Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 8:29-30 (NLT)

For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
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Reflection: Romans 8:29-30 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

God’s Spirit in God’s children (8:1–39)

The Christian life is essentially life in the Spirit, that is to say, a life which is animated, sustained, directed and enriched by the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit true Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, indeed impossible.

(vs 28–39) The steadfastness of God’s love

Our Christian hope is solidly grounded on the unwavering love of God…. The eternal security of God’s people, on account of the eternal unchangeability of God’s purpose, …is itself due to the eternal steadfastness of God’s love.

(vs 29– 30) Five undeniable affirmations

In these two verses Paul elaborates what he meant in verse 28 by God’s ‘purpose’, according to which he has called us and is working everything together for our good. He traces God’s good and saving purpose through five stages from its beginning in his mind to its consummation in the coming glory. These stages he names foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification and glorification.

1. God foreknew.

The Hebrew verb ‘to know’ expresses much more than mere intellectual cognition; it denotes a personal relationship of care and affection… The meaning of ‘foreknowledge’ in the New Testament is similar.

John Murray writes: ‘ “Know” …is used in a sense practically synonymous with “love”…“Whom he foreknew” …is therefore virtually equivalent to “whom he foreloved”. Foreknowledge is ‘sovereign, distinguishing love’.

The only source of divine election and predestination is divine love.

2. God predestined.

A decision is involved in the process of becoming a Christian, but it is God’s decision before it can be ours. This is not to deny that we ‘decided for Christ’, and freely, but to affirm that we did so only because he had first ‘decided for us’.

C. J. Vaughan sums the issue up in these words: Everyone who is eventually saved can only ascribe his salvation, from the first step to the last, to God’s favor and act. Human merit must be excluded: and this can only be by tracing back the work far beyond the obedience which evidences, or even the faith which appropriates, salvation; even to an act of spontaneous favor on the part of that God who foresees and foreordains from eternity all his works.

Neither Scripture nor experience allows us to weaken this teaching.

3. God called.

The call of God is the historical application of his eternal predestination. His call comes to people through the gospel, and it is when the gospel is preached to them with power, and they respond to it with the obedience of faith, that we know God has chosen them. So evangelism (the preaching of the gospel), far from being rendered superfluous by God’s predestination, is indispensable, because it is the very means God has ordained by which his call comes to his people and awakens their faith.

4. God justified.

God’s effective call enables those who hear it to believe, and those who believe are justified by faith…. Justification is more than forgiveness or acquittal or even acceptance; it is a declaration that we sinners are now righteous in God’s sight, because of his conferment upon us of a righteous status, which is indeed the righteousness of Christ himself.

He became sin with our sin, so that we might become righteous with his righteousness.

5. God glorified.

Our destiny is to be given new bodies in a new world, both of which will be transfigured with the glory of God…. The process of sanctification is implied… both in the allusion to our being conformed to the image of Christ and as the necessary preliminary to our glorification. For ‘sanctification is glory begun; glory is sanctification consummated’.
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Here then is the apostle’s series of five undeniable affirmations. God is pictured as moving irresistibly from stage to stage; from an eternal foreknowledge and predestination, through a historical call and justification, to a final glorification of his people in a future eternity. It resembles a chain of five links, each of which is unbreakable.
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Canticle

Christ, as a light illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.

Blessing

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen