Commentary on the Gospel According to John John Calvin
John Calvin then that the word of God excites you to such fury, but because you have an opposite father?" He says that he speaks, and they do, because he discharged the office of a teacher, while they labored strenuously to extinguish his doctrine. At the same time, he protects the Gospel against contempt, by showing that it is not wonderful if it be opposed by the children of the devil Instead of you do, some render it, Do you what you have seen with your father; as if Christ had said, "Come, show that you are the children of the devil, by opposing me; for I speak nothing but what God has commanded."
John 8:39-42
John 8:39-42
39. They answered, and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. 40. But now you seek to kill me, a man who have spoken to you the truth which I have heard from God: Abraham did not this. 41. You do the works of your father. They said therefore to him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, who is God. 42. Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me: for I proceeded and came from God, for I did not proceed from myself, but he sent me.
39. Abraham is our father. This altercation shows plainly enough how haughtily and fiercely they despised all Christ's reproofs. What they continually claim and vaunt of is, that they are Abraham's children; by which they do not simply mean that they are the lineal descendants of Abraham, but that they are a holy race, the heritage of God, and the children of God. And yet they rely on nothing but the confidence of the flesh. But carnal descent, without faith, is nothing more than a false pretense. We now understand what it was that so greatly blinded them, so that they treated Christ with disdain, though armed with deadly thunder. Thus the word of God, which might move stones, is ridiculed in the present day by Papists, as if it were a fable, and fiercely persecuted by fire and sword; and for no other reason but that they rely on their false title of "the Church," and hope that they will be able to deceive both God and man. In short, as soon as hypocrites have procured some plausible covering, they oppose God with hardened obstinacy, as if he could not penetrate into their hearts.
If you were the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. Christ now distinguishes more plainly between the bastard and degenerate children of Abraham, and the true and lawful children; 236 for he refuses to give the very name to all who do not resemble Abraham True, it frequently happens that children do not resemble, in their conduct, the parents from whom they are sprung; but here Christ does not argue about carnal descent, but only affirms that they who do not retain by faith the grace of adoption are not reckoned among the children of Abraham before God. For since God
236"Entre les enfans d'Abraham qui sont bastars et forlignans, et le vrais et legitimes."