Out of the third distinction a fourth arises. In Scripture, the term
bondage is applied to the Old Testaments because it begets fear, and the
term freedom to the New, because productive of confidence and security.
Thus Paul says to the Romans, "Ye have not received the spirit of
bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption
whereby we cry, Abba, Father," (Rom. 8: 15.) To the same effect is the
passage in the Hebrews, "For ye are not come unto the mount that might
be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness,
and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which
voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to
them any more: (for they could not endure that which was commanded, And
if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust
through with a dart: and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I
exceedingly fear and quake:) but ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem," &c. (Heb. 12:
18-22.) What Paul briefly touches on in the passage which we have quoted
from the Romans, he explains more fully in the Epistles to the
Galatians, where he makes an allegory of the two sons of Abraham in this
way: "Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which
now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is
above is free, which is the mother of us all," (Gal. 4: 25, 26.) As the
offspring of Agar was born in slavery, and could never attain to the
inheritances while that of Sara was free and entitled to the
inheritance, so by the Law we are subjected to slavery, and by the
Gospel alone regenerated into liberty. The sum of the matter comes to
this: The Old Testament filled the conscience with fear and trembling,-
The New inspires it with gladness. By the former the conscience is held
in bondage, by the latter it is manumitted and made free.
If it be
objected, that the holy fathers among the Israelites, as they were
endued with the same spirit of faith, must also have been partakers of
the same liberty and joy, we answer, that neither was derived from the
Law; but feeling that by the Law they were oppressed like slaves, and
vexed with a disquieted conscience, they fled for refuge to the gospel;
and, accordingly, the peculiar advantage of the Gospel was, that,
contrary to the common rule of the Old Testament, it exempted those who
were under it from those evils. Then, again, we deny that they did
possess the spirit of liberty and security in such a degree as not to
experience some measure of fear and bondage. For however they might
enjoy the privilege which they had obtained through the grace of the
Gospel, they were under the same bonds and burdens of observances as the
rest of their nation. Therefore, seeing they were obliged to the
anxious observance of ceremonies, (which were the symbols of a tutelage
bordering on slavery, and handwritings by which they acknowledged their
guilt, but did not escape from it,) they are justly said to have been,
comparatively, under a covenant of fear and bondage, in respect of that
common dispensation under which the Jewish people were then placed.
- John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.11.9)
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