Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 2 Complete John Calvin (continued)
HARMONY OF THE LAW · VOLUME 2 as to rescue from death those abandoned wretches who were plotting their destruction. I do not, however, understand this, "Get you up," merely with reference to place, for they were already separated, having taken refuge in the tabernacle; but it is just as if God had commanded them to sever themselves from the people, and, quitting them altogether, and casting away all care for the public welfare, to provide for their own private safety.
46. And Moses said unto Aaron. The expiation of so great a sin did not indeed depend on the incense-offering, nor are we to imagine that God is appeased by the savor of frankincense; but thus was a symbol set before this grosshearted people, whereby they might be alike aroused to repentance and faith; for however insensible they might be in their rebellion, yet the dignity of the priesthood was so conspicuous in the censer, that they ought to have been awakened by it to reverence. For who would not view his impiety with horror, when he is made conscious of having despised and violated that sanctity wherein the Divine power displays itself for life or death? The sight of the censer might have justly availed to subdue their hardness of heart, so that at last they might begin to condemn and detest their unrighteous act. The second warning which it gave them was no less profitable, i.e., that they might perceive that God was only propitiated towards them by virtue of a mediator; but., in so far as the actual state of things allowed, the visible type directed them to the absent Savior. Since, however, men corrupt and obscure the truth by their fond inventions, His majesty is asserted by the Divine institution of sacrifice. Whilst Aaron, the typical priest, stands forth, until the true, and only, and perpetual Mediator shall be revealed.
The verb,כפרcaphar, properly signifies, as I have said elsewhere, to reconcile God to men through the medium of an expiation (piaculum;) but, since here it refers to the people, the sense of Moses is rightly expressed by a single word, as one may say, to purge, or lustrate from pollution.
48. And he stood between the living and the dead. If you understand that the living were everywhere mingled with the dead, you may conjecture that God's wrath did not so fall upon one part of the camp, as to destroy all that came in its way without exception, as had been the case in the other revolt, but that He selected those who had sinned most grievously. But it is probable that Aaron proceeded so far as to leave behind those who still remained uninjured, and, in the very place where the destruction had occurred, encountered the wrath of God, and arrested its course. Hence it was that both the fervor of his zeal might be the better perceived, and his office of appeasing God was more fully confirmed by its actual success. For what more evident miracle could be required, than when the slaughter, which had both begun to rage suddenly, and then to proceed in a course no less rapid than continuous, was stopped by the arrival of Aaron, exactly as if a hedge had been set up against it? The efficacy of the priesthood in propitiating God, is therefore both clearly and briefly set before us; and hence we are taught, that though we are so dose to the reprobate when they