Bucer:

The nature of predestination, then, should now be clear. In general it is the divine assigning of each thing to its own purpose, but the predestination of the saints, which is the apostle’s subject here, is the election and destining of the saints for eternal salvation.

Now to the second part of our inquiry: why should we consider predestination? The teaching of Philip Melanchthon answers this very devoutly and faithfully: it is solely in order that you may be more certain of your salvation and may cleave more firmly to the promises of God.²⁰ The first demand God makes of us is to believe that he is God, that is, the Saviour, so that when we hear him summoning to himself all who are afflicted and distressed²¹ we hasten eagerly to him. Now if those whom God calls heed his call, he has assuredly predestined and foreknown them, and will also justify and glorify them. Therefore, the first duty you owe to God is to believe that you have been predestined by him, because unless you believe that, you represent him as making sport of you when he calls you to salvation through the gospel. For by the gospel he summons you to justification and to share his glory, but these can be experienced only by those who have been predestined, foreknown and elected to do so. All God’s works are wrought in wisdom, and therefore by predetermined design. Consequently, if you doubt that you are predestined, you are also bound to doubt that you have been called to salvation, that you are justified, and that finally you are to be glorified; which means and to doubt the gospel itself, that is to say, to believe God for nothing at all of what he offers you in the gospel. For it is true believers who have eternal life, and they can no more doubt that they have it than doubt the Lord’s promise that ‘He who believes in me has eternal life.’²²

From these comments, then, it will be quite evident that the reason why we and others should reflect upon God’s predestination is so that our faith in the promise of God may be strengthened by the knowledge that, as the apostle here affirms, the saints may have complete certainty that those whom God has predestined he will also call, justify and glorify. and those whom he has already called he has also undoubtedly foreknown and predetermined. This is the purpose behind every mention by the apostle of election and predestination, wherever it occurs. If we ponder this carefully with regard to ourselves, our confidence in God will be increased and with it our love for him and for every good thing, just as, when we entertain doubt as to our predestination, along with disregard and enmity for God all kinds of evil find an entrance. Therefore, we must reject as the source of every damaging temptation the question ‘Are we predestined?’ For as we have said, the person who is doubtful on this score will be unable to believe that he has been called and justified, which means that he cannot be a Christian. We must confidently trust, therefore, as the foundation of faith, that we have all been foreknown, predetermined, separated from the rest and chosen by God to this end, that we may enjoy eternal salvation, and this is God’s immutable purpose. Hence we must direct our whole attention and concern [412] to our response to this predestination and calling of God, so that we may work together with God unto eternal life, according to the strength which the Lord has ever supplied and for whose increase we ought unceasingly to pray.

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2 Peter 2:1:

Denying] By total apostasy, or evil life, unbelieving the servants of Christ, Tit. 1:16. See more on Jude 4.

The Lord that bought them] That gave a price sufficient for them, even his own precious Blood, Acts, 20:27; 1 Cor. 6:20; 1 Pet. 1:18, 19. Or, by whom they professed that they were redeemed: and therefore they should not have denied him.

Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament: This Second Edition so enlarged, As they make an entire Commentary on the Sacred Scripture: The like never before published in English. Wherein The Text is Explained, Doubts Resolved, Scriptures Paralleled (London: Printed by John Legat, 1651). [No pagination.]

Jude 4:

ungodly men] Such as worship God not aright; or have no fear of God at all, Gen. 20:11; Psa. 30:1; Rom. 3;18.

turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness] The grace of God invites us to sobriety, Tit. 2:11,12, but they turn it to a contrary end.

Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ] Denying Christ to be God, who was their master by profession (for the professed themselves to be of his household) and their Lord by public authority over them. Or, by their deeds denying Christ.

Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament: This Second Edition so enlarged, As they make an entire Commentary on the Sacred Scripture: The like never before published in English. Wherein  The Text is Explained, Doubts Resolved, Scriptures Paralleled (London: Printed by John Legat, 1651). [No pagination.]

[Notes: These two brief comments demonstrate that the early Reformed theology was able to interpret these verses in such a way that Christ, as Lord and Master, is the subject, while also allowing that the “buying” was by way of a sufficient redemptive price for them.]

Hardy:

When, therefore, we say God would that Christ should lay down a price sufficient, and so applicable to every man, it is to be understood in a conditional way, upon the terms of faith and repentance. And hence it is, that though Christ dying suffered that punishment which was designed to be satisfactory for the sins of every man, yet God doth justly inflict the punishment upon the persons of all them who are not by faith partakers of Christ’s death, because it was intended to satisfy for them only upon condition of believing.

Nathanael Hardy, The First General Epistle of St John the Apostle, Unfolded and Applied (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 140. [Underlining mine.]

[Notes: As this stands, hardy’s brief comment would not be persuasive to some, but when his thought is combined with that of C Hodge or Edward Polhill the point is clear. The penal satisfaction of Christ (unlike a pecuniary satisfaction) does not ipso facto discharge the “debt” for  all those for whom it was made. A condition is annexed to it. Upon completion of this condition, the benefit of the satisfaction is reckoned to the penitent; but not before. Prior to the this condition being met, the sinner is still subject to the wrath and punishment of God. Lastly, what Hardy says here on conditional unlimited satisfaction exactly images the language of Ursinus and Paraeus.]

Hodge:

There are two ways of conceiving of God, the philosophical and the religious, as he stands related to the reason and as he stands related to the heart. According to the one method we regard God as the first ground and cause of all things, as infinite, immutable, eternal, incapable of any relation to space or duration, without succession and without passion or change.

According to the other, we regard him as a person to whom we bear the relation of creatures and children, of responsibility and dependence, to whom we must look for all good, and with whom we can have intercourse, who has towards us the feelings of a father and to whom we can make known our joys and sorrows.

Both these are right, so far as limited and determined by the Scriptures. The one limits the other. If we press the philosophical method so far as to lose the object of the religious affections, we end in Atheism. If we let our affections have full scope we lose the infinite and absolutely perfect, as did the mystic enthusiasts. In the Bible both elements are harmonized; though the latter is the predominant, as it should be with us.

In the interpretation of all such passages as this in which human affections are attributed to God, two things are to be avoided. 1. That we do not ascribe to him anything inconsistent with his nature as the eternal and immutable Jehovah, any perturbation or excitement. 2. That we do not merge everything into figure, as though nothing real was intended; as though the God we worship was a God without consciousness, without knowledge, without regard for his creatures. There is in him something which really answers to the words we use, and which is the proper object of the affections which we exercise.

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