Phillips: "To say that God chose me because with His ability to foreknow the future He saw me choose Christ, robs God of His sovereignty."

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 with this line of reasoning. The text goes on to say, “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called.” Reduced to its simplest terms the problem can be stated thus: Did God choose me because I chose Him, or did I choose Him because He chose me? To say that God chose me because with His ability to foreknow the future He saw me choose Christ, robs God of His sovereignty. It would mean He has no alternative but to choose those who choose Christ—His choice is governed by ours. It throws the initiative on man. But God is sovereign and acts in accordance with His own will and, as Paul demonstrates in a later chapter, is under an obligation to nobody (9:15–23).

John Phillips, Exploring Romans: An Expository Commentary, The John Phillips Commentary Series (Kregel Publications; WORDsearch Corp., 2009), Ro 8:28–39.

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