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. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
What, then, shall we say in response to this?
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? …I am convinced that neither death nor life…nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:28-39)
Christians would often say to someone, “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” And they mean that the person could either go along with God’s plan, or reject God’s goodness and pursue a path of destruction. This kind of thinking is entirely hostile to the Bible, and entails a denial of the nature of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul insists in this same letter to the Romans that God creates some individuals for salvation, to receive his mercy and kindness, and he creates all other individuals for damnation, to suffer everlasting torment in hell. God’s decision as to whom to save or damn is not based on the kind of people we are; rather, we are the kind of people that we are because of God’s decision (Romans 9:10-24).
So we must not indiscriminately say to someone, “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” No, if God has created you for damnation, then he has a terrible plan for your life. Do not feel relief when someone tells you, “Everything will turn out fine.” No, everything will turn out wrong for you. Your future is filled with fear and confusion, and with extreme pain that will never end. And even the little pleasures that you enjoy in this life are designed to dull your conscience and to increase your trespasses, so that your punishment may be multiplied. As long as you remain ignorant of or resistant to the message of Jesus Christ, we have reason to think that you are numbered among the damned. But if God gives you faith, then you can become a Christian.
Everything is different when you are a Christian, when you renounce all confidence in yourself and trust in Jesus Christ to represent you, to rescue you from sin and condemnation, and to secure your place in God’s kingdom. If God has chosen you for salvation – that is, if you are a Christian or will become a Christian – then he truly has a wonderful plan for your life, and he wants you to remember this when you face sufferings and disappointments. His plan was conceived and put into motion way before you came to faith. The day you believed was when you found out about it.
Like Satan himself, wicked men are eager to enslave God and to exalt themselves. They wish to place their feet on the neck of the Most High while he bows down to them in worship. For this reason, they would distort even the most basic and obvious biblical terms to accommodate their sinister aspirations. And so there are many who insist that God chooses men for salvation on the basis of their own decision to have faith in Jesus Christ, and that this faith comes about from their own free will. They rant on and on about how much they are able to do to liberate themselves. By the time they are finished, we marvel at the Tower of Babel and wonder why they would need Christ at all. Men are accustomed to self-delusion, but we know that no tower constructed by human hands can attain eternal life.
The proposal is defeated even if the misuse of foreknowledge remains unchallenged. This is because the Bible teaches that faith is not something men can muster up at will, but that it is produced in men by God according to his decision and as a gift from him (John 6:44, 65, 10:26; Ephesians 2:8). Therefore, to say that God chooses individuals for salvation on the basis of foreseen faith becomes just an awkward admission that he chooses whomever he wishes apart from the people’s will and merit (Romans 9:16).
Suppose I was about to put on the greatest stage performance in the history of the universe. I wished to show it to fifty people, and so I made fifty seats and fifty tickets. To fill these seats, I conceived a hundred people in my mind and wrote out a guest list of fifty and a reject list of fifty – then I created these people from the lists (9:21). The blacklisted people are needed because part of the performance involves showing my guests the envy, rage, and agony of those who would be shut out (9:22-24). After this, I handed out the tickets to the fifty people on the guest list.
Now suppose a person declares that I chose the fifty guests based on whether they would have tickets. This would betray a strange misunderstanding of how the event unfolded, since I am the one who conceived them, who created them, and who handed them the tickets. If the illustration were to be more similar to what God has done, then I must have also picked up their hands and put the tickets in them, and then carried them to their seats! Thus the claim that I chose the guests on the basis of foreseeing those who would have tickets is just an unintentional admission that I chose them based on reasons that were entirely within myself, on the basis of knowledge about myself. This is the picture of redemption described for us in this letter to the Romans and in other portions of the Bible.
Of course, we entertained this claim about foreknowledge only for the sake of argument, because it would have failed even before we considered the nature of faith. First, Paul does not say that God foreknew the faith, but the persons. At this point, faith simply does not factor into what he is talking about. Second, in a context like this foreknowledge does not refer to an awareness of facts in advance, but to “know” carries a sense of personal favor and intimacy. As God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). God conceived and designed the person, loved and favored him in his mind, and then created him.
Therefore, to foreknow means to forelove, and that not because of a passive awareness of future facts, but an eternal affection and faithfulness toward what God himself would create and cause. He conceived and designed the chosen ones – the Christians – in his mind, and he loved them in advance. This is how the wonderful plan began. And this is why in all things God works for the good of those who love him – whom he has created and caused to love him – who have been called according to his purpose.
God foreloved the chosen ones. Then these same individuals are predestined to become like the Son of God. Then, these same individuals are called. The same individuals that are called, are justified. And the same individuals that are justified, are glorified. The exact individuals were specified when God foreloved them. After this stage, no one enters or leaves this predefined group. For the present passage, the essential thing is that no one leaves. The individuals at the point of foreknowledge are the same individuals that he sees through all the way to glorification. What does this mean? It means that God is for us, that he is for us at every stage, and that he will be for us constantly, and over and over again. And he will never withdraw his favor because he was the one who foreloved us in the first place. The whole process was his idea, and he will see it through.
If God is for us, who can be against us? He sent his Son to die for us. Everything else is trivial in comparison, and nothing can hinder the completion of redemption. Who will bring any charge against us? Accusations can come from all sides, but God has justified us. God is in fact the only one whose charge carries any weight, and he accuses those who remain in unbelief, who remain non-Christians. Who is he who condemns us? Condemnation is all talk unless it can lead to a guilty verdict and result in punishment. But Jesus Christ has already died for our sins and has risen from the dead. He continues to represent us and speak for us at the right hand of God. God is in fact the only one whose condemnation leads to a guilty verdict and ends in eternal suffering. And he declares that those who do not believe in Jesus Christ are already condemned (John 3:18). No one can condemn us, and no one can bring a charge against us, not because we have never done wrong, but if there is any charge or any condemnation, Jesus Christ has answered it. Therefore, we denounce sin and proclaim righteousness without embarrassment. Surely we would feel self-conscious and hypocritical if we were to declare our own goodness, but as the heralds of Christ we preach about his righteousness and his salvation.
Who can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus? Only God can extend or withhold his love, and by his foreordination and through Jesus Christ, he has extended his love toward his chosen ones. No one is stronger than God. No one forced or persuaded him to love us, and no one can force or persuade him to stop. He has decided, and he will not change. The love of God toward us is immutable and invincible.
God is for us – for those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, and who are predestined to become like the Son of God. How demeaning it is, then, when people become more concerned about whether God is for their nation, or race, or interest group. “Is God for America?” “Is God for black people?” “Surely this is a special time for the Chinese!” All such thinking is childish and unspiritual. As Jesus rebuked Peter, “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” God is for the Christians. Some people insist that Christians ought to support the Jews. What? How about telling the Jews that they must support the Christians? And they issue stern warnings about mistreating the Jews. We should not mistreat anyone, Jews or not, but what Paul wrote, he wrote to Christians: “God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you” (2 Thessalonians 1:6). Those who mistreat Christians will live forever to regret it – in hell – unless God turns them into Christians as well.
Whether God is for us is not mainly a racial or political question, but a religious and redemptive one. God is for those whom he has foreloved, and these are the ones whom he causes to follow Jesus Christ. Even when Paul discusses his concern for the Jews, he states that God foreknew not all the Jews but the remnant among them – that is, the Christians (11:2-6). And his optimism is based on an expectation that many of the Jews would become like his Gentile readers – that they would become Christians. He warns the Gentiles against arrogance, not because the Jews are in a superior position – the warning is meaningful precisely because the Jews are not in such a position – but because the Gentiles themselves are saved only because of the sovereign kindness of God. Therefore, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, American nor Brazilian, Asian nor European. We are either in or out. If we are in Christ, then we are all united in him. And if we are not in Christ, then we are nothing.
If we are in Christ, then God is for us, and he orders all things for our good and for his purpose. He has foreloved us in eternity, he has justified us in our lifetime, and he will see us through to our glorification. God has great things in store for us. We are so pleased with the Christian life. It is righteous and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit! And just as we are overcome by the exceeding kindness that God has already lavished upon his people, he reminds us that the best is yet to come.