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Hendriksen:

The final word, thanksgivings (that is, completing the circle, so that the blessings that come from God return to him again in the form of expressed gratitude) is clear enough. Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that not only supplications, prayers, and intercessions but also thanksgivings must be made in behalf of all men, including kings, etc.

Indeed, such invocations must be made “in behalf of” or “for” (see N.T.C. on John 10: 11, for the meaning of the preposition) all men. Several expositors feel certain that this means every member of the whole human race; every man, woman, and chi ld, without any exception whatever. And it must be readily admitted that taken by itself the expression all men is capable of this interpretation. Nevertheless, every calm and unbiased interpreter also admits that in certain contexts this simply cannot be the meaning.

Does Titus 2: really teach that the saving grace o( God has appeared to every member of the human race without any exception? Of course not! It matters little whether one interprets “the appearance of the saving grace” as referring to the bestowal of salvation itself, or to the fact that the gospel of saving grace has been preached to every person on earth. In either case it is impossible to make “all men” mean “every individual on the globe without exception.”

Again, does Rom. 5: 18 really teach that “every member of the human race” is “justified“?

Does I Cor. 15:22 really intend to tell us that “every member of the human race” is “made alive in Christ“?

But if that be true, then it follows that Christ did not only die for every member of the human race, but that he also actually saved every one without any exception whatever. Most conservatives would hesitate to go that far.

Moreover, if, wherever it occurs, the expression “all men” or its equivalent has this absolutely universalistic connotation, then would not the fol lowing be true:

(a) Every member of the human race regarded John the Baptist as a prophet (Mark 11:32).

(b) Every member of the human race wondered whether John was, perhaps, the Christ (Luke 3: 15).

(c) Every member of the human race marveled about the Gadarene demoniac (Mark 5:20).

(d) Every member of the human race was searching for Jesus (Mark 1:37).

(e) It was reported to the Baptist that all members of the human race were flocking to Jesus (John 3:26).

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1)

Concerning Hardening, Blindness; How God
Is Said to Deceive and Punish Sin with Sin

Hardening, blindness, and deceit is sin because of the cause for which they occur; that which hardens and blinds with regard to men and devils, however, is sin, as is said in Ephesians 4; at other times, however, it is the punishment for sin.

We say in three senses, however, that God hardens and blinds, i.e., punishes by means of evil things former offenses with later ones. First is when He deprives men of His own light, wisdom, grace, and heavenly gifts. When, however, God withdraws from men that which is His own, darkness of necessity follows light, and ignorance, blindness, and

hardening follows wisdom; when the sole cause of punishments remains, the guilt of punishment follows, as it is said in Job 12. He withdraws their hearts and mouths from princes (cf. vv. 20, 24).

Furthermore, He is said to harden when He does not soften; does not enlighten men, but leaves them in their darkness. Thus it is said in Isaiah 6 and 63 (Rom. 6, 7). And thus the Spirit of the Lord left Saul (Lombard, Book 2, Sentences).

Third, by leaving men to themselves, He gives them up to the devil, that author of every error and evil, and gives them into the hands of sin, subjects them to the Law of men (Amos 3; Isa. 45; Matt. 13). When afterwards, men are the slaves of sin, they are inclined only to evil and led by Satan. They are falsely in error, therefore, who say (with Pelagius) that God punishes and hardens permissively.

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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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Anglican Catechism of 1553:

Master. All these foundations that you have laid are most true, Now, therefore, let us go forward to His works, wherein lies our salvation and conquest against that old serpent.

Scholar. It shall be done, good Master. After Christ Jesus had delivered that charge to His apostles, that most joyful and in all points heavenly doctrine, i.e., the gospel, which in Greek is called evangelion, in English “good tidings”; and had as by sealing established the same with signs and miracles innumerable, whereof all his life was full; at length was he sore scourged, mocked with potting. scorning, and spitting in His face; last of all His hands and feet were bored through with nails and He fastened to a cross. Then He truly died and was truly buried, that by His most sweet sacrifice He might pacify His Father’s wrath against mankind; and subdue him by His death, who had the authority of death, which was the devil; forasmuch not only the living, but also the dead, were they in hell or. elsewhere, all felt the power and force of this death: to whom lying in prison (as Peter says) Christ preached, though dead in body, yet relieved in Spirit. The third day after, He rose again, alive in body also and with many notable proofs, in the space of forty days, He abode among His disciples, eating and drinking with them. In whose sight He was conveyed away in a cloud, up into heaven, or rather above all heavens where He now sits at the right hand of God the Father being made Lord of all things in heaven or in earth; King of all kings, our everlasting and only high bishop, our only attorney, only mediator, only peacemaker between God and men. Now since He has entered into His glorious majesty, by sending down His Holy Spirit to us (as He promised), He enlightens our dark blindness, moves, rules, teaches, cleanses, comforts, and rejoices our minds; and so will He still continually do till the end of the world.

“Anglican Catechism (1553),” in Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation, ed. James T. Dennison, (Grand Rapids Michigan: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010), 2:23.

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