And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30)
From a young age,
conflict shaped how I listened to people tell me what they believed. I wanted
to know why they were sure what they believed was better than what another
person thought was true. After all, relationships would be affected, and the
truth mattered more than picking sides.
Beginning at the
age of 7, I had already settled that believing in God had more going for it
than not believing in him. Sixty years later, this same way of thinking has
convinced me more than ever that the Bible is the word of God, that the Holy
Spirit helps us understand it, and, when we quit imposing our own preferences
onto the sacred words, we discover that God delights to share his thoughts with
those “who tremble at my word”.
So it is that my
travels through Romans 8 have helped me appreciate more than ever the contrast
between life in the Spirit vs life in the flesh, and that the Spirit’s work in
God’s children is what enables us to truly understand “the mind of Christ”.
When this brought
me to what it means that the Holy Spirit’s intercession for God’s people “according
to the will of God” results in the “all things work together for good” for God’s
beloved children, and how that connects with Paul’s “for” that segues into the “golden
chain” of redemption, my chief interest was to understand God’s choice of words
by what HE means by them.
What I already
shared in the box is the essence of what the words mean. But this is where
hearts get exposed. When God shows us the words he breathed-out as Scripture,
do we see a humble child within us seeking to “live by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God”, or do we see a self-willed toddler stamping its feet
because it doesn’t like being told what to think on the matter?
On one side, this
is specifically addressing whether we will let God be God and say that he “knew”
his people “beforehand”. Will we let ourselves rest there, no matter how
mindboggling it sounds to us. Or do we need to hold off on our submission to
God until we feel good about it? You know, like it’s still really all about us.
On the other side,
this addresses the growing trend to make the Bible mean what we read in, not
what we read out. So many people say God says something when it isn’t even
stated. It’s what they say the culture of the time meant, or what they say a
word could mean, or what they impose from today onto back then. Or the classic “bait
and switch” where they claim that if it says “this” it must mean “that”. And,
with a mind trained to listen to why people believe what they claim, I can tell
that the “that” is not the “this”!
All that to say
that the word “foreknew” was written to “the saints”, the born again, believers
in Jesus Christ, disciples, the beloved children of God. It is a word breathed
out by God into Scripture to feed the souls of his children. And receiving what
God means by it affects everything.
Anyone who would
say that, if grace abounds where sin abounds shouldn’t we sin more to get more
grace, needs a good visit with the one who foreknew us.
Anyone who says that a born-again child of
God can lose their born-againness needs to stop and meditate on what “foreknew”
means from God’s perspective.
Anyone who knows
they have repented and trusted in Jesus for salvation but lives in constant
fear that they aren’t really loved because they’re not very good needs to stop
and listen to this breathed-out word of God: “foreknew”.
And anyone like me
who, as a young teenager was traumatized out of getting baptized because I wasn’t
a “good enough” Christian, and was constantly told what a “gutless wonder” I
was for believing in Jesus, and who has lost some of the most precious people
in the world to me because of trauma bonding to people who don’t know how to
love, we can bring all that brokenness, all the wounding, all the trauma, all
the attachment-pain, and sit at the feet of Scripture where “foreknew” “heals
the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Yes, this was never
intended to be a theological debate. In one word it tells us that God knew his
children as beloved children before creation. That takes in the real history of
what kind of lives we have lived and what kind of people we have been because
God not only knew, but he knew US!
And it takes in the
real history of the world from creation, to now, to Jesus’ return, and the
eternity beyond, with this unchanging reality that, before it all began, God “foreknew”
his children. Period. Forever. Settled.
Now, can we put
aside all our arguments, all our traumas, all our insecurities about church
fights over words, and talk to our Father in heaven about how we are opening
our hearts and minds to receive this word as breathed out by God, and accept
that we are known now and forever because we were known as God’s beloved children
beforehand?
Whatever we need to
lay at the foot of the throne of grace, the help we will receive to receive God’s
word is worth whatever inner turmoil we must face to find our rest in Jesus,
and to let his word “dwell in you richly”.
© 2026
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
