The commentaries of M. John Calvin upon the Acts of the Apostles, faithfully translated…The commentaries of M. Iohn Caluin vpon the Actes of the Apostles, faithfully translated…

But he useth another reason to remove the offence, to wit, that their ⟨p. 308⟩ungodliness was so far from diminishing any whit of Christ his divine excellency, that it ought rather to serve to prove & establish the same. For whereby doth Christ better appear, then because all that was fulfilled in him which had been foretold in the Law and prophets?¹ Furthermore, what got the enemies of Christ, save only that in him shined the plain truth of the scripture? It must needs be that Christ should be rejected of the chief: for it was so foretold, The stone which the builders refused,² hath God made the head of the corner. Christ must needs have been condemned among the wicked, that he might acquit us before god: it was expedient that sins should be laid upon him, that he might make satisfaction for the same: that he should be offered upon the cross, that the shadowish sacrifices of the law might cease. For even the scripture contained these things. Isa. 53. Dan. 9.³ Therefore the more violently the captains of the people sought to extinguish Christ, they did in very deed prove him to be Christ, and the Lord did wonderfully deceive them, so that their obstinate impiety doeth more edify the faith of the godly, then destroy it. Of the same sort are almost all offences which lead away weak and inconstant souls from Christ. For if they would throughly ponder the whole process of the work of God, there should be matter of confirmation, where they faint. Therefore it cometh to pass for the most part that we be troubled with offences & stumbling blocks, because whiles we behold those things which belong to Christ with purblind eyes, we imagine that to be black which is white. And we see how far Paul is from dissimulation, and how freely he professeth the truth of the matter, that Christ was hated not only of the common sort, but also of the chief chieftains, & that he was not hissed at by a few, but oppressed by the wicked conspiracy of all the people. That was hard & hateful at the first conflict, but Paul opposeth a more strong engine, that God used them against their wills as a touch stone whereby he might try his son.