FORE – LOVED BY GOD

Rom.8:29 – For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

I have been chewing on this verse for several weeks now, especially the part where He says, “For those whom He foreknew”. The Lord is quite different from us, after all He created everything that is. He lives outside of time and space seeing that He created all of that. That is why He refers to Himself as ‘I am”. He lives outside the realm that we know making Him quite incomprehensible to us. So when He says He foreknew us He is talking about way more than just knowing about us from a distance and knowing the choices we would make. He has known us thoroughly, through and through, from eternity. From God’s perspective knowing is synonymous to loving. That’s why I like to refer to this passage like this; “For those whom He fore-loved”. That changes everything for me, the Lord has known me and loved me from eternity. I was purchased by His blood before I came into existence and my name is recorded on the palm of His hand. He loves me and has orchestrated a beautiful plan for my life. Here is how Henry describes this.

“Having considered the many ingredients of the happiness of true believers, the apostle comes here to represent the basis of them all, which he locates in predestination. He sets before us here the order of the causes of our salvation, a golden chain that cannot be broken……Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. All whom God intended to bring to glory and happiness as their end were ordained by his decree to follow grace and holiness as their way. God’s foreknowledge of the saints is the same as that eternal love with which he is said to have loved them (Jer 31:3). Whom he did foreknow, that is, whom he intended to be his friends and favorites. Now those whom God foreknew in this way he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of Christ.”

So like Henry said, “God’s foreknowledge of the saints is the same as that eternal love with which he is said to have loved them (Jer 31:3).” So all of those years that I wandered in my own ways, separated from the Lord by my sin He had me on His radar. He was always orchestrating the affairs of my life for the great day that I would yield to His love for me and allow His great work of conformity into His image to begin in my life.