(29) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate, he. The connexion of this verse with the preceding, and the force of for, appears from what has already been said. Believers are called in accordance with a settled plan and purpose of God, /or whom he calls he had previously predestinated : and as all the several steps or stages of our salvation are included in this plan of the unchanging God, if we are predestinated and called, we shall be justified and glorified.
Whom he did foreknow. As the words to know and foreknow are used in three different senses, applicable to the present passage, there is considerable diversity of opinion which should be preferred. The word may express prescience simply, according to its literal meaning; or, as to knoio is often to approve and love, it may express the idea of peculiar affection in this case ; or it may mean to select ox determine upon. Among those who adopt one or the other of these general views, there is still a great diversity as to the manner in which they understand the passage. These opinions are too numerous to be here recited.
As the literal meaning of the word to foreknow gives no adequate sense, inasmuch as all men are the objects of the divine prescience, whereas the apostle evidently designed to express by the word something that could be asserted only of a particular class ; those who adopt this meaning here supply something to make the sense complete. Who he foreknew woiila repent and believe, or who would not resist his divine influence, or some such idea. There are two objections to this manner of explaining the passage. 1. The addition of this clause is entirely gratuitous; and, if unnecessary, it is, of course, improper. There is no such thing said, and, therefore, it should not be assumed, without necessity, to be implied. 2. It is in direct contradiction to the apostle's doctrine. It makes the ground of our calling and election to be something in us, our works ; whereas Paul says that such is not the ground of our being chosen. " Who hath called us not according to our works, but according to his own pur- pose and grace," &c., 2 Tim. 1 : 9. Rom. 9 : 11, where the contrary doc- trine is not only asserted, but proved and defended.
The second and third interpretations do not essentially differ. The one is but a modification of the other; for whom God peculiarly loves, he does thereby distinguish from others, which is in itself a selecting or choosing of them from among others. The usage of the word is favour- able to either modification of this general idea of preferring. " The peo- ple which he foreknew," i. e. loved or selected, Rom. 11 : 2; " Who