1 Peter 1:18, “…you were ransomed…with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world…”
According to these verses, Christ was foreknown in the mind of God “before” the beginning of creation. But notice specifically how Christ was foreknown: as the one who is slain as a lamb to ransom a people for Himself. In a very real sense, there is no other Christ than the crucified and risen Christ…just as there was never a time when the Son was not (to paraphrase Nicea), so too there was never a time when the Son was not—in the mind of God, which is the ground of all reality—known to be the crucified and risen One. The glory revealed in Jesus when He is lifted up on the cross before the Spirit-illumined eye of His Bride IS the glory that He had with the Father before the world began (Jn 17:5). Much more could be said about that.
But, what I wanted to emphasize in this picture is that, if Christ is foreknown from before time as the slain and risen one whose blood ransoms a people for Himself…then in the very act of foreknowing the slain and risen Christ, all those whom the slain and risen Christ ransoms are also foreknown. In foreknowing Christ as the Lamb who ransoms His Bride by His blood, God also foreknows the Bride who is thus ransomed.
It might truly be said that the existence of the ransomed Bride is grounded in the existence of the slain and risen one who Ransoms her. Because there is a Ransomer, there must be the ransomed….Because there is a Savior, there must be those who will be saved….the crucified and risen Jesus does not exist because humanity needed to be saved, rather humanity—who needs to be saved—exists because the crucified and risen Jesus who saves humanity exists. Again, a lot could be said there!
However, for today, it is enough to say this: Any and all who will EVER trust in the slain and risen Jesus as their Lord and God and Savior are trusting in Him because they have been known and loved in Him from before the kindling of the stars. The names of all who will ever be His were written in His blood before “Let there be” was spoken (Rev.13:8, 20:15).
