START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Romans 8:26-39
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OBSERVE:
Romans 8 climaxes in a theological and spiritual tour de force. These verses in the lectionary reading for this week are theologically deep and rich, relating to prayer, God’s providential plan for those who are called, God’s benevolence expressed through Christ, and the impossibility that those who love Christ can be separated from him.
The Apostle Paul continues to explore the work of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, with whom he began this meditation in Romans 8:1. Here, he describes the work of the Spirit in aiding the prayer of the believer. Paul acknowledges the inefficacy of human prayer:
In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought.
We are finite, fallible, and weak. The Spirit is God, who projects his infinite, infallible and omnipotent nature onto our prayers.
Not only that, the Spirit is deeply concerned for us, and cries out to the Father on our behalf:
But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered.
This language suggests a deep concern and compassion on behalf of those who are too weak to know how they ought to pray. The Greek verb stenagmois (groaning, or sighing) is used three times in Romans 8. First, the groaning of a suffering creation that awaits the final consummation at the end of the age (Romans 8:22). Second, the groaning of those who have experienced the first fruits of the Spirit, but who are still awaiting the final act of adoption, the redemption of our body (Romans 8:23). In the third use of this verb, the Spirit is groaning on our behalf in a way that brings his prayers to completion.
And the reason the Holy Spirit is able to pray effectively is because of his intimate knowledge of our hearts:
He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God.
The mind of the Spirit is able to penetrate our minds and know our thoughts, and through the Spirit these thoughts are conveyed to God. This is a good, working definition of God’s omniscience.
In the second section of this complex passage, Paul addresses the subject of God’s providential plan for those whom he has called. Ultimately, God’s plan is to bring good out of all circumstances for his people:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
Paul elaborates on what it means to be called, in a passage that has become very controversial for Calvinists and Arminians:
For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.
Volumes could be written — and have been written — on these verses. Paul is venturing into the mysteries of God’s omniscience. God foreknew those who were called to be justified and glorified. For the Calvinist, this suggests that those who are to be saved have been elect from the very beginning. All of the benefits of salvation are given to them.
The Arminian would argue that this passage must be taken in context with all of the other passages related to salvation — that God loves the whole world (John 3:16); and that those who are not saved have chosen that because of their unbelief, not because God has predestined their damnation:
He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God (John 3:18).
And we also have the witness of other texts that express God’s desire that as many as possible might be saved:
The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
Paul doesn’t argue here that the damned have been pre-selected for rejection. Instead, he is speaking positively about the blessings that accrue to those who have been foreknown by God. God’s omniscience obviously transcends time and space, therefore he knows those who are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, justified and glorified with him.
This is a strong affirmation that those who are saved are to become like Christ himself! The image of God in which we were created, severely damaged in the Fall, is restored. And as Paul has said earlier in Romans 8, believers are to be co-heirs with Christ — and therefore Christ is the firstborn among many brothers. We note again that the imagery used to describe the relationship of the Triune God with believers is familial.
Paul then turns to God’s benevolence expressed through Christ toward us. He begins with a series of rhetorical questions which he answers himself in the form of a question:
What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
The logic of Paul’s argument is unassailable — if the omnipotent, almighty Creator of the universe is for us, there is nothing stronger or greater. And if this same God offered his own Son on our behalf, then all of the inheritance that he has promised will be ours as well.
The chosen ones are also acquitted of all “legal” charges made by the law, because God has justified them through Christ’s atoning death:
Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies.
And, in another question that requires a positive twist, Paul writes:
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
No one can condemn the believer because the death and resurrection of Jesus has delivered the believer from the power of sin. Here Paul sums up the victorious doctrine of Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension. And he also underlines the ongoing ministry of Jesus as High Priest, who intercedes even now. This is consistent also with the doctrine of the Book of Hebrews:
Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make intercession for them. For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens (Hebrews 7:25-26).
This is full circle. The Holy Spirit intercedes with groans too deep for words, and the Son of God also intercedes. The Second and Third Persons of the Trinity join in intercession for us!
Finally, Romans 8 ends on a climactic note. Paul stresses the impossibility that those who love Christ can be separated from him. In lyrical, poetic, sweeping language, he makes it clear that no suffering or persecution of any kind can ever ultimately separate us from the love of Christ:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Embedded in this litany of those threats that are unable to separate us from God’s love is a Scriptural reference — a proof text, if you will — from Psalm 44:22:
Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Paul is a realist about human suffering, even for believers — he has his own experience for witness. But despite all the suffering, and even despite those cosmic and supernatural forces — angels, principalities and powers (which relates to those supernatural angelic forces of the highest order) — God’s love in Christ Jesus will not be torn away by those forces.
APPLY:
The applications of a passage like our lectionary reading for this week are like a kid in a candy store. Where do we begin?
First, there is inestimable comfort in Paul’s description of the intercessions of the Holy Spirit on our behalf. We can honestly say that we don’t know how to pray as we should — we don’t know what is best in some cases, or we don’t know what all the circumstances may be. But the Holy Spirit is God! Not only does he know our minds, he knows the mind of God as well! Who better to intercede for us?
And the description that he intercedes for us with groanings which can’t be uttered tells us that he intercedes for us with deep passion and compassion. Moreover, we are also told that when Jesus ascended to the right hand of God, he:
also makes intercession for us.
When we don’t know how to pray, or for what we should pray, we can be comforted by the knowledge that the Second and Third Persons of the Triune God are on our side, praying for us constantly.
Second, we can also take comfort in the acclamation that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. Again, this is of inestimable value to those who may go through adversity, and even tragedy. God can take tough circumstances and bring good out of those circumstances. Paul will underline this powerful claim in further assertions:
If God is for us, who can be against us?
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Third, while I don’t intend to duck some of the theological questions raised by Paul’s description of predestination, I wish to point out the obvious. Paul never states the so-called doctrine of “double-predestination,” which is the logical argument — if God has elected some to salvation, then logically he has elected others to reprobation.
What Paul is focused on in this passage is the glorious and dynamic process of salvation that begins and ends with the grace of God:
For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.
To argue that God doesn’t know who will be saved would be a denial of his infinitude and omniscience. But to argue that he chooses some and not others is to argue that God is arbitrary and capricious. Paul declares that nothing can separate us from God’s love. But it may be possible that we may separate ourselves from God by not returning his love.
RESPOND:
I’m reluctant to focus on a controversial subject when writing about such a magnificent passage — however, I’m also aware that the controversy about predestination and free will never quite go away.
I have two very good friends who regard themselves as Calvinists, which means they believe in the doctrine of predestination. I am an Arminian Wesleyan, which means that I believe that by his grace God has granted us free will.
We have gotten into some very emphatic — but I’m pleased to say still charitable — debates. I have tried to avoid what I call “Bible Battleships,” where both parties find their own proof-texts and start blasting away at one another. But it is difficult, I admit.
Predestination is a fact in Scripture — the notion that God knows and has foreordained all things. I think that for me, the simplest explanation of this is that God is infinite and eternal — which means that God transcends time and space. He sees all time as present, in contrast to our own view. We can only see time from our finite perspective — beginning, middle and end. God is the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:6).
But the word for predestination is curious. It comes from the Greek proorizo. Although my Greek is very rusty, I am able to figure out that the root of this word is horizo, which gives us our word horizon.
So, I have developed my own theory concerning predestination, which is entirely my own. There are tensions and paradoxes in the ways of God. God knows the outcome of history, and directs our paths; and yet, allows us to make free choices, and doesn’t compel us to love him. What if God has foreordained the horizons of history — those great events of salvation history that lead us to the saving events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and on to the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven? God sees the horizons of history, and all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
So, those who love God cannot be separated from God — but if they don’t love God, can they be separated? I think that Paul gives his own answer a little later in Romans, and also amplified in Ephesians, when he speaks of his love for his own people, the Jews. He makes it clear that the Jews are God’s chosen people. Perhaps that is what he means by predestination — they were predestined to be the nation through whom salvation comes in Jesus. But he also says there is hope for the Gentiles, who were not part of the original covenant.
He uses a rather complicated metaphor — comparing Israel to the original olive tree chosen by God. But he also points out that God has allowed even the Gentiles to be grafted into the tree. The only condition for that is faith. Let me re-emphasize that. The only condition to be included in the covenant for both Jews and Gentiles is faith! For individuals, what is required to be included in God’s great plan of salvation, is faith:
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.” True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear; for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you (Romans 11:17-21).
Though God knows our destinies, nonetheless we are free within his gracious will to choose to be grafted in, or cut off, because of our unbelief.
I wonder if it is a little like a play. There is a plot, and the character who is consistently present — God, who manifests himself throughout the plot as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The plot of the play is working its way out toward its glorious conclusion in the Final Act — but we also have a part to play.
But what if we choose not to play the part we’re assigned? What if we don’t rehearse, or we mess up our lines, or we just don’t show up? Can we interfere with the overall plot that God, the playwright and director, has planned? No way!
If we don’t play our part, God will find other actors to fulfill that role.
Again, this is my own speculation — but what if it was God’s original will for Israel to enter immediately into Canaan after the Exodus from Egypt instead of wandering in the Sinai desert for forty years? They might have gone on in if 10 out of 12 of the spies hadn’t scared all of Israel away! And if King Saul had been obedient to the Prophet Samuel, would he have gone mad and squandered away the throne, meaning that David replaced him as God’s anointed? And what if the rich young man had decided to forsake his wealth and follow Jesus — how might his own life have been different? We know that Jesus loved him, and was saddened when he turned away.
Again, the individual refusals and disobedience would not ultimately affect the overall plot that God has planned — remember, God makes all things work together for good for those who love God — no matter how we mar them.
To quote Shakespeare (another playwright), when Hamlet says to his friend Horatio:
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will—
I believe that is true. God works patiently and deliberately throughout history to bring his plans to fulfillment — no matter how messy our lives and history may become.
PHOTOS:
"Predestination, foreknowledge, and free choice" by Martin LaBar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.
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