Romans 8:29

“ For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be a first-born among many brethren. ”

The for bears on the principal idea of Romans 8:28: All things must turn to the good of them that are called according to God's eternal plan. Why so? Because once individually foreknown, He has determined to bring them to the glorious consummation of perfect likeness to His Son. This is the end with a view to which He has ordered the plan of all things beforehand.

By the οῦς προέγνω, whom He did foreknow, Paul evidently expresses the condition of the προώρισεν, He predestinated. The decree of predestination (προορισμός) is founded on the act of foreknowledge (πρόγνωσις). What does St. Paul understand by this last word? Some have given to the word foreknow the meaning of elect, choose, destine, beforehand (Mel., Calv., Rück., De Wette, etc.). Not only is this meaning arbitrary, as being without example in the N. T., and as even in profane Greek the word γινώσκειν, to know, has the meaning of deciding only when it applies to a thing, as when we say: connaître d'une cause, to judge of a case, and never when applied to a person; [in this case γινώσκειν περί would be absolutely necessary, to decide regarding (the person)]; but what is still more decidedly opposed to this meaning is what follows: He also did predestinate; for in that case the two verbs would be identical in meaning, and could not be connected by the particle of gradation καί, also, especially in view of Romans 8:30, where the successive degrees of divine action are strictly distinguished and graduated. Others give to the word know a sense borrowed from the shade of meaning which it sometimes has in the biblical style, that of loving (Er., Grot., Hofm.); comp. Romans 11:2; Jeremiah 1:5; Amos 3:2; Hosea 13:5; Galatians 4:9, etc. The meaning according to this view is: “whom He loved and privileged beforehand.” With this class we may join those who, like Beza, give the word the meaning of approving. It is certain that with the idea of knowledge, Scripture readily joins that of approbation, intimate communion, and tender affection; for it is only through mutual love that intelligent beings really meet and know one another. Besides, no one can think of separating from the word foreknow here, any more than Romans 11:2, the notion of love. Only it is still less allowable to exclude from it the notion of knowledge, for this is the first and fundamental meaning; the other is only secondary. There is not a passage in the N. T. where the word know does not above all contain the notion of knowledge, properly so called. The same is the case with the word foreknow; comp. Acts 26:5; 2 Peter 3:17. In the passage Acts 2:23, foreknowledge is expressly distinguished from the fixed decree, and consequently can denote nothing but prescience; and as to Romans 11:2: “His people whom God foreknew,” the idea of knowledge is the leading one in the word foreknew; that of love is expressed in the pronoun His. The meaning then to which we are brought seems to me to be this: those on whom His eye fixed from all eternity with love; whom He eternally contemplated and discerned as His. In what respect did God thus foreknow them? Obviously it is not as being one day to exist. For the foreknowledge in that case would apply to all men, and the apostle would not say: “ whom He foreknew.” Neither is it as future saved and glorified ones that He foreknew them; for this is the object of the decree of predestination of which the apostle goes on to speak; and this object cannot at the same time be that of the foreknowledge. There is but one answer: foreknown as sure to fulfil the condition of salvation, viz. faith; so: foreknown as His by faith. Such is the meaning to which a host of commentators have been led, St. Augustine himself in early times, then the Lutheran expositors; Philippi explains: praecognovit praevisione fidei. Only Philippi, after frankly acknowledging this meaning, instantly adds, that the faith which God foresees He also creates; and so by this door a return is provided into the system of predestination which seemed to have been abandoned. But this view is not compatible with the true meaning of the word know, especially when this word is contrasted, as it is here, with the term predestinate. The act of knowing, exactly like that of seeing, supposes an object perceived by the person who knows or sees. It is not the act of seeing or knowing which creates this object; it is this object, on the contrary, which determines the act of knowing or seeing. And the same is the case with divine prevision or foreknowledge; for in the case of God who lives above time, foreseeing is seeing; knowing what shall be is knowing what to Him already is. And therefore it is the believer's faith which, as a future fact, but in His sight already existing, which determines His foreknowledge. This faith does not exist because God sees it; He sees it, on the contrary, because it will come into being at a given moment, in time. We thus get at the thought of the apostle: Whom God knew beforehand as certain to believe, whose faith He beheld eternally. He designated predestined (προώρισεν), as the objects of a grand decree, to wit, that He will not abandon them till He has brought them to the perfect likeness of His own Son.

It is clear from the οὕς and the τούτους, whom...them, that it was those individuals personally who were present to His thought when pronouncing the decree.

As the first verb contained an act of knowledge, the second denotes one of free will and authority. But will in God is neither arbitrary nor blind; it is based on a principle of light, on knowledge. In relation to the man whose faith God foresees, He decrees salvation and glory. Reuss is certainly mistaken, therefore, in saying of these two verbs that substantially they denote “one and the same act.” The object of the decree is not faith at all, as if God had said: As for thee, thou shalt believe; as for thee, thou shalt not believe. The object of predestination is glory: “I see thee believing..., I will therefore that thou be glorified like my Son.” Such is the meaning of the decree. The predestination of which Paul speaks is not a predestination to faith, but a predestination to glory, founded on the prevision of faith. Faith is in a sense the work of God; but it contains a factor, in virtue of which it reacts on God, as an object reacts on the mind which takes cognizance of it; this is the free adherence of man to the solicitation of God. Here is the element which distinguishes the act of foreknowledge from that of predestination, and because of which the former logically precedes the latter.

It is hardly necessary to refute the opinion of Meyer, who gives the verb foreknow the same object as the verb predestinate: “Whom He foreknew as conformed to the image of His Son, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Sou.” Has this any meaning? It would be more intelligible if the order were reversed: “Whom he predestinated to..., He also did foreknow as ”...

What the decree of predestination embraces is the realization of the image of the Son in all foreknown believers. The adj. σύμμορφοι, conformed, is directly connected with the verb He predestinated; the ellipsis of the verb to be, or to become, is obvious and common. Paul does not say: “conformed or like to His Son,” but: “to the image of His Son.” By using this form of expression, he undoubtedly means that Christ has realized in Himself a higher type of existence (εἰκών, image), which we are to realize after Him. This is the existence of the God-man, as we behold it in Christ; such is the glorious vesture which God takes from the person of His Son, that therewith He may clothe believers. What, in point of fact, was the aim of God in the creation of man? He wished to have for Himself a family of sons; and therefore He determined in the first place to make His own Son our brother. Then in His person He raises our humanity to the divine state; and finally, He makes all believing men sharers in this glorious form of existence. Such are the contents of the decree. It is obvious that Christ Himself is its first object; and hence He is called the Elect, absolutely speaking, Isaiah 42:1; Luke 9:35 (most approved reading). His brethren are elect in Him, Ephesians 1:4-6. The Father's intention in acting thus is to glorify the Son by causing His beauty to be reflected in a family of living likenesses.

The term πρωτότοκος, first-born, no doubt denotes primarily a relation of time: Jesus preceded all the others in glory, not only because of His eternal existence, but also as a man by His resurrection and ascension; comp. Colossians 1:15; Colossians 1:18. But the decree of predestination carries us into an eternal sphere, where the idea of priority has no more place, and is transformed into that of superiority. It will be vain for us to take on His likeness; we shall never be equal to Him; for the likeness which we shall bear will be His. Thus what comes out as the end of the divine decree is the creation of a great family of men made partakers of the divine existence and action, in the midst of which the glorified Jesus shines as the prototype.

But how are we, we sinful men, to be brought to this sublime state? Such a work could not be accomplished as it were by the wave of a magician's wand. A complete moral transformation required to be wrought in us, paving the way for our glorification. And hence God, after fixing the end, and pronouncing the decree in eternity, set His hand to the work in time to realize it. He beheld them at their haven, all these foreknown ones, before launching them on the sea; and once launched, He acted; such is the meaning of Romans 8:30.