Romans’ central section has a whole series of glorious, inspirational revelations, that can lead our grasp of our faith to a much higher level!
We fed on one last time: this creation’s sufferings are not meaningless. `The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time’ – and as John Lennox puts it, if these are the labour-pains, what a colossal `birth’ must be coming! And we the `children of God’ are the `firstfruits’ of that kingdom, the bridgehead where God’s new universe of grace breaks into our fallen cosmos that is in `bondage to decay` (Rom 8:19-22, NIV as usual). And in the next section God reveals to us something even more stunning…
But first there is another, darker side. We daughters and sons of God may be the `firstfruits’ of the kingdom; but firstfruits isn’t the same as harvest. The `whole creation’ is `groaning’ (v22), and we have not been evacuated safely out of it; `we ourselves’ share in that `groaning’ of a desperately broken world (v23). We’re called to hope, but as Paul says, if it’s hope, then evidently it isn’t something we already have (vv24-25).
`Blessed are those who mourn’, said Jesus (Matt 5:4). Anyone who can be at ease in our horror-strewn, violent culture and starving, poisoned, burning planet either has no idea of what’s going on or no sense of the love and compassion of God. And some of us are caught in a still more terrible way in the tragedy of `exile’, of a world still awaiting full redemption: cancer of someone dear to us, multiple sclerosis, children mangled in a car-crash. Even as I write this section comes an interruption, friends telling of a relative who miscarried then found that her husband had been adulterous. Christ came down to share our anguish and be trapped (Lord, I worship You) in this `groaning’ world’s horror too, so that it might be changed forever; and we, says Paul, are `co-heirs’ with that same self-giving Christ – `if indeed we share in His sufferings, in order that we may also share in His glory’ (v17). There is a terrible reality here. We’ve noted last time that child-like word `Abba’, `Daddy’, that embodies our relationship with God; but outside this chapter (and its Galatians parallel), its only new testament appearance is when Christ is in agony in Gethsemane. It is hard, but somehow the actual experience of that Abba-relationship seems profoundly bound up with the experience of our suffering.
God has been there, in Gethsemane, and still is there with us. Let no one say God cannot suffer; when we are in agony `the Spirit Himself’ also is crying out in pain, as He `intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express’ (v26). He is there; and He shares our agony, in a way that goes far beyond what can be verbalized. (A friend who was sexually violated told me that the one thing which made sense for her in the following hours came from someone who said, `Jesus is crying now too’.)
It is stupid to try to `explain’ that black mystery of suffering that left Christ Himself screaming, `My God, my God – why?’ This author has been through nothing that gives him the right to speak of it. Yet there are hints here, faint candles in a darkness that will only make full sense when the `old order’ of tragedy has `passed away’ and there is finally `no more crying or pain’ (Rev 21:4).
There is, writes Paul, a meaning in what happens to us; and unlike us the Spirit can see where it is leading. He `intercedes for us… in accordance with God’s will’ (Rom 8:26-27). Somehow there remains a `will’, a `purpose’, within even the darkest agonies that have flowed from our recurrent human rebellions; somehow suffering is not alone, but suffering and glory will go together (cf vv17-18). `We do not want you to grieve like’ (that is, in the same way as) `the rest of men, who have no hope’, Paul told Thessalonica (1 Thess 4:13); for the believer, whatever else is true, there is not the meaninglessness that marks suffering outside Christ. Paul wrote three chapters earlier, as someone who knew agony first-hand, `We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope’ (5:3-4). And then he continued: `And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts’ (5:5). Our security – our only security – is in that love of God; ch8 goes to great lengths to affirm that nothing, no suffering, can separate us from it (vv35-39). Because we believe in this love, we can reach to believe in a `purpose’ which will justify hope for us too.
(Even the entire creation’s `subjection to frustration’ had meaning (8:20): for example, we’ve learned things about the love and humility of God that could never have been revealed were it not for the Fall, our lostness, and the astounding, unimaginable act of self-abasement and rescue that God therefore performed at the cross. Perhaps it isn’t the resurrection that’s hard to believe in Christianity; as Peter says,`It was impossible for death to keep its hold on’ God incarnate (Acts 2:24). It is the cross that is the really staggering part of the Easter story: that the God with so many galaxies at His disposal should submit Himself to suffer like this. That is astonishing love. It’s unsurprising that Muslims still find it the toughest part of Christian belief.)
But now Paul moves on. The astounding verses 28 to 30 will spell that purpose out, revealing a loving, almighty divine strategy at work beneath all the horror of a broken cosmos. We must dare to believe in it (`the righteous will live by faith’); as the saying goes, what we have seen of God in Jesus will enable us to trust Him for what we cannot yet see.
Paul spells out here a massive promise from God: `We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.’ `In all things’: here is God’s glorious followup to Ecclesiastes 1’s account of the pointlessness of life lived only in `this-worldly’ terms. `In all things’: in the end, says Paul, nothing will be without meaning for us. Paul cannot be saying that all that happens will be good (let alone pleasant). Some things that happen to us (as to Jesus) are utterly destructive, reflecting our fallen universe, or even satanic in their origin. But even in the most anarchic occurrences, God’s infinitely creative grace is somewhere at work. (Cf v37: `In all these things we are more than conquerors’). Destiny, wrote the brilliant Polish writer Conrad in Heart of Darkness, is a `mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose’; likewise American novelist Theodore Dreiser: `As I see him, the unutterably infinitesimal individual weaves among the mysteries a floss-like and wholly meaningless course – if course it be. In short, I catch no meaning from all I have seen, and pass quite as I came, confused and dismayed.’ In contrast Paul offers a triumphant certainty: always, somehow, the Spirit is interceding (v27), and the Father has a way forward. (Lord, I worship You…) `In all things’ summons us to reach out for patient, imaginative trust; or as Paul says in 1 Thess 5:18: `Give thanks in` [that’s not ` for`, by the way] `all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.’
At the same time, this is not an inevitable fate that has no respect for the individual. `In all things God works for the good of those who love Him.’ Paul is not saying that everything will work out ideally for everybody. Those who choose to live apart from God remain in the old alienated, entropic system, in `bondage to decay’ and tragedy (v23). The new order, the subversive purposes of the kingdom where `in all things God works for good’, is for those who respond to God’s invitation to join it, who `love Him‘. (Lord, thankyou; please help me, in all things, to be one who truly loves and trusts You…)
And our love is far more than recompensed by the loving destiny God has for us. Vv29-30 define it. The point of our justification is not merely the cancelling of our past sins; the purpose is our glorification!
Surely v29 is one of the most astounding verses in the whole Bible; it offers a truly staggering thought. (Lord, please open my mind, help me grasp this.) We see here the goal and consummation of our entire existence. Our `predestination’ is not just to be saved (cf also Eph 1:4, where predestination is not about heaven or hell as we sometimes think, but about holiness); nor is it merely to be moral, or nice, or good. Our `predestination` is nothing less than to be `conformed to the likeness of His Son’; to have `Christ formed in us’ as Galatians says (4:19); to be `transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit’ (2 Cor 3:18)!
What can this mean? Surely – or, amongst other things – that all the love of Jesus, all the peace and gentleness and joy and power for good of Jesus, will one day flow out fully through us, just as they do through Him. (We need to pause here to try and imagine that being true of ourselves as individuals.) Already, as we `grow in Him’, we are learning to share His power to bring about good in this world by `praying in Jesus’ name’; but the day will come when we totally `share His throne’, share all His authority for goodness, because we have grown completely like Him. The long process will be complete; heaven will finally have spread right through our personalities. 1 John 3 presents the same vision: `Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is!’
It’s good news. The Father’s aim isn’t just to clone us and make us `moral’! (Wouldn’t that sound safe, religious, dull and colourless?) Indeed, even the thought of `conforming to His likeness’ might conjure up fears of standardisation. We do sometimes speak of Christians `dying to self’ in a way that sounds as if God might be into cloning – in defiance of all the evidence of His creational style. But that is a vast misunderstanding. It is sin, and its consequences, that obliterate human individuality (drug addiction is an obvious example). But the more we `put off the old nature’ and grow like Christ, the more truly individual we become. (Surely we see this in the Christlike people we know?) Christ is God, is infinite; so there is space for us each to grow `conformed to Christ’ in infinitely diverse and individual expressions.
`Transformed into Christ’s likeness’ – `attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ’ (Eph 4:13) – `Christ formed in you’: all this, once we really reflect on its meaning, becomes astonishing. Yet God has predestined nothing less for us (Rom 8:29). Now we see the point of that odd preposition in v18, where Paul spoke of the `glory that will be revealed in us’. Not to us, as if we were to be mere spectators. `He comes to be glorified in His holy people… that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (2 Thess 1:10, 2:14). What brighter glory – by definition – could He possibly grant us than to be `conformed to the likeness of His Son’? `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?'(Rom 8:32). (Thankyou, Father!) `Those He justified, He also glorified’ (Rom 8:30): God is a God who delights to share all His glory with us, from top to bottom. Millions of years will not be enough to exhaust it!
Here is the goal of history. And here we see the twistedness of Satan’s lie back at the start in Eden, when he tempted the first human beings to grasp at `being like God’ (Gen 3:5) – as though `participating in the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4) was something God wanted to clutch to Himself. In fact `being like God’ was precisely God’s plan for us, though not in a spirit of alienated self-aggrandisement. God’s nature is to share His glory and power and likeness, not to use it to domineer, as Jesus showed us (cf Matt 20:25-28). Hence the bizarre phrasing of God’s intention here: we’re to be conformed to His likeness so that Jesus might be the `firstborn among many brothers’ (Rom 8:29). We’re not just to be his `servants’, not even `worshippers’ or `friends’, but Jesus’ `brothers’. (It’s one of those moments when we may feel, `Had I written the Bible I would never have said that.’) In John 17 Jesus prayed to his Father, `I have given them the glory that You gave me’, even though His disciples were no more than a rabble about to abandon or deny him. And at the end of history Jesus’ Bride will indeed shine with the glory of God (Rev 21:11). As Ephesians says, what God has planned for us is far more than we can ask or imagine! (Thankyou, Father!)
God’s purpose in all that happens to us, then, is to `conform us to the likeness of His Son’, to enable us to share in the glory of Jesus. All that Adam lost will be restored. In the situations that befall us in this broken cosmos, we sometimes cannot imagine how to pray; but somewhere beneath it all, God knows what He is doing. His foreknowledge is not merely a matter of knowing who will respond to His grace and accept His salvation. He is the master dramatist (Ephesians speaks of us as His `workmanship’), and He foresees everything that happens in our lives. Every friendship, every suffering, every sermon heard, every book read: He knows what we will experience in each of them, and weaves all this together with unimaginable skill so that, in the end, each of us will be like Jesus. Or He is like the master sculptor, chipping away at a block of stone. If the stone could speak, it might sometimes cry out at the chisel; but with each chip that flies off the block, from unprepossessing material a glorious likeness is brought into being…..
I worship You, Lord, because You know what You are doing: our destiny is glorious, and gloriously safe in Your loving hands!
