Edwin Steytler - 11 February 2024
All Things for Good (Romans 8:28)
There are many things regarding God’s sovereign purpose that we don’t understand and might never understand this side of eternity, but right here, in Romans 8:28, we have a revealed truth, a sure promise that we can hold on to. We will consider two broad things about this promise: 1. The Promise Declared 2. The Promise Qualified
Scripture References: Romans 8:28
From Series: "Rightly Handling the Word of Truth"
A series examining some of the most misapplied verses of Scripture.
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The expression “biting of more than you can chew” might very well apply to my preparation for this study. Great preachers have taken far longer to teach on this verse than the space I have here. If you are going to grow to appreciate the deep truth of Romans 8:28, my prayer is that our time in this verse will just be the appetizer of the meal that will lead to a deeper desire, a greater hunger to feast on and continue chewing on this text in your own personal study.
Paul begins this verse with a statement of fact: “And we know.” We see this several times in Paul’s epistles, especially in Romans:
- Romans 2:2—We know that the judgement of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
- Romans 3:19—Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
- Romans 6:6—We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
- Romans 6:9—We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
- Romans 7:14—For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
- Romans 8:22—For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
Paul uses this term to drive home points of truth. Almost to say, “This isn’t new to you but you still need to hear it; you need to be reminded of this. Don’t lose sight of this truth. Remind yourself of this. Remind each other of this.” There are many things regarding God’s sovereign purpose that we don’t and won’t understand this side of eternity, but right here in v. 28 we have a revealed truth that we can cling to.
Depending on which reliable Bible translation you use, the order of the words in this verse will differ slightly, but it doesn’t change the meaning or the implications. The ESV reads, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
The KJV, CSB, and NASB all state it slightly differently. We want to consider this verse under two simple points, which I believe will then make the wrong applications of this verse self-evident.
The Promise Declared
The promise is declared in the phrase “all things work together for good.” This phrase speaks to the subject of God’s providence, which should not be confused with God’s sovereignty. Divine sovereignty means that God has supreme authority over all his creation and is always in complete control and in all situations. He has the right and power to do all that he decides to do. Providence is a component of God’s sovereignty. It is God directing every event in our lives, every event in creation, every event in history to bring about his purposes. The Westminster Confession states it this way: God in his providence “upholds, directs, disposes and governs all creatures, actions and things” to bring about a sovereignly predetermined plan.
There is purpose to God’s providence: to bring about his predetermined plan. You will search in vain to find the word “providence” in the Bible, but there are many passages which point us to this truth. Consider a few:
- Hebrews 1:3—He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
- Ephesians 1:11–12—In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
- Romans 11:36—For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Based on our understanding of providence from these verses, God is working all things together. He upholds the universe as he works all things according to the counsel of his will. We are surrounded by a world of confusion that attributes the workings of fate, chance, luck, coincidence, and happenstance to every event in life rather than submitting to the rule and authority of the only true God. It was no different in Paul’s day. He addressed this in the first chapter of this letter: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (1:21).
Before we move on from the phrase “work together,” reflect for a moment on the Greek word Paul uses. The word is synergeo, which is where we get the English word for synergy. A definition for synergy is that the whole is greater than the mere sum of the individual parts. Let me simplify it for you using maths. Maths teaches us that 1+1=2. Synergy says 1+1=3 because there is something unique that is happening when you bring these two parts together that results in something far bigger than just their combination. Whatever the “all things” are in your life, God is using those things to bring about something far better, which brings us to the last part of this phrase.
“All things work together for good.” In our human nature, we try get philosophical about statements like this or we limit the extent of its meaning by interpreting it according to our own experience and we rob God of his glory.
This verse is not teaching that all things are good but rather they work together for good. If we teach that all things are good then we would be saying that sin and evil and wickedness are good. Death is not good. Pain and suffering are not good. This mortal flesh is not good.
This verse is not teaching us that we should see every event of life as good. Terminal illness is not good. A fatal car accident is not good. A miscarriage is not good. But can and does God use such events for his glory? If we have a right understanding of God’s providence, then must say, absolutely!
This verse is also not teaching that God is working all things for our earthly good or temporal good. There are many things in this life that are a blessing to us. Paul says earlier in vv. 22–23 that the whole creation is groaning and that the children of God groan together waiting to be restored, waiting for the curse of sin to be removed. Sadly, far too many people are led astray by errant teaching regarding prosperity and wealth in this life, peace and comfort in this life, social and political stability in this life.
This is the danger of using a verse out of context. Paul helps us understand that the “good” of this verse is none of these things when he writes, in vv. 35–36: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’”
Think of Paul’s own testimony in 2 Corinthians 11 how his ministry was characterised by labour, toil and hardship, imprisonment, beatings near to death, lashings, beatings with rods, stonings, shipwrecks, facing danger from all sides, sleepless nights, hunger and thirst, cold and exposure, and anxiety for the health of the churches. This account doesn’t record the hurt he suffered from those who abandoned the faith, who criticised his ministry, and who would testify against him.
All things in and of themselves are not good but, for every believer, God is working all things according to the counsel of his will, he can and does work through the most terrible events of life, through the most wonderful events of life and everything in between—all things—for our eventual good, our eternal good! We will say more about that towards the end.
The Promise Qualified
Who is this promise for and what is its purpose? We will consider two subpoints under this final point, which are taken straight from the text in v. 28.
Those Who Love God
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good.” God is working all things together for the good of those who love him. To love God seems like such a simple statement. But with all the misguided influences of Hollywood, Disney, gossip magazines, celebrity channels, reality TV, the dawn of AI, etc. our understanding of love is so far from the perfect standard of God’s love.
We cannot define what it means to love God without first understanding God’s love. Jonathan Leeman, in his book, The Rule of Love, defines God’s love in this way:
He goes on to say, “God in himself provides the definition, the reality, of what love is. Love is not an abstract concept but a personal quality of God.” First John 4:15–16 says it this way: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
Before salvation, we were incapable of loving God. Isaiah says that we despised and rejected God’s Son and that there was nothing in us that desired to want Christ in our lives. Ephesians 2:1–3 says that we “were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”
As children of disobedience, our affections were for the things of this world, earthly passions, fleshly desires. We didn’t love God because we were too busy loving ourselves and the pleasures of this world. And then you have those redemptive words in vv. 4–5: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.”
God, in love, moved first. So only those who are loved by God—those for whom Christ died and who have been made alive in Christ—can hold on to the promise in v. 28. We love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).
One of the mistakes that we make in trying to define love is we focus on the actions that display love. “I love her” or, “She loves me” and that love is expressed in different ways. You can finish that sentence. Some of you need to figure out what that is before Valentine’s Day. Defining love by the actions that display love is not necessarily a bad thing but it’s also not the best thing. Look at how the bible contextualises love from God’s perspective:
- Ephesians 2:4—But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us.
- Ephesians 5:2—And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16—Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace.
- 1 John 4:10—In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Our God, who is love, chose to love us and set his affection on us and demonstrated that love through action. Who wouldn’t love a God who brought us from death to life, who made us new creations in Christ, who gave us eternal life, who removed the wrath of his judgement from us and so much more. All of these are wonderful blessing and gifts from God but all of them were preceded by God whose very essence is love.
Believer, I want you to ask this question of yourself, how is your love for God? Not, do you love God? If you are in Christ, you love God! Not, how do you love God? But, how is your love for God? Can I challenge you to grow in your expression of love for God that is beyond action? What I mean is this, is he your desire, does he satisfy you, do you have a passion for his glory, are you content in him alone, do you hunger and thirst for him, is he your all-in-all? This is how we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Allow these expressions to fuel your love for God.
Those Who Are Called (the called) by God
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
The second qualifying aspect of this promise is not a separate qualification but rather is tied to the first qualification of loving God. Paul is not saying that there are those who love God but are not called by God and all things work together for good for them; and then there are those who are called by God but don’t love him and all things work together for good for them. That’s absurd! If you love God, you are called by God, and those who are called by God love God and, as a child of God, all things are working together for your eternal good.
We don’t have to go far to understand what Paul is talking about when he says “for those who are called according to his purpose.” The very next verse starts with the word “for.” Here is the answer:
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
(Romans 8:29–30)
These verses are rich with the work of God through Christ in a person’s life. This is the gospel message in a nutshell. God the Father, before creation, chose those he would save by the sufficient sacrificial death of his son, Jesus Christ. He received the wrath of the Father for our sin on our behalf. The Father accepted the perfect, substitutionary payment of the Son and raised him up from the dead as the firstfruits from the dead, the firstborn among many brothers. Under this new covenant in Christ’s blood, the Father calls all he has chosen to himself. This is the effectual saving call of the Father. Everyone he calls, he declares righteous in Christ, justified by his death. And all those he justifies, he glorifies. He makes us to perfectly reflect his glory back to him in worship.
Notice the prefect tense of v. 30: He also called, he also justified, he also glorified. This is certain. Nothing can rob us of this glorious hope. Pauls ends Romans 8 with the assurance that nothing is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul would tell the believers in Philippi, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
This is the “good” that God is working all things together for: that day when we reach the end of our life on earth and God call us home and says to his children, “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord.” Then we will enter eternity to enjoy the presence of the Lord. Do you long for that day? As a child of God, I am sure you do. I’m sure you long to be in the presence of our God who is love, long for our faith to become sight, long to see his glory and have that glory perfectly reflected in our own lives.
This is the purpose God has called us to. May we grow in our love for him and be satisfied in him alone as he works all things for our good and his ultimate glory.
AMEN