capable of grace, does wrong to Abraham, whose faith was sustained by this thought, — that it
matters not whether he was dead or not who is called by the Lord; to whom it is an easy thing, even
by a word, to raise the dead through his own power.
We have here also a type and a pattern of the call of us all, by which our beginning is set before
our eyes, not as to our first birth, but as to the hope of future life, — that when we are called by the
Lord we emerge from nothing; for whatever we may seem to be we have not, no, not a spark of
anything good, which can render us fit for the kingdom of God. That we may indeed on the other
hand be in a suitable state to hear the call of God, we must be altogether dead in ourselves. The
character of the divine calling is, that they who are dead are raised by the Lord, that they who are
nothing begin to be something through his power. The word call ought not to be confined to
preaching, but it is to be taken, according to the usage of Scripture, for raising up; and it is intended
to set forth more fully the power of God, who raises up, as it were by a nod only, whom he wills.
143
Romans 4:18
- Qui præter (vel supra) spem super spe
credidit, ut esset^144 pater multarum gentium,
secundum quod dictum erat, Sic erit semen tuum. - Who against hope believed in hope, that
he might become the father of many nations,
according to that which was spoken, So shall thy
seed be.
18.Who against hope, etc. If we thus read, the sense is, that when there was no probable reason,
yea, when all things were against him, he yet continued to believe. And, doubtless, there is nothing
more injurious to faith than to fasten our minds to our eyes, that we may from what we see, seek a
reason for our hope. We may also read, “above hope,” and perhaps more suitably; as though he
had said that by his faith he far surpassed all that he could conceive; for except faith flies upward
on celestial wings so as to look down on all the perceptions of the flesh as on things far below, it
will stick fast in the mud of the world. But Paul uses the word hope twice in this verse: in the first
instance, he means a probable evidence for hoping, such as can be derived from nature and carnal
reason; in the second he refers to faith given by God;^145 for when he had no ground for hoping he
(^143) The idea of commanding to existence, or of effecting, is given by many Commentators to the word ; but this seems
not necessary. The simple notion of calling, naming, regarding, or representing, is more consistent with the passage, and with
the construction of the sentence: and the various modes of rendering it, which critics have proposed, have arisen from not taking
the word in its most obvious meaning. “The literal version is, and who calls things not existing as existing,” — μ
. The reference is evidently to the declaration, “I have made thee the father of many nations.” This had then no real existence;
but God represents it as having an existence already. Far-fetched meanings are sometimes adopted, when the plainest and the
most obvious is passed by. — Ed.
(^144) “Ut esset:” this may indeed be rendered according to our version, “that he might become;” but the drift of the comment
seems to favor the other view, that he believed that he should be, and not that he believed in order to be, or that he might be, the
father of many nations , “that he should be,” is the rendering of Hammond, Doddridge, and Stuart; and it is indeed
what is consistent with the drift of the passage, and with what is recorded in Genesis. Wolfiussays, that here does not signify
the final cause, but the subject or the object of faith and hope; Abraham believed the promise, that he should be the father of
many nations. — Ed.
(^145) This is a striking instance of the latitude of meaning which some words have in Scripture. Here hope, in the first instance,
means the ground of hope; and in the second, the object of hope. So faith, in Romans 4:5, and in other places, must be considered
as including its object, the gracious promise of God; for otherwise it will be a meritorious act, the very thing which the Apostle