Paul's case for eternal salvation
Examining how "all things work together for our good"
Romans 8 has a single focus and context: making a case for eternal justification of believers without the penalty for sin.
See verse one:
Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
See the last verse of the same chapter:
Romans 8:38, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,”
Romans 8:39, “Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Paul was making a case for our eternal justification. That is what the whole chapter and even, by extension, the whole book is all about.
So, when you read in verse 28:
“All things work together for good”
What “all things?”
Verse 29 gives us the answer:
Romans 8:29:
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
That means what he’s discussing here is the conformation of the believer to the image of Christ.
In other words, he’s saying, regardless of whatever happens, the believer in Christ is already saved, because Jesus, who died for us, lives to make intercession for us eternally.
Romans 8:27:
“And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
The intercession the Spirit makes for us helps us in our infirmity and moments of weakness, so that even those weaknesses are not able to take us away from the love of God. This he later buttressed more down the chapter.
Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”
All the things listed in the above verse are likely things that can cause us to be weak and infirm.
And it’s possible for us to become worried that our weaknesses and the things we suffer will make us disobey God and hence lose our salvation.
To answer this, Paul says, don’t be afraid; the Spirit makes intercession (verse 26 & 27) for us (referring to the ONCE FOR ALL TIME sacrifice of Jesus for us), and so those things that make us weak or infirm and maybe lead us to sin, CANNOT undo God’s love for us (verse 33-39).
So, in this verse, yes, ALL things will work for our good to ensure that we are eternally unseparated from God.
But if it’s about our daily lives and challenges, the scriptures never said all bad things that happen to us are God working things out for our good.
Can that happen?
Yes.
However, we should have an optimistic view of life, trusting that whatever difficult situation we find ourselves in, we will get over it.
But it doesn’t mean that any bad thing that happens to us is God trying to work out something good for us.
Babies that are killed in war are not God trying to work anything good for the grieving family.
Earthquakes, accidents, illnesses, millions of people dying, your loss of job, failures, the death of the persecution of the early believers, the crucifixions, etc... These bad things are not God trying to work something good for them.
Maybe I should go and find the good part of what God was working out for when my dad suffered cancer for a long time and eventually died.
How’s that ALL THINGS working together for either his good or my good today?
When we take scriptures out of context, we can create several realities that aren’t true.
Evil and good exist in the world and in the heart of men.
We should always pray for wisdom to find our way out of any evil or unfortunate events.
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