Romans 8: 30 Commentary

Monsieur Tiuche (Post #2): God knows everything. God knows who would believe in salvation through Jesus Christ and who would reject Jesus before creating them. The group whom God knew would believe in Christ, He predestined and called. God justifies and redeems every believer from slavery to sin at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone. God glorifies all believers in time and eternity (Rom. 8:28, 29).

By Roland G (wrote 1651 Bible Commentaries - permalink to this Commentary)
Posted on: 8/21/2011 07:42 am

ROLAND G. HERE IS AN ASSURANCE OF OUR SALVATION, but donot tell us that ALL believers once saved will always be save!

By TIUCHE (wrote 3265 Bible Commentaries - permalink to this Commentary)
Posted on: 8/21/2011 02:53 am

We can see that in Romans 8:18-39, Paul was encouraging his fellow believers. This passage is about hope during a very difficult time so they could see past their difficulty to the assurance of the inheritance in Christ’s Kingdom. From this, we know that verses 28-30 will continue to follow the flow of Paul’s logic.

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God…” Those who love God do as God commands (John 14:15, 21, 23; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 1:6). You cannot love God (Psalm 14:1-3; Romans 3:10-12) or do as He commands (John 8:34; Ephesians 2:1-5) without a relationship with His Son (John 14:6). His will is for you to accept Christ into your life (1 Timothy 2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9). Until you become a child of God, you cannot love God. Therefore, Paul is talking to Christians.

“…to them…” is speaking on the people who love God. “…who are the called according to His purpose.” God has a purpose for all of His children (Jeremiah 29:11; Luke 9:23; 1 Corinthians 10:31; 1 Timothy 2:3-4). We see that this calling is because of God’s purpose He wants fulfilled. This verse shows us that He is calling Christians; Christians are already saved so this is not a call to salvation. The Bible helps us discern God’s will for our lives (Psalm 119:105). If you do as God requests, all things will work out for good. You see, if you love God, you will obey His calling.
In verses 29-30, Paul is showing some historical cases to support his claim in verse 28 that we know that God works everything for the good of those who love Him. These verses do not give us some insight on God’s secret purposes. Instead, they offer historical demonstration of what Paul and his readers had indeed known. God works for the good of those who love Him. How did Paul come to this conclusion? Because…

“For whom He did foreknow…” Paul was not speaking about God’s omniscience before creation or predestination of people before they were born. He was talking about certain people from the past that God knew personally and intimately, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David. Those individuals were predestined by Him to be conformed to the image of Christ. In other words, God predetermined that they will receive salvation by the sacrifice of Christ. This is exactly what Hebrews 9:15 says, “And for this cause He [Jesus] is the Mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first [old] testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”

Notice the word “called” referring to those individuals from the Old Testament. Well, Paul uses the same word in his historical example. God called, justified, and glorified those people by allowing them to receive salvation through the death of Christ many years later.

Look at Romans 11:2, “God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,” Once again, Paul used the word “foreknew” in reference to God’s past intimate relationship with His people of Israel.
If you notice in verses 29-30, the verbs are all in past tense implying the event has already happened. They describe historical events, not present or future realities. In Greek, it is well known that you would use present tense regarding future events when something is portrayed as absolutely certain (Hebrews 12:28). Everything that Paul had mentioned were already in the past including the glorification of those whom God foreknew, predestined, called, and justified.

In Matthew 27:51-53, it records the resurrection of many of the saints at Jesus’ resurrection. These were the ones that God had an intimate relationship with throughout the Old Testament. In other words, those He foreknew.

It is clear that Paul was referring to past examples when he wrote that God has predestined, called, justified, and glorified, those whom He knew previously. This is consistent with the context and the grammatical historical method to provide us with the confidence in our explanation of this critical passage.

By Toby Strebe (wrote 3 Bible Commentaries - permalink to this Commentary)
Posted on: 11/1/2010 13:00 pm