THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD-YEHOVAH

The Jewish worldview is that something planned (foreknown in the counsel of God-Yehovah) existed notionally or ideally, but not yet upon earth in our experience.

Regarding the Jewish understanding of foreknowledge, the article in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia is helpful:

The term foreknowledge is an expansion of the idea of God’s “counsel” or plan, regarding it as an intelligent prearrangement, the concept of foreknowledge being assimilated to that of foreordination.

This understanding is found in 1 Peter 1:17-21: ^“If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of the Messiah, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God-Yehovah, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God-Yehovah.”

Here the apostle speaks of the Messiah as a lamb “foreordained” by God before the foundation of the world... It shows the idea of a purpose that determines how God-Yehovah proceeds.

Notional pre-existence is the idea that something or someone may ‘exist’ in the mind of God -Yehovah before actualizing on earth in history at the appointed time. What God -Yehovah purposes and decrees are considered so certain that it is spoken of as though they already exist.

Indeed, God-Yehovah is the One who “calls those things which are not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). That is, what God-Yehovah promises already exists with Him “in Heaven”. When Jews spoke of something or someone pre-existing in heaven, they understood it was “ideal” or “notional” in God’s-Yehovah’s foreknowledge, but not yet actual on earth. It already existed in God’s -Yehovah’s mind and God’s-Yehovah’s plan.

The Bible comes to us from Jewish patterns of thought, it is logical to enquire which model of pre-existence we find in the pages of Scriptures themselves?

The Bible is our final authority!

A classic example of this Jewish ideal pre-existence taken right out of this Second Temple rabbinic commentary and used as a Biblical example concerns the tabernacle Moses built in the wilderness. Moses was instructed to build the Tabernacle according to a “pattern” that God -Yehovah showed him on the mount (Numbers 8:4). The heavenly blueprint was to be followed. The priests and the tabernacle serve as “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:5). Once again, the idea is that the literal on earth pre-existed beforehand in Heaven in the mind and purposes of God-Yehovah.

Thus, in the book of Revelation in chapter 21:10 the new Jerusalem is seen “coming down out of heaven from God-Yehovah” This is not meant to infer that the city has already been constructed and will literally descend from outer space. No! In good Jewish thinking the new Jerusalem is ideal and notional, but certain to one day become literal because it exists already in the plan and promise of God -Yehovah.

In a similar fashion are you aware that you already have your new immortal and resurrection body (2 Corinthians 5:1: “For we know that if our present physical body is destroyed, we have a building from God, our future body in the heavens, not made with hands.”) It pre-exists in heaven, but you don’t yet have it literally. And you can have a reward (present tense) with God -Yehovah in heaven even now (Mattew 6:1). This explains in perfect Jewish thinking how Jesus could pray for the glory which he had with God-Yehovah in heaven from the foundation of the world without any idea of him having personally experienced it in a pre-incarnation state. In fact, in that very same prayer (John 17: 22-24: “I have given them the glory you have given me. May they be one as we are one. I am in them, and you are in me. May they be made completely one, so the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. Father, I desire those you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”) you as a believer in Messiah also had the same glory before you were born!

Note: By the way, those translations that make Jesus say he was “going back” to the Father or “returning” to Heaven are very, very deceptive, promoting a falsehood, a lie! The Greek text says no such thing, just that he was “going to” the Father or “ascending to” God-Yehovah in Heaven.

Jesus the Messiah was “foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times” for our sakes (I Peter 1:20). We know this does not mean Jesus was personally known before the world began because in the very same chapter, we are told that we Christians have also been “in the foreknowledge of God -Yehovah the Father” (v. 2). Thus, Peter uses the same idea of “foreknowledge” to refer both to Christians and to Jesus the Messiah. We Christians did not literally pre-exist in heaven before our birth. Paul speaks of God’s-Yehovah’s predetermined purpose, for those who believe in the Messiah” (Romans 8:28-30: We know that God -Yehovah works together in all things for the ultimate good of those who love God -Yehovah: those who are called according to His purpose. For those He foreknew, He also predestined [marked out beforehand] to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers/sisters. And those He predestined [marked out beforehand], He also called; and those He called, He also justified [declared not guilty]; and those He justified [declared not guilty], He also glorified.”)

The Bible speaks of Jesus as the Lamb of God -Yehovah who was crucified before the world began (Revelation 13:8: “All those who live on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name was not written in the book of life of the Lamb who was slaughtered from the foundation of the world”). It is true that grammatically the verse could also be made to read that it is the names of the saved which “have been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.” But it is really only a moot point because there is a clear statement elsewhere teaching that Jesus was handed over to the authorities for crucifixion “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2: 23: “Though he was delivered up according to God’s -Yehovah’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you [Jewish leaders] have used the hands of lawless ones to nail him to a cross and kill him”). The point is that it is evident that Jesus was not literally crucified before the world began. But in classical Jewish thought, God-Yehovah planned the crucifixion before the world began. The notion was real, but not yet historically actual. That which materialized in history under Pontius Pilate had already happened in God’s -Yehovah’s plan before the world began!

The book of Ephesians is replete with this notional pre-existence. We Christians were chosen in the Messiah “before the foundation of the world” and according to God’s -Yehovah’s gracious determination was “predestined” to sonship in God’s -Yehovah’s purpose (Ephesians 1:4: “For He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight in love.”). No Bible believer thinks for a moment this means we personally existed before the world began. Our pre-existing election is notional, not literal.

In a future day at his second coming our lord Jesus will say to his own people, “Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). In Paul’s language this hope is “laid up for you in heaven”. Here “heaven” is a metaphor signifying God’s-Yehovah’s promised future and we are said to already have it notionally. It is in the same vein as Paul saying that those of us who are already saved and justified before God are “glorified” [note the past tense, though the literal fulfillment is still future] (Romans 8:30).

Right up to the symphonic conclusion of the Biblical revelation we see the model of notional pre-existence on display. When John on the isle of Patmos peered into the apocalyptic realities depicted in the Book of Revelation, he recorded for his readers the symphonic chorus of the heavenly hosts. In one such vision, twenty-four elders offer prostrated worship unto the one seated upon the throne and boldly declare, Worthy are you, our Lord and our God -Yehovah, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and because of your will, they were, and were created" (Revelation 4:11).

This scene of worship gives glory honor and power to God-Yehovah for a specific reason: He is the creator of all things. And just exactly how has God -Yehovah created all things now material and actual? The answer: God -Yehovah possessed a will, a desire contained within His purposes to accomplish whatever He pleased. God’s - Yehovah's purposed plan that all things “were” (already), and then they “were created” (literally).

In other words, within God’s -Yehovah’s desire, things can be described as already existing, before they are actually created. This is textbook Jewish notional pre-existence, as all things pre-existed within God’s mind before coming into a physical and tangible existence!

To sum up: Both extra-Biblical commentary from the Second Temple Jewish world (Jesus’ own culture), and throughout the Scriptures themselves, objects and people are said to exist notionally without any thought of them literally being in heaven before materializing here on earth in God’s-Yehovah’s due time. When this paradigm is applied to those texts that seem to our Western understanding to imply that Jesus personally did consciously exist (as God) before his physical appearance on earth, confusion disappears. As always, context should always win the day! Let’s leave it to a modern Jewish writer to have the last word…

Messiah … “was present in the mind of God -Yehovah and chosen before the creation, and from time to time revealed to the righteous for their consolation; but he is … not actually pre-existent. He is named and hidden from the beginning in the secret thoughts of God-Yehovah, finally to be revealed in the Last Times as the ideal Man who will justify God’s -Yehovah’s creation of the world.”

Written by Greg Deuble and edited extensively by Bruce Lyon