The Good News of God's Foreknowledge

This is the fifth and final article in my series on man's free will and God's foreknowledge.
If you missed them, check out part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4. 
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God’s foreknowledge is at the root of our election. (1 Pet. 1:2) But the question remains: what does that mean? We saw in the last article that God’s foreknowledge is not merely something He sees, but something He does. Yet that still doesn't tell us exactly what it is. In this final article in the series, I want to lay out a thorough definition of God’s foreknowledge from Scripture itself so we can see why it is such good news.

How “foreknowledge” is used in Scripture

The word is only used twice as a noun (prognosis - foreknowledge) and five times as a verb (proginosko - to foreknow) in the New Testament. These occurrences are, generally speaking, fairly spread out. But interestingly, two of the seven uses are found in chapter one of 1 Peter. The first mention of the term there is in the verse referenced at the beginning of this article, which says that we are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” (1 Pet. 1:2) The other use is in 1 Pet. 1:20, “[Christ] indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you…” Did you catch it? Peter is speaking of Christ and using the same word in the original text (prognosis) that is used of our election. But here it’s translated as “foreordained”—and with good reason. (ESV is consistent in translating it “He was foreknown…”) This verse obviously does not just mean that the Father “knew Christ’s autonomous decisions ahead of time.” Rather, it is speaking about the fact that Christ was “known” and ordained—appointed from eternity past in God’s redemptive plan as the Savior of all. This use of the term already shows clearly that God’s “foreknowledge” (prognosis) is more than His passive observation of the future. 

Another important passage for understanding the concept of “foreknowledge” in the New Testament is Acts 2:23, in which Peter says of Christ, “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death…” (emph. mine) Let me rephrase that so we catch the importance and full impact of this statement. Peter says, “God’s set plan and foreknowledge delivered Jesus over to you, and you took Him and killed and crucified Him with lawless hands.” God’s foreknowledge and “set plan” were something that ordained and led to the crucifixion of Christ, though it was indeed the hands of lawless men who carried this out and bear the guilt for it. 

Now, to be fair, there are two places in the New Testament where the word prognosis is used in the sense of simply knowing something ahead of time or from the beginning. However, these two uses concern man’s “knowing from the beginning”, not God’s. When it is used of God, foreknowledge implies not simply a passive observation of future events, but rather some activity on the part of God that leads to the accomplishment of His will. In the apocryphal book of Judith the word “foreknowledge” is also used in this way. Praying to God, there is a line where Judith says, “You have designed the things that are now and those that are to come. Yea, the things you intended came to pass, and the things you decided presented themselves and said, ‘Lo, we are here'; for all your ways are prepared in advance, and your judgment is with foreknowledge.” That is, God’s foreknowledge is here again tied with God’s determined plan. They are nearly synonyms. While this book is not part of Scripture, it does give us further insight into the way they word was used and understood at that time.

In Rom. 8:29, concerning God’s election of Christians, Paul says, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” This “foreknowing” is not merely to “know in advance”. We can see that clearly because Paul uses this term again about God's election of Israel in Rom. 11:2, saying, “God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew…” God “foreknew” His people Israel. The context emphasizes that His foreknowledge and sovereign election of Israel is the grounds of His continued faithfulness to them. If foreknowledge was merely seeing the future in advance, surely God would’ve seen that Israel as a whole would turn away from Him and reject Christ. If it were only about foreseeing, God would likely not have elected them! God's election of Israel was not based on “future faith” since, as a whole, that faith in Christ was lacking on the part of Israel. The context again clearly shows that foreknowledge is more than just knowing the future.

Why call it “foreknowledge”?

If “foreknowledge” is not simply knowledge about the future, why call it “foreknowledge”? Here it is important also to understand what “know” means in this case. There are actually a number of Greek words that are translated “know” in our English Bibles, though each has its own unique emphasis. The word “foreknowledge” (prognosis), comes from the Greek word gnosis, or “to know”. This particular Greek word primarily speaks of an experiential and personal knowledge, not just theory or information. Gnosis is the same word that is used of when a man “knew” his wife and they bore a child. Obviously this does not mean he just passively obtained information about her! To say you “know” (ginosko) someone implies a relationship, not just knowledge about someone.

In fact, we even retain this difference in English to some extent. It’s one thing to know about a person, and another to know that person. When referring to people, to say you “know” someone implies relationship with them. So when we read that God “elected us according to foreknowledge”, we must understand that it’s not merely speaking of information that God obtained by passive observance of some future choice. Rather, it speaks of God’s choice to enter into loving relationship—to love us from before the foundation of the world. It is important also to see that Scripture never speaks of unbelievers as being “foreknown”. Think about this: if God’s foreknowledge only means His seeing the future, it would be equally proper to say He “foreknew” unbelievers just as He does believers. But the word is never used like that in Scripture. It is always exclusively the elect who are “foreknown” by God. In fact, it is not even said that our decisions are foreknown—as if foreknowledge were informational—but rather that we ourselves are foreknown.

This understanding of knowledge as personal relationship is clear in the OT as well. God says to Jeremiah in Jer. 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” In other words, God had known, chosen and loved Jeremiah before he was even born. In Amos 3:2 God says of Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth…” Now, does that mean God lacks information about other nations? Of course not. The knowledge God speaks of here is a personal, intimate knowledge—a choice on God’s part to enter into covenant relationship with His elect people Israel. In the New Testament in similar fashion, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount tells of those who come to Him at the last day and say, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we do all these good deeds in your name?” Jesus answers, “I never knew you.” (Mt. 7:23) Does that mean that Christ did not see them or have information about them? No, it means these people were busy being religious, but never received Christ’s love, never had a personal relationship.

So, let’s summarize the definition of foreknowledge in the Bible. That God has “foreknown” the elect does not mean that He merely looked down the corridor of time to see the future, libertarian choice of those who will respond in faith to the Gospel and elected those. God’s foreknowledge is not just a passive observation of future decisions, and we are not the source of our election. As we saw, there are many problems with that view. Rather, God’s foreknowledge is His gracious choice to love His people, His elect—to “know” them before the foundation of the world and enter into covenant with them. It is not that we chose Him and then He elected us in response. Rather, as John says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 Jn. 4:19) God’s foreknowledge is His active love—His will to enter into covenant relationship with us. And here we can already begin to understand why God’s foreknowledge is such good news.

The good news of God’s foreknowledge

The good news of God’s foreknowledge is that He has chosen to love us from eternity past. He has chosen to bring us into relationship with Himself and He is the one who draws us. The rest of 1 Peter 1:2 hashes out what exactly this election leads to, “…elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.” We are chosen by God because He has loved us from all eternity. He foreknew us, and desired to enter into relationship with us as His own people. The Father is the source of our election. The second phrase speaks of the outworking of our election: by the sanctification of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts to bring us to God. It is He who convicts, draws and regenerates us and makes us holy by the grace of God. But how does He do this? By bringing us “to obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Christ.” It is the blood of Christ that washes us from sin and makes us holy. The Spirit applies the sacrifice of Christ to us. The Father initiates our acceptance of that sacrifice by His electing love. The whole triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—have collaborated together to make us His own people! How glorious! The obedience that it speaks of here is the obedience of faith in the Gospel. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Father who foreknew us, draws us to Christ and reveals the Gospel to us that we may obey and submit to it.

Make no mistake; this is real obedience and submission. Man’s natural tendency is to rely on his own strength, to try and prove himself, to make himself good enough. It was Martin Luther who taught that self-righteousness is the default mode of the human heart. Therefore, we must indeed submit to the Gospel and not resist God’s grace. We must let go of our self-confidence and place all our confidence in Christ. We must not look to any of our own works for salvation, but only to His work for us on the cross. We must obey the message of grace that He has done it all, that it is finished, and all we must do is receive. 

At this point it's likely someone would argue that I am implying something I'm not. While I do believe that God’s election is unconditional, based on His own choice to love us, I do not believe this means that the grace of God is “irresistible”. One might ask, “But how can that be if our election is from God?” I have no idea! But as I mentioned in my previous article on logic vs. Scripture, it is not our job to reconcile all points of Scripture with our fallen reasoning. Our job is to assert what Scripture does and Scripture asserts the good news of God’s foreknowledge, as well as the danger of resisting His call. In God’s election of us, in the Father’s foreknowledge of us as His children, in the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts to make us His own, and in being washed by the blood of Christ and submitting to the good news of the Gospel—we are filled with grace and peace. They are multiplied and spill over as we grasp more and more this wonderful salvation which is all of grace—and that is truly good news! Let us rejoice then in God’s foreknowledge, by which he has chosen to love us and make us His own and give all the glory to God alone.