Sometimes when I’m watching suspenseful TV shows and something shocking happens in the middle it gets really hard to watch. For example if the drama is set up in such a way that it seems like one of the major characters has had something really catastrophic happen to them. This is deliberate of course. The writers want you to be concerned and afraid; that’s part of the dramatic effect. I wonder if I really enjoy those parts of the show. If it’s on a DVD or I’m streaming I sometimes will look at the clock-counter to see how much longer I’m going to have to suffer, reassuring myself that the show will eventually be over and the plot complications resolved. And I often have to remind myself – reassure myself really – that this character can’t die or get fired or quit, because they are essential to the plot line. The show couldn’t go on without them. You know that somehow it’s all going to work out because you know the character is in next week’s episode. So I am able to endure the uncertainty of the moment because I know in the end it’s all going to be OK.
Have you ever had that experience? From watching a TV show or maybe from reading a book? What about in real life? The same thing happens in real life doesn’t it? We find ourselves in some uncomfortable position and we endure it by thinking about what it will be like after it’s over. I experienced that quite a bit when I was in the Navy. One of the major topics of conversation of the guys who were my shipmates was how great it was going to be when our tour of duty was over and we got to go to our next duty station. Or home. It was always going to be great. And somehow dreaming about the good things we believed would happen in the future made it easier to endure the suffering that was happening right now.
This week we’re going to go back to Paul’s letter to the Romans. We’re still working our way through Chapter 8 and at the rate we are going we should have it pretty well covered by New Years. That’s supposed to be funny. I will grant that we are working our way through the chapter slowly, but that’s because there is so much to learn from these few verses of scripture.
For example, there have been whole volumes written trying to come to terms with the concepts that are presented in the three verses we are going to look at today. Because these verses touch on two topics that are the most debated and controversial in all of Christian doctrine: Providence and Predestination. It is entirely accurate to point out that wars have been fought, kingdoms toppled, and tens of thousands of people killed defending or trying to promote their own ideas about these concepts. I think that in itself is a tragedy. It is one of those things that non-believers point to when they try to dismiss the Christian faith. “How can they say that they are following Jesus’ commandment to love,” they rightly ask, “when they are busy killing each other over theological niceties?” This is not the way to draw people to God.
Let’s go ahead and read the text, and then we’ll talk about some of the ways it has been controversial, and how we might make some sense of it from a Reformed, or Presbyterian, or Calvinist perspective:
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30 NIV).
There is an old maxim that has been attributed to St. Augustine in the 5th century that goes, “In the essentials, unity. In the non-essentials, liberty. In all things, love.” I think this is a good way to approach differences of opinion with our Christian brothers and sisters who believe differently than we do. We do not surrender any truth, but we approach what we believe to be error with the attitude of Christ. I’m pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t burn anybody at the stake.
Now what are we looking at here? It seems to me that we could rephrase the whole thing in one sentence: God makes all things work for good for those who love him, because he has chosen them to love him. Even stating it in this simple way, it must seem unbelievable.
I’m going to spend the next few minutes looking at two things: Providence, the idea of all things working for good, and Election or Predestination, the idea that God choses some and not others to receive his special blessing. Again, I am going to approach these topics from a Reformed perspective because I believe that perspective to be more biblically sound, and because we are a Reformed congregation, but along the way I am not going to disparage anyone who differs with this interpretation.
Let’s look at the first part, “…in all things God works for the good of those who love him….” (Ro. 8:28 NIV). Can this really be true? Isn’t this saying that if I love God I won’t experience hardship and suffering? Doesn’t this seem like the philosophy of one of those New Age prosperity groups who put forward the idea that if you just imagine good things happening they will happen?
I have to say that if that was what was being said here by Paul, that I would have to agree that it was a bald-faced lie. Did you ever think about what that means? Why do you think a bald-faced lie is worse than a regular lie? Well anyway if that was the worst kind of lie there is, this would be one. And we all know it. We all suffer and experience hardship, probably on a daily basis. And we also experience blessings. We are generally healthy and prosperous and surrounded by those who love us. But this is not so because we love God. Lots of people who deny God experience these things.
We don’t suffer because we don’t love God, and we don’t prosper because we do. Just think if that was true we could just work our way into the right frame of mind – loving God (whatever that means) – and we’d never have to suffer and we’d always have everything we want. That would make things a lot easier and more pleasant wouldn’t it? But, for whatever reason, that would not serve God’s purposes. And of course what God intends is supreme: it will happen. God is absolutely sovereign.
And so we have to conclude that whatever Paul is saying in verse 28, it is not that we won’t suffer and will prosper if we love God. I think the first thing we have to settle is what Paul means by “good”. And I won’t claim that I have the definitive answer but I do think we have to consider that what God considers to be good goes beyond what we can experience in the present moment. Let’s look at a really good biblical example of this, in the Book of Genesis and the story of Joseph.
Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob who was renamed Israel. So the twelve children of Jacob were the fathers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. You all remember that Israel was the people chosen by God to be his coworkers in reversing the curse of Adam and Eve and building a new kingdom of God.
The story of Joseph starts in chapter 37 of Genesis. The first thing we learn is that Joseph was a young and handsome man. He was seventeen when the story begins. Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons because he had been born to him in his old age, and he demonstrated this by making Joseph an ornate robe. This made Joseph’s brothers jealous. Joseph had two dreams that seemed to suggest that at some point Jacob and Joseph’s mother and all of his brothers would bow down to him, and that he would rule over them. Joseph’s father rebuked him for this, and his brothers hated him,
The animosity between Joseph and his brothers became so great that when the brothers had the opportunity they decided to kill him and they threw him into the bottom of a well. But at the last minute, rather than killing him, the appearance of a caravan going down to Egypt gave them the opportunity to sell Joseph into slavery. Once the caravan arrived in Egypt Joseph was sold to Potiphar, who was captain of the Pharaoh’s guard.
Joseph was a good servant to Potiphar and eventually Potiphar put him in charge of his whole household. But because Joseph was young and good looking he had some trouble with Potiphar’s wife. She tried to seduce him. Joseph refused to be unfaithful to Potiphar and to God, but this made Potiphar’s wife angry and she falsely accused him of trying to rape her. In reality it was the other way around, but the upshot of it was that Joseph ended up in prison.
The rest of the story is one of those complicated Old Testament tales, but as time goes by Joseph is delivered from Prison by using the gift of interpreting dreams God has given him, and eventually he ends up in charge of all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself. After this the entire region, including Egypt and Canaan, the land where Jacob and his sons lived, experienced a terrible famine. Joseph was wise enough to have stored enough grain in Egypt for the people to survive, and because of that people came from the surrounding countries to try to trade for grain.
Jacob sent his sons down to Egypt to buy grain, and it is there that they once again encounter Joseph, although they do not recognize him. Through another complex series of events Joseph manipulates the situation such that eventually he is able to bring his father and all of his brothers to Egypt. There he cares for them through the rest of the famine. When his father Jacob dies in Egypt the brothers are afraid that Joseph will exact vengeance, and they all bow down before him (just like in the original dream that Joseph had) and say, “We are your slaves.” (Gen. 50:18 NIV). And then we read this in the last chapter of Genesis:
19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. (Gen. 50:19-21 NIV).
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” Let’s look at this story and see how it fits with what we read in Romans about all things working for good for those who love God. If something like this happened in today’s society, Joseph’s brothers would have all gone to jail for kidnapping and human trafficking. And this would be no small offense; we’re talking about spending decades in prison. And although there wasn’t any state to enforce laws against such things in Canaan where Jacob and his family lived at the time, the offense was little less serious then. Otherwise why would the brothers have been so guilt ridden even years later when Jacob sent them down to Egypt?
And this could not have been a pleasant experience for Joseph either. Think of it. He is the youngest and favorite son. He trusts his brothers, but they take away his prized robe and throw him in a well leaving him to die. Then later they come back and sell him into slavery. He is falsely accused of rape and ends up in prison. I don’t know about you, but if all of this happened to me I’d start to wonder what God had against me. What could I possibly have done so wrong to deserve this calamity after calamity?
There was nothing good about this situation. On the one side you had malice, jealousy, and hatred; and on the other you had undeserved suffering and calamity. I doubt that when Joseph was in the well waiting to die, or when he was in Pharaoh’s prison, he was thinking, “Well, I’m sure something good is going to come from all this.” He could not have seen the good that God was arranging.
And yet, years later when he is able to save his father and brothers and their families, Joseph was able to recognize that all of the suffering and hardship that had befallen him had worked together for the greater good: the salvation of his loved ones. And even then, Joseph could not have seen that this was just one episode in the bigger story of the redemption of the whole world.
Because of the circumstances Joseph had been forced to endure he was able to preserve the children of God’s promise to Abraham, the ancestors of those chosen by God to be coworkers with him in reversing the curse of Adam and Eve and builders of God’s new kingdom of righteousness, justice, and love. Our own ancestors in the faith. How could Joseph have seen that through his suffering he was to play a crucial role in God’s overall plan of salvation? Even if someone had told him, he would probably have thought it was all a lie. And in this I doubt if he was that different from us. He must have thought to whole thing unfair. But we know now, in retrospect, that this was God’s Providence; God working to arrange all things for good for those who love him.
And here I think we can catch a glimpse of the second part of Paul’s verses in Romans: the idea of “Election,” or “Predestination.” Joseph must have spent his whole life asking “why me?” At first it was “why have I been chosen to endure all of this undeserved suffering and injustice?” Later, it had to be, “why was I chosen to rule over Egypt and bring about the salvation of my people?” And in either case I’m sure he would not have been able to come up with a satisfactory answer. Even now, when we can see so much more than Joseph had been able to see, how could we state with any certainty why it was Joseph who was chosen and not one of the other brothers, or someone else entirely? We cannot. It is beyond our reckoning.
But we can say with certainty that God does choose those he wants to do his work of salvation. He does it not because of any attribute that we know of in those who are chosen. If we look through the Bible at those God chose to do his work, we find an amazing array of rogues. We see cheaters, liars, murderers, adulterers, prostitutes, foreigners, tax collectors and sinners rising up to accomplish God’s purposes. These are not the ones we would expect. If we were writing the story don’t you think we would make Pharaoh the major character instead of some shepherd from the middle of nowhere who had the misfortune to be sold into slavery by his jealous brothers? And don’t you think we’d make those brothers come to some unhappy ending for their crimes, instead of making them the revered patriarchs of God’s chosen people?
Now let me just drift away from our main topic here to briefly address this issue of Election or Predestination. Look at the diagram and look at the first item on the list Election. The two basic ideas about how people come to be among the Elect (chosen) are referred to as Predestination and Prevenient Grace. Prevenient grace holds that God makes his salvation available to all people indiscriminately, and that some chose to take advantage of the offer of grace and others do not. The Calvinist or Reformed idea that is more in keeping with the traditions of the Presbyterian denomination holds that God is absolutely sovereign in his choice of who is to be saved; and that those who are saved can neither choose it nor deny it.
The first idea, Prevenient Grace, at first glance seems better. Everybody gets an even break. If you don’t take it, that’s your fault. You go to hell and it’s your own choice. The second idea seems harsher. First off, it seems to violate our ideas of equality of all people. If God has chosen some and not others that means we’re not all equal. And going beyond this is the idea that some people will spend all eternity in hell just because God capriciously chose that way. And finally, there is the idea that if my salvation is determined by God then it doesn’t matter how I behave. If I am not chosen, I can be the most pious person who ever lived and I will still go to Hell. If I am chosen, I can be the worst lying , cheating, back-stabbing, stealing, violent, self-centered, lustful sinner and I am still going to heaven. Does that sound fair?
When we get to Romans Chapter 9 we are going to look at some of the scripture that supports both sides. The main scriptural support for the idea of Prevenient Grace comes from 1 Timothy where Paul tells us God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:4). I will not argue with that statement. But as difficult as it may be to accept the witness of scripture seems to be that God doesn’t always get what he wants.
God wanted Adam and Eve to obey, but they did not. God wanted the Israelites to live according to the law, but they did not. The history of God’s relationship with people is one of God earnestly desiring his people to do one thing for their own good, and people rebelliously choosing to do another to their destruction. In his infinite love, scripture tells us from first to last that God wants everyone to be in full communion with him. He wants it so badly that he sent his son to die to make it possible. But when we look around us in the world, I think we have to agree that there are many who have no relationship with God. So we have to admit that it looks like God doesn’t get what he wants.
The biggest problem with the idea of prevenient grace is that it takes away God’s sovereignty. It puts the choice of salvation in the hands of people rather than God. This may sound liberating but it is not supported in scripture. Scripture tells us in various places that those who are chosen are chosen by the sovereign will of God and no other reason. In Chapter 11 of the gospel according to John we read about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Did Lazarus ask to be raised from the dead? How could he? He was dead! Was there no one else in Palestine that died that Jesus could have chosen to raise? I’m sure there were plenty. But out of all of those, Jesus chose Lazarus. Why? I don’t know. Ask Jesus. I don’t know why he did it, but I know he did it. Jesus chose, not Lazarus. Lazarus was incapable of choosing.
On the other side, the objections to God’s sovereign choice are not founded in scripture. The idea that if I have been chosen I can sin in any way I want to and still go to heaven is refuted by a number of scriptures including the chapters in Romans we have been looking at where we have noted that if we are living according to the Spirit we will grow to become more and more Christ-like, the process called sanctification. If I am truly chosen, though I am still capable of sinning, I will more and more choose not to sin because it grieves the Spirit and causes me too much pain.
Secondly, and I think this is the greater objection, how can God just choose to indiscriminately send people to hell? What kind of a loving God is that? This idea brings up the picture of someone standing before the judgment throne pleading for one last chance to repent and God saying, “Nope. Sorry. It’s too late.” And the miserable creature falls through the sky to land in Hell forever.
We can talk on a different day about what Hell is. We can talk on a different day about whether we can hold God to our standards of justice, and how God might go about choosing who is among the Elect and who is not. But let me assure you right now that no one who desires God will ever miss him. No one who desires heaven will miss it. Because if you desire God, that is a desire that God gave you. God chose you to desire him, just like Jesus chose Lazarus.
Look around at those people who do not live as if they were among the Elect and you will notice that they have no desire for God. Ask them. Say to them, “God has a plan where you can live at perfect peace and freedom forever in intimate communion with him.” We have a duty to say that, both in word and deed, to the whole world. How do people respond? Some will jump at the chance, but others will be repelled by the message. “What? Are you nuts? What kind of medieval nonsense is that? I don’t want peace and freedom I want cash!”
Paul tells us in the first letter to the Corinthians, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18 NIV). Even though at first glance it seems to violate our own notions of justice, in the end the doctrine of God’s sovereign choice is both more logical and better supported in scripture. If you desire God, God desires you even more. As C.S. Lewis writes:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.
So I think the best evidence indicates that our election is entirely in the hands of God. But having said that, I will note that there are many who disagree completely with this idea. I am called to love them with the same love that Jesus showed to us. In the end none of us can know the mind of God. But when we are enjoying God forever, we will not be bothered about who was right about election.
Going back to our main topic of God making all things work for good for those who love him, we can’t deny that God is bring all things together for good just because we are suffering. The story of Joseph shows us that even though we may experience what seems to be injustice and undeserved suffering, God has a bigger plan that we can’t see. God knows the end of the story. We each are chosen to play our own part in it. Sometimes it’s confusing. Sometimes it hurts. But God knows the end of the story, and the end is good, for us, and for everyone.
Remember at the beginning of the message today I talked about how sometimes we are in the middle of a TV show and it seems that things are not going well but we are able to endure the drama because we know in the end it’s all going to be OK? It is the same in our lives. We may suffer and hurt, but we know in the end it’s going to be OK. God is the author of happy endings. He has promised us a happy ending. Go and read the last two chapters of the Bible, and you’ll see what God has in store for us. It is so amazingly good.
Let us pray. This prayer is from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
“I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:14-19 NIV).
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