Sunday School Notes: Romans 8:26-30
26 And likewise also the Spirit helps in our weakness; for we don’t know what it is necessary for us to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes with wordless groanings; 27 and He who examines hearts knows what [is] the Spirit’s way of thinking, since he intercedes before God on behalf of the saints. 28 And we know than all things work together unto good for those who love God, those being called according to [His] purpose. 29 For those he foreknew, those He also predestined for being conformed to the image of His son, so that he might be the first born among many brothers. 30 And those whom He predestined, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified.
This week’s passage follows Paul’s thought directly from last week’s, where we looked forward to that time to come when we will be glorified, and the current trials and sufferings that cause both us and creation to groan will be gone. Right now our bodies, weak as they are in their mortality, hinder us from a full realization of who and what we are in Christ. We are adopted sons of the Father, but we struggle to live that out day-to-day. But a time is coming when we will come into full possession, in body as well as in spirit, of that adoption that is already ours in Christ.
Returning to the present situation, Paul reminds the Romans that the Spirit is with us now to help us. This “help” is the same Greek word (sunantilambanomai) Martha uses in her complaint against Mary, when she asks Jesus to tell her to “help” with the supper preparations (Luke 10:40). Paul also uses the noun form of the Greek verb he used to describe the groanings of creation and His people (stenagmos) to describe the wordless intercessory “groanings” of the Spirit. I think Paul says “likewise” to say that the Spirit of God, who indwells every believer (8:15), also groans, but the nature of his groaning is very different: while we groan under the travail of living in this fallen world, the Spirit “groans” silently to the Father with prayer on our behalf.
This insight into the intercessory prayer of the Spirit it remarkable. Paul tells us that in our weakness, we don’t know the will of God for our lives. Certainly, the more we know the Scriptures, the more we know generally what it is that God expects of us. But there are always situations where we truly don’t know how we should pray. Often we simply pray what’s on our hearts (“Lord, please bring healing…” “Lord, bring salvation…” etc.) not knowing whether we are in accord with God’s intentions. Sometimes we might just throw up our hands and say “I just don’t know where to begin to pray for that!” In our weakness, we tend to follow our own perceptions of what would be good and right. However, we needn’t fear praying the wrong thing: the Spirit helps us when we pray. God searches the heart, and he knows our good intentions. The Father knows the mind of the Spirit, too–naturally, as two persons of the same being, they are in complete unity. So the Spirit can take our vain and feeble attempts at prayer, and with his silent “groanings” make them pleasing to God, and in complete accord with His will.
I think Paul’s main point in all of this is to emphasize God’s sovereignty in the life of the believer, so that neither the Roman Christians, nor we, need to be troubled by our current situation. Yes, we are in a fallen world, yes we sin, yes we face persecution and trials (both big and small), and yes we often feel defeated and hopeless. But God is with us every step of the way. He hasn’t left us alone. Even in our prayers He helps us. We don’t have to worry about how we pray, or saying the right words, or doing the right things–the Spirit takes all of our good-intentioned efforts, whatever they might be, and sanctifies them to the Father. And, in fact, God is at work, not just in our prayer lives, but in all things to bring about His purposes, and to sanctify His people.
Verse 28 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture, first because of its affirmation of God’s exhaustive sovereignty–which I find immensely comforting–and second because of who the intended beneficiaries of God’s sovereign acts are. There is some dispute over whether the verse should read “God works all things together…” or “all thing work together…” or even “He works all things together…” Among the Greek manuscripts, the best manuscript evidence is for one of the latter two; the first has some good manuscript support, but nowhere near the range of manuscript support as those that omit “God.” Of course, whether or not the verse explicitly states that God is the one working all things, the context makes it clear that this is the case. If things are working together for those who love God and are called according to His purposes, God is the one doing the working–things aren’t just working themselves! Such an idea would be foreign to Paul. It’s possible that certain manuscripts came from scribes who, for whatever reason, felt it necessary to make it crystal clear that God is the active party.
The Greek for “all things,” panta, means… all things! Paul doesn’t qualify whether he means good things or bad things. Simply all things–everything is ordained of God. This includes both what appears “good” to us, and what appears “bad.” Of course, what we consider good and what God considers good may be two very different things, which is why we should be very careful not to qualify this statement. Often we want to shield God from culpability for “bad” things that happen; but these are only bad by our own finite understanding. God not only sees the beginning and the end, he ordains in accordance with His sovereign plan.
And God is working these things for the good of those who love Him and are called of Him, i.e., the church, His people. I find this to be an amazing thought. Everything that happens, whether here or anywhere in the world, God is behind it for the purpose of bringing about good for His people. God’s primary concern is for those who are His. This may seem “unfair,” but let’s not forget that we are saved by God’s grace and mercy, not because God owed us anything. We all deserve hell, so if we wanted fairness, that’s what we’d get! An often neglected idea, common in the Old Testament, is that of God blessing “the nations” through His people. While unbelievers don’t benefit from God’s saving grace, they do benefit from the presence of the church. In Old Testament times, God would promise to bless those who bless His people, and curse those who curse His people; I believe the same holds true today with regard to the church. God will bless nations that bless the church–not with saving grace, but His grace operating through the church. However, nations that curse the church, or that seek to undermine the church, will receive quite the opposite kind of attention.
Verses 29 and 30 constitute what is known as “The Golden Chain of Redemption.” In a nutshell, this both qualifies to whom “those who are called” in verse 28 refers, and this is also the promise of God to everyone who believes. We should note that this is a chain, with each link in the chain following from the last. Those whom he foreknew are the same as those whom he predestined, and these are the same as those he called, and so on. The phrasing of the Greek intentionally reads this way.
The verb “foreknown” can be used with reference to knowing in advance something that is going to happen (the Greek is proginôskô). However, when used in this sense, both in Greek and English, the object of knowledge is an event, or an action, not a person. Biblically speaking, when this verb is used of a person, it is in the sense of intimate knowledge. Abraham knew Sarah, and they had children. Adam knew Eve. God knew us, His people, and he knew us in advance, before we were born–before time itself. This is not saying that God saved us based on His knowledge of whether or not we would choose Him, or what kind of lives we would lead, though it’s true that He knew these things. Rather, He chose us, not for the decisions we would make, but because of His love for us and His sovereign plan for our lives and history as a whole.
These people God foreknew, He predestined, and He did so with a purpose: to be conformed to this image of His son. It’s possible Paul has in mind Adam’s creation in His own image, an image that was marred in the Fall. God is not conforming us to the image of fallen Adam. He’s not even conforming us to the image of pre-Fall Adam. Rather, He is conforming us to the image of the Second Adam: Christ, a better Adam! And this is so Christ can be the “firstborn” among many brethren. I think “firstborn” here is in the sense of preeminence, not “first out of the womb.” Christ is our model, the one to whom we look and whose life we strive to imitate. Some might argue this is not talking about predestining to salvation since Paul didn’t say that. But it seems logical that being conformed to the image of Christ would be the goal of none but the believer. Non-Christians do not aspire to Christ-likeness.
Paul continues in verse 30: the predestined are also called, the called are justified–a topic that has been on Paul’s mind for much of the last seven chapters–and the justified are glorified–a topic he touched on in the previous section.
A couple of final notes. First, notice that while Paul speaks of “those whom,” this is not “group salvation.” That is to say, Paul does not have in mind the idea that God elects the church, but it is up to each individual whether they are a part of the church. By analogy, this idea would be like saying all American citizens can vote in the upcoming presidential elections, but it is up to you whether you become or remain an American citizen. Rather, I think Paul has made it quite clear that the “those who” are made up of individuals whom God has personally foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. This is evident from the fact that in verse 27 the Spirit searches the hearts of those who are God’s people, which indicates that God is concerned with one’s personal relationship to Him, not just in one’s group affiliation. Further, as we saw, God is conforming us, individually, into the image of His son. As Christ is an individual, so God’s work in this regard is on the individual and personal level.
Finally, notice that the verbs in verses 29 and 30 are all past tense (the Greek aorist tense, which can indicate simple past action, or just a completed action). Our tendency is to look at a list like this and think of it in temporal terms, as if this is the order in which God acts in our lives. But just like the ordo salutis, or “order of salvation” we looked at some months ago, this is not how God sees it. To Him who is outside of time–indeed, who created time–our calling, justification, and glorification are a done deal. I think here, Paul is looking at this from God’s viewpoint: we are experiencing the activity of God in our lives in time, but to God, it is finished.
Next week we hope to finish up chapter 8, looking at what is no doubt the grand finale conclusion to Paul’s inspired thoughts in the preceding chapters.
