Romans 8:26-39 (NRSV)
26 Likewise
the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we
ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And
God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the
Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
28 We know
that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called
according to his purpose. 29 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 within a large family. 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.
31 What
then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32
He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will
he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any
charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to
condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right
hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us
from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For
your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are
accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in
all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
One needs to read verses Romans
8:26-27 in a way that closely identifies it with what Paul has just said in the
first part of this chapter. We can see this connection as he begins with
“Likewise,” as if to stress the connection with what he has just said. His next
statement is that the Spirit helps “us” in “our” weakness. He sees a basis for
this statement in that “we” do not know how to pray as “we” ought, but the
Spirit intercedes with signs too deep words. Further, God, who searches heart,
knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in
accord with the will of God.
In I Corinthians 2:6-16,
God has revealed to “us” through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches
everything, even the depths of God. Only the Spirit of God can comprehends the
thoughts of God. Paul contrasts the spirit of the world and the spirit from
God. The Spirit from God helps us understand the gifts God bestows on us. “We”
impart this wisdom in words taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths
to those who possess the Spirit. The unspiritual person does not receive the
gifts of the Spirit of God, for such a person would them as folly. The gifts of
a God require spiritual discernment. I Corinthians 4:1-5 refer to receiving
judgment from others, and even from himself, but such judgment does not matter,
for the Lord judges. II Corinthians 3:4-6 discusses confidence that “we” have
through Christ toward God. Competence is not from self but from God, who gives
competence in the ministers of a new covenant written in the Spirit that gives
life. Throughout, Paul distinguishes between the wisdom of this age and wisdom
from God.
We might see here two possible connections with what has
preceded. First, just as creation and we ourselves groan, so the Spirit also
groans for us. It is perfectly acceptable to read Paul's declaration as the
groaning of the Spirit itself on our behalf. The Spirit is emotionally involved
and eternally invested in our yearnings toward the Divine.[1]
Second, just as the Spirit gives us hope, the Spirit also gives us help in our
weakness. Barth says our requests in prayer stand in need of repentance and
forgiveness. If we do not know what we ought to pray, we might ask God for
anything. Human egoism, human anxiety, cupidity, desire and passion, human
short-sightedness, unreasonableness, and stupidity, might flow into prayer.[2]
The Spirit has transplanted the Christian into a sphere of power in which
behavior is no longer subject to one’s own decision, but which one experiences
as freedom rather than compulsion. The Spirit has transplanted the Christian
into the freedom of being a child of God. That the Spirit is the personal
center of Christian action residing outside the individual makes it
understandable that in Paul, the Spirit is both a person distinguished from the
Christian and as a power that they possess internally. Thus, as here, the
Spirit claims our service. The Christian exists outside the self to the extent
that the Christian lives in faith in the resurrected Jesus and thus “in the
Spirit.” The immanence of the Spirit in believers exists through the fact that
as believers they have found the ground of their life beyond themselves. [3]
Pannenberg is quite right to stress that the leadership of Spirit is not a
blind force of nature, but is of a personal sort. After all, this is God’s
Spirit. This comes out of an account of
religious experience. This verse reveals that God hears and understands the
Spirit even when words or utterances of any kind fail the human praying. God
goes directly to the heart, which is one with the mind of the Spirit. When our
own words are incapable of articulating our greatest needs to God in prayer,
then the Spirit calls out to God for us.[4]
All of this being said, Romans
8:26-39 goes on to offer reassurance that in addition to entitling the believer
to a new life in Christ, the Spirit will also make the pain of this life easier
to bear by bringing comfort and support to those experiencing tribulation. It
is difficult to endure suffering, even if one truly believes it is only a
passing phase prior to the coming of better times. Knowing this, Paul assures
his readers that God is also aware of how difficult earthly suffering is. God
is not distant from us. God is not separated from us. Even if we do not know
how to pray, if we are unable to express our needs to God, the Spirit
"intercedes with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). Even if we
have become completely inarticulate, God is immediately aware of our needs
through that spiritual connection with us.
Romans 8:28 affirms this intent by
saying that God works in everything for good to those who love God and those
whom God called in accord with the purpose of God. Paul expresses how this can
happen in Romans 5:1-5, in which “we” rejoice in “our” sufferings, as suffering
produces endurance, which produces character, which produces hope, which has
confirmation in the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Paul equated those who love God with those called according to God’s purpose (proqesiV), which has the basic meaning of
“that which is planned in advance, plan, purpose, resolve, will.” This fits in
well with the other “pro-” words, which Paul lists immediately afterward. The
providence of God governs everything that happens to Christians in earthly
life. Nothing in this life can harm
Christians, whether it is suffering or the attack of hostile evil powers, for
all of these things can contribute to the destiny to which God has called
Christians, whom Paul now refers to as “those who love God.”
Some people will use the phrase
“Everything happens for a reason,” based on this verse. I imagine people who do
so find comfort in the idea that there is a grand plan, that some tragedy is a
part of that plan, and that with time we will see and understand the good that
was the result of this horrible evil. However, reflect upon any of the horrors
human beings have done to themselves. Are they part of a larger plan, essential
to a greater end? This implies that there is a script that has already been
written by which the events of our world unfold, one leading to another, until
the happy ending is finally reached. In
this picture of reality, we are all characters in the novel that God is
writing. We merely do or experience what
the Author intends. Personally, I find
this disturbing. If everything happens for a reason, according to the plan of
God, then the horrors committed by humanity did not originate in the mind of
the people who committed them, but in the mind of God. God intended this, and put such horrors into
the minds of the individual who did them, because it was a part of God’s
plan. Think of it this way. What kind of
“god” intends children to be killed?
What greater good could possibly justify the horrible pain their parents
must endure? If “everything happens for
a reason,” then every act of evil is ultimately God’s doing. Rape, abuse of children, terrorism, the
cruelty human beings perpetrate on one another – are all of these really the
will of God? This line of reasoning does two things: It removes human responsibility for evil
acts, and it makes God culpable for all evil, having intended it to
happen. What kind of monster wills all
the horrible events in this world, even if for some greater good? Can the ends really justify the means when
the means are the murder of a child or the many other forms evil takes in our world?
We are on far more secure ground if we think of evil as that which is in the
world to thwart the plan of God. The evil that happens in this world is not
God’s will and is, in fact, a thwarting of his plan. So how do we
explain the evil that human beings inflict upon each other? The freedom to make
choices is an essential part of what it means to be human. Yet God has not left
us entirely to our own devices. God seeks to influence humanity. Our struggle
with good and evil is manifest in a hundred small decisions each day. Every act
of evil produces a thousand acts of goodness. While some misuse their freedom
to perpetrate evil, millions respond by feeling compelled to use their freedom
to do good.
Thus, the theme of Romans 8:28-39
is salvation and the love of God. The following verses will make more sense if
we view them in the context of the light of the promised full deliverance of
creation by God.
Romans 8:29-30 have the theme of
the Christian called and destined for glory. Paul stresses that those whom God
foreknew, God also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son of God,
in order that the Son might be the firstborn within a large family. proginwskw can mean “to know something
beforehand” or even” to choose someone beforehand. The word appears elsewhere in Pauline
literature only in Romans 11:2. prooriz
has the meaning” to decide upon beforehand” or “to predetermine.” It appears
elsewhere in Pauline literature only in 1 Corinthians 2:7 and Ephesians 1:5, 11
(within a passage that has several resonances with Romans 8). “Conformed,” in
NT Greek, is one of several morj/ morph” words Paul uses. They are often
translated with the suffix “form,” as in “conform” and “transform.” (See Romans
12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:18; and Philippians 3:10 [KJV], 21.) The words all have
a similar meaning in the context of Paul’s writings. People in Christ are being
formed/shaped into the image (eikwn) of
God in Christ. "Good" declared in verse 28 is defined in verse 29 as
being a transformation into "the image of his Son” a continuing process
toward Christlikeness in the lives of all believers. The unqualified nature of
this good news offers Paul and all Christians a foundation of unshakable faith
and hope no matter what challenges or hardships must be faced. As Christians
who have been "called" into participation with the divine purpose for
all creation, we may trust that God has a plan for our lives. Just as the
Spirit's presence opens up a continuing line of true communication between God
and humans, so the "workings" of God are an ongoing process of growth
and development in our relationship. The goal of this relationship is also part
of God's plan a plan that is foreknown and predestined from the beginning of
creation. Paul expresses this thought in II Thessalonians 2:13-15, in which he
stresses that God chose them from the beginning for salvation through
sanctification by the Spirit, for God called them through the gospel.
John Calvin famously wrote
extensively on predestination, including this passage.
5. The predestination by which God
adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no man
who would be thought pious ventures simply to deny; but it is greatly caviled
at, especially by those who make prescience its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both
prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the
latter subordinate to the former (see chap. 22 sec. 1). When we attribute
prescience to God, we mean that all things always were, and ever continue,
under his eye; that to his knowledge there is no past or future, but all things
are present, and indeed so present, that it is not merely the idea of them that
is before him (as those objects are which we retain in our memory), but that he
truly sees and contemplates them as actually under his immediate inspection.
This prescience extends to the whole circuit of the world, and to all
creatures.
By predestination we mean the eternal
decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen
with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are
preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as
each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been
predestinated to life or to death.[5]
In contrast with Calvin, with
predestination, Paul has a corporate view in mind. He does not have in mind the predestination
of individuals. Predestination refers to the divine plan that Christians are
destined to reproduce in themselves an image of Christ by a progressive share
in his risen life. Before we lose
ourselves in a discussion of predestination, let us remember that Paul is bringing
the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of Christians into essential
parallel.[6]
We see that for Paul, the creation waits for the revelation of the children of
God that has already appeared in Jesus as the Son of God in Christians.[7]
Paul has characterized the plan of God for history in one sentence. Pannenberg
thinks of it the notion of election of individuals for salvation as abstract
because it makes the concrete historicity of the divine acts of election as the
Bible bears witness to them, it detaches individuals from all relations to
society, and it restricts the purpose of election to participation in future
salvation and separates it from any historical function of the elect. Such an
abstract view of election is different from what the Bible has to say about the
election of Israel or of the election of particular individuals. As we can see
in 8:33, the members of the Christian community are the elect of God. Only by
detaching 8:29-30 and 9:13, 16, from the context of salvation history in which
Paul set them makes it possible to link them to the abstract notions of
election that both Origin and Augustine espoused, and through them, guided most
of the discussion since. In these verses, Jesus Christ is to be the firstborn
among many who will be taken up into his filial relation to the Father
conformed to the Son. The “we” of believers as the recipients of the election
by God cannot have an exclusive sense. Its setting is within the divine place
of salvation and its actualization in the process of salvation history;
individual are the objects of election and calling, but not in isolation.[8]
The election of individuals, and also of the people of God to which individuals
belong as members is open to the participation of all people in the relation of
Jesus to God. Elect individuals and the elect of people of God as a whole
receive with their calling the commission and mission to work for the inclusion
of all humanity in the relation of Jesus Christ to God. The ultimate aim of the
election of God is the fellowship of a renewed humanity in the kingdom.[9]
In verse 30, those whom God
predestined, God also called. Those whom God called, God also justified. Those
whom God justified, God has also glorified. The glorification refers to the
image of his Son. The progression of
God’s work within the life of God’s people is to pre-plan, to pre-know, to
predetermine, to call, to justify, and to glorify.
In 8:31, Paul asks what we are to
say of these things. If God is for us, no one can be against us. Barth reflects
on the importance of Paul saying that God is “for us.” It sums up the message
of the New Testament. “God for us” is not the general proclamation of the love
of God and divine readiness to help. It means that Jesus is for us. God did not
spare his own Son. Its meaning is for the advantage or in the favor of or in
the interest of someone. It can also signify for the sake of a definite cause
or goal. It can also signify in the place of or as a representative of someone.[10]
In 8:32-34, Paul continues with his
questions. God, who did not withhold the Son, but gave the Son up for all of
us, will give “us” everything else. Who can bring a charge against the elect of
God? After all, God is the one who justifies. Further, who can condemn? Christ
Jesus, who died and whom God raised from the dead, is the one at the right hand
of God interceding for us.
Romans 8:35-39 speaks mostly for
itself. It speaks of the love of Christ for
us, a love that cannot be broken by any other power. Thus, hardship, distress, persecution,
famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, cannot separate the believer from the love
of Christ. The point is, no matter what happens, whether we live or die,
whether angels fight against us, nor any present or future power on earth, nor
any superhuman power, nor the power of the heavens or the abyss, nor any other
kind of creation, can separate us from God’s love. No external power will be able to separate
us from God’s love. In raising the question of who can separate us from the
love of Christ, Paul is going further than other New Testament writers in
stressing that the love of Christ for us cooperates with the love of God for
us.[11]
Thus, in 8:35-39 Paul offers a hymn to the love God has shown in Christ, a love
that no circumstances can cancel. Paul finds here, as well as 5:5-11, that the
essential content of the history of Jesus in the fact of the love of God for
the world found expression here.[12]
In form, 8:31-39 are
part of the hardship lists of Paul. In I Corinthians 4:8-13, Paul admits “we”
have become a spectacle to the world and to angels. “We” are fools for the sake
of Christ. He describes his team as weak, hungry, thirsty, ill-clad, buffeted,
homeless, reviled, persecuted, and slandered. They seek reconciliation. He
admits that they have become like refuse in the world. In II Corinthians
4:7-12, “we” have this treasure in earthen vessels, afflicted, perplexed,
persecuted, struck down, and carrying in their bodies the death of Jesus. Death
is at work in them. In II Corinthians 6:1-10, “we” develop great endurance, in
affliction, hardship, calamity, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, and
hunger. He refers to how people treat them as impostors, unknown, dying,
punished, sorrowful, and as having nothing. In II Corinthians 11:21b-29, he
refers to five times receiving from the Jews 39 lashes, three times beaten with
rods, stoned once, shipwrecked three times, in danger from rivers, robbers, and
the Jews, danger from Gentiles and the city, danger in the wilderness. In II
Corinthians 1:9, he says he felt he had received the sentence of death. In II
Corinthians 12:1-10, he refers to his thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan,
that harasses him. In light of all of this, Philippians 4:10-13 says that he
has learned contentment in all things and that he can do all things through
Christ who strengthens him.
[1]
Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [64.4], 330.
[2]
Church Dogmatics, III. 4 [53.3], 100.
[3]
Jesus God and Man, 177.
[4]
Jesus God and Man, 176.
[5]
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
Religion, Book 3, Chapter 21.5
[6]
Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 77.
[7]
Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 380.
[8]
Human Nature, Election and History, 47-61
[9]
Systematic Theology, Volume III,
522-26.
[10]
Church Dogmatics, III.2 [45.1], 213.
[11]
Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume
1, 423.
[12]
Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume
I, 422.
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