Genesis 15:1-15
‘Do not fear, Abram! I am your shield, and your exceedingly great reward!…. You shall go to your fathers in peace! You shall be buried, in a good old age!’ Genesis 15:1-15.
Calvin commented: “God exhorts Abram to be of a tranquil mind…. God cares for us…. Learn to rest in His providence!…. ‘I am your shield!’…. Let us know that the same blessing is promised to us all!…. We ought to regard this promise as a brazen wall, so that we should not be excessively fearful in any dangers…. Men, surrounded with various and innumerable desires of the flesh, are at times unstable and are then too much addicted to the love of the present life…. God declares that He alone is sufficient for the perfection of a happy life to the faithful….
“We shall be truly happy, when God is propitious to us. For He not only pours upon us the abundance of His kindness, but offers Himself to us so that we may enjoy Him…. What is there more which men can desire, when they really enjoy God?…. The Lord calls Himself not simply ‘a reward’; but an ‘exceeding great reward!’ — with which we ought to be more than sufficiently contented. This truly furnishes most abundant material and most solid support for confidence. For whosoever shall be fully persuaded that his life is protected by the hand of God…, can never be miserable while God is gracious to him!….
“‘You shall go to your fathers in peace!’ Hitherto, the Lord had respect to the posterity of Abram as well as to himself…. But now, He turns His address to Abram alone…. He would die in peace, after he had attained the utmost limit of old age…. Abram would have not only a long but a placid old age, with a corresponding joyful and peaceful death…. Although through his whole life Abram was to be deprived of the possession of the land, yet he would not be wanting…quiet and joy. So that, having happily finished his life, he would cheerfully depart to his fathers…..
“Peace in death, ought justly to be regarded as a singular benefit…. They who live justly and holily, are attended by a sweet hope — cherishing their hearts and nourishing their old age…. The poet, when he asserts that hope is the reward of a good conscience, calls it ‘the nurse of old age’….
“The old are admonished…seriously to reflect that they must depart…. Unless the hope of a better life inspires them, nothing remains for them but miserable fears…. The faithful commit their souls into the hand of God without fear and sadness…. The Lord, in promising a placid and quiet death to his servant Abram, teaches us that it is His Own gift…. Abram willingly and joyfully went forward to his death, seeing that he had in Isaac a certain pledge of the divine benediction and knew that a better life was laid up for him in Heaven!”
Calvin explained in his Institutes (II:11:2): “Abraham is not allowed to keep down his thoughts, to the promised land. By a greater promise, his views are carried upward to the Lord…. The Lord is the final reward promised to Abraham, so that he might not seek a fleeting and evanescent reward in the elements of this world — but look to one which was incorruptible.” Going to one’s forefathers, in a good old age!
