JOHN CALVIN

38
QUESTION 22
JEW: I ask you, he came into the world in order to betray himself to chains and to death for your
sake, so why does it say that Judas Iscariot betrayed him, if he had come for the very purpose of
being judged and condemned?
CALVIN: I ask you in turn, how did Job say that his goods were taken away by the Lord, when
thieves were the ones who deprived him of them? How does God say that he stirs up the
Egyptians with a hiss, and arms the Assyrians by his nod, and that they are all like an ax in his
hand, but nevertheless he condemns their crooked designs, and pronounces that he will be an
avenger (Isaiah 7:18)? And finally I ask you, what do they themselves think about their
Messiah? For Isaiah announces that he will lay down his soul as a sacrifice, in order to bear the
infirmities of the people. He says that he will be smitten by God and wounded (Isaiah 53:5 ff.).
Surely they will be forced to admit that either he will perish by their own hands, or his death
will be brought about by other assailants.
From the passage in Isaiah which I have mentioned, it is clear that there is nothing
contradictory in these two statements, that the Messiah voluntarily offers himself up to death,
and that nevertheless he is slain by the wicked. For by his death he reconciled us to God, by his
obedience our iniquities were buried and blotted out. Therefore it was proper that the sacrifice
be voluntary, but it was accomplished by the secret and wonderful counsel of God that the same
one who voluntarily met his death was dragged by wicked men to the cross. Thus God, who
determined that his people be redeemed from Egypt, charged Moses with this duty, and at the
same time stirred up Pharaoh, by whose stubbornness he glorified his name the more. Therefore
Christ rendered obedience to his father to expiate the sins of the world, but he did not thereby
join in the crime of the traitor.