God already knows. He has always known. Men worry and guess and boast about how things will turn out, but God knows.
God declares “the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done” (Isa. 46:10). God knows the future. He doesn’t have to wait to see what happens. He knows before it occurs. God does not learn and add to His knowledge like we do. Like God Himself, His knowledge never had a beginning and will never end. He already knows everything in the past, present and future. To God the future is as clear as the past or the present.
God didn’t deliberate for ages before Genesis 1:1 and then decide to send Jesus into the world to die for our sins. He always knew. He didn’t decide to offer His only begotten Son after Adam and Eve sinned. He knew before He created the world that man would sin and need a Savior. Jesus was “foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (I Pet. 1:20).
God knew from all eternity that Jesus would come to die for the sins of the world. The Bible calls this “the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:11). The church is in that eternal plan of God. The verse just before this says that the church is to make known the wisdom of God according to this timeless plan: “To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church…according to the eternal purpose…” (Eph. 3:10-11).
The old premillennial belief says the Old Testament prophets didn’t foresee that the Jews would reject Jesus as their king and that is why He is coming back to be king over their nation. In the meantime, they tell us, the church is an emergency measure that they never predicted. This is false. Ephesians 3:10-11 plainly says the church was in the “eternal purpose of God.” The prophets did foretell the establishment of the church. Peter showed that the beginning of the church in Acts 2 was according to what Joel and David predicted centuries earlier.
Just as He knew before He created the world that Jesus would die and set up His church, God and God alone knows He will destroy this world and usher in eternity. In man’s eyes that day will come like a thief in the night (II Pet. 3:10). But God knows the time with absolute certainty. “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32).
The age-old problem of God’s people is refusing to trust the only One who really knows what is going to happen. We need to mean these words when we say them: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
Kerry
West End church of Christ, June 16, 2024
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