Bucer:

THE GREEK WORD proorismos means literally ‘predetermination’,¹ though the common rendering is ‘predestination’. St. Paul, in fact, uses the verb proorizein to signify two things: fist, the election of the saints and their separation from the remaining polluted mass² of lost mankind (what Scripture denotes by the word hibdîl, which is used by the Lord when he speaks of the election of his own people out of the rest of the nations),³ and secondly, the election of the saints before they are even born.⁴ Now the apostle’s objective in this passage (in Romans 8) is to teach us that God destined us for salvation before we were born, let alone before we had performed any good works.

From this fact he proceeds to demonstrate that this purpose of God for our salvation is fixed and unshakeable and cannot be frustrated by any of his creatures, because God adopted it on his own initiative and out of his own kindness, which cannot change, and not out of any regard for our merit, which always fluctuates so wretchedly.

Hence foreknowledge, predetermination and election⁵ are at this point one and the same thing, so to speak; for God chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world were laid, having predetermined (proorisas) us to adoption as sons.⁶

Predetermination (proorismos), then, which we commonly call ‘predestination’, is that act of designation on the part of God whereby in his secret counsel he designates and actually selects and separates from the rest of mankind those whom he will draw to his Son, Jesus our Lord, and engraft them into him (having brought them into this life at his own good time [410], and whom, when thus drawn and ingrafted, he will regenerate through Christ and will sanctify to fulfill his purposes. This, then, as I have said, is the predestination of the saints.

There is in addition a general predestination. Proorismos means simply ‘predetermination’, and God accomplishes all things by his predeterminate counsel,⁷ assigning each and every thing to its own use, and so separating it from other things as far as this its use is concerned. If you require a definition of this general predetermination it is the assigning of each thing to its own purpose, whereby before creating them God destines all things severally from eternity to some fixed use. In this sense there is even a predestination of the wicked, for just as God forms them also out of nothing, so he forms them for a definite end. God does everything in wisdom, not excepting the predetermined and good use of the wicked,⁸ for even the godless are the skeuē the tools and instruments, of God, and ‘God has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked man for the day of evil’.⁹ The theologians, however, refuse to call this ‘predestination’, preferring ‘reprobation’ instead.¹⁰ Nonetheless, God does all things well and wisely, and so does nothing except by chosen design. He gave Pharaoh up to a depraved mind and raised him up for the purpose of showing his power in punishing him; Esau too he hated before he had done any evil.¹¹ Scripture speaks in terms as plain as these. Indeed, who will deny that when God formed these and all the wicked he foreknew before he made them the purposes for which he wished to use them, and that he ordained and destined them for those ends? So what prevents us calling it ‘predestination’ in their case too? At any rate, none of the wicked does God fail to put to a good use, and in every act of sin on our part there is some good work of God. But both in the present passage and in Ephesians 1 the apostle used the word proorizein when dealing with the certainty of God’s goodwill towards his saints, and hence the divine predestination of which he is speaking here is the marking out of the saints for participation in salvation. Ths, however, is not the reason why many assert predestination only of the saints, and reprobation of the wicked, but because it seems to them unworthy of God to say that he has predetermined anyone to perdition. Nevertheless, Scripture does not shrink from stating that God abandons certain men to a depraved mind and works in them to their ruin;¹² why, then, is it unworthy of God to say that he had also decided in advance to abandon them to a depraved mind and work in them to their ruin? But it is intolerable to human reason that some men should by God be hardened, blinded and given up to a reprobate mind, and this is why it is thought impious to ascribe to God the predetermining and destining of anyone to these fates. For the intellect recognizes that among men a person who blinded his servant and then, when he required of him some service which he could not fulfill except by sight, punished him for not carrying out his orders, would be condemned as utterly unjust and cruel. By the same touchstone man proceeds to pass judgment on God too, and decrees that it is unjust of him to require of those whom he himself hardens, blinds and abandons to a spirit of depravity, the kind of lie that no man can live unless for this very purpose God himself has regenerated and enlightened him and given him a new and upright spirit, and that it is cruel of him to punish such men for committing the sort of offences that are produced by their hardness, blindness and depravity of mind. The unsettlement occasioned by this verdict of our reason has led some so far astray as to claim, contrary to countless explicit utterances of holy Scripture, that God will in the end enlighten and save all the wicked.¹³ Others, however, who have maintained a straightforward and universal belief in holy Scripture have begun to interpret ‘hardened, blinded, handed over to depravity’ in terms of ‘withdrew his Spirit from, allowed to be hardened and blinded‘. But neither course can satisfy the human intellect, for it is unable to acknowledge the justice with which God even temporarily blinds, hardens and gives up to a depraved disposition men from whom he demands a life in all parts righteous and holy. It also cannot fail to judge it inhuman that God even allows men to fall when he alone can save them from falling, and cruel, that he punishes the fallen when, bereft of his aid, they could not help falling.

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Bucer:

ELECTION

OUR ELECTION TO an eternal inheritance is the first theological theme dealt with by Paul in this Epistle to the Ephesians. He is reminding the Ephesians of the benefits God had conferred upon them, and so he begins with the first and greatest of them all, namely, his eternal election and embrace whereby before all time he embraced both the Ephesians themselves and all his own to give them eternal life and salvation. Paul says that the efficient cause of this is the sheer grace of God and the merit of Christ. (The word ‘grace’ (gratia) here signifies the free (gratuita) favor and goodwill of God, although in addition, the free gifts of God are also figuratively spoken of as ‘grace’ in the Scriptures.)¹ The final causes of our election are holiness of lie and the glory of God, the chief end being not the holiness of our lives but the very glory of God, the ground and the goal of the creation of all things and of our regeneration. [20] The second subject treated in this Epistle is our calling and faith.

We should always keep the aim of the writer in view. Now the aim of this Epistle is the increase of godliness, both in the Ephesians and in ourselves, not merely in knowledge but in practice, and nothing less than eternally, to the end that a strengthened faith may blossom forth more profusely in every good work. Most appropriately, therefore. the apostle begins with the praise of God and with our immutable election, the knowledge of which both immeasurably strengthens faith and actively kindles in us a’ zeal for purity. So the thanksgiving we meet here not only attests Paul’s perfect love but also stimulates a like gratitude in the Ephesians, Thus he writes. ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’. In this verse he summarily recounts the benefits of God, and calls them to the remembrance of both the Ephesians and ourselves. The Hebrew word brk, to bless, sometimes means to bestow a benefit and sometimes to praise. When it is used of God, it denotes his showering us with benefits, but when it is predicated of ourselves, then it means to praise and give thanks. And indeed God is worthy of all praise and thanksgiving, ‘who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing’. Chrysostom² takes these blessings of ours as though they were being directly contrasted with the blessings of God’s ancient people, because to them God promises and presents only temporal blessings but to us ‘spiritual’ ones. But God did promise and present to that people too spiritual blessings as well, as the book of Deuteronomy everywhere bears witness, when God says that he has chosen that people to make them share in the enjoyment of all good things, including even eternal life. And when he is treating of temporal goods, he also requires them to call upon his name.³ We too, like them, need the good things of this life, and ask for them in prayer, and receive them; hence we pray, ‘Give us today our daily bread.⁴ Anyone who possesses the gift of faith is blessed by God with a spiritual blessing; that is to say, he is justified, he is given faith and hope and love and increased in the same, he is made a partaker of Christ and of his heavenly kingdom.

‘In the heavenly places’: this phrase varies in meaning, for on occasions it denotes the very abodes of evil spirits; Paul speaks elsewhere of treacherous powers of wickedness active in the heavenly places,⁵ But here it is taken to indicate those blessings which come to the elect by the gift of Christ, for already they live the life of heaven. For Christ dwells in our hearts and will not desert us even until the consummation of the world; he comes to the man who loves the Father, and abides with him.⁶ Therefore, although the saints fall into sin every day, nevertheless by their higher nature⁷ they are heavenly. Our faith and our sanctification are heavenly, and are bestowed by Christ who is in heaven, and we keep company with him through faith and ardent desire. Paul adds ‘in Christ’,⁸ because it is through his righteousness and merit that all the godly obtain all good things.

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Brown:

1)
Q. What are the two branches of predestination?
A. Election and reprobation, Rom. ix. 22,23.

Q. What is the election of angels ?
A. God’s decree to continue and establish such particular angels in eternal holiness and happiness, 1 Tim. v. 21. John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 50.  [Some reformatting.]

2)
Q. Whet is reprobation?
A. It is God’s decree to permit unelected angels and men to fall into, and continue in sin, und to punish them for the same.

Q. Is sin the cause of reprobation?
A. Sin is the cause of damnation; but God’s sovereign will is the cause of reprobation, Rom, ix. 11-28.

Q. Is not God partial, in appointing some to wrath, and others to happiness?
A. No; For though he give the elect what they deserve not, yet he inflicts nothing upon reprobates, but what they well deserve.

Q Doth reprobation oblige any to sin?
A. No; sin is. wholly the creature’s voluntary choice, Jam. i 13.

Q. What is the end of reprobation?
A. The glory of God’s sovereignty and justice, Rom. ix. 22.

Q. How should we improve this awful decree of reprobation?
A. By flying speedily to Christ, that we may see that we are not included in it, Isa lv. 1 3. John Brown, An Essay Towards an Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 51-52.  [Some reformatting.]

Marbeck:

Reprobation.

A definition of this word Reprobation.

Reprobation is the most wise purpose of God, whereby he has before all eternity constantly decreed without any injustice, not to have mercy on those whom he has not loved, but have overhipped* that by their just condemnation, he might declare his wrath towards sinners and also his glory.                                                     Pet. Mar. upon the Rom. fol. 293.

How the just cause of reprobation is hid unto us?

We say not that God’s ordinance is the cause of reprobation, but we affirm that the just causes of reprobation are to be hid in the eternal counsel of God, and known to his godly wisdom alone, but the causes of sin of death and damnation are evident and manifestly declared to us in the Scriptures, to wit, man’s free will, consenting to the deceivable persuasion of the devil, willful sin, and voluntary rebellion, by which entered death into this world, the contempt of the graces and God’s mercies offered, with the heaping up of sin upon to sin, till damnation justly came. The causes I say of sin, death and damnation, are plainly noted unto us in God’s Holy Scriptures. But why it pleased God to show mercy to some, and deny the same to others, because the judgments of God, are a devouring depth, we enter not in reasoning with him, but with all humility render thanks to is Majesty, for the grace and mercy, which we doubt not but of his free grace, we have received in Christ Jesus our only head.                                                                 Knox.

Iohn Marbeck, A Book of Notes and Common Places, collected and gathered out of the works of diuers singular Witers, and brought Alphabetically in order (Imprinted at London by Thomas East, 1581), 906-907. [Some spelling modernized.] [* Overhipped: past tense of overhip: to pass over, to pass by.]