Chapter II: An Explanation of the Terms

CHAPTER II: EXPLANATION OF TERMS

§ 23. Let us go on to an explanation of the terms which are generally used in this matter. The Hebrews have two words with which to express the act of electing: and Some think that (“he chose,” “he selected”) comes from and (“white”), because things that are white and upright are selected and approved. Some say that it shares commonality with the word [“to unite”], from which it differs in significance only by the transposition of letters. It is used of things and persons: of things in 2 Sam. 24:12: “Choose one of them.” In Isa. 7:15: “that he may know how to refuse the evil and choose the good.” It is used of persons in Deut. 7:7: “The Lord chose you” or “He selected among you,” that is, He made a selection [delectum habuit]. Ezek. 20:5: “On the day of My choosing in Israel,” that is, when I chose Israel for Myself. In all these passages the Word is used. The word is found only in the passive voice and has the meaning of “separating,” whether a thing is separated or divided from another thing, or a person from another person. Num. 16:9: “Is it too small a thing for you that God has separated you from the congregation of Israel,” that is, “that He has selected you for the priestly office?”

§ 24. Ἐκλέγεσθαι (“to pick out”) likewise is applied both to things and to persons. When it refers to things, it means to prefer something to the rest or even to reserve it for a more noble use. Gen. 13:11: “Lot chose (ἐξελέξατο) for himself the region around the Jordan.” Deut. 12:11: “The place that the Lord will choose (ὅν εκλέξεται).” It also means “to approve” and “to consider acceptable.” Isa. 58:6: “Is not this the fast that I chose (ἐξελεξάμην)?” When it applies to persons, it is used to refer to Christ or to angels or to humans. It is used in reference to Christ in Isa. 43:10 and Matt. 12:18: “Behold, My servant whom I have chosen” (ἐξελεξάμην in Isaiah, ᾑρέτισα in Matthew). Moreover, Christ is called the “chosen servant of God” because He is particularly beloved [dilectus] to Him, but especially because He is established as our Mediator and Redeemer in the eternal counsel of God. Consequently, in the fullness of time He assumed human nature [Gal. 4:4] and in it served God for the sake of the salvation of humankind (Matt. 20:28). It is used to refer to the angels in 1 Tim. 5:21: “I bear witness before God and Christ and the elect angels.” Moreover, the angels are called “elect” because they have been confirmed in goodness while the other, evil, angels were “kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness for the judgment of the great day” (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). When it refers to human beings, it means in general to select someone to perform public offices, whether these be ecclesiastical or political. Exod. 18:25: “Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over Israel.” Deut. 18:5: “God chose (ἐξελέξατο) him” (Aaron) “out of all your tribes.” 1 Sam. 10:24, referring to Saul: “Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen?” Luke 6:13: “Christ chose (ἐκλεξάμενος) twelve from His disciples and made them apostles.” Acts 1:24: “Lord, show which You have chosen.” In particular and in a stricter sense, it is used to refer to the entire assembly of the church which God gathers for Himself through His Word from all assemblies and peoples and has selected to be His peculiar [περιούσιον] people. Deut. 4:37: “God chose the seed of your fathers.” Deut. 7:6: “The Lord has chosen you to be His peculiar people.”

Or it is used of the true members of the church who cling to Christ, the church’s Head, in true faith and persevere in Him until the end of life. Eph. 1:4: “God chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world were formed.” This is called ἐκλογὴ χάριτος (“election of grace”), whence the word ἐκλογὴ [“election”] in Rom. 11:7 is taken by metonymy to refer to those who have been chosen for eternal life.

Synonyms for the word “to elect.”

§ 25. The Greeks also have other words with which they express the Hebrew (“to elect”). For example, Num. 16:9: διέστειλεν ὑμᾶς ὁ θεὸς [“God has separated you”]. Ps. 119:30: “I have chosen [ᾑρετισάμην] the way of truth.” Ezek. 20:5: Ἀϕ’ ἧς ἡμέρας ᾑρέτισα τὸν οἶκον Ἰσραήλ [“On the day when I chose the house of Israel”]. Rom. 1:1: ἀϕωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον [“set apart for the Gospel”]. (This corresponds to the Hebrew .) Second Thessalonians 2:13: τιελετο μς θες π’ ρχς ες σωτηρίαν.) [“because God chose you from the beginning to be saved”]. Etc.

The meaning of the word “to elect.”

§ 26. From all these it is clear that: (I) The word “to elect” includes in its meaning a sort of separation by which a thing or person is separated from another and thus is elected to some certain thing. For this reason Moses says, Deut. 7:6: “The Lord has elected you to be His special people from all the people who are on the face of the earth”; and Solomon renders it this way in 1 Kings 8:53: “You separated the Israelites from among all the peoples of the earth to be Your heritage.” What Moses says, that “God has separated the sons of Levi from the Israelites to serve in the tabernacle” (Num. 16:9), David expresses in this way in 1 Chron. 15:2: “God chose the Levites to carry the ark and to minister to Him.” Related to this is the phrase that God is said to “choose out of the world” (John 15:19). The use of this observation is against those who support universal election.

(II) The word “to elect” includes within itself unearned love [gratuitam dilectionem], from which it originates. Deut. 4:37: “Because the Lord loved your fathers, He elected their descendants after them.” Deut. 7:6–8: “The Lord your God has elected you to be His own peculiar people; it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love upon you and elected you, but because the Lord loved you and wanted to keep the oath which He had sworn to your fathers.” Deut. 10:15: “Yet the Lord set His love upon your fathers to love them, and He elected their seed.” The use of this observation is against those who support free choice and merits, who argue that God has elected people because of their good works which He had foreseen [praevisa bona opera].

(III) The word “to elect” is always used in what is good and never in what is bad, as will be clear from a consideration of all the examples. The use of this observation is against those who support an absolute decree of reprobation, who argue that God predestined some to eternal death with some sort of absolute hatred.

(IV) The words ἐκλεκτοί [“the elect”] and ἐκλελεγμένοι [“those having been elected”] have the same scope, and thus it cannot be said that all have been elected to eternal life. Mark 13:20: διὰ τοὺς ἐκλεκτούς, οὓς ἐξελέξατο [“for the sake of the elect whom He chose”]. 1 Cor. 1:27: “God chose the foolish things of the world.” This observation is likewise against the defenders of universal election, properly speaking.

Προορισμός [“Predestination”].

§ 27. Election to eternal life is also called προορισμός [“predestination”] in the writings of the apostle (Rom. 8:30; Eph. 1:5). This is a very emphatic word denoting both the end and the means to the end. Ὅρος is “limit” and “end”; therefore προορίζειν is “to destine and ordain to a fixed end while at the same time providing the means which lead to that end.” This word is applied to things and persons alike: to things, as in 1 Cor. 2:7: “We are speaking in a mystery the wisdom which was hidden and which God foreordained.” When it is applied to persons, it always signifies in Scripture their election to eternal life. Augustine (De praedestinat. Dei, ch. 2) makes this distinction:

Some predestinations are of binding; others are of condition. The latter are of justice; the former, of power. God created heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, day and night. Furthermore, He predestined that heaven should always revolve, that the earth would be held immobile by a central point as heaven moves around it, that the sun and moon would be in charge of day and night, that day and night would succeed each other in turn at certain times. These are predestinations of power and of binding. God also created man and predestined that he would persist in life if he were obedient and abstained from tasting the forbidden fruit; however, if he would be disobedient, he would suffer the sentence of death. This predestination is one of condition and justice.

Those are Augustine’s words. As we have said, however, Scripture nowhere construes the word προορισμός (“predestination”) in any other way than in reference to election to eternal life. In the Vulgate translation, Christ is said to be “the predestined Son of God” [praedestinatus Dei Filius] (Rom. 1:4), but in the Greek the word is ὁρισθείς (“pronounced, demonstrated, and declared with certainty”) according to the interpretation of the Greek scholia. (See Erasmus, Annotation.)

“Predestination” is nowhere used in the Scriptures for reprobation.

§ 28. Some assert that there is one predestination unto life and another unto death and the causes of eternal death, [but this is] apart from Scripture, since in [Scripture] it is always taken with reference to ordering to eternal life.

Augustine (De praedestinat. Dei, ch. 2): “It is especially impious to say that God predestines anything except good.” Ad art. sibi falso impositos, art. 11: “God did not predestine any such activities to happen” (fathers committing incest with their daughters, slaves killing their masters, etc.), “nor did He prearrange their soul to be shameful and wicked to live in that way. However, He was not ignorant of such a future, and He foreknew that He would pass just judgment about it. Thus nothing more can be ascribed to His predestination except what pertains to the due retribution of justice or to the free abundance of grace.” Article 12: “By no means does predestination cause some of the children of God to be the children of the devil, or temples of demons to be made from the temple of the Holy Spirit, or members of the whore to be made from members of Christ. Instead, predestination causes children of God to be made from children of the devil, the temple of the Holy Spirit to be made from the temple of demons, and members of Christ to be made from members of the whore…. Predestination causes many to stand but none to fall.” Article 14: “God has no predestination at all to violate the Law, to neglect religion, to corrupt discipline, to abandon faith, or to commit any sort of sin.” Hypognost., bk. 6: “God merely foreknows and does not predestine evils, but He both foreknows and predestines goods…. Therefore God punishes some” (namely, the reprobate) “because He foreknew what they would be, and yet He did not cause nor predestine them to be punished.”

Prosper (Resp. ad Gall.): “The predestination of God is always in what is good…. By no means does the predestination of God make people wicked.”

Fulgentius (Ad Monim., bk. 1): “God has not predestined the wicked to lose righteousness the way He has predestined the saints to receive righteousness… If we were to say that a man has been predestined by God to some wicked deed, we would be ascribing to a merciful God—heaven forbid!—the sort of work where one cannot find a merciful or just God… God could never have predestined man to that which He Himself determined to forbid by commandment, wash away with His mercy, and punish in His justice.”

§ 29. Therefore we vigorously disapprove of what is written by: Beza (Opera, vol. 1, p. 417): “God has predestined some not only to damnation but also to the causes of their damnation.” Zanchi (De natura Dei, bk. 5, ch. 2, p. 620): “Some were condemned not because of their foreseen sins but merely by the good-pleasure of the will of God; reprobation causes the refusal of grace, which causes sins, and sins cause the punishment for sins. God has predestined the reprobate to all these from all eternity.” Piscator (on Romans 2, p. 43): “God has predestined some to destruction not because of their offenses but out of a free hatred.” They cite only one passage from the Scriptures by which they try to prove that God has predestined people also to sins (to the extent that they illumine the glory of God), namely, Acts 4:27–28: “Herod and Pilate came together to do what the hand and plan of God had predestined to take place [προώρισε γενέσθαι].” Therefore (says Zanchi, p. 624, col. 2): “Herod and Pilate had been predestined for the death of Christ.”

We respond. The apostles do not say that God predestined Herod and Pilate to do those things but that “they did what the hand and plan of God had predestined to take place.” Therefore they are speaking not about the prearrangement or forcing of the wicked to kill Christ, but about the redirecting of the foulest crime to good and to the salutary end of the entire human race. In regard to this subject, see earlier in our commonplace On Providence [Commonplace IX, § 131].

Does God predestine people to sins?

§ 30. Therefore it is absurd and inexcusable blasphemy to say that God by absolute hatred has predestined some people to death and to the causes of eternal death, that is, to sins. In fact, nowhere does Scripture use the word “predestination” in reference to the reprobation of the wicked (that in His just judgment God has decided to exclude some from the kingdom of heaven because of their ultimate impenitence and unbelief, that is, by His consequent and judicial will). Zanchi himself acknowledges this, for he writes as follows (De nat. Dei, bk. 5, ch. 2, p. 624, col. 2): “With the word ‘predestination,’ the Scriptures usually signify the election of the saints, properly speaking, and their assignment to eternal life made before the foundation of the world.” Bellarmine agrees with Zanchi for he writes (De grat. et lib. arbitr., bk. 2, ch. 16): “To be sure, this word is not found in the Scriptures except in a good sense.” But if some of the fathers in some places apply the word “predestination” to the reprobate, they do this not at all in the sense as if God predestined them to damnation and the causes of damnation, that is, to sins themselves (which idea they reject and condemn in clear language). Rather, they are speaking about the just judgment of God by which He determined to cast away from Himself forever and condemn those who by their own fault persevere in their impenitence and unbelief. Meanwhile, as we have said, Scripture never and nowhere uses the word “predestination” about a decree of reprobation. Pertinent here also is the observation that Augustine calls the reprobate “foreknown,” but he calls only the elect “predestined.” Therefore what Polanus thinks (Sylloge disp., part 2, De praedest., p. 664) is quite rash: “They are in serious error who use the word ‘predestination’ only in a good sense.” Keckermann refutes him even on the basis of philosophical principles (System. theol., bk. 3, ch. 1, p. 296).

Is there a distinction between election and predestination?

§ 31. Should one posit a distinction between election and predestination? Some argue that predestination happened from eternity while election occurs in time. Bucanus writes (Loci, De praedest., p. 387): “Election properly means the separation which in fact happens through the effectual calling of certain people out from the ruined human race. By metonymy it is used for the intent to elect.”

However, this is false because in the ordinary basis [sedes] of this article in Ephesians 1, it is said clearly in v. 4: “God chose [elegisse] us before the foundation of the world.” To be sure, Scripture acknowledges an election which takes place in time, namely, the election into the people of God or the calling to some specific office, as the examples cited earlier show [§§ 23–24]. But when it is used in reference to election to eternal life, it is always taken to refer to the eternal decree of God who chooses. There is only one passage which can be urged with apparent plausibility in favor of the meaning which Bucanus contends is proper, namely, John 15:16: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.” But Calvin himself says in his commentary: “This passage is not speaking about the common election of the devout by which they are adopted as the children of God but about the particular election by which Christ had destined the disciples for the office of preaching the Gospel.” ([Cf.] John 6:70 and Luke 6:13.) The context itself teaches this.

§ 32. Some argue that predestination is of all people indiscriminately but that election is of only a few, namely, “of those who shall believe” [1 Tim. 1:16].

We respond. Scripture uses these words indifferently and teaches that both have the same scope. Rom. 8:30: “Those whom He predestined He also called, justified, and glorified.” Eph. 1:4–5: “God elected us in Christ before the foundations of the world were set, and He predestined us for adoption as sons of God.” 2 Thess. 2:13: “We ought to give thanks to God because He has elected you to salvation from the beginning.”

§ 33. We certainly do not bring action rashly against those who say that election and predestination can perhaps be distinguished with regard to the Word, so that election concerns the separation of the faithful from the faithless but predestination looks to the boundary or terminus, which is eternal life. This is the same thing that προορισμός [“predestination”] means: that God has circumscribed with definite means or limits those things which concern our salvation. Moreover, ἐκλογὴ [“election”] denotes the separation which was instituted accordingly by God. Only let them in turn concede to us that predestination along with election according to the wording of Scripture are in reality the same thing; and let them also clearly confess that predestination refers to the means of salvation not only as God offers them but also as people receive them through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit working in their hearts.

The form of speaking used by the fathers.

§ 34. Augustine speaks thus: “As far as the damnable mass of the human race is concerned, God foreknew in His mercy and not because of their merits those whom He also predestined to life with the election of grace” (Hypogn., bk. 6). “Before God made us, He foreknew us, and in that foreknowledge He elected us when He had not yet created us. We were created within the world and were elected before the world, and thus at one and the same continuous time, not passing or future time, or any other way of referring to it, though it is within the province of God to foreknow, to create, and to elect. With His unchangeably permanent foreknowledge, He elected those whom He was going to create and by electing them was about to create them” (De praedest. et grat., ch. 5). “Predestination is the preparation for grace” (De praedest. sanctorum, ch. 10). “God elected in Christ His members before the creation of the world. How did He elect those who did not yet exist except by predestining them? Therefore as He predestines, He elects us” (ibid., ch. 18). Augustine uses these and similar modes of speaking. Ambrose (De vocat. gent., bk. 1, ch. 3): “In the immutable knowledge of God, all of humanity is already separated in His sight.” Chapter 6: “Foreknown and foreordained to the kingdom of God.” Chapter 7: “A distinction by which God elects some and does not elect others.” Book 2, ch. 4: “No one’s demise is arranged on the basis of God’s regulation.” Chapter 10: “The sum was foreknown and preelected in Christ before the eternal ages.” Bonaventure treats it this way: “Predestination adds order and direction to the goal, but election adds a division or separation from its opposite.”

Synonyms for election.

§ 35. Synonyms in the Holy Scriptures for election in the specific sense or predestination to eternal life are these: In Exod. 32:32, the book¹ which God wrote is mentioned. Luke 10:20: “Rejoice that your names are written in the heavens.” John 17:6: “I have manifested Your name to the people You gave Me out of the world.” Acts 13:48: “As many as were ordered (τεταγμένοι) to eternal life believed.” 1 Thess. 5:9: “God has destined us to obtain salvation.” 2 Thess. 2:13: “God chose you from the beginning to be saved.”

Synonyms for the elect.

§ 36. Synonyms for the elect are these: 1 Sam. 25:29: “Whose souls are bound in the bundle of life.” Isa. 4:3: “Recorded for life in Jerusalem.” Dan. 12:1; Rev. 17:8; 20:15: “Written in the book of life.” Matt. 25:34: People “for whom the kingdom was prepared from the foundation of the world.” Acts 13:48: People “ordered unto life.” Rom. 8:17: “Heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ.” Rom. 8:28–29: “Called according to His purpose, whom God foreknew.” Rom. 11:5: “The remnant according to the election of grace.” 1 Tim. 1:16: “Those who were to believe in Christ for eternal life.” Heb. 1:14: “Who are to obtain the inheritance of salvation.” Heb. 12:23: “The church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.” Rev. 14:3–4: “The redeemed from the earth; the redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb,” etc.

The book of life.

§ 37. Furthermore, because the elect are said to be written in the book of life, we should speak here about the book of life. The book of life should be distinguished from the book of God in the absolute and simple sense. The book of God, speaking metaphorically and anthropopathically [κατ’ ἀνθρωποπάθειαν], indicates His foreknowledge by which He knows precisely the birth, life, deeds, and departure from life of all human beings before the very foundation of the world. Ps. 56:8: “You have numbered my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” Ps. 139:16: “In Your book were written all my days before they existed.” Dan. 7:10: “The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.” Mal. 3:16: “Jehovah paid attention and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him.” Rev. 20:12: “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened, and they were judged by what was written in the books, according to their works.”

The two books of life.

§ 38. Some claim that there are two books of life: one is material and is called the Bible, namely, that volume which contains the words of life and which teaches the way² of eternal life. Ecclus. 24:23 (in the Vulgate version): “All these things are the book of life.” The other is metaphorical and is mentioned in Phil. 4:3: “Whose names are in the book of life.” Rev. 3:5: “I shall not blot out his name from the book of life.” Rev. 17:8: “Whose names have been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.” Rev. 20:12: “Another book was opened, which was the book of life.” Rev. 20:15: “Whoever was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” Rev. 22:19: “God will take away his share of the book of life.” This book of life is called, without qualification, “the book of God” preeminently. Exod. 32:32: “Forgive their sins. If not, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” Verse 33: “Whoever sins against Me, I will blot him out of My book.” Dan. 12:1: “Your people will be delivered, everyone whose name has been found in the book.” It is also called the book of the living. Ps. 69:28: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living.” And also “the register [scriptura] of the house of Israel.” Ezek. 13:9: “They will not be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel.”

The book of life is Christ.

§ 39. This book of life is Christ Himself, from which it is called “the book of life of the Lamb.” Rev. 13:8: “… whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb, who was slain from the foundation of the world.” Rev. 21:27: “But only those whose names are written in the book of life of the Lamb.” Writing in this book of life is nothing other than election in Christ unto eternal life. This is a metaphor drawn from a human custom, where those who have been elected to anything are written in a book. (See Thomas, [ST,] part 1, q. 24, art. 1.) You see, just as the apostle says in Eph. 1:4 that “God elected us in Christ before the foundations of the world were laid,” so also John says that the names of some were written in the book of life from the foundation of the world (Rev. 17:8). Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 20, ch. 15): “This book of life does not remind God, lest He be mistaken in forgetfulness, but it symbolizes the predestination of those to whom He gave eternal life. It is not that God does not know them and reads this book in order that He may know. Rather, the book of life is His very foreknowledge about them, and His foreknowledge cannot fail. They are written in that book; that is, they are foreknown.”

Can those who have been written in the book of life be erased from it?

§ 40. From this, one can easily judge how to answer the question: Can those who have been written in the book of life be erased from it? This must certainly be denied. After all, just as Christ expressly says that “it is impossible for the elect to be led into error worthy of damnation” (Matt. 24:24), so also we say that it is impossible for those who are written in the book of life to be erased from it. How and to what extent this is impossible we shall explain more fully in its own place [§§ 212–15]. In Rev. 13:8 we read about those who worship the beast, that “their names have not been written in the book of life.” Rev. 20:15: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire and of eternal damnation.” Some argue that there are something like two writings in the book of life: one, of those who through Baptism have been received into the covenant of grace and have put on Christ but afterward fall out of the covenant again and are condemned; the other, of those who persevere in their faith in Christ until the end of their life and are saved.

However, I respond that a distinction must be made between the thing itself and the manner of speaking. As far as the thing itself is concerned, we readily admit that even those who believe only for a time and later fall again and perish do put on Christ, become partakers temporarily of His benefits, etc. But as far as the manner of speaking is concerned, we deny that the Scriptures anywhere say that temporary believers were written in the book of life. You see, just as not all who truly believe are elect but only those who persevere in the true faith until the end of life, so also not all who truly believe are written in the book of life, according to the expression of Scripture, but only those who will cling with persevering faith to Christ the Prince of life.

Exodus 32[:32]: “Erase me from the book of life.”

§ 41. Here we must explain those passages of Scripture which seem to intimate that some people can be deleted from the book of life again. In Exod. 32:32, Moses asks: “Forgive them” (the Israelites) “their sin. But if not, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” God answered him, v. 33: “Whoever has sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book.” Therefore it is surely not impossible for some people to be blotted out of the book of life.

We respond. Moses’ prayer is hypothetical, because he is asking that the sin of his people be forgiven or, if there is a need for eternal punishment, that he alone, in place of all the people, be blotted from the book of life, if indeed this could be done and if it were right for it to be done. Surely one must add the understood condition which Christ expresses clearly in His own prayer: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup be removed from Me” [Luke 22:42]. So also the apostle in Rom. 9:3 wishes “to be cursed for the sake of his brothers, the Israelites,” and thus indicates that he embraces them with so great a love that, if it were possible, he would be prepared to make a ransom for the renunciation of the people of Israel with his own eternal destruction. “Clearly his overflowing love desires even the impossible,” as Luther says.³ “Moses says this without worry,” the Glossa ordinaria says, from Augustine (on Exodus, q. 147), “in order that the reasoning may be concluded in the consequences, that is, in order that—because God would not blot Moses out of His book—He would forgive the people that sin.”

“But,” you say, “God adds that He will blot out of His book whoever sins against Him.”

We respond. He who sins, that is, who out of intentional wickedness commits a sin and continues it without repentance, is erased by God from the book of life—that is, God declares to him as well as to others that he was not written in the book of life. Lyra (commentary on this passage) uses the following distinction: “Some people are said to be written in the book of life in two ways: in one way, simply, to the extent that they have been predestined in the knowledge of God as ordained for eternal life on the basis of God’s predestination and, being thus written, will never be erased. In the other way, they are said to be written in a certain respect, namely, not according to divine predestination or ordination but according to a disposition existing in them in actuality, namely, according to their present righteousness.” The same distinction is set forth by Thomas ([ST,] part 1, q. 24, art. 3) and in [Ius canonicum] (c. peccatum, dist. 4, De poen.): “The Lord says to Moses: ‘If anyone sins before Me, I shall blot him out of the book of life,’ so that according to the judicial justice he may be said to be erased by sinning, though he had never been written in it according to foreknowledge.”

Psalm 69[:28]: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living.”

§ 42. Ps. 69:28: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living.” Therefore, surely, they could be erased.

We respond. The explanation is added immediately: “And let them not be enrolled among the righteous.” Augustine (Enarr. of this psalm, vol. 8, concl. 2):

We should not take this in such a way that God enrolls someone in the book of life and then erases him. If a man has said, “What I have written, I have written,” in regard to the sign, where it had been written “The King of the Jews,” does God write someone and then erase him? He is foreknowing and before the foundation of the world has predestined all who are going to rule with His Son in eternal life. The book of life contains those whom He has enrolled…. How, then, are they erased when they were never written? This was said according to their hope, because they thought that they had been written there. What does this mean: “Let them be blotted out of the book of life”? Even to them it is obvious that they are not there…. To those who kept hoping that they were written in the book of God as by the merit of their own righteousness it is said: “Search the Scriptures, in which you think that you have eternal life” [John 5:39]. When their condemnation has been brought to their awareness, they will be blotted from the book of the living—that is, they will know that they are not there—for the verse that follows explains what has been said.

The very learned theologian Dr. Gesnerus (commentary on Daniel 12) explains this very point more fully:

The wicked are said to be blotted out of the book in which they were never written for three reasons: First, with respect to God, [because] in a certain respect they cannot be said simply to have been enrolled in the book of life, for they were not written in eternal life, which is the book of life, properly speaking and of itself primarily. But they were written in the cause of eternal life, which is the mercy of God, the merit of Christ, and the gracious calling, and these are universal. Second, the wicked, and especially hypocrites, can be said to be written in the book of life with respect to their own persuasion by which they suppose that they are beloved children of God and heirs and citizens of eternal blessedness. Finally, even with regard to their external behavior in the church, they can in some way be considered as being written in the book of the living, but nevertheless they really are not. That they are not will become manifest when the Lord will sweep His threshing floor and will separate the grain from the chaff.

This concludes our discussion about being written in the book of life, which is predesti nation itself.

The word “reprobation.”

§ 43. The word “reprobation” is not used in the active voice in the New Testament in reference to God. The word ἀδόκιμος [“reprobate, not approved”] is used in 1 Cor. 9:27: “I discipline my body, lest after preaching to others I myself should be reprobate.” 2 Cor. 13:5: “Do you not realize that Christ is in you?—unless perhaps you are reprobate.” Moreover, to disapprove [reprobare] means to reject something and to condemn it as unworthy and unacceptable. In Jer. 6:30 they are called (“reprobate silver”) whom Jehovah has disapproved [reprobavit] and cast away from Himself. The word means to discard something or someone with disgust as worthless and contemptible. The Septuagint translators quite often have rendered it with the word ἀποδοκιμάζειν [“to reject as unworthy”]. Therefore in Heb. 6:[7–8] it is said that “the land is reprobate (ἀδόκιμος) and near to being cursed which produces thorns and thistles and is opposed to Him; it receives from God the blessing which comes to it often as it drinks in the rain and produces the vegetation useful to those who cultivate it.” Thus are they who are and are said to be reprobate, who spit out the salutary seed of the Word, suffocate it with the thorns of pleasures, and persevere in their unbelief. The end of these, too, as of the reprobate land, is “to be burned” [Heb. 6:8].

Synonyms for “reprobation” in Scripture.

§ 44. Scripture speaks about the decree of reprobation in this way: John 3:18: “He who does not believe is condemned already (ἤδη κέκριται), because he does not believe in the name of the only Son of God.” John 3:36: “He who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.” 1 Thess. 5:9: “God has not appointed us for wrath.” According to Matt. 7:23, Christ will say to the damned on the Day of Judgment: “I do not know you.” Matt. 25:41: “Depart from Me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Rom. 11:2: “God has not cast away (οὐκ ἀπώσατο) His people whom He foreknew.” The reprobate are called “vessels of wrath” (Rom. 9:22) and are compared to “vessels of wood and clay” (2 Tim. 2:20).

In the fathers.

§ 45. In many places Augustine calls the reprobate “the foreknown,” namely, for this purpose: to distinguish between the good deeds of the elect (which God not only foreknows but also works by His Spirit, promotes, and approves) and the sins of the reprobate to which God neither drives nor forces them nor takes pleasure in them, but nevertheless He has foreknown them from eternity. However, be advised that the title “the foreknown” cannot be attributed solely to the reprobate: [1] Because God foreknew not only what others were going to do—namely, the sins and unbelief of the reprobate—but also what He Himself was going to do, namely, the faith of the elect. For this reason Scripture says that election was made according to foreknowledge (1 Pet. 1:2) and denotes the elect with this circumlocution: “those whom God foreknew” (Rom. 8:29; 11:2). [2] Because God not only foreknew the damnation of the reprobate but also decreed it in His just judgment, just as He not only foreknew the glorification of the elect but also decreed it out of His boundless grace.

Ambrose (De vocat. gent., bk. 2, ch. 8) calls “renunciation” what we call reprobation. Fulgentius (Ad Mon., bk. 1) calls it “designation to punishment.”

The Scholastics say that reprobation entails “eternal hatred, temporal hardening, and ultimate damnation.”

Cognate words.

§ 46. This concludes what we had to say as an introduction concerning the true meaning of the terms which are used in this article. As concerns cognate words such as πρόγνωσις, πρόνοια [“foreknowledge, providence”], etc., we have dealt with those in detail in our preceding treatise [On Providence (Commonplace IX), §§ 11–21]. It remains for us to show the nature of the decree of election and reprobation, and afterward to descend into the open battlefield with the architects of the absolute decree. In fact, the entire matter turns on this like a hinge, and once we have resolved that question, the explanation of the remaining questions can no longer be difficult.

1 Read libri with Cotta instead of libris.

2 Read viam with Cotta instead of vitam.

3 Luther made a similar statement in Lectures on Romans (1515–16/1938–39), AE 25:380 (WA 56:390). Gerhard could not have known about these Lectures, however, since they were lost and not published until 1938.

↑ Back to top