Reformation Theology Blog

Foreknown: The Love That Chose Us

In Scripture, God's foreknowledge—expressed by the term foreknown (proginōskō in Greek)—never refers to foresight or advance awareness of human decisions or actions, but always to His eternal, covenantal love and sovereign purpose set upon persons. Romans 8:29 says, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate..." The key word is whom—not what. Paul does not say God predestined those whose faith, obedience, or potential He foresaw; rather, He foreknew persons, and on that basis—His sovereign love—He predestined them.

A Washed Pig Returns to the Mire

Many Arminians point to 2 Peter 2:20–21 as proof that a true believer can lose their salvation:

“For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.”

But interestingly, they often stop short of quoting the very next verse:

Is God Arbitrary in Election? A Biblical and Logical Reflection

One of the most common objections raised against the doctrine of unconditional election is that it makes God seem arbitrary. The reasoning often goes like this: if God chooses some and not others without regard to foreseen faith or merit, then His choice must be random, without reason, and therefore unjust.

But is that really the case?

The Fallacy of the Catholic Argument from Doctrinal Division

The Roman Catholic challenge—“So which of the many different doctrines of non-Catholic churches is the truth? All claim to be true but differ from others! Can’t all be true if they differ!”—is a logically flawed, theologically inconsistent, and self-defeating argument. It assumes that the mere existence of doctrinal disagreement within Protestantism invalidates Protestantism itself. However, by this same standard, Roman Catholicism would also be invalidated since it has its own significant doctrinal divisions.

The Necessity of a Supernatural Work for Faith in Christ - A Response to Leighton Flowers

The following piece is a response to a recent assertion by Leighton Flowers: 

"Putting your faith in someone else doesn't require a supernatural miracle.  People put genuine faith in false gods all the time, so much so they would sacrifice their own lives.  No one believes it requires a supernatural intervention of God to grant someone the ability to do that, so why would anyone assume it takes a miracle for someone to put that kind of faith in the one true God?" - Leighton Flowers

Read this if you have difficulty believing you are a hell deserving sinner.

Question: How do I recognise and accept that I'm a guilty sinner deserving of hell forever and there's nothing I can do to save myself because I'm struggling to accept this?

Answer: Thank you for your inquiry.  Before we can rightly understand sin and our need for salvation, we must first have a true understanding of who God is—in the splendor of His holiness, majesty, and absolute perfection. When we see God rightly, we will see why sinful man cannot stand in His presence apart from His grace.

Man does not live by bread alone

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. - Deuteronomy 8:2-4

What is your preferred pronoun?

You will likely be asked the following questions about gender identity at some point by either your teacher or doctor. How should you respond? Here are some possible answers

Question: What is your preferred pronoun?

Response: I reject the premise of the question. The question assumes that gender is a matter of personal preference, which is a philosophical assertion—not a neutral fact.

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