Commentary on Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles John Calvin
CHAPTER 11
mended. What then she rejected at first as being incredible, she afterwards as soon as she heard that it came from God, obediently received.
And hence we deduce a useful doctrine, --- that when our faith in some things wavers or halts, it ceases not to be approved of God, provided we indulge not the spirit of unbelief. The meaning then is, that the miracle which God performed when Isaac was born, was the fruit of the faith of Abraham, and of his wife, by which they laid hold on the power of God.
Because she judged him faithful, etc. These reasons, by which the power and character of faith are set forth, ought to be carefully noticed. Were any one only to hear that Sarah brought forth a child through faith, all that is meant would not be conveyed to him, but the explanation which the Apostle adds removes every obscurity; for he declares that Sarah's faith was this, --- that she counted God to be true to his word, that is, to what he had promised.
There are two clauses to this declaration; for we hence learn first, that there is no faith without God's word, for of his faithfulness we cannot be convinced, until he has spoken. And this of itself is abundantly sufficient to confute the fiction of the sophists respecting implicit faith; for we must ever hold that there is a mutual relation between God's word and our faith. But as faith is founded chiefly, according to what has been already said, on the benevolence or kindness of God, it is not every word, though coming from his mouth, that is sufficient; but a promise is necessary as an evidence of his favor. Hence Sarah is said to have counted God faithful who had promised. True faith then is that which hears God speaking and rests on his promise.
12. Therefore sprang there even of one, etc. He now also reminds the Jews, that it was by faith that they were the descendants of Abraham; for he was as it were half dead, 222 and Sarah his wife, who had been barren in the flower of her age, was now sterile, being far advanced in years. Sooner then might oil be expected to flow from a stone, than a nation to proceed from them: and yet there sprang from them an innumerable multitude. If now the Jews are proud of their origin, let them consider what it was. Whatever they are, everything is doubtless to be ascribed to the faith of Abraham and Sarah. It hence follows, that they cannot retain and defend the position they have acquired in any other way than by faith.
Heb 11:13-16
Hebrews Chapter 11:13-16
13. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
222Calvin renders {ταῦτα} adverbially ``quidem,'' ``and indeed dead;'' Doddridge ``in his repeat;'' Macknight, ``to these matters;'' Stuart ``as to these things.'' But the word is rendered in Luke 6:23, ``in the like manner;'' and this would be the best rendering here. Abraham was like Sarah, ``dead'' as to the power of begetting children, --- ``Therefore even from one, and him in a like manner dead, there sprang so many as the stars,'' etc. --- Ed