1Pet 1:20 Who [Christ] was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has been manifested in the last of times for your sake, 1: 2 Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. Roma 8:29 Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers;
[Part 1 of 2] For Christ to be foreknown means that He was foreordained by God. To foreknow is to foreordain, to ordain beforehand. Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. This means that in eternity past God approved Christ and appreciated Him. Then God also ordained Christ to be His anointed One. God has ordained Christ to be the One commissioned to fulfill in time all that had been planned by God for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose. At the same time God foreordained Christ, He also foreordained all the believers. We may say that in eternity past God held a ceremony of ordination. In that ordination ceremony He first ordained His Son to be the Christ. Then He ordained all of us, the believers in Christ, to be Christians. When He was ordained to be the Christ, we were ordained to be Christmen. He was ordained to be the Anointed of God, and we were ordained to be the little anointed ones. How marvelous that Christ and we were ordained at the same time in eternity past! Christ was foreknown by God the Father, and we also were foreknown by Him. Verse 20 says that Christ was foreknown, foreordained and verse 2 indicates that we the believers were chosen according to the foreknowledge, the foreordination, of God. Therefore, verse 20 matches verse 2. When Christ was ordained, we were foreknown and chosen. This is possible because there is no time element with God. (Continued tomorrow) (c) 2007 Living Stream Ministry.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of First Peter, pp. 106-108. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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