Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin
Commentary on Romans
19. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:
19. Ac fide minime debilitatus, non consideravit suum ipsius corpus jam emortuum, centenaries quum fere esset, nec emortuam vulvam Saræ:
20. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
20. Nec vero in Dei promissionem nec emortuam vulvam Sarre: per incredulitatem disquisivit; sed roboratus est fide, tribuens gloriam Deo;
21. And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
21. Ac certe persuasus, quod ubi quid promisit, possit etiam præstare. 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. 22. Ideo et imputatum illi est in justitiam. 19. In faith, etc. If you prefer to omit one of the negatives you may render it thus, "Being weak in faith, he considered not his own body," etc.; but this makes no sense. He indeed shows now more fully what might have hindered, yea, and wholly turned Abraham aside from receiving the promise. A seed from Sarah was promised to him at a time when he was not by nature fit for generating, nor Sarah for conceiving. Whatever he could see as to himself was opposed to the accomplishment of the promise. Hence, that he might yield to the truth of God, he withdrew his mind from those things which presented themselves to his own view, and as it were forgot himself.
You are not however to think, that he had no regard whatever to his own body, now dead, since Scripture testifies to the contrary; for he reasoned thus with himself, "Shall a child be born to a man an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, who is ninety, bear a son?" But as he laid aside the consideration of all this, and resigned his own judgment to the Lord, the Apostle says, that he considered not, etc.; and truly it was a greater effort to withdraw his thoughts from what of itself met his eyes, than if such a thing came into his mind.
And that the body of Abraham was become through age incapable of generating, at the time he received the Lord's blessing, is quite evident from this passage, and also from Genesis 17 and 18, so that the opinion of Augustine is by no means to be admitted, who says somewhere, that the impediment was in Sarah alone. Nor ought the absurdity of the objection to influence us, by which he was induced to have recourse to this solution; for he thought it inconsistent to suppose that Abraham in his hundredth year was incapable of generating, as he had afterwards many children. But by this very thing God rendered his power more visible, inasmuch as he, who was before like a dry and barren tree, was so invigorated by the celestial blessing, that he not only begot Isaac, but, as though he was restored to the vigor of age, he had afterwards strength to beget others. But some one may object and say, that it is not beyond the course of nature that a man should beget children at that age. Though I allow that such a thing is not a prodigy, it is yet very little short of a miracle. And then, think