Peter says that Christians "have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." When completely removed from the context of biblical usage, the English word easily lends itself to the misunderstanding that the word means nothing more than foresight or prescience, an awareness or prediction of the future. From this false conception of foreknowledge, it is then a small step to the unbiblical conclusion that election is based on foreseen faith. This makes election little more than God's acknowledgement of those who would have faith in the future, so that in a real sense, it is not God who chooses the believers, but the believers who choose God by their faith in the gospel.

Of course, this is contrary to the whole pattern of biblical teaching, and it is the result of a false understanding of God's foreknowledge. However, before we explain the biblical meaning of foreknowledge, we can point out that even this false view does not necessarily overturn the biblical doctrine of election, or the view that it is God who sovereignly chooses those who would be saved without any consideration of foreseen faith or merit in them.

The false view of election first takes foreknowledge to mean a passive prescience. That is, they take it to mean that God passively discovers what his creatures would decide in the future apart from his sovereign control, and then he makes a decision regarding the status of these creatures on the basis of this awareness. But this means that his decision regarding the status of these creatures is in a real sense determined by these creatures themselves, and the difference between these creatures and other creatures are in the creatures themselves, apart from God's sovereign decision to make a distinction between them. It may be said that God is still the one who determines the principles by which men must be saved, but it is the men themselves who decide which ones would receive salvation.

The problem with this view is that, even if we allow foreknowledge to mean a passive prescience, the argument remains incomplete and futile. This is because our opponents must establish something else as well, namely, that faith is not a gift from God, but that it is something generated by the creatures themselves. Otherwise, if faith is a sovereign gift from God as the Bible teaches, then for God to base election on foreseen faith would be just another way of saying that he bases election on what he himself will do in the future.

That is, if God is the one who grants faith to whomever he chooses, and if men cannot generate faith in and by themselves, then whether foreknowledge refers to mere prescience does not make a pivotal difference for the doctrine of election. In this case, since God knows himself, since he knows his own plans and purposes, and since he knows his own decision regarding how and to whom he would distribute faith, it remains that election is based solely on God's own sovereign will, and not any foreseen condition in the creatures.

Therefore, it is not enough for opponents of the biblical doctrine to assert that foreknowledge means mere foresight or prescience, but they must also establish that faith is not a gift from God, and that men are willing and able to generate in and by themselves faith in Jesus Christ, and that even in their depraved condition, they are still willing and able to choose that which is so spiritually good, that is so against sin and unbelief, and that which is the opposite of their spiritual disposition.

The Bible teaches that the faith that is unto salvation is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8) and that unbelief is under God's direct control (John 12:39-40). God gives faith to whomever he chooses, and he actively causes the rest to remain in unbelief. If our opponents even attempt to refute this, they are in open defiance against Scripture and thus commit a crime that is deserving of official reprimand, if not excommunication. But unless they refute this, their false conception of foreknowledge contributes nothing to their attempt to deny the biblical doctrine of election.

That said, foreknowledge in fact does not refer to the ability to predict the future in a passive manner, that is, to know about the future without causing it. In my admittedly limited research on First Peter, all commentators recognize that foreknowledge means something more or other than mere foresight. But perhaps this just means that I read good commentaries.

Now, there is a personal element in foreknowledge, but before we get to that, we should first mention the nature of God's knowledge of the future. Since God is indeed sovereign over all things as the Bible teaches, not just in the sense of arranging things according to his will but in the sense of causing things according to his will, then there is no such thing as passive knowledge in God, whether of things past, present, or future. Since God is sovereign in this sense, then this means that God's sovereignty and knowledge are in fact united. He knows all things because he causes all things, and he knows himself perfectly.

As he declares in Isaiah 46:10, "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." He can make known the future not because he passively discovers what will happen, but because everything is in his direct control and he always does what he pleases. Since he knows all that he will cause in the future, naturally he also knows all that will happen in the future.

Foreknowledge is even more specific than this, since in our context the "knowledge" includes a personal element. In the Bible, this knowledge involves a loving fatherly care, and that this is his "foreknowledge" indicates that God has chosen to direct this care toward the creature in advance, even in eternity before the creation of the world.

He says to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5). Certainly, "I knew you" here cannot mean "I found out about you," for otherwise this would imply that either the very idea of Jeremiah or at least his physical conception had occurred apart from God, and that God had discovered it only after it was done. But God says, "I knew you" before "I formed you." He had conceived of Jeremiah in his mind and there had established a loving and purposeful relationship with him before he actually formed him in the womb. The "knowledge" here is at least partly relational.

Then, to offer a negative example, Matthew 7:23 states that the Lord would say to some, "I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" Of course this cannot mean that God himself was never aware of their actions or even their very existence. Instead, it means that God never had that willing and loving relationship with them, as he did with Jeremiah and as he does with every Christian, every person whom he has decided to save from death and hell.

Perhaps to clarify the meaning and to prevent misunderstanding, some translations abandon the word foreknowledge and simply say "chosen," or something to that effect. But as we have just seen, "foreknowledge" has a specific meaning that is valuable to a full and proper understanding of God's nature and his eternal loving care toward his elect. So the word ought to be retained, but an explanation in the translators' notes would be helpful. At least one translation say "foreloved." There are disadvantages to this, but it does make the meaning immediately more clear in the English. In this case, I would suggest a footnote that states the original as "foreknowledge."

Posted in Expositions | Permanent Link