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Imblessed

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"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predistinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren" KJV

The NKJV actually capitalizes the He, but the 1611 KJV(above) and the NIV does not.

????


We've been on Romans 8 primarly for several weeks a church, as Tim has been giving the basics of the Doctrines of Grace--as R.C. Sproul put it and Tim has used also--the Unbreakable Chain of Grace.

One part of the main verses used is confusing to me. It talks about how God has predestined us to be shaped into the likeness of Jesus(paraphrased) and then comes the confusing part--to be the "firstfruits of many"---what exactly is he talking about here?
I'm sure there is a simple(hopefully)explaination here and I'm just missing it. But Tim seemed to completely skip that part of the explaination of those verses (verses 28-31 if my memory serves me). It's almost as if he treated it like it wasn't there.

Would Paul be speaking to the first-century christians only in that verse? Is that a part of the verse that would not be pertaining to us? It seems that if that part wasn't important, that he wouldn't have been inspired to put it in(it is a very important verse in the bible after all--for me at least one of the most important as far as clarifying God's Will and Purpose for us)
so now that I see that one of the versions of the bible has the "he" capitalize, makes it seem as if Christ was the firstborn among many brothers--which makes sense, since He has been describes this way in other verses.

Does anyone have any views on it?
 

Cherub8

Soli Deo Gloria
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I have also been wanting to know about that verse, but a different part of it. The part about 'foreknowing' is what I'm curious about. All I know is it doesn't mean what the Arminians claim, because other parts of the Bible, such as Ephesians 1:5-6, show that God chooses based on "His pleasure and will," not on merit nor foreknowing. We know that if God saved based on foreknowing a person's "free will," then nobody would be saved. There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. (Romans 3:10-11)
 
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CoffeeSwirls

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When a farmer wants to know about his crop, he goes to the first fruits, the first examples of the crop. By examining these, he can know about what the unripe fruit will be like. When we are conformed completely to the image of Christ, we will be righteous like Him, have infallable bodies like Him, etc. Jesus is the firstfruits.

Capitalization, punctuation, verse and chapters, words of Christ in red, and other things like that will not be found in the original manuscripts. They have been added by publishers and translators for use in other languages. Each translation team has variances from the others in one place or another, so I would look at the context over the man-inserted helps. Of course, sentence structure and verses are helpful, but they are not in the infallable autographs.

I hope this helps!
 
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frumanchu

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Cherub, I posted a thread on this quite a while back entitled [post=900242]The Meaning of "FOREKNEW" in Romans 8:29[/post]. Hopefully it will help answer some of your questions.
 
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