Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin
John Calvin according to the flesh, is God blessed for ever.
We must further observe, that this ascription of praise belongs to none but only to the true and eternal God; for he declares in another place, (1 Timothy 1:17,) that it is the true God alone to whom honor and glory are due. They who break off this clause from the previous context, that they may take away from Christ so clear a testimony to his divinity, most presumptuously attempt, to introduce darkness in the midst of the clearest light; for the words most evidently mean this, — Christ, who is from the Jews according to the flesh, is God blessed for ever 289 And I doubt not, but that Paul, who had to contend hard with a reproach urged against him, did designedly raise up his own mind to the contemplation of the eternal glory of Christ; nor did he do this so much for his own sake individually, as for the purpose of encouraging others by his example to raise up their thoughts.
Romans 9:6-9
Romans 9:6-9
6. Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
6. Neque tamen, quasi exciderit verbum Dei: non emro omnes qui sunt ex Israele sunt Israelitae:
7. Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
7. Nec qui sunt semen Abrahae, ideo omnes filii; sed in Isaac vocabitur tibi semen:
8. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
289Stuart has in a most convincing manner vindicated the true and obvious meaning of this clause. There is no reading of any authority, nor any early version, that affects the genuineness of the received text: and it is amazing what ingenuity has been exercised by various critics to evade the plain construction of the passage, — a remarkable instance of the debasing power of preconceived notions. It is somewhat singular too, that some who professed at least the doctrine of Christ's divinity, such as Erasmus, Whitby, and Locke, have attempted to make changes in the text, and those for the most part conjectural, by which the obvious meaning is wholly altered. It is very clearly shown by Stuart, that the very position of the words, and their connection with the context, will admit of no other construction than that which our version contains. It is well known, that in Hebrew the word "blessed" is always placed before "God," or Jehovah, when it is an ascription of praise; and it appears that the Septuagint has in more than thirty instances followed the same order, and, indeed, in every instance except one, (Psalm 68:19,) and that evidently a typographical mistake. The same is the case with all the examples in the New Testament. So that if the phrase here was a doxology, it must have been written {εὐλογητὸς} {ὁ} {Θεός}. In the Welsh language, which in many of its idioms is identically the same with the Hebrew, the order of the words is the same: when it is a doxology, the word "blessed" invariably precedes the word "God;" and when otherwise it follows it. The opinion of Chrysostom on this sentence, to which Erasmus attaches some importance, is of no value whatever, as he did not understand Hebrew; and Paul, for the most part, wrote as a Hebraist. The participle {ὢν}, being put for {ἐστι}, is what is common in Hebrew and in the New Testament. See a remarkable instance of two participles and a verb in the middle, in Revelation 1:4. It has been said, that "amen" unsuitably follows a declarative sentence; but see an instance in Romans 1:25 It is justly observed by Stuart, that the context requires the application of this sentence to Christ, as otherwise there would be no antithesis to the words "according to the flesh." — Ed.