But ye have borne the
tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye
made to yourselves. (Amos 5:26)
In his
commentary on Amos 5:26, John Calvin wrote the following:
Have ye then
caused sacrifices, victims, or an oblation to
come before me in the desert for forty years? He addresses them as
though they had perverted God’s worship in the desert, and yet they were
born many ages after; what does he mean? Even this, —the Prophet includes the
whole body of the people from their first beginning, as though he said,
"It is right to inclose you in the same bundle with your fathers; for you
are the same with your fathers in your ways and dispositions." We hence
see that the Israelites were regarded guilty, not only because they vitiated
God’s worship in one age by their superstitions, but also from the beginning.
And he asks whether they offered victims to him: it is certain that such was
their intention; for they at no time dared to deny God, by whom they had been
not long before delivered; and we know that though they made for themselves
many things condemned by the law, they ever adhered to this principle,
"The God, who hath redeemed us, is to be worshipped by us:" yea, they
always proudly boasted of their father Abraham. They had never then willingly
alienated themselves from God, who had chosen Abraham their father and
themselves to be his people: and indeed the Prophet shortly before had said,
‘Take away from me,’ etc.; and then, ‘when ye offer to me sacrifices and a gift
of flour, I will not count them acceptable.’ There seems to be an inconsistency
in this—that God should deny that victims been offered to him—and yet say that
they were offered to him by the people of Israel, when, as we have stated, they
had presumptuously built a profane and spurious altar. The solution is easy,
and it is even this, —that the people had ever offered sacrifices to God, if we
regard what they pretended to do: for good intention, as it is commonly called,
so blinds the superstitious, that with great presumption they trifle with God.
Hence with respect to them we may say that they sacrificed to God; but as to
God, he denies that what was not purely offered was offered to him. We now then
see why God says now that sacrifices were not offered to him in the wilderness:
he says so, because the people blended with his worship the leaven of idolatry:
and God abhorred this depravation. This is the meaning.
But another objection may be
again proposed. This defection did not prevail long, and the whole people did
not give their consent to idolatry; and still more, we know what the impostor
Balaam said, that Jacob had no idol; and speaking in the twentieth chapter of
Numbers, by the prophetic spirit, he
testifies that the only true God reigned in Jacob, and that there were among
them no false gods. How then does the Prophet say now that idolatry prevailed
among them? The answer is ready: The greater part went astray: hence the whole
people are justly condemned; and though this sin was reproved, yet they relapsed
continually, as it is well known, into superstitions; and still more, they
worshipped strange gods to please strumpets. Since it was so, it is no wonder
that they are accused here by the Prophet of not having offered victims to God,
inasmuch as they were contaminated with impure superstitions: it could not then
be, that they brought anything to God. At the same time God’s worship, required
by his law, was of such importance, that he declared that he was worshipped by
Jacob, as also Christ says,
"We know what we worship," (John 4:22);
and yet not one in a hundred
among the Jews cherished the hope of eternal life in his heart. They were all
Epicureans or profane; nay, the Sadducees prevailed openly among them: the
whole of religion was fallen, or was at least so decayed, that there was no
holiness and no integrity among them; and yet Christ says, "We know what
we worship;" and this was true with regard to the law.
Now then we see that the Prophets
speak in various ways of Israel: when they regard the people, they say, that
they were perfidious, that they were apostates, who had immediately from the
beginning departed from the true and legitimate worship of God: but when they
commend the grace of God, they say, that the true worship of God shone among
them, that though the whole multitude had become perverted, yet the Lord
approved of what he had commanded. So it is with Baptism; it is a sacred and
immutable testimony of the grace of God, though it were administered by the
devil, though all who may partake of it were ungodly and polluted as to their
own persons. Baptism ever retains its own character, and is never contaminated
by the vices of men. The same must be said of sacrifices.
For Calvin,
and the vast majority of Reformed authors until 1845, Roman Catholic baptism
was seen as valid contra Anabaptists and others, even arguing that if Satan performed a baptism using the
correct (Trinitarian) form and matter (water), it would be valid. Such also evidences a very high view of the sacramental nature of water baptism in Calvin's theology.
