REPROBATE. It is convenient to retain the av term as a heading under which to include words used in rsv (unfit, refuse, dross, disqualified) to translate Heb. and Gk. equivalents which present the idea of divine investigation leading to rejection because of an ineradicable sin. OT prophets compare the sin of Israel to impurity in metal (Is. 1:22; Je. 6:30; Ezk. 22:19–20). In Je. 6:30, ‘Refuse silver they are called, for the Lord has rejected them’, the Heb. verb mā’as is rendered ‘reprobate’ in av (avmg., rsv, rv ‘refuse’), i.e. ‘tested and rejected by Yahweh because of ineradicable sin’. In Is. 1:22 lxx renders Heb. sîḡîm by the adjective adokimos, which occurs eight times in the NT with the meaning ‘rejected after a searching test’.

In Rom. 1:28, the Gk. puns dokimazein with adokimos, and may be rendered ‘since they did not see fit to retain God in their mind he handed them over to an unfit mind’, where ‘unfit’ (av ‘reprobate’, avmg ‘a mind void of judgment’) means ‘unfit to pass judgment’, in the active or passive sense, because of wickedness, etc. (vv. 29–30).

In 1 Cor. 9:27 Paul concludes ‘an exhortation to self-denial and exertion’ (Hodge), given in athletic metaphors, by attributing his personal bodily discipline to fear of disqualification, ‘lest I … be disqualified (adokimos)‘. But from what? Salvation or ministerial reward? The context favours reward (cf. 3:10–15) and stresses the need of ceaseless vigilance against sin (cf. 10:12). The remaining occurrences of adokimos are in 2 Cor. 13:5–7, where the test proposed is ‘whether you are holding to your faith’, and the context implies that faith has empirical proofs, lacking which the Corinthians are failures, and even Paul himself would be a failure, since he would be unable to demonstrate his apostolic authority; in 2 Tim. 3:8 and in Tit. 1:16, where adokimos means ‘proved to be morally worthless’; and in Heb. 6:8, where ‘barren’ (adokimos) soil illustrates the situation of hardened backsliders. None of these occurrences necessarily implies judicial abandonment to *perdition, yet all are consonant with such a doctrine: in each case the rejection follows demonstrable faults; in some God, in others man, makes the test. The human verdict anticipated the divine.