On This Day: Foreknown as Fully as it Means

   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.)