God

His Foreknowledge

The Bible makes it very clear that God knows the future. As proof of His divine nature, God offers His foreknowledge of the future. “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done” (Isaiah 46:10). God even challenged others to predict the future (44:7).

***God does provide through His word a clear demonstration of His foreknowledge.

Ex. – He predicts the succession of world empires that would follow Babylon over the next five centuries (Daniel 2:31-44).

– God called Josiah by name three centuries before He was born and described how he would wage a campaign against idolatry (1 Kings 13:2).

– God called Cyrus by name and stated one hundred fifty years beforehand that he would serve God’s purpose in allowing the Jews to return to their land and rebuild the temple (Isaiah 44:28-45:1).

– God predicted centuries in advance many details concerning the life of Christ (Isaiah 7:14; Micah 5:2; 1 Peter 1:20).

*** God’s knowledge of the future can also be incredibly precise, for example Jesus knew that Peter would deny him exactly three times (Matthew 26:34 -- “Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.”)

Knowledge and Free Will

Some believe that God’s ability to know the future and the future actions of men and women somehow means that mankind is really not free to make his own choices. This theology is called predestination. Predestination is viewed as the eternal decree of God, by which He determines within Himself whatever He desires to happen with regard to every man. This theory is based on an assumption that all people are not created with equal opportunities with regard to life or salvation. In short it has been determined before time who will make it to heaven and who will not, and we really have no say in the matter. Our actions have been pre-determined (all that we will do and say while in this life) in order to fulfill God’s desires. Some even believe that the fall of man was inevitable as God took pleasure in it and arranged it so that Adam and Eve had no choice but to fail.

Contrary to this belief we can read the following scripture and determine that God does have a foreknowledge of things to come – but man has a free will in the things he chooses to do and say. (John 3:16-17; Jeremiah 18:7-10; Deuteronomy 30:15-19). “The foreknowledge of the future is not itself causative. Free actions do not take place because they are foreseen, but they are foreseen because they will take place.” (Lectures in Systematic Theology, Henry C. Thiessen,). A similar comparison can be made with a traffic reporter in a helicopter. He may foresee two automobiles that will crash because they are on a collision course, but his foreknowledge does not cause the accident.

Galatians 1:15

“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace.”

Paul’s statement affirms God’s knowledge of things to come. God knew that He would select this man to be an apostle to the Gentiles, yet such foreknowledge did not override or dominate Paul’s freewill. Paul stated to King Agrippa that when God called him, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”(Acts 26:19). We find similar selections from birth in the case of John the Baptist (Luke 1:15); and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5). *** Some may argue that Paul was given an easy chance to become a Christian or that Paul could not help but become a Christian after the personal appearance of Jesus to him. People forget the different times of the bible. The times in which we live and the times before Paul, and the many personal encounters and miracles seen and experienced by others and yet many still refused to repent The names of real people such as Cain, Pharaoh, Balaam, and the Pharisees (who personally beheld the miracles of Christ). All personally witnessed the many miracles of God, or had personal encounters with the Lord prior to Paul’s encounter and they all chose to turn away from and resist God. Add to the facts that Paul was of a prestigious family- highly respected, and a great vocal force in the opposition of “The Faith”. It cost Paul a great deal – prestige, fame, fortune, respect, social status, and monetary gain, not to mention placing His life in constant peril to make the decision to follow the Lord.

Acts 2:23

“Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.”

The plan of the death of Jesus for the sins of the world, goes back even beyond the Creation. (Eph. 3:9-11; 1 Peter 1:20-21)

“He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” (1Peter 1:20-21)

Peter makes it clear that the crucifixion of Jesus was no accident. It was not an act of desperation on the part of God, a last minute idea or a change from the original plan. This verse also links together God’s divine knowledge of the things to come and human choice. No one forced the Jewish leaders to turn their back on truth and ultimately deliver Jesus up to be crucified, it was their own authentic and real choice.

*** There is a great lesson to be learned here. The fact is God did know what the end result would be. God took a misdirected free will and selfish choices and utilized it to achieve His purpose. There are many other examples in the Bible to support this thought – He used Assyria to punish Judah, even though the Assyrians had no interest in serving the purposes of God (Isaiah 10:7). He used the stubbornness of Pharaoh to glorify Himself and punish Egypt, even though Pharaoh had no interest in seeing that the God of the Jews was honored (Exodus 9:16). Yet, in all of this the choices that Pharaoh, the Assyrians and the Jews made were there own genuine choices (Exodus 8:15; Isaiah 10:7 “Yet it does not so intend, nor does it plan so in its heart”).

Does God choose not to know?

Some believe that while man does not have the right to limit any of the attributes of God, He can limit Himself. In essence this means that even though God has the power to know all things beforehand, He has limited His knowledge. He sees fit to avoid a knowledge of everything with regard to the free will of mankind. Pasages that are used to support this view are Genesis 3:8-11 – The fall of man and God’s desire to know what they have done. Other passages include Genesis 18:20-21 “I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry”; 22:12 “For now I know that you fear God”.

While these passages do support such a theory we must be cautious in our application knowing that God is Omnipresent and Omniscient (all-knowing and ever-present). God certainly does have the ability and power to limit Himself, but I personally feel uncomfortable simply saying that God chooses not to know. Some things I just have to take in faith and understand that I do not have the mind of God and trust in His power and let it alone.

God knows all the contingencies

God knows the results of the free acts of His creatures. He not only foreknows how certain events will lead to other events and the final culmination of the events when they are ended, but He directly knows the result of motives of many people and the outcome of the actions from those motives.

*** Scriptures infer that God also knows all the possibilities or all the options, and all the options that could be exercised without violating His justice or sidetracking His will. For example, God will allow Abraham to appeal for the sparing of Sodom and Gomorrah, and God is willing to spare the city on behalf of ten righteous people (Genesis 18:32). Yet at the point of ten the conversation ends, indicating that there are no more options after this level but the destruction of these cities. We see the same flexibility in Exodus 32:10 “Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation”. In response, Moses will appeal to God and ask for mercy upon the nation (32:11-14). God will change His mind as a result of Moses’ intercession, indicating that in this situation more than one option existed. As noted in a previous lesson, God even knows what people would have done if they were given the opportunity (1 Samuel 23:11).

*** Note*** God can and will change His mind if it is not in conflict with His will and purpose. If this were not true we would have no hope of salvation – we would be lost because of sin.

The Certain and Uncertain

People tend to forget that there are things that God has purposefully planned such as the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the church that were certain (Acts 2:23; Ephesians 3:10-11). On the other hand, there are things in the future that remain flexible. Note the above examples: On certain conditions, Sodom could have been spared, and another option existed concerning the future of the nation of Israel during the lifetime of Moses. In like manner, God decreed against the city of Nineveh, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). The city repented, and the city was not overthrown, indicating that in certain areas, the future remains open. Through Jeremiah, God made it clear that the destinies of nations are not written in stone, nations can come to a premature end, or they can survive longer than expected, and the free willed actions of men tip the scale in one direction or the other: “At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it” (Jeremiah 18:7-10). The same principle applies to the salvation or condemnation of individuals (2 Peter 3:9; Ezekiel 18:21-24). Thus the eternal reward or condemnation of any living individual is not so fixed that they cannot alter it by their own free willed choices (2 Timothy 2:11-13).

***Applications***

This is one reason why God commands us to pray (1 Thessalonians 5:17). There are things that cannot be altered, for example, one cannot change the fact that salvation is in Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), that one must be baptized to be saved (Mark 16:16); or that one will eventually die (Hebrew 9:27). However, there are things that are flexible. God told Hezekiah to get his house in order for he was going to die, Hezekiah prayed and God granted him fifteen additional years of life (Isaiah 38:1-5). This is one reason why I noted previously that on a number of things, God allows men to tip the scales in one direction or another.

The examples of Hezekiah and especially Moses make we wonder how many opportunities have I missed?

Do we stand paralyzed in the face of some situation or do we pray and realize that other options may exist?

Have we lived up to what our future could be? God has the ability to see all the various possibilities for our lives, including finances, the level of happiness in our marriages, our spiritual growth, how many people we influenced with the gospel, our level of learning and experience and so on. It is easy to look at your present life and say, “Well, this was meant to be”, without realizing that such a resignation to “fate” is erroneous. If we have a definite say in our salvation, then obviously we have a definite say in our own level of happiness, growth, and maturity (Hebrews 5:12 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers”). Notice the expression, “ought to be”. They had not lived up to what they were truly capable of. They had not been destined to become weak Christians, rather they had willingly missed the opportunities to become strong and knowledgeable Christians.

Before you pass up a great opportunity for spiritual growth, ask yourself, “How will this affect my future?” “What will this deprive me of in the long run?” How we live today is very important, because every moment we are constructing our future here and the one we have in eternity!