Again, we are examining the most difficult portion of the entire Bible. Not only because it deals with election, which troubles many, but even more because it deals with reprobation, the doctrine that God rejects or repudiates some persons to eternal condemnation in a way parallel but opposite to the way He ordains others to salvation. Reprobation is the teaching we come to specifically in Romans 9:13-18, which makes these verses an excessively difficult passage for many, if not most, people.

The doctrine is brought into our text by two Old Testament quotations; Malachi 1:2-3, and Exodus 9:16. Paul summarizes the teaching in these texts by concluding, “Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden” (v. 18). In the view of many people, the doctrine these verses express turns God into an indifferent deity who sits in heaven arbitrarily assigning human destinies, saying, as it were, “This one to heaven, and I don’t care. This one to hell, and I don’t care.”

This is a caricature, of course. But it is something we must deal with, since no one can seriously attempt to study or teach the Bible, as I am doing, without confronting it. More to the point, it is impossible to study election without also dealing with its negative counterpart. We can’t have the positive side of election which is predestination, without reprobation, which is the negative side. John Calvin recognized this, as have many others in the course of church history. He wrote, “Election [cannot] stand except as set over against reprobation.”* It is easy to distort this doctrine, of course, as the caricature shows. We must proceed slowly and humbly, recognizing our own limited understanding. Still we must try to see what the Bible does teach about reprobation, since the subject cannot be avoided.

The place to begin is with the fact of reprobation, is taught in the Bible, regardless of the questions we may have. In other words, we must follow the same procedure with reprobation as we followed in the last study with its positive counterpart, election. There are many texts that teach reprobation. Here are a few: Proverbs 16:4, John 12:39-40, John 13:18, John 17:12, 1 Peter 2:7-8, and Jude 4. There are many other texts along these lines, but the clearest are those in Romans 9, which we are studying, since they use the word “hate” of Esau and “harden” of Pharaoh. In fact, verses 1-29 are the most forceful statement of double predestination in the Bible.

There are two important distinctions between election and reprobation. The question we must ask is this: Does God determine the destinies of individuals in exactly the same way so that, without any consideration of what they do or might do, He assigns one to heaven and the other to hell? We know He does in the case of those who are being saved, because we have been told that election has no basis in any good seen or foreseen in those who are elected. In fact, we are told in Romans, for Paul’s point is that salvation is due entirely to God’s mercy and not to any good that could be imagined to reside in us. The question is whether this can be said of the reprobate, too, that God has consigned them to hell apart from anything they have done, apart from their deserving it.

Here, there is an important distinction to be made between election and reprobation, which has been the view of the majority of Reformed thinkers and is the teaching embodied in the great Reformed creeds like the Westminster Confession of Faith. The confession teaches that both election and reprobation flow from the eternal counsels or will of God, rather than the will of man and both are for the end of making the glory of God known. But there are two important points of difference.

First, the confession speaks of the reprobate being “passed by.” Some will argue that in its ultimate effect there is no difference between passing by and actively ordaining and individual to condemnation. But while that is true of the ultimate effect, there is nevertheless a major difference in the cause. The reason why some believe the gospel and are saved by it is that God intervenes in their lives to bring them to faith. He does it by the new birth or regeneration. But those who are lost are not made to disbelieve by God. They do that by themselves. To ordain their end, God needs only withhold the special grace of regeneration.

Second, the confession speaks of God ordaining the lost “to dishonor and wrath for their sin.” That is a very important observation, for it makes reprobation the exact opposite of an arbitrary action. The lost are not lost because God willy-nilly consigns them to it, but rather as a just judgment upon them for their sins. In these two respects election and reprobation are dissimilar.

Some at this point may be wondering, “If the doctrine of reprobation is as difficult as it seems to be, why we should speak about it at all?” The first answer to that is that the Bible itself does. It’s part of the revelation given to us. This is also the primary answer to a person who says, “I could never love a God like that.” Fair enough, we may say, but that is nevertheless the God with whom you have to deal. Nothing is to be gained by opposing reprobation. But this is not a very satisfying answer, and there are satisfying and meaningful things to say about reprobation. It’s a doctrine that, like all other parts of Scripture, has its “useful” aspects (2 Tim. 3:16).

(1) Reprobation assures us that God’s purpose has not failed. The first benefit of this doctrine is the very thing Paul is teaching in Romans 9, namely, that God’s Word has not failed (v. 6). “But am I one of the elect?” you ask. It is easy to know the answer to that question: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and begin to obey Him. Those who do are the elect. That is how we determine who those persons are. (2) Reprobation helps us deal with apostasy. We all know people who have seemed to believe at one time, but who have then fallen away. Does this mean that God has failed them? No. It means that if they continue in their unbelieving state, they are not among God’s elect people. Apostasy does not show that the plan of God has failed. Reprobation helps us understand it. (3) Reprobation keeps before us the important truth that salvation is entirely of grace and that no works of man contribute to it. If none were lost, we would assume that all are being saved because somehow God owes us salvation, that He must save us either because of who we are or because of who He is. This is not the situation. All are not saved. Therefore, the salvation of the elect is due to divine mercy only. We must never forget that. (4) Reprobation glorifies God. As soon as we begin to think that God owes us something or that God must do something, we limit Him and reduce His glory. Election and its twin, reprobation, glorify God, for they remind us that God is absolutely free and sovereign. We have no power over Him. On the contrary, “God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden” (v. 18). God does as He wants in His universe.

When we understand that we are in the hands of a just and holy God and that we are without any hope of salvation apart from His free and utterly sovereign intervention, we will call out for mercy, which is the only right response. “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,” says the Almighty. If we believe that, our cry will be the cry of the tax collector: “God have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:15). And who can fault that doctrine?

*John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), p. 947.

Romans 9:13-18 Reflection Questions:

Paul is making the case that all the physical descendants of Abraham never automatically shared equally in the calling of Abraham. From the beginning that promise was narrowed down to the line of just one of two of Abraham’s sons (Isaac). The promise further narrowed to just one of two sons of Isaac (Jacob). This narrowing process is nothing new. It’s the way God has always worked, Paul says. Indeed in light of the overall failure of Israel, God has seen fit to continue this process by having the ultimate fulfillment narrowed down to just one descendant of Abraham – Jesus, the Messiah – through whom God’s promise to bless all nations would be accomplished. How does this make Paul’s case that God hasn’t changed His mind (or broken His Word) about the Jews but that, from the beginning, He has treated them (and His promise to them) the same way as always?

In verses 14-18 Paul continues his review of the whole history of Israel. He began in verses 6-13 with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now he references Mosses’ encounter with Pharaoh some four hundred years later and Israel’s exodus from Egypt. The story in Exodus 33 is where God declares to Moses that He will proceed with His plan for the exodus even though the people have made the golden calf, amounting to a declaration of independence from the true God. This is the setting for verse 15 in particular. Why is this story in Exodus significant to Paul’s argument in chapter 9?

What is your feeling on reprobation?

To the human eye there may be a time when some of the true children of God are almost indistinguishable from people who are merely behaving as believers or are circulating among believers. But the difference is there nevertheless. It has been put there by God. And in the end, since some of these people have the life of God within them and some do not, these who possess that life will show it by their spiritual growth. The distinction between those who seem to be spiritual children and those who actually are is critical to understanding the next section of Romans.

Paul is dealing with a troublesome problem faced by himself and the other early preachers of the gospel. The original Christians were Jews. Thus they naturally began obeying the Great Commission by witnessing to their Jewish family members, friends, and neighbors. Since the promises of the Messiah were to Israel and since Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah, according to their belief and understanding, Israel should have been willing to embrace Jesus. But Israel as a whole did not, and as time went on the people who were becoming Christians and the largest number of emerging Christian churches were overwhelmingly Gentile.

This was a severe disappointment to the early evangelists, even a great sorrow, as Paul’s opening paragraph in Romans 9 makes clear. But even more than this, it was a theological dilemma. The promises of God were to Israel, and yet Israel as a whole was unresponsive. Did this mean that God’s promises to Israel had failed, that is, that God had Himself failed? That God was impotent in the face of unbelief? Or did it mean that the promises of God could not be trusted? That in the matter of salvation God was simply free to change His mind? This is the problem Paul wrestles with in the middle section of Romans, chapters 9 through 11. The first of these introduced in Romans 9:6, is that the promises of God were not made to all the physical descendants of Abraham, but only to those whom God had elected to salvation and in whom He had therefore implanted or was implanting life.

Paul states this by saying, “It is not as though God’s Word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” A little later and a similar way, he contrasts those who are Abraham’s “descendants” with those who are His true “children” (v. 7). At first glance this argument may seem to be merely a novel idea, perhaps even an “argument from desperation,” as some would have it. But it is nothing of the sort. That not all Israel was true Israel was already and Old Testament perception. Every Jew was aware of the contrast made by the prophets between the nation as a whole and the remnant. It was increasingly obvious that the nation as a whole was apostate and that only a few Jews gave any indication of being among God’s genuine people. It was the same at the coming of Christ. The nation as a whole was going about business with little true faith at all, just as most people, both Jew and Gentile, do today.

We come now to the doctrine of election. We begin exactly where the apostle begins in Romans, namely, with the fact of election itself. The reasons are obvious. First, there is no sense arguing over the justice of God in electing some to salvation and passing over others unless we are convinced that He does. If we do not believe this, we will not waste our time puzzling over it. Second, if we are convinced that God elects to salvation, as Paul is going to insist He does, we will approach even the theodicy question differently. We will approach it to find understanding, rather than arrogantly trying to prove that God cannot do what the Bible clearly teaches. To seek understanding is one thing. God encourages it. But to demand that God conform to our limited insights into what is just or right is another matter entirely. So let me begin by saying that as long as we believe that God exercises any control over history or the lives of His people, then we must come to terms with election one way or another. It is inescapable. Election is an inescapable fact of human history.

What Paul does is go back to the earliest moments in the history of the Jewish people, to the stories of the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and show that election operated there. We remember, of course, that the apostle is trying to explain why not all Israel has been saved and why the fact that they have not been saved does not mean that God’s purpose or promises have failed. In the case of these three fathers of the nation, Paul is going to show that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became what they were by election and that others were not granted this privilege.

The biblical doctrine of election does not exclude the choice of nations for specific purposes in history, the doctrine does nevertheless also and more fundamentally refer to the choice of individuals – and that it is on this basis alone, not on any supposed right of birth or by doing of works, that a person is brought into the covenant of salvation.

How could it be otherwise, if the condition of fallen humanity is as bad as the Bible declares it to be? When we were studying chapter three of Romans we saw that Paul’s summary of the fall was expressed in these words: “There is no on righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Rom. 3:10-11). This is an expression that is referred to as total or radical depravity. It means that there is not a portion of our being that has not been ruined by sin. Sin pervades all our actions and darkens all our natural understanding, with the result that, rather than fleeing to God, who is our only reasonable object of worship and our only hope of blessing, we flee from Him.

How could a creature as depraved as that possibly come to God unless God should first set His saving choice upon him, regenerate him, and then call him to faith? How could a sinner like that believe the gospel unless God should first determine that he or she should believe it and then actually enable him or her to believe?

Of course, that is exactly what God does. In fact, we have already seen this action explained at length in Romans 8, where Paul spoke of a five-step process involving foreknowledge (or election), predestination, calling, justification, and glorification. Those five terms describe the very essence of salvation, and the significant thing is that God is the author of each one. It is He who foreknows, He who predestines, He who calls, He who justifies, and He who glorifies. The only thing Paul is adding in Romans 9 is that this is entirely apart from any supposed right of birth or good works. It is due entirely to the will and mercy of the sovereign God. Election means that salvation is of God. It is His idea and His work, and therefore it is as solid as God Himself is.

If salvation were up to me, I would blow it. Even if I could choose God savingly, which I can’t, I would soon unchoose Him and so fall away and be lost. But because God chooses me, I can know that I am secure because of His eternal and sovereign determination. God began this good work. And “He who began [this] good work…will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

Romans 9:6-12 Reflection Questions:

How can we be sure we are Christians? There are a number of specific questions to be answered that pertain to the matter. Do I believe on Christ? Have I been touched by knowledge of Jesus’ death for me, and have I committed myself to Him? Am I serious about following after Jesus, obeying His commands, and pleasing Him?

Ask yourself: Has my life been redirected? Is there anything I am doing now that I did not do before or would not be doing were I not committed to Jesus? And are there things I have stopped doing? Is Jesus my very own Lord and Savior? Do you testify of Jesus?

Am I learning about Christ? I know people who claim to be Christians who never go to a Bible study, never take notes of a sermon and never study the Bible on their own. If you are one of them how can you think of yourself as a Christian when you have no interest in learning about the One who gave Himself for you? How can you consider yourself a believer when you really don’t care about Jesus?

What is your feeling about the doctrine of election?

The opening paragraph of Romans 9 lists the extraordinary privileges and advantages of the Jews, God’s ancient people. In the words of Paul, they have been given “the adoption as sons…the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship… the promises [and]…the patriarchs.” But to this extraordinary list of privileges Paul now adds the greatest privilege of all, namely, that they are those through whom the Redeemer of the human race has come. “…from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”

This is a very striking statement. For Paul is not only saying that the Messiah was born of Israel, that is, that He was a Jew. He is also saying that this Jewish Messiah, born of Israel according to the flesh, is, in fact, God. And he is saying it in a stark language. If we substitute the name Jesus for Christ, which we can do, since Paul is obviously writing about Jesus, we have the statement: “Jesus, who is God over all, forever praised!” Or, to simplify it even further, “Jesus…is God over all.” The sentence means that Jesus is Himself the only and most high God.

Yet this is not all the passage teaches. It actually contains four very important teachings, including Jesus’ deity. (1) The humanity of Jesus. The first heresy in church history was the denial of the true humanity of Christ. It was called docetism, from the Greek word dokeo, which means “to seem.” It taught that Jesus only “seemed” to be a man. There is none of this in the New Testament. For here in Romans 9:5, as in other passages, the biblical writers are united in their insistence that Jesus was a true human being, a descendant of Abraham according to the flesh. This has a number of important implications, for it means that God not only fully understands but has also Himself likewise experienced all that we experience as human beings. The doctrine of Christ’s humanity is of great importance for us if we are to live a victorious Christian life.

(2) The deity of Jesus. As I said, the earliest heresy in the history of the church was the denial of Christ’s humanity. But today the case is the exact opposite. Few would deny His humanity since to our way of thinking Jesus was obviously a man, even an exemplary man. Instead there are strong, numerous, and popular attempts to deny His deity. Countless numbers of our contemporaries regard Jesus as having been nothing but a man. Far more is lost with this denial than in denying Christ’s humanity. What is lost is the value of His atonement for sin, for no mere man, however good, would be able to pay the infinite price required for our redemption. The combination of Christ’s humanity and deity, and the reason for it, makes Calvary the very center of the Christian faith. It is the reason the Son of God came to earth. There is no gospel without it.

(3) The supremacy of Jesus. But Jesus didn’t only die, humbling Himself for our salvation. He also rose again and has now ascended to heaven, where He is honored as God, having being given the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:8-11). If Jesus Christ is Lord, as these passages say He is, the supremacy of Christ described in Romans 9:5 (“who is God over all”) includes His rule over us, who are His people, and we are not His people if we fail to submit to that rule. There is a great deal of bad thinking and even error in this area at this present time. It has become customary in some places to think of Christianity as a two-stage commitment. In the first stage we come to Jesus as Savior, simply believing on Him as the one who died for sin. In the second we come to Him as Lord, thereby becoming serious about our Christianity and about being Christ’s disciples. But nothing like this is found in the New Testament. On the contrary, to become a Christian is to become a disciple and vise versa. Submitting to Christ’s lordship is the very essence of true faith, or Christianity.

(4) The rightness of praising Jesus. The fourth doctrine taught in Romans 9:5 is the rightness of praising Jesus, for the text reads, “Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!” It raises two questions: “Do we praise Him?” and “Do we praise Him as we should?” The answer to the second question is obviously no, for no mere human or earthly words can be adequate for praising Christ properly. Yet we should do it, knowing that it will be our privilege, joy, and glory to praise Jesus Christ in heaven forever. The angels are doing it (Rev. 5:12). According to Revelation, one day we are going to join with them (Rev. 5:13). So let’s do it now! Let us praise our Savior, who is God over all, as best we know how – live for Him until He comes again.

There is one last thought as we return to the paragraph in Romans from which our text is taken (Rom. 9:1-5). We have seen that Paul is expressing sorrow over the fact that the ancient nation of Israel had as a whole rejected Jesus and that, in that context, the ascription of deity to Jesus is appropriate as conveying the full tragedy of the Jews’ rejection. It’s bad enough that the nation should have missed the full value of the other privileges listed: the adoption, the divine glory, the covenants, the law, the temple worship, the promises, and the patriarchs. But it’s a tragedy beyond description that they should have rejected Jesus as the Messiah whom God had promised. Yet we also need to say more. However tragic the Jews’ rejection of Jesus may have been (and is), the rejection of Jesus by others, both Jews and Gentiles, is equally tragic today, perhaps even more so, since the gospel has been so widely proclaimed and been so amply defended in the many centuries of subsequent church history.

It would be especially tragic is you yourself should reject Him, either forcefully (“I will not have this man to rule over me”) or by neglect (“Speak to me about it again, some other time”). If you are doing either of those two things, how can we who know Jesus have anything other than “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in our hearts for you? To reject our words is nothing, but to reject Him is a loss of cosmic proportions. So we say, “Do not reject Him. Believe on Him. God is making His appeal through us as we say with Paul, “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20) and remind you that “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21). That is the gospel. Do not allow the opportunity to respond to that wonderful message pass you by.

Romans 9:5 Reflection Questions:

What is the cause of Paul’s emotions in verses 1-5?

Why is Paul so upset about the Jews’ lack of response to the gospel?

Paul seems to be searching for possible explanations for this troubling problem. What are some of the solutions he explores?

It is difficult for any of to receive a hard truth, however necessary it may be to hear it. But there is always a much better chance of hearing it if it is told to us in love. At the end of chapter eight, Paul was riding an emotional high as he declared that there is nothing in all creation that can separate a believer from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  But suddenly we come to chapter 9, and we find Paul exclaiming in a very different mood (vv. 1-2). What has happened? The answer is that he is now suddenly thinking of the members of his own race, the Jewish people, and he is grieving because for the most part they have rejected the gospel of God’s grace in Christ that he has been expounding. Paul is in such anguish for them that he could wish – these are his very words – “that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel” (vv. 3-4a).

This would be an unacceptable and nearly incomprehensible claim to most Jews who might hear him, for in their sight Paul was the worst of all possible enemies. He was a Jew himself, first of all. But he had become a believer in the one they would have called “that blaspheming imposter,” and now he was going about trying to convert both Gentiles and Jews to this religion. From their perspective, Paul was not only dreadfully wrong; he was also a traitor, a man who was trying to destroy the Judaism he had once affirmed.

Paul wasn’t doing this of course, at least not according to his understanding of the prophets. He was proclaiming Jesus as Israel’s true Messiah. But he was aware of the hostility that existed, which is why he is so anxious to declare his love for his people in this chapter. But notice: The truly remarkable thing is not that the Jews hated Paul, which was natural. The remarkable thing was Paul’s overwhelming love for those who were his enemies. Nowhere in his writings or anywhere else is there ever found (or is there ever imputed to his) the shadow of personal offense, matching retaliation, or lingering bitterness against the Jews for the abuses they gave him. Not once. Nowhere!

On the contrary, Paul’s spirit was the spirit of his Master, who wept over the city of Jerusalem even though He knew He was about to be crucified by the nation’s hostile leaders (see Luke 19:41-44). It was the tragic contrast between the Jews” fierce unbelief and the joys of the gospel that brought tears to the eyes of both Jesus of Nazareth and the apostle Paul. But we have not fully sounded the depths of Paul’s great love and sorrow for his people even yet. He says that he could wish himself “cut off from Christ” for the sake of his Jewish brothers. The text actually says that Paul would be willing to be “accursed from Christ” (that is, “damned”) for the sake of the Jewish people.

Now that really is remarkable! “Cut off from Christ”? From the very man who has reveled far beyond any of the other New Testament writers on the glories of being “in Christ” or being “joined to Him”? “Accursed”? From the very teacher who has so passionately affirmed that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? Paul knows he cannot actually be separated from Christ. That is what the previous chapter has proclaimed so forcefully. Paul’s words in chapter 9 are only hypothetical. But they are genuine nevertheless. For he is saying that, if it were possible, he could wish himself accursed from Christ if only his condemnation could achieve the salvation of the people he so fervently loved.

Paul could not be a substitute for his people. He could not die for them because he was a sinner. But there was One who could. Thus, “when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). This was the only adequate substitute for sinners, the Son of God Himself. And Jesus’ future, yet foreseen death was the reason God did not destroy the people in Moses’ day (Exodus 32) and why He does not destroy people who believe on Jesus Christ today. Paul knew this, which is why he speaks hypothetically and not exactly as Mosses did, though he echoes his words. He knew that Jesus died to receive the full outpouring of God’s wrath against sin so that those who come to God through faith in Him might not experience God’s wrath but rather grace. He knew it was the only way God saves anyone.

The spirit that was in Jesus, Paul, and Moses should be in each of us – if we would be soul-winners. No one can die for another person’s salvation. Jesus is the only one who could, and He did. But we can love as He loved, and we can point others to Him.

Paul was a great preacher of election. He will preach it again even in these verses. But his knowledge of the need for the electing grace of God in salvation did not prohibit him from sorrowing over those who were lost. I commend the heart of the great apostle to you. Let the sins of others grieve you. Let the fate that hangs over them be often on your mind. For, if it is, you will work for their salvation in exactly the same proportion, and you will speak often of Jesus who actually was accursed for those who should afterward believe on Him.

Romans 9:1-4 Reflection Questions:

Do you anguish over others? Do you anguish over those closest to you, the members of your own family?

Do you anguish over those who are your enemies?  Do you anguish over those who are great sinners?

Do you anguish over those who have great privileges?

What can be learned from Paul’s attitude in verses 1-5 about how we’re to respond to the Jewish people today?

In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Romans, we are dealing with a Christian philosophy of history. It’s a philosophy that we can ask as a question: “What in the world is God doing?” Or, “What is God doing in world history?” Or even: “What is He doing with me? Where have I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going when I die?” There has never been a more important moment in which to ask these questions, because in our day people have lost, not only the Christian answers to them but even the hope of finding them. The classic carnival man’s cry as the moving wheel of fortune turns: “Round and round and round she goes and where she stops nobody knows.”

This however, is not the Christian view, nor is it the teaching of Romans. The Christian view is not negative, because it sees God at the beginning of history (taking charge of it), the cross of Jesus Christ at the center of history (giving it meaning), and the return of Christ at the end of history (bringing it to a triumphant conclusion). For the Christian, time and history are pregnant with eternal meaning. In one sense that is the theme of the next great section of Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapters 9 through 11. But these chapters are not introduced into a vacuum. They are linked to what has already been written.

Thus far, Paul has discoursed largely on the justification and sanctification of believers. In following through on these themes, Paul introduces some of the most profound and mind-stretching material to be found anywhere in the Bible. We will see, as we study these chapters: (1) the historical advantages of Judaism; (2) the importance and biblical proof of election; (3) the doctrine of reprobation; (4) the justice of God in saving some and passing by others; (5) the glory of God displayed in His judgments; (6) the reason for Jewish failure to believe on Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah; (7) the place and power of gospel preaching in God’s plan; (8) the importance of Christian missions; (9) what God is doing in the present age, and why; (10) the eventual salvation of the Jews as a nation; and (11) the great and indescribable knowledge and wisdom of God that guides it all. All those themes will occupy us in due course.

But, as we begin, it is important to see the overall outline of these chapters as they apply to the central question Paul is raising, namely: Has God’s saving purpose toward the Jewish nation failed? It is the question he raises implicitly in verse 6. Paul’s answer is a firm “No,” for the following seven reasons: (1) God’s historical purpose toward the Jewish nation has not failed, because all whom God has elected to salvation are or will be saved (Rom. 9:6-24). (2) God’s historical purpose toward the Jewish nation has not failed, because God had previously revealed that not all Israel would be saved and that some Gentiles would be (Rom. 9:25-29). (3) God’s historical purpose toward the Jewish nation has not failed, because the failure of the Jews to believe was their own fault, not God’s (Rom. 9:30-10:21). (4) God’s historical purpose toward the Jewish nation has not failed, because some Jews (Paul himself was an example) have believed and have been saved (Rom. 11:1). (5) God’s historical purpose toward the Jewish nation has not failed, because it has always been the case that not all Jews but only a remnant has been saved (Rom. 11:2-10). (6) God’s historical purpose toward the Jewish nation has not failed, because the salvation of the Gentiles, which is now occurring, is meant to arouse Israel to envy and thus be the means of saving some of them (Rom. 11:11-24). (7) Finally, God’s historical purpose toward the Jewish nation has not failed, because in the end all Israel will be saved, and thus God will fulfill His promises to Israel nationally (Rom. 11:25-32).

We are going to be studying all these points in detail as we move through these great but sadly neglected chapters of Romans. Yet even here it is possible to see something of the vast scope of Paul’s plan. The apostle is showing what God is doing in the flow of human history from the very earliest moments in which He began to save our fallen race, through the period in which He began to work in a special way through the nation of Israel, to the coming of the Messiah, the rejection of Jesus for the most part by His own people, the offer of the gospel to the Gentiles, and the eventual conversion of the masses of Israel so that the two great religious portions of the human race may be saved and joined together as one people in Him. And in all this, Paul is providing what theologians call theodicy, a justification of the ways of God to human beings. In other words, he is not only showing what God is doing but also that He is right in so operating.

The question before us as we begin this section is: “How do we fit in?” What is God doing in your life? If you are a Christian, He is forming Jesus Christ in you so that at the end of time there will be a vast host of believers who will stand before Him as sisters and brothers of His beloved Son. Our problem is that we forget that this is what God is doing. Or we don’t think about this enough for it to matter. Instead, we are caught up in our own little plans, most of which have nothing to do with this purpose and will prove meaningless in the end. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you must know that you are here to be like Christ and to strive to win others to Christ so that they as well as yourself might have a share in this great blessing. What is God doing in history? That is what He is doing. That is a true understanding of historical events.

Romans 9-11 Reflection Questions:

Before you became a Christian, where did you look for meaning and purpose in life?

What kept you from turning to Christ sooner?

Think of something you have made with your hands (a work of art, a meal, a piece of furniture, etc.). What was your purpose in making it? How did you feel about it once it was done?

There are times in every Christian’s life when what is called for is a clear and ringing testimony, and there are times when what is most needed is a careful and persuasive argument supporting Christian truth. Overall, both are essential, for a personal testimony is no adequate substitute for an argument, when that is needed, and vise versa. In today’s wishy-washy, subjective Christian climate we need arguments especially. But, and this is the point I am making, we need personal testimonies, too.

I say this because of the final verses of chapter 8. Paul has been offering arguments for why we who believe in Christ can consider ourselves eternally secure. In fact, he seems to have brought out every possible argument he can think of in verses 28-37. They are basic to Christianity itself. But there is also a time for testimony and that is why, in verses 38 and 39, he once again writes in the first person. What a glorious testimony! There is no false optimism here, for what Paul says is based upon the sound arguments of the preceding verses. In this testimony Paul faces all possible “separators” of Christians from the love of God in Christ he can think of and then dismisses each one.

For most people today as also in the past, the most fearful of all adversaries is death – and rightly so. Apart from what we are told about death and the afterlife in Scripture, death is an unknown, except that it ends our existence here and is inescapable. Moreover, death is the greatest of all separators. Obviously it separates us from life itself. But it also separates the soul and the spirit from the body, and separates both from God if the individual is not saved. But for the believer in Christ this is not the final word. Death does separate us from things of the world, including people. But it can never separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. How do we know this? We know because Christ has conquered death. He triumphed over it. As a matter of fact, death, far from separating believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus, actually ushers them into an even closer relationship with Him.

The second possible separator that Paul mentions is “life,” this may seem strange until we remember that life sometimes seems even more cruel than death. Life brings separations, just as death does. The political aftermaths of wars sometimes separate members of families from one another. Sometimes poverty forces people to move away from loved ones if they have to leave their homes to find jobs. And consider sickness or the encroaching limitations of old age. In these things we experience separation from the simple pleasures the world once offered us. But there is no separation from God’s love.

When Paul mentions “angels” and “demons” as his next pair of possible separators, he is not thinking so much in rationally exclusive terms as he is simply sweeping over all creation to deny that anything or anyone anywhere could ever succeed in destroying our eternal security in Christ. In the first pair of possible separators Paul has looked at our most immediate experiences: life and death. In the second he looks to the realm of spirit beings and declares that not one of them, whatever that being may be like can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Having addressed the experiences of life and death and expanded his circle of possible separators to include angelic forces, both good and evil, Paul now thinks in terms of time, arguing that neither present things nor future things can separate us from God’s love in Christ. Time is powerless against believers. Paul is saying that the hard things that are pressing in on us at this very moment and any things to come in the future cannot separate us from Christ. Jesus is equal to them.

It’s hard to know what Paul is thinking of when he speaks of “powers,” particularly since he adds it as a freestanding term, without linking it to a matching word, as he has done with the other possible separators thus far. The word in Greek can refer to miraculous signs or miracles, though here it would seem to mean heavenly or spiritual forces. The only problem is that we find it hard to think of spiritual powers that are not already included in the phrase “neither angels nor demons.” Paul might be meaning it in a summary fashion that there are no powers anywhere that can divide us from Christ.

In the fourth (and last) of his matched pairs, Paul turns from human experience, spiritual powers, and time and considers space, saying that “neither height nor depth” will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. This means that the love of God is everywhere, and may be an expression of the thought found in the well-known verses Psalm 139:7-10. On the other hand it may be significant that the Greek words translated “height” and “depth” were used in the ancient world in astrology to describe a point directly overhead, above the horizon, and a point directly downward, below the horizon. These points were used in forecasting horoscopes. If this is correct, the teaching is that even so-called astrological powers cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

After the sweeping terms of the first part of these verses the closing single item is “nor anything else in all creation. It’s as if Paul has run out of words in his verbal search for possible “separators” and ends up saying, “nor anything else, anything else at all.” What does “anything else in all creation” include? The answer is that it includes everything that exists except God, since God has created all these other things. Thus, if God is for us and if God controls everything else, since He has made it, then absolutely nothing anywhere will be able to separate us from His love for us in Christ Jesus.

This is Paul’s personal testimony which is based on the soundest evidence, evidence that had persuaded Paul, and should persuade us also. Paul’s conviction is not based on the intensity of his feelings or a belief that harsh circumstances of life are bound to improve or that any of these separating factors will somehow be dissolved or go away. Rather it is based on the greatness of God’s love for us in Christ, and that awesome love has been made known in that God sent His Son to die in our place. There is nothing in all the universe greater or more steadfast than that love. Therefore, nothing in all the universe can separate us from it.

I don’t know of anything greater than that. And I don’t know of any better way of ending our studies of Romans 8 than to say again that this is Paul’s testimony, born out of his own careful study of the Scriptures and his own personal experience of the love and grace of God. So I ask you: is this your testimony? Have you been persuaded of these truths, as Paul was? Can you say, “I no longer have any doubts. I know that salvation is entirely of God and that He will keep me safe until the very end”? If you are not certain of these truths, it is because you are still looking at yourself. You are thinking of your own feeble powers and not of God and His omnipotence.

Romans 8:38-39 Reflection Questions:

Can anything you are facing personally today (pandemic, unable to worship together) keep you from the love of God in Christ Jesus? How are you showing this love to the world today?

What reasons does Paul give for rejoicing and triumphing over suffering in Romans 8:31-39?

What specific evidence of God’s love do you have in your life?

Anyone who has studied the Bible with care knows that there are times when we come to some soaring pinnacle of revelation and are left nearly breathless by the view. This is what happens when we come to the last great paragraph of Romans 8. This is a mountaintop paragraph. It’s the Everest of the letter and thus the highest peak in the highest Himalayan range of Scripture. We have made our way up the steep ascent of doctrine in the first half of this great letter. We are able to look out over the beautiful but somewhat lower vistas of the book’s second half. Yet now, for the time being, we are on the peak, and the experience is glorious. We have looked at the undeniable affirmations and they are: foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. We will now look at the five unanswerable questions. These questions alone make this a mountaintop paragraph.

The first question is in verse 31: If God is for us, who can be against us?” The second half of this question is not at all unanswerable. Who can be against us? Why of course, many people and many things. Yes, there are plenty of enemies out there who are against us, and there is even an enemy within. But what are these when they are put into a sentence containing the verse’s first half, “If God is for us…”? Who can stand against God? The answer is “nobody.” Nothing can defeat us if the Almighty God of the universe is on our side.

“But what if God should grow weary of us, forget about us, and move on to something else?” Paul deals with this speculation in verse 32, asking, “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?” Paul is challenging us to look at the cross and reason as follows: If God did that for us, sending His own Son, Jesus, to die in our place, is there anything He can possibly be imagined to withhold? Clearly, if God gave us Jesus, the greatest of all possible gifts, He can be counted on to give us all the lesser gifts. The cross proves God’s generosity.

The third of these questions moves into the legal area, as if we were now in a court of law, asking whether someone might exist somewhere to accuse us and thus bring us into final spiritual condemnation. The question is in verse 33, “Who will bring any charges against those whom God has chosen?” Who could do that, Paul asks, since “it is God who justifies”? Apart from the work of God in Christ there would be many to condemn us – the devil, of course, and others, even our own hearts. But consider Paul’s counter: “It is God who justifies,” indeed, has justified us (see v. 30). Who could possibly secure our condemnation when we have already been acquitted by the highest court of all?

The fourth question is so closely related to the third that some have considered them to be asking the same thing. Yet there is a difference. Verse 34 asks the question: “Who is he that condemns?” It answers, “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.” The Bible teaches this truth in a striking image, using the word paraclete (or lawyer) for both the Holy Spirit and Jesus. A paraclete is “one called alongside another to help,” which is also the exact meaning of the word advocate, the only difference being that one is derived from Greek and the other from Latin. This is a picture of a divine law firm with two branches, a heavenly office and an earthly one. On earth the Holy Spirit pleads for us, interpreting our petitions correctly. In heaven the Lord Jesus Christ pleads the efficacy of His shed blood to show that we are saved persons and that nothing can rise up to cause our condemnation by God.

The final, all-embracing, and climactic question is in verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul does what we have been trying to do with his other four questions. He looks around for a possible answer. He brings forward all adversaries he can think of, which might be thought to separate us from Christ’s love. They are real sufferings, painful and perilous and hard to bear. But can they separate us from the love of Christ? No! Verse 37: far from separating us from Christ’s love, “in all these things” – in these very sufferings, in the experience and endurance of them – “we are more than conquerors.”

Jesus was the prototype – the true sheep fit only “to be slaughtered.” He was “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). But He was also a super-conqueror, and we are more than conquerors through Him.

Romans 8:31-36 Reflection Questions:

What do you say to “these things”? What is your response?

Do you see these verses the pinnacle of Scripture? Why?

How do these verses encourage you in your Christian walk?

The word “called” is the next link in the great golden chain of salvation by which God reaches down from eternity into time to save sinners. The point of this word, the third link, is that those whom God calls not only hear His call but actually respond to it by turning around and by believing on Jesus Christ or committing their lives to Him. Remember there are two types of calls; external, general, which is itself ineffective for salvation, and a call that is internal, specific, and regenerating.

The first call is an open invitation to all persons to repent of their sin and turn to Jesus. This call flows from every true Christian pulpit and from who bear witness to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The difficulty with this external, universal, and (in itself) ineffectual call is that if people are left to themselves, no one ever actually responds to it. People hear the gospel and may even understand it up to a point. But God who issues the invitation is undesirable to them, and so they turn away. Jesus declared, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…” (John 6:44). But this is where the second kind of call comes in, the kind that is actually spoken of in Romans 8:30. Unlike the first call, which is external, universal, and (in itself) ineffective, this second call is internal, specific, and entirely effective. In other words, it effectively saves those – and all those – to whom it is spoken. It is a call that unites us to Jesus Christ, bringing us into fellowship with Him, and sets before us a holy life in which we will be sure to walk if we have truly been called.

We have stressed that the necessity of the special, or internal, call of the individual to salvation by God is important. However, we need to remember that the effectual or specific call comes through the general call. That is, it is through the preaching the Word by God’s evangelists and ministers and through the telling of the Good News of the gospel by Christians everywhere that God calls sinners. He does not call everyone we Christians call. Our call does not regenerate. God alone is the author of the new birth. All must be born “from above.” Nevertheless, the way God does, that is through the sowing of the seed of His Word, which is entrusted to us.

We have been studying a long-range plan, in fact, the longest-range plan that has ever been devised or could be devised. It’s a plan that has its origins in eternity past and will find its consummation in eternity future. It is all-embracing. Of course, I’m speaking of the plan of God outlined for us in Romans 8:28-30. The plan begins with God’s foreknowledge and predestination, expresses itself in time in the calling of individuals to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, includes justification, and ends in glorification, when these foreknown and predestined persons are made entirely like Jesus. We come now to the last two steps of the plan.

The first term we need to look at is justification. Justification is the opposite of condemnation. When a person is in a wrong relationship to the law and is condemned or pronounced guilty by the judge, condemnation does not make the person guilty. The person is only declared to be so. In the same way, in justification a person is declared by God to be in a right relationship to His law, but not made righteous. In a human court a person can be declared righteous or “innocent” on the basis of his or her own righteousness. But in God’s court, since we humans have no righteousness of our own and are therefore not innocent, believers are declared righteous on the ground of Christ’s atonement, in other words, justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Glorification, the fifth and final term of Romans 8:29-30, is a term we met as early as Romans 5:2 (which anticipates Rom. 8:28-30), where Paul spoke of Christians as rejoicing “in the hope of the glory of God.” What does Romans 5:2 mean? It means that we know that one day we will be glorified and that we rejoice in this certainty. That is, we know that we will be like Jesus. We will not become God, of course. But we will become like Him in His communicable attributes: love, joy, mercy, wisdom, faithfulness, grace, goodness, self-control and other such things (see Gal. 5:22-23). In that day sin will no longer trouble us, and we will enjoy the complete fullness and eternal favor of God’s presence.

The teaching of Romans 6:2 and 11 explains how it is that we have “died to sin.” You cannot go back; there is no place for you to go but forward. The eternal purpose of God in saving us, unfolded in the five great acts of God described in Romans 8:29-30, makes that plain. But just as it is important to say that we cannot go back, so is it also important to say that we are going forward. God’s foreknowledge of us is followed by His predestination of us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. His predestination of us to be made like Jesus is followed by our being called to saving faith. Our calling is followed by our Justification. Our justification is followed by our glorification. Therefore, it is as certain that one day we will be with Jesus, and be completely like Jesus, as it is that God exists and that His long-range plan is realistic, effective, and unchangeable. This is God’s great plan. So let’s get on with our part in it and be thankful that His grace has drawn us in!

Romans 8:30 Reflection Questions:

Can you recall your personal external and internal calls?

What is the effect and means of our justification?

Paul’s mention of glorification in Romans 8:30 is that it is in the past tense, so when do you think glorification takes place?

This study is about foreknowledge and predestination. This is the first place in Romans at which Paul introduces these two terms. God’s foreknowledge of a chosen people and His predestination of them t be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ lies behind everything Paul has been teaching in the seven and a half chapters. But Paul has not discussed these ideas until he has first presented our desperate condition due to sin and God’s remedy for sin through faith in Jesus Christ.

So, where do we start in discussing this doctrine? We have already made a start in the last study, showing that foreknowledge and predestination are two of five great doctrines described as a golden chain by which God reaches down from heaven to elect and save a people for Himself. Paul wrote in verse 28, “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.” Since the word “called” also occurs again as one of the five doctrines in this chain, we are alerted to the fact that the chain of divine actions merely explains how God achieves this purpose. In other words, it’s not foreknowledge or predestination that is primary but the purpose of God itself. What is that purpose? Clearly, it is that from the mass of fallen and perishing humanity God might save a company of people who will be made like Jesus. Or we could put it this way: God loves Jesus so much that He is determined to have many more people like Him. Not that we become divine, of course. But rather that we might become like Him in His many communicable attributes: things like love, joy, peace, holiness, wisdom, patience, grace, kindness, goodness, compassion, faithfulness, mercy, and other qualities. In order to do that, God selects, predestines, calls, justifies, and glorifies this people. That is, verses 29 and 30 tell how God accomplishes the purpose of verse 28.

In the flow of these verses, we are told that God: (1) has a purpose to save certain people, and (2) does something to those people as a first step in a five-step process of saving them. As soon as we begin to look at the word foreknowledge carefully, we discover that it is used in a very specific way in the Bible. And for good reasons! When we use the word “foreknowledge” in relation to ourselves, to refer to knowing beforehand, the word has meaning to us. We can anticipate what a person we know well might do, for instance. But that sense of the word is meaningless in relation to God. Because God is not in time, as we are, He does not know things beforehand. God simply knows. He knows all things. That is what omniscience means. But even if we think in time categories, which is all we can do as creatures locked in time, we have to say that the only reason God can even be said to foreknow things is because He predetermines them. No, the word foreknowledge has quite a different meaning in relation to God than it does in relation to us. It means that God “sets His special love upon” a person or “elects” a person to salvation.

This is a characteristic use of the word in the Old Testament (Amos 3:2). We see the same idea when we examine the use of “foreknowledge: (or “foreknew”) in the New Testament, where the references occur seven times. Two of these occurrences are of man’s foreknowledge, five are of God’s foreknowledge, and they are the determining passages (Acts 2:23, Rom. 11:2, 1Pet. 1:2 & 20, Rom. 8:29). The fifth New Testament reference to God’s foreknowledge is in our text, and the meaning is the same as the other verses. Romans 8:29 means that God set His special or saving love upon a select group of people in order that His good purpose, namely to create a people to be like His Son Jesus Christ, might be achieved.

The second of our five golden terms is predestination, the one that bothers most people, though what bothers them is more accurately included in the word foreknowledge. That is, that God should set His love upon a special people and save them while overlooking others. Predestination means that God has determined the specific destiny of those He has previously decided should be saved and be made like Jesus.

This is a good place to look at the objections people have to this doctrine, whether described by the word foreknowledge or predestination. (1) If you believe in predestination, you make salvation arbitrary and God a tyrant. In other words, does predestination make God a tyrant, crushing justice by some willy-nilly saving of some and damning of others? Anyone who has studied the Bible (or even just the Book of Romans) knows how wrong this is. What will happen if we seek only an even-handed justice from God? The answer is that we will all be lost. In order to be saved, we need mercy and not justice, which is what predestination, is all about. It is God showing mercy to whom He will show mercy (Rom. 9:18). As far as being arbitrary is concerned, we must admit that from our perspective we cannot see why God chooses some and not others or even some and not all, and therefore His foreknowledge and predestination do seem arbitrary. But that is only because we are not God and cannot see as God sees.

(2) If you believe in predestination, you must deny human freedom. This is a common objection, but it is based on a sad misunderstanding of the freedom we are supposed to have as fallen human beings. What does the Bible teach about our freedom in spiritual matters? It teaches that we are not free to choose God (Rom. 3”10-11, Rom. 8:7). Predestination does not take away freedom. It restores it. It’s because God foreknows me and predestines me to be conformed to the image of His Son that I am delivered from sin’s bondage and set free to serve Him.

(3) If you believe in predestination, you will destroy the motivation for evangelism. For why should we labor to save those whom God has determined to save anyway? Suppose God does not elect to salvation and thus, because He has determined to save some, does not commit Himself to create new life within them that will break down their hard hearts and enable them to respond in faith to the message of the cross when it is made known. If God doesn’t commit Himself to doing that, what hope do you and I as evangelists have of doing it? If the hearts of men and women are as wicked and incapable of belief as the Bible teaches they are, how can you and I ever hope to present the gospel savingly to anyone? To put it in even more frightening terms, if salvation depends upon our efforts to evangelize rather than the foreknowledge and predestination of God, what if I do something wrong? What if I give a wrong answer to a question or do something that turns others away from Christ? In that case, either by my error or because of my sin, I will be responsible for their eternal damnation. I don’t see how that can encourage evangelism, on the contrary, it will make us afraid to do or say anything.

But look at the other way. If God has elected some to salvation in order that Jesus might be glorified and that many might come to Him in faith and be conformed to His image, then I can be both relaxed and bold in my witness. I can know that God will save those He has determined to save and will even use my witness, however feeble or imprecise it might be, if this is the means He has chosen. Far from destroying evangelism, predestination actually makes evangelism possible. It makes it an expectant and joyful exercise.

Romans 8:29 Reflection Questions:

How does it make you feel knowing that God’s special love elected you to salvation?

What type of responsibility do you feel to God knowing that He created you to be like His Son Jesus Christ?

How do you feel about evangelizing (sharing the gospel)? Do you feel it to be a joyful exercise?

In our previous study of Romans 8:28, it tells us that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” That is, God has a great and good purpose for all Christians and He is working in all the many detailed circumstances of their lives to achieve it. Wonderful as this verse is, the verses that follow are even more wonderful, for they tell how God accomplishes this purpose and remind us that it is God Himself who accomplishes it. The last reminder is the basis for what is commonly known as “eternal security” or “the perseverance of the saints.”

In spiritual matters we are all unbelievers. We are weak in faith. But we are taught in these great verses from Romans that salvation does not depend upon our faith, however necessary faith may be, but on the purposes of God. And it is the same regarding love. The apostle has just said that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. But lest we somehow imagine that the strength of our love is the determining factor in salvation, he reminds us that our place in this good flow of events is not grounded in our love for God but on the fact that He has fixed His love upon us. How has God loved us? These verses introduce us to five great doctrines: (1) foreknowledge, (2) predestination, (3) effectual calling, (4) justification, and (5) glorification. These five doctrines are so closely connected that they have rightly and accurately been described as “a golden chain of five links.”

The most important of these five terms is “foreknowledge,” but surprisingly (or not surprisingly, since our ways are not God’s ways nor His thoughts our thoughts), it’s the most misunderstood. It’s composed of two separate words: “fore,” which means beforehand, and “knowledge.” So it has been taken to mean that, since God knows all things, God knows beforehand who will believe on Him and who will not, as a result of which He has predestined to salvation those whom He foresees will believe on Him. In other words, what He foreknows or foresees is their faith. Foreknowledge is such an important idea that we are going to come back to it again in the next study and carefully examine the way it is actually used in the Bible.

But even here we can see that such an explanation can never do justice to this passage. For one thing, the verse does not say that God foreknew what certain of His creatures would do. It is not talking about human actions at all. On the contrary, it is speaking entirely of God and of what God does. Each of these five terms is like that: God foreknew, God predestined, God called, God justified, God glorified. Besides, the object of the divine foreknowledge is not the actions of certain people but the people themselves. In this sense it can only mean that God has fixed a special attention upon them or loved them savingly. Foreknowledge means that salvation has its origin in the mind or eternal counsels of God, not in man. It focuses our attention on the distinguishing love of God, according to which some persons are elected to be conformed to the character of Jesus Christ, which is what Paul has already been saying.

Some may think that foreknowledge and predestination (the term that follows) mean the same thing, however the terms are not synonymous. Predestination carries us a step further. Predestination is also composed of two separate words: “pre,” meaning beforehand, and “destiny” or “destination.” It means to determine a person’s destiny beforehand, and this is the sense in which it differs from foreknowledge. As we have seen, foreknowledge means to fix one’s love upon or elect. It “does not inform us of the destination to which those thus chosen are appointed. This is what predestination supplies. It tells us that, having fixed His distinguishing love upon us, God next appointed us “to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.” He does this, as the next terms show, by calling, justifying, and glorifying those thus chosen.

The next step in this golden chain of five links is effectual calling. It’s important to use the adjective “effectual” at this point because there are two different kinds of calling referred to in the Bible, and it is easy to get confused about them. One kind of calling is external, general, and universal. It is an open invitation to all persons to repent of sin, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved (see Matt. 11:28, John 7:37). The problem with this type of call is that, left to themselves, no men or women ever respond positively. They hear the call, but they turn away, preferring their own ways to God. The other kind of call is internal, specific, and effectual. That is, it not only issues the invitation, it also provides the ability or willingness to respond positively. It is God’s drawing to Himself or bringing to spiritual life the one who without that call would remain spiritually dead and far from Him.

The next step in God’s great chain of saving actions is justification. We have discussed justification in earlier studies and so we need not discuss it in detail here. Briefly, it is the judicial act by which God declares sinful men and women to be in a right standing before Him, not on the basis of their own merit, for they have none, but on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done for them by dying in their place on the cross. Jesus bore their punishment, taking the penalty of their sins upon Himself. Those sins having been punished, God then imputes the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ to their account.

What does need to be discussed here is the relationship of the effectual call to justification. Or to put it in the form of a question: Why does calling come between foreknowledge and predestination, on the one hand, and justification and glorification, on the other? There are two reasons. First, calling is the point at which the things determined beforehand in the mind and counsel of God pass over into time. Remember there is no time frame in God. What God simply decrees in eternity becomes actual in time. We are creatures in time. So it is by God’s specific calling of us to faith in time that we are saved. Second, Justification, which comes after calling in this list of divine actions, is always connected with faith or belief, and it is through God’s call of the individual that faith is brought into being. God’s call creates or quickens faith. It is the call of God that brings forth spiritual life, of which faith is the first true evidence or proof.

Glorification is also something we studied earlier. It means being made like Jesus Christ, which is what Paul said earlier. But here is something we must notice. When Paul mentions glorification, he refers to it in the past tense (“glorified”) rather than in the future (“will glorify”) or future passive tense (“will be glorified”). Why is this? The only possible reason is that he is thinking of this final step in our salvation as being so certain that it is possible to refer to is as having already happened. He does this deliberately to assure us that this is exactly what will happen. Paul wrote, “I always pray with joy…being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:4, 6); which is shorthand for what we are discovering in Romans. God began the “good work” by foreknowledge, predestination, calling, and justification. And because God never goes back on anything He has said or changes His mind, we can know that He will carry it on until the day we will be like Jesus Christ, being glorified.

I want to remind you again that these are all things God has done. They are important things, the things that matter. Without them, not one of us would be saved. Or if we were “saved,” not one of us would continue in that salvation. Do we have to believe? Of course, we do. Paul has already spoken of the nature and necessity of faith in chapters 3 and 4. But even our faith is of God or, as we should probably better say, the result of His working in us. When we are first saved we think naturally that we have had a great deal to do with it, perhaps because of wrong or shallow teaching, but more likely only because we know more about our own thoughts and feelings than we do about God. But the longer one is Christian, the further one moves from any feeling that we are responsible for our salvation or even any part of it, and the closer we come to the conviction that it is all of God.

It is a good thing it is of God, too! Because if it were accomplished by us, we could just as easily un-accomplish it – and no doubt would. If God is the author, salvation is something that is done wisely, well, and forever. God has set His love on us, predestined us to become like Jesus Christ, called us to faith and repentance, justified us, yes, and has even glorified us, so certain of completion is His plan. May He alone be praised!

Romans 8:29-30 Reflection Questions:

What does Paul mean by the phrase God “knew” His people in advance (v. 29)?

How can we explain this in a way that is consistent with God’s love, mercy, and justice?

What difference does it make in your life to know that you have been chosen by God?