If you have spent much time in hospitals, funeral homes, or Wednesday night prayer meetings, you have heard Romans 8:28 quoted. I have quoted it to others more times than I can count, and there have been seasons in my own life when I needed somebody to quote it to me. But I am afraid that for many Christians it has become something of a spiritual bandage, quickly applied to every wound without much thought about what the verse actually says. We are quick to remind one another that all things work together for good, yet we rarely stop to ask what the text meant.
Paul wrote, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). The way this verse is often used, you would think Paul promised that every financial setback would end in greater prosperity, that every sickness would end in healing, and that every broken home would eventually be restored. God is certainly able to do those things, and many times He has. But that is not what is promised, and when we read the verse that way, we set people up for a crisis of faith.
The problem is that we have a habit of pulling verse 28 out of its context and letting it stand on its own. Paul went on to say, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Romans 8:29–30). There is the answer to our question. The good which God is working is that believers be conformed to the image of His Son, a work that will not be finished until the day of our glorification.
We ought also to remember where this promise falls in the chapter. Beginning in verse 18, Paul turns to the subject of suffering: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Paul was no armchair theologian when he wrote those words. He had been beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked, and imprisoned, and he spent his ministry in constant danger (2 Corinthians 11:23–27). He goes on to describe a whole creation groaning under the curse of sin, and believers themselves groaning within, “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). He tells us the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities and makes intercession for us when we do not even know what to pray. Only then does he say, “And we know that all things work together for good.” In other words, Romans 8:28 was written to a groaning Christian, not a comfortable one.
One of our greatest mistakes with this verse is allowing our own desires to interpret what good means. When the money runs short, good means having the bills paid. When the doctor gives a bad report, good means getting well. But our idea of good is limited to what we can see right now, and God’s purpose is far greater than our present comfort. Paul does not say God has predestinated us to a life of ease. He says we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son. Sometimes the very circumstances we would most like to remove are the ones God uses to teach us patience, humility, dependence, and faith. The promise is not that everything that happens to us is good. The promise is that God works all things together for ultimate good to those who love Him and are the called according to His holy purpose of conformity to Christ.
That conformity begins now, though it will not be completed in this life. Paul told the same Roman believers, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). As we yield to the Holy Ghost and submit ourselves to the word of God, we ought to look more like Christ in our thinking, speech, and conduct. However, we will wrestle with the flesh until the day we die or the day the Lord comes for us. John wrote, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). That is the finish line. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53), and the struggle with sin will be over for good. What could be a greater good than this?
Romans 8:28 does not promise that we will always be able to see the good God is doing. I think we place an unfair burden on hurting Christians when we insist they must eventually find some visible benefit in every tragedy. Job’s friends had an explanation for everything, and God rebuked them for it (Job 42:7). By the end of the book of Job, God had not explained everything about the trials Job endured. Instead, He revealed Himself to Job, and that was enough.
Paul closes Romans 8 with one of the most triumphant passages in the Bible. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). He asks whether tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword can separate us from the love of Christ, and notice that he does not promise we will escape any of them. He simply says, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Romans 8:37). “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).
So the next time you quote Romans 8:28 to someone, or to yourself, keep reading. I cannot promise you that every loss will make sense this side of heaven. But I can tell you what God has promised. One day every believer will stand before Jesus Christ, free from the presence of sin and made completely like Him.
All things do not necessarily work together for our present comfort, but they do work together for our ultimate good, our conformity to Christ. And in that promise, we can find true comfort.
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