of what the promises contain. Hence, also, we may easily learn, that grace is not to be taken, as
some imagine, for the gift of regeneration, but for a gratuitous favor: for as regeneration is never
perfect, it can never suffice to pacify souls, nor of itself can it make the promise certain.
Not to that only which is of the law,etc. Though these words mean in another place those who,
being absurd zealots of the law, bind themselves to its yoke, and boast of their confidence in it, yet
here they mean simply the Jewish nation, to whom the law of the Lord had been delivered. For
Paul teaches us in another passage, that all who remain bound to the dominion of the law, are subject
to a curse; it is then certain that they are excluded from the participation of grace. He does not then
call them the servants of the law, who, adhering to the righteousness of works, renounce Christ;
but they were those Jews who had been brought up in the law, and yet professed the name of Christ.
But that the sentence may be made clearer, let it be worded thus, — “Not to those only who are of
the law, but to all who imitate the faith of Abraham, though they had not the law before.”
Who is the father of us all,etc. The relative has the meaning of a causative particle; for he meant
to prove, that the Gentiles were become partakers of this grace, inasmuch as by the same oracle,
by which the heirship was conferred on Abraham and his seed, were the Gentiles also constituted
his seed: for he is said to have been made the father, not of one nation, but of many nations; by
which was presignified the future extension of grace, then confined to Israel alone. For except the
promised blessing had been extended to them, they could not have been counted as the offspring
of Abraham. The past tense of the verb, according to the common usage of Scripture, denotes the
certainty of the Divine counsel; for though nothing then was less apparent, yet as God had thus
decreed, he is rightly said to have been made the father of many nations. Let the testimony of Moses
be included in a parenthesis, that this clause, “Who is the father of us all,” may be connected with
the other, “before God,” etc.: for it was necessary to explain also what that relationship was, that
the Jews might not glory too much in their carnal descent. Hence he says, “He is our father 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
(^142) It appears from Pareus and Hammond, that some of the Fathers such as Chrysostom, and Theophylact, regarded in
the sense of μ , 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 , 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, — “before the sun,” not “against the sun” as in our
version; for the word in Hebrew is , Coram, 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 , being separated from its
preposition: and is put for 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