Before Time

In the question about God's Omniscience, the question arises, "What does God know about the future?" The classical, orthodox view would answer, "Everything." The standard view of Omniscience (capital "O") holds that God knows all things perfectly. He knows all contingencies, but knows nothing contingently. Of course, those who would argue for omniscience (lowercase "o") would argue that God cannot know the future because the future doesn't exist and, therefore, cannot be known.

When I run across passages like these, it makes me sit up and take notice:

He (God) chose us in Him (Christ) before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).

And all who dwell on earth will worship (the Beast), everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain (Rev 13:8).

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ... (Jude 1:4)

... who (God) saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began (2 Tim 1:9).

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior (Titus 1:1-3)

Perhaps you didn't catch the recurring theme. The repeated concept is about what God did before the foundation of the world. (Okay, it's not as easy to see in the Jude passage, but the text gets garbled because the literal translation is "before of time past". Same concept.)

Before there was anything but God, what did He do? He chose us in Christ. No, we didn't exist yet, but He chose us. He had a book -- a book titled "The Book of Life of the Lamb who was Slain". Note the implications. First, He already had the names of those whom He chose. Second, the Lamb was slain before He made Creation. It wasn't Plan B. It was the original plan from eternity. What else? He ordained some to condemnation. To us He gave grace. Got that? Before the ages began He gave us grace in Christ Jesus. Before we even failed to merit it, He gave us unmerited favor. And the Titus passage says that He promised before anything started eternal life for the elect.

Look, predestination and election and all that aside, this is really huge. He chose us. You can think of it as "He knew in advance who would believe in Him" or "He chose without respect to who would believe in Him", but it was all written down ... before He even started. It was all for His own purpose. It was all His initial plan. And it was all before any one of us existed.

When I read these passages of Scripture through the lense of an omniscient God, I find them odd, but when I see them in light of an Omniscient God, I'm awed.