Foreknowledge

Scripture uses the term "foreknow" for God's prescience or foresight concerning future events. Foreknowledge is thus an aspect of God's omniscience. All things, past, present, and future, external and internal, material, intellectual, and spiritual, are open to God. The Lord knows all things (1 Sam. 2:3) or everything (1 John 3:20). All creatures are open to his eyes (Heb. 4:13). Israel is not hid from him (Hos. 5:3). He knows every secret sin (Ps. 90:8). His knowledge is too wonderful for us, encompassing words and thoughts and our total being (Ps. 139). He knows all the ways of all his creatures; not a sparrow falls to the ground without him (Matt. 10:29). He notes our tossings (Ps. 56:8). He knows the way of the righteous (Ps. 1:6) and is not ignorant, uncaring, or impotent when the wicked afflict his people (Ps. 94:5ff.). His knowledge is complete, allowing for no confusion, obscurity, deficiency, or error. It is like the full light of day: God is light and in him is no darkness (1 John 1:5).

 

Omniscience naturally includes prescience. God does not just know what is happening or has already happened. He knows what is going to happen. This comes out most plainly in Isa. 40ff. God boldly announces the fall of Babylon and the liberation of his people. He challenges all comers to show comparable knowledge: "Tell us what is to come hereafter" (41:23); "New things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them" (42:9). Nor is God's foreknowledge displayed only here; it underlies the element of foretelling in all prophecy. Micaiah tells Ahab his end (1 Kings 22:13-24). Elisha announces the relief of Samaria (II Kings 7). Jeremiah and Ezekiel declare the ineluctability of the fall of Jerusalem. Daniel offers visions of complex future events (11:2ff.). Details about the coming Messiah include his Davidic descent (Isa. 11:1), his birth at Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2), his death with the wicked and burial among the rich (Isa. 53:9). It is true that full knowledge of past and present, too, belongs to God alone, but perfect knowledge of the future is a particular mark of deity which arrogant humanity, having no claim to such knowledge consistently denies or disparages, e.g., in its handling of the predictive element in Scripture.

 

 Foreknowledge stands in obvious relation to the divine eternity. God is the "high and lofty One who inhabits eternity" (Isa. 57:15). "A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it is past" (Ps. 90:4, cf. II Pet. 3:8). Past, present, and future are all present to God. He sees the end from the beginning and the beginning at the end. Being part of creation, time does not limit or condition God. As Lord of time he does not live or act in abstraction from it. He eternally "comprehends" it, being before, with, and after it. Having total knowledge of all that has been and is. he also has total knowledge of all that will be.

 

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