The following is a quote from Jerome Zanchi's commentary on Ephesians 1:4, wherein it has been stated that we are elected
by the Father. Zanchi, with many other Reformed teachers, makes the profound connection between God's intra-Trinitarian works and God's outward works toward us: that is, that God's economical works are a reflection or testimony to the relationships within the Trinity. God's plan of salvation is, in essence, a revelation of himself.
And, indeed, he here calls the person of the Father simply by the name "God," namely kat' exoken. And he willed by this phrase to indicate that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the fountain of all blessing toward us, even as he is the fountain of all Deity [that is, within the Godhead].
Thus can Zanchi attribute election to the Father by way of primacy, even though it essentially is common to all three persons of the Godhead. But, as the Father stands in relation to the other three persons as the fountain or
principle of Divinity, so in the works of salvation does he stand in the same relation.
This showcases an important aspect of the Reformed theological system: even though there is a
locus de Deo in the system, nevertheless the full (or even main part) of the exposition of the topic is not contained therein. Rather, the remainder of the
loci are that whereby God is revealed: for we testify that he reveals himself in the Law, and then most fully in the Gospel. If we want to truly know God, it is in the historical economy to which we must look, wherein he is chiefly revealed in and through the work and person of his Son, the express image of his person. The fundamental relationship between the
ad extra soteric and economical works to the
ad intra works is, in my opinion, one of the greatest defects of much modern exegesis; but this is an inevitable development of New Testament exegesis being largely relegated to an exercise in Historical-Critical scholarship, and not being firmly grounded in a traditional
theological education.
Therefore, even though necessity and his own subsequent prudence would force him to write a
locus de Deo later in life, I am able to greatly sympathize with the initial
spirit or
motivation behind Melanchthon's 1521
Loci Communes where he did not include a specific treatment of God, preferring that God be revealed through the doctrines of the Gospel. I think it can be argued that, in a sense, a
locus de Deo is a "necessary evil," of sorts. It becomes necessary by the pressures of organization and the need to place certain topics together for the better refutation of error (this is why I must disagree with those who hold that the removal of the topic of Predestination from the chapters on salvation [as in Calvin's 1559 Institutes] back to the more traditional placement in the
locus de Deo was a bad development in Reformed thought; I think, instead, that it was most necessary for the more efficient confutation of various errors creeping into the church).
The fact that we discuss the attributes together in a chapter on God does not mean that this is the full or even primary source for discussing the mercy, love, goodness, justice, etc. of God. It is simply a convenient way of stating up front what the attributes are which will be more fully understood in the exposition of the doctrines of the Law and Gospel (and a convenient place to discuss certain topics which have had to inevitably develop, such as the relationship of the attributes to the essence). If we miss this point, then I submit we will naturally fall into the fallacy that later Reformed orthodoxy fell from the pristine Biblical teaching of the Reformers into a speculative, rational scholasticism which did not take into account the historical-Biblical character of Revelation.
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