Salvation Is of the Lord

Romans 8:29-30
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, June 20, 2010
Copyright © 2010, P. G. Mathew

From the inside of the big fish, the prophet Jonah prayed, “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). Man cannot save himself. He is a helpless, ungodly sinner. He is dead in sins. More than that, he is an enemy of God. Only God in his mercy can save him.

God has purposed to save sinners. In Romans 8:28 Paul declared, “In all things, God works for our good to those who are called according to his purpose.” There is no contingency in God’s eternal purpose. Man cannot fulfill what he purposes. He cannot do so because his situation changes, or he may even die. But what God purposes, he is able to do. What he begins, he completes. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Romans 8:29-30 explains God’s purpose that Paul referred to in Romans 8:28. Here God is revealed as the ultimate ground of the promise of Romans 8:28. He is the supreme guarantee of our full and final salvation. Here Paul discloses in five verbs how God works for our glory. What he is emphasizing is not man’s response of faith, but God’s actions in our election, predestination, effectual calling, justification, and glorification.

Dr. James Boice cites a story of a Hindu holy man, a mystic named Rao,¹ who announced to the people of Bombay in 1966 that he was going to walk on water on a certain date. Many people gathered around a pool in the city on that day. When the time came, Rao looked to heaven in prayer, stepped onto the water, and promptly sank. When he surfaced, he explained why he failed. Like our modern healing evangelists, he said, “One of you is an unbeliever.” Rao failed. Man fails. But God never fails, and Jesus never fails.

Romans 8:29-30 consists in five unbreakable links of a golden chain, five steps of divine salvation.

1. Election

Paul begins, “For those God foreknew” (Rom. 8:29). Foreknowledge of God is the basis of the rest of God’s saving actions. In God’s plan of salvation, he foreknew a certain specific number of people only, meaning they are distinguished from all others. They include Jews and Gentiles from all nations and tribes on earth. These foreknown by God do not comprise the majority of mankind; in fact, they are few. Jesus called them “little flock.” Yet they also are a multitude which no man can number, as John describes: “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9). God foreknew these people from eternity past.

What does foreknow mean? It can mean prevision, that God knows everyone and everything because he is omniscient. But such a definition does not fit the context of Romans 8. Here Paul is saying that God foreknows some people who are distinguished from all others. What it the reason for this distinction? Some would say that God foresees the faith of people and sees that only certain people will believe in God. But if this is the meaning, then the ground of our salvation is our faith. This does not give any basis of assurance of salvation, for man is fickle and unreliable. He is by nature a covenant breaker. Besides, how can sinful man, an enemy of God, believe in God?

If any sinner believes in God, it is a miracle. He believes because he is given the gift of faith. So Paul says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). Jesus himself said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). Paul writes, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Elsewhere, he says, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (Phil. 1:29). This gift of faith is a grant by God to us.

So God foreknows some people individually from eternity past, before creation, before the fall, before our birth, before we did anything good or bad. Yet God foreknows us as fallen sinners. We must look to the Old Testament to discover the meaning of this word “foreknow.”

The Hebrew word is yada. So from Hebrew we translate God’s words about Abraham, “For I have known him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord” (Gen. 18:19). The psalmist says, “For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Ps. 1:6). He also says, “O LORD, what is man that you know him, the son of man that you think of him?” (Ps. 144:3). In Jeremiah 1:5 we read, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” In Amos 3:2 we read, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” In Hosea 13:5 the Lord says, “I knew you in the desert, in the land of burning heat.”

The Hebrew word yada in these verses means God taking delight in and care of some people. It is not speaking about intellectual knowledge of the person but of God’s loving relationship with that person, as we read in Deuteronomy 7:7: “The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.” In other words, foreknowledge means God’s eternal love for us.

So foreknew means foreloved. It is God’s love of us before. From eternity, God loved us individually. This foreknowledge of God is a synonym for divine election. God loved us; therefore, he chose us (Eph. 1:4). Those whom God loves, he chooses to save so that they may enter into eternal fellowship with him.

We find the same idea in the New Testament. Paul uses the word proginoskô: “God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew” (Rom. 11:2), meaning whom he loved before in eternity. Jesus says, “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” (Matt. 7:23). In other words, he was saying, “I never loved you. I never cared for you.” Paul also declares, “But the man who loves God is known by God” (1 Cor. 8:3) and “But now that you know God-or rather are known by God” (Gal. 4:9). To Timothy he says God “saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Tim. 1:9). Peter says we “have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Pet. 1:2).

Professor John Murray says, “It is not the foresight of difference but the foresight that makes difference to exist, not foresight that recognizes existence but the foreknowledge that determines existence. It is the sovereign distinguishing love.”²So the foreknowledge of God stands for the gracious election of sinners to glory in eternity past.

Paul speaks to the Thessalonians as “brothers loved by God” (2 Thess. 2:13-14). In the Greek it is êgapêmenoi, a perfect passive participle. When did God start loving us? In eternity past. Additionally, he loves us in time, and will love us in eternity future. Count on it: we are loved by God. And nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. So Paul writes, “But we always thank God for you, brothers, loved by God, because from the beginning God chose you unto salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit and through belief of the truth” (author’s translation).

What differentiates the elect from the non-elect? Not our faith nor our merit, for we have none. God’s foreknowledge alone, his electing love, differentiates us from everyone else. God’s delight in us, his personal care and affection of every one of us distinguishes us. Before our parents began to love us, our heavenly Father loved us. We have been in the heart of God always. We are loved forever. We love God because he has loved us first.

When did God start loving us? Before the creation of the world. Paul declares, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph. 1:4). Elsewhere he says, “We speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began” (1 Cor. 2:7). What glorious truth! God loved us in eternity past with an everlasting love from which nothing can separate us. The angel told John, “The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished” (Rev. 17:8). This means our names are written in the book of life from the creation of the world. God loved us first, so we love him now. God chose us first, so we choose him now. God called us first, so we call upon him now. God works in us to will and to do his good pleasure; so we work out his good pleasure.

“For those whom he foreknew” means those whom God foreloved, even us, his beloved people. The church of Jesus Christ has existed in all eternity in the heart of God, and it consists of individuals like you and me.

Salvation is of the Lord. This excludes all human boasting. The ground of our full and final salvation is not our faith, not even our holiness and righteousness. The ground is God’s eternal love for us in Jesus Christ. Jeremiah writes, “The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love'” (Jer. 31:3).

This is why I do not stay depressed. I always come back to this: I belong to God. I was always in the heart of God. He always loved me and he loves me now. Therefore, rise up and praise God! “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4). God is for us; who can be against us? Even when we fall down, he loves us. He comes to our aid and plants our feet on Jesus Christ, the solid rock. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).

2. Predestination

The second link in the chain of salvation is predestination. Paul writes, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29). Foreknowledge of God has regard to the people of God; predestination has to do with God’s purpose for his people.

God’s purpose is that all of his people be blessed, glorified, and conformed to the image and likeness of God’s one and only Son. The elect are appointed from eternity to arrive at the destination, which is conformity to Christ. God’s good purpose for us is that we be glorified in spirit and body. We shall be holy, even as God is holy.

God will have a holy people. To this end God has predestinated us. Predestinate means to decide upon beforehand, as we read in Acts 4:28: “They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” What God decided upon beforehand will surely happen, in spite of our sin, stubbornness, failure, and rebellion. God will have a holy people to enjoy communion with him for all eternity.

Dr. John Stott makes these observations regarding predestination:³

1. God’s predestination excludes human boasting. Paul says, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:4-6; also 12, 14).
2. Predestination produces certainty of salvation. Not even a shadow of doubt exists as to our destiny.
3. Predestination causes God’s people not to be lazy or passive but to work harder in the service of Christ. God saves his people through his appointed means of human, not angelic, witnesses to the gospel. God is a worker, and his people are workers. Jesus said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). Those who believe in predestination are the people who work the hardest. Paul says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them-yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). Be a worker. Be productive. God gives us grace to work. “God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things at all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8). Put away laziness. From this day forward, work, saying, “I can do all things through Jesus Christ who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13).
4. Predestination produces holy living, not antinomianism. Paul writes, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph. 1:4, italics added). In the same epistle he says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27). God will have a bride who is holy, pure, radiant, and glorious. Elsewhere Paul writes, “[He] has saved us and called us to a holy life” (2 Tim. 1:9). Those who live sinful lives are not Christians. God’s people will live holy lives. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:11-12).
5. Predestination delivers us from narrow-mindedness. Peter was a narrow-minded person who did not want to have anything to do with the Gentiles. He forgot the Bible, which teaches broad-mindedness. God spoke to Abraham and said, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 12:3b, KJV). The Lord declared, “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6b), which Paul quoted in Acts 13:47-48. Paul writes of this plan of God to the Ephesian church: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. . . . Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Eph. 3:6; 2:19). God’s church is broad-minded.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “Predestination is simply a description of the destiny that God has determined and decided upon for the people whom he has foreknown.”⁴ Friends, we have a glorious destiny, and God will bring us into it. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and future'” (Jer. 29:11). We are predestinated to a glorious hope and future.

A. THE FIRST PURPOSE OF PREDESTINATION: CONFORMITY TO CHRIST

Predestination has two purposes: one is proximate, or penultimate, and the other is ultimate. The proximate purpose is to be conformed to the image of God’s one and only eternal Son who himself is the image of the Father (Rom. 8:3, 32). The Father has predestinated us for the proximate purpose of conformity to Jesus Christ in holiness. Consider the following:

1. We are predestinated not just to receive forgiveness.
2. We are predestinated not just to avoid hell nor to just go to heaven when we die.
3. We are predestinated not to get rich or have health and fame in this life.
4. We are predestinated not to avoid sufferings. Jesus suffered, and we must suffer too (Acts 14:22).
5. We are predestinated not to be conformed to the culture of the wicked world. Paul describes this culture: “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). Thank God, he called us out of this world. That is what ekklêsia means-the company of the called-out ones. Paul speaks to Timothy: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-having a [show] of godliness but denying its power. Having nothing to do with them” (2 Tim. 3:1-5). We are to have nothing to do with such people because we are predestinated to be conformed to be like Jesus Christ. We read in Exodus 23:2, “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.” Don’t say, “Everybody is doing it.” We are not everybody. We are foreknown, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified people of God!
6. We are predestinated not to be conformed to the culture of the ungodly church of professing Christians. Don’t come and say, “This church does it this way, so we must do it this way.” We are called to conform to the Scriptures and to Christ. We may hear of pastors divorcing their wives. Does that mean I must divorce my wife? No! I belong to the body of Christ, which is called out from the wicked world to be holy, blameless, separate, and devoted to Christ and truth.

Paul exhorts, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:1-2).

We were conformed to Adam in his sin and death. We bore his image. But now we are destined to be conformed to the last Adam, Jesus Christ, in righteousness and true holiness. This process of conformation begins in conversion and reaches its consummation in glory. Professor F. F. Bruce says, “Sanctification is glory begun; glorification is sanctification consummated.”⁵ We were created in the image and likeness of God. This image was distorted because of Adam’s sin. It is God’s eternal plan that this image of God is restored in the elect of God.

This image, Dr. Lloyd-Jones says, is a derived likeness. A coin has the image of the emperor, an exact likeness. A stamp has the exact derived likeness of the person in whose honor it is issued. A child has the derived likeness of his parents.⁶ Jesus Christ is the image of the Father. So Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus always delighted in his Father’s will and always did it.

Even so, a Christian is the image of Christ. Let me ask you: Do people see Christ when they see you? This is God’s proximate plan. He predestinated us to this end. Paul speaks often of this end: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10); “[We] have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col 3:10); “[You were taught] to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:23-24); “And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man [that is, Adam], so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49).

John writes, “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” (1 John 3:2). Even now it is happening. Paul says, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. . . . For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 3:18, 4:6). From glory to glory he is changing us.

The Holy Spirit is working in us right now. Paul declares, “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Rom. 5:5). A Christian is a Spirit-indwelt, Spirit-empowered, Spirit-directed person. The Spirit transforms us from one degree of glory to another to achieve the predestinated purpose of God. So the Holy Spirit is working in us, transforming us daily into the likeness of Christ, imprinting on our soul and body the image of Christ.

Those who profess Christ yet live sinful lives are not the people of God. We experience pressure every day to compromise and sin. (PGM) People do not like those who oppose sin in the church. But read the first three chapters in Revelation. Jesus Christ himself does not like sin in the church. How dare people want us to welcome sin into the church! The church denies its very existence when it becomes like the world.

Professing Christians who live sinful lives are chaff, which the wind blows away. They are the foolish virgins, who will hear these words from the Lord of the church, “I tell you the truth, I do not know you.” They may call Jesus, “Lord, Lord.” But the Lord would say to them, “Depart from me, you evildoers. I never knew you!”

What about you? Are you holy? Are you presently being conformed to the image of Christ? Do you love God and his ways? Then you are God’s beloved in God’s eternal plan, and you can rejoice in this knowledge. If not, then consider this truth: “Without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). Let us make every effort to be holy, beginning today.

B. THE FINAL PURPOSE OF PREDESTINATION: PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST

Our conformity to the image of Christ is not the ultimate purpose. The ultimate purpose is the pre-eminence of his Son, “that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29). Paul writes, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongues confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11). It is God’s ultimate purpose that his Son will have pre-eminence. Elsewhere Paul says, “And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy” (Col. 1:18).

God’s eternal plan is to have a family consisting in Jesus Christ, his Son by nature, and the elect people of God, sons and daughters by grace and adoption. This family of God the Father consists of Jesus Christ as older brother and us as his younger brothers. God’s family consists of the firstborn son and later born sons. Jesus is the firstborn: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1:15; see also Heb. 1:6).

Paul says Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. “Brothers” include Jews and Gentiles, men and women, from all the families of the earth. Christ has many brothers throughout the world, all on equal footing in the family of God.

What does firstborn mean? It points to priority, supremacy, and pre-eminence of Christ. Psalm 89:27 clearly teaches this: “I will also appoint him [David] my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.” In his natural family, David was the lastborn. But God appointed him as firstborn, that is, he gave him supremacy and pre-eminence.

In some Christian homes you may see a plaque on the wall: “That in all things Jesus Christ might have pre-eminence.” The owners are declaring that in their house, in all they do, Jesus Christ has pre-eminence. It is the will of the Father that the people of God live for the glory of Christ. He is to be worshiped and served as Lord.

In the family of God, Jesus Christ is pre-eminent. This tells us that we are eminent. He is King of kings, and we are kings in him.

The Father has put all things under his feet. If you are his enemy, Christ’s feet are on your neck, and you shall be destroyed. But we who are God’s people are not placed under his feet. We are the bride of Christ, clothed in radiant beauty and seated with him in the heavenly realms. Christ is the most glorious, and we are glorious in him. So the Hebrews writer explains, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises'” (Heb. 2:10-12). We are Christ’s brothers, sons of glory, eminent, and famous. Jesus Christ is pre-eminent and most famous. And in all of this, God the Father is glorified.

3. Effectual Calling

Paul continues, “And those he predestined, he also called” (Rom. 8:29). Those whom God chose in love and predestinated in eternity he calls effectually in time, in the personal history of the individual. The call of the gospel comes to every elect. It does not come as a general invitation, which the hearer can refuse. This call is effectual. It is divine summons, and the elect are enabled to come to Jesus, believe in him, and be united with him. He may be calling you today. If so, I urge you to come to him, believe in him, be saved, and go in peace.

How does the call come? Paul explains, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'” (Rom. 10:14-15). A true preacher is called, commissioned, and sent in the power of the Holy Ghost and in the knowledge of the gospel. He preaches Jesus Christ and him crucified, dead, buried, raised from the dead and seated on the right hand of God as Sovereign Lord. As the gospel is being preached, an elect sinner’s heart is opened by the Holy Spirit, who regenerates the sinner and enables him to repent and believe the gospel.

Faith comes by hearing the word preached. No one is saved without faith. Faith requires the hearing of the word; therefore, we must share the gospel so that elect sinners be called.

The Sovereign God works primarily through his people. Cornelius was saved by hearing the gospel through Peter, not through an angel. We are important in God’s saving plan of the elect sinners. If we are called by the gospel, we must call others by the same gospel. The book of Revelation concludes, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17). The Spirit says come. The church says come. And every believer says come. Come, take the water of life, and live.

Call your spouse in this way. Call your children. Call your parents and relatives. Call your neighbors. Call your colleagues. Call those whom God sends your way, and call those to whom you are sent. God called me and sent me, and I came to proclaim the gospel to you.

Paul preached the gospel in Pisidian Antioch: “When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). Paul tells the Thessalonians, “Our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. . . . And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe. . . . He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 1:5, 2:13; 2 Thess. 2:14). God loved, he chose, and he called through the gospel to share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I pray we will be baptized in the Holy Spirit and clothed with the Spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. May we be filled with the Spirit and speak the gospel with boldness, that we may call people from death to life, from eternal shame to eternal glory. Remember, we speak in the name of the one who has received all authority in heaven and on earth. He is with us always, and not even death can separate us from the love of God. The end of the world will come when every elect is called to life (Matt. 24:14).

4. Justification

The sons of Adam find themselves already condemned. They are under the wrath of God every day and are on their way to hell. Yet they try to clothe themselves with the stinking fig leaf contraption of self-righteousness. But it is useless. Paul declared that by the works of the law no flesh can be justified. We need to be clothed in the righteousness of another. We need a man who is sinless and at the same time eternal God whose merit is infinite.

So God sent his own Son from heaven to be incarnate in the womb of the virgin Mary. The wages of sin is eternal death. Jesus Christ came to die in behalf of those whom the Father loved from eternity. He who knew no sin became sin for us that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God can now justify the ungodly justly, anyone who trusts in Jesus Christ alone.

Jeremiah declares, “The Lord [is] our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). And Paul tells us, “It is because of God the Father that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised for our righteousness (Rom. 4:25). We are now justified freely by God’s grace alone (Rom. 3:24). We are justified by faith in Jesus. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone (Rom. 3:26). We are justified by the blood of Jesus (Rom. 5:9).

Without the cross of Christ, there is no justification for the ungodly. If one denies the cross, one denies salvation. We must lift high the cross of Calvary. We confess Christ who died for our sins. Having been justified by the Father, we have peace with God. We are reconciled to God and stand in grace in God’s presence. God has moved us from our former state of condemnation to our new state of justification.

“It is God the Father who justifies” (Rom. 8:33). No appeal is possible to another court. Our justification cannot be reversed. Enemies of God are reconciled through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace is the source of our justification. The work of Christ is the ground of our justification. Faith is the means of our justification, a faith that is a divine gift. The effect of our justification is nothing less than the vital union with Christ. This is the mother of all doctrines. God the Father is the one who has justified us. And so we wait in hope of the glory of God. Our glory is the goal of divine predestination.⁷

5. Glorification

Finally, Paul says, “Those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). What is emphasized is not our response of faith, but God’s action. We believe and live an obedient life because of the divine life he gives us. So we do not boast; we praise God for his work in our lives.

Note the divine monergism in our salvation:

• God foreloved a specific number of sinners in eternity past;
• God predestinated these ones to become like Christ, holy and blameless;
• God effectually called these people in time, in our personal history by the preaching of the gospel; he called us to life even as Lazarus was called to life from the tomb of death;
• God justified the ungodly, declaring us righteous;
• God not only forgave our sins, but he also clothed us with the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Divine monergism continues to the end. Those whom God justified, these he also glorified. Here Paul deliberately uses the aorist tense because it is so certain. He says, “He glorified,” not, “He shall glorify” us in the future. It is as good as done. There is no contingency. God who acted in loving us moves from step to step until he comes to our glorification. No power in the world can stop him from glorifying in the future those whom he foreloved and predestinated in eternity, called, and justified in time. God alone works from eternity past through time to eternity future.

Even now Christ is in us, the hope of glory. We have already been raised with Christ (Col. 3:1) and we are seated with Christ (Eph. 2:6). Our spirit is alive because of righteousness, and the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will make alive our mortal bodies through the Holy Spirit who indwells us now. (Rom. 8:11). Our new federal head, even Jesus Christ, has been already glorified. And we are united with him. We are in him. So soon we also must be glorified.

Paul declares, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. . . . But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him” (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). Our glorification is certain. Elsewhere he writes, “[God], by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). Again, he declares, “And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49). All have sinned in Adam and lost the glory of God. In Jesus Christ, the glory of our spirit and body is restored to us. So we shall bear the likeness of the man from heaven. Paul states, “He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:14).

God sent his Son into this world not just that our sins may be forgiven and we be justified, but that he may bring many sons, every elect, to glory and so that every elect would be made like our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. As we share in his life, we also shall share in his glory.

Sanctification is glory begun and glorification is the consummation of sanctification. Right now it is happening. Paul writes, “And we who with unveiled faces all behold the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). Even now, from glory to glory he is changing us.

Look at 2 Corinthians 4:16: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” We cannot deny that we are wasting away as we get older. But that is not all. Even now we are being renewed daily in our inward man. Jesus not only restores to us the glory we lost in Adam, but he also gives us greater glory, because the glory of Christ, the man from heaven, is greater than the glory of the man from earth, Adam.

God moves irresistibly from the first step of foreknowledge to the last step of our glorification. Paul says, “Being confident of this, . . . he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). What God began, he shall complete, and in Christ our glorification is an accomplished fact. Even now we experience some of this. Paul exhorts, “Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life” (Phil. 2:14-15). But soon we shall shine with greater brightness when we will see him, for we shall be like him (1 John 3:2). Then we shall shine like the sun “in the kingdom of [our] Father” (Matt. 13:43). John writes, “[Christ’s] face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (Rev. 1:16b). Our older brother’s face is like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

That is our destiny, and we shall reach the goal. We shall be conformed to Christ that he may have pre-eminence among many brothers. All this is for the Father’s glory. Then shall eternity future begin in a creation that is glorified too. God will dwell with us, and we with him. That is life eternal. That is joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Conclusion

Salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end. He does all the work. What did we do? We ran away from God. We became prodigals and rebels, enemies of God. But God came after us and apprehended us. He transformed us and from glory to glory he is changing us. Now we love God and delight in doing his will. We worship God and live for his glory. God is working one hundred percent, and we also work one hundred percent. But we work because of God’s grace. The Spirit of God enables us to think God’s thoughts and to do his will.

Ask the question: “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Salvation is of the Lord. Therefore we can depend on it. God works in us and through us, and God receives all praise.

Remember this also: The visible church is always a mixture of wheat and chaff. If you are not living a holy and obedient life, then you must draw the conclusion that you may not be God’s chosen. Call upon the name of the Lord that you may be saved. But if you live by repentance and faith, then you are God’s chosen. Romans 8:28 told us, “We know to those who love God, he works in all things for good, to those called according to his purpose.” So our love for God, which is a response to God’s love for us, is a proof that we are in the company of those whom God foreknew, God predestinated, God called, God justified, and God glorified. To God be the glory! To such people Romans 8:29-30 gives ultimate and supreme guarantee of their final salvation in glory.

¹ J. M. Boice, Romans, Vol. 2: The Reign of Grace, Romans 5-8 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 911-912.

² John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 318.

³ John Stott, Romans (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994), 248.

⁴ D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Final Perseverance of the Saints, Exposition of Chapter 8:17-39 (Grand Rapids, 1976), 242.

⁵ F. F. Bruce, Romans, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 168.

⁶ Lloyd-Jones, op. cit., 222-223.

⁷ For more on justification, refer to my forthcoming book on Romans, or visit www.gracevalley.org.