God, Time and Foreknowledge - Bible Teaching #22

I hope all is well. For today, we will be looking at an updated version of the Predestination vs. Free Will teaching. If you have not read that, I highly encourage that. That is a very important basis for this, but not necessarily a prerequisite.

This is a topic that I have caught a lot of push back for lately. There are newer and deeper arguments, to add to the theology. But, still the same foundation of theology remains.

The main question at hand, does God know all of our future thoughts and actions? What does the Bible say? 

I have had innumerable Scriptures thrown at me. First we will take a look at them, the arguments against, then on to actual passages to see how this plays out. As this can be a serious intellectual stumbling block, making Christianity look illogical. As well as causing many to be ok with living in rebellion. We must tackle this topic.

The single most powerful Scripture that seems to teach that God knows the future before it happens is, Isaiah 49:10.

Isaiah 46:10 states:

Declaring the end from the beginning,

And from ancient times things that are not yet done,

Saying, 'My counsel shall stand,

And I will do all My pleasure,'

On the surface I could see how one could take this Scripture this way. Now let us apply this... God declared the end of Nineva in 40 days, did it come to pass? We can see that the statement does not necessarily mean what it seems on the surface. You know that you can declare what you want to happen, but that does not mean that you will never change what you want to happen, based on a change of circumetances. Like Exodus 3:8. God called Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey. But through disobedience and stubbornness, God changed His plan and made a new idea come to pass, kill them all in the desert and cause their decendants to inherit it. So God does all that He wants to do, as Isaiah 46:10 states. Just not in the way that some are trying to interpret it.

Romans 9:22-23

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,

Here we see 2 different Greek words used. One means prepared beforehand, the other means being fitted into. So God predestines vessels for honor but the vessels for wrath are not predestined. They fit themselves into being those vessels. That is completely consistent with God wanting all to come to the knowledge of the Truth and become saved. But then some choose not to do God's will. Rejecting His will. As the Pharisees did in Luke 7:30.

Job 37:16 

Do you know how the clouds are balanced,

Those wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?

You can be perfect in knowledge without knowing the future. God knows all things that can be known as He can do all things that can be done. The future has yet to happen so it can not truly be known. As God can not make a square circle, though omnipotent. It is impossible for God to lie though nothing is impossible with God. There are limits to omnipotence and omniscience. This can be applied to any Scripture that claims that God is all knowing. 

Acts 2:23 states...

Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;

God could have a plan and therefore, foreknow. As Paul uses a phrase that means the same thing in Acts 26:5. Just meaning that they knew him from before. God could know about the plan before, therefore the foreknew it. Just like in Romans 8:29, those who He foreknew, He predestined. The will of God is that all become saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, 1 Timothy 2:4. So God predestined all people, He foreknew all people as plans in His mind. But not all are following the plan that God has for them. This is how divine foreknowledge truly works. God has plans and attempts to execute, but He changes plans or people based on changing circumstances with freewill agents. 

Luke 22:34

Then He said, "I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me."

This is a very popular argument for God's foreknowledge. But in verse 31 it says this, "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat." So we see that as Satan entered Judas, in John 13:27. Causing Judas to go betray Jesus. The same happened to Peter. Peter was either posessed or influenced by Satan to carry out the denial 3 times. So this is not necessarily a good argument. Taking into consideration that we are talking demonic posession, from Satan himself. Satan requested Peter to do just that.

John 6:64

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.

Everytime Jesus mentioned knowing who would betray Him or knowing who believed. Or even knowing their thoughts. He used the Greek word eido. That word means to perceive or discern. The word does not mean to already foreknow. Thus making this or Scriptures like this unusable when it comes to foreknowledge. There are many things that have been lost in translation. This is one of them.

The last good argument, from the Scriptures, that I will provide from the opposing view, that God knows all of the future already, is: Isaiah predicting king Cyrus of Persia. While on the surface this argument is compelling. But when you really break it down with the history and timing, along with what we already know... It fits the above very well. We can not go by the dates online. Every website has a different starting date and ending date for the Babylonian captivity. Every website has a different date for the book of Isaiah. But generally all took place in about a 200 year span. Here is a kicker though. Babylon was God's sword whom He directed, not meaning against freewill. But giving Nebuchadnezzar the desires of his heart. He wanted to conquer, God could use a conquerer to punish Israel, Judah and the surrounding nations. That can be found in Ezekiel 21. God even seems to guide him through divination as He did Balaam at the first. Very interesting concept.

Now Cyrus the Great who conquered Babylon was God's anointed. Literally the word for messiah. Meaning consecrated to God. Like the kings of Israel/Judah, the prophets, and the High Priest. The anointed one is filled with God's Holy Spirit. So God could tug on his heart to do all that God desired. Now... Does this mean that Cyrus needed to do what God desired? Not at all. God could have easily raised up another way of rescue for Israel. As we see in Esther 4:14, "For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place,". One does not have to listen to God. This is just one time that someone did listen to God and God used them. Later in this teaching we will be showing examples of God revoking promises, raising up others, even changing His mind or His Word toward people. But first we will tackle a very popular philosophical argument that people use. For God's exhaustive knowledge of the future.

One may say, "But God exists outside of time. Therefore He already knows the future because He has already been there." Let us look at the definition of time. "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole."

So we can see, time itself is the process of existence. God has always existed therefore time itself has always existed. If something exists so does time. So now we can see that the argument put forth is illogical. 

Then also, if God exists outside of time. He has His Son Jesus suffering for eternity. Because His death and resurrection is not trapped in time. But the Bible says that He has suffered once for all time. This also raises some serious doubts about God existing outside of time and thus knowing all of the future.

But, if time has always existed then God is inside time with us. He can not know the future because the future has not happened yet. 

Question is, where did God find the time to create time? Time is a sequence of events in existence. Creation has a cause and effect. A sequence of events. So one would need to already be in time to create anything. A huge dilemma for those who who claim that God exists outside of time.  

Now, is there actual examples of God not knowing the future actions of people? 

One example is in Jonah. Let us read this passage... 

Jonah 3:4-10 states:

And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out and said, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"

So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.

And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying,

Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water.

But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?

Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.

So, we see Jonah prophesying an unconditional prophecy to Nineva. Nineva repented, God changed His mind concerning the destruction proclaimed to them. So, if God already knew that the Ninevites would repent, then God told false information. Telling false information is a lie. But it says in Hebrews 6:18, that it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore God did not know the future repentance of Nineva. What God said was true. They were going to be overthrown. But then after the Ninevites repented, God relented.

One may say, the Hebrew for overthrown could mean overthrown or transformation. Well, lets let the context talk. Nineva understood it as desruction. They cried out in hopes that God would not destroy them. God understood it as destruction, He relented from the disaster that He had planned. Jonah also understood it as disaster, because he was angry that God relented, Jonah 4:1 and Jonah 4:9-11.

So, as we can see, God who can not lie, He planned disaster but relented based on changing circumstances. 

Next passage, Exodus 3:7-10.

And the LORD said: "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

So, who is God calling? The Israelites that are currently in slavery, right? Or their descendants? Truly God is calling those who were actively in Slavery. Now check this out. 

Numbers 14:11-24

Then the LORD said to Moses: "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?

I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they."

And Moses said to the LORD: "Then the Egyptians will hear it, for by Your might You brought these people up from among them,

and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, LORD, are among these people; that You, LORD, are seen face to face and Your cloud stands above them, and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

Now if You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying,

'Because the LORD was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness.'

And now, I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as You have spoken, saying,

'The LORD is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.'

Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now."

Then the LORD said: "I have pardoned, according to your word;

but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD—

because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice,

they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.

But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.

We see that through habitual disobedience. God chooses to disinherit Israel, His promised people. Then Moses intercedes, God changing His mind yet again! Choosing just to kill them in the desert and let their descendants inhabit the land. Remember those who the promise was made to, they never got to the promised land. But God knows all of the future? Once again making God a liar. If God having exhaustive foreknowledge is true.

What about Hezekia? 

In Isaiah 38 we read this... 

In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: 'Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.'"

Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed to the LORD,

and said, "Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what is good in Your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying,

"Go and tell Hezekiah, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years.

So, first we see God telling Hezekia through Isaiah that he would die. Then Isaiah came back again after Hezekia cried out to God. God changed His mind and gave Hezekia another 15 years. Either God lied because He foreknew that Hezekia would not die. Or God changed His mind due to a change in circumstances.

If God knows all things past, present and future. Then God also knows His own responses to man's action already. God can not create new thoughts. God Himself is predestined. That would make Him unpersonal, without the ability to have relationship, without creativity. Something more like the Hindu god Brahma. If God can not create new thoughts but has always known all that He will know. Then we must raise the question, who created those thoughts and put them into God's mind? There must be an external source that created God's predestined plan. This is where things get very troublesome. God makes no new thoughts but is Himself a subject of fate and predestination.

Also we beg the question, did God create man knowing that they would suffer, know that He would have to save us and is just watching a sick already known film. If God could create that is. The God of exhaustive foreknowledge can not create new things. Thus He would be predestined to create man, knowing that they would fall and watch them suffer. This would create a powerless God who can not fix any problems as they arise. A very concerning implication of exhaustive knowledge of the future. All of this of course if we granted that a God outside of time could create time. Since you would need time to create time. But people say that I am the illogical one?

I hope this clears some things up. God has called all and has a plan for all. But He leaves it open for you as a being with free will, to accept or reject God's plan for you. God is not a rapist, He will not engage in a relationship with you unless you desire it too. God is a beautiful God free from evil. He is calling you to be free from evil and walk with Him as well. The choice is yours, God is waiting for you to decide. 

May God bless you and Godspeed, Michael, a humble servant of Christ

I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts and am willing to discuss any of these topics and more, in great detail. If you would like.

Email:

Michael.servantofchrist@gmail.com