Acts 2:14a,22-24 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: …  22 “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

Over the years, I have heard from lots of people when they,someone in their family or even a friend of theirs gets a medical diagnosis that they don’t want to hear: a mother with Alzheimer’s, a two-year-old with a brain tumor, a young man paralyzed in an automobile accident, an uncle with pancreatic cancer. Often times when someone is sharing news like this, they will say, “The prognosis doesn’t look good” or “the prognosis isn’t good.” That word, PROGNOSIS, has worked its way into many of our vocabularies. More often than not, we use it and hear it in a negative setting, like the ones I just mentioned. However, it is possible to get a good prognosis from the doctor, too. But what does this term mean? For the most part, it has to do with a predicted outcome, what you think will happen. Our English usage of this term has to do with conjecture, or maybe an educated guess.

The passage above from Acts 2 contains the Greek word  “PROGNOSEI.” That is the basis for our word prognosis, which is translated in the New Testament as FOREKNOWLEDGE – This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge. PROGNOSEI comes from the Greek “pro” meaning before and “gnosis” meaning knowledge. It literally means to know something in advance. It is used here to speak of God knowing in advance what He was sending Jesus to do. He did it on purpose, He meant to do it. This was His plan. There was no guess work involved, but a definite and certain plan. And God’s prognosis, His advance knowledge of what Jesus would do, was good. God had a definite plan long in advance, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It was all carried out, down to Christ being handed over to lawless men who crucified Him.

This passage speaks of God’s knowing in advance what would happen. Through Christ, He has now given us advance knowledge, too, a prognosis. In addition to knowing what has happened, we know what will happen in our future. And our prognosis is not just conjecture or even a super educated guess. It is definite knowledge of which we have absolute certainty. We know that Christ was put to death and raised again so that we might have forgiveness and life. Our future is life everlasting with our Savior in joy and peace. We say in the creed, and He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead. We know that will happen. And since we will be judged not on the basis of who we are or what we have done, but rather on the basis of our faith in Jesus as our Savior, we will be forever with the Lord.

What’s the prognosis? When it comes to the outcome of our faith, there is no guesswork involved. We know what has happened and we know what God has promised for our future.