Jesus speaks of God's elect, as for example in Mark 13:27—“then shall he send forth the angels, and shall gather together his elect”; Luke 18:7—“shall not God avenge his elect, that cry to him day and night?”
Acts 13:48—“as many as were ordained (τεταγμένοι) to eternal life believed”—here Whedon translates: “disposed unto eternal life,” referring to κατηρτισμένα in verse 23, where “fitted” = “fitted themselves.” The only instance, however, where τάσσω is used in a middle sense is in 1 Cor. 16:15—“set themselves”; but there the object, ἑαυτούς, is expressed. Here we must compare Rom. 13:1—“the powers that be are ordained (τεταγμέναι) of God”; see also Acts 10:42—“this is he who is ordained (ὡρισμένος) of God to be the Judge of the living and the dead.”
Rom. 9:11-16—“for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.... I will have mercy upon whom I have mercy.... So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy”; Eph. 1:4, 5, 9, 11—“chose us in him before the foundation of the world, [not because we were, or were to be, holy, but] that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will ... the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure ... in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will”; Col. 3:12—“God's elect”; 2 Thess. 2:13—“God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”
(b) In connection with the declaration of God's foreknowledge of these persons, or choice to make them objects of his special attention and care;
Rom. 8:27-30—“called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son”; 1 Pet. 1:1, 2—“elect ... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” On the passage in Romans, Shedd, in his Commentary, remarks that “foreknew,” in the Hebraistic use, “is more than simple prescience, and something more also than simply ‘to fix the eye upon,’ or to ‘select.’It is this latter, but with the additional notion of a benignant and kindly feeling toward the object.” In Rom. 8:27-30, Paul is emphasizing the divine sovereignty. The Christian life is considered from the side of the divine care and ordering, and not from the side of human choice and volition. Alexander, Theories of the Will, 87, 88—“If Paul is here advocating indeterminism, it is strange that in chapter 9 he should be at pains to answer objections to determinism. The apostle's protest in chapter 9 is not against predestination and determination, but against the man who regards such a theory as impugning the righteousness of God.”
That the word “know,” in Scripture, frequently means not merely to “apprehend intellectually,”but to “regard with favor,” to “make an object of care,” is evident from Gen. 18:19—“I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice”; Ex. 2:25—“And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them”; cf. verse 24—“God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob”; Ps. 1:6—“For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous; But the way of the wicked shall perish”; 101:4, marg.—“I will know no evil person”; Hosea 13:5—“I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled”; Nahum 1:7—“he knoweth them that take refuge in him”; Amos 3:2—“You only have I known of all the families of the earth”; Mat. 7:23—“then will I profess unto them, I never knew you”; Rom. 7:15—“For that which I do I know not”; 1 Cor. 8:3—“if any man loveth God, the same is known by him”; Gal. 4:9—“now that ye have come to know God, or rather, to be known by God”; 1 Thess. 5:12, 13—“we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's sake.” So the word “foreknow”: Rom. 11:2—“God did not cast off his people whom he foreknew”; 1 Pet. 1:20—Christ, “who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world.”
Broadus on Mat. 7:23—“I never knew you”—says; “Not in all the passages quoted above, nor elsewhere, is there occasion for the oft-repeated arbitrary notion, derived from the Fathers, that ‘know’ conveys the additional idea of approve or regard. It denotes acquaintance, with all its pleasures and advantages; ‘knew,’ i. e., as mine, as my people.”
But this last admission seems to grant what Broadus had before denied. See Thayer, Lex. N. T., on γινώσκω: “With acc. of person, to recognize as worthy of intimacy and love; so those whom God has judged worthy of the blessings of the gospel are said ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ γινώσκεσθαι (1 Cor. 8:3; Gal. 4:9); negatively in the sentence of Christ: οὐδἐποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς, ‘I never knew you,’ never had any acquaintance with you.” On προγινώσκω, Rom. 8:29—οὒς προέγνω, “whom he foreknew,” see Denney, in Expositor's Greek Testament, in loco: “Those whom he foreknew—in what sense? as persons who would answer his love with love? This is at least irrelevant, and alien to Paul's general method of thought. That salvation begins with God, and begins in eternity, are fundamental ideas with him, which he here applies to Christians, without raising any of the problems involved in the relation of the human will to the divine. Yet we may be sure that προέγνω has the pregnant sense that γινώσκω often has in Scripture, e. g., in Ps. 1:6; Amos 3:2; hence we may render: ‘those of whom God took knowledge from eternity’ (Eph. 1:4).”
In Rom. 8:28-30, quoted above, “foreknew” = elected—that is, made certain individuals, in the future, the objects of his love and care; “foreordained” describes God's designation of these same individuals to receive the special gift of salvation. In other words, “foreknowledge”is of persons: “foreordination” is of blessings to be bestowed upon them. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., appendix to book v. (vol. 2:751)—“ ‘whom he did foreknow’ (know before as his own, with determination to be forever merciful to them) ‘he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son’—predestinated, not to opportunity of conformation, but to conformation itself.” So, for substance, Calvin, Rückert, DeWette, Stuart, Jowett, Vaughan. On 1 Pet. 1:1, 2, see Com. of Plumptre. The Arminian interpretation of “whom he foreknew” (Rom. 8:29) would require the phrase “as conformed to the image of his Son” to be conjoined with it. Paul, however, makes conformity to Christ to be the result, not the foreseen condition, of God's foreordination; see Commentaries of Hodge and Lange.
(c) With assertions that this choice is matter of grace, or unmerited favor, bestowed in eternity past: