Does God really know the future?

from the old testament

• God is eternal (Isaiah 40:28; Psalm 90:1-2).
• God knows the future because He is eternal and is God: “This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: ‘ I am the First and the Last; there is no other God’” (Isaiah 44:6).
• God knows everything about us, including our future (Psalm 139). Verses 1 through 6 of Psalm 139 read, “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!”
• God lives forever (Psalm 102:12).
• Everything God wills, happens (Isaiah 14:24, 46:9-10 ).

from the new testament

• God is the Alpha and Omega and the beginning and the end (Revelation 1:8). He is “the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One” (Revelation 1:8).
• Jesus is always the same and unchanging (Hebrews 13:8).
• God’s timetable is different from ours (2 Peter 3:8).
• God’s plans cannot be stopped (Acts 5:39).
• God actively rules from heaven governing the activities on earth (Matthew 10:29-31).

implications for today

God is outside of time, and He is not bound by time as we are. He created us so that we would have a relationship with Him and depend on Him throughout our life. Solomon wrote, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God has revealed to us the existence of eternity and time, but He has not allowed us to see our future. God, however, does know our future.

Throughout Scripture , God made thousands of prophecies. These prophecies have been literally fulfilled; this cannot be a coincidence. For instance, there are several hundred prophecies concerning the Messiah, which were fulfilled during the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The prophet Micah wrote, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf” (Micah 5:2). This prophecy clearly states that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, the exact location where Jesus was born seven centuries later (Matthew 2:1-6). While hundreds of Messianic prophecies were literally fulfilled, the chance that just eight could be randomly fulfilled by one person is one in ten to the seventeenth power. That's one in 100,000,000,000,000,000!

How could all these prophecies be fulfilled perfectly? Because God knows the future. God says, “Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.” (Isaiah 46:9-10). God is eternal and knows everything that will ever happen. He exists everywhere simultaneously, past, present, and future . Given the accuracy of past biblical prophecy, and God's assertion that all His purposes will come to pass, we can be confident that God knows our future as well. We can trust Him, walk by faith to fulfill His purposes for us, and anticipate the return of Jesus to take us to our eternal home with Him (Ephesians 2:10, John 14:1-3).