Institutes of the Christian Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)

VIII. Now, let us explain the comparison of the apostle in all its branches. In the first place, the Old Testament is literal, because it was promulgated without the efficacy of the Spirit; the New is spiritual, because the Lord has engraven it in a spiritual manner on the hearts of men. The second contrast, therefore, serves as an elucidation of the first. The Old Testament is the revelation of death, because it can only involve all mankind in a curse; the New is the instrument of life, because it delivers us from the curse, and restores us to favour with God. The former is the ministry of condemnation, because it convicts all the children of Adam of unrighteousness; the latter is the ministry of righteousness, because it reveals the mercy of God, by which we are made righteous. The last contrast must be referred to the legal ceremonies. The law having an image of things that were at a distance, it was necessary that in time it should be abolished and disappear. The gospel, exhibiting the body itself, retains a firm and perpetual stability. Jeremiah calls even the moral law a weak and frail covenant, but for another reason; namely, because it was soon broken by the sudden defection of an ungrateful people. But as such a violation arises from the fault of the people, it cannot be properly attributed to the Testament. The ceremonies, however, which at the advent of Christ were abolished by their own weakness, contained in themselves the cause of their abrogation. Now, this difference between the “letter” and the “spirit” is not to be understood as if the Lord had given his law to the Jews without any beneficial result, without one of them being converted to him; but it is used in a way of comparison, to display the plenitude of grace with which the same Legislator, assuming as it were a new character, has honoured the preaching of the gospel. For if we survey the multitude of those, from among all nations, whom, by the influence of his Spirit in the preaching of the gospel, the Lord has regenerated and gathered into communion with his Church, we shall say that those of the ancient Israelites, who cordially and sincerely embraced the covenant of the Lord, were extremely few; though, if estimated by themselves without any comparison, they amounted to a considerable number.

IX. The fourth difference arises out of the third. For the Scripture calls the Old Testament a covenant of bondage, because it produces fear in the mind; but the New it describes as a covenant of liberty, because it leads the heart to confidence and security. Thus Paul, in the eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, says, “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”1080 To the same purpose is that passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the faithful now “are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,” where nothing can be either heard or seen, but what must strike terror into the mind; so that even Moses himself is exceedingly afraid at the sound of the terrible voice, which they all pray that they may hear no more; but that now the faithful “are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,”1081 &c. What Paul briefly touches in the passage which we have adduced from the Epistle to the Romans, he explains more at large in his Epistle to the Galatians, when he allegorizes the two sons of Abraham in the following manner – that Agar, the bond-woman, is a type of mount Sinai, where the people of Israel received the law; that Sarah, the free-woman, is a figure of the celestial Jerusalem, whence proceeds the gospel. That as the son of Agar is born in bondage, and can never attain to the inheritance, and the son of Sarah is born free, and has a right to the inheritance,1082 so by the law we were devoted to slavery, but by the gospel alone are regenerated to liberty. Now, the whole may be summed up thus – that the Old Testament filled men's consciences with fear and trembling; but that by the benefit of the New Testament, they are delivered, and enabled to rejoice. The former kept their consciences under a yoke of severe bondage; but by the liberality of the latter they are emancipated and admitted to liberty. If any one object to us the case of the holy fathers of the Israelitish people, that as they were clearly possessed of the same spirit of faith as we are, they must consequently have been partakers of the same liberty and joy, we reply, that neither of these originated from the law; but that, when they felt themselves, by means of the law, oppressed with their servile condition, and wearied with disquietude of conscience, they fled for refuge to the gospel; and that therefore it was a peculiar advantage of the New Testament, that they enjoyed an exception from the common law of the Old Testament, and were exempted from those evils. Besides, we shall deny that they were favoured with the spirit of liberty and security, to such a degree as not to experience from the law some measure both of fear and of servitude. For notwithstanding their enjoyment of that privilege, which they obtained by the grace of the gospel, yet they were subject to the same observances and burdens as the people in general. As they were obliged, therefore, to a diligent observance of these ceremonies, which were emblems of the state of pupilage similar to bondage, and the hand-writing, by which they confessed themselves guilty of sin, did not release them from the obligation, they may justly be said, in comparison with us, to have been under a testament of bondage and fear, when we consider the common mode of procedure which the Lord then pursued with the Israelitish nation.

X. The three last comparisons which we have mentioned are between the law and the gospel. In these, therefore, “the Old Testament” denotes the law; and “the New Testament,” the gospel. The first comparison extends further, for it comprehends also the promises, which were given before the law. When Augustine denied that they ought to be considered as part of the Old Testament, he gave a very proper opinion, and intended the same that we now teach; for he had in view those passages of Jeremiah and Paul, in which the Old Testament is distinguished from the word of grace and mercy. He very judiciously adds also in the same place, that the children of the promise, from the beginning of the world, who have been regenerated by God, and, under the influence of faith working by love, have obeyed his commands, belong to the New Testament; and that, in hope, not of carnal, terrestrial, and temporal things, but of spiritual, celestial, and eternal blessings; especially believing in the Mediator, through whom they doubted not that the Spirit was dispensed to them to enable them to do their duty, and that whenever they sinned they were pardoned. For this is the very same thing which I meant to assert: That all the saints, whom, from the beginning of the world, the Scripture mentions as having been peculiarly chosen by God, have been partakers of the same blessing with us to eternal salvation. Between our distinction and that of Augustine there is this difference – that ours (according to this declaration of Christ, “the law and the prophets were until John; since that time the kingdom of God is preached;”)1083 distinguishes between the clearness of the gospel and the more obscure dispensation of the word which preceded it; whilst the other merely discriminates the weakness of the law from the stability of the gospel. Here it must also be remarked concerning the holy fathers, that though they lived under the Old Testament, they did not rest satisfied with it, but always aspired after the New, and thus enjoyed a certain participation of it. For all those who contented themselves with present shadows, and did not extend their views to Christ, are condemned by the apostle as blind and under the curse. For, to say nothing on other points, what greater ignorance can be imagined than to hope for an expiation of sin by the sacrifice of an animal? than to seek for the purification of the soul by an external ablution with water? than to wish to appease God with frigid ceremonies, as though they afforded him great pleasure? For all these absurdities are chargeable on those who adhere to the observances of the law, without any reference to Christ.

XI. The fifth difference, which we may add, consists in this – that till the advent of Christ, the Lord selected one nation, to which he would limit the covenant of his grace. Moses says, “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, – the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”1084 In another place he thus addresses the people: “Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people.”1085 Therefore he favoured that people with the exclusive knowledge of his name, as though they alone of all mankind belonged to him; he deposited his covenant as it were in their bosom; to them he manifested the presence of his power; he honoured them with every privilege. But to omit the rest of his benefits, the only one that relates to our present argument is, that he united them to himself by the communication of his word, in order that he might be denominated and esteemed their God. In the mean time he suffered other nations, as though they had no business or intercourse with him, to walk in vanity;1086 nor did he employ means to prevent their destruction by sending them the only remedy – the preaching of his word. The Israelitish nation, therefore, were then as darling sons; others were strangers: they were known to him, and received under his faithful protection; others were left to their own darkness: they were sanctified by God; others were profane: they were honoured with the Divine presence; others were excluded from approaching it. But when the fulness of the time was come,1087 appointed for the restoration of all things,1088 and the Reconciler of God and men was manifested,1089 the barrier was demolished, which had so long confined the Divine mercy within the limits of the Jewish church, and peace was announced to them who were at a distance, and to them who were near, that being both reconciled to God, they might coalesce into one people. Wherefore “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, but Christ is all and in all;”1090 “to whom the heathen are given for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession;”1091 that he may have a universal “dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.”1092

XII. The vocation of the Gentiles, therefore, is an eminent illustration of the superior excellence of the New Testament above the Old. It had, indeed, before been most explicitly announced in numerous predictions of the prophets; but so as that the completion of it was deferred to the kingdom of the Messiah. And even Christ himself made no advances towards it at the first commencement of his preaching, but deferred it till he should have completed all the parts of our redemption, finished the time of his humiliation, and received from the Father “a name which is above every name, before which every knee shall bow.”1093 Wherefore, when this season was not yet arrived, he said to a Canaanitish woman, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel:”1094 nor did he permit the apostles, in his first mission of them, to exceed these limits. “Go not,” says he, “into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”1095 And though this calling of the Gentiles was announced by so many testimonies, yet when the apostles were about to enter upon it, it appeared to them so novel and strange, that they dreaded it, as if it had been a prodigy: indeed it was with trepidation and reluctance that they at length engaged in it. Nor is this surprising; for it seemed not at all reasonable, that the Lord, who for so many ages had separated the Israelites from the rest of the nations, should, as it were, suddenly change his design, and annihilate this distinction. It had indeed been predicted in the prophecies; but they could not pay such great attention to the prophecies, as to be wholly unmoved with the novelty of the circumstance, which forced itself on their observation. Nor were the specimens, which the Lord had formerly given, of the future vocation of the Gentiles, sufficient to influence them. For besides his having called only very few of them, he had even incorporated them into the family of Abraham, that they might be added to his people; but by that public vocation, the Gentiles were not only raised to an equality with the Jews, but appeared to succeed to their places as though they had been dead. Besides, of all the strangers whom God had before incorporated into the Church, none were ever placed on an equality with the Jews. Therefore it is not without reason that Paul so celebrates this “mystery which was hidden from ages and from generations,”1096 and which he represents as an object of admiration even to angels.1097

XIII. In these four or five points, I think I have given a correct and faithful statement of the whole of the difference between the Old and the New Testament, as far as is sufficient for a simple system of doctrine. But because some persons represent this variety in the government of the Church, these different modes of instruction, and such a considerable alteration of rites and ceremonies, as a great absurdity, we must reply to them, before we proceed to other subjects. And this may be done in a brief manner, since the objections are not so strong as to require a laborious refutation. It is not reasonable, they say, that God, who is perpetually consistent with himself, should undergo so great a change as afterwards to disallow what he had once enjoined and commanded. I reply, that God ought not therefore to be deemed mutable, because he has accommodated different forms to different ages, as he knew would be suitable for each. If the husbandman prescribes different employments to his family in the winter, from those which he allots them in the summer, we must not therefore accuse him of inconstancy, or impute to him a deviation from the proper rules of agriculture, which are connected with the perpetual course of nature. Thus, also, if a father instructs, governs, and manages his children one way in infancy, another in childhood, and another in youth, we must not therefore charge him with being inconstant, or forsaking his own designs. Why, then, do we stigmatize God with the character of inconstancy, because he has made an apt and suitable distinction between different times? The last similitude ought fully to satisfy us. Paul compares the Jews to children, and Christians to youths.1098 What impropriety is there in this part of the government of God, that he detained them in the rudiments which were suitable to them on account of their age, but has placed us under a stronger and more manly discipline? It is a proof, therefore, of the constancy of God, that he has delivered the same doctrine in all ages, and perseveres in requiring the same worship of his name which he commanded from the beginning. By changing the external form and mode, he has discovered no mutability in himself, but has so far accommodated himself to the capacity of men, which is various and mutable.

XIV. But they inquire whence this diversity proceeded, except from the will of God. Could he not, as well from the beginning as since the advent of Christ, give a revelation of eternal life in clear language without any figures, instruct his people by a few plain sacraments, bestow his Holy Spirit, and diffuse his grace through all the world? This is just the same as if they were to quarrel with God, because he created the world at so late a period, whereas he might have done it before; or because he has appointed the alternate vicissitudes of summer and winter, of day and night. But let us not doubt what ought to be believed by all pious men, that whatever is done by God is done wisely and righteously; although we frequently know nothing of the causes which render such transactions necessary. For it would be arrogating too much to ourselves, not to permit God to keep the reasons of his decrees concealed from us. But it is surprising, say they, that he now rejects and abominates the sacrifices of cattle, and all the apparatus of the Levitical priesthood, with which he used to be delighted; as though truly these external and transitory things could afford pleasure to God, or affect him in any way whatever. It has already been observed, that he did none of these things on his own account, but appointed them all for the salvation of men. If a physician cure a young man of any disease by a very excellent method, and afterwards adopt a different mode of cure with the same person when advanced in years, shall we therefore say that he rejects the method of cure which he before approved? We will rather say, that he perseveres in the same system, and considers the difference of age. Thus it was necessary, before the appearance of Christ, that he should be prefigured, and his future advent announced by one kind of emblems; since he has been manifested, it is right that he should be represented by others. But with respect to the Divine vocation, now more widely extended among all nations since the advent of Christ than it was before, and with regard to the more copious effusion of the graces of the Spirit, who can deny, that it is reasonable and just for God to retain under his own power and will the free dispensation of his favours; that he may illuminate what nations he pleases; that wherever he pleases he may introduce the preaching of his word; that he may give to his instruction whatever kind and degree of profit and success he pleases; that wherever he pleases, in any age, he may punish the ingratitude of the world by depriving them of the knowledge of his name, and when he pleases restore it on account of his mercy? We see, therefore, the absurdity of the cavils with which impious men disturb the minds of the simple on this subject, to call in question either the righteousness of God or the truth of the Scripture.

Chapter XII. The Necessity Of Christ Becoming Man In Order To Fulfil The Office Of Mediator

It was of great importance to our interests, that he, who was to be our Mediator, should be both true God and true man. If an inquiry be made concerning the necessity of this, it was not indeed a simple, or, as we commonly say, an absolute necessity, but such as arose from the heavenly decree, on which the salvation of men depended. But our most merciful Father has appointed that which was best for us. For since our iniquities, like a cloud intervening between us and him, had entirely alienated us from the kingdom of heaven, no one that could not approach to God could be a mediator for the restoration of peace. But who could have approached to him? Could any one of the children of Adam? They, with their parent, all dreaded the Divine presence. Could any one of the angels? They also stood in need of a head, by a connection with whom they might be confirmed in a perfect and unvarying adherence to their God. What, then, could be done? Our situation was truly deplorable, unless the Divine majesty itself would descend to us; for we could not ascend to it. Thus it was necessary that the Son of God should become Immanuel, that is, God with us; and this in order that there might be a mutual union and coalition between his Divinity and the nature of man; for otherwise the proximity could not be sufficiently near, nor could the affinity be sufficiently strong, to authorize us to hope that God would dwell with us. So great was the discordance between our pollution and the perfect purity of God. Although man had remained immaculately innocent, yet his condition would have been too mean for him to approach to God without a Mediator. What, then, can he do, after having been plunged by his fatal fall into death and hell, defiled with so many blemishes, putrefying in his own corruption, and, in a word, overwhelmed with every curse? It is not without reason, therefore, that Paul, when about to exhibit Christ in the character of a Mediator, expressly speaks of him as a man. “There is one Mediator,” he says, “between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”1099 He might have called him God, or might indeed have omitted the appellation of man, as well as that of God; but because the Spirit, who spake by him, knew our infirmity, he has provided a very suitable remedy against it, by placing the Son of God familiarly among us, as though he were one of us. Therefore, that no one may distress himself where he is to seek the Mediator, or in what way he may approach him, the apostle, by denominating him a man, apprizes us that he is near, and even close to us, since he is our own flesh. He certainly intends the same as is stated in another place more at large – “that we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”1100

II. This will still more fully appear, if we consider, that it was no mean part which the Mediator had to perform; namely, to restore us to the Divine favour, so as, of children of men, to make us children of God; of heirs of hell, to make us heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Who could accomplish this, unless the Son of God should become also the Son of man, and thus receive to himself what belongs to us, and transfer to us that which is his, and make that which is his by nature ours by grace? Depending, therefore, on this pledge, we have confidence that we are the children from God, because he, who is the Son of God by nature, has provided himself a body from our body, flesh from our flesh, bones from our bones,1101 that he might be the same with us: he refused not to assume that which was peculiar to us, that we also might obtain that which he had peculiar to him; and that so in common with us he might be both the Son of God and the Son of man. Hence arises that holy fraternity, which he mentions with his own mouth in the following words: “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”1102 On this account we have a certainty of the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, because the only Son of God, to whom it exclusively belonged, has adopted us as his brethren; and if we are his brethren, we are consequently co-heirs to the inheritance.1103 Moreover it was highly necessary also for this reason, that he who was to be our Redeemer should be truly both God and man. It was his office to swallow up death; who could do this, but he who was life itself? It was his to overcome sin; who could accomplish this, but righteousness itself? It was his to put to flight the powers of the world and of the air; who could do this, but a power superior both to the world and to the air? Now, who possesses life or righteousness, or the empire and power of heaven, but God alone? Therefore the most merciful God, when he determined on our redemption, became himself our Redeemer in the person of his only begotten Son!

III. Another branch of our reconciliation with God was this – that man, who had ruined himself by his own disobedience, should remedy his condition by obedience, should satisfy the justice of God, and suffer the punishment of his sin. Our Lord then made his appearance as a real man; he put on the character of Adam, and assumed his name, to act as his substitute in his obedience to the Father, to lay down our flesh as the price of satisfaction to the justice of God; and to suffer the punishment which we had deserved, in the same nature in which the offence had been committed. As it would have been impossible, therefore, for one who was only God to suffer death, or for one who was a mere man to overcome it, he associated the human nature with the Divine, that he might submit the weakness of the former to death, as an atonement for sins; and that with the power of the latter he might contend with death, and obtain a victory on our behalf. Those who despoil Christ, therefore, either of his Divinity or his humanity, either diminish his majesty and glory, or obscure his goodness. Nor are they, on the other hand, less injurious to men, whose faith they weaken and subvert; since it cannot stand any longer than it rests upon this foundation. Moreover, the Redeemer to be expected was that Son of Abraham and David, whom God had promised in the law and the prophets. Hence the minds of the faithful derive another advantage, because from the circumstance of his ancestry being traced to David and to Abraham, they have an additional assurance that this is the Christ, who was celebrated in so many prophecies. But we should particularly remember, what I have just stated – that our common nature is a pledge of our fellowship with the Son of God; that, clothed in our flesh, he vanquished sin and death, in order that the victory and triumph might be ours; that the flesh which he received from us he offered up as a sacrifice, in order to expiate and obliterate our guilt, and appease the just wrath of the Father.