God's Good and Glorious Purpose

Intro

We have considered the work of the Holy Spirit in chapter 8 as Paul describes it. We have considered at least five works of the Spirit: his liberation, his indwelling, his sealing, his regenerating, his mortifying, his adopting, and last week his interceding. All these works prove to us, in our Christian experience, that we are sons and daughters of God, that our faith is genuine and that our hope is secure. These proof-works of the Holy Spirit are what Paul calls the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit, those things that are deposited as a guarantee of future inheritance. Paul is clear then: these present works of the Holy Spirit guarantee the future work of the Holy Spirit. These guarantees are the fuel that drives the Christian as they walk the path from suffering to glory.

Paul has left us, at least for the last 11 verses, in a difficult place. He has labored to remind the Romans and to remind us that both church and creation suffer and groan in this life. God’s people and God’s world look forward to that day when all will be made right, but in the here and now the life of the Christian and the life of the world is a life of corruption, futility, suffering, and groaning.

But Paul is a good pastor. He refuses to leave his readers without a clear picture of the hope, the security, and the assurance of the Christian. Without a clear understanding of the reality that the suffering is not the end, but that the suffering gives way to joy and glory.

So let’s examine the text together once again today.

God’s Good Purpose

Verse 28 is one of the most well-known and well-loved texts in all of Scripture, and for good reason. It provides a safety net of hope in the good providence of God even when things seem bleak. So let’s take a close look.

“We know”

Paul uses this phrase in 5 places in Romans, and he seems to use it to indicate a kind of foregone conclusion, a basic reality that should be essential knowledge for the Christian. Paul’s assumption then is that the Roman church and West Hills Church should know intrinsically that a good God who loves His children will not do them harm, but will do them good.

But let’s be honest with ourselves this morning. It’s good that Paul reminds us of this. We forget this all the time, do we not? Paul is reminding us here that we should know this. We should be fluent in God’s providential provision, intimately familiar with the reality that God intends good and not evil for His children. And yet so often we forget. Paul’s reminder and encouragement to us is to be mindful of God’s good provision in all things.

“That all things”

What are “all things” that Paul speaks of here? Rip this verse out of it’s context, and it’s easy to say that when Paul says “all things” he means empirically all things. Each event that takes place in the life of a believer is being worked for good. A theological argument might be made for the truth of that statement, but I don’t think that does justice to Paul’s contextual intent here. I think it makes more sense to take “all things” literally rather than empirically, and by that I mean that we should understand all things as those sufferings that he mentioned in the previous verses. It might be better read as “all these things” for our English minds.

“Work together”

Paul is clear then - all of our sufferings and trials and tribulations are working, and they’re working in concert, in synergy with one another (that’s the Greek word there by the way, synergeo). Paul is building his argument on the theological foundation of Genesis 50:20 which records the words of Joseph to his brothers upon their grief before him that they had mistreated him by selling him into slavery:

Genesis 50:20 NASB95

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.

And Paul is also building on the foundation of Deuteronomy 8:2-3

Deuteronomy 8:2–3 NASB95

“You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

Moses is reminding the people that their suffering the in the wilderness was not arbitrary, but was intentional. It was working to do discipline them, and that discipline was in fulfillment of God’s intent to teach them who He is and what He has done.

Our sufferings in this life, are to be interpreted as co-laborers, fellow workers together in the providence of God.

This is why many translations render this passage God causes all things to work together, rather than just “all things work together.”

“For good”

What then is the intent of the work of our sufferings in our lives? It is good. Paul’s language is so simple, yet so profound. Sufferings in this life result in good. Hodge, Sproul, Murray, and Calvin are all in harmony here: sufferings are blessings.

Murray says: Not one detail works ultimately for evil to the people of God; in the end only good will be their lot.

John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, vol. 1, The New International Commentary on the Old and New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1968), 314.

Sproul says: These sufferings that we endure in this world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that God has laid up for us in the future. These present sufferings are the ‘things’ that Paul has in mind. They are actually in a sense blessings in disguise, because the sufferings in this world are used by God for our ultimate good and for our ultimate benefit.

R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1994), 146.

Hodge says: As they are comparatively insignificant, as they call forth the exercises of hope, and give occasion for the kind interposition of the Holy Spirit, far from being inconsistent with our salvation, they contribute to our good.

Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, New Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Louis Kregel, 1882), 440.

And finally Calvin: so far are the troubles of this life from hindering our salvation, that, on the contrary, they are helps to it.

John Calvin and John Owen, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 314.

This all is, of course, not to minimize tragedy and hardship. Difficult things happen, tragic things happen, and as we encounter these things, Paul’s intent is not to condemn that grief. Rather, he is reminding us that in that grief God is working. In that trial God is working. In that suffering God is working, and He’s working for your good. He’s working to conform you to the image of His Son, as we’ll see in the next verse.

“To those who love God”

Paul introduces a restriction here, a modifying clause. All this good work that God is doing through suffering, He is doing only for a specific group of people: those who love Him. This is the greatest commandment, after all. Those who are in a relationship of filial love to God as their Father will indeed have their suffering orchestrated and ordained for good.

Do you love God this morning? By the help of the Holy Spirit are you daily crying out Abba Father? Is your soul knit to the soul of God in the bonds of agape covenant love? Then you can rest assured that no evil will befall you without a good and blessed intent.

“To those who are called”

Again Paul uses this parallel device to communicate a clear truth: those who love God are those who are called by Him, and those who are called by Him are those who love him. This Greek word kletos is used primarily by Paul but also by John and Jude, and it’s usage forms the basis for the doctrine of effectual calling. What is effectual calling? It is different from what we might call the external call of the gospel. This external call is usually indicated by the Greek word parakaleo, which might be translated as exhort, encourage, implore, or urge. This is most clearly seen in Luke’s record of Peter’s sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2:40 “And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!”” That is a prime example of the external call, a strong word of exhortation to “be saved.” This is the mandate of the preacher and the evangelist and indeed of every Christian: call men to repentance. Exhort them. Implore them. Urge them. Convey a sense of life or death urgency in the matter of your soul’s salvation.

But this is not the calling Paul intends by the word kletos here in Romans 8:28. Rather he intends to convey the concept of effectual or internal calling.

Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 3: Spirit and Salvation Chapter 15: Effectual Calling, Part 1: Biblical Teaching

Herman Witsius said, “The first immediate fruit of eternal election, and the principal act of God by which appointed salvation is applied, is effectual calling. Of which the apostle [says]: ‘whom he did predestinate them he also called’ (Rom. 8:30). And this calling is that act by which those, who are chosen by God and redeemed by Christ, both externally and internally are sweetly invited and effectually brought from a state of sin to a state of communion with God.”

This effectual call, as Paul would have us understand it, become a critical part of the “golden chain” of our salvation. This is the voice of God, compelling us, drawing us to himself.

This calling is an expression of God’s love and grace toward us, as it summons or beckons us to him. Paul is not done with this doctrine, and neither are we. We will revisit this concept in just a moment.

“According to His purpose”

In what manner is the call of God? How is the call defined? That call is according to the purpose of God. As I have mentioned, this verse has been subjected to all kinds of wrong interpretation, and this phrase is no different.

This phrase indicates that our calling is in keeping with, in accordance with, according to God’s purpose, or his intent, or his plan. Paul is indicating to us that this calling, this drawing, this summoning, is part of the eternal intent of God to save a people for His own glory and conform them to the image of His son.

To summarize then, suffering will befall the called people of God. But God in His good providence will ensure the good outcome of that suffering. And for Paul, and every other Biblical author, the outcome of that suffering is glory. So Paul really puts a neat and tidy bow on his whole argument here. The good purpose of suffering is the hope of glory, and that hope of glory belongs to those who love God, and are called according to that purpose. The endgame is the hope of glory. The plan is glory, and it has been from eternity past.

But Paul is burdened to explain the plan to us. We have already seen the plan, the road, as it were, to glory from an earthly perspective. We must suffer, and be helped in that suffering by the Holy Spirit, and at the end of that suffering, glory comes. But what about the divine perspective? How does God bring us to glory? How does He bring us home? What are the eternal mechanics of salvation?

Those mechanics are described by theologians as the golden chain of salvation, one divine action leading to another divine action, demonstrating that all of our salvation is all of grace. There is not a work in sight in Paul’s understanding of salvation.

So let’s look at Paul’s formulation of the golden chain.

God’s Glorious Purpose

Paul lists five unequivocal actions of God here in these two verses, and drops the purpose for the actions right in the middle.

Action #1 - Foreknowledge

This is an interesting action here. Those whom God foreknew. What does this mean? Folks out there who have trouble with the next link in the chain, predestination, try to explain predestination away with foreknowledge. They will tell you that foreknowledge means that God looks down the corridors of time in His omniscience, sees who would respond to the gospel in repentance and faith, and then subsequently predestines them. This is called the prescience view of foreknowledge.

There are a couple problems with that.

The first is that this theory of prescient foreknowledge predicates the actions of God upon the actions of humans. In other words, God foreknows, predestines, etc. in response to something that humans do, which means in simple terms that salvation is not by grace, but by works. God saves us because he saw into the future and saw that we would repent and believe. That is contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture, for example in Ephesians 2:8-9

Ephesians 2:8–9 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

If there is anything of ourselves that contributes to our salvation, it cannot be true salvation.

The second problem with the prescience view is that it’s simply not consistent with the usage of the Greek word proginosko. More often than not, the idea of proginosko was less about knowledge or awareness and more about selection. It’s the idea of pre-ordering something before it’s released, like I do with every new book published by Reformation Heritage.

A great illustration of this is the story of how my aunt and uncle adopted my cousin Jack. They knew Jack’s biological mom, and they came to an agreement with her to adopt her son long before Jack was even born. He was legally a Watson before he was born. That’s the idea at play here when Paul uses the word foreknowledge.

A third problem is that you have to insert another concept into the text that is simply not there. If you hold to this prescience view, you essentially are saying “those whom God foreknew that they would believe in him, those he has predestined.” That is simply not what Paul says.

This opens the door to a bonus fourth problem: if you don’t add to the text, but still try to hold to the prescience view, you’re left with another conundrum. If God is indeed omniscient, knowing all things, past, present and future, but you’re not allowed to impose a restriction on the knowledge, the logical conclusion is that God knows all men. He indeed does. But that then forces Paul to say here that all men are known, and therefore predestined, and therefore called, and therefore justified, and therefore glorified. Essentially then, Paul is made to be a universalist. It doesn’t matter what you do because God knows all men, and all men are therefore saved.

So we’ve seen the problems. If we’ve seen what God’s foreknowledge is not, we have to then define what it is. The best way to understand foreknowledge is to understand it as Paul understood it, in relation to God’s purpose, or plan. Simply put: God knows the future because God planned the future. The Scriptures are clear:

Isaiah 14:26–27 NASB95

“This is the plan devised against the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations. “For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?”

Isaiah 46:9–10 NASB95

“Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’;

Acts 2:23 NASB95

this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

God knows the future because He planned the future, and likewise, God knows your salvation because He planned your salvation.

John Gill explains it simply: “Now certain and immutable foreknowledge, such as the foreknowledge of God, is founded upon some certain and immutable cause; which can be no other than the divine will; God foreknows, certainly, that such and such things will be because he has determined in his will that they shall be.”

Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 754.

Action #2 - He predestined

We are now, as Kenny Loggins said, on the highway to the danger zone. To reference a godlier man, Joel Beeke says predestination, or more commonly, election is a theological battlefield. Unedifying, fierce, and sometimes ugly debates rage about this teaching. Some Christians sincerely believe that it is best never to speak of election and predestination, viewing it as a dangerous intruder in the household of God.

Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 979.

But I agree with Beeke as he continues: Avoiding election does not serve the church well, for the Bible is full of this teaching. The election of Abraham and his seed out of all nations was a central part of Israel’s identity. A survey of the New Testament uncovers many texts in which it is said that God has “elected” or “chosen” (eklegomai) his people, that they are his “elect” or “chosen ones” (eklektoi), or that their salvation is due to his “election” (eklogē). If God has willed to reveal election to us in his holy Word, then his authority, wisdom, and goodness call us to contemplate it with the anticipation that it will help us to glorify and enjoy him forever.

Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Revelation and God, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 979–980.

So what does this word mean then? What was Paul’s intent in communicating to us that those who are part of the saving plan of God and therefore known by Him as part of that plan, are then also predestined? The word proorisen is used by Paul 6 times and it is unique to him as a Biblical writer. It is a compound word, the root being orizo which means to determine, designate, or appoint, coupled with the prefix pro which means prior to or before.

So by the prefix pro, we can affirm that God’s designation of His children, His appointment of them to eternal life, is something that happened prior, or before. The implication is that it is prior to time itself, in other words, God chose His people from before the foundation of the world, as Paul says in Ephesians 1:4

Ephesians 1:4 NASB95

just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love

This designation is eternal. What comfort! Knowing that even before time began, God had set his love on us, appointing us to himself by a gift of His grace. We love him because he first loved us.

Action #3 - He called

God does a third thing here, that Paul has already mentioned. He calls. We previously defined this as the inner calling, the effectual calling by which God draws us to himself. I won’t repeat what I said there, but I would like to share a story from the life of Charles Spurgeon as he reflected on God’s effectual calling of him to salvation:

Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 3: Spirit and Salvation Chapter 15: Effectual Calling, Part 1: Biblical Teaching

Charles Spurgeon said, “I remember sitting one day in the house of God … when a thought struck my mind—how came I to be converted? I prayed, thought I. Then I thought how came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures?… And then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of all, and that he was the author of faith.”

This effectual calling then is the work of the eternal will, foreknowledge, and appointment of God coming to fruition in our own experience. We believe because God calls us, in our souls, and we must answer. This is what the Council of Dort labeled irresistible grace. God’s internal calling, his internal summons to your soul to come and find rest cannot be ignored.

And yet it’s often quiet. It’s often invisible. Every single one of us in this room has had a Spurgeon experience. What caused me to be converted? I heard a sermon, I went to camp, I prayed, I was confronted by the truth of the Scripture and could no longer ignore it. Why? What changed? You ignored it for years before that. The change is the transformative, internal call of God on your life, compelling you to turn away from your sin and turn to him. Summoning you into his presence with joy and wonder.

Action #4 - He justified

Shortly after that moment of calling, God justifies - he makes righteous. Namely, he applies the righteousness of Christ to us, He imputes it to our account. He looks upon His life and death and resurrection and deems it satisfactory for Christ’s people to stand before God the Father in unblemished, spotless holiness, reconciled to him.

Action #5 - He glorified

This is the endgame. As Jesus rose to new life, we rise to new life. As Jesus ascended to glory, we ascend to glory.

Paul then drops the purpose for all of this right in the middle of the statement: all of this takes place so that we would be conformed to the image of the Son, so that he might be the firstborn of many brethren.

The purpose for our lives, as given by God, is that we would be Christ-like. In the context, Paul’s chief concern is that we would be conformed to the image of the Son in his suffering and in his glory, and by so being, bear witness to the fact that we are sons of God, and in a sense younger siblings of Christ the Son.

Our predestination, our calling, our justification, our glorification, all serve this end: conformity to Christ’s image.

Conclusion

Our purpose for existing is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, first in his suffering. In the midst of that suffering, corruption, weakness, and groaning, we rejoice because the Spirit of God is with us, advocating for us, helping us in our weakness. But the purpose of God is that we would also be conformed to Christ in His glory, and He glorifies us according to his justification of us, and he justified us according to his calling of us, and he calls us according to his predestination and divine knowledge of us as part of this grand plan of salvation from before the dawn of time.

So then, as we walk this path of suffering, may we look to our calling and justification as proof that God will complete that good work in us. That He will bring us home to glory. He has done it, and He will do it.

And you may ask, what should be our response to all this? What is the practical application?

Paul would tell that you that it is a song of praise, and it is to that song of praise that we will turn our attention next week.