Among Reformed theologians, therefore, the following proposition returns again and again: ‘the principle into which all theological dogmas are distilled is: God has said it.

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, 30.

These people who make an empty profession of faith in Christ are like wooden legs or arms on a man, which may be covered over with pants and sleeves for a time, but shall not be raised at the resurrection with the other parts of the man’s body. Neither shall these professors be raised to glory with Christ, though they may be covered over with the pants and sleeves of profession of faith, and seem to be members.

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for Family Life, 127.

Many students, preachers, lawyers, tradesmen, farmers, laborers, and others transgress, when they do not allow for regular times of refreshment and rest to their bodies, but fast, watch, and toil too much in their calling. They who by such means disable themselves, make themselves guilty of the neglect of as much good as they might have done if they had nourished and cherished their bodies. Some are so eager for their business that they think all the time wasted which is spent nourishing and cherishing their bodies. Then they will that their bodies needed no food, sleep, or other similar means of refreshment.

These thoughts and desires are foolish and sinful in many respects, for they:

1) Manifest a secret discontentment and complaint against God’s providence, who has made us this way for the clearer manifestation of man’s weakness and God’s care over him.

2) Take away opportunities for calling upon God and giving praise to Him. For if we stood not in such need of God’s providence, would we so often pray to Him for His blessing? If by the good means which He affords to us we felt not the sweetness and comfort of His providence, would we be so thankful to Him?

3) Take away the means of mutual love, for if by reason of our weakness we had not need of assistance and help one from another, what test would their be of our love?

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for Family Life, 104-105.

No Lutheran symbol prior to the Formula of Concord addressed the doctrine of predestination. No debate was raging in Lutheran circles concerning predestination in the 1570s, and therefore no formative Lutheran treatment of this doctrine substantially added to what Luther and Melanchthon had stated. What need was there for Lutheran symbolism to take up the matter so late in the sixteenth century?

The writers of the Formula of Concord did not offer a discussion on predestination without good reason. First, the ambiguities of Melanchthon regarding synergism were carried one step further by John Pfeffinger, who taught that God elected persons to eternal salvation upon a sinner’s believing in Christ. This position differed markedly from that of Luther’s good friend, Nikolaus von Amsdorf, who held an absolute predestination. The increasingly divergent approaches to predestination within Lutheranism was begging for a synthesizing or symbolic statemen ton the subject.

Second, Flacius and the Gnesio-Lutherans increasingly drew their verbal swords against Strigel, Pfeffinger, and numerous Philippists on the doctrine of the bondage of the will and original sin. This led to Articles 1 and 2 of the Formula of Concord and necessitated a special article on predestination, for these three doctrines are inseparably related.

Finally, this article was necessary due to the rise of Calvinism and the increasing attention Calvinist theologians gave to predestination. Almost unwillingly, Lutheranism had to elaborate its position on predestination or else risk numerous aberrations within her own ranks; consequently, the future unity of Lutheranism demanded it. Calvin’s views, widely known and discussed, had been published in the Consensus Genevensis of 1552. Theodore Beza defended the views of his Genevan predecessor and carried them forward in his explicit supralapsarianism. Both the Belgic and Gallic Confessions clearly expressed a Calvinistic approach to predestination. Zanchi, Peter Martyr, and others as well, had engaged in strong controversies with Lutherans. . . .

In sum, the Formula teaches the following:

1) Predestination is the cause of salvation of the elect but not the cause of damnation of the reprobate (Epitome XI.5; SD XI.8), for ordaining must be distinguished from foreknowing (Epitome XI.2; SD XI.4).

2) Predestination’s relevance does not lie in human reason’s probing of God’s hidden counsel, but in faith’s searching of the revealed will of God in His Word to be found in Christ (Epitome XI.66, 9, 13; SD XI.9, 13, 26, 36, 43, 52, 65, 68) and embraced in His promises (SD XI.28).

3) Predestination will then become a most precious, comforting doctrine which embraces the entire saving work of God, confirms justification by grace, assures of salvation, strengthens in most intense afflictions, and admonishes to repentance (Epitome XI.1, 11, 13; SD XI.12, 15, 28, 43, 41, 71).

4) Though the cause of election does not lie in the believer, but in God’s gracious will and Christ’s merit, so that all of salvation declares free grace (Epitome XI.5; SD XI.61, 75, 88), the cause of non-election (damnation) does not lie in God whatsoever, but in man and in his sins, particularly his scorning of God’s Word and his refusal to believe in God’s Christ and God’s promises in Christ, not withstanding the Spirit’s earnest attempts to invite and draw the sinner to the sweet pastures of salvation’s living and written Word (Epitome XI.5, 12; SD XI.34, 35, 40, 61, 78, 80).

Article 11, though often neglected, actually forms the crowning summary of the Formula of Concord: God’s universal decree of salvation overcomes the consequences of original sin (Art. 1), but does not abolish the relative freedom which constitutes man’s humanity (Art. 2). Based upon Christ’s merit, this saving will of God effects both justification and sanctification (Arts. 3-6). Among the means of grace by which this will of salvation is actualized in history, the Lord’s Supper — being the center of numerous controversies — is singled out for special discussion (Art. 7), and in close connection, the mysteries surrounding Christ’s person (Art. 8) and work (Art. 9) are dealt with. According to the devout Lutheran this is orthodoxy at its best; indeed, Article 11, though placed inconspicuously, played a strategic role in laying the foundations upon which Lutheran orthodoxy was erected.

Joel R. Beeke, Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination: Early Lutheran Predestination, Calvinian Reprobation, and Variations in Genevan Lapsarianism, 47-48, 53-54.

The tensions resulting from Luther’s and Melanchthon’s varying approaches [regarding predestination] began to surface in the early 1560s in the conflict between Marbach and Zanchi, a controversy that contributed much to the need for Article 11’s inclusion in the Formula of Concord. . . . the occasion for Article 11 of the Formula of Concord arose primarily from a debate in the Strasbourg church between Lutheran pastor Johann Marbach (1521-1581) and the Reformed theologian Jerome Zanchi (1516-1590). This battle of the late Reformation resulted in a further entrenching of one of the main dividing lines between Lutheran and Reformed orthodoxy, thereby exerting a major influence on determining the Formula of Concord’s position on predestination. Here in Strasbourg, in the late 1550s and early 1560s, the lines of division were practically drawn fifteen years before they were confessionally formulated in Lutheran symbolism. . . .

Neither Marbach nor Zanchi charged the other with denying election, but they disagreed on how it should be preached; more specifically, they disagreed as to how the believer attains to assurance of election. Marbach could not stomach Zanchi’s Aristotelian, scholastic approach. The entire matter, he insisted, must “be approached from the Word of God and the promises of the Gospel.” Both of them spoke of God’s grace “a priori, that is unrestrictedly from that secret predestination of God, or truly a posteriori, that is from that which has been certainly revealed to us in the Word.” Sounding very much like the Formula of Concord to come, Marbach demanded that Zanchi “lead his auditors to the Word of God and His revealed will alone,” and stated that if Zanchi’s approach was correct, “the divine promises of grace by means of Christ the mediator would not pertain to all generally and universally, but separately to however many were assigned to this within God’s hidden judgment.” Marbach, in refusing to preach “beyond” Christ in the predestination question, felt it necessary to prevent Zanchi from doing so as well. . . . For Marbach, only in Christ can believers come to assurance concerning personal election; for Zanchi, the syllogismus practicus (“These are the signs of the predestined; I have these signs; therefore I am predestined”) is both legitimate and profitable. Indeed, he gives believers a number of clear signs, expressed in formal syllogisms, to determine whether they have been predestined to salvation; significantly, he may have been the first Calvinist to use this scholastic approach to ascertaining personal election. . . .

Despite Zanchi’s attempt to formulate the doctrine of predestination in a biblical and Christ-honoring fashion and his appeals to Luther’s De servo arbitrio, Strasbourg ultimately opted for Marbach’s position. . . . When the Strasbourg Formula was adopted in 1563, it assigned predestination to a subordinate and subsidiary position, and its logical consequence, the perseverance of saints, was denied outright.

Joel R. Beeke, Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination: Early Lutheran Predestination, Calvinian Reprobation, and Variations in Genevan Lapsarianism, 37, 39, 43, 44.

When we have performed our duty, it remains for us to rest quietly in the decisions of God.

Calvin’s commendation to Zanchi following the Marbach [Lutheran] – Zanchi [Reformed] controversy at Strasbourg.

Melanchthon’s answer to the cause of salvation was complex. He strongly emphasized human responsibility and exhorted his readers to not resist God’s grace, lest they be damned and that for their own fault. At key points, however, he affirmed that non-resistance to God is itself the gift of God’s electing mercy. In this way he could attribute all glory to God for each person’s salvation. Yet his ambiguous statements and frequent insertion of exhortations about the activity of the human will into doctrinal discussions left him open to charges of synergism. . . .

Melanchthon did not reject Luther’s doctrine of predestination entirely, but in attempting to defend the doctrine against charges of fatalism or determinisms Melanchthon so highlighted human responsibility that the sovereignty of divine grace receded into the background, and divine sovereignty in reprobation disappeared almost entirely.

Joel R. Beeke, Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination: Early Lutheran Predestination, Calvinian Reprobation, adn Variations in Genevan Lapsarianism, 33, 35.

Christ conveys His own Spirit into His mystical body, the church, and into every member of it. This Spirit is much more operative and lively than the soul of man. Therefore, if the soul’s animating all the the parts of the natural body makes them subject to the head, much more will the Spirit of Christ bring the members of His mystical body in subjection to Himself. “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11).

Therefore, let particular visible churches and particular people be tested to see whether they are indeed of this true catholic church or not. Those visible churches which refuse to be governed by Christ’s word, and are wholly governed by human traditions, which rise against Christ and play the adulteress by committing idolatry, are not of this catholic church which is subject to Christ. Neither are infidels who defy Christ, heretics who deny Him, ignorant persons who know not His will, profane persons who despise Him, lovers of the world who lightly esteem Him, nor any that persecute or scorn Him in His members. By this we may see that many have a name that they are of the church, who indeed are not.

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for Family Life, 46-47.

The voluntary subjection is that dutiful respect which subordinates have towards those whom God has set over them. By it they manifest a willingness to yield to that order which God has established. Because God has placed them under their superiors, they will in all duty manifest that subjection which their place requires.

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for Family Life, 30.

It is a special part of spiritual prudence to observe what our corrupt nature is most prone to, and where it most swells up, that we may most strive to bear it down.

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for Family Life, 28.