beforehand'?  The very thought is absurd.

`Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,

ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain' (Acts 2:23).

The same Peter who was yet to write 1 Peter 1:2 uses the word

`foreknowledge' here.

It was the determinate counsel of God that, in the fulness of time He

would send His Son, Who should willingly offer Himself an all-sufficient

sacrifice for sin.  When the same Son stood among men, He said:

`Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I

might take it again.  No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of

Myself.  I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

This commandment have I received of My Father' (John 10:17,18).

Here, in other language, is expressed `the determinate counsel of God'.  There

was however, as we all know, another side to this great question.  `Wicked

hands' took Him and crucified Him.  This was `foreknown' by God for `known unto

God are all His works from the beginning of the world' (Acts 15:18), and as all

His works are related down the stream of time with the countless million works

of man, it follows that God's foreknowledge must comprehend what free agents

uncompelled by any necessity shall at any time do.

The presence of the words `by wicked hands' makes it impossible for

`foreknowledge' to be the same as the `predetermined counsel', for then God

would have `willed' `wickedness', and as wickedness is essentially that which is

contrary to His will, the whole becomes an involved absurdity.  Contingent

actions foreknown, do not always, of necessity, take place.  An example is found

in 1 Samuel 23:10-13.  David asked of the Lord whether Saul would come down to

Keilah, and the answer was `He will come down'.  David consequently enquired

whether the men of Keilah would deliver him up to Saul, and again the Lord

answered `They will deliver thee up'.  As a result of this `foreknowledge of

God' David withdrew, and neither did Saul come down nor did the men of Keilah

deliver him up.  Here then is an example of foreknowledge which

most certainly was not `predetermination', for nothing happened.  Whenever and

wherever we have a world in which there are free moral agents, we have a world

of contingency, a world in which has been introduced the word `if', so that even

God Himself says `if you do this or that, then I will do so and so'.

Jonah preached to Nineveh `Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown'

but Nineveh repented, and Nineveh was not overthrown in forty days.  We shall be

wise therefore, to leave the word foreknowledge to mean just what it says and no

more.  The infinite knowledge of God makes it impossible that He shall not know

who will preach and who will teach; where they will go, and when they will go;

who shall hear, who reject, who accept, and who be left without a word of the

gospel.  The one great demand upon all who hear the gospel is that they believe

the testimony of God concerning His Son.  Whoever so believes passes into all

the blessings purchased by the blood of Christ.  Whoever does not believe makes

God a liar (1 John 5:10).  If there were any idea of preordination in this,

refusal to believe would be as much a part of God's predeterminate decree as is

election to glory, and it would not be possible to make God a liar by so

refusing His testimony.  Further, in the passage before us, foreknowledge is

differentiated from predestination, for we read: `Whom He did foreknow, He also