Romans 8:28-30, Those Who Love God

Paul

²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. [They are called not in the general sense of “many are called, but few are chosen,” but in the sense of the effectual calling which is the work of the Spirit. He convicts us of our sin and misery unto repentance, enlightens our minds and our wills in the knowledge of Christ, and persuades us to embrace Jesus, who is freely offered in the gospel.] ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined [when God takes knowledge of a person he sets his choice on them] to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [The new creation members are conformed to the image of Christ who is the image of God. This is the fulfilling of Genesis 1:26] ³⁰ 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 glorifying of God’s people is the climax of the argument and of God’s purposes. It involves the complete conformity to the image of Christ. “This is the purpose of God’s gracious predestination—the creation of a new race sharing and displaying the Creator’s glory. The successive stages in the accomplishment are set out clause by clause. The foreknowing and foreordaining belong to God’s eternal counsel; the calling and the justifying have taken place in his people’s experience; but the glory, so far as their experience is concerned, lies in the future.” Why does Paul use the past, completed tense? Because their glory has been determined from all eternity and cannot be changed. Sanctification is glory begun; glory is sanctification consummated. Once sanctification begins, it cannot be stopped.]

This is Wright’s translation of 8:28-30:

²⁸ We know, in fact, that God works all things together for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ Those he foreknew, you see, he also marked out in advance to be shaped according to the model of the image of his son, so that he might be the firstborn of a large family. ³⁰ And those he marked out in advance, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

In the past, Wright thought verse 28 said that the multiple disparate elements of life would sort themselves out, under God’s benevolent guiding, like a sort of automatic jigsaw puzzle. It might look chaotic now, but a happy picture would emerge from it all.

Instead, he now understands verse 28 to say that God works not just for those who love him; he works with those who love him. God is collaborating with those who love him. God is our collaborator. God works with and through those who love him. “Those who love God” is a standard designation for Israel. For Paul it now means all Jesus-followers. Literally, verse 28 could read: “We know that with those who love God he collaborates for good.” This verse is about how God works with Paul (and all Jesus-followers) and how Paul (and all Jesus-followers) works with God, for the wider work of the gospel.

Paul’s point is that Spirit-led God-lovers are assured that God is at work with them, and therefore through them. God’s ultimate will—here simply “the good”—is set forward by God’s sovereign action, taking up within itself the active groaning of his image-bearing people. Salvation is not simply God’s gift to his people, it is God’s gift through his people to the wider world. We too are in the salvation business.

When God reaches out with the gospel and calls someone, this is not simply a synonym for “conversion.” It is God’s call for a purpose to collaborate with him. God articulated that purpose from the start with the call of Abraham, through whom God would bless all nations. God called Israel for a purpose; and in the Messiah and by the Spirit he has fulfilled and is fulfilling that purpose. Israel is called into being for the larger purposes already indicated in the promises to Abraham. Israel is to be the means of bringing God’s rescue operation to humans and to the whole creation. God too called Paul. Many Christians have seen his Damascus road experience as the moment when Paul was “saved”; yet Paul saw it primarily as the moment when he was sent by God to the world.

We can know that God is working all things for good with and through those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. Of course, it doesn’t look like that on the ground. What Jesus’ followers in Rome and elsewhere mostly saw was danger, suffering, wordless lament, tragic disunity. Paul assures them, and us, that God’s purpose is going ahead precisely through this faithful and prayerful witness.

Paul explains this in verse 29. God knew in advance, the people he was going to shape according to the model of his son, so he could work through them in this way. The Spirit is given so that Jesus-believers may become Jesus-lookalikes, sharing his status as the people who inherit the promises. They are to reflect Jesus in the world.

Paul lets us know that there is no stopping God (verse 30): “Those he marked out he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Those who believe, having responded in faith to the “call” which turns out to have been planned by God long ago, are declared to be “in the right.” That does not simply mean that their sins are forgiven for ever, though they are. It means that they can hold their heads up, now in their rat-ridden apartments on the wrong side of Rome’s polluted River Tiber, or in the slaves’ quarters at the back of some great house, or camping out in a ditch somewhere, having been kicked out of a home or town. They can be assured that they are the true people of the one creator God; that this God is working his purposes out, that one day at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.