John Phillips on God's sovereign election-  Some have thought that the word “foreknown” is the key to the problem. All knowledge is based on fact, the argument runs; fact is not based on knowledge. A fact has to be established before it can be known. Human knowledge is largely after-knowledge of a given fact, but God is not restricted to after-knowledge. He is omniscient and therefore has foreknowledge. But whether it is after-knowledge or foreknowledge, the knowledge is based on fact. For example, John Brown accepts Christ as Saviour on a given day in his personal history and thereby establishes a fact which can be known. His friends and relatives come to know of this fact after it happens, but God can see the same fact a week, a month, a year, an eternity before it happens. Nevertheless, His knowledge, like that of John Brown’s friends, is based on the fact of John Brown’s acceptance of Christ. “Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.” There is only one thing wrong ...

When Jesus comes back he isn’t coming to free you from sin. He isn’t coming back to do that because he did that the first time around. Jesus has freed you from sin. Sin is a noun. It’s a cosmic power that you were enslaved to. You died. New you was raised with Christ with newness of life. Therefore sin has no power over you anymore. Yes you are still capable of committing sin, but you actually don’t have to. You are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. You are the righteousness of God in Christ. So instead of glorifying sin’s power why don’t we lift up the one who is able to keep you from sin Jesus Christ the righteous. Give honor to him as Lord and see yourself in him. Then you will be living in the reality that was created for you in him.

 Paul’s readiness to share in Christ’s sufferings. One was his belief that they were necessary for the evangelization of the lost. The world could not understand the message of the cross unless those who preached it were themselves marked by its suffering and shame. This is the meaning—at least in part—of Paul’s enigmatic claim “in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col. 1:24).  This verse has nothing to do with the extent of the atonement, of course, but everything to do with missions and evangelism. What is still lacking is the communication of the gospel by a suffering church. The unsaved people of the world cannot see Jesus hanging on the cross, but they can see a community that shares in his sufferings and thus confirms the truth of his passion. The sufferings of the apostles—and, by implication, of the church and its ministers today—were public exhibitions of Christ and his cross.  Paul thus described himself as part of a procession b...

  Rom 8 v 29 (CSB)       29       For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.  Verse 29 is sometimes interpreted to mean that God predestines on the basis of his prior knowledge about how each of us will in fact respond. But this would mean that in election God would not be sovereign; he would be dependent upon what he would see happening in the future. Theologians rightly point out that prior to knowledge must be the divine decree. Unless God determines in some sense that something will happen, he cannot “know” that it will. For God to foreknow requires an earlier decree. Robert H. Mounce, Romans, vol. 27, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 188–189.

  Charles Hodge on why "foreknew" does not mean foreknowing what people would have faith.  It contradicts the apostle’s teaching. It makes the reason for our calling and election the result of something in us, our works, whereas Paul says that this is not the reason for our being chosen: “… who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace” (2 Timothy 1:9; see Romans 9:11, where the opposite doctrine is not only asserted but proved and defended).  To say that faith as distinct from works is what is foreseen and constitutes the basis of election does not help the matter. For faith is a work or act, and it is the gift of God, the result of election, and therefore not its foundation. Charles Hodge, Romans, Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993), Ro 8:29.

  God “foreknew” (ginōskō [1097] (which is the equivalent of the Hebrew verb ad [H3045]) describes a scrutinizing knowledge that goes beyond mere awareness. When used of people, the verb depicts thorough knowledge of one person by another. In fact, it was a common euphemism for sexual intimacy shared between a married couple. Those God foreknew in this intimate, active sense does not include everyone. This has led some to suggest that God deliberately passed over some, electing them to damnation. That may be a logical inference, but we must be careful not to take Scripture beyond what it actually says. This is Paul’s teaching about believers; he wasn’t commenting on nonbelievers at this point. Charles R. Swindoll, Romans, vol. 6, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2016), 192.