God’s Foreknowledge

Along these same lines, Scripture also teaches that God also foreknew all those who would choose to make the right choice. Peter, for example, wrote:

To those who reside as aliens… who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father (1 Pet. 1:1-2a, emphasis added).

We are chosen according to God’s foreknowledge. Paul also wrote of foreknown believers:

For whom He foreknew [us], He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He [Jesus] might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom he called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Rom. 8:29-30).

God foreknew those of us who would choose to believe in Jesus, and He predestined that we would become conformed to the image of His Son, becoming regenerated children of God in His big family. In keeping with that eternal plan, He called us through the gospel, justified us (made us righteous) and will ultimately glorify us in His future kingdom.

Paul wrote in another letter:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved (Eph. 1:3-6, emphasis added)

The same truth is presented here—God predestined us (whom He foreknew would repent and believe) before the foundation of the world to become His holy sons through Jesus Christ.

As already mentioned, some twist the meaning of such scriptures by ignoring everything else the Bible teaches, claiming that we really had no choice in our salvation—the choice was supposedly all God’s. This they call the doctrine of “unconditional election.” But who ever heard of such a thing as an “unconditional election,” that is, an election that is not made on the basis of certain conditions being met? In free countries, we elect political candidates based on conditions they meet in our minds. We elect spouses based on conditions they meet, characteristics about them that make them desirable. Yet some theologians want us to believe that God’s supposed choice of who is saved and who is not saved is an “unconditional election,” not based on any conditions people have met! Thus the salvation of individuals is by pure chance , the whims of a cruel, unrighteous, hypocritical and unintelligent monster named God! The very phrase, “unconditional election” contradicts itself, as the very word election implies conditionality. If it is an “unconditional election,’ it is no election at all; it is pure chance.