For Whom He Did Foreknow, He Also Did Predestinate (Romans 8:28-30)

2022-04-05

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (29) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (30) Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30)

Here is another case of the usage of “foreknew.” The previous example dealt with a Jewish/Gentile context example. Here we look at a broader example. The objective is to identify whether “foreknew” is used in the sense to determine ahead of time, or if it means to know ahead of time.

There are other terms here other than “foreknew” that are significant. First is the “called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). It likely follows that it is linked to the verb “called” in Romans 8:30. We might conclude that by the “foreknew” it means that God determined who was saved ahead of time. I do not think this is the case, at least in this context, because of the word order we will discuss shortly.

First, the words “foreknow” and “predestinate” are different words. There is no doubt that predestinate means to decide beforehand or determine ahead of time. The “foreknow” is ambiguous because of its usage elsewhere. It is rather curious that, if people were foreordained to be saved beforehand, that the clearer word “predestinate” would be used in this case also.

The word “predestinate” deserves a word study on its own, which I plan to do in the future. But a general observation is that the word “predestinate” is coupled with that which one is predestinated to. Here, one is predestinated “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:30). In other words, if you are saved, God guarantees that you will be conformed to the image of Jesus someday, namely, on the Day of Christ. It does not say we are predestinated to salvation (in the “who is going to believe” sense) here. We are predestined to be like Jesus.

In addition, Romans 8:29-30 implies an order: Foreknew, predestinated, called, justified, glorified. The foreknowledge happens first. God knew how everything would happen beforehand. By delegating authority to the subordinate beings of humans and angels, freewill was given to them all, as we discussed before. Sin could enter into the world by no other way. He did not rigidly foreordain everything; otherwise, we would have an irreconcilable theodicy problem. Whomever He knew ahead of time would be saved, the same had their destiny mapped out in a general sense: predestinated to become like Jesus, called by the Word of God (“the hearing of faith” in Galatians 3:2, 5), justified (declared righteous), and glorified (when becoming like Jesus is a full reality at the first resurrection).