Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 1 Complete John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
with their extended wings, I do not imagine to have been done to hide it, but to mark the readiness of their obedience, for the extension of their wings is equivalent to their being prepared for the performance of whatever God might command. Thus they are said to turn their faces towards the mercy-seat, because they are attentive to the will of God. Moreover, because the fullness of the Godhead resides in Christ, He justly declares that, in His descent upon earth, the heavens were opened that the angels might ascend and descend. Their looking towards each other indicates that harmony in which the angels are united for performing the commands of God. It is indeed a plausible conceit, 474 that the two cherubim were the Old and New Testaments, which look from one to the other, and surround the mercy-seat, inasmuch as Christ is their common object; but this notion vanishes before the contradiction of many passages of Scripture.
Exodus 35
Exodus 35:4-19
4. And Moses spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the LORD commanded, saying,
4. Dixitque Moses ad universam synagogam filiorum Israel, his verbis, Hoc est verbum quod praecepit Jehova, dicendo:
5. Take ye from among you an offering unto the LORD: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it,
5. Accipite a vobis oblationem Jehovae: omnis spontaneus corde suo afferet eam oblationem Jehovae, aurum, argentum, et aes: an offering of the LORD; gold, and silver, and brass, Gregorius in Gloss. Ord. "The two cherubim are the two Testaments. One of them stands on one end of the mercy-seat, and the other on the other; because what the Old Testament begins to promise in prophecy respecting the Incarnation of Christ, the New relates to be perfectly fulfilled. They are made of very pure gold, because both Testaments are written with pure and simple truth.They stretch out their wings and cover the oracles; because we (who are God's oracles) are protected from imminent errors by the study of sacred Scripture; and whilst we earnestly look at it, we are covered by its wings from the mistakes of ignorance. They look towards one another with their faces turned to the mercy-seat, because the Testaments differ in nothing, and look mutually to each other; for what the one promises the other exhibits. And they see the mercy-seat, i.e., the Mediator between God and men, placed between them; for they would turn away their faces from each other, if the one promised what the other denied." — See also Bede in Gloss. Ord., and Augustin Qoest. in Ex. 105.