BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

CHAPTER VIIL

THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION.

§ 88. Election and Calling.

Comp. Weiss, die Praedestinationslehre des Apostels Paulus, in den Jahrbuchern für deutsche Theologie, 1857, 1; W. Beyschlag, die Paulinische Theodicee, Berlin 1868.

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HE assurance of the individual depends on his calling to the fellowship of the Christian Church,

as by this calling the divine purpose of election begins to be realized towards him (a). God has in Himself the absolute right, à priori, to create men to salvation or destruction, and by the free action of His power to lead on to this goal; but in regard to the Christian salvation He has availed Himself of His right only in so far as, independently of all human works and deserts, He determines according to His absolute will to what conditions He will attach His grace (b). The condition with which He has connected His election is now nothing else than the love which He foreknew in the receptive soul (c). But the elect are called when God by His gospel works faith in them (d).

(a) If the course of the development of the Christian life is exposed to troubles of many kinds (§ 86), which may hinder it from reaching its goal; and if God alone can so strengthen him who is in trial, that he continue to stand (Rom. xiv. 4, xvi. 25), then the Christian must have the assurance that God will even do this. This assurance rests on the faithfulness of God, who does not allow trial to become too severe (1 Cor. x. 13;

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comp. Matt. xiii. 20), or who so strengthens the wavering that he continues unblameable to the end (i. 8). This presupposes that God has, as it were, become bound to the individual; and this, according to ver. 9, He has done by His calling (comp. 1 Thess. v. 24, and therewith' § 62, c). As the calling of Israel is an irrevocable designation to the saving blessings designed for them (Rom. xi. 29; comp. § 72, d), so here it is a designation to the future glory (εἰς κοινωνίαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ: 1 Cor. i. 9, and therewith § 77, d; comp. 2 Thess. ii. 14); but therein is necessarily involved also, as with Peter (§ 45), the designation to that holiness (λnтoi ayio: 1 Cor. i. 2; Rom. i. 7; comp. 1 Thess. ii. 12, iv. 7) which God has to work in them, to prove and perfect in them, if they are to reach that goal. In our Epistles is the idea of calling for the first time quite definitely announced as the designation of a visible act done once for all, in which God has, as it were, given to the individual the assurance that He will lead him on in this way to perfect salvation; and this act is his introduction to the fellowship of the Christian Church.1 In this act is the divine purpose expressed, to lead each to salvation, as it is already realized in the present, and yet draws near in its completion (Rom. viii. 28: οἱ κατὰ πρόθεσιν κλητοί); and this purpose is conceived of on the side of Him who calls according to election (ix. 11: ἡ κατ ̓ ἐκλογὴν πρόθεσις ÈK TOÛ KAλOÛVTOS), i.e. so that out of the mass of humanity those are expressly chosen whom, as His holy and beloved ones, He wishes to be partakers of salvation (xi. 28; comp. Col. iii. 12; Eph. i. 4, 5). This secret divine decree of election2

1 This is clear, especially from 1 Cor. vii. 18, 21, 22, according to which, each is to remain as a Christian in the same vocation in which he was called; and from vv. 17, 20, where the manner of the xaños is itself designated as different, according to the position in life in which each Christian is. So far as the members of the Christian Church belong to Christ, they are nλnoì Xpiso (Rom. i. 6); so far as they stand in a living fellowship with Christ, they are xanroì iv zupíų (1 Cor. vii. 22); in so far as they are free from the law, they are called ir' isuespía (Gal. v. 13). If λ stands (1 Cor. x. 27) for an invitation to a feast, this naturally has nothing to do with the technical meaning of the word.

2 'Exλexrós (Rom. xvi. 13) naturally is not used in the technical sense of the doctrine of election, but means select, distinguished, as § 30, d. In other passages the idea of election is throughout not differently conceived of than by Peter and James (§ 44, 45), only that here, naturally, it refers not to a narrower election from the chosen people, but from among men generally. On the other

becomes clearly manifest in the calling to the Church (1 Cor. i. 26-28: βλήπετε τὴν κλῆσιν ὑμῶν . . . ὅτι . . . ἐξελέξατο ὁ Θεός ; comp. 1 Thess. i. 4, 5, and therewith § 61, 6). While God thereby takes the first step, so to speak, for carrying out the purpose He has made for the salvation of the individual (Rom. viii. 30: οὓς προώρισεν, τούτους καὶ ἐκάλεσεν; comp. ix. 23, 24), He gives them the assurance that He will not allow them to fail in all that follows. Even on that account, in the divine purpose of election, the matter really is as to definitive. obtaining of salvation, and not merely as to the fixing the time for the realization of it.3

(b) It is implied in the very idea of election that it is a free act. The mercy of God, on which it rests, can be dependent on nothing else than God Himself as pitying (Rom. ix. 15, 16); hence it is said, ver. 18: dv éλel Èneeî. “Ov θέλει, σκληρύνει forms the opposite to this, and thus it appears that God has, from the beginning, created and prepared the one for salvation and the other for destruction, making the one receptive and hardening the other. In fact, the apostle vindicates for God as the creator the absolute right to do this, just as the potter in the simile has the absolute right, out of the same lump to form vessels to an honourable and a dis

hand, it refers (comp. Beyschlag, p. 87) even in our Epistles, as in the election of Israel, to a historical, and not to a pre-temporal act of God, as in 2 Thess. ii. 13 the reading ar apxus is incorrect (comp. § 61, c), and 1 Cor. ii. 7 speaks of the eternal purpose of salvation and not of election.

3 Beyschlag, p. 36, has abundantly proved, against von Hofmann, that in the idea of election there is necessarily implied an opposite to such,—those, namely, who are not elected (comp. e.g. Rom. xi. 7); for one may refer election, but not with him, simply to the point of time in which grace is brought savingly to bear on the individual, so that thereby a universal purpose of salvation would not be excluded. The passage, Rom. v. 18, says only that the dixaíapa of Christ has a universal significance for the whole human race, as the rapárraμx of Adam, while (ver. 19) those only are expressly designated as oi roλλoi who, as a matter of fact, have become righteous (and blessed); and, according to the connection (Rom. xi. 32), only says that God finally has pity on the Jew as on the Gentile, as the wavras without the article refers to the iμss and avroí (vv. 30, 31), i.e. to the converted heathen and to Israel (as a people). This reference needs no apporipovs, as Beyschlag, p. 51, supposes, while a reference to all individuals would necessarily require the Távras to be without the article, a fact which Pfleiderer, p. 253 f. [E. T. i. 256]), overlooks; and he, moreover, from a philosophical contemplation of the apostle's teaching regarding the relation of the calling of the Gentiles to Israel (§ 91), draws dogmatic conclusions in the sense of Beyschlag's, which destroy the idea of election.