The Foreknowledge View of Predestination

We know that election is taught in the Bible, and the fact that God said He is not willing that any should perish. It is mind boggling to think how these two fit together; how God desires that all men be saved but chooses to save some and pass over others.

One of the views that attempts to settle the matter is the foreknowledge view of predestination. This view says that God offers salvation to all men and that He knows beforehand who will accept His free offer and who will reject, and God makes His choice based on man’s choice of Him. This view seems credible because it does not deny that the Bible teaches election but it also is faithful to the Scriptures that tell us that God wills that all be saved.

There are two main reasons, I believe, people develop this view. The first is a personal reason and the second a Biblical. This view seems to “get God off the hook” by electing sinners to salvation but honoring their choice and helps to answer the question of how it all lines up. There are a couple of Bible verses that mention predestination in accordance with foreknowledge that leads people to assume this as well. The two passages are Romans 8:29 and I Peter 1:2. Though these verses seem to make sense with this view at first glance, deeper treatment of these texts show that this belief is not backed by Scripture.

In Romans 8:29 we are told that God predestined those whom He foreknew. It does not say that He foreknew their choice but that He foreknew them. It is not “what” He foreknew (meaning a choice they would make) but it is “whom” He foreknew (meaning the elect). The word know doesn’t just mean an awareness. It is not that God just had an awareness of the elect. The word know means a relationship.

When Adam knew Eve it doesn’t mean that he was aware of her, but when he knew her, she conceived and gave birth to a son. When God said Israel was the only family of the earth He had known (Amos 3:2), of course it didn’t mean that He wasn’t aware of the other nations. It meant that Israel was the only nation He had a covenant with, a special relationship, the only one God had set His sights on.

So when God says He foreknows us, it means He knows (has a relationship with, or covenant with) beforehand, not that He knew what choice we would make.

The other passage is I Peter 1:2. This verse is a stronger case for the foreknowledge view, but again, this idea cannot stand the closer examination of the Biblical text. If this text teaches that God elects us based on a prior knowledge of a decision we would make when we heard the Gospel, then we must say the same of verse 20 in the same chapter. We are told that Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world to be the Lamb of God. The word foreordained is the same word as foreknew in Romans 8:29, and the verb form of foreknowledge in I Peter 1:2.

If verse two says that God chose us based on our decision that He foresaw then it means that Christ was made the Savior because God just saw that it would happen in the future. This would be the position of the open theists who believe that God does not know the future but makes the best out of a bad situation and when He saw Jesus dying an awful death on the cross He decided to make Him the Savior. These words are virtually the same. Jesus was foreordained in verse 20 and that is what verse two means, that we are elect based on God foreordination.

This view is not consistent with what we learn about God. This view would teach that God looked down through time and learned something. It would teach that God’s sovereignty is bound by what man will do. It would teach that we are saved by God foreseeing merit in us that He didn’t see in others but Romans 9:16 says that salvation is “…not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” We are not saved by anything in us, not our running (works) or our willing (choice). It is all by God’s mercy. Paul is saying that no human exertion makes us right with God.

This would mean that when Paul told the Thessalonians that he knew their election of God that Paul knew that God knew that they had chosen God and because of this God chose them. This would also mean when Paul said to make your calling and election sure to make sure that you know that God knew that you would choose Him and because of this He elected you to salvation. Furthermore, if God chooses us based on our choosing of Him then when Jesus told the disciples they had not chosen Him but He had chosen them He was either lying, or telling them that you did not choose me but I chose you because you chose me. This view would also enable us to say that He chose us because we first chose Him, which sounds like a slap in the face to John’s words that we love Him because He first loved us. The more we see the Biblical evidence and the logical conclusion of this “foreknowledge view” it is clear that it doesn’t line up with the entire context of the Bible.

Charles Spurgeon said that if God looked down through time to see who would choose Him He would see no one. We are a valley of dry bones, dead in our trespasses and sins and unable to come to God unless the Spirit of God breathes on us and grants us regeneration.

The Bible in its entirety teaches that God is a choosing God. The Father has given a people to His Son (which Jesus speaks of all throughout John’s Gospel) which He placed in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) and this is His bride which He has purchased (Eph. 5:25), the church.

It is not that God was sitting in Heaven, as some would see it, saying to Himself, “This one is going to Heaven and this one is going to Hell.” But when God looks out over the sea of lost humanity they all are deserving of His wrath but He places individuals in Jesus Christ, gives them as a love gift to His Son, and predestines them for glory. The elect get mercy, the non elect get justice, and no one gets injustice. We chose Him because He chose us, and not vice versa.