Given God’s intention to rule the church by a written document consisting of his personal words, it would be anomalous in the extreme if he put them in a place where we couldn’t find them. Through OT History, God has taken pains to put these words in an obvious place, the tabernacle, and later the temple. Josephus says that the books kept in the temple, before its destruction in A.D. 70, were the books recognized as canonical by the Jews. Although the Jews read other books for edification, the temple books were those with fully divine authority. So there is no mystery about the extent of the OT canon. God put the books in a place where they could function as he intended, where they would be recognized as his.

John Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, 135.

Preaching is central, not because we value the intellect to the exclusion of the emotions and the will, but because it is God’s action rather than our own. The God who accomplished our salvation now delivers it to us. So the argument that an emphasis on preaching tilts toward intellectualism is wide of the mark. The real issue is not whether we give priority to a particular human faculty (intellect, will, or emotion) but whether we give to God’s action over ours. In preaching, we are addressed—we are not in charge but are seated to be judged and justified.

Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church, 218.

God gives himself by giving us his word.

Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ, 202.

God’s word is so closely identified with God himself that Scripture presents his word as eternal (Ps. 119:89).

Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate: The Doctrine of Christ, 202.

The two Testaments are the two lips by which God has spoken to us.

Thomas Watson, A Complete Body of Divinity, 18.

The doctrine of the three forms of the Word of God in the sketch attempted here is not new. We have seen in detail how revelation, Scripture and proclamation have from the very first stamped themselves on Christian thought as special forms of God’s Word.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/1, sec. 4. 1-4.

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.