We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

How do you respond to Romans 8:29?
“For whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.”
One of the greatest treasures given to believers when they open their hearts to the Lord is the promise that they shall certainly be “conformed to the image of [God’s] son.” However much we may struggle with sin in this present age, we may know that if we continue to trust in Jesus we will someday be like Jesus. This much is predestined for us.
But what does Paul mean when he says that this Christ-likeness is predestined for those “whom [God] foreknew?” Some argue that this suggests that God knows from all eternity who will and will not believe in Jesus. Unfortunately, the verse actually contradicts their view. Paul is referring to a specific group of people—those “whom [God] foreknew…” This group obviously contrasts with a group of people whom God did not foreknow. If the classical doctrine of foreknowledge is correct, however, God foreknows everything from all eternity. How then can Paul speak about a particular group of people whom he foreknew?
To understand the verse correctly we have to remember that the concept of “knowing someone” was often equivalent to “loving someone” in Jewish culture. To “foreknow” someone was thus to “love them ahead of time.” This is exactly how Paul uses the term two chapters later when he says, “God has not rejected his people [Israel] whom he foreknew” (11:2). We may thus conclude that just as God loved the nation of Israel ahead of time, so God loved the Church ahead of time. He predestined this group of people “to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Note that what is loved ahead of time in both Romans 8:29 and 11:2 is a corporate body, not particular individuals. When individuals freely accept the conditions of participating in that corporate body, all that is true of that body becomes true of them. They are now part of the body that was loved ahead of time by God and predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. But whether or not they would freely decide to align themselves with this body was neither foreknown nor predestined.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Open Theism, Responding to Objections
Verse: Romans 8
Related Reading

How do you respond to Genesis 16:12?
The Lord describes Ishmael as “…a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him.” According to most Old Testament scholars the Lord is describing Ishmael’s descendants as much as he is describing Ishmael himself. The Lord foresaw that the nation which would descend from Ishmael (cf. 21:18) would…

Was Noah’s flood global or local?
Though many regard the biblical story of a great flood in the days of Noah to be an ancient legend, evangelical Christians affirm it as historical fact because Scripture presents it as such. However, a debate has arisen during the last two hundred years as to whether the flood was global or local. Those who…

Loving a Twilight Zone God?
David D. Flowers posted this insightful reflection over on his blog about an episode of The Twilight Zone and what it says about some pop views of God. Can we really love a God that exercises this kind of random control just because he can? We can certainly fear a God like this, but can…

The Hexagon of Opposition
Throughout the western philosophical and theological tradition, scholars have assumed that the future can be adequately described in terms of what will and will not happen. In this essay I, Alan Rhoda and Tom Belt argue that this assumption is mistaken, for the logical contradictory of will is not will not but might not. Conversely,…

What is the significance of Numbers 16:41–48?
The day following the Korah incident (see vs. 20–35), the Israelites rebelled against Moses again, this time because they blamed him for the death of those who were judged the day before (vs. 41). The Lord was very angry because of this and said to Moses and Aaron, “Get away from this congregation, so that…

Is Free Will compatible with Predestination?
Question: Isn’t “freedom” simply our ability to do what we want? And if this is so there seems to be no incompatibility between saying that a person is “free” on the one hand, but predestined (or at least foreknown) by God, on the other. But why do you say that freedom is not compatible with…