Introduction
In his book, Idols for Destruction, historian Herbert Schlossberg writes, “The Bible can be interpreted [indeed, all of history can be interpreted] as a string of God’s triumphs disguised as disasters… The Kingdom of God advances from triumph to triumph, with all of them disguised as disasters.” Case and point—the cross of Christ.
That quote makes me think of a story I’ve heard Pastor Doug Wilson tell many times. During the Korean War, in one particular battle, a company of U.S. Marines found themselves in a desperate situation. They were vastly outnumbered. Enemy forces had closed in from every direction. They were surrounded—cut off, outgunned, and facing what looked like certain defeat.
When their commanding officer, Lewis “Chesty” Puller, realized what was going on his response was unforgettable. He said, “We’re surrounded. Good. That simplifies things. Now we can attack in any direction.”
You see, what looked like a disaster… he interpreted as an opportunity. What looked like defeat… he reframed as advantage. Not because the situation itself was good—but because he knew who his men were, what they were capable of, and what they had been called to do. And he knew how important it was to not lose hope.
It would be easy for us to look around at all of the sin, decay, and chaos in the world and feel as though defeat is inevitable. On any given day, the world, the flesh, and the devil, sin and death, and evil of all kinds can make us feel as though we are surrounded on all sides with no hope of victory. But Christians do not live by sight… We live by faith. Our hope is not in what we see but in the promises of God. And God has promised victory. God has promised triumph. God has promised glory. And our lives, and our loves, and our ordinary faithfulness are at the heart of all of that. And that’s what we’re going to see in God’s Word today. So look with me at Romans 8:28-30.
Context
At this point many of you are probably wondering what my opening illustration has to do with our passage today. In Reformed circles our passage is often referred to as the golden chain of salvation—a passage that lays out much of the order of salvation—predestination, calling, justification, and glorification… And while that’s true, and we hit on much of that last week, in context there’s actually more going here than just salvation… This text isn’t merely talking about how we are saved and the glories of heaven. It’s actually giving us direction and hope for our every day lives right now.
Remember the context leading up to this—Paul has been talking about groanings and weakness. He’s been talking about our need to be delivered from our personal wretchedness and the body of flesh (the whole sinful body politic of our lives), the creation’s desire to be delivered from the futility that came in and through the Fall, and our own groanings tied to the Fall, our weakness, and all the sufferings that we encounter in this broken world. But he’s also said that the creation is eagerly waiting for our revealing… Which means not only our perfection and final glorification on the final Day, but our embrace of obedient faith every day.
And this has been at the heart of what Paul has been saying in Romans 8… Our deliverance from our wretchedness has already come in the person and work of Christ. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). We have been redeemed and set free in Christ, and we are no longer slaves to sin, Satan, or fear, but we are sons and daughters of God, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, enabled to walk by faith in line with God’s Word. We must no longer live according to the flesh, but by the Spirit we must put to death the deeds of the body, and thus truly live. And because we are no longer slaves to sin, we can.
By the Spirit we can pray rightly and we can live rightly. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, Christ in us the hope of glory, enables us to live in submission to Christ, and thus in a way that magnifies His glory in all of life here and now. And that is in large part what the creation is longing for.
In the beginning man was created in the image of God and called to subdue the earth and have dominion over it, to guard and keep what is true, good, and beautiful, and to be fruitful and multiply with it. Humanity, as God’s image bearers, were to glorify the earth under God—to cover the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea… To bring everything into proper submission and functionality under God, to cultivate and bring the world into the fullness of its potential, to advance the Kingdom and the culture of the Lord throughout the earth, causing God’s Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven… Or as James Jordan has said, “Man’s task is to make the earth after the model of heaven… Man’s project is to heavenize the earth.”
And though Adam failed to lead humanity to do this, Christ—the new, true, better Adam—is now leading us into faithfulness. Adam let his bride be given over to evil—to sin and Satan and death… But Christ does not leave us nor forsake us. Christ saves His bride from sin and Satan and death, and leads us into faithfulness. As Paul has been telling us throughout Romans, the old Adam, and all of God’s people in him, were crucified with Christ. In our baptism we died with Christ. But we didn’t just die with Him, we were raised to newness of life with Him as well… Why? So that, by the Spirit, the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us. So that we could walk in obedience to God’s Word and fulfill God’s purpose for humanity. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ, and now in Him we can fulfill the dominion mandate. And this is what Paul has in mind in our passage today.
Sermon
In verse 28 Paul says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” That’s the ESV translation. A better translation, in my opinion more faithful to the original Greek here is the old RSV—the Revised Standard Version of the Bible from 1952. It says, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” This doesn’t change the truth that we typically focus on when we think about this verse, that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. But it does change the emphasis.
The reason these translations differ is because the ESV is taking the Greek word that means to work together with and applying it to all things, whereas the RSV is taking it and applying it to God alongside His people. The ESV is focusing on God’s providence and good sovereignty working in and through creation and history (all things), while the RSV is focusing on God working in and through His people.
While it is true that God in His sovereign grace is working all things together for good for those who love Him, in context what Paul is stressing here is that God is working with those who love Him, those whom He has called, to work for that good as well. Last week I pointed at verse 29 to help us understand what is meant by good in verse 28. Paul says, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” So there we see that good is directly linked to being conformed to the image of the Son, or being made like Jesus… as well as Jesus being the firstborn among many brothers, or being the exalted head, the King, the Lord and Savior of the family of God, of God’s children.
And while all of that is true, there’s more here. Remember how and why God created man in the beginning. Humanity was created in God’s image and called to subdue the earth and have dominion over it, to guard and keep what is true, good, and beautiful, and to be fruitful and multiply with it. To magnify and advance the glory of God throughout the world… To heavenize the earth. That was man’s calling. That was the good humanity was to be about. But Adam failed to be the image-bearer he was called to be. But where Adam failed Christ succeeds.
For those who love God and are called according to His purpose, God works for good with us in everything. And our calling here is like that of Adam and Eve. To be sure, what is truly good is to know Jesus, love Jesus, enjoy Jesus, be made like Jesus, to live like Jesus, and live with Jesus forevermore, because ultimately Jesus—God with us—is who and what is truly good. But all of that has a direct effect on everything if we are embracing all of those things rightly. Being like Jesus and living for Jesus isn’t just good for us, it’s good for the world. Indeed it brings about great good in the world. And this is the calling here.
Not only is the language of calling used in verse 28 (those who are called according to His purpose) but it’s also used in verse 30. Paul says, “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” The idea is that God predestines, He determines beforehand who He is going to call and what He is going to call them to. To be sure, the calling here in part refers to God’s effectual calling where He so lavishes His love upon us that He calls us out of darkness into His marvelous light, and therefore gives us the ability to love Him. Or as Romans 5:5 says, God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. But it’s more than just that.
The language of calling is the language of vocation, of mission, of purpose. Those who love God, His children, those who are a part of His family in Christ, are righteous in Christ. We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Again, as Romans 8:1 declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” But remember Paul goes on to say that not only are we no longer condemned and justified, but we are set free from sin and death, and we can now walk or live by the Spirit in line with the righteous requirements of God. We can live in obedient faith to God’s Covenant Word.
And God’s Covenant is at the heart of what Paul is getting at here. Verse 29 says God foreknew us, He knew us beforehand. Last week when I was explaining God’s sovereignty over all things I quoted R. C. Sproul who said, “If God is not sovereign, God is not God… If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.” But there are no maverick molecules because God is God. And that same logic applies to God’s knowledge. If God doesn’t know everything and everyone He is not God. But He does. He is omniscient… He is all-knowing.
And since God, being God, knows everything and everyone all the time, God’s foreknowledge can’t mean that He learns something in some way, or that He simply knows us in some generic way. This is covenantal language. In fact, it is covenantal love language. Adam knew his wife and they conceived and bore a son. Jesus tells the lawless ones who say to Him at judgment, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we do many works in your name?” He says, “Away from me you workers of lawlessness… I never knew you…” Again, Jesus is God. And God knows all. But what Jesus means there is that they were not in right covenant union and right covenant relationship with Him. He did not know them in the sense that He did not savingly love them.
So when Paul says that God foreknew us he means that God loved us before the foundation of the world. And that love, that electing, merciful, and gracious covenantal love rooted in who He is as the merciful and gracious God who abounds in steadfast love, is what is tied to God predestining us. And again, to predestine is to determine beforehand, or literally to set a horizon or destination beforehand. And though it’s certainly true that God has destined His elect to be with Him where He is… Or as Paul says so beautifully in 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.” Though that’s true and beautiful, in this context Paul is not merely speaking of the final destination, but of what we are to be and do, what our calling is in the here and now, and then on into eternity.
God predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son. Again, Adam was created in God’s image and called to heavenize the earth. But he failed to be the image-bearer he was called to be. But where Adam failed Christ succeeds. And here Paul is telling us that tied to that, God set His love on us before the foundation of the world and destined us in eternity past to be conformed to the image of Christ, who is the perfect image bearer. As Hebrews 1:3 says, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.” Or as Colossians 1:15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” And here in Romans 8 we’re told that He is the firstborn among many brothers, meaning that through our union with Him, and through the power of the Spirit we are made like Him. We are made Christlike, and we are empowered to live Christlike lives in this life. Indeed, we are to take all things captive for Christ, meaning that Christ is to impact and rule over every area of our lives.
So God has predestined us for a calling… A calling that is according to, or in accordance with God’s purpose. We have not simply been saved from something, we have been saved for something. Our salvation is not simply about going to heaven, it is about magnifying the glory of Christ on earth. As Paul says in Ephesians 3:9-11, “God…. created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord…”
God’s purpose is to glorify His Son in and through a redeemed people on a renewed earth. We are to make known, to display, to image God’s manifold wisdom in and through our lives so that the watching world, and even the spiritual powers in heaven itself see the beauty of God and His ways in and through our lives of obedient faith. This purpose has been realized or brought about in Christ Jesus our Lord, who is the perfect image-bearer, who by His grace redeems and renews us, enabling us to live as His image-bearers.
Look at verse 30 again. It says, “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Typically when this verse is expounded it is explained that all of this is in the past tense because it is all as good as done. And the main reason that’s pointed out is because of the last part about glorification. We look at this verse through the lenses of reformed systematic theology, and we seek to make the passage fit our system. And our system tells us that glorification is the final state of our salvation, when we see Jesus face to face and we are made fully like Him (glorified). And that is an absolute truth for God’s people. But that is not the focus in this context.
Consider Psalm 8. In verse 4-6 David says, “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet…” Here the language of glory is kingly and tied to dominion. And that is how it is used of Christ as well. Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31). And by that He meant not only His death and resurrection, but also His ascension to the right hand of the Father as our Priest-King who has all authority in heaven and on earth. But Jesus also says in John 17:22, “The glory that you [the Father] have given me I have given them…”
As we saw back in Romans 8:16-17, “we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” And this all starts here and now. Indeed, for those who have been called and have been justified, who are thus walking by faith in Christ by the Spirit, we are now heirs with Christ, crowned with glory, as we suffer with Him in the fight against evil, and thus share in His glory as His vicegerent in the earth… As those who seek to bring every area of life in to joyful submission to His Lordship… As those who seek to take dominion for His glory by seeking to take all things captive to Christ. As we read earlier in Ephesians 2:7, we have already be raised up with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly places. In a sense we have already been glorified with King Jesus. So in this sense verse 30 is in the past tense not only because it is as good as done because God has predestined it to come to pass, but because Christ has in fact already secured it in and through His perfect God-glorifying life, His sacrificial wrath-absorbing death, His death-defeating justifying resurrection, and His glorious and Kingly ascension. And by faith all of this is ours now. We simply must embrace it and live it out.
Conclusion
Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). Church, you are heirs with Christ and in Christ. In Christ you have been called, justified, and even glorified already, all because God set His love on you before the foundation of the world, and predestined you to be a part of His family. But His family are rulers with Christ. His family are those who have been created, redeemed, and restored into His image, and called to subdue the earth and have dominion over it, to guard and keep what is true, good, and beautiful, and to be fruitful and multiply with it. To magnify and advance the glory of God throughout the world… Called according to His purpose and sent on a mission… To heavenize the earth.
Now I know, when we look at the world around us it looks like the earth has gone to hell in a hand basket. But remember, we must not operate according to what we see. We must walk by faith. C. S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” So don’t let the world dictate how you see things, let God’s Word, let’s God’s promises dictate how you see things.
So what does this mean for us—right here, right now? It means that your life is not random. Your suffering is not wasted. Your obedience is not small. God is at work with you. Which means your calling is not to retreat… but to engage. Not to despair… but to believe. Not to wait for glory… but to walk in it.
So husbands—love your wives like Christ loves the Church. Wives—respect and help your husbands in the Lord. Fathers—raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Mothers—disciple your children with patience and joy. Children—obey your parents in the Lord. Workers—labor as unto Christ. Neighbors—love one another. Church—worship faithfully, pray fervently, and live boldly. Because this is how God works for good with you. Not through grand, flashy moments… but through ordinary, daily, covenant faithfulness. Every act of obedience… every moment of repentance…
every step of faith… is God conforming you to Christ and extending His rule into the world.
Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, Dows not cry, Mine!” So when you look out at the world… and it feels like we’re surrounded—surrounded by unbelief, surrounded by corruption, surrounded by hostility to Christ—don’t say, “We’re losing.” Say, “We’re surrounded… good.” Because that means there is not a single inch of this world where Christ is not calling us to faithfulness. Not a single area of life
where His glory cannot be displayed. Not a single direction where we cannot advance His Kingdom.
Because Jesus Christ is not a defeated King. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. He is the firstborn among many brothers. And you—His people—are those brothers. Called. Justified. And even now—glorified.
So don’t shrink back. Lift your eyes. Strengthen your hands. Stand firm in the promises of God. And go forward in faith. Because though we are surrounded, we can attack in any and every direction because we are in Christ… And in Christ God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us, and indeed to work with us. And if God is for us nothing and no one can stand against us. So may we stand for Him come what may. Amen.