Foreknowledge
Key Verse: 1Cor. 8:3 “But if any man love God, the same is known of him.”
Prayer: That we might trust God who has known us from Eternity.
Other verses:
· Rom. 8:29-33 - God’s foreknowledge of individuals
· 1Pet. 1:1,2 - God’s foreknowledge of strangers to whom Peter is speaking
· 1Pet. 1:18,20 - Jesus coming to this world was foreordained
· Amos 3:1,2 - God’s foreknowledge of Israel
· 2Tim. 2:19 - The foundation of God’s knowledge
In the preaching and teaching the doctrines of God, contained in our King James Bible, we need to be exact. None of this pitiful Saviour and the pathetic God of modern pulpits trying to present a salvation dependent upon the merits or efforts of puny man. It is our task to display Christ: to explain man’s need of Him, His sufficiency to save, and His offer of Himself in the promises as Saviour to all who truly turn to Him. (See What Is To Be Will Be (The Fakery, Fraud and Folly of Free-Willism) by Roy Mason pages 29,30,2,23.) Now we cannot do this in our own strength. God foreknowing that men would fall and need redemption, not only chose the method of salvation but He chose each person that He would save. God saves sinners.
Years ago I.D. Riddick preached a sermon I have never forgotten, titled: “Unity In The Trinity.” He preached that:
Ø God the Father loved - from eternity past - His sheep;
Ø That Jesus - in the fullness of time - died for His sheep;
Ø that the Holy Spirit - in our time - calls, convicts, and converts His sheep.
Not one is lost and not one who shouldn’t slips in unawares. 1John 5:7 says “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” In other words, they are in Unity. God - the Triune Jehovah; Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people. The Father electing, the Son dying on the Cross, the Spirit executing the purpose of God and bringing it to pass in each soul for which it is intended. Where the ignorant would say: “I owe my election to my faith,” the Scripture teaches: “I owe my faith to my election.”
God’s foreknowledge is the beginning of a number of truths that lead to our final salvation. I love the song that says, “When He was on the cross, I was on His mind..” That election to salvation is based on foreknowledge seems to be clearly stated in Rom. 8:29. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate...” God foreknows all things before they come to pass; but here foreknowledge refers only to particular individuals. This is a knowledge accompanied by a decree, that is limited to those whom God has predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son. It signifies ordinance and providence, as it is said in Acts 2:23, “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” The foreknowledge of God necessarily implies His purpose or decree with respect to the thing foreknown. For God foreknows what will be, by determining what shall be. Even the so-called “modern versions” agree that Rom. 8:29 teaches that election is based on God’s foreknowledge. But all Arminians (free-willers) will not allow God to predestinate individuals to salvation. They insist that God only makes an offer of salvation which man can turn down by his free will.
Many present day TV evangelists insist that various versions (NAS, NKJV, RSV, NASB, NEB, NIV and many others) present a foreknowledge of God that has God waiting to see what man will decide to do in reference to his salvation. These men say that God’s foreknowledge is based on God foreseeing man’s willingness to accept God’s offer of salvation and this self willingness becomes the basis of their Predestination. Listen to the words of this song:
There is a Savior who stands at the door of your heart.
He is longing to enter-why let him depart?
He has patiently called you so often before.
But you must open the door.
- Chorus
You must open the door-You must open the door.
When Jesus comes in, he will save you from sin.
But you must open the door.
This song – taken from Rev. 3:20, and written, not to lost sinners, but to the church of the Laodiceans - has poor Jesus standing outside the door of the sinner’s heart, begging to be allowed to come in. But Jesus cannot get in unless big strong man opens the door and lets Him in. Poor Jesus; so many times He must turn away in sorrowful defeat. HOGWASH!!! Roy Adams once said, “Election harmonizes the scriptures. Arminianism rationalizes the scripture.”
God’s foreknowledge cannot in itself be the cause of any event; but events must be produced by His decree and ordination. It is not because God foresees a thing that it is decreed; but He foresees it because it is ordained by Him to happen in the order of His providence (1Pet. 1:2,20; Acts 13:48). Therefore His foreknowledge and decrees cannot be separated; for the one implies the other. When He decrees that a thing shall be, He foresees that it will be. There is nothing known as what will be, which is not certainly to be; and there is nothing certainly to be, unless it is ordained that it shall be. All the foreknowledge of future events is founded on the decrees of God. Consequently, He determined with Himself from eternity everything He executes in time (Acts 15:18; Isa. 42:9, 46:10; Dan. 2:28; Acts 3:18). Nothing is contingent in the mind of God, who foresees and orders all events according to His own eternal and unchangeable will.
If this were not so we could know nothing of future events, nor could we be sure of anything future – even of our own salvation.
The tenor of both the O.T. and N.T. alike, clearly puts the basis of God’s foreknowledge and elective choice entirely outside the subject’s own worthiness (Isa. 43:25; Eph. 1:4-5; 2Thess. 2:13; 2Tim. 1:9) Rev. 17:8 brings up some serious questions that we must be careful in answering lest we fall into Hardshellism. Some folks see a God with an eraser in His hand. Others sing, “There’s a new name written down in Glory.” Both are wrong. We must maintain a balance. Is God, by electing some on an apparently arbitrary basis in no way dependent upon their worthiness or unworthiness to be chosen, thereby automatically condemning the rest to punishment whether they are worthy to be punished or not. Is man condemned to reprobation simply because he is not elected to salvation? No! He is condemned to punishment for his sins (he hates God), not for his non-election.
Notice an illustration: Ten men are in prison, all proven guilty of the same type of crime. The Governor has the right to grant a reprieve for one of the men. All are equally guilty and anyone of them could in equal justification be granted a reprieve. So in the Governor’s good pleasure one man is pardoned and set free. Why are the remaining nine prisoners still in jail? The reason they are not all set free is that they have not yet paid the full penalty of their misconduct. The nine are in prison still - not because they were not pardoned - but because they have not yet fully met the demands of justice. The release of the one reprieved man has no bearing on the retention of the other nine. The pardoned man owes his freedom entirely to the graciousness of the one who has authorized it; the retention of the remainder is owing entirely to their own guilt (John 3:17-18).
As children of God we can take comfort in the knowledge of God’s love and approval for His own (Rom. 11:2). “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.” This foreknowledge of God is the reason why God has not rejected His people. In this manner the word “know” is often taken in Scripture in the sense of knowing with affection, loving, approving (Ps. 1:6; 1Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9; Amos 3:2). At the day of judgment, Jesus Christ will say to hypocrites, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23); that is to say, He never loved or acknowledged them, although He perfectly knew their character and actions. Those whom God foreknew - those whom He before loved, chose, acknowledged as His own - He predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son. It is not a general anticipated knowledge that is here intended, but a special group (Rom. 8:33). As a result of God’s foreknowledge, we will receive all that is also contained in Romans 8:29-30. But our calling, our faith, our good works, cannot be the cause of foreknowledge, because foreknowledge is before predestination (Acts 13:48; II Tim. 1:9; Eph. 2:10). By this foreknowledge then, is meant, as has been observed, the love of God towards those whom He predestinates to be saved through Jesus Christ. All the called of God are foreknown by Him, that is, they are the objects of His eternal love, and their calling comes from this free love (Jer. 31:3).
All of us deserve Hell. Is God unjust because He chooses some and not others. God could have elected to save everyone, but He didn’t. Then again, He did not have to elect anyone. He could have let us all perish. Rather than charging God with unfairness, we should thank Him for loving some of us.
Although we cannot know the depths of the foreknowledge of God, we can know Him who both knew us and saved our unworthy soul (Jn. 9:25, 10:4). What a blessing it is to know the voice of our Saviour, and to know that grace contained in bringing us out of darkness into His marvelous light is because of God and God alone (2Pet. 3:17-18). Let us then take courage and grow in His grace and knowledge that we might bring glory to Him who loved us from before the foundation of the world.
Carl Hatch preached a sermon here titled “Five things God has never seen.” One of his points was, “God has never seen a man He didn’t love.” Well, God didn’t love Esau, rather He hated him (Rom. 9:13). Did you ever hear a preacher say, “God hates sin, but He loves the sinner.” Well Ps. 5:5 says that God “hatest all workers of iniquity.” Not works, but workers. “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” (Rom. 9:14).