Commentary on Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles John Calvin (continued)
John Calvin as they had already embraced the gospel, he mentions their condition if they persevered in the faith. For the word hope I take for faith; and indeed hope is nothing else but the constancy of faith. He mentions confidence and rejoicing, or glorying, in order to express more fully the power of faith. 61 And we hence conclude that those who assent to the Gospel doubtfully and like those who vacillate, do not truly and really believe; for faith cannot be without a settled peace of mind, from which proceeds the bold confidence of rejoicing. And so these two things, confidence and rejoicing, are ever the effects of faith, as we stated in explaining Romans the 5th chapter, and Ephesians the 3rd chapter
But to these things the whole teaching of the Papists is opposed; and this very fact, were there nothing else, sufficiently proves that they pull down the Church of God rather than build it. For the certainty by which alone we are made, as the Apostle teaches us, holy temples to God, they not only darken by their glosses, but also condemn as presumption. Besides, what firmness of confidence can there be when men know not what they ought to believe? And yet that monstrous thing, implicit faith, which they have invented, is nothing else than a license to entertain errors. This passage reminds us that we are always to make progress even unto death; for our whole life is as it were a race.
Heb 3:7-13
Hebrews Chapter 3:7-13
7. Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, 7. Quare (sicut dicit Spiritus Sanctus, Hodie si vocem ejus audieritis, 8. Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
8. Ne obduretis corda vestra, sicut in exacerbatione, in die tentationis in deserto;
9. When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. 9. Ubi tentaverunt me patres vestri, probaverunt me, et viderunt opera mea 10. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
10. Quadraginta annis: quamobrem infensus fui generationi illi, et dixi, semper errant corde; ipsi vero non cognoverunt vias meas;
61It is better for "hope" here to be retained in its proper meaning; for in verse 12 the defect of it is traced to unbelief. Were the words "confidence" and "rejoicing" rendered adjectivally, the meaning would be more evident, — "If we hold firm our confident and joyful hope to the end." So we may render a similar form of expression in verse 13, "through deceitful sin," as "newness of life" in Romans 6:4, means "new life." The most common practice is to render the genitive in such instances as an adjective, but this is not always the case. Hope is "confident" or assured, while it rests on the word of God, and is "joyful" while it anticipates the glory and happiness of the heavenly kingdom. But Beza and Doddridge take words apart, "freedom of profession and boasting of hope," or according to Beza, "the hope of which we boast." Macknight renders them "the boldness and the glorifying of the hope." The secondary meaning of the word {παρρησία} is confidence, and of {καύχημα}, joy or rejoicing, and the most suitable here, as it comports better with holding fast, or firm. --- Ed.