REFORMED WITNESS
Volume VII, April 1999, Number 4
"Foreknown in Love"
A meditation by Herman Hoeksema
from the July 15, 1930 issue of The Standard Bearer magazineSee more articles by this author
"For whom He did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified." - Romans 8:29 & 30
O, depth of riches!
And blessedness of the assurance; whom he did foreknow... them he also glorified!
For, do not ignore the fact, the text adduces a reason and a firm ground for what was expressed in the preceding: we know, that all things work together for good to them that love God, whom He called according to His purpose!
Such is the assurance of them that love God.
And the reason, the indubitable ground of this unspeakably blessed assurance is: for whom he did foreknow... them he also glorified! The end is certain. And the end is a great good, glory everlasting. And because the end is firmly determined, all things that still intervene between them that love God and that glorious end must work together for good, that is, for the realization of that ultimate glory God has prepared for them that love Him.
And the end is sure, because the beginning is unchangeably certain. For the final glory and all that must lead to it was determined by the eternal predestinating purposes of the Triune Jehovah. And these predestinating purposes have their deepest source in His eternal foreknowledge. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate...
Farther you cannot go back; more deeply you cannot penetrate into the divine mystery of salvation; for a more profound source you may not search. The eternal foreknowledge of the Most High is the fountain of your salvation!
But then you must not misinterpret this divine foreknowledge!
Never identify the knowledge of the Eternal with the reflected knowledge of mere man. Attempt not vainly to deprive this foreknowledge of the Most High of the glory of its divine character. Read not, as many despoilers of Scripture would, that God predestinated those of whom He knew before that they would be willing to believe in Jesus Christ, willing to accept Him, willing to walk in His ways, willing to fight the good fight even unto the end. For, then you would dethrone the Most High and enthrone mere, sinful man; then, indeed, you may still retain the mere term, predestination, but it has been made void of any real significance; then, forsooth, God predestinated but His predestinating purpose was predetermined by the will of man. Then you put God in subjection under man. And then, to be sure, all certainty and assurance that all things will work together for good to them that love God, to you and to me, has been deprived of its firm foundation, for all things are contingent upon the changeable will of man!
The foreknowledge of God is eternally first!
It is before all things and causative of all things. We know things after they exist, God knows all things before they have any being; we know things because they are, God knows things that they may be; our knowledge is determined by the things we perceive, God's knowledge determines that things shall be and how they shall be. The foreknowledge of God is in the most absolute sense of the word independent and sovereign; it is all original conception, not perception. As the conception of the artist is before the work of art: determines it, so the foreknowledge of God is causally before all things that are and become. For the Most High is self-existent and independent in all the works of His hand; sovereignly independent too, in His divine foreknowledge: it is determined by nothing outside of Himself; it determines all! And thus God foreknew His people, them that love Him, those whom He predestinated to be made like unto the image of His Son, He did not perceive them before they were, but He conceived them that they might be...
But there is more...
For, this eternal, divine, causative foreknowledge of God, is also the knowledge of love.
It is not simply a cold conception of His divine mind, but it is a knowledge that is suffused with the warmth of eternal love. It is not a mere eternal thought of the divine mind, it is the full, infinitely profound throb of the divine heart. It is the knowledge of fellowship, of most intimate communion, of covenant-friendship...
Thus God foreknew His people!
Sovereignly He conceived of them, engraved them in both the palms of His hands.
And that sovereignly conceived people He loved; loved for His own name's sake; loved, because they were a revelation of His own glories and eternally proclaimed His own virtues.
He foreknew them with an eternal and unchangeable knowledge of love.
And this foreknowledge is the deepest source of all they are, Of the certainty of their salvation.
Blessed assurance!
Whom he did foreknow...
No, He did not merely know something about them, He knew them.
And this knowledge of them, this eternal knowledge of love in the Most High, was in Him the deep motive for the predestinating purpose whereunto He ordained them.
For, whom He did foreknow, them He also did predestinate to be conformed according to the image of His Son! He did not simply choose them, distinguish them, set them apart, call them by name. But He ordained them to become partakers of a very definite and exalted glory.
Surely, election is also the particular and individual calling by name, in the eternal counsel of the Almighty, of every one of His children. It is the writing down in the book of life the names of all His people, with sovereign determination, as citizens of the Kingdom of heaven. But here attention is called, not to the persons that are chosen, but to the glory unto which they are elected; not to the blessed objects and participants in this gracious distinction, but to the end unto which the Most High chose them. He preordained them. And the end unto which they were ordained, is nothing less than conformation unto the image of God's own Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren!
No, the purpose of this glorious and blessed predestination is not in them, must not be sought in the many children, but in the eternal Son of God, the only Begotten of the Father, and through Him in the eternal glorification of the Triune God, of the Father Himself. For the Son is the only begotten of the Father, the effulgence of His glory, the express image of His Being; His Face, the eternal, infinite Word. All the fulness of the divine glory dwells in Him, is revealed in Him, beams forth through Him. In Him the Father beholds His own infinite glory with eternal love. And it was the Father's purpose to reveal that glory of His Son, His own glory, even outside of His own infinite Being. He purposed to glorify Himself by revealing His Son. And it was His will to reveal His Son by making Him from eternity to eternity the only Begotten, also the First Born among many brethren. The glory of the only Begotten must be reflected in the glory of the First Born, Immanuel, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the glory of that First Born must be reflected, multiplied in the glory of thousands and millions of brethren that are born after Him and through Him. That thus the glory of the Triune Jehovah may be mirrored in the First Born, and in the innumerable faces of the brethren God hath given Him...
The glory of Jehovah, revealed in the Face of First Born and His glorified throng of brethren!
That is the purpose!
The Son must be the First Born. He must come in the flesh, unite Himself with them, become one with them in nature, pave the way for them into eternal glory, break through the womb of things earthy and sinful and corrupt, be exalted into heavenly perfection, become the first heir of all things, partaker, also in His adopted human nature of the glory of the divine nature. And when His brethren are like unto Him, He must eternally be the Chief among the brethren, ruling among them as First Born, robed in royal majesty and clothed with power, and blessing them as their everlasting High Priest with blessings of God's covenant and friendship.
And they, the predestinated brethren whom the Father gave Him, must be conformed according to that image of the Son!
Such is the end of God's predestinating purpose concerning them.
Made like unto the Son of God!
No, indeed, not that they should become divine in essence and nature was God's purpose.
That is forevermore impossible. For God is One and there is no God beside Him. He cannot give His glory to another. He cannot impart His Being to the creature. And even when all the brethren shall be perfectly conformed according to the image of His Son, there will still be an infinite chasm between the Being of the Infinite and the finite beings of the brethren of the First Born Son of God. Their glory will never be original. All their beauty will never be independent. Eternally it will be a reflection of the glory of God, through the glory of the First Born Son whose brethren they are.
Yet, though there will never be identity in essence, there will be affinity of life and likeness of form.
Even as in the glorified human nature of the First Born there is the highest possible likeness with God, the most intimate relation and fellowship between that nature and the divine, so that the Person of the eternal Son of God lives, thinks, wills, feels also in human nature, and causes the divine life to vibrate in that glorified human nature, so that likeness, relation and fellowship with the Son of God shall also be imparted to the brethren, and the eternal covenant-like of the Most High shall vibrate also in the hearts of the children God hath given to the First Born Son!
Such is the glory unto which they are pre-ordained by the Father!
To be conformed according to the image of His Son!
And that end is certain!
It is fixed by the predestinating purpose of Him, who never changes, with Whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning!
For whom He did foreknow, he also did predestinate!
Glorious mystery of salvation!
_____________________
O, blessed counsel of the Most High!
Its fountain in the eternal and sovereign foreknowledge of infinite love!
Its end in the glory of many brethren, whose blessed distinction it is, that they be conformed according to the image of the Son of God!
And all the way provided for and divinely determined in infinite wisdom. For whom He did foreknow and predestinate unto that glorious end, them He also called, justified, glorified...
The apostle is not speaking here of what is realized in time.
The words might leave that impression. For He writes in terms of the past: God hath called them, hath justified them, He hath glorified them. It appears all accomplished, finished, perfected.
Yet, it is of eternity, not of time, of the counsel of God, not of its realization in us, that the apostle is speaking. And well may he speak thus. Not only because the counsel of God is certain of fulfilment, so that, when the Almighty determines anything it is the same as if it were all accomplished; but still more so because the thoughts of God's heart and mind are the ultimate reality of all things. With God the calling and justification and glorification of the brethren of the First Born are accomplished facts, real in His unchangeable and eternal counsel. With Him, in His divine mind, there is from all eternity a beloved, predestinated, called, justified and glorified people...
He hath engraven them in both the palms of His hands.
Only, what is eternally real in the perfect counsel of the Most High, becomes real for us in time and in the experience of succession of moments, of days, weeks, years and centuries, - the history of the Church and Covenant of God in the world as the unveiling of the eternal thoughts of the Eternal One!
We are called in time; called not by the word of man and the willing consent of our own choice, but by the irresistible power of the grace of Him Who calleth the things that are not as if they were; called out of darkness, the darkness in which we are born by nature, into His marvelous light; called out of the bondage of sin and death into the glorious liberty of the children of God; called into the blessed fellowship of God's covenant! And he that is so called will know by experience the blessed operation of that calling grace, that flows from the eternal foreknowledge of the Triune Jehovah. We are justified in time. For we are born in sin and guilt, are by nature the children of wrath, have no right to be called the children of God, no right to the inheritance of glory with the First Born Son of God. But He justifies us. He makes us partakers of the adoption unto children and heirs, of the forgiveness of sins and causes us, by the testimony of the indwelling spirit to cry out: Abba, Father! He justifies us, by implanting us in the Lord Jesus Christ, causing us to be one plant with Him, by faith working through love. And He it is, too, that glorifies us in the end. He never leaves, neither forsakes His people. He it is that sanctifies and preserves them in the midst of the world and through the battle of life, guarding them against the power of the devil, of sin and of death. He it is, that will take us into the house of many mansions, that will raise our mortal bodies and make them like unto the glorified Body of the First Born Son...
That will receive us into His eternal, heavenly Kingdom, where death and corruption shall have fled away and the tabernacle of God shall be with us forever and ever!
Surely, all these blessings of the wondrous grace of our covenant-God become ours, are bestowed upon the Church of God's elect, in and through the process of time.
Successively they are made the possession of His people, till all things shall be accomplished.
But with the unchangeable God it is different. For all these things are real in His counsel. There, in God's firm decree, we are called, are justified, are glorified. And what takes place in time is but the unveiling of that eternal purpose. And thus all things are certain.
And all things must work together for them that love God!
For all His counsel must be realized in them!
O, depth of riches!
HYMN 21
(Second Part L.M.)
Taken from a Hymnal published by the United Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1912
1) Behold! the potter moulds the clay,
His vessel forms himself to please:
Such is our God, and such are we,
The subjects of his just decree.2) Doth not the workman's power extend
O'er all the mass; which part to choose,
And mould it for a nobler end,
And which to leave for viler use?3) May not the sovereign Lord on high,
Dispense his favors as he Will;
Choose some to life, while others die;
And yet be just and glorious still?4) What, if he mean to show his grace,
And his electing love employ
To mark out some of mortal race,
And form them fit for heavenly joy?5) Shall man reply against the Lord,
And call his Maker's ways unjust;
The thunder of whose dreadful word
Can crush a thousand worlds to dust?6) But Oh! my soul, if truth so bright
Should dazzle and confound thy sight;
Yet still, his written will obey,
And wait the great decisive day.
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