8:29 foreknew . . . predestined. See “The Purpose of God: Predestination and Foreknowledge” at Mal. 1:2. Vv. 29, 30 explain God’s “purpose” (v. 28). It is a plan of sovereign saving grace, entitling all who now believe to trace their faith and salvation back to an eternal decision by God to bring them to glory, and to look forward to that glory as a guaranteed certainty. The destiny appointed for believers (conformity to Christ and glorification with Him) flows from divine foreknowledge. Here it is persons, not facts or events, that God is said to foreknow. God does foresee events, but Paul’s point is that God has of His own initiative chosen the objects of His active, saving love. “Know” implies intimate personal relationship, not merely awareness of facts and circumstances (Gen. 4:1; Amos 3:2; Matt. 1:25); it is virtually the equivalent of “elect.”