Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin
Commentary on Romans before God;" which means the same as though he had said, "He is our spiritual father;" for he had this privilege, not from his own flesh, but from the promise of God 142
17. Whom he believed, who quickens the dead, etc. In this circuitous form is expressed the very substance of Abraham's faith, that by his example an opening might be made for the Gentiles. He had indeed to attain, in a wonderful way, the promise which he had heard from the Lord's mouth, since there was then no token of it. A seed was promised to him as though he was in vigor and strength; but he was as it were dead. It was hence necessary for him to raise up his thoughts to the power of God, by which the dead are quickened. It was therefore not strange that the Gentiles, who were barren and dead, should be introduced into the same society. He then who denies them to be capable of grace, does wrong to Abraham, whose faith was sustained by this thought, — that it matters not whether he was dead or not who is called by the Lord; to whom it is an easy thing, even by a word, to raise the dead through his own power.
We have here also a type and a pattern of the call of us all, by which our beginning is set before our eyes, not as to our first birth, but as to the hope of future life, — that when we are called by the Lord we emerge from nothing; for whatever we may seem to be we have not, no, not a spark of anything good, which can render us fit for the kingdom of God. That we may indeed on the other hand be in a suitable state to hear the call of God, we must be altogether dead in ourselves. The character of the divine calling is, that they who are dead are raised by the Lord, that they who are nothing begin to be something through his power. The word call ought not to be confined to preaching, but it is to be taken, according to the usage of Scripture, for raising up; and it is intended to set forth more fully the power of God, who raises up, as it were by a nod only, whom he wills. 143
142It appears from Pareus and Hammond, that some of the Fathers such as Chrysostom, and Theophylact, regarded {κατέναντι} in the sense of {ὁμοίως}, like, and have rendered the passage, "like God, in whom he believed;" that is, that as God is not partial, but the Father of all, so Abraham was. But this meaning is not consistent with the import of {κατέναντι}, nor with the context. The preposition is found in four other places, Mark 11:2; Mark 12:41; Mark 13:3; Luke 19:30, and invariably means before, or, over against. The Septuagint use it in Numbers 25:4, in the sense of before, {κατέναντι} {τοῦ} {ἡλίου} — "before the sun," not "against the sun" as in our version; for the word in Hebrew is {,{נגדCoram, in conspectu. The context also requires this meaning: Abraham was a father of many nations before God, or, in the view or estimation of God, and not in the view or estimation of men, because God, as it is said at the end of the verse, regards things which are not, as though they were. Hence Abraham was already in God's view, according to his purpose, the father of many nations. The collocation of the words is said by Wolfius to be an instance of Atticism, the word }θεοῦ}, being separated from its preposition: and {οὗ} is put for {ᾧ} by the grammatical law of attraction; and Stuart brings three similar instances of the relative being regulated by the case of its noun, though preceding it in the sentence, Mark 6:16, Acts 21:16; and Romans 6:17
143The idea of commanding to existence, or of effecting, is given by many Commentators to the word {καλοῦντος}; but this seems not necessary. The simple notion of calling, naming, regarding, or representing, is more consistent with the passage, and with the construction of the sentence: and the various modes of rendering it, which critics have proposed, have arisen from not taking the word in its most obvious meaning. "The literal version is, and who calls things not existing as existing," — {και} {καλοῦντος} {τὰ} {μὴ} {ὄντα} {ὡς} {ὄντα}. The reference is evidently to the declaration, "I have made thee the father of many nations." This had then no real existence; but God represents it as having an existence already. Far-fetched meanings are sometimes adopted, when the plainest and the most obvious is passed by. — Ed.