November 7 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers" (Rom. 8:29).

Devotional

In this text, the word "foreknew" assumes a particular and explicit meaning.

In its wider and more general application, foreknowledge must be regarded as referring not just to God's prescience, but more especially to his prearrangement. For God to foreknow is, in the strict meaning of the phrase, for God to foreordain. There are no guesses, there are no conjectures, there are no contingencies with God as to the future. Not only does God know all, but he has fixed and appointed and ordered "all things according to the counsel of his own will" (Eph. 1:11).

In this view not one creature exists, and not one event transpires, which was not as real to God's mind from eternity as it is at the present moment. Indeed, it would seem that there is no future with God. An Eternal Being, there can be nothing prospective in his on-looking. There must be an eternity of perception. And a feature of his character that conveys to a finite mind a most vivid conception of his grandeur and greatness is the simultaneousness of all succession and variety and events to his eye. "He is of one mind; and who can turn him?" (Job 23:13 KJV).

But, as it occurs in this text, the word "foreknew" adds to this yet another, more definite, and (to the saints) even more precious signification. Note that the foreknowledge spoken of here is limited to a particular class of people, who will be "conformed to the image of [God’s] Son." Now this cannot, with truth, be affirmed of all creatures. Therefore, the term assumes a specific and impressive meaning. It includes the everlasting love of God to, and his most free choice of, his people to be his especial and peculiar treasure.

We find some examples of this in God's Word: "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew." Here the word expresses the two ideas of love and choice. Again, "He was foreknown before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet. 1:20). "This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23).

Clearly, then, we are justified in interpreting the phrase as expressing God's especial choice of, and his intelligent love to, his church—his own peculiar people. It is a foreknowledge of choice, of love, of eternal grace and faithfulness.

'Tis not that I did choose thee,
for, Lord, that could not be;
this heart would still refuse thee,
hadst thou not chosen me.
Thou from the sin that stained me
hast cleansed and set me free;
of old thou hast ordained me,
that I should live to thee.

(Josiah Conder, 1836)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.