God's Foreknowledge

February 13th, 2025
by Dr. D. Lance Waldie

Romans 11:1-2a I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected His people whom he foreknew.

In Romans 11:1-2 Paul uses himself as his first proof that God has not utterly rejected His people, for he himself was “an Israelite” (v. 1a), and God would hardly have chosen an Israelite to be His special apostle to the Gentiles had He totally abandoned Israel. Paul would have been a strange choice by God to preach Christ if that were the case. One might say that in Paul, the original missionary commission of Israel is being fulfilled, for Israel is actively allied with the ministry of the risen Christ through the Apostle Paul who represents the entire nation of Israel.

Now unlike some, Paul was not a convert to Judaism. He was born from Hebrew parents, children of Abraham, who were from the tribe of Benjamin. So as a pure Israelite (cf. 2 Cor. 11:13, 22; Phil. 3:4-6), Paul was living proof that God had not abandoned the descendants of Abraham. Of course Paul was not always a believer in Christ, for he was at one time a staunch enemy of Christianity (cf. Acts 8:1-3; 9:1-2). While he was filled with hate, arresting Christians and seeking to arrest others, Christ appeared to him and saved him (Acts 9:3ff.). So, he was a walking example of how God can save the hardest of hearts from among the Israelites and therefore keep His covenant with them. For if Paul thought for a moment that Israel had been rejected by God, then it seems awfully futile for him to have risked his life over and over to preach the gospel from which he himself would have been excluded! Truly, if Jesus could save an unbelieving, Christ-hating Israelite like Paul, then He can save any Israelite.

A second proof that God has not utterly rejected Israel is that God “foreknew” Israel. This term has the meaning of intimate or special knowledge, sometimes used in the OT for sexual intimacy (cf. Gen. 4:1). In the NT God has special knowledge of some but not all even though He obviously knows all people. Matthew 7:21-23 references those Christ will reject at His second coming in spite of their having performed signs and wonders in His name. They will cry, “Lord! Lord!” but He will reject them saying, “I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness” (italics mine). This means that, though God knows all, all are not known by Him intimately. “Christ is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:10).

Now at times in the NT, foreknowledge does mean to know something beforehand (Acts 26:5; 2 Pet. 3:17). But in Paul’s context, foreknowledge means “to determine beforehand.” The reason is that in each passage in the NT where God is the subject of “foreknow,” it means “to determine” or “enter into a relationship” beforehand (cf. Acts 2:23; Rom. 8:29-30; 1 Pet. 1:1-2). Therefore, those whom God foreknew cannot be rejected by Him since “reject” means “push aside.” In the NT this verb is always used reflexively, indicating a pushing aside from oneself. So, Paul is not asking whether God has refused to receive His people to Himself but that He has not pushed them aside from Himself. Rejection and foreknowledge, therefore, are mutually incompatible, for God can never permanently cast away those whom He foreknew. For those whom God foreknew, He also predestined, called, justified, and glorified (8:29-30).

Food for Thought

Martin Luther said, “Had God cast away His people, then above all He would have cast away the Apostle Paul, who had opposed Him with all his might.” If God had cast Israel away forever, why choose Paul who may have been the worst unbelieving Israelite the nation ever knew? In the same way that God foreknew Paul and brought him to saving faith, He knows all believing Jews within that unbelieving nation—past, present, and future. So He preserves Israel.