The meaning of “For those whom He foreknew….”
There are a lot of theories concerning the meaning of the phrase, but two biggies are those of the Calvinists and Arminians.
The Calvinists will tell you it means “for those foreseen individuals whom God preferred or loved or elected.” Two inferences are made, the time of the “foreknowing” is in the past, before creation, and what is foreknown concerns foreseen individuals that will exist in the future.
The Arminians will tell you very much the same thing, only God foresees individuals who will freely choose to believe.
Lets deal with these ideas first. Both of course just happen to be consistent with their respective theology. But it is an open question as to whether initially their understanding informed their theology or whether they had formed their theology and arrived at an understanding of this passage necessarily consistent with it.
Does foreknew mean forelove? Certainly many times in scripture the term “knew” is used to allude to an intimate, individual, loving relationship. But it is also used many times just to refer to cognition, some fact or other possessed in the mind of someone including God, or some group. If we look at how the term is used in the New Testament, the most likely meaning is to know something now, some fact or plan, that was acquired or formulated in the past. Hence, Christ’s crucification, foretold in Isaiah 53, was carried out by the predestined plan and foreknowledge of God, Acts 2:23.
Similarly foreknew does not mean to look through the veil of time into an existent future and see who will choose to believe in Christ. Foreknow does not mean foresee, it means to know something now, in the present, that was acquired or formulated in the past.
So if both these mainstream views miss the message entirely, what is Paul actually trying to tell us? The “whom” refers back to verse 28, those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Thus the “whom” does not refer to individuals foreseen, but to all those who during their physical life love God and respond to the gospel. Now what did God know beforehand concerning this group of individuals? That they were the target group of God’s plan of salvation! God formulated His plan before creation, in the past as it were, and now things are happening in accordance with that plan. So “for whom He foreknew” means “anyone redeemed by God’s plan of salvation, because God knew before creation when He anointed the Word to be the Christ, that Christ would redeem those who love God during their lifetime. So the individuals existing at the time of Paul’s writing were foreknown because they were part of the target group of God’s redemption plan. These are the same folks who were chosen in Him, Ephesians 1:4, where before creation God chose Christ to be our Redeemer, and so in effect everyone redeemed was chosen in Him corporately as part of His plan’s target group, before the foundation of the world.
Why a corporately chosen target group, and not foreseen individuals? Because God’s plan was to save individuals by grace through faith, and individual selection before creation followed by irresistible compulsion does not bring glory to God. Only by fallen individuals turning to God and trusting in Christ is God glorified. Pulling the string on a doll that says “I love you” does not glorify the string puller.
