Acts 24:15
‘I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets — and have hope toward God…. There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust!’ Acts 24:14-15.
Calvin comments: “He means that he was a Pharisee…. Paul was a Roman citizen. Nevertheless, as he was of Jewish descent, he confesses that he was continuing in the religion that he had learnt from the fathers….
“He expressly mentions ‘the God of the fathers’…. He is…reproaching his adversaries by whom he was so cruelly attacked…. He says: ‘I worship God according to the custom handed down by our forefathers, just as they did!’…. He…was content with the spiritual worship of God….
“But in fact, the apostle did not by any means propose to found religion simply on the authority of ancestors!… At the same time, he was taking it for granted that the fathers from whom the Jewish religion had originated, were honest and true worshippers of God — so that genuine Jews could justly boast that the God of their fathers whom they were worshipping was the one and only Maker of Heaven and Earth….
“He now explains how he worshipped God…. In the way that we have been taught from the Law and the Gospel!… It is only by faith…that God is worshipped correctly…. The one and only foundation of correct and orthodox faith, is to subject oneself to Scripture and reverently embrace its teaching…. Here Paul divides Scripture into the Law and the Prophets, to prove more clearly that he did not hold anything different from the universal agreement of the Church….
“After professing that he believed in Scripture, he now adds the hope of the future resurrection in order that it may be plain that it is conceived…from the Word of God. Reverence for Scripture therefore takes the leading place, so that its authority may keep us under obligation…. There follows the knowledge of those things that God reveals in it…. To that knowledge, is linked certain hope….
“The general resurrection (of the just and unjust) is asserted here against certain (premillennial) fanatics, who restrict it to the members of Christ…. Paul says in this verse that all will rise again. So (too, also) Christ clearly refers to all without distinction in His word — ‘some to judgment; some to life’ (John 5:39).”
Calvin also says in his Institutes III:25:9 : “The resurrection…is…common to the ungodly who are lying under the curse of God…. When the devils were first alienated from God the Fountain of Life, they deserved to be destroyed utterly. Yet by the admirable counsel of God, an intermediate state was prepared where without life they might exist in death…. There is to be an adventitious resurrection of the ungodly, which will drag them against their will before the tribunal of Christ…. ‘There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust!’ (Acts 24:15).”
There shall be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust dead! Which will be yours?
