Tuesday 8 March 2011

God's Foreknowledge and Salvation

"...All whom the Father has given me..."

Whom has the Father give to Jesus? All those who were born Jews? Those who believe!

"...whom He did foreknow..."

Whom did God foreknow and predestinate? All the natural-born descendants of Abraham? Those who believe, even Gentiles!

In both contexts - Jesus' and Paul's - the point was not that God intervenes to include or preclude anyone's ability to believe.

Rather, the point was that it was God's original plan to save, not on the basis of Jewishness (or works, i,e., of the Law) but through believing on Jesus.

Both statements were made in response to the popular view in the first century that Jewishness was enough to save someone.

The point was that it was always God's plan that it is Jesus that saves - through faith in Him - not Jewishness.

And this wasn't an afterthought. It didn't mean God's promises to Israel had failed. It was always God's plan - even since before the foundation of the world - to save on this basis.

The Church - comprising both Jewish and Gentile BELIEVERS - was indeed something foreknown and predestined by God.

That's the background against which the above two verses were made. Both Jesus and Paul were answering the issue that was pertinent at the time - the question of the role of Jewisness or of faith in salvation.

Jesus and Paul weren't answering the issue which Calvin and Armenius argued over centuries later. If you want to find an answer to their question, you'll have to look elsewhere than in the above two verses, because the above two verses don't and weren't intended to answer to that question.

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