Cap. 5 Mem. 2 Scripture elect close: Those loci confirm faith-timed reconciliation; Cap. 5 thesis ends
Response. If by reconciliation nothing is meant but an inclination and readiness of the divine will to grant remission and to make peace with all who will embrace the Redeemer by faith, then we confess that God stands reconciled to the whole human race by the force of Christ’s death, even while we remain his enemies. But that (as said above) is a step toward our actual and personal reconciliation, not yet the actual reconciliation of particular persons. Further, if by reconciliation we mean God’s eternal love—by which he decreed to call, justify, reconcile to himself, and save certain people in time—I do not deny that God in that sense can be called benevolent to all the elect, even while they are still sunk in impiety and unbelief. But that benevolence, which precedes faith breathed into the elect’s hearts, holds only the purpose of making peace with them. It does not give them the state of peace already obtained, or of actual reconciliation.
With that said, I answer that in all those places the talk is either about that step toward personal reconciliation, or about believing elect people already set in the state of actual reconciliation only with faith intervening. So the places confirm our view rather than the contrary. Romans 5:10 (“when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of the Son,” and so on) means nothing else than that people are moved from enmity into actual reconciliation with God through Christ’s death as soon as they have believed in Christ. That is plain because in verse 1 of the same chapter the Apostle restricts this peace—or reconciliation—with God to those alone who are justified through faith (Romans 5:1); and in verse 11 he speaks of the same actual reconciliation as newly constituted: “Now,” he says, “we have obtained reconciliation”—that is, now after we have believed in Christ (Romans 5:11).
As for Ephesians 2:4–5, it is most true that God made us, who were dead, alive with Christ. But just as he did not make us alive in act until faith was first inspired, so neither did he reconcile us. To be reconciled to God is to be freed from death’s guilt, placed in spiritual life, and gifted with a hereditary right to eternal life. Those goods do not belong to the elect merely because they are elect. They belong at last when they have been effectually called and turned to God. The Apostle himself teaches this in verse 8: “By grace you have been saved through faith—and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).
The last place, drawn from Colossians 1:21–22, expressly confirms our sentence: neither God’s eternal predestinating act itself, nor Christ’s merit itself in dying for his elect, makes people at once justified and reconciled to God. What else do the words “once alienated, he has now indeed reconciled” mean, except that we obtain remission of sins and actual reconciliation with God through Christ’s blood only when, inserted into Christ by faith, we are admitted into actual share and possession of his merits and righteousness? There is no need to pile up more for explaining this thesis. From what has been said it is plain enough that those stretch the universal force of Christ’s death beyond its just limits who, by the bare deed of Christ dying, judge every mortal indiscriminately restored into the state of grace—and no less those who defend that all the predestined, for Christ’s merit, were justified from eternity and actually reconciled to God even before faith was applied to the gospel.
Latin
Resp. Si per reconciliationem nil aliud denotetur, quam inclinatio & propensio Divinae voluntatis ad remissionem indulgandam, & pacem ineundam cum omnibus qui fide amplexuri sunt redemtorem, fatemur Deum stare reconciliatum toti humano generi virtute mortis Christi, etiam cum nos illi manemus inimici. Sed in hoc (ut dictum est supra) gradus potius situs est ad actualem & personalem nostram reconciliationem, quam ipsa actualis singularium personarum reconciliatio. Porro, si per reconciliationem intelligamus aeternam Dei dilectionem, juxta quam decrevit certas quasdam personas in tempore vocare, justificare, reconciliare sibi & servare, non inficias eo Deum hoc sensu dici posse benevolum omnibus electis, etiam tum cum in impietate sua & infidelitate versantur. Sed haec benevolentia quae praecedit fidem cordibus electorum inspiratam, continet solummodo propositum ineundae pacis cum illis, non confert illis statum obtentae pacis & actualis reconciliationis. Hisce praemissis respondeo, in omnibus illis locis sermonem esse aut de gradu illo ad reconciliationem personalem, aut de electis credentibus & in statu actualis reconciliationis non nisi fide interveniente constitutis; Nostram igitur sententiam confirmant potius oppositam. Nam quod dicitur Rom. V. 10. Cum inimici eramus, reconciliati fuimus Deo per mortem Filii, &c. alium sensum non habet quam, Homines ex statu inimicitiarum transferri in statum reconciliationis actualis cum Deo per mortem Christi, simulac in Christum crediderint. Id inde liquet, quod Apostolus vers. 1. hujus capitis hanc pacem sive reconciliationem cum Deo ad eos solos restringit qui sunt per fidem justificati, versu etiam 11. loquitur de eadem actuali reconciliatione tanquam de novo constituta, Nunc, inquit, reconciliationem assecuti sumus, idest, Nunc postquam in Christum credidimus. Alterum locum quod attinet, Ephes. ii. 4, 5. verissimum est, Deum nos mortuos vivificasse cum Christo: sed sicut non vivificavit actualiter nisi fide prius inspirata, ita nec reconciliavit. Deo enim reconciliari est a reatu mortis liberari, collocari in statu vitae spiritualis, & donari haereditario jure ad vitam aeternam: quae electis minime competunt ex eo solo quod electi, sed tum demum cum efficaciter vocati & ad Deum conversi fuerint. Docuit hoc ipse Apostolus versu 8. Gratia estis salvati per fidem: Idque non ex vobis: Dei donum est. Ultimus locus ex Coloss. i. 21, 22. desumptus diserte sententiam nostram confirmat; scilicet nec ipso actu aeterno Dei praedestinantis, nec ipso merito Christi pro electis suis morientis, homines evadere statim justificatos, & Deo reconciliatos. Quid enim aliud pra se ferunt haec verba, Quondam abalienatos nunc sane reconciliavit, quam nos tum demum per sanguinem Christi obtinere remissionem peccatorum & reconciliationem actualem cum Deo, cum per fidem Christo inserti, in actualem participationem & possessionem meritorum & justitiae ejus admittimur? Plura ad hujus theseos explicationem congerere non est necesse. Ex eis quae dicta sunt satis constare potest, eos universalem vim mortis Christi extra justos suos limites extendere, qui ipso facto Christi morientis omnes mortales promiscue in statum gratiae restitutos arbitrantur; nec minus illos, qui omnes praedestinatos propter meritum Christi, etiam ante fidem adhibitam Evangelio, ab aeterno justificatos & actu reconciliatos Deo defendunt.