NOTE: This is an unedited transcript and, therefore, contains imperfections and is not for publication or quotation in whole or in part by anyone without the express written consent of Pastor Conley. The audio tape of this message is available and may be purchased from the Church.
The Unbreakable Chain Of Saving Events
Romans 8:28-30
Dr. J. Drew Conley, Pastor
Tri-City Baptist Church, Columbia, South Carolina
This morning we looked at Romans 8:28 where God guarantees us that "all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." The verses we look at tonight will explain to us how God can make that kind of guarantee and define for us what Paul means when he refers to being "called according to His (God's) purpose." In the earlier chapters, notably in chapter 4, Paul has given to us a thorough argument for faith alone in Christ alone — that we have to put our trust in Jesus Christ alone to be saved. In this particular passage, this chain of saving events, he makes no mention of faith. Why? I believe it is because Paul is talking about absolute guarantees. In other words, you have to focus on God and what God does if you want something to be absolute. Man is too frail, man is to fickle. I remember when Reuben Ewert said in replying to someone who had asked him if he were sincere when he had trusted in Christ, he screwed up his face and said, "I don't know. How do you measure that? Was I absolutely sincere when I did that?" You know that just about everything we do has some ulterior motive tainting it even when we are doing our best — that is the way of man. So if I want some guarantee of my salvation, that having embarked on this relationship to God that is going to continue right on to God's intended goal, I want to know that God is the guarantor of that, and that it doesn't depend on me.
It is not to say that we are not to conform our lives to the commands of Scripture, but it takes more than that for me to be secure. Remember in chapter 7 where Paul talked about our relationship to the law, he said, Look, no matter how much you bring your will to bear, you cannot make yourself keep the law perfectly. Just as no one is saved by keeping the law (keeping the commands, by doing right
always) because nobody can do that, so no one is sanctified (no one makes it all the way to glory) by keeping the law. Have you sinned this week? I have. Now if my salvation depends on me, I am in trouble. God is the guarantor, and that is what Peter says in I Peter 1, "We are kept (guarded, we are carefully secured) by the power of God unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." In other words, while I am saved now, I have not received the full benefit of my salvation.
Listen, if this life is all there is to salvation, it is not enough, and God doesn't intend for this to be all there is to salvation. One thing to note when you are sharing the gospel, this is something people need to understand. When God saves you, he doesn't free you from all the problems this life involves. In fact, sometimes the problems get worse. Let us not be hawking a gospel that is health and wealth and that kind of thing, let us give the gospel the Scripture teaches, and that is that salvation gets better and better — that we receive a portion of it now, but it will be finally fulfilled in glory when we receive not only a heavenly home, but we receive our glorified bodies and are totally free from the power and the last taint of sin and all the destruction it brings in our lives.
Verses 28 through 30 of Romans 8 are going to focus on the work of God in our salvation, and even there Paul does not give us a list of all of the steps involved in a person's experience of being saved. He gives us only five significant actions that God takes on behalf of Christians to guarantee their complete salvation — to assure us that all things will indeed, as He promises in verse 28, cooperate and work together for their eternal and perfect good. The old commentator, Robert Haldane, put it this way, "Paul wants the Roman Christians to understand that their salvation is not left in their own keeping — that God has taken the whole matter upon Himself. There is no room then for chance or change. He will perfect that which concerns them."
Now as Paul lays out for us these supreme reasons for absolute security in Christ, he is going to move from what God has done in eternity past all the way to what God will do in eternity future, and in the middle portion he will dip into time — the part that we actually experience ourselves. What did God do in the past? [The first word in verse 29 "For" tells me this verse explains how He can make the promise in verse 28 — that all things work together for good.] "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn (that Christ Jesus His Son might be the firstborn) among many brethren."
So the first action God took in our salvation is to guarantee that once Christ has laid hold of us — once we are believers — that we know He will take us to the end. It says, Look, way back, way back before you ever were, God foreknew you. What does foreknow mean? It is very simple, it means "to know beforehand." Acts 26:5 uses this word when Paul is before Agrippa and says, the Jews "which knew me from the beginning (very literally, which foreknew me from the beginning — which knew me before) if they would testify, that after the most straitest (exact) sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee." Obviously there is not a great theological significance to the word here, it is just that they knew this before.
In 2 Peter 3:17, "Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know (and the translator supplies) these things before (and he has been talking about false teachers and the fact that they lead people astray), beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked (the lawless — those who would teach you to disobey God — beware lest ye) fall from your own steadfastness." Now, "Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before" (foreknew — you have known this already), how is it that we can say that our salvation is first of all guaranteed because God foreknew us (knew us before), didn't God know everybody before? Yes. Do not some people end up going to Hell (to the Lake of Fire) at the end of the age? Yes. Obviously there is something more going on here than just the fact that God was aware of us. Right? Because God foreknew everybody in the sense of just the simple meaning of "knowing beforehand." God knows everything from the beginning to the end. So this knowledge must be something more than just what omniscience (all knowingness) would make possible. (By the way, after this first point I hope to just escape from the theological debate and focus on getting a blessing, and I am going to try to get a blessing even out of the first point.)
There are two main explanations of what foreknow means: Given the fact that it has to be more than just God knew us ahead of time, because God knew everybody ahead of time which would mean everybody would be saved, but we know everybody is not saved. Some define this foreknowledge as an awareness beforehand of who would place faith in Christ. In other words, God knew that these people would believe and, therefore, He then went to the next stages. The other side defines it essentially the same as choosing beforehand persons so that they would place faith in Christ. In other words, the idea taken from the more full meaning of know, "to have an intimate relationship with, to have concern for," to say that God chose these people and then they placed faith. Those are the two main divisions and men have argued for centuries over them and have called each other all kinds of nasty names for not choosing whatever side they were defending. Actually there are difficulties with both views and that is why they have been debating it for so long.
The difficulty with the first view, and that is that God knew beforehand that certain persons were going to place faith in Him and, therefore, He went on with the rest of the things (He predestinated them, etc.), is the problem that it seems to put man in the position of being the cause of his own salvation. His response of faith becomes the prime mover, and God is no longer the initiator of salvation, but instead one who is only responding to man's faith since God is above time. This gets confusing, but the fact is that it does put God in the place of responding to man as if man is the one who makes the first move, and it seems to contradict the biblical theme that runs throughout the whole Bible, that God is seeking man — not vice versa.
Faith is the condition for salvation (you must place faith in Jesus), but it is not the cause — God is. Does that make sense? We are saved because God acted. Our faith is a response, and faith in the Scripture, by the way (and this is really directed to both sides of the question, both groups that polarize here), is never presented in Scripture as a work — never. So we need to be careful if we take the other view, that we don't say that faith is some kind of work and man is working here. Faith is a response, and that is why we get tangled up in this, because here we have faith that is a response, but yet God is responding to the response to start our salvation. Faith is the opposite of works. Ephesians 2:8, 9 makes clear that salvation is by grace — that is, it is an unmerited favor bestowed by God, but that comes to us through faith. Faith is the channel, faith is the condition, but salvation is both by grace and through faith and you cannot remove one or the other. I do not earn my salvation by faith, I take it by faith — it is unearned — it is a gift — it is not of ourselves, it's the gift of God — it is not of works and, therefore, there is no boasting before God if we are in fact saved.
Now what is the difficulty with the second view? The terms in these verses foreknow and predestinate, in particular, are not just variations of the same idea. To be foreknown has a different meaning than to be predestinated, just as to be justified has a different meaning than to be glorified. If Paul were just engaging in piling on a bunch of terms that mean the same thing, what was the point? There is a distinction here. Foreknowledge is distinct from predestination, and it is also distinct from election, and the commentators (the preachers) that I hear explain this essentially give the same definition to foreknowledge as they would give to election which means "to choose somebody" — that is all election means, it means "you choose." First Peter 1:2 says, we were chosen (the word we get elect from) "according to the foreknowledge of God," so clearly foreknowledge and election are not the same thing. In fact, election is based on foreknowledge. Ephesians 1:4 tells us that God "hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." Again, there is the word elect which quite literally means "to choose out." There is a prefix on the front that means "out"— "to choose." It is a picking out of people "that we should be holy and without blame before Him." "In love" actually goes with the next verse. "In love, having predestinated us (the verb that is used there speaks of a one-time action) unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved" (very literally, "the beloved one" — Jesus Christ). We are accepted because we are in Jesus Christ.
What do those verses lay out for us? If you want to put these words in order and find some distinction among them: foreknowledge is first, then comes predestination according to Ephesians 1:4, and out of that predestination comes the election (the choosing). First, we have this word foreknowledge, whatever that means. We know it at least means "to know beforehand," but it has some kind of special meaning — a special knowing. On the basis of that, God then marked out the boundaries beforehand for us (He predestinated us — He established our destiny), and then on the basis of that, He chose us out. Aren't you glad that God was doing this, because I am not sure man could really get a hold of all of this, but this is what God said He did.
There are other verses that use the word foreknow or foreknowledge, but there are just a handful of them — a total of seven verses in the New Testament. In Acts 2:23, we are taught that Jesus was handed over to be crucified, though it was by wicked hands of men who were responsible for their actions, He was nonetheless handed over to be crucified by the determination and "foreknowledge of God." In 1 Peter 1:20 we are told that Christ "verily was foreordained (that is our word foreknown) before the foundation of the world, but was manifest (revealed) in these last times for you." Christ has a special relationship as the second person of the trinity with God. You will remember from last week that Christ said, "No one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son" (Matthew 11:27). There is a very special knowledge that God the Father and God the Son have of each other that man would never have had unless the Son came and revealed the Father and Himself to us.
Finally, besides our own text tonight, in Romans 11:2 we are told regarding the children of Israel, that God did not reject His people whom He foreknew. There seems to be a distinction drawn between those who were Jews by birth but not Jews in a sense of having received by faith the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jews who were regenerate (born-again people) and the people of God as far as their spiritual state. So Paul says, Yes, He rejected the nation, but He did not reject within that nation His people whom He foreknew. Now, what does all that mean then? What do we do with this? The meaning of know in the Scriptures is more than just an awareness, more than just an acquaintance, and clearly means more here. Often you find it references a full knowledge, an intimate knowledge, the knowledge that husband and wife have with one another — the communion they have — that oneness. It is even more than that, it is a loving knowledge. For instance, in Amos 3:2 God says to the children of Israel, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth." God knew all of the families of the earth as far as knowing about them and knowing them intimately, even, but not in the sense of pouring His love out on them, that He did for the Jewish nation in the Old Testament. Psalm 1:6 sheds light on this, "For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish." There is a parallelism there and a contrast drawn, but when you look at the two sides they do not seem to fit very well. God knows the way of the righteous, but doesn't He know the way of the wicked? No, not in the same sense as He knows the way of the righteous because the way of the wicked shall perish. What is going to happen to the way of the righteous? They are not going to perish — they have eternal life. Somehow knowing the way of the righteous ensures they will be preserved, whereas the wicked will perish and the suggestion is, therefore, that they are not known in the same way.
If you are a believer, you have a relationship with God that an unbeliever does not have. There is a special knowledge and a communion because of the reconciliation that Christ has brought. This is my best effort at it and, if this is not the conclusion you have drawn, that is fine — I may have a different conclusion a year from now, I don't know — but to foreknow has the idea of God "setting His affection on people — a divine love." I believe John talks about this when he says, "We love God (Why?) because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19) and that special love motivated everything else that came. It wasn't anything in us, it was something that came directly from God's heart and God's character. It started with God. But lest I, or anyone else, become too smug because now we have finally figured it all out, let me throw in one verse to confuse the whole issue: John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Here we have a subset of that world: "that whosoever believeth in Him" so we cannot say the world refers only to the elect — there is no way to read that verse and say the world is just the elect because there is the subset of "whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
So I will back off a little bit and put it this way: God knew — He set His affection on — believers (those who would be saved) ahead of time, in some special way that I haven't figured out, distinct from unbelievers. There is some distinction there, and I am not sure God really tells us much about it, and we will discuss why in a moment. Let me caution you. Don't let the theological debate that often rages over
the meaning of foreknowledge ruin the blessed comfort of this passage, and don't demonize those who in their effort to reconcile what this means, along with everything else in Scripture that relates to it, if they come to a different explanation from what suits you. Quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if nobody is completely right in every detail — I really wouldn't — in fact I hope it's that way just so God has the last laugh, and He usually does. I do know this, that a militant, partisan spirit is wicked, and Biblically, a hateful spirit is worse than a lack of theological knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, and love builds up. Besides, you don't have to believe in a certain definition of election to receive encouragement from these verses because you don't have to believe in a certain definition of election to be saved. The Scripture says you have to believe in Christ.
Martin Lloyd Jones, who by the way is as Calvinistic as you could hope a man to be, quotes another man of the same persuasion, Octavious Winslow, who discouraged focusing on this doctrine when you are preaching the gospel to the unsaved. Why? Because "the unsaved man needs to feel he is a lost sinner, not that he is an elect sinner." Why does God include this in the Scripture then? So we would have church splits? No, God is just giving us some insight into the otherwise hidden counsel of His activity on our behalf. So we could have a firm assurance that we are secure in Him. God foreknew us.
Secondly, we are told in verse 29, "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." Remember the illustration, what does predestinate mean? It means "to mark out the boundaries beforehand — to lay out the plans — to decide exactly what the destination will be." When you see the word predestinate just think of pre (before) and destiny or destination. Some of you had certain destinations you went to at Thanksgiving. You have laid out certain destinations for where you will be going at Christmas time, and if you had the kind of control that God has you would be sure to get there, and many of you will get there. You have predestinated yourself that you will be in New York, Tennessee, or Florida, or some other place at Christmas time — you have marked out beforehand your destination. It seems in this passage, this term predestinate is related to, or a
synonym for, the word "purpose" in verse 28. You will remember that purpose means "to set or fix beforehand." So God is working all things together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to what He has set, or fixed, beforehand. How is that? For whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate — He did mark the boundaries for, the destination for. What is that destination? To be conformed to the image of His Son. The word conform means that you are going "to have the same form" — not just superficially but inwardly as well, and the word image is the word we get "icon" from. It like a stamp or a coin.
Here is a coin with George Washington on it with "Liberty" on the top and "1992" on the bottom and on the back is an eagle with United States of America, e pluribus unum, quarter dollar. This coin is interesting because it bears the impress (the impression), or stamp, of the die that stamped the metal so it would have that picture on it. The picture on the coin is a mirror image of what the stamp (the prototype) is — that is exactly what God wants for you and me. We are to bear the impress of Christ's likeness. Not just that we are to resemble Him — it is more intimate than that — it is more exact than that. It is becoming like Christ, not in His being God or becoming divine in essence, but in taking on the attributes of Christ that we can share: attributes like love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, holiness, wisdom, patience, grace, kindness, goodness, compassion, faithfulness, mercy. These are things that God wants to press upon our characters until we look like Christ. Why did He want to do that? "That He (Christ) might be the firstborn among many brethren." That means not only that He would have priority and supremacy, but in the words of James Montgomery Boyce, "God loves Jesus so much that He is determined to have many more people like Him." We are accepted in the beloved, and God wants us to be like Jesus Christ — that is the destination that God has marked out for us ahead of time.
We have seen what God did in the past, now what about the present? This is where it enters our own personal history. This is when we begin to become aware that God is at work in our life. Verse 30, "Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." This is the third part: God called us. How do you know you are among the elect, the chosen ones? Is this something you go to pieces over and wonder about at night? How do you know you are one of those foreknown and predestined to be like Jesus? The answer rests on whether you have responded to the gospel — whether you have answered God's call. What is God's call? Acts 16:31, "Believe on (put your trust in) the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." No ifs, ands or buts about it. It is interesting that except for a couple of Christ's parables in which He is teaching the principle that many are called and few are chosen (which again makes this whole issue even more complicated for us), all the other New Testament references to the call of God upon a person are to a call to which that person responds positively. The old reformers call it, "the effectual call of God." Paul calls it, "the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Over and over again, the apostles refer to those they are writing to as "the called ones" — even the church is "the called out body of Christ." God called us.
There are sensitive seasons when God breaks in on you, and He speaks to your soul. A preacher can get up and talk himself blue in the face, and he knows some people are not hearing the call. They are hearing the same words everybody else is, but they don't hear the call — this response is not evoked from them. In John 6:44 Christ explains why, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." He says in verse 65, "No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." I believe these verses are talking about the call, or the effectual call.
Verses 36 and 37 of John 6 record Christ's words, "But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. (He is talking to men who wanted to debate theological issues and did not want to receive Christ, and then He explains why they do not believe even though they had seen.) All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Christ links together the fact that God is operating in this person's life and drawing him to the Savior with the guarantee that that person is saved eternally. He says, "all that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." In verse 39 of the same chapter Christ says, "This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." Paul explains it in Philippians 1:29, "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." So even our trust in Christ is evoked by God. I don't understand how all of this works. I don't understand how God can work can work so effectually, so sovereignly, and so powerfully to guarantee our salvation, and yet also say, "whosoever will may come." I don't know how all of this works together, but I just know both are there. Far be it from any of us to strike any of these verses from the Scripture. "Whosoever will may come," but "whosoever comes" is because God gave that person to the Son; and on that basis, the Son says when that person comes, "I will in no wise cast out (I will never let him go)."
The poet knew about God's call when he says:
Oh Christ in Thee my soul hath found, and found in Thee alone,
The peace, the joy I sought so long, the bliss ‘til now unknown.
I sighed for rest and happiness, I yearned for them, not Thee;
But while I passed my Savior by, His love laid hold on me.
I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, but ah the waters failed,
Even as I stooped to drink, they fled and mocked me as I wailed.
The pleasures lost I sadly mourned, but never wept for thee,
‘Til grace the sightless eyes received, Thy loveliness to see.
Now, none but Christ can satisfy, none other name for me,
There's love and life and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in Thee.
God calls us, next (fourth) God justified us. This is the link that is easiest for us to determine exactly where we are in our own personal history because Paul has already explained in the earlier chapters of Romans that justification (being declared righteous before God rather than a sinner) comes by faith alone in Christ alone. So this personal faith in Christ for salvation falls somewhere between God's calling that evokes it and God's justifying us (declaring us righteous) before Him. Very quickly, I will give you some definitions or explanations of justification, from Boyce as well, that will help us:
The source of justification, of being declared righteous, is the grace of God (we don't deserve it). Romans 3:24. The ground (the basis) for justification is the work of Christ. Romans 3:25.
In other words, when I am justified, it is not just that I am forgiven, it is that Christ's righteousness is put on my account. I am more than forgiven, I am given the gift of perfect righteousness.
The means (the conduit) of justification is faith, and faith alone. What is faith? That is "trust, believing what God says is so." Romans 3:25-26.
The effect (the result) of justification is union with Christ. Romans 5 and the chapters following.
We are united with Christ and that makes all the difference. That is why people are transformed when all they have done is receive Christ by faith in the Word of God. How could the plan of salvation be so simple and yet work? Because it works not on how powerful faith is, but it works on how powerful God is in whom you have put your faith. All we are doing is responding to what God is working. Salvation is powerful. Salvation rescues us from the very fires of Hell and guarantees us eternal bliss and changes us inside out because of the power of God. Faith is the conduit, the connection. God justified us.
Then Paul moves to the future but still uses past tense. It says in the last part of Romans 8:30, "and whom He justified, them He also glorified." He uses the past tense, I believe, because it is so sure it is as if it had already been done. In the Old Testament the Hebrew language does this a lot. Prophets make predictions, but speak of them in perfect tense, as if they had already happened even though they may be 200, 300 or 500 years away. Why? Because they are so sure, so determined by God that they will in fact happen, that they are as good as history that has already happened, in fact better, because man usually puts a spin on what has already happened. It is so sure it is as if God has already accomplished it. What does it mean that He glorifies us? It means He brings us to that destination, that conformity of being like Christ. What does that mean? Christ was sinless. Christ was righteous. Christ has the power of life because sin has no claim on Him. Sin still has a claim on you, do you know that? If you believe in Christ, your soul, your spirit has been made alive, but your body is still mortal, you are still going to die. In fact, you are dying now, that is why you are losing your hair, or your hair is turning grey, and why when we stretch our creaky bones in the morning, they creak a little more; why we have to visit the doctor for all types of things. We are just dying in small doses, but we are all dying. There is a day coming when that dying will be removed because all death is the vestige of sin — the sin of the race — sin that runs in our veins — and when we are glorified that will be gone and gone forever with all the destruction, the pain, the limitations that sin has brought upon mankind will be erased. In fact, man will be better off than he ever was before, even Adam in his innocence, because there is no chance of ever falling again because we are kept by the power of God — glorified.
Now what does that have to do with today and this week? This is really the secret to living for God. Paul makes no mention of sanctification, of living a holy life. Why? Because if your eye is set on your future state of glorification — of being like Christ — you will spend your time preparing yourself for it. It is like driving, one of the early lessons they teach you when you get in the car at drivers ed in high school is to keep your eye focused on what is down the road if you want smooth progress towards the goal. I am told that when plowing a field the farmer does not look at what is right in front of him or the rows will be crooked, that he has to set his sights and head towards a goal that will help him go straight. It is the same with living the Christian life. Sanctification is but the pathway that leads you to glorification — the pathway on which God has placed you.
One commentator gives an amusing account of a Hindu holy man and mystic named Rao. In 1966 this holy man announced he was going to walk on water and on the appointed day a large crowd gathered around a pool in Bombay, India, where he was to perform the miracle. The holy man prayerfully prepared himself and then stepped ceremoniously forward to the pool's edge. There was a solemn hush over the onlookers. The holy man glanced upward and then stepped forward onto the water only to plunge into the pool's depths. He emerged from the pool sputtering and dripping wet and, furious, spun around angrily to face the crowd and said, "One of you is an unbeliever!" Thankfully, our salvation is nothing like that because it does not depend on man. "All we like sheep have gone astray." None of us seek after God naturally. God seeks after us and claims us as His own and when He does, He never lets go, and that is how we know that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."
The actions of God make up "The Unbreakable Chain of Saving Events."
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