November 7

“God has not cast away his people which he foreknew.” Romans 11:2

IN this place the word “foreknew” assumes a particular and explicit meaning. In its wider and more general application it must be regarded as referring not simply to the Divine prescience, but more especially to the Divine prearrangement. For God to foreknow is, in the strict meaning of the phrase, for God to foreordain. There are no guesses, or conjectures, or contingencies with God as to the future. Not only does He know all, but He has fixed, and appointed, and ordered “all things after the counsel of His own will.” In this view there exists not a creature, and there transpires not an event, which was not as real and palpable to the Divine mind from eternity as it is at the present moment. Indeed, it would seem that there were no future with God. An Eternal Being, there can be nothing prospective in His on-looking. There must be an eternity of perception, and constitution, and presence; and the mightiest feature of His character—that which conveys to a finite mind the most vivid conception of His grandeur and greatness—is the simultaneousness of all succession and variety and events to His eye.

“He is of one mind; and who can turn Him?” But the word “foreknew,” as it occurs in the text, adds to this yet another, a more definite, and to the saints, a more precious signification. The foreknowledge here spoken of, it will be observed, is limited to a particular class of people, who are said to be “conformed to the image of God’s Son.” Now this cannot, with truth, be predicated of all creatures. The term, therefore, assumes a particular and impressive signification. It includes the everlasting love of God to, and His most free choice of, His people to be His especial and peculiar treasure. We find some examples of this: “God has not cast away His people which He foreknew.” Here the word is expressive of the two ideas of love and choice. Again, “Who verily was foreordained (Greek, foreknown) before the foundation of the world.” “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” Clearly, then, we are justified in interpreting the phrase as expressive of God’s especial choice of, and His intelligent love to, His Church—His own peculiar people. It is a foreknowledge of choice—of love—of eternal grace and faithfulness.