Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 8:29

"For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren:" — Romans 8:29 (ASV)

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.—The process already summarized by these two phrases is now resolved more fully and exactly into its parts, with the suggested inference that for those who are under divine guidance at every step in their career, nothing can work except for their good. These two phrases indicate two distinct steps. God, in His infinite foreknowledge, knew that certain persons would submit to be conformed to the image of His Son, and He predestined them for this.

When we argue deductively from the omniscience and omnipotence of God, human free will seems to be obliterated. On the other hand, when we argue deductively from human free will, divine foreknowledge and the power to determine action seem to be excluded. Yet both truths must be accepted without diminishing the other.

We do not strictly know what God’s omnipotence and omniscience are. (According to a more precise use of language, perhaps we should say “perfect power and knowledge”—power and knowledge such as would belong to a perfect Being, a Being beyond our capacity to conceive.) Nor do we know what human free will is in itself.

It is a necessary postulate if there is to be any synthesis of human life at all, because without it, there can be no distinction whatsoever between good and bad. But we do not really know more than that it is the hypothetical faculty in human beings by virtue of which they are responsible agents.

To be conformed . . .—The final cause of this entire divine process is that the believer may be conformed to the image of Christ—that this believer may be like Him not merely in spirit, but also in that glorified body, which is to be the copy of the Redeemer’s (Philippians 3:21), and so be a fit attendant upon Him in His Messianic kingdom.

Firstborn among many brethren.—The Messianic kingdom is here conceived of rather as a family. In this family Christ has the rights of primogeniture, but all Christians are His brothers. The object of His mission and of the great scheme of salvation (in all its stages—foreknowledge, calling, justification, etc.) is to make people sufficiently like Him to be His brothers, and so to fill up the number of the Christian family. The word “firstborn” occurs in a similar connection in Colossians 1:15, “firstborn of every creature” (or rather, of all creation), and in Hebrews 1:6, “When he bringeth in the first-begotten (firstborn) into the world.” It implies two things:

1. Priority in point of time, or in other words, the pre-existence of the Son as the Divine Word; and
2. Supremacy or sovereignty as the Messiah.

The Messianic use of the word is based upon Psalms 89:27, “Also I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth.”

Among many brethren.—Compare Hebrews 2:11 and following, “He is not ashamed to call them brethren,” etc. There is a stress on “many.” The object of the Christian scheme is that Christ may not stand alone in the isolated glory of His pre-existence, but that He may be surrounded by a numerous brotherhood, fashioned after His likeness, as He is in the likeness of God.