All Things for Good?

Romans 8:28

By Pastor Josh Wamble

 

The Sunday School class I teach has been studying Paul’s letter to the Romans for several months now.  This letter is full of rich truths about what God has done to save His people.  He tells his readers what God has done, but he spends much more time and goes into much more details explaining how he has provided salvation and how that salvation is consistent with God’s righteousness and goodness and how He has been working to this end since the beginning of time.  He refers to the Old Testament time and time again.  He reminds his readers of how God called Abraham and justified him by faith—the same way that the gospel saves us today.

In chapter 8, Paul begins explaining how one aspect of God’s saving work is to redeem His people and deliver them from the power and influence of sin.  He describes how the Holy Spirit works in the life of believers empowering them, confirming and affirming them, and even interceding for them when they don’t know what or how to pray for themselves.  In verse 16, he starts explaining how even though salvation is sure it doesn’t always seem like it or feel like it.  He tells them that salvation has been fully accomplished.  “It is finished.” just as Jesus said.  However, believers do not currently experience the full effects of this salvation.  Instead, Paul tells believers that they still suffer in this life.  He explains that this is necessary until the whole creation experiences the transforming effects of salvation but that the Holy Spirit helps in this suffering.  In verse, 28, Paul writes one of the best-known sentences in the Bible.

 

And we know that God causes all things work together for good to those who love God, 

to those who are called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28 NASB)

 

This verse has brought much comfort to believers throughout history.  In fact, many would claim this as their very favorite verse in the whole Bible.  However, it does raise a few questions.  I want to spend the space I have below to think through three aspects of this verse—two things it does not mean and one thing that it does mean.

 

  1. It does not mean that all things work together for good for all people.

The promise that God makes here through Paul is that all things work together for good for those who love God—those we are called according to his purpose.  God has committed Himself to His people.  He works for their benefit, and He opposes those who oppose them.  The Bible is clear that there are people who will continue to rebel against God, refuse to worship Him, and resist his grace and mercy in Jesus Christ to the vey end.  While His patience is vast, it will not last forever.  Eventually, they will receive perfect justice.  On that day, they will bow before the Lord, but not willingly.  In the meantime, God does not work for their good.

 

  1. It does not mean that all things are good.

The promise that God makes here through Paul is that all things work together for our good.  Until salvation is fully realized, believers continue to live in a fallen world where things are not the way they ought to be.  In Romans 8:22, Paul says that all of creation groans and longs for sin to be done away with and its effects to be completely reversed.  Until then, death still reigns, and we grieve over ones that we have lost and still love.  We fight against corruption and sometimes fall victim to it from those outside of us and even from within our own selves.  We strain against an unjust system and suffer unfair outcomes.  We deal with pains and sickness and bodies that are wasting away from disease and cancer and old age and injuries from hard labor.  We weep as we see those that we love suffering from these things as well.

 

  1. It does not mean that all things work together for our good.

We weep and suffer and long and fight in this world, but we do so with hope knowing that the day is coming when all of those things will be brought to nothing—when God’s promises will be fulfilled, and all things will be made right.  And, in the meantime, we live now even in the midst of all this suffering trusting that God is good and that He can be trusted.  We do so trusting that He really is working all of this together for our good.

 

With this knowledge and this assurance, we can repeat some of Paul’s other words:

 

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared

with the glory that is to be revealed in us.  (Rom. 8:18 NASB)