Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin (continued)
Commentary on Romans
19. Inasmuch as what may be known of God, etc. He thus designates what it behoves us to know of God; and he means all that appertains to the setting forth of the glory of the Lord, or, which is the same thing, whatever ought to move and excite us to glorify God. And by this expression he intimates, that God in his greatness can by no means be fully comprehended by us, and that there are certain limits within which men ought to confine themselves, inasmuch as God accommodates to our small capacities what he testifies of himself. Insane then are all they who seek to know of themselves what God is: for the Spirit, the teacher of perfect wisdom, does not in vain invite our attention to what may be known, {τὸ} {γνωστὸν}; and by what means this is known, he immediately explains. And he said, in them rather than to them, for the sake of greater emphasis: for though the Apostle adopts everywhere Hebrew phrases, and {,{בbeth, is often redundant in that language, yet he seems here to have intended to indicate a manifestation, by which they might be so closely pressed, that they could not evade; for every one of us undoubtedly finds it to be engraven on his own heart, 45 By saying, that God has made it manifest, he means, that man was created to be a spectator of this formed world, and that eyes were given him, that he might, by looking on so beautiful a picture, be led up to the Author himself.
20. Since his invisible things, 46 etc. God is in himself invisible; but as his majesty shines forth in his works and in his creatures everywhere, men ought in these to acknowledge him, for they clearly set forth their Maker: and for this reason the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews says, that this world is a mirror, or the representation of invisible things. He does not mention all the particulars which may be thought to belong to God; but he states, that we can arrive at the knowledge of his eternal power and divinity; 47 for he
Chalmers; "Who hinder the truth by unrighteousness," Stuart; "Who wickedly oppose the truth," Hodge; "Who confine the truth by unrighteousness," Macknight "They rushed headlong," says Pareus, "into impiety against God and into injustice against one another, not through ignorance, but knowingly, not through weakness, but willfully and maliciously: and this the Apostle expresses by a striking metaphor, taken from tyrants, who, against right and justice, by open violence, oppress the innocent, bind them in chains, and detain them in prison." The sense given by Schleusner and some others, "Qui cum veri Dei cognitione pravitatem vitæ conjungunt — who connect with a knowledge of the true God a wicked life," seems not to comport with the context. "The truth" means that respecting the being and power of God afterwards specified. — Ed.
45Some take {ἐν} {αὐτοῖς}, to mean among them, i.e., as Stuart says, "in the midst of them, or before their eyes," that is, in the visible world; though many refer it with Calvin, to the moral sense, and that the expression is the same with "written in their hearts," in Romans 2:15. — Ed.
46There is a passage quoted by Wolfius from Aristotle in his book De Mundo, which remarkably coincides with a part of this verse — "{πάσὟ} {θνητὣ} {φύσει} {γενομενος} {ἀθεώρητος} {ἀπ} {αὐτῶν} {τῶν} {ἔργων} {θεορεῖται} {ὁ} {θεός} — God, unseen by any mortal nature, is to be seen by the works themselves." — Ed.
47Divinitas, {θείοτης}, here only, and not {θεότης} as in Colossians 1:9 Elsner and others make a difference between these two words and say, that the former means the divinity or majesty of God, and the latter his nature or being. There seems to be the idea of goodness conveyed in the word, {θείοτης}: for in the following verse there are two things laid to the charge of the Gentiles which bear a reference to the two things said here — they did not glorify him as God, and they were not thankful. He made himself known by power as God, and by the beneficent exercise of that power, he had laid a claim to the gratitude of his creatures. See Acts 14:15; and Acts 17:25, 27 Venema, in his note on this passage, shows, that goodness was regarded by many of the heathens as the primary attribute of Deity. Among the Greeks, goodness — {τὸ} {ἀγαθὸν}, was the expression by which the Supreme Being was distinguished. And it appears evident from the context that the Apostle included this idea especially in the word {θείοτης}. — Ed