Featured The Foreknowledge of God Put in Biblical Context

First a clarification; foreknowledge and omniscience are not the same in the scriptures. God is omniscience which means he knows all things by one eternal act of knowing. He is God after all. He is able to give his prophets perfect prophecy of people and events of thousands of years in advance and on in to eternity. Foreknowledge is presented as an attribute of God and is clearly defined for us in the scriptures. The scriptural definition differs greatly from what we are led to believe by the Calvinists, and frankly by most non Calvinists, most of whom have been influenced or intimidated by Calvinism's false error concerning this great doctrine..

Most teaching about foreknowledge says that God knows who will be saved and who will be lost, everything that will happen at any time and he knows everything from before the creation of the world. I agree that he does know all those things but that is not what he means when he uses the word foreknow or foreknowledge. That would be under the term omniscience.

Here is foreknowledge in the scriptures;

1) It is a New Testament doctrine
2) It is used exclusively in the context of God and Israel, whom God says hundreds of times in scripture that they are his people
3) It means in it's simplest terms that God knew them before, in time past.
4) It is not used of gentiles in time past.

Here is a comparison of two passages that should be a great instructor in the term foreknowledge and how it is used in scripture. Read these and consider them.

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Now, look at who Paul thinks he is speaking of since he wrote both passages in the same discourse, Who does he say is foreknown of God, or known before?

Here is the biblical answer;

Rom 11:1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? (who are his people - keep reading) God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying,

Why would anyone get the idea that God has cast away his people Israel? Because for 1500 years before Christ came he had been dealing with this people exclusively and had a relationship with them and now, 28 years after the ascension of Jesus Christ, when this epistle was written and for 18 years previously, the Apostle Paul and others had been preaching that God will receive gentiles equally with his people through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, making them sons of God and receiving them into the body of Christ which he is forming upon this testimony and in the name of Jesus Christ. Romans 7 through 11 explains the history that is contained in the first few chapters of the Acts and by studying it we can know why God included the gentiles in Acts 10, ten years after he began to form his church through Jewish believers.

This will be an important lesson and should stamp out a great deal of ignorance concerning foreknowledge. I will continue to make my points in the coming days. I hope some will participate.

 

Thank you for posting this and I want to thank Atpollard as well. It gives me an opportunity to demonstrate what foreknowledge of God is not. It is not what you say. The scriptures do not teach your philosophical views.

I posted two passages from Romans 8 and Romans 11 showing by a comparison that God knew the physical offspring of Abraham through his grandson Jacob before this present age. He established this family as a people and a nation and gave them his law and made unconditional covenants with them and made them legally binding with oaths. He gave a conditional covenant, the Law of Moses to test them and prove them and use it as the operative principle of his dealings with them. He dealt with them under this principle for 1500 years until Christ came and the Law ended as an operative principle of his dealing with them when he died for them on the cross, according to Romans 10:4 which states "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." That 1500 year period is known simply as “time past” by Paul. 2 Cor 3 would be a great read to see the contrast between that principle of Law for Israel and the one of the "present time." I encourage you to read that now. It was God's perfect will that Israel be saved as one man and be led of the Spirit of Christ that was poured out from heaven on them in Acts 2. That did not happen because Israel would not believe, God's words, not mine.

Rom 11:19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: 21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

Paul is speaking particularly to gentiles about the reason the Jews were cut of and why we gentiles got in on their blessing.

Rom 11:13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

If all the information we have ended there we could reasonably conclude that had Israel believed God they would not have been cut off and gentiles would not have been grafted in to fill his house, the church, the body of Christ he is forming in this age.

Luke 15:15 And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.

16 Then said he unto him, A certain man (God) made a great supper, and bade many:
17 And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden (Israel), Come; for all things are now ready.

18 And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.
19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.
20 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.

21 So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. (Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you)


22 And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.

(23 And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.} This is the gentiles.

24 For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.

Here is what God said about Israel in the beginning of these days and it can also be said about the professing church.

Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.

Since God works out his will in time and in consideration, and in spite, of the rebellion of men I not only can reject Calvinism's doctrine that God chooses anybody before the creation but I must reject it as being false. This story could have been written differently.

Consider these things please.

 

You are wrong about that. He begins chapter 7 with these words;

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

He speaks to these through Rom 11:12. Then he speaks to the gentiles.

Rom 11:13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:

Now, gentiles had never been under the Mosaic Law, except for a few proselytes. They were required to become Jews and live as one. He then explains that the death and ending of the Law in the present age was like a wife losing her husband through death. She was no longer bound to him and she had liberty to marry another man. These two men are Moses, who represents bondage and law, and Jesus Christ who represents liberty and grace. He goes on to complain that for one such as himself who had a great desire to keep the law wound up being frustrated because try as he might, he failed and was condemned by it. This law did what it was intended by God to do. Make a man come to the end of himself and trust Jesus Christ, who could live the law through the believer in the person of the Spirit of Christ.(read Gal 2:20 here) Because Jesus Christ had already kept the law perfectly and yet had paid the consequences of breaking it, not for himself, but for others, there would be no more condemnation whether a believer was unable to keep it perfectly or whether he wasn't. God had put away sin through Christ.

The law of works gave way to faith in Christ. The old physical man and the new man. The law had done it's work.

Gal 3:21 Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

This is an absolutely glorious truth. Anyone can be saved by believing in Christ and there is no condemnation after that.If you are trusting in Christ plus something else, take heed, please.

 

Sal, please don’t think I am trying to be a smart elect because I really do appreciate the opportunity to address these subjects but I thank you that you did not post any scripture to try to prove what you just claimed because nothing you said can be proven from the scriptures. None of it is true. Foreknowledge is a NT doctrine that is applied to the context of Israel only. You can look up the references for yourself and you will find I am being honest about it.

Paul, when he is speaking about the salvation of gentiles does not talk about God knowing any of us before. I will quote him and you tell me what you think.

Ephesians 2:11-13
11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

You can see here that gentiles were not even know in time past let alone eternity past. This is not just some gentiles, it is all gentiles.

I am not trying to win an argument but our Christianity came out of the first century AD. It was revealed to and written down by eye witnesses of the events they wrote about. They were not writing conversationally. These things have become our Christian doctrines. Nothing has been added by God since. If you are going to understand true biblical Christianity then you are going to have to understand the players who were involved and believe what is said about them.
Our Bible is a Jewish work. It is not a book of religion, it is the book of life. People from the third and sixteenth century who have spiritualized this book have deceived many.

 

Why didn't God foreknow some gentiles in the 4000 years previous to the coming of Jesus Christ? Why did he start using the term after Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry? I ask this question because the Reformed says he "pre-planned" everything "before" the foundation of the world? Seems as if he would have foreknown at least one gentile in the OT, don't you think? Can you think of any?