Romans 8:28-30
What does a corporate Election view do with these verses? Specifically, "Those whom he foreknew, he Predestined to be conformed to the image of his son."
What is the foreknowledge being spoken of here?
I ask because I believe Skan (and maybe others) would say the corporate election view rejects the "foresight of faith" view. Is that right? I don't really see how it does.
This is a good honest question for discussion! :thumbsup:
I agree with
Adam Clarke, who wrote:
"To foreknow, here signifies to design before, or at the first forming of the scheme; to bestow the favour and privilege of being God's people upon any set of men, Romans xi. 2. This is the foundation or first step of our salvation; namely, the purpose and grace of God, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began, 2 Tim. i. 9. ...
No portion of the word of God has been more unhappily misunderstood than several parts of the Epistle to the Romans; because men have applied to individuals what belongs to nations; and referred to eternity transactions which have taken place in time."
He goes on to explain, the aim of the apostle in writing this epistle:
1. To prove, to both Jews and Gentiles, that they were all under sin, and that neither of them had any claim either on the justice or beneficence of God; yet he, of his own free mercy, had revealed himself to the Jews, and crowned them with innumerable privileges; and,
2. That, as he was no respecter of persons, his mercy was as free to the Gentiles as to them, being equally their God as he was the God of the Jews, and therefore had, by the Gospel, called them to a state of salvation; and to this display of his mercy the two verses in question seem particularly to refer, and show us not what God will do for some selected individuals, but what he has already done for nations.
After having shown that the whole Gentile world was groaning and travailing in pain together, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, he shows that it was, according to the affectionate purpose, proqesin [knowledge], of God, that the Gentiles should be also called into the glorious liberty of the sons of God-into equal privileges with the Jews. He therefore represents them as objects of God's gracious foreknowledge.
That the word proginwskw, which literally signifies to know, or discern beforehand, and to know so as to determine, signifies also to approve, or love before, to be well affected to, is not only evident from [dy yada in Hebrew, but also from the simple verb ginwskw, in Greek, by which it is translated, and to which the compound verb repeatedly answers, without any extension of meaning by means of the preposition, as its use among the best Greek writers proves: and it is evident that the apostle uses the word in the sense of loving, being graciously affected to, Romans xi. 1, 2. I say then, hath God cast away his people, which he FOREKNEW, on proegnw; to whom he has been so long graciously affected? By no means.
As, therefore, he had been so long graciously affected towards the Jews, so has he towards the Gentiles. His call of Abraham, and the promises made to him, are the proof of it. The Jews, thus foreknown, were called into a glorious state of salvation, and endowed with privileges the most extraordinary ever bestowed on any people; as their whole history testifies. But is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, chap. iii. 29; and to prove this is the main subject of the ninth chapter. Now, as he is the God of the Gentiles, he foreknew, had from the beginning a gracious purpose to them as well as to the Jews; and, being thus graciously disposed towards them, he determined prowrise, from pro, before, and orizw, to bound, define, &c., he defined, circumscribed, and determined the boundaries of this important business from the beginning, that they also should be taken into his Church, and conformed to the image of his Son; and, as Jesus Christ was to be their pattern, it must be by his Gospel that they should be brought into the Church; and consequently, that bringing in could not take place before the revelation of Christ. Having therefore thus foreknown and thus predestinated them ALSO, he called them ALSO by the Gospel; he justified them ALSO on their believing; and he glorified them ALSO, dignified them also with the same privileges, blessings, honours, and Divine gifts: so that they were now what the Jews had been before, the peculiar people of God. The apostle, therefore, speaks here not of what they should be, or of what they might be, but of what they then were-the called, the justified, the highly honoured of God. See the note on Romans viii. 30.
-Adam Clarke (he explains much more on the link I provided and I encourage you to read it and study it. I didn't want to post more here for fear it would just be bypassed, but this is a good summary)
