THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD

W. McKillop

Acts 2: 22–24; Romans 8: 29, 30; Hebrews 11: 39, 40

These scriptures refer to the foreknowledge of God. The first passage refers to the foreknowledge of God with regard to Christ being given up to be crucified. The second passage refers to God’s foreknowledge of us individually, and what He has done in order that we might answer to His foreknowledge. The last passage refers really to the foreknowledge of God with regard to the assembly’s place in both the millennial world and eternity. It would seem from Acts 2 that foreknowledge is not exactly purpose. It is linked in Acts 2 by Peter with the determinate counsel of God. I would understand that purpose refers to what God determined in love for His own heart, without reference to what would arise subsequently.

Counsel, of course, refers to how the purpose of God is to be worked out. Foreknowledge refers to God taking into account what would arise, and out of the depth of His wisdom, predetermining that He would act in a certain way to meet conditions that would arise.

Clearly in this passage, the delivering up of Christ is linked with the determinate counsel of God and foreknowledge. God foresaw that Jesus would come to His own and that they would not receive Him, and also that none of the princes of this world would know who He was. As Paul says, “for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”, 1

Corinthians 2: 8. God took account of the fact that the hand of lawless men would be against Christ. It should touch our affections that the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God required the crucifixion. The great issue in the universe that was settled at the cross, was the issue of lawlessness. The majesty of God as supreme in His universe had been challenged.

God foreknew that issue would arise. The

way He took to meet that, was that Christ would have to be delivered up. Peter speaks of Him in the simplest and most profound way—“Jesus the Nazaraean, a man borne witness to by God to you”. It is a solemn matter to think that God took account in His foreknowledge that the One whom He approved would be rejected by lawless men. And not only that He would be rejected but also be crucified and slain. It is really an extraordinary word used as to the Lord, slain. In the foreknowledge of God it was also clear that Christ would have to go into death, but God has raised Him up, “having loosed the pains of death, inasmuch as it was not possible that he should be held by its power”. It touches our hearts to think of the Lord becoming obedient unto death and being subject to its power, for the period of three days and three nights. And yet our souls exult in the knowledge that it was not possible that He should be held by its power.

The foreknowledge of God in that sense is intended to affect us in view of remembering the Lord on the first day of the week and serving God by the Spirit. The issue of lawlessness has been resolved at the cross and in the burial of Christ, and the supremacy of God has been asserted in the resurrection of Christ. “Whom God has raised up” is an expression of divine power. Peter’s testimony to the Jews here has not been received, but we can thank God that through grace we have received the testimony of the glad tidings, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and was buried and has been raised according to the scriptures (1

Corinthians 15: 3, 4). The scriptures reflect the foreknowledge of God in the way they have been written. In fact in Galatians the apostle Paul says—“the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations on the principle of faith (Galatians 3: 8) So that the Scriptures are in a way personified in that passage. It would link with the fact that the way scripture is written brings out the foreknowledge of God.

Having said that I would like to refer to the

foreknowledge of God in connection with ourselves in Romans 8. This word really should touch our hearts, “Because whom he has foreknown”. That is as we are here, in this meeting, foreknowledge has entered into the fact that we are here in the testimony. The thought of God foreknowing us is different from the thought of God choosing us. In Ephesians we have,

“according as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation” (Ephesians 1: 4), that would be a matter of purpose. There is a link between purpose and foreknowledge. In verse 28 it says, “to those who are called according to purpose”, that is, God has acted sovereignly in calling us for the satisfaction of His own affections. Then that He has foreknown us would enter into the fact that the Lord said to His own, “rejoice that your names are written in the heavens”, Luke 10: 20. God, in taking account of the ages of time, and foreknowing what He would do through Christ and by the Spirit, has taken into account what we would be for Him.

So “whom he has foreknown”. He knew us from the standpoint of purpose. He knew what we would be for Him, on the basis of the work of Christ in redemption and as the result of the work of the Spirit in us. Therefore He is not taking account of us according to what we are by nature or by flesh, so earlier in this chapter the apostle says, “ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you” (Romans 8: 9).

It is a wonderful matter to think of God foreknowing each one of us individually, and foreknowing us in relation to our individual position in the testimony, and then in relation to our eternal position in the heavenlies. What follows therefore is the result of God’s foreknowledge of us in order to work that out in us. “Because whom he has foreknown, he has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son”; this is with a view to Christ having the pre-eminent place among His brethren. To bring this about He has called us, and He has justified us, and He has glorified us. We have been called in the glad tidings and through grace

we have answered. Then God has justified us on the principle of faith, with a view to bringing us out with Christ in the world to come, in a way that involves that we are

“unblamable in holiness”, as the apostle says elsewhere, “before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints”, 1 Thessalonians 3: 13. But also he goes on to say, “these also he has glorified”. In God’s foreknowledge of us, it required that we should be glorified by receiving the Spirit. We can really say, although unseen by natural eye, the glory of the anointing rests upon us. That specially comes out as we accept the reproach of Christ.

Peter says, “If ye are reproached in the name of Christ, blessed are ye; for the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”, 1 Peter 4: 14. God’s foreknowledge of us required that we should be persons who are morally glorious.

I read the passage in Hebrews to bring out the place that we have according to the purpose of God, in what is said, “God having foreseen some better thing for us”. As you take account of the names of the persons in this chapter who are distinguished by their faith it says, “And these all ... did not receive the promise”. The whole matter of what they will come into waits the better things which God has foreseen for us. So it says, “that they should not be made perfect without us”. What I would suggest, beloved brethren, is that God has arranged His universe with the assembly to have the prime place in it. The earlier saints who had faith, and obtained witness through their faith, and who belong to other families named of the Father, will not be put into their final position until the assembly is in the place that God has foreseen for it. This ought to move our hearts in adoration towards God, and in thankfulness. The word here is not foreknowledge but foreseen, but clearly the thought of foreknowledge would enter into it. As we think about God ordering beforehand in His own mind the moral universe, He designed that the leading place in it should be the assembly’s. And the assembly has that place because she is the body of Christ, she is the

fulness of the exalted Man.

Let these thoughts encourage our hearts, and enrich our understanding of how God has acted.

Think of His acting from, we might say, Abraham’s world right to the time of the incoming of Christ. During all that period God had foreseen some better things for our very selves as of the assembly. It is a wonderful consideration. I do not know if 1 can say much more about it, except to encourage us to draw on the Spirit in our private moments to get the enlargement that would come from our pondering these things by the Spirit. If you think about these persons mentioned in this chapter, how they shine in their faith. And yet it was God’s sovereign way in love that He foresaw some better things for us “that they should not be made perfect without us”. The whole ordering of the universe of God for His pleasure eternally is worked out from the point of the assembly being with Christ in the very centre of the divine realm. May the Spirit of God help us to carry these thoughts into the time before us on the first day of the week so that the service of God might be enriched. May God bless the word.

Address at Vevey
25 October 1997