Commentary on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians

Comm on Phil, Col, Thes
as so directly opposed to each other, that they cannot stand together. Hence there are two things
that are to be observed here. In the first place, that the righteousness of the law must be given up
and renounced, that you may be righteous through faith; and secondly, that the righteousness of
faith comes forth from God, and does not belong to the individual. As to both of these we have in
the present day a great controversy with Papists; for on the one hand, they do not allow that the
righteousness of faith is altogether from God, but ascribe it partly to man; and, on the other hand,
they mix them together, as if the one did not destroy the other. Hence we must carefully examine
the several words made use of by Paul, for there is not one of them that is not very emphatic.
He says, that believers have no righteousness of their own. Now, it cannot be denied, that if
there were any righteousness of works, it might with propriety be said to be ours. Hence he leaves
no room whatever for the righteousness of works. Why he calls it the righteousness of the law, he
shows in Romans 10:5; because this is the sentence of the law, He that doeth these things shall live
in them. The law, therefore, pronounces the man to be righteous through works. Nor is there any
ground for the cavil of Papists, that all this must be restricted to ceremonies. For in the first place,
it is a contemptible frivolity to affirm that Paul was righteous only through ceremonies; and secondly,
he in this way draws a contrast between those two kinds of righteousness — the one being of man,
the other, from God. He intimates, accordingly, that the one is the reward of works, while the other
is a free gift from God. He thus, in a general way, places man’s merit in opposition to Christ’s
grace; for while the law brings works, faith presents man before God as naked, that he may be
clothed with the righteousness of Christ. When, therefore, he declares that the righteousness of
faith is from God, it is not simply because faith is the gift of God, but because God justifies us by
his goodness, or because we receive by faith the righteousness which he has conferred upon us.
10 That I may know him He points out the efficacy and nature of faith — that it is the knowledge
of Christ, and that, too, not bare or indistinct, but in such a manner that the power of his resurrection
is felt. Resurrection he employs as meaning, the completion of redemption, so that it comprehends
in it at the same time the idea of death. But as it is not enough to know Christ as crucified and raised
up from the dead, unless you experience, also, the fruit of this, he speaks expressly of efficacy. 188
Christ therefore is rightly known, when we feel how powerful his death and resurrection are, and
how efficacious they are in us. Now all things are there furnished to us — expiation and destruction
of sin, freedom from condemnation, satisfaction, victory over death, the attainment of righteousness,
and the hope of a blessed immortality.
And the fellowship of his sufferings Having spoken of that freely-conferred righteousness, which
was procured for us through the resurrection of Christ, and is obtained by us through faith, he
proceeds to treat of the exercises of the pious, and that in order that it might not seem as though he
introduced an inactive faith, which produces no effects in the life. He also intimates, indirectly,
that these are the exercises in which the Lord would have his people employ themselves; while the
false Apostles pressed forward upon them the useless elements of ceremonies. Let every one,
therefore, who has become through faith a partaker of all Christ’s benefits, acknowledge that a
condition is presented to him — that his whole life be conformed to his death.
There is, however, a twofold participation and fellowship in the death of Christ. The one is
inward — what the Scripture is wont to term the mortification of the flesh, or the crucifixion of the
old man, of which Paul treats in the sixth chapter of the Romans; the other is outward — what is
188 “De l’efficace ou puissance;” — “Of the efficacy or power.”
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John Calvin