"The Foreknowledge Of
God"
I Peter 1:2
It is the common
practice of false prophets to pervert God's foreknowledge into a denial of his
total sovereignty in salvation, making election and grace to be determined not
by the will of God but by the will of man. Satan's messengers of deceit, in
their utter contempt for the glory of God and great admiration for the
"dignity of man's free-will", tell us that God's foreknowledge is
foreseen faith and obedience in men. They tell us that "God foresaw from
eternity which sinners would be willing to respond favorably to the gentle
impulses of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts. Therefore, because God knew some
would believe, he predestinated them to salvation and elected them to eternal
life."
Is this what Peter
means when he declares that all believers are "elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father?" Of course not! Such perverse doctrine
has the slime of the serpent's tail upon it. It is a base perversion of the
grace of God. It is the doctrine of antichrist, for it makes salvation the work
of man rather than the work of God in Christ. It is a denial of man's total
depravity, for it declares that there is something good and noble in some men -
a natural willingness to trust Christ. It denies the sovereignty of God, for it
makes God's purpose of grace in election and predestination to be determined by
and conditioned upon the will of the sinner. It turns the whole work of grace
upside down. Free-willers tell us that God predestinated some to salvation
because he foreknew they would repent and trust Christ, while others would not.
But the Bible says exactly the opposite (Read Acts
What is the importance
of this distinction? If God chose us to salvation because of what he foreknew
we would do, then the difference between those who are saved and those who are
lost is man's free-will and man has a right to boast before God. If however, as
the Bible universally declares, our faith is the fruit of God's election, then
the difference between the saved and the lost is a difference which grace has
made. And God alone shall have all praise (I Cor. 4:7).
Don Fortner