The 8th chapter of Romans sets forth some of the most profound doctrines of assurance in all of the New Testament. In it, Paul teaches that the indwelling Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Jesus Christ. Notice though, that in verse 17 of this chapter Paul finishes this sentence with “if indeed we suffer with Him”.
Before I go further maybe we should define the term suffering as it applies to our relationship to Christ and the world.
For most of us, I think the word “suffering” conjures up mental images of people in great physical pain, or financial difficulty, emotional stress, oppression by the strong, attack by the vicious, etc.
Suffering in reference to the believer however, covers a much broader spectrum, although patient/prayerful suffering no matter how slight, is seen as acceptable sacrifice by God, who considers the believer’s continuance in this world as a sharing in the sufferings of His Son. To explain what I mean, let me say it this way: God could conceivably have taken each of us out of this world to Heaven the moment we were saved. He has left us here though, to be His voice; His representatives in the world, and to continue in our Heavenly education, being made through testing, trial, blessing and revelation, more like our Lord.
But the mind-set that most of us live with day by day seems to contradict the idea of suffering (either willingly or unwillingly) with Christ; and our efforts seem aimed to avoid suffering in any shape or form. Paul saw suffering as a blessing, to be identified in this way with the One who suffered so much for us. Paul linked suffering with heirship, with hope, with glorification...all here in this chapter.
We, on the other hand, pray not for development, but for deliverance. What are we missing? What are we failing to understand?
Let’s look closer at the specific verses of our focus today, and ask the Spirit to help us see the message there from God’s perspective in contrast to our own perspective.
The Spirit in our hearts, intercedes for us according to God’s will, as Christ intercedes for us in Heaven (Vs 26)
I’ve referred there to verse 26 because that verse specifically says, “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” and verse 27 confirms to us that Christ intercedes for us in Heaven, in the words, “He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God”.
That word “intercedes” simply means to make petition; to appeal; to plead for.
The fact of Christ’s intercession for the believer before the Throne is asserted even more clearly in Hebrews 7:25, where the writer says “He always lives to make intercession for (us)”
Christ ever stands before the throne of God, pleading for us; making petition for us...and we need a LOT of defending!
But there is much more said in Romans 8, in reference to the help the Spirit gives us. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit 1. gives life to our mortal bodies, (vs 10,11), 2. bears witness that we are children of God, (vs 16,17), and 3. helps us in our specific weakness of not knowing how to pray, by interceding for us with groanings too deep for words.
The Holy Spirit of God is given to us in measure. That is, His dwelling in us is a measure of our inheritance...only a portion of what we will experience when we are made perfect in God’s presence. The Spirit knows the perfect will of God, and whether in our times of sheer ignorance and spiritual immaturity, or our times of greatest trial and grief, the Spirit acts as our advocate, praying for us from within, and helping us to come appropriately before the throne of Grace, even interceding with groanings that cannot be expressed by words.
He also acts as our personal guide. The New Testament refers to the Holy Spirit as a PARACLETE, which means one who comes along side to render comfort and aid. The picture that best describes the kind of help the Spirit gives here, may be of an older bull, harnessed to the plow with a young inexperienced bull. The younger bull is easily distracted, lacking in determination and focus, but the older bull keeps his eyes on the end of the row, pulling ever forward, not looking to the right or the left, and his guidance gets the younger bull to their common goal.
The realization of this truth of the indwelling, guiding Holy Spirit, is crucial to our understanding of the meaning of verse 28, when Paul says, “...God causes all things to work together for good...”, because it is only as we are consciously aware of His indwelling, and sensing His presence and his help in our heart of hearts, that we can begin to pray rightly; indeed, it is only then that we can begin to understand that the phrase “all things to work together for good” cannot possibly refer to creature comforts, or what the world would see as a ‘happy ending’ in every circumstance of life.
I think instead of the old bull/young bull picture, we tend to think of God’s presence in our lives more as a policeman who ‘comes along side’ to tell us to ‘PULL OVER TO THE SHOULDER AND TURN OFF YOUR ENGINE’.
No, He is our Helper. Jesus called Him that. He is the pledge (or down payment) of our inheritance in Christ. Paul called Him that. Please keep this in mind, as we go on to study verse 28.
God calls us to Him according to His great purpose.
Let’s read the verse in full: “AND WE KNOW THAT GOD CAUSES ALL THINGS TO WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THOSE WHO LOVE, GOD, TO THOSE WHO ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE.”
It shouldn’t be surprizing to us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, since He works together with God’s saints in all they do. In His intercession He works together with us, as He works together with us in all other things.
Martin Luther, in his commentary on Romans, pointed out the more accurate Greek rendering, when he said it like this: “in all things God works together with us for good”
It behooves us then, to find out exactly what the ‘good’ is that Paul refers to here.
What do we most times see as “good”? Let’s name some things.
First, I’m sure most of us would tend to think that winning the lottery would be ‘good’.
Of course, if you don’t buy lottery tickets, that remains a scarce possibility; and judging from what I’ve heard of those who have won it, they were many times sorry later that they had; so historical evidence may cast some dark shadow on the idea of having riches as being ultimately ‘good’. Anyway, Jesus warned against putting our trust in worldly riches, and that alone precludes the possibility of Paul’s meaning of good here as being ‘having wealth’, so we move on.
What about our health? When we are ill, if we pray, we pray, “Lord, heal my illness” “Lord, give me back my health”. We pray for others that are ill. And this is good. The Bible exhorts us to pray for the sick. In Exodus 15, God told the people of Israel that He was their ‘healer’. But does God always want us healed? Is the good that He causes always our deliverance from physical suffering and disease?
No, it is not. Illness and injury are often the vehicles He uses to call us home. The sick bed is often the classroom of the Spirit, where God draws us closer to Himself and lifts us to a higher degree of spiritual maturity.
Is this good that Romans 8:28 refers to, protection from grief and personal loss? Of course not. We all know very well that being a Christian does not exclude us from experiencing the death of a loved one, tragic loss of property through fire or what we call natural disasters (if heavy snow or hail lands on my neighbor’s roof, it’s going to land on mine also).
It is precisely for these reasons that it is not only a misuse of the scriptures, but downright dangerous to try to comfort a friend during a trial or time of grief, by glibly quoting this verse. Not only will they probably be more offended at our lack of sensitivity to their predicament than helped, but later, if the ending is not happy, or the ultimate good is not recognized by them, they may be hardened to the Spirit’s leading, and less apt in the future to give us an ear at all.
So what is the good? If all these things are excluded, and we know scripture is infallible and unchangeable, and inerrant, what is the good?
This is where it is necessary to have what I call an eternal mind-set; to try, with the help of the Spirit, to view scriptural promise from God’s eternal perspective, and not the perspective of the flesh.
By “and we know...” Paul is saying that by the indwelling, enlightening, interceding help of the Holy Spirit, we can know... not that God will make all circumstances in our life end on a happy note ... but that IN and THROUGH all of our circumstances, His good purpose in us is being and will be accomplished!
So now we need to know what His purpose is.
What a shame, that we, in our ignorance of Spiritual things, in our fallen ideals of what is right and good, would want God to treat us like spoiled step-children rather than as sons and daughters.
By our actions and our reactions to life, we seem to say that we want God’s purpose in us to be to lift us up lest we cast our foot against a stone; when in reality His purpose is eternally higher.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts”, says the Lord.
Verse 29 and 30 of Romans 8 make the truth of that verse from Isaiah abundantly clear.
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren;”
Before we go on, let’s talk about this term that has caused so much debate, so much dissension in the church over the years.
The phrase, “...whom He foreknew”, does not mean that He foreknew them to be Holy and righteous and worthy of a place, so He predestined them to be so.
It is made by the debaters to be something much more complicated than it is. It simply means, that God, Who exists from eternity to eternity, “Knew” those who were to answer His call. He told Moses, “I know thee by name”.
And those He foreknew, He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son. THAT IS GOD’S GREAT PURPOSE IN THOSE HE HAS CALLED...THOSE HE KNEW FROM ETERNITY PAST WOULD RESPOND TO HIS CALL!
Conformed to the image of His Son, is the key phrase in understanding that this ‘good purpose’ of God is an infinitely higher purpose than ‘making everything come out all right’.
What does it mean to be conformed to His image? Well, let’s look at the image He projects:
Matthew Henry said it this way:
“To be spirited as Christ was, (that is, to have the spirit of Christ), to walk and live as Christ did, to bear our sufferings patiently as Christ did. Christ is the express image of the Father, and the saints are conformed to the image of Christ.”
I see no “Goodship Lollipop” promises there. What I do see, is a promise that in all the circumstances of life, I have a helper. One who comes along side to help me hoe the row...help me keep my eyes on the goal.
I see a helper who, because He knows the mind and the perfect will of God, helps me pray according to His will, and gives me grace to say “Not my will, but thine be done”.
Young person, if you haven’t already, you’ll hear more and more these days of the New Age, and of things like ‘spirit guides’ and many other things that are designed to take the place of God in your life. Be aware of them, and be wary of them!
This is the only SPIRIT GUIDE anyone ever needs; the only One who really intends and can bring about the ultimate good for the one He walks along side.
Paul spends the rest of this chapter building upon this foundation of assuredness that the Spirit helps us, and that God works with us to accomplish His purpose. He says that God already sees, not as some future vision, but really sees the finished product.
“Whom He predestined, these He also called, and whom He called these He also justified, (that is, declared right with Himself), and who He justified, these He also glorified.
Past tense! Glorified! He sees the finished work!
Then Paul says, “If God is for us, who is against us?”
He asks, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?”
“Christ Jesus is He who died yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us!”
Hallelujah, believer! Isn’t that better than some cheap promise to make our life a little easier? Get the whole picture here:
Having laid this foundation, Paul says that nothing...nothing...nothing, can separate us from the love of God, or thwart the accomplishment of His purpose in us, which is, making us more like Jesus!
If He would begin the work of accomplishing His purpose in us at the dear cost of sacrificing His only sinless Son for us, what in all the universe would make us think that He will not complete that work; whatever the cost to us?
From the moment we believed, nothing has happened in our life, no circumstance of life has beset us, that is not a part of His process of making us more and more what we will finally become, when we see Him face to face...and nothing can thwart His plan for us...nothing can separate us from His love.
I firmly believe Christian, that if we would ask the Holy Spirit to bring this truth home to our hearts, and begin to see our walk through this world, not as a burdensome trial, but as a preparation IN WHICH WE HAVE HIS HELP, AND THROUGH WHICH HE WORKS WITH US TO CONFORM US TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON, that it would put some spring in our step and a greater sense of victory over all the circumstances of life.
The flesh sees circumstances and asks the faithless question, “why?” The spirit is borne witness by His Spirit that He is causing all things to work together for good in us, and says, “Thy will be done”! THAT ACCOMPLISHES HIS PURPOSE IN US...THAT MAKES US MORE LIKE JESUS!”
Now I have a duty here to say that if you have never repented of your sin and turned to God, believing in the shed blood and resurrection of Christ and received God’s free gift of salvation, none of this applies to you.
The Bible makes clear that we are all separated from God by our sinful nature, and that no one is good enough to come to God on his own. It says, the wages of sin is death; and that, friends, is all you have to look forward to if you do not belong to Him. It’s a dark message, but it is true. On the other hand, the Bible goes on to say that while the wages of sin is death, God’s free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is when we recognize our sinful condition, our spiritual poverty, and turn to Him in repentance and faith in Jesus’ atoning work, and appropriate to ourselves that free gift He has offered, that we begin to receive the benefits I’ve talked about here...and only then.
I strongly encourage you, if you have never taken that step of faith and believed in Jesus for forgiveness of sin and His gift of life, that you not let today end without doing so. You can go on your way today with God on your side...with the Holy Spirit of God indwelling you, and interceding (that is praying) for you before the Father...and you’ll never face your circumstances alone again.
Eccl 6:12 says, “Who knows what is good for a man in his lifetime?” We do not. But the Spirit who knows the perfect will of God DOES know. Let Him be your Helper.
Christian, although you already belong to Him, and since the day you were saved have had His help and have received the benefits of His intercession, you may have been living as though the struggle of life was all your own, praying for creature comforts and seeking deliverance from your circumstances instead of development in them. Before you complete the day, please say a brief prayer that He will bring the truth of these words home to your heart as never before, so that you may begin as never before to see this life and your relationship with Him from His perspective and not from a fleshly perspective.
You can begin to walk in a sense of victory that you’ve possibly never had since you were first saved.
You can step out today and face all those ‘imps’ of depression and fear and uncertainty and guilt and doubt that love to keep you looking down; looking for the easy way, and dispel them with one word... SCAT!
You are one of the called. You’re marked for God. His. The victory has been won and He has already “triumphed over them through Him” (Col 2:15) Walk in the victory He has provided at the cross.
And we know that in all things, God works together for good, with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose...which is to conform us to the image of His Son! TO MAKE US MORE LIKE JESUS!
May we all go confidently before the throne of Grace and ask His help in desiring that same purpose. His name be glorified forever.
