, qu ia mendacium loquutus es in nomine Iehovae; et transfigent eum (vel, confodient, nam habetur verbum illud, [{,]}דקרquod heri vidimus) pater ejus et mater ejus, qui genuerunt eum, quia prophetaverit.
The same concession is made in this verse, where Zechariah speaks of the office of prophesying: he indeed confines what he says altogether to false teachers, for he takes it as granted that there was then no attention given to God's servants, inasmuch as false spirits had conspired together, so that nothing pure or sound remained in the Church. As then a false and diabolical faction had then prevailed, Zechariah calls them Prophets as though they were all such, for they were heard as the Lord's servants during that disorder of which mention is made. But he proceeds farther in this verse than before, and says, that there would be so much zeal in God's children when renewed by his Spirit, that they would not spare even their own children, but slay them with their own hands, when they saw them perverting the truth of God.
Zechariah no doubt alludes to the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy 13:1 where God