Commentary on Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles John Calvin (continued)
CHAPTER 1
The grace of our God. He now expresses more clearly what the evil was; for he says that they abused the grace of God, so as to lead themselves and others to take an impure and profane liberty in sinning. But the grace of God has appeared for a far different purpose, even that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live soberly, righteously, and godly in this world. Let us, then, know that nothing is more pestilential than men of this kind, who from the grace of Christ take a cloak to indulge in lasciviousness. 487
Because we teach that salvation is obtained through God's mercy alone, the Papists accuse us of this crime. But why should we use words to refute their effrontery, since we everywhere urge repentance, the fear of God, and newness of life, and since they themselves not only corrupt the whole world with the worst examples, but also by their ungodly teaching take away from the world true holiness and the pure worship of God? Though I rather think, that those of whom Jude speaks, were like the libertines of our time, as it will be more evident from what follows.
The only Lord God, or, God who alone is Lord. Some old copies have, ``Christ, who alone is God and Lord.'' And, indeed, in the Second Epistle of Peter, Christ alone is mentioned, and there he is called Lord. 488 But He means that Christ is denied, when they who had been redeemed by his blood, become again the vassals of the Devil, and thus render void as far as they can that incomparable price. That Christ, then, may retain us as his peculiar treasure, we must remember that he died and rose again for us, that he might have dominion over our life and death.
Jude 5-7
Jude 5-7
5. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
5. Commonefacere autem vos volo, quum istud semel noveritis, quod Dominus postquam ex terra Egypti populum servaverat, postea non credentes perdidit.
6. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
6. Angelos vero qui principatum (vel, initium) suum non servaverant, sed reference may be to ancient prophecies, or to those of our Savior and his Apostles. --- Ed
487"The grace of God" here is evidently the gospel. They transformed, says Grotius, the gospel to a libidinous doctrine. — Ed.
488Griesbach excludes {Θεὸν}, ``God,'' from the text: then the passage would correspond in sense, with 2 Peter 2:1; literally, ``denying the only sovereign and Lord of us, Jesus Christ.'' The word {δεσπότην}, sovereign, or master, is used by Jude as well as by Peter. It was not the grace, but the ruling power of Christ that was denied; they boasted of his grace, but did not submit to him as a king. Hence the word {δεσπότης} is used --- one exercising absolute power. We may render the words, ``denying our only sovereign and Lord, Jesus Christ.'' --- Ed