READING TIME: 1-2 MINUTES
August 23, 2019
Dave, does Jeremiah 1:5 teach unconditional divine election?
In short, Jeremiah 1:5 does not teach unconditional divine election.
The word know in the Hebrew is yada and it denotes an intimate knowledge or relationship of commitment. Placed within the context of “I set you apart and appointed you” before you were born, it then more accurately refers to a prenatal intimacy and commitment God is making. In other words, God preordained Jeremiah for a special ministry. Also see Psalm 139:15-16 and Isaiah 46:10, which talks about God’s amazing foreknowledge.
God knew Jeremiah and set him apart and appointed him to be a prophet. And why did God know or choose Jeremiah? For eternal life? No. As the text says, he was chosen before conception to serve as a prophet to Israel. Jeremiah’s election was vocational.
As to God’s knowledge of Jeremiah before He formed him in the womb, it can be understood in the light of the parallel “before you were born, I set you apart.” Certainly, Jeremiah, like the Apostle Paul later (Galatians 1:15), was a unique instrument of God, so we should not extrapolate determinism from the statement that the omniscient God had set this key prophet for His service before he was born. God is not a mere observer, but neither does He pull the strings of mere puppets. The truth is in a mediate position between Calvinism and Arminianism.
Sources Used
Lazar, Shawn. Chosen to Serve: Why Divine Election Is to Service, Not to Eternal Life. Grace Evangelical Society.
McDowell, Josh; McDowell, Sean. The Bible Handbook of Difficult Verses (The McDowell Apologetics Library). Harvest House Publishers.
Olson, C. Gordon. Beyond Calvinism & Arminianism: An Inductive Mediate Theology of Salvation. 3rd Edition Expanded, Revised, & Updated. Global Gospel Publishers, 37.
