Romans
8:28-30 (NASB)
28And we know that God causes all
things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called
according to His purpose. 29For those whom He foreknew, He also
predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be
the firstborn among many brethren; 30and these whom He predestined,
He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He
justified, He also glorified.
Missing
the Point
Sometimes when discussing the Bible
people are prone to “miss the point.” In
looking at verses like these it is very easy to get sidetracked into an
argument which is generally unprofitable.
Most often these arguments are fraught with false dichotomies and adding
liberally to the clear statements of scripture by supplying new information
from some extra-biblical “system” of theology (Examples of these are
Calvinism-Reformed, Armenianism, Open Theism).
Each of these systems attempts to “fill in the gaps” on what we are not
told in scripture to produce some harmonization where the Lord has clearly left
a tension in what has been revealed. So
this study will not waste time arguing what “goes in the gaps” left by these
positive statements. We will NOT miss
the point!
So,
what IS the Point?
Remember what Paul is getting at
here: Paul wants these believers to know
that they are in the eternal plan of God.
That they can trust in their salvation in Jesus Christ. He is telling them about the amazing Salvation
that the Lord Jesus Christ has won for them.
Each of these three phases are by God’s grace and in each of them man
brings nothing to the table, they are God’s doing:
1) Justification – This was the chief subject of the first 5
chapters. The word “justification”
translates a word meaning: “To be declared righteous.” We are justified by faith in Christ
alone. As Paul wrote in Philippians: “…and
may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from
God on the basis of faith,” (Philippians 3:9 NASB) Paul comes to the finale of this revelation
in Romans 5:1: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
2) Sanctification
– Chapters 6-7 go through the realities of our Sanctification (the process
by which we are conformed, in our day to day lives, to the image of Jesus
Christ. In Romans 6:1-11 Paul laid out
the means for our conformation to Christ. Romans 6:6-10 focus on the importance
of the believer knowing how complete our identification with Christ in His
death burial and resurrection. The next
step stated in Romans 6:11 is to count on that reality, in faith. Trusting in the accomplished fact of what
Christ did at the cross. The balance of
chapter 6 concerned the believer who decided to continue to live in sin
anyway. The result of this choice is
loss of fellowship with the Lord, making the sinning believer the most
miserable person on earth. Chapter 7
illustrates what happened to Paul when he tried to go back and ‘earn
righteousness’ by living according to the Law, rather than live by faith in
what Christ had done. The result was
loss, death and despair.
3) Glorification - Chapter 8 concerns our glorification. In previous studies we have seen that the
Lord WILL complete this work in us. In
this final phase we will be given new bodies, we will be redeemed and continue
on free from the pain and trials of our Sin Nature. This is a wonderful thing indeed!
So this is “the Point”! Paul meant this book to be taken
personally. Not to be used as a killing
floor to argue abstract theological points about who is and isn’t chosen. So as we examine these powerful verses we
want to be taking them intensely personally, realizing that these are the
promises that we cling to, and look forward to as we go through every moment of
every day.
Romans
8:28
And we know that God causes all
things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called
according to His purpose.
We
KNOW
The grammar behind this “knowing” is
very strong and secure. This is a very
assured knowledge. The Greek word here
means “to know by perception.” Having
the sense that this is something that is seen and observed. Where could this reality have been
observed? This is seen throughout the
Scripture. God repeatedly uses the very
darkest and most difficult situations as a platform to show His own power,
grace, love and wisdom. This was seen
when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. His brothers meant to harm him because they
were jealous, yet God used that terrible and difficult event to save the whole
fledgling nation of Israel. God worked
through dark situations in the lives of Moses, Joshua, David and Elijah. It seems that God majors in taking dark,
difficult sinful situations that either man or Satan have ruined and turning it
into a display of His wondrous love and provision.
Notice who has this knowledge:
we. Paul includes himself and his readers. For Paul the Lord worked through his various
trials and difficulties for the progress of the Gospel. Many of us can look back on the challenges
and difficulties of our life and see how God used them for our better
good. This is something that every
believer has claim to.
God
Causes all things
First of all: God is the one doing
this. It is important to recognize what
is and isn’t said here. The Spirit here
does NOT say that God makes the bad things happen. The most dark and difficult situations of
human history, or our personal history, are not a result of God’s doing, they
are a result of sin. God is able,
however, to work with every set of circumstances, ever set of human choices and
work it together for our good and His glory.
Something else to note:
ALL
MEANS ALL. This is difficult for us
as believers. There are situations in
our lives that seem good and easy to see how the Lord is working through them
for our good and His glory. Other
situations seem far more difficult to understand how He could ever use
them. There is an element of trust
involved in the Christian life. Trust
that even though we cannot understand things, we CAN trust Him. He is able to work these things together for
good, not just the good, not just the bad: everything!
For
whom?
The reality that the Lord WILL work
ALL things together for good is a comforting thought, however there is an
important limitation to this. This
promise only applies to those who love
Him. If we don’t understand this we
miss everything. This promise is
meaningless to an unbeliever. For those
of us who are in a relationship with Jesus Christ our difficulties and trials
make sense. The Lord is using them to
conform us to the image of Jesus Christ.
The only thing the trials and difficulties of the unsaved produce is to
(hopefully) incline their hearts towards placing their faith and trust in Jesus
Christ.
Calling
Every believer here is said to be
called. This verse does not say that
anyone is NOT called, but only that we have all been welcomed according to His
purpose. What His purpose is will be
laid out in the following verses.
Romans
8:29
For those whom He foreknew, He also
predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be
the firstborn among many brethren;
Foreknowledge
The Lord is all knowing. Before He created Adam and Eve he knew every
person whom He created in them. For the
Lord, being outside of time, all of time is a single unit. He is able to view it all as a completed
picture, which is distinct from our view of things, being stuck in the “time
tunnel”. The Lord knew, before he
created anything, who would accept Him and who would reject Him. Paul’s purpose here is not to make everyone
out to be robots, far from it!
Foreknowledge is NOT dictation.
Just because the Lord knew who would make what choice does not by any
means imply that He made them make that choice.
That suggestion would, by implication, clearly mean that God MADE Adam
and Eve sin, which is impossible(Jas. 1:13).
This is intensely personal. The Lord knew you, even before you
existed. He created you and can be
trusted with your future, but your short term future as well as your eternal
future!
A
Great Destiny
These whom he knew would place their
faith in Christ he gave a destiny. The
word translated “predestined” here combines the words for “before” and “set a
boundary” the Lord planned out beforehand that any who would place their faith
in Jesus Christ would be given this destiny.
This is something that He declared by His power, His might, His
authority. It is important, because as
we examine this destiny that we have been given we must realize that just as
our salvation is totally by HIS doing, so our ultimate glorification will be
HIS doing as well. This is all by grace,
through faith in Jesus Christ!
Being a Conformist
The destiny that you have been given
is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. The Greek word here is the root of the
English word “morph”. The idea is that
the Lord will ultimately have us completely translated into the complete and
perfect image of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Once again, this destiny is not something that can be earned, and it is
not something that can be lost. This is
something that is given entirely by His grace, and completed entirely by His
power!
Firstborn
This is a tremendous reality that we
can only understand and receive through faith.
As we look at our daily lives and experiences this becomes more and more
astounding! We see our shortcomings, our
challenges, our difficulties, and our struggles and think that it would be
impossible for anyone to change us into more than what we are. However, this brings into sharp relief the
importance of our continued faith in Jesus Christ. Every moment that we say, “I can never do
it!” We come to a greater realization of the truth: We could never conform
ourselves to His image, we always had to trust in His power, His ability, and
His grace to complete this. When we look
forward to our glorification we see that it is just as much to His glory as the
first phase of our salvation!
Romans
8:30
and these whom He predestined, He
also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He
justified, He also glorified.
Called
Here those for whom God has set out this
destiny in Christ were also called. Note
that Paul does NOT say who is NOT called.
That is not Paul’s purpose here, the only thing that is being clearly
stated here is that everyone who places their faith in Christ has responded to
the call and received this destiny in Christ (which is conformity to His
image). However, the ones whom he
foreknew (that is every believer) DID respond!
And in this response of faith every believer was justified.
Justified
Here Paul goes back to the concept he
explained in chapters 1-5. The word
“Justify” means: “To be declared righteous.”
However, we know that this declaration of righteousness was no work of
our own. The righteousness that is being
spoken of is Christ’s righteousness. We
were justified by our identification with Christ wherein our sin was imputed on
Christ at the cross and His righteousness was imputed upon us. God did this because He is infinitely just,
and everything in His equation must be balanced out. The infinite sacrifice of the perfect Son of
God was enough to pay for every sin every person on earth has ever committed (1
John 2:2). However, it is only applied
to those who accept it in faith. Anyone
who chooses to reject Christ’s payment for their sin chooses to pay for their
sin on their own, for all of eternity.
Glorified
This is an amazing statement! Not only justified (declared righteous) but
GLORIFIED! Glory is the radiant essence
of Who God IS! This is the most
noteworthy portion of His character. It
was God’s glory that would have destroyed Moses if He had seen it
directly. It was God’s glory that
rendered Paul blind. And He has chosen
to glorify US with that same glory! This
is beyond understanding! But let’s
attempt to look at a distant shadow:
Imagine a poor girl who is growing up
in a poor country town. She grows up
each year of her life exchanging one tattered old hand-me-down dress for the
next. Her whole life she has never worn
a pair of shoes. Then a wealthy woman
comes and invites the girl to join her for a few days. When they get to the city, the woman picks
out dress upon beautiful dress for the girl who had never worn anything but
tattered rags. The girl looks in the
mirror and can hardly recognize herself with her shining shoes, done-up hair
and beautiful dress and beams a priceless smile at the woman who shared her
wealth (glory) with the child.
This is a wholly imperfect
illustration, but it gives us a glimpse of what is going to be revealed in
us. Here is the cool part. Here this glorification that was set to be a
future event in verse 18 are here said to be a past tense event. The glorification of the believer is such a
sure thing, such a complete certainty that it can be described as an
accomplished fact. Christ (in whom you
are positioned) is gloried, and when our position and condition are united we
cannot but be glorified as well. This is
a tremendous promise for every believer to take hold of and trust in every
single day.
Taking
it Personally
Again, these verses have been
twisted, perverted and poisoned to back any and every theological error
imaginable. The worst thing that happens
when this is done is the Lord is ACTUALLY saying often gets “lost in the mix”
of some “high-minded” theological debate.
Here is what the Holy Spirit wants EVERY believer to know:
·
Before God
created anything He knew YOU, personally and specifically.
·
Knowing
that you would trust Him, He gave you a destiny. That destiny is to be conformed to the image
of Jesus Christ. HE will be the
one to conform you to the image of Christ.
·
In the
context of time He called you, and you responded.
·
Though you
were sinful, helpless and broken He placed you in His Son and declared your
sins paid for, and declared you righteous as a permanent state of affairs.
·
As certain
as anything else in the world (or beyond) the Lord will also glorify you,
totally by His grace, though the work of Jesus Christ and your identification
with Him.
This is WHO and WHAT you are in
Christ. All that is left for the
believer to do is to trust in what God has done, and is going to do in his
life. This is tremendous news that every
believer needs to know and appropriate (take personally). Not to win an argument, but so that we can
face tomorrow as the Lord intends us to.
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