Romans 8:28-30 - Corporate?

In Exodus 12, you can see where God chose Israel corporately when He told Moses about the usage of a lamb or goat in their atonement(picture of Christ). Now, all of Israel came out of Egypt corporately, but many/most died b4 they got to the promised land due to rebellion/unbelief(Hebrews 3). They failed to get there because of their lack of faith, and not for the lack of atonement. You can also read in Lev. 16 how the scapegoat was for all of Israel, and yet many/most didn't get there.


Same way today. God chose the Gentiles corporately because of the Jews rebellion/unbelief of the Messiah prophesied. Now, those of us who believe, will make it to heaven/promised land of the Church, and those who don't believe, will perish, not for the lack of atonement, but for lack of belief.

 

Perhaps we begin by acknowledging that foreknowledge is also related to atemporality. God the Father is outside of time and space (temporality) and this foreknows all things. The challenge here is the nature of predestination. Isn't it interesting that Paul uses this word instead of "determined?"

The ought of corporate election/election is that of Christian, Church-wide, salvation planned and maintained by God. God is sovereign in His ability to provide this in spite of ourselves.

 

I am not sure how this is relative to the OP however somehow I feel it is.
If not and someone knows how and or wants to delete feel free to do so.

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12

Fifty four days after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, four days following the Pentecost following the death of Jesus; Could a Gentile in lets say Osaka, Japan or a Gentile on the tip of South Africa or a Gentile on the plains of Nebraska by his free will have been saved?

Could any of these corporately or individually have been elected and if so would they have to respond to the call relative to Acts 4:12?

Were all people doomed to Hell until someone got around to them with the message?

I believe Romans 8:28-30, subject to V23 is relative to Amos 3:1-3, Hosea, Acts 15:14-18. Jer. 3:14 Ezekiel 36,37 Leviticus 23 because I believe the feast show the process of salvation, beginning with the children of Israel
then all of man being inclusive in the reconciliation.

JMHO

 

God chose the nation Israel, corporately I suppose, for the purpose of bringing Jesus Christ into the world. Within the nation Israel there were those that God knew and chose to salvation absent any merit on the part of those chosen; that is, unconditional election.

Salvation is an individual transection between God and man. No person has ever been saved except those unconditionally chosen before the foundation of the world.

I don't know where the concept of corporate election originated. It is certainly rejected by Scripture. The idea of corporate election to salvation may be an off shoot of the Roman Catholic belief that leans toward corporate salvation; that is, salvation only through the Roman Catholic Communion!

 

again, we have to back up a bit, in the sense that for there to be ANY Election apart from an individual basis by God Himself, we would HAVE to assume either man retained free will to chose, or else did NOT die in Adam!

 

This is a good honest question for discussion! :thumbsup:

I agree with Adam Clarke, who wrote:

"To foreknow, here signifies to design before, or at the first forming of the scheme; to bestow the favour and privilege of being God's people upon any set of men, Romans xi. 2. This is the foundation or first step of our salvation; namely, the purpose and grace of God, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began, 2 Tim. i. 9. ...

No portion of the word of God has been more unhappily misunderstood than several parts of the Epistle to the Romans; because men have applied to individuals what belongs to nations; and referred to eternity transactions which have taken place in time." ​

He goes on to explain, the aim of the apostle in writing this epistle:

1. To prove, to both Jews and Gentiles, that they were all under sin, and that neither of them had any claim either on the justice or beneficence of God; yet he, of his own free mercy, had revealed himself to the Jews, and crowned them with innumerable privileges; and,

2. That, as he was no respecter of persons, his mercy was as free to the Gentiles as to them, being equally their God as he was the God of the Jews, and therefore had, by the Gospel, called them to a state of salvation; and to this display of his mercy the two verses in question seem particularly to refer, and show us not what God will do for some selected individuals, but what he has already done for nations.

After having shown that the whole Gentile world was groaning and travailing in pain together, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, he shows that it was, according to the affectionate purpose, proqesin [knowledge], of God, that the Gentiles should be also called into the glorious liberty of the sons of God-into equal privileges with the Jews. He therefore represents them as objects of God's gracious foreknowledge.

That the word proginwskw, which literally signifies to know, or discern beforehand, and to know so as to determine, signifies also to approve, or love before, to be well affected to, is not only evident from [dy yada in Hebrew, but also from the simple verb ginwskw, in Greek, by which it is translated, and to which the compound verb repeatedly answers, without any extension of meaning by means of the preposition, as its use among the best Greek writers proves: and it is evident that the apostle uses the word in the sense of loving, being graciously affected to, Romans xi. 1, 2. I say then, hath God cast away his people, which he FOREKNEW, on proegnw; to whom he has been so long graciously affected? By no means.

As, therefore, he had been so long graciously affected towards the Jews, so has he towards the Gentiles. His call of Abraham, and the promises made to him, are the proof of it. The Jews, thus foreknown, were called into a glorious state of salvation, and endowed with privileges the most extraordinary ever bestowed on any people; as their whole history testifies. But is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, chap. iii. 29; and to prove this is the main subject of the ninth chapter. Now, as he is the God of the Gentiles, he foreknew, had from the beginning a gracious purpose to them as well as to the Jews; and, being thus graciously disposed towards them, he determined prowrise, from pro, before, and orizw, to bound, define, &c., he defined, circumscribed, and determined the boundaries of this important business from the beginning, that they also should be taken into his Church, and conformed to the image of his Son; and, as Jesus Christ was to be their pattern, it must be by his Gospel that they should be brought into the Church; and consequently, that bringing in could not take place before the revelation of Christ. Having therefore thus foreknown and thus predestinated them ALSO, he called them ALSO by the Gospel; he justified them ALSO on their believing; and he glorified them ALSO, dignified them also with the same privileges, blessings, honours, and Divine gifts: so that they were now what the Jews had been before, the peculiar people of God. The apostle, therefore, speaks here not of what they should be, or of what they might be, but of what they then were-the called, the justified, the highly honoured of God. See the note on Romans viii. 30.

-Adam Clarke (he explains much more on the link I provided and I encourage you to read it and study it. I didn't want to post more here for fear it would just be bypassed, but this is a good summary)​