For Whom God Did Foreknow

The famous Bible passage concerning God’s foreknowledge and predestination is Romans 8:28-30. In this passage, the word that deniers of unconditional election point to is foreknow: “For whom he [God] did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren”¹ (Romans 8:29).

Many Christians wrongly believe that God’s predestination is him merely presciently confirming people’s choosing to believe in Christ with his gracious power and promises. They argue that, in eternity past, God looked into the future and foresaw who would make a “decision for Christ”—and then he chose to bless those individuals. (Some say that this free-will decision is aided by God’s “co-operating grace,” but it is still essentially their own choice).

But the apostle Paul doesn’t say that God foreknew the decisions that people would make. He says that God foreknew particular people. Romans 8:29 says that God would predestinate them based on his foreknowing them. It is not their faith that God foreknew, but it is they themselves “whom” God foreknew.

There are people whom God foreknew; and he predestinated these people to be conformed to the image of his Son. God did not merely forknow their decision to believe in Christ, and then predestinate that decision to be conformed to the image of his son!

Nothing is said here about God foreknowing that they would have faith. And it is not said or implied that God predestinated them based upon their faith.

It is clear from the passage that God foreknows some human beings in this way, and not others. There are those people “whom God did foreknow”—and this implies that there are others whom God did not foreknow in this manner. All those whom God foreknew, he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son, justified and glorified. This is the ultimate purpose of salvation.

God’s foreknowing cannot be a bare “knowing (some) things before they happen,” because in that sense God already knew all things that would happen. But it must be a loving, relational foreknowledge of particular individual persons²: whom God had already chosen from eternity past: chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (see Acts 13:48; Romans 11:2; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:2).

God’s election of his people to salvation is personal, individual and particular (i.e. certain specific people were in God’s mind)—and he elected them because he foreknew them, not because he foresaw that they would have believe in Christ.

What God did, does, and shall do for those people “whom he did foreknow” is predestinate them before time to be conformed to the image of his Son, justify them at some point in their earthly life time, and glorify them in the future.

God Did Not Merely Foreknow Christ

There is a less common objection, which says that God chose Christ as the means of salvation, but he did not choose any particular people to be saved by Christ. This objection implies that God did not have particular human beings in mind when he established his plan of salvation in the eternity past.

Same as with the Arminian objection above, this objection denies what Romans 8:29 teaches: namely that God, who foreknew “them” (note the plural; people) whom he would save, predestinated them to salvation. It makes salvation to be on on the basis of a person’s decision to believe in Christ, rather than on the basis of God’s foreknowing them.

This is another denial of the doctrine of the spiritual death of mankind in the fall of Adam, which has rendered us totally unable of ourselves to choose or turn to God. Fallen, sin-enslaved people do not will to turn to Christ—they would never decide to believe in Christ. “The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7). “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God…There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:11,18).

The objection also overlooks the wonderful fact that God, who is rich in mercy, came to us before we began to turn to him—he came to us “even when we were dead in our sins”—in order to “quicken”³ us (Ephesians 2:4-6).

Appendix

Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, at Romans 8:29 and 11:2.

Romans 8:29. Having let fall a word in the former verse concerning the purpose of God, he [Paul] thinks good, in what follows, to pursue that subject, and a little to enlarge upon it. Whom he did foreknow; i.e. with a knowledge of approbation; for otherwise, he foreknew all persons and things: or, whom he did foreknow for his own, John 10:14, 27; Romans 11:2; 2 Timothy 2:19. This foreknowledge of God is the ground of our election: see 1 Peter 1:2. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son; whom he was pleased to approve of, and to pitch his free love and favour upon, he severed from the common lump and mass of mankind, and did appoint them to be conformed to the image of his Son; i.e. to be conformed to him in holiness and sufferings here, and in glory hereafter: see 1 Corinthians 15:49; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 1:4-6; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2. That he might be the firstborn among many brethren; this is the limitation of the forementioned conformity; though there be a likeness in us unto Christ, yet there is not an equality; he still retaineth the dignity of the firstborn, and hath a double, yea, a far greater portion; he is Head and Ruler of all the family in heaven and in earth, Psalm 45:7-8.

Romans 11:2. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew: here he makes a further answer to the forementioned objection: by way of distinction, he distinguishes the people of God into such as are foreknown, and such as are not foreknown: and as for the former of these, he says, they are not rejected of God. By such as are foreknown of God, he means those that are elected and predestinated to eternal life, Romans 8:29. a foreknowledge with approbation is implied and intended, John 10:14; 2 Timothy 2:19.

The Canons of Dort, Head 1, Article 9.

This election was not founded upon foreseen faith and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition in man, as the prerequisite, cause, or condition on which it depended; but men are chosen to faith and to the obedience of faith, holiness, etc. Therefore election is the fountain of every saving good, from which proceed faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation, and finally eternal life itself, as its fruits and effects, according to the testimony of the apostle: He chose us in Him (not because we were, but) that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4).