WWUTT 1282 Those Whom He Foreknew He Also Predestined (Romans 8:29)

The Promise of Romans 8:28 and the Meaning of Suffering

Jesus did not die for a possibility to be saved. He died for a people to be saved. And if you are a follower of Christ, rejoice, you've been predestined when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness. Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

We continue with our study of Romans chapter 8. And this week, looking at, well, what's probably the most popular three verses of Romans 8, verses 28 through 30. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. God, for those who are called according to his purpose, 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. Today we get to verse 29. And this is the first in what we refer to as the ordo salutis, or the order of salvation.

Also referred to as the golden chain of redemption. When it comes to the order of our salvation, in what order do these things occur? Do these things take place according to scripture? Well, we have a summary of those things in this golden chain of redemption.

We'll talk about the first of those today and continue with the golden chain of redemption tomorrow. But first, let's do kind of a summary of verse 28, which we looked at yesterday. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

And what a wonderful promise this is. What a great reminder that even in our worst circumstances, God is ultimately working this out for something great. There is a meaning and a purpose in these things that you go through.

Whether they are great moments, or they are sorrowful moments. Whether they are moments that we think are clear. Like we understand what's going on here. We know what the meaning is, what God is doing in the midst of this circumstance, or at least we think we do.

Or whether we are in a situation that is dire and we're going, what is the meaning of this? Where is God in the midst of this? We can know and we can have assurance, according to what his word says, that he is ultimately working this out for our good.

Even suffering, God is working together for good. We had read that back in Romans 5, where it says, starting in verse 3, we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So even in these difficult times, they teach us to hope, to cling to God, to look to Christ who raises the dead.

We draw closer to God, even through these difficult circumstances. God is working this out for our good. Those who do not know God, suffering is meaningless. There is no purpose to suffering, which is why the world's endeavor, a worldly people, what they are aspiring for is happiness.

That is the meaning and the purpose of life, just to be happy. And the more knowledge I have, maybe the happier I will be. But they miss that Solomon already had more wisdom than anyone will ever have on earth other than Christ.

Solomon had the most wisdom that anyone will ever have. And yet he said, the more knowledge, the more grief, right at the end of Ecclesiastes 1. So if these people who believed that if I gain more knowledge, I will gain more happiness were to just look at Solomon, they would realize he already attained to that and found nothing but sorrow.

And then in those sorrowful moments, in our most grieving moments, we don't find any meaning or purpose. There is no meaning to suffering for the person who does not know God. It is pointless. It's nothing but bad experiences, which is why people fall into such grave depression when they suffer.

And it's like that depression leads to just deeper depression because I'm suffering and there's no meaning to this suffering. So that just makes me feel worse. There's there's meaninglessness to suffering to the person who does not know God.

But for us who knows God, we can continue to cling to the hope and promise of God, of Christ, our Savior, even in the midst of our suffering. For we know that God is working something together for our good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

What a wonderful reminder that is. The sad thing about this verse is the way that some people tend to take it and manipulate it into some empty promise that the Bible does not give. Like if you lose your job, that just means that God has something better for you, because as it says here, God works all things together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

If you get a diagnosis that you have cancer, well, chin up because God's going to heal you because, as it says right here, he works all things together for good for those who love God. And if you don't get healed of your cancer, well, it must be because you you didn't really love God.

You didn't love him enough. So that's why you just got sick and you ended up dying.

Right.

Or maybe there was a person who did something really, really bad to you. Well, God is going to do something really bad to them. So hey, vindication is coming. Don't worry, because God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

That's the way that that's one of the many ways, probably the most common way that this verse gets twisted and manipulated to mean something that it doesn't really mean. We understand what the good is that God is working for us when we read verse twenty nine.

Foreknowledge, Predestination, and the Order of Salvation

For those whom he foreknew and again, we go back to calling here for those who are called according to his purpose. 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.

So what is the good that God is ultimately working out in our lives? It is to conform us or to shape us into the image of Christ. The good that God is working out in you is Christ. We are being made more Christlike.

Amen to that. So that saves us from taking this verse out of context and twisting it into something that ultimately is never going to deliver what we think that it will. If we use Romans eight twenty eight to believe that it means we're going to receive some sort of earthly reward, then we're setting ourselves up for disappointment because that's not what this verse is promising.

What it's promising is something far greater than that. If we limit it to earthly, earthly reward, we actually take away from the great promise that God is giving to us here, and that is to make us more like Christ and even deliver us into his glory ultimately, which is what's said in Romans eight thirty.

For those whom he justified, he is also glorified. We have the promise of the glory of God dwelling with him forever in his glorious kingdom for those who are being made more like Christ. So let's come back again here to the beginning of verse twenty nine for those whom he foreknew.

So again, we're talking about the order of salvation as God is bringing into effect the salvation that he is predestined for his elect. Those who are followers of Jesus Christ, we are the elect of God, and he has chosen us for salvation from before the beginning of the world for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.

Now, oftentimes foreknowledge, as talked about here, is defined as God knowing the decisions that we are going to make before we make them. Therefore, God knows that we are going to choose him for salvation.

So he puts salvation on us since he knows that decision that we're going to make in the future. But that's absurd. God is not a soothsayer. He doesn't look down the tunnel of time at a decision that we're going to make and therefore places his love and affection on us based on that decision that he knows that we are going to make.

Otherwise, if you if you take that argument and you make that the definition of foreknowledge, you are binding God to a decision that you make before you even exist. You understand what I mean by that?

So it's like you are saying God loves me and he's chosen me based on a decision I make before I'm even born. So I'm binding God and obligating him to save me based on my decisions that I can't make because I'm not even born yet.

It's just ridiculous. That's the that's the ridiculousness of this definition of foreknowledge, that it's something prescient, that God is looking into the future and he's making decisions based on our decisions.

No, no, no, no, no.

God decides that's what's in the very word predestined. He has chosen those whom he will save from sinful man, and he has effected our salvation through the cross of Christ. And we receive all the blessings and benefits of the grace of God through faith in Jesus, what he did in his person and work on the cross.

In Ephesians, chapter one, verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.

He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved in him. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him, in Christ, 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.

We have what God is doing through Christ and the reason why he's doing it. It's all ultimately to the praise of his glorious grace. Our salvation is not a decision that we make. It's a decision that God has made from before the foundation of the world.

Now, then, understand the distinction here that God has chosen the people whom he would save. He did not choose the manner in which he would save them. What is chosen here is very clearly the people. Look at verse four.

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world and didn't just choose us for justification, but chose us for sanctification, that we should be holy and blameless before him and not just for sanctification, but even as we're reading here in Romans chapter eight for glorification.

Once again, as I quoted yesterday from Philippians chapter one, I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ. We have been predestined to be justified, to be sanctified, to be glorified.

This is the decree that God declared from before the foundation of the world. I am going to save these people. I am going to elect for myself from sinful man these and then I am going to effect their salvation with my son, whom he gave at the appointed time in the fullness of time, the way that that that well, we read it here in Ephesians one.

Paul says it also to the Galatians Galatians four, four. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of woman born under the law to to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of the son into our hearts, crying Abba father. Well, that sounds a lot like some of the things we've read here in Romans chapter eight. Right. And we also know that God is predestined these things just reading the gospels, because what we see over and over again, particularly in Matthew's gospel, is a fulfillment of prophecy when God had arranged the lineage that Jesus would be born into the events that would happen surrounding his birth.

All of this is fulfillment of prophecy. You see Matthew laying that out over and over through the first couple of chapters of his gospel. And it's not because God predicted the things that were going to happen in the future and then revealed these predictions to his prophets.

And then the prophets spoke the predictions. God spoke these things to his prophets because he ordained them to happen. The reason why the prophets were able to speak of what God was going to do in the future is because God told them, here's what I'm doing.

Here's the plan that I've set forth. And he reveals it through his prophets. So we know that it's from God because it had been prophesied. God revealed to particular men whom he had chosen how he was going to bring about the salvation of mankind through his son.

And then God even ordaining the events and the people that would bring about the crucifixion of his son. Consider that that prayer to the sovereign Lord that we read in Acts chapter four. Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father, David, your servant said by the Holy Spirit, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed. For truly in this city, there were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

God predestined these events that were going to happen for the crucifixion of Christ for the purpose of purchasing the salvation of those whom God had chosen from before the foundation of the world that was effected in the in the cross of Christ.

And it's actualized through the Holy Spirit, who is poured into our hearts whenever we hear the message of the gospel, we hear of what Jesus has done for us, dying on the cross for our sins, rising again from the grave.

And whoever believes in Jesus, who hears the gospel, who is convicted over their sin and actually when they hear the gospel, they believe it. See, this is the effectual call. There are many who hear the gospel, but only those who have that effectual calling, the regeneration of the heart that happens by the work of the Holy Spirit in that person, in a person who's been chosen for salvation from before the foundation of the world, that effectual calling results in a person convicted over their sin, turns from their sin, repents, believes in Jesus, turns to Jesus, has faith and follows him.

All of this is the work of God in the heart of a person whom he had elected before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him. And now we continue in that sanctification process of being conformed into the image of Christ.

Back to Romans 8, 29 again, for those whom he foreknew, those the people whom he foreknew, whom he chose, who who whom he had placed his love and his affection on before we were even born. OK, let's go back to that definition of foreknowledge again, where somebody says that well, foreknew means that God knows the decision that we're going to make in the future.

And so then he chooses us based on a decision that he knows that we're going to make. That's fatalism. And that is binding God to a a particular choice that that no other choice can be made. God can't make a different choice and we can't make a different choice.

So a person thinks that they're upholding mankind's free will whenever they use that definition of foreknowledge, that God chooses us because of a decision that we make. But the reality is they've bound God to fate and they've bound and they've bound ourselves to fate as well, because if it's based on a decision that we make in the future, there's no way that you can make any other decision.

There's no other decision for you to make. So the ironic thing is the person believes that they're upholding man's free will by making it our choice when in actuality there's no other choice that can be made there except the one that God knows you're going to make.

And then the person will try to back that up and say, well, yeah, but God doesn't make you make that choice. Well, yeah, fate controls the whole thing. God is not able to make any other choice and you're not able to make any other choice.

It's just fate governing over the whole thing. So that's really fatalism. The person who will criticize Calvinism by saying that Calvinism is fatalism.

No, no, no, no, no.

God has the free choice and he frees our will, which was in bondage to sin when we are set free by the gospel and we become followers of Jesus Christ. This is true freedom when we're talking about God's sovereign election.

But the whole thing of man's free will, no matter how you try to parse that, no matter how you define it, pick it apart, lay it out, you're always going to fall right back into fatalism one way or the other.

You fall back into fate when you go the route of defending man's free will choice. It's God's free choice, not ours. And so, praise God, we understand that through our sin and this has been laid out in Romans, because remember, we talked about our depravity and our inability to choose God, even when we were back in Romans chapter three.

We, in our sinfulness, had no ability to make the holy decision to be followers of Jesus Christ because no one seeks God and no one does good, just as we read it in Romans 3, 10 through 12. God is the one who has changed our hearts to be followers of Jesus Christ based on the fact that he had predestined us for this before the foundation of the world.

Those whom he foreknew, he placed his affections on before we were born. He's also predestined to be conformed, to be sanctified in the image of his son in order that he, Christ, might be the first born among many brothers, meaning that there are many more who are going to come.

Christ is the first who died and came back from the grave and has ascended back to the father. But there are many others who are going to follow in this same way, sanctified and holy as Christ, that we may enter into the presence of the father forever in that glory.

And this is just the beginning of what we are talking about here in the golden chain of redemption. We'll continue to talk about these things even further tomorrow when we get to verse 30. Now, if you've been trying to write all of this down and as I'm talking about the order of salvation, you've attempted to make a list and you're going, wow, you've been all over the place, Gabe.

I don't know if I have all of these things right. Hang tight because we'll go through the full list tomorrow as we continue this study. Please come back. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for saving us in Jesus Christ.

If it was left to us in our sin, we never would have turned from our sin to follow you. We we had a sinful nature. We were in the way of Adam. We had rebelled against God. We would have continued that way to our own destruction.

But by your grace, which we do nothing to earn, it is the grace of God. You have intervened and turned us from sin to your son who died for us and rose again from the grave. He died for a particular people.

He he accomplished something with his death on the cross. And for all of us who believe in him, we receive what you have predestined for us to receive salvation and sanctification through your son, Jesus.

We praise you as David praised you in Psalm 139. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. And in these days, may we continue to walk in holiness upright before you.

Our confidence is Christ. Our trust is in you and you will complete what you have started in us. Thank you, Jesus. In your name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.