The Chain of Salvation

Our reading this morning is on page 800 in our church Bibles. There you will find Romans chapter 8, and we read the three verses from verse 28.

Romans chapter 8 and reading from verse 28 to verse 30:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 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. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; [and] those he justified, he also glorified.”

Amen.

We pray:

Our Father in heaven, help us now to be students of your Word. Come, Holy Spirit, and be our teacher, and grant that in hearing we might believe and obey. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, we’ve come to arguably the best-known verse in the whole of Romans chapter 8, verse 28. Many of us have memorized this since we were small, and it is, we might say, a classic verse. People who wouldn’t necessarily know where it came from might actually know the verse. And when you come to such a verse, it’s actually quite dangerous. And the danger is essentially this: that the verse becomes dislodged from its context. And verse 28 comes after verse 27 and before verse 29; and therefore, the surrounding context, as is always true, but particularly important that we face up to it, is essential for us.

And it is a good time to remind ourselves that when we listen to the Bible being taught, that the source of the message being taught is to be the Bible itself. The source of the message is not to be the inventive creativity of the mind of the preacher. I have all kinds of crazy thoughts in my mind―all sorts of ideas that I could introduce to you quite routinely on a Sunday. They’re not totally irrelevant, but they’re not what this time calls for.

No, you have every legitimate expectation that whatever you hear will actually be found in the Bible. That message from the Bible is to be discovered on the part of the preacher by carefully exegeting the Scriptures. And that’s the technical word for doing what myself and my colleagues are supposed to do in our study, and that is look into the Scriptures and exegete them in such a way that we can discover what the message is. That message then needs to be conveyed in the context of its original setting, and when that has been done, then application can be made to the context of the preacher and the listeners. So in other words, this is a letter that was written first to Rome in the first century, and we are now living in Cleveland in the twenty-first century, and we have to be very careful that we make sure that we reach the application in Cleveland by understanding what was going on in Rome.

The preacher, then, is a servant of the Scriptures; the Scriptures are not the servant of the preacher. It’s very, very important that we understand that so that you can hold your preachers to this very standard. And that’s why I mention it, and especially this morning, when we come to a verse that is very familiar, and then in turn we come to two verses which are the basis of controversy throughout the ages of the church.

Now, keep in mind, then, that verse 18, which says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” is the immediate context for this great statement in verse 28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” It’s very possible to use verse 28 as a kind of trampoline: you just sort of jump up and down on it for a while, and you can see things from a different perspective, and it may actually make you feel better as a result of the exercise. And often, when I hear people quoting Romans 8:28―and I’m not immune to this myself―they tend to think of it in terms that move us beyond the realm of what Paul has actually been saying in the preceding section.

So, when we read “in all things,” those “all things” include, verse 18, the sufferings of this present time. It’s not that you get through verses 18‒27, and then you begin an entirely new section in verse 28: “But don’t worry about all of that stuff, because all things work together for good” and so on. What Paul is saying is that God is at work in all things for the good of his children. And the identity of those who are the beneficiaries of this is made clear to us. And you will notice that the ones that are the focus of this are those who love God: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” Later on in the chapter, he’s going to speak to us about God’s love for us, but right here he’s speaking about the believer’s love for him.

Now, if you turn back just to the opening of Romans, I think it would be helpful to set this in an even wider context. The question is: Who is being addressed when he writes to the church at Rome? Well, he’s writing to the church at Rome. Verse 5 of chapter 1, he says, “Through him”―that is, through Jesus―“and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.” And then he says, “And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints…”

The distinguishing feature, or one of the key distinguishing features, of a Christian is that he or she loves God. Loves God. And sometimes, I remember, when our children were small, I might hear them in the back seat inquiring of one another, and one might say to the other one, “Do you love God?” just in their tiny little voice. Such a striking question out of nowhere! Suddenly you’re driving in the car, and one of them will say to the other, “Do you love God?”

The love of God’s people for God is based upon the initiative of his love towards them.

Do you love God? Love God. Not, “Do you have a concept of God? Do you have some kind of cerebral fascination with notions of divinity?” But, “Do you love God?” Because this verse applies to those who love God.

One of the distinguishing features of God’s people is just that. That’s the significance of the Hebrews and Orthodox Jews in Cleveland yesterday, and every day of their lives, repeating what is referred to as the Shema, which is the opening word in Hebrew of, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord [your] God, the Lord is one.”[1] And what is the very first exhortation of Moses? “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.”[2] Why? Because it is love for God that is the chief characteristic, distinguishing feature, of the child of God.

So, the identity of those who are included in Romans 8:28 is in relationship to their attitude, if you like, towards God. Their attitude towards God is one of love. But they’re also identified in terms of God’s action towards them. Their attitude towards God: they “love him.” God’s action towards them: they “have been called according to his purpose.” They “have been called according to his purpose.” We’re going to learn this morning that the love of God’s people for God is based upon the initiative of his love towards them—that the calling of God is one over which we have no control, either in originating it or in being able to frustrate it. The calling of God is one which provides us with absolutely no basis for boasting, because the initiative lies with God.

Winslow, who commented on Romans in an earlier generation, has a purple passage here where he addresses his congregation, a long, long time ago, in this matter of the love of God expressed in the call of God. And this is what he said to them: “Has this call reached you …?”

Has this call reached you …? Ministers have called you,—the Gospel has called you,—providences have called you,—conscience has called you,—but has the Spirit called you with an inward and effectual vocation? Have you been called, spiritually called, from darkness to light,—from death to life,—from sin to holiness,—from the world to Christ,—from self to God? Examine your heart and ascertain. Oh, it is a matter of the greatest moment that you know that you are truly converted,—that you are called of God. Has the thrilling, life-inspiring music of that call sounded and reverberated through all the chambers of your soul?[3]

That’s the question.

So, instead of immediately going to Romans 8:28 and using it as a kind of mantra which is immediately applicable, let us recognize that when Paul addresses this issue in writing his letter, he writes to “all in Rome,” and there’s no full stop: “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his saints.” So the comprehensive nature of this statement is constrained by the identity of those it addresses. It is not a statement that can be applied holus-bolus, willy-nilly, across the board in relationship to anybody, that you can trot it out in the grocery store or simply say it to somebody as if it was a sort of self-help notion. No! “In all things God works for the good of those … who have been called according to his purpose.”

So the question is: Has this call reached you? Can you say,

I’ve found a friend, O such a friend!
He loved me before I knew him;
He drew me with the cords of love,
And thus he bound me to him.
And so round my heart so closely twine
These ties that nothing can sever,
For I am his, and he is mine,
Forever and forever.[4]

“Why do you say that, Begg?”

Well, because he called me.

“What, you mean he, like, phoned you up? Or he spoke when you were out walking in the woods?”

No!

“Well, what are you talking about?”

I’m talking about the way that he has orchestrated my life―and your life too, if you’re in Christ! That as a wriggling child in Sunday school, the way children are wriggling right now―your children are wriggling through here in these Sunday school rooms. And the teachers who’ve committed themselves to the awesome privilege of having the custody of your little children will be sweating and getting ready to go home and have a decent lunch and say to themselves, “I don’t know if anything happens in that room except chaos.”

Something happens! ’Cause God calls out through the stumbling, apparently ineffectual teaching. And somehow or another, God used a Sunday school teacher in my life to call out to me. Otherwise, I couldn’t imagine having gone home for Sunday lunch and being so concerned on a Sunday afternoon, as a boy of elementary school age, to ask my father, “What is it all about?”—that this lady was telling me about the love of God, and Jesus dying on a cross, and the forgiveness of sins, and all these things. Why was I so interested in that? I don’t know! Why was I so interested? Why was I so concerned? And why would God, in the immensity of his grace, give me a father who was a believer, who would providentially overrule the events of my life so that when I asked the question, he had the answer, so that I could then believe? What was happening? God was calling! Effectually calling. Playing the music of redemption in a small boy’s mind and heart.

And if you’re a Christian, you’ve got the same story. Not the same time frame. But you saw, when somebody told you about becoming a Christian, a big sign over the entryway, and it essentially said, “Whosoever will may come.”[5] And you said, “Well, ‘whosoever’ presumably includes me,” which it does. And so you walked in! And you have subsequently turned around and looked at the archway, and on the back of the archway it says, “Chosen before the foundation of the world.”[6] And you said, “Wow! You mean he loved me before I loved him?” Yes! “Do you mean that his love engendered my love?” Yes! And “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

So, we have to understand, then, what this means, that “in all things God works.” The King James Version has it, as I’ve been quoting it variably, “[For] we know…” The King James Version is, “All things work together for good…” See, it helps when I pull my ears like that. I’ve obviously been doing it quite a bit throughout time. But “All things…” The King James Version is, “All things work together for good.” The NIV translates it, “In all things God works.” “In all things God works” is better than “all things work together for good,” because “all things work together for good” sounds as if, somehow or another, the jigsaw puzzle pieces all just eventually fit themselves together―that somehow or another, the things are working for good. But in actual fact, many of the things appear to be working for bad.

In Joseph’s life, it was a bad deal for his brothers to be jealous. It was a bad deal for his father to prefer him over his brothers. It was a bad thing for him to get sold into slavery. It was a bad thing for him to get thrown into the jail. It was a bad thing here and a bad thing there and a bad thing there. And if you’d said to him, “How are things working out for you?” he’d say, “Working out pretty poorly. The things are all against me.” But “in all things” God was at work for good, which was Joseph’s testimony, which you can read for yourself towards the end of Genesis.[7]

Now, what this simply means is that all of the stuff―good, bad, and ugly―God employs for the ultimate good of his children. Says John Murray, there is “not one detail works ultimately for evil to the people of God; in the end only good will be their lot.”[8] There’s not one thing that works ultimately for evil, but in the end…

And that’s, again, why it is so important to take verse 28 in the context of what precedes it. What precedes it is the statement concerning the sufferings―the groanings of creation, the groanings of God’s people, the groaning, as we saw last time, of God towards God. And it is in that context that this truth is made known. Verse 28 does not lift us out of verses 18‒27. We know that in the present time, we suffer, we have travail. There is so much stuff that mitigates against us. And the encouragement of God’s Word is that this is not happening haphazardly, but in it all, God is at work.

Now, in verses 29 and 30, Paul then really goes on to unpack what he means about God’s purpose. All these things are working “according to his purpose.”

There is in the life of the believer a quite unbelievable chain of events. And when you read verses 29 and 30, I have a suggestion for you, and that is that you immediately flip forward a couple of pages and read Romans 11:33‒36. You can understand why by the time I’m finished, even if you don’t understand now. But there, at the end of this great and glorious progression of thought on the part of the writer, he eventually says,

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
 How unsearchable [are] his judgments,
 and his paths beyond tracing out!

Unsearchable judgment. Paths beyond tracing out.

So if you find yourself saying, “I can’t see what God is doing in this,” or “I can’t understand how this could possibly be,” you are in normal and safe territory. Because the ways of God are mysterious ways; they’re untraceable ways. “He plants his footsteps in the sea,” he rides upon the storm.”[9] And if you try and go to Romans 8:28 as a mechanism to try and remove yourself from the storm, to try and find yourself in a place where it all just makes perfect sense, then you’re engaged in a quest that will absolutely frustrate you.

And that is why when Paul has done his best―and what an intellect, what a mind, what a heart!―he eventually, as it were, finishes Romans chapter 11, falls on his face, and says, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the mind of God! How unsearchable are all his ways, and his paths beyond tracing out!” And that’s when he’s given us his very best under the inspiration of the Spirit.

I find that very helpful, and I hope you will too: Romans 8:29‒30 read within the context of Romans 11:33‒36.

Well, let’s look at verse 29. God is at work in all of these things in the lives of those who love him. They love him because they’ve been “called according to his purpose.” “God foreknew” them. He “foreknew” them. The foreknowledge of God you should understand in terms of the foreordination of God. Why do I say that? Because this doesn’t simply mean, as some suggest, that God foreknew those who would believe—that when it says that “God foreknew”―“For those God foreknew… ” In other words, he looked down and he saw those who would believe, and since they were going to believe anyway, he would give them a little help.

Uh-uh. No. God obviously foreknew who would believe. God knows everything! Therefore, that wouldn’t really be saying very much, would it, “those whom God foreknew”? God foreknew everything that would take place. We’ve said that this morning in the Creed. We’ve explained it in our songs. It’s certainly true that God foresees everything that comes to pass. But is that what Paul is saying? Is that all he’s saying? Clearly not! Because the knowledge that is referenced here is not the knowledge, if you like, of conjecture or the knowledge of something which is external to or merely factual. It is the relational knowledge.

It’s the same notion as when it says, for example, that Adam “knew” his wife.[10] It doesn’t mean “Oh! There’s Eve.” No. He knew his wife. It is the knowledge of relationship. It is the same knowledge of God for his people described, for example, in Amos chapter 3, where the prophet speaks from God, and he says to his people, “You only have I known of all the [peoples] of the earth.”[11] What does he mean? “I only knew you, and I didn’t know anybody else”? No! He knows everybody. He created everybody. He knows all the peoples of the earth. He knows everything! A God who does not know the future is not God, said Augustine.[12]

So what is being conveyed here is the fact of God’s foreordination. In fact, the NIV translates Amos 3, “You only have I chosen of all the [peoples] of the earth.” And what is contained in the foreknowledge of God is once again the notion that is present in the hymn that I just quoted to you: “He loved me ere I knew him.”

And I’ve given you this analogy many times before, but it bears repetition. If your spouse were to come to you and tell you that she had loved you before she met you, that she had seen you in a variety of contexts, that she had set her heart upon you and she had longed after you, would that be a disappointment to you in any way? Would you storm away from the breakfast table at such information? No, you would probably reach up and give her a better hug than usual!

But that doesn’t meet it all. Because the affection, human affection, for a spouse is grounded in at least something that we find attractive in the other person. But the love of God is not grounded in something that he finds attractive in us. Indeed, when he speaks to his people in Deuteronomy 7, he says, “And the reason I have loved you is because I have loved you.”[13] “I loved you because I loved you.” What kind of explanation is that? How do you go behind that? Well, you go back to another “I have loved you.” “Yeah, but why have you loved me?” “Because, I have loved you.” Eventually, you say, “Okay. Oh, the depths of the riches of the knowledge of God! He loves because he loves.”

Those whom he foreknew “he also predestined.” “He predestined.” In other words, God has chosen to put together a people that are his very own, an immeasurable company, as we know from the book of Revelation[14]―people coming from all different places and backgrounds and so on―and this is his eternal purpose. There’s a sense in which Ephesians chapter 1 is a very helpful parallel to Romans 8:29–30. And if you care to, you could turn just for a moment to Ephesians chapter 1, and let me point this out to you.

Verse [9] and chapter [1] of Ephesians: “And he made known to us,” notice the phrase, “the mystery of his will”―“the mystery of his will”—“according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment.” That ought to make you think of the beginning of our studies in Mark’s Gospel. Remember when we were studying Mark’s Gospel? We will come back to it. Remember, Jesus stands up, and what does he say? “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”[15]

Here you are in Ephesians chapter 1: “to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment―to bring all things in heaven and earth and under the earth under Christ.”[16] Now, here we go, verse 11: “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Why? He tells us: “in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.” And then verse 13: “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. [And] having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession―to the praise of his glory.” That takes you right back to Romans chapter 8: only those who have the Spirit of God are sons of God.[17] Those who do not have the Spirit of God do not belong to God. We’ve already seen that in Romans 8.

This is the birthright of the child―that God comes and invades us by the Holy Spirit, takes up residence in our lives, creates within us a passion for God, a love for him. And when people say, “Why is it that you love God?”—ultimately we have to say, “It is a mysterious thing. God has come and taken the initiative in my life.”

God foreordains salvation, but he also foreordains the means whereby we come to salvation. And the two things are not separated from one another. Take the average church prayer meeting. Go to the average church prayer meeting, and people understand this. They may not lay it out as a doctrine, but they understand it. That is why when you’re sitting at the table and people pray, you will find every so often somebody will say, “And I thank you, God, for saving me. I thank you for coming and reaching into my life when I wasn’t even looking for you. I thank you for pursuing me and making me your child.” It’s not uncommon when you hear people pray in that way. What are they saying? They’re saying, “God, you took the initiative in my life.”

And when they pray for other people, they do the same thing, don’t they? “God, in a couple of days, Mr. So-and-So’s going to be teaching from the Bible. I’m bringing one of my friends from the office. We’re coming down to Table Talk. He’s quite a good teacher, God, but frankly, if you don’t open Bill’s eyes, if you don’t pull the plugs out of Bill’s ears, the fellow can talk till he’s blue in his face and nothing will happen.” Why? Because they understand this. Because this is the foundation. This does not cut the umbilical cord to effective evangelism; this is the foundation of effective evangelism. Because God is this kind of God, because God loves saving people, because he’s putting together an innumerable company, we may then with conviction and with boldness say to people, “Will you believe on this Christ?”

The doctrine of election―for what this really is, is the doctrine of election―is a difficult doctrine, it is a biblical doctrine, and it is a profitable doctrine. Eric Alexander, preaching from Ephesians 1‒3 in 1984 at Urbana, said―and I’ve never forgotten it―the doctrine of election is not a bomb to be dropped on people, it’s not a banner to be marched out under, but it is a bastion for the souls of those who are in Christ. And isn’t that true? When all hell has let loose against us, when our hearts condemn us, when we’ve made a royal hash of stuff, when it’s the worst week or the worst month or whatever else it is, and everything seems to militate against us, and all of this “working for good” seems completely bizarre, to where do we retreat? Where do we go? Well, if you’re in Christ, you go back to him, and you say, “O the love of my Redeemer, that you loved me before I knew you, that you loved me to the extent of taking the punishment I deserve and dying in my place, and that the guarantee of all that you have offered to me is found in the fact that you will never quit on a project.” That’s very different from a salvation that is built on our ability to hang on by our fingernails to whatever we may have professed.

God foreordains salvation, but he also foreordains the means whereby we come to salvation.

Well, he “foreknew,” he “predestined,” notice, “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” That little phrase is wonderful! What is God doing? He’s making his people like Jesus. Making his people like Jesus. That’s his plan from the very beginning, and he will bring it to completion, as John tells us: “When we see him, we will be like him.”[18] And Jesus blazes the trail as “the firstborn among many brothers.”

“Those he predestined, he also called.” How did he call? Well, we saw that in Ephesians 1: he called by the preaching of the gospel. He called by the preaching of the gospel. And when the gospel is preached and the free offer of the gospel is communicated, somehow, in a way that is mysterious, there comes the effectual call of God, which raises the spiritually dead to life.

That’s the reason for the quote from Winslow, “Has he called you?” “Has he called you?” Because you would have to be honest, if you’ve come here routinely as somebody who is wondering about faith, not convinced about things; I think you would say in all honesty that people have called you. People have said, “Hey, listen, there’s a huge difference between belief and unbelief, between light and darkness, between a broad road and a narrow road,”[19] and you’ve heard all of that. You could actually preach some of these sermons. But when God calls out to you and says, “Hey!”—then everything is different.

Now, do not―do not—allow yourself to sidestep the clarity of this instruction by embracing one of two caricatures in relationship to this truth. And they are as follows: the notion that there is such a person who wants to believe but is turned away, or that there is such a person who doesn’t want to believe and is compelled to believe. Those are caricatures. When you read the Bible, you cannot find that there. You can get that out of your head as a result of staying up too late at night arguing about things, but the confluence between, if you like, the wave of God’s sovereignty and the response of man’s will are never set for us in the Bible in terms of those caricatures.

“Here is Mr. Jenkins, who desperately wants to become a Christian, and God won’t let him.” How could that possibly be? “Whoever comes to me,” says Jesus, “I will never [turn him] away.”[20] So here’s Mr. Jenkins, and he wants to come to Jesus, and he’s being turned away. No, he’s not! Jesus said, “You come to me, you’re fine. Seek me and you will find me if you search for me with all of your heart.”[21] So there’s no notion of “Well, I was desperately seeking God, but he wouldn’t let me find him,” or that I finally was compelled by some agency that was beyond myself and transcended my will and transcended thoughtfulness and just did something to me. It doesn’t say that either. That’s the importance of Ephesians 1:13: “And you also were included in Christ when you heard … the gospel of your salvation [and you] believed.” When you push back from that, you can go back into the eons of eternity. But in terms of our understanding of what it means to be in Christ, we realize that somehow or another, in the midst of it all, God called us.

And listen carefully: truths that are contradictory to us are not contradictory in heaven. And it is not the job of the pastor to try and explain the unexplainable. Any time you deal with material like this―and I do it frequently because of the context in which I’m set―and you have the Q and A, when you’ve said this and said it as clearly as you possibly can, the very first question is, “Well, how do you explain the fact that the thing with the thing and the thing?” And you’ve just stood there and said, “We can’t explain the unexplainable!” Question number one: “Would you please explain the unexplainable?” That’s why I’m not a schoolteacher, I suppose. I’d just be going, “Hey, take a hike.”

And finally, those he foreknew and predestined and called, he “justified”―actually, penultimately, he justified. In other words, he put us in a right standing with God. He put us in the place of acceptance with God, not on the basis of a righteousness of our own but on the basis of the work of Christ. This is what we refer to as “the great exchange.” We thought about it last time: my sins to the account of Christ and his righteousness to mine. Christ bears the judgment that the sinner deserves in order that the sinner might enjoy a forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve.

So when you think in terms of the work of God calling us out, he doesn’t call us out absent those truths. He calls us on the strength of those truths. He calls us to believe those truths. He calls me as a sinner to say, “Well, unless somebody lived a perfect life, I have no chance of this. Unless somebody who was perfect died in the place of my wretchedness, I could never atone for my sins.” You see, that truth then precedes the embracing of Christ. That’s why conversion actually involves the bad news of my predicament and then the good news of God’s solution.

And “those he justified, he also glorified.” The verb, you will notice, is in the past tense. The event is finally in the future, but in Christ it’s a done deal. In Christ it’s a done deal.

Christ bears the judgment that the sinner deserves in order that the sinner might enjoy a forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve.

I want to finish in this way. Maybe I’ll read a quote. Let me see how long it is. Yeah, I’m going to read one quote and one statement, then we’ll stop.

This is John Murray: “The passion for missions is quenched when we lose sight of the grandeur of the evangel”―that is, of the gospel; so, when we lose sight of the nature of what God has done à la Romans 8:29‒30.

It is a fact that many, persuaded as they rightly are of the particularism of the plan of salvation and of its various corollaries, have found it difficult to proclaim the full, free, and unrestricted overture of gospel grace. They have laboured under … inhibitions arising from fear that in doing so they would impinge upon the sovereignty of God in his saving purposes and operations. The result is that, though formally assenting to the free offer [of the gospel], they lack freedom in the presentation of its appeal and [its] demand.[22]

What he’s actually saying there is, there are certain people who are frightened to press upon people the claims of Christ, unless in doing so, those whom God doesn’t want to get saved, get saved.

How stupid is that! How unbiblical an idea is that! People who feel that way―and I have friends who do―are so tied up in their theological underwear that they have come almost to the conclusion that the way in which a person will make it safely into heaven is on account of their understanding of the chain of salvation―regeneration all the way through to glorification―so that the way that you will finally end up in heaven is on the basis of the ordo salutis, as it is in Latin; that it is in an understanding of this chain. And if you don’t get this chain, or you reject this chain, you’ll never make it.

Listen, and listen carefully: nobody—nobody—goes to heaven saved by the chain of salvation. Everybody goes to heaven saved by Jesus Christ. And if the thief on the cross would have been interviewed at the gate of heaven concerning the process we have just considered now: “Hello, thief. Have you appeared here according to the foreknowledge of God?”

“I… I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Um, okay, well, let me try a second one: Have you been predestined?”

“Sorry, I don’t know that either.”

“Well, have you been called according to his purpose? Have you been justified?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know any of these things.”

“Well, what in the world are you doing here?”

He gives the answer that I’m going to give, and so are you if you’re in Christ. What are you going to say? “The man on the middle cross told me I can come.” “The man on the middle cross told me I can come.” Because somehow, in the mystery of God’s purposes, in all the bits and pieces of that man’s life, it was leading up to that great moment where he suddenly says to his friend, “We’re up here justly, because we’re getting what we deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”[23] And then he must have said, “So how do you get up here for doing nothing wrong?” And somehow or another, in the mystery of God’s purposes, the bell rings, and he must have said, “Well, he must be up here taking the place of us who deserve to be up here. I’m going to ask him if, since he’s taken my place, if he would let me take his place.” And he said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”[24]

This is how you will become a Christian. This is hearing the call of God―not seven ideas for fixing up your life, not all of the superficial religious stuff, but this.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost … now [I’]m found;
[I] was blind, but now I see.[25]

If you’d like to talk about this now or later, through the doors to your left and my right there is a room, people, literature. And also, we’d be glad to make time on another occasion. You may be sitting next to somebody who has actually brought you here this morning, or a friend that you know is actually convinced about these things, and you might even say to them before you go, “Can you help me? Can you please help me?” And they will.

See you tonight, God willing.

Let us pray:

God our Father, look upon us in your mercy, we pray. Help us not to stumble over these immense truths because our simple minds are unable to put all the pieces together in a way that satisfies our curiosity, but help us in childlike trust to take you at your Word, so that we might be able to look over our shoulder and say, “It is an amazing thing. ‘O how the grace of God amazes me! It loosed me from my [chains] and [it] set me free!’[26] See now what God has done, sending his only Son.”

And we pray that as this truth takes hold upon our hearts and fills our minds, that we might be zealous in making this good news known to other people—that we might not be content with the fact that they are religious in their own particular way, that they have some form of religious interest, but that we might be burdened for the well-being of their souls; that we might labor intensively and extensively to try and share with them what we ourselves are learning about your amazing love.

Thank you that you have preached your love to us in the cross of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be the abiding portion of all who believe, today and forevermore. Amen.

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[1] Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV 1984).

[2] Deuteronomy 6:5 (paraphrased).

[3] Octavius Winslow, No Condemnation in Christ Jesus (London, 1852), 273–74.

[4] James G. Small, “I’ve Found a Friend” (1866). Lyrics lightly altered.

[5] See Revelation 22:17.

[6] See Ephesians 1:4.

[7] See Genesis 50:20.

[8] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 1:314.

[9] William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” (1774).

[10] Genesis 4:1 (KJV).

[11] Amos 3:2 (KJV).

[12] Augustine, Confessions 11.31.41.

[13] See Deuteronomy 7:8.

[14] See Revelation 7:9.

[15] Mark 1:15 (paraphrased).

[16] Ephesians 1:10 (paraphrased).

[17] See Romans 8:14.

[18] 1 John 3:2 (paraphrased).

[19] See Matthew 7:13.

[20] John 6:37 (NIV 1984).

[21] See Jeremiah 29:13.

[22] “The Atonement and the Free Offer of the Gospel,” in Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 1, The Claims of Truth (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 81.

[23] Luke 23:41 (paraphrased).

[24] Luke 23:43 (NIV 1984).

[25] John Newton, “Amazing Grace” (1779).

[26] Emmanuel T. Sibomana, “O How the Grace of God Amazes Me.”