Hopers and Fore-Hopers

But let us go on with our study of these Commentaries; otherwise, by dwelling too long on a few particular points, we may be kept from noticing the greater number. In the same book and the same passage are the words, “So that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had hoped in Christ before.” His comment is: [a]

“If it had simply said, ‘We have trusted in Christ,’ without the prefix ‘before,’ which stands in the Greek as proēlpikotes, the sense would be quite clear: namely, that those who have hoped in Christ have been chosen in due order and have been predestined according to the purpose of him who orders all things according to the counsel of his own will. “But as it stands, the added preposition ‘before’ forces us to explain it by the same ideas which we argued in an earlier place were needed to explain the passage, ‘Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him.’ That is, God had blessed us beforehand in heaven with every spiritual blessing and had chosen us before the world was framed; and so we are said to have hoped in Christ ‘before,’ that is, at the time when we were chosen and predestined and blessed in heaven.”