Article 16 treats predestination including both election and reprobation. Predestination is mentioned in Rom. 8:30 and Eph. 1:5. Predestination is an eternal decree of God which is immutable (unchangeable), sovereign, whose purpose is the glory of God.
God elected some angels (I Tim. 5:21) and men to eternal life. The article presents election and reprobation from the infra-lapsarian viewpoint (that God first saw the fall-and chose of those who are fallen). This election is not based on foreseen works-but we are chosen unto good works (Eph. 1:4).
Reprobation is presented as the justice of God in leaving others in the fall and perdition. (Some use the term: preterition which is “a passing by”.) Some texts which show reprobation are: I Pet. 2:8; Rom. 9:13, 22; Jude 4; Rev. 13:8.
Article 17 speaks of the recovery of fallen man. God saves His elect in the way of the establishment of the covenant of grace in Christ. Before the fall, God created Adam in a covenant of friendship (not a “covenant of works” which many teach). The Covenant of Grace is unilateral, (one-sided=God alone establishes it), and established in the line of generations.
Christ is the Mediator of the Covenant of Grace. Christ fulfilled all that God required that this covenant might be established justly.
QUESTIONS:
1. Why has predestination been called the “heart” of Reformed doctrine?
2. Why can we not say that God elects on the basis of foreseen works?
3. What is meant by sovereign predestination?
4. How does reprobation serve to God’s glory?
5. Explain “infra-lapsarianism” and “supra-lapsarianism”.
6. What does Eph. 1:4 mean when it teaches that we are chosen “in him” (Christ)?
7. How does one know that he is elect?
8. What is the “covenant of works”? (see Essentials or Rev. H.H.’s Dogmatics)
9. Show that God gathers His people in the line of generations. (see Essentials)
10. Who speak of a different covenant in the Old Testament than we find in the New Testament?
11. What is our “part” in the covenant of grace?