Isaiah 28:15
‘This is the rest, with which you may cause the weary to rest!… Yet they would not hear!… Because you have said: “We have made a covenant with death, and with Hell we are at agreement!”… Therefore, thus says the Lord God…: “I lay in Zion for a Foundation — a Stone!… I will also lay judgment to the line!… Your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with Hell shall not stand!… For the Lord shall rise up!’ Isaiah 28:12-21.
Calvin comments: “God testifies…assured rest…. (Here,) the Prophet corresponds nearly to the words of Christ: ‘Come to Me…, and I will give you rest!’ (Matthew 11:28)….
“‘You have said…: “We have struck a league with death, and with Hell we have made a compact!” This is what he means, by the league into which they had entered with death and the grave…. Whoever then flatters himself and his vices and fearlessly despises God’s threatenings, declares that he has ‘entered into a league with death.'” That is what Adam did, when he turned his life away from God — to the devil his death!
But :’Behold, (says God,) I lay in Zion — a Stone!’… He calls it a ‘Corner-Stone’ — because it supports the whole weight of the building…. He calls it a ‘Foundation’…. On it alone must the whole Church and every part of it rest and be built (First Corinthians 3:11)…. The Apostles and Evangelists show that this ‘Stone’ is Christ…. The salvation of men rests on Him alone….
Therefore, if Christ be taken away — the Church would fall down and be ruined….
“‘Zion’ is everywhere; for the Church has spread to the ends of the world…. ‘I will lay judgment to the line.’ The ruinous condition of the (Old Testament) Church being…that believers hardly ventured to hope that it would be improved, he shows that God had in His hand the ready means for forming the Church entirely anew…. (He) describes what will be the Reformation!…
“‘Your covenant with death shall be disannulled!’…. They had made a covenant with death… But the Lord immediately lays His hand on them…. ‘Jehovah shall rise up!’ By the words ‘rise up’ — he points out the power of God…. He ‘rises up’ or stands erect, when He openly exhibits to us proofs of His power, and such as especially manifest the great care which He takes of His Church.”
Calvin also say in his Institutes I:13:13: “If outside of God there is no salvation, no righteousness, no life — Christ, having all these in Himself, is certainly God…. Paul (Romans 10:11)…interprets…Isaiah (28:16): ‘Whosoever believes in Him, shall not be confounded!’… The name of Christ is invoked for salvation, and therefore it follows that He is Jehovah!”
Calvin further states in his Psychopannychia: “They (the wicked) think they are to reign without end; not looking to the end by which…they must go elsewhere! Of such persons, the Prophet also says (Isaiah 28:15): ‘We have stipulated with death, and made a compact with Hell!’… He does not account as life, that which is to them the beginning of the worst death!” Yet saved man’s covenant with death and the grave, shall not stand! Shall yours?
