God. Real. Right.

There are a few key passages which are disappointingly abused in defense of determinism in its varying forms and implications. Here is one of them.

Romans 8:29-30 is usually taken as an unbroken chain of activities directed at the elect–meaning: God glorifies every person He justifies, justifies every person He calls, calls every person He predestines to be like Christ, and predestines every person He foreknows. Of course, such a reading is not as self-evident as its proponents would like to make out. In fact such a reading controverts, or at least eisegetically obscures, the contextual meaning of the passage. The problematic nature of that reading begins to be evident when the first word in the chain, “foreknow” has to be reinvented in a way to allow God only to hold foreknowledge of those He glorifies. While it is now common practice to strain the meaning of foreknowledge down to nothing more than “intimate, relational knowledge,” as in Adam “knowing” Eve, such a reduction of meaning is an inexcusable abuse of language. That the Old Testament euphemizes sexuality with knowledge in no way changes the meaning of the verb “to know.” Claiming that ??????? inherently implies prior “intimate, personal” knowledge in Romans 8:29 rather than simply prior knowledge requires claiming that the recipients of Peter’s second epistle (in 2 Peter 3:17) have prior “intimate, personal” knowledge of the cataclysm to accompany Christ’s return–something of which they can only by definition have knowledge by description, not by acquaintance (to use Bertrand Russell’s terms). The only other choice is to admit that the eisegeter has here (back in Romans) interpreted the passage to mean that there is an unbroken chain, then strained and limited the first term in the chain to avoid what would otherwise follow from his reading, universalism. It is right that the scriptures do not teach universalism, that all men are ultimately glorified (using the wording of the passage.) And it is right that if there is an unbroken chain in this passage, and God’s foreknowledge is taken as what it is, complete, then universalism is implied. What is wrong is assuming that this passage implies an unbroken chain.

Reading the passage as an unbroken chain puts the focus of the text on exactly the wrong object. ??? ??????? ??? ????????? is typical of the rest of the phrases. “Whom he foreknew also he foreordained.” The object (the accusative relative pronoun, “whom”) is given once at the beginning of each similar phrase, but not repeated within each phrase. The strength of the rhetoric is to create a perfect parallel of activity on God’s part within each phrase by creating syntactically parallel verb forms (all third person singular aorist active indicatives which as pairs share each accusative relative pronoun) and from one phrase to the next by repeating the last verb of the previous phrase. In other words, the focus of the rhetoric here is not on “whom” but on what God has done. It is an important, but not conclusive, nuance. Further, the only emphasis that can be placed on the objects (the “whom”) of each act is within each pair, not from pair to pair. Saying “God foreordains those He foreknows,” then saying “God calls those He foreordains” is different from saying “God calls those He foreknows.” To be clearer: the syllogism read into the passage by those advocating a broken chain says that foreknowledge implies foreordination, that foreordination implies calling, and that therefore foreknowledge implies calling. Obviously, the implications of the syllogism are carried forward to glorification so that finally, foreknowledge implies glorification, leading to the previously defined problem that either God’s foreknowledge must be limited or redefined, or that all men end up glorified, neither of which readings is either acceptable or necessary. The above reduction to logical propositions (implications) simply misses the point of the passage–misses the point of both the wording and context. Here, what is significant is that it misses the fact that Paul’s focus is not on the objects of God’s activity, but on God’s activity. In other words, this casual paraphrase is wrongheaded: “Every person God foreknows is a person He foreordains, and is therefore a person He calls, and is therefore a person He justifies, and is therefore a person He glorifies.”

A better paraphrase follows both from the wording and from the context. The context, as plain as a simple reading of verses 1 through 11 (Christian recipients) and 28 through 39 (security of the believer), is establishing that those in Christ are secure and should have confidence in their Savior and their salvation. So, of course, every person who is the recipient of this letter is foreknown, foreordained, called, and justified–they are all saved. It is Paul’s point that their glorification, the completion of their salvation, is as certainly accomplished (just as “aorist active indicative”) as the elements of their salvation already secured temporally. Simply put, the relative pronoun of Romans 8:29-30 is limited to the saved not because the meaning of foreknowledge is limited but because the context of the letter (especially this portion) is limited.

So here is the point. While it is possible to read the passage as paraphrased above, it is far more accurate to paraphrase (in a thoroughly expanded form) the passage something like this: “It was God who knew you before you were, and predetermined that you should be like Christ. It was God who predetermined that you should be like Christ, and called you to that purpose. It was God who called you when you were not seeking Him, and who made you righteous. And it was God who made you righteous, and who perfected your salvation.” The rhetorical impact of that last statement is this: “The same God who already justified you (and did all those things that led up to your justification) will just as certainly perfect your salvation, making you just like what He wanted you to be like, Christ.” Or it could be worded like this: “If God did all of that to get you to this point (justification), do you not think He will finish (glorification) what He started?” Clearly, in context, the point is that the Romans should have as much confidence in their yet future glorification as they have in their already accomplished justification. To use the passage to establish some logically necessary progression of God’s edicts and activities is to misuse a passage which simply and powerfully reminds Christians that if God loved them enough to save them when they were His enemies, then He certainly loves them enough to preserve them when they are His children!