Groaning and Glory

I’m going to try and push all the way through now from 18 to 30, and I want to take the time to read it. Paul has just spoken of how suffering and glory are interwoven, and then he says in verse 18,

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

Amen.

Well, a brief prayer—a very brief prayer, an old Anglican prayer:

Father, what we know not, teach us. What we have not, give us. What we are not, make us. And we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

All right. Fasten your seatbelts, and we are going to head for verse 30, all being well.

The Path of Glory and Suffering

It’s very important, when we do something like this, that we don’t just consider each piece somehow or another in isolation from either what follows it and, certainly, what precedes it. And I was conscious of the fact, when I ended yesterday, that I really passed over the point that he makes there: that although we’ve been brought into an intimate relationship with God, and we can address him in such a wonderful fashion, he has provided for his children in a way that includes suffering: “provided,” he says, “[that] we suffer with him in order that we [might] also be glorified with him.”[1] In other words, he’s making clear that the path to glory is a path that is marked by suffering.

When Jesus explained that to his disciples, they didn’t get it. And I think sometimes we, as his disciples, are prone, perhaps, not to lay hold of it as we should. You remember that after Peter’s great declaration, we’re told by the Gospel writers that Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer at the hands of cruel men, and be rejected and crucified, and so on. The immediate response to that on the part of the spokesman on that occasion—not surprisingly, Peter—was to say, “Lord, that is not going to happen to you.”[2] He thought he was being very good and very defensive, which, of course, he was. He probably was unprepared for the way in which Jesus would then address him when he said to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”[3] So, for those who are very keen on having Peter as the first pope, that was one of the first interchanges that Jesus, who is the head of the church, had with him. You can ponder that at your leisure.

But Jesus went on to say to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. … Whoever would save his life will lose it, [and] whoever [would lose] his life for my sake will [save] it.”[4] We don’t want to delay on this. I think we’ve perhaps said enough.

But again, I am often helped in theological pieces by hymn writers who have encapsulated big truths in short stanzas. And there is a wonderful hymn that begins, “My God, I thank thee, who [has] made the earth so bright.” And the writer goes on to talk about the wonder of God in creation, the wonder of God in redemption, and so on. And then—and this is the verse that has always struck me—he’s thanking God for everything, and then he says,

I thank thee [too] that all [my] joy
Is touched with pain,
That shadows fall on brightest hours,
[And] thorns remain,
So that earth’s bliss may be [my] guide
And not [my] chain.[5]

—so that all the wonderful things that we enjoy, the hymn writer says, “I don’t want that to enslave me. I want it to be a guide to me, to be a basis of my thankfulness.”

Now, as he ends there in verse 17, having said that suffering and glory are not to be considered apart from each other, you will notice he then goes on now to say that suffering and the reality of experiencing it is such that what it leads to is far greater than the suffering itself. The glory that we will one day experience then far outweighs the suffering that we experience now.

And this is, of course, I think, hard for those of us who live in the context in which most of us live. For the first in a little while, perhaps, with the wind blowing pretty fiercely against our faces if we want to hold to Christian conviction, we’ve got at least an inkling of what Peter was on about when he writes to the folks who are the scattered believers in the early century, and he says, you know, “You’ve been born again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and now you suffer, and even if that is for a little while.”[6]

The glory that we will experience then far outweighs the suffering that we experience now.

And I guess as a boy growing up, I thought, “Well, what must it be like to suffer?” And then I was introduced to Pastor Wurmbrand, as some of you were, and the church behind the Iron Curtain. And then we had Mao Tse-tung. And then we had the closing of the churches and so on. And so we read that—at least I read it—from the safety and security of a Scotland where, as boys going to school, we still sang, “Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves”—which we shouldn’t have done. It was rather presumptuous, and the waves were coming on top of us with great freedom. But the fact of the matter is, I used to read that stuff and think, “Well, I don’t really know what that’s about. It must be dreadful to experience that.”

And here we are now, even in this day, riding on a ship in the ocean. We have food. We have clothes. We have health and strength. In fact, all of us have sufficient, in Pauline terms, for a completely free approach to life—absolutely free, in need of nothing else, according to Paul. What was it? “If we have food and [clothes], with [that] we will be content.”[7]

The challenge for us is that it’s so good right now that you discover that the songs that are written right now are not the same songs that were written pre-First World War or in between the wars. Because in those songs, the songs were a bit like the songs of the slaves in the South—you know, “All God’s children got shoes.”

All God’s children got shoes.
When I get to heaven, gonna put on my shoes;
I’m gonna walk all over God’s heaven.

Because that which was there far outweighed the this which was now.

And it is a problem for Western Christianity when the now so far outweighs any prospect of the then. When’s the last time you sang the hymn

There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we shall see it afar;
For [my] Father waits over the way
To prepare [me] a dwelling place there.

In the sweet by and by
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.[8]

People say, “I don’t want to meet on the beautiful shore. I want to go to the beautiful shore down the road here. That’s why I live in Southern California.” And many people that I talk to, who are part and parcel of the benefits of the life that many of us live, have a distinct disinterest, actually, in the prospect of the then.

But not Paul. He makes it clear: The path to glory is a path of suffering. There will never be any glory without walking the path of suffering. That’s what he says to his disciples. “And you should know,” he says, “I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not even worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” And Paul’s not writing theoretically. Paul knew what it was to be shipwrecked. He knew what it was to be stoned. He knew what it was to be imprisoned.[9] He’s not just winging things when he does this.

And it is not that we’re going to look for these things or try and bring them upon ourselves so as to feel more approximate to what the Scriptures are saying. The fact is—and I used to say this routinely, and I can say it today—but I would say to myself, “The congregation that I have the privilege of preaching to for the last forty-two years, no matter how good they look on Sunday morning, I know this: that the vast majority of their lives at some point along the way are marked by quiet desperation.”

And I know that pastorally, because I know the challenge in my own heart. I know what it is to struggle with my own children. I know what it is to deal with bereavement. And therefore, why would I ever assume that these well-heeled, nice people are somehow or other skating above the surface of things on their way to heaven? They’re not.

And that’s why the Bible is so honest. That’s why it’s so helpful. That’s why the Psalms not only give us joyful songs, but they give us laments. That’s why Psalm 13 is a help to us: “How long, O Lord, will you forget me? Forever? How long must I have sorrow in my heart all the day? Why is it going to keep going like this?”[10] Now, Paul is writing this, and he knew that experience himself. And so it is that we recognize that we need the Word of God to fuel our view of our world and our view of ourselves and so on.

And it’s a rotten thing, isn’t it, when you find Christians who have got an approach to suffering which is so bizarre that it can’t even be real? You know, like—it’s like Harry Belafonte stuff, or it’s like, you know, that kind of stuff: “Well, though clouds will come, it doesn’t matter.” You know, it’s rubbish. It’s absolute rubbish. I mean, when you pull into the cancer ward and park your car, you don’t care whether it’s a three-liter engine or whether the wheels, whether the rims on your car are twenty-two-inch rims, because immediately you know: This stuff is absolutely, ultimately irrelevant.

And that’s why when Rutherford a long, long time ago, writes to a recently bereaved member of his congregation, he writes to her to say, “I am now expecting to see … that [you] defy troubles; and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged, but cannot be taken.”[11] Presumably he’s thinking of the psalmist: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; and the righteous run into it and are safe.”[12]

Groaning Creation, Groaning Christians

Now, if you’re looking at the text, you will notice that what he’s dealing with here is not simply a personal matter, but it is a matter that is cosmic in its implications: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”

The creation is waiting for the day of liberation. And as staggeringly challenging as it is, the church actually is God’s pilot scheme for the reconciled universe of the future. The church is like a little charcoal sketch of a glorious technicolor reality that will one day be revealed for all the world to see. And when people make their journey through the world, if they say, “Is there anywhere that I can find anybody or anything that remotely resembles what the Bible is speaking about?” the answer is supposed to be “Yeah, come to our church.” They don’t come without us.

History isn’t cyclical. It’s linear. And so when we read a verse like this—“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God”—and we remember doing geography at school or at university, and we listen to the news broadcasts every day, not least of all the weather forecast, and we have our minds constantly bombarded by “Well, let’s see what the gods have got for us,” or “Let’s see what Mother Nature has to say”—all these things—that’s why it’s so important to read our Bibles before we start listening to the news. I said that already. Because we don’t view it that way at all.

The creation—I’ll tell you what the deal is with creation: The creation is waiting “with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” The story of the world is: good, bad, new, perfect. God made it good. It’s bad because of sin. In Jesus, he makes it new. It’s not perfect yet, but one day it’s going to be. And we know that includes not only our personal journey but includes the totality of the universe.

And now he goes on to say, “And there’s a lot of groaning going on.” And the first section of groaning concerns the creation itself—verse 20 and following: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope [so] that the creation itself will be set free from [his] bondage to corruption,” and so on. Here’s our verse 22: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.”

That was the first century. That was the first century! We’re reading now in the twenty-first century. That’s a lot of groaning! That is a lot of groaning. And this is because it was “subjected to futility”—or, if you’re using the NIV, it was “subjected to frustration.”[13] And that is Genesis chapter 3. Sin enters in the world, and the Lord says to Adam and Eve, “Let me tell you how it’s going to be: The ground is cursed. It’s going to produce thorns and thistles. You’re going to have to work in the sweat of your brow. When you have babies, it’s going to hurt. And the whole thing is going to be like this.”[14] God did it! God did it! God subjected it to frustration. God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden. God barred the way of entry into the garden so they couldn’t come back into the garden, so that there would be the only one way that you could ever come back into the garden, through the one that he was going to provide as history unfolded.

God made the world good. It’s bad because of sin. In Jesus, he makes it new. It’s not perfect yet, but one day it’s going to be.

Now, of course, you don’t have to look hard for this. I mean, you’re just standing, waiting for a newspaper or a coffee or something; somebody might just say to you, “You know, do you have any idea what’s going on?” And they don’t mean, like, why the bus hasn’t come. They’re talking about…

In fact, I was in a place in Ohio, near Cedarville College, and it was like at “the devil’s bookshop.” It wasn’t called that, but that’s what it was. But I wanted to go in and see how he was doing. And amongst the things that were on the wall—which were, you know, things that you might like to have and put somewhere in your house (I don’t know why you would)—but the one that struck me best was, it simply said, “What if the hokey pokey is what it’s all about?” I said, “That is good! That is really good!”

Now, it’s not as genius as Shakespeare, is it? You know, “Out, out, brief candle.” You know, “You’re just like a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then he’s never heard again. Your life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”[15] Why do people say things like that? Why do they have any inclination like that? Because the creation is “subjected to futility,” and God is responsible and has subjected it “in hope.” That’s verse 20—so that the present state of creation is not the end of the story.

Now, whatever your view is on ecology and plastic straws and everything else—whatever your perspective is on that—we know this: that it is no surprise that those who are without hope and without God in the world[16] would want to hang on desperately to everything that is here and make sure that it was exactly the way they felt it ought to be. We share the understanding of that because of the futility. But it is not random. This is as a result of the work of God. And we look forward to the day that countermands Genesis 3 in Revelation 22, where John looks, and he says, “No longer will there be [any] accursed.”[17] There will no longer be any accursed. It was cursed, but in that day, no curse—because subjected to futility by God in hope, and that creation is going to be set free. Set free.

It’s really quite wonderful that this is going to take place. And we have to hold on to the fact that it’s going to take place—that God himself is going to remove his temporary restraining order, if you like, so that what the prophets anticipated and what the disciples began to wonder about will be fulfilled: that the dwelling of God will be with his people;[18] that what the temple and the tabernacle pointed to will be fulfilled in the gathering of God’s people in that day.

And the explanation for all this groaning: It is a groaning together in the pains of childbirth. Well, what’s childbirth? I’ve been at three childbirths, I think, if I remember. And it’s an experience, as a man, like nothing else you’ve ever known. And afterwards, you realize that whatever those noises were, they were noises of not despair but of expectation. And that is what is being described here: that the expectation is the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

But you will notice that it is not only creation that groans, but, in verse 23, the Christians groan. “We ourselves”—23—“we ourselves” are groaning. We “groan inwardly.” The sighs of anticipation, the longings for the consummation of God’s purposes are present not only in creation but also in the Christian.

Now, I think we have to be honest when we look at this and apply it to ourselves: The presence of God’s Spirit creates longings in us—creates longings in us, ultimately, for the redemption of our bodies, for this adoption as sons that he references in verse 23.

Well, you say, “Well, didn’t we just find out that we have already been adopted as sons and daughters?” Yes. And now we are “eagerly” awaiting “for adoption as sons.” How does that work? Well, what it simply means is that there is a dimension to it that is not yet. “Now we are the children of God,” writes John, “but it doesn’t yet appear what we shall be.”[19] Every so often I ask people if they’ve graduated, and sometimes they’ll say to me, “Yes, I graduated, but I haven’t walked.” I didn’t understand that. I’d never heard of such a thing. What does that mean? Well, they told me they signed a thing off at the office. “But I didn’t walk and get my diploma. I had graduated, but I wasn’t there for the enrobing,” or whatever it is. And that’s really the picture that is here. And that’s why “we groan,” as Paul says, “longing to be clothed … with our heavenly dwelling.”[20] “Longing to be clothed … with our heavenly dwelling.”

Now, we can only anticipate a heavenly dwelling because of the resurrection of Jesus. And Jesus triumphs over the grave. And although people will challenge the notion, the Bible is very, very clear. And in fact, there wouldn’t have been a single page of the New Testament ever written were it not for the resurrection of Jesus. I mean, if you think about it, we probably would never even have known about Jesus of Nazareth were it not for the resurrection. And it is the reality of the resurrection that transforms these fellows from scared and unbelieving into hitting the streets of Jerusalem with “a waft of the supernatural,”[21] caught up, as it were, by a great, thunderous underpowering growth, and there they go out into the streets.

Now, people talk all kinds of nonsense as well about the resurrection. “I believe in the resurrection,” they say. But they don’t believe what the apostles believed. We find Jesus lighting fires. We find Jesus preparing breakfast. We find Jesus eating fish. We find Jesus at one moment recognizable and at the next moment not recognizable. We find Jesus concerned about relationships beyond the resurrection. Do you ever think about that? That it wasn’t as if he rose from the grave, triumphed over sin, and he said, “You know, that’s it. We’re done now.” You know, “I’ll see you later.” No, he made the point of going to Peter to say to him, “Do you love me? … Do you love me?” [22] Now, why did he do that? Because relationships matter after the resurrection. They will matter! Relationships that matter to us now will matter to us then.

I want to give you a quote from Chris Wright, because this is a question that often comes up in relationship to the notion of the afterlife and being in the presence of Jesus. And this is what he writes:

We can rest assured that, for those who are in Christ, anything that he has blessed and enriched us [with] in this life will not be lost but rather … infinitely enhanced in the resurrection, and anything … we have not been able to enjoy in this life (because of disability, disease, or premature death—or simply through the natural limit[s] of [space and time]) will be amply restored or compensated for in resurrection life.[23]

I found that quite helpful. Perhaps you do too. I can’t remember where I got it from, so don’t ask me for the quote—unless you want to try and read my writing, which I found pretty difficult to do there myself.

The groaning is a groaning of creation, it’s a groaning of the Christian, and in verse 24, it is “in this hope”—the hope of “the redemption of our bodies”—that “we [are] saved.” Now, you know enough to know that “hope” here is not a possibility. It’s a reality that we can anticipate, a certainty that is held out in the future for us. And so in verse 23 he says, “We are waiting eagerly for the promise to be fulfilled,” and in verse 25 he says, “And we are also waiting patiently.” So, waiting eagerly, waiting patiently. We might pray, “Give us, O Lord, a patient eagerness and an eager patience as we wait for the fulfillment of your promise.”

A Groaning God

Very well. A creation that groans, and a Christian that groans, and then—dare we say it?—a God who groans. For that is what we have before us now. The wonder, says my friend Christopher Ash, is that beneath our groaning there is the groaning of God praying to God.

Remember what we said yesterday: that the distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is, there, an eternal distinction and that their union in the work of redemption is a union that is a reality. And so, in the same way that we have Jesus addressing his Father, so here in these verses, we have the Spirit addressing the Father. And he says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” He “helps us in our weakness.”

And it seems that Paul particularly is mentioning here the challenge of our prayer lives. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” And then he says, “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.” We don’t know quite what to pray for. And so, he intercedes: “The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” B. B. Warfield puts it this way: The desires are ours, and the groans are ours, “but not apart from the Spirit.” For “they are His; wrought in us by Him.”[24] Now, it’s mysterious, isn’t it—the idea somehow or another of our incapacity in prayer, perhaps only being able to squeeze out “Abba,” being only able to say “Father”?

Incidentally, most of my non-Christian friends have never, never really referred to God as Father. If they speak, they speak of him as “O God…” But it’s the Christian that says, “O Father…” “O Father…” “Abba…” And when we do so, we realize that even if we can’t articulate what is going on, the work—the mysterious work of the Spirit of God—is actually going on. And it is a mystery. And, of course, a lot of our Christian life is mystery.

I can’t come up with a decent analogy. Perhaps you can come close to it by thinking of when you meet, often, a new mom with a new baby. And you meet them somewhere—wherever it is—and the baby is doing what babies do. They go [imitates baby cooing], and the mother says, “She’s saying this.” I’m like, “She is?” It sounded to me like [imitates gibberish]. “No, no, no!” She says. “She’s saying this.” I don’t know whether she is or she isn’t.

Or when you go to visit someone in their home after having a severe stroke that has impinged upon their ability to speak, and you now are going to read the Bible to them, and you discover that they are unable to respond properly. And when they do, you’re glad if another member of the family is in the room—particularly a spouse. And then you find that in those strange sounds the spouse is saying, “You know, she’s really happy to see you,” or “What she really is saying is this.”

That’s one of the great benefits of pastoral ministry, is being thrust into environments that we would never have the privilege of finding ourselves in. I can go back through many years. I’m thinking in this moment of a situation in Edinburgh where a gentleman who was an elder in the church in Edinburgh, his sister-in-law had had a stroke. And I would go and visit her. And she was impaired as a result of the stroke, but she always wanted to sing—which was tough, because I can’t sing. But I can make a stab at it. And, again, she wanted to say the song. And fortunately, her sister was in the room. And she said, “The song that she wants to sing is…” And then we had to sing,

We are building day by day
As the moments pass away,
A temple that this world cannot see;
And every victory won by grace
Will be sure to find a place
In that building for eternity.[25]

And to the extent that her sister was able to interpret for me, that couldn’t even come close to the work of the Spirit of God interpreting the groanings of her heart in prayer.

You see, the guarantee of the answer to our prayers, says Calvin, is found in the nature of their origins. Our heavenly Father will not refuse to satisfy yearnings which by his own Spirit he has put within us.[26] It’s wonderfully reassuring, isn’t it—especially when we find that our prayer life is not as we would want it to be or as it should be? What a great encouragement this is! We may not know what to pray for—verse 26. But here we go—verse 28. But we do know this: “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Ultimately, Only Good

And, of course, we’re now at one of the most familiar verses in the New Testament letters. And sometimes it appears on a plaque, and often helpfully so. It often, I think, is capable of amazing misinterpretation—that we’ve decided what is good, and then we’ve thought if we go at it correctly, that God might decide that it’s good as well. But the good that he is working towards is, of course, conforming us to the image of his Son.

And so it is important that the word “all” is in this statement, isn’t it? For we don’t know how to pray or what to pray, but we do “know that for those who love God all things…” “All things.” Now, you see, there’s the rub, isn’t it? See, the doctrine of providence is wonderful when the sun is shining, the band is playing, and you’re feeling wonderfully healthy, and the return that came from the oncologist was negative. The providence of God is wonderful. But loved ones, it’s the very same providence of God that gives us any sense of assurance when the band isn’t playing, when the wind is in our faces, when disappointment has affected us, and when fear is tempting to tyrannize us. “All things.” “You mean good things and bad things?” Yes. “You mean disappointing things?” Yes. “You mean ugly things?” Yes. All things.

John Murray: “Not one detail works ultimately for evil to the people of God; in the end only good will be their lot.”[27] “Only good will be their lot.”

We could rehearse it, couldn’t we? The story of Esther.[28] We do the story of Joseph—the great denouement when he greets his brothers again, and he says to them, “You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good.”[29]

Now, all of the decisions that were made were not preplanned. It was the father, Jacob, who decided to give his boy the coat. That stirred things up something wicked. And it didn’t help that Joseph thought it’d be a good idea to explain his dreams in the morning, which just ticked his brothers off even more. And so you had the breakdown of the family unit, which was as a result of the natural unfolding of sinful practices. They decided, eventually, just to sell him. That was their own decision. The people that came by purchased him. Presumably, it was a good capital expenditure in light of the return on their investment. The decision to have him in the situation in the house was a wonderful decision. The actions on the part of Potiphar’s wife were her own sinful designs and desires. And we can go through the whole thing—and in it all, God working to fulfill his purposes. And perhaps only in the end does Joseph really grasp it when he says, “You know, the real reason I’m going through all of this is just so that there might be a provision for the people of God in the midst of the famine.”[30] So let’s not trot out Romans 8:28 too quickly to our friends as they struggle, and let’s be careful that we don’t seek only to employ it when all things seem to be well.

An Unbreakable Chain

Now, there is an unbreakable chain here—and we could just push this to the end, because it’s twenty past four, and we started at half past three. I was thinking, “I can go till six,” but no, it’s what? Twenty past four. That’s good.

Okay, you see it right there: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” God’s love for us is a love that takes the initiative. And I’ve never known anybody that gets annoyed about an initiative-taking love, except when it comes to the doctrine of election. I never found a girl who, when she discovered that the fellow who is now her husband had seen her on the university campus a long time before she ever, ever clapped eyes on him, and that he told her that he had developed an affection for her without ever having spoken to her—and she said, “That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I hate the thought of that!” No, she didn’t! She said, “That is amazing.” Our love for God is as a result of the fact that he loved us—that “we love because he first loved us.”[31]

And that has to do with this unbreakable chain which is here. Notice verse 29: “Those whom he foreknew…” “Well,” somebody says, “well, that just means he knew who would believe.” Well, there’s nothing in that, is there? God knows everything. That’s not saying anything at all. No, no—not that he knew who would believe. That’s straightforward. This is actually a relational statement. It’s a relational statement.

If you’ve been reading Murray M’Cheyne at the moment, you’ve been in Amos for part of the time, and you know that in Amos chapter 3, God says of his people through the prophet, “You only have I known of all the families [on] the earth”[32]—that he had foreknown that they were his very own choice people in that process. And those whom he foreknew he also predestined, or foreordained. “And you also were included in Christ”—I quoted it in the first day—“when you heard the word of faith, when you heard the gospel, and you believed it.”[33]

God foreordains men and women to salvation, but he also foreordains the means whereby we come to salvation. God does not believe for us. We believe. God is an initiative-taking God. He foreknew, he predestined—and you believe this. Even if you think you don’t believe it, I’m going to tell you: You believe it. And I’ll tell you when you’ll know you believe it: in your church prayer meeting. Because in your church prayer meeting, if you listen to each other pray, it will be clear that you’re praying the end of this section in Romans chapter 8. Somebody next to you will say, “I thank you, Lord, that you looked down upon me when I was in that office as a complete clown. And I thank you that Bill was brave enough to say to me, ‘Have you ever thought x?’ I thank you for that. Thank you for doing that.”

Somebody else prays, “Lord, we’re going to go out from here tonight, and we pray that you will lead us to the people that you have for us to speak to.”

And somebody says, “Yes! And we pray, Lord, that when we speak to them, you would open their blind eyes and soften their hard hearts”—in other words, that all that Paul says here in Romans 8 would be in action as we go out to tell others about Jesus.

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

You see, what this really is is, of course, the doctrine of election, which years ago, at the Urbana conference 1984, when Eric Alexander was giving the Bible readings on Ephesians 1, 2, and 3—I had the privilege of being there to carry his bag for him, just so I could be close to him. I admired him so much. And he on that occasion, in dealing with the great beginning of Ephesians 1, he said, “And the doctrine of election is not a banner to be waved. It’s not a bomb to be dropped on people. It is a bastion for our souls”—to realize that God has loved us before ever we knew him; that we’re able to sing,

I’ve found a friend, oh, such a friend!
He loved me ere I knew him;
He drew me with the cords of love,
And thus he bound me to him,
And round my heart [now] closely twine
[These] ties [that nothing] can sever,
For I am his, and he is mine,
Forever and forever.[34]

He foreknew, he predestined, and he also called. Called. How does the call of God go out into the world? Well, Paul’s going to get to it later on here in Romans, isn’t he? “How are they going to hear it unless somebody tells them?”[35] And what is it we have to tell them? We’ve got to tell them that “God so loved the world”[36]—that the privilege that we have is seeking to convince people of the unfailing love of God, a love that takes into account the fact that we’re disinterested in him, a love that seeks out people who are not even seeking him and so on, and calls out to us—calls out to us—by the proclamation of the gospel.

And for those of you who are saying to yourself, “Oh, you’re deviating, you know, from course here”—no, I don’t think I am for a moment. Listen! This is Jonathan Edwards: It is “past … contradiction” that Christ “died … to give all an opportunity to be saved.”[37] It is “past … contradiction” that Christ “died … to give all an opportunity to be saved.”

“Oh, but wait a minute!” you said. Yes! My job is not to explain the inexplicable. My job is simply to say what the Scriptures say. And this, I think, is what it says: In the free offer of the gospel, in presenting to people the gospel, we are able to do what we can do, but we only do what we’re told to do. So I always say to people, “Today, if you hear [God’s] voice, do[n’t] harden your [heart].”[38] Now, you can hear my voice. My voice might put you to sleep. I don’t know what we’d do. You can hear my voice. I do my best with my voice. But it’s not my voice that will be the issue. It’s not of my voice, or my ability to manipulate my voice, or to be involved in histrionics, or to weep for you, or to stir you, or to do anything at all. It’s nothing!

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you had to get wakened up for the bus or whatever it was? And you’d be dead out, gone. And the first thing you hear is, like, “Somebody is making a noise somewhere in this place!” And then it’s just a little bit more, and it goes, “Sounds like they’re calling on somebody.” And then as you… “Oh! My mom is calling me.” So her call became an effectual call—what sounded just like a noise in the background.

And some of you can testify to this, because you used to come to church. Your wife brought you to church. And you could hear the guy, but you never heard a thing. She would go out and say, “Look, I took pages of notes,” and you went out and said, “I never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life!” That’s quite amazing: two people hearing the exact same talk, responding in an entirely different way—a bit like two thieves on either side of Jesus on the cross. How close could you be to Jesus and miss him? How close could you be to somebody who said, “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing,”[39] and not call out and say, “Forgive me too”?

Well, there you have it. “Those … he called he also justified”—declared righteous on the basis of Christ’s finished work. He takes my F, and he gives me his A.

Have you ever gone to Augusta? I’ve gone, of course. We can all go to Augusta if you get a ticket. But if you’re going to eat in there, you need the jacket. I don’t have a jacket, so I can’t go in—unless, of course, a member would allow me to wear his jacket, and he would accompany me into the presence of such august golfing nobility.

That’s it, isn’t it? Covered over with the righteousness of Jesus. I mean, what would we say? What would we say except,

Nothing in my hand I bring;
Simply to [your] cross I cling,
Naked come to [you] for dress,
[And] helpless [come] to [you] for

—everything they need. And I just can come “foul,” really, “to the fountain …. Wash me.”[40]

Foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified. “Those … he justified he also glorified.” It’s past tense, isn’t it? “Glorified”—an event in the future, a done deal, not even in question.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, O weary one, lay down
Your head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, worn, and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
And he has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“I am this dark world’s light;
Look unto me; your morn shall rise,
And all your days be bright.”
I came to Jesus as I was, and found
In him my light, my sun,
And in that light of life I walk
Till the traveling days are done.[41]

That, loved ones, is the testimony of the Christian. It may well be that you are sitting here right now, and you have never moved from an assent to the things that you are creedally prepared to say about Jesus, and yet you have never committed your life to him. You’ve never actually come to him. You’ve never actually bowed your knee to him. And loved ones, that is the greatest need of the entire world, and that is all of our greatest needs.

Let’s pray:

Our Father, thank you. Thank you that your love for us is an initiative-taking love. Otherwise, by nature, we don’t seek you. By nature, we try to fix everything ourselves, and it is a wonder when we realize that we’re broken and that we need you, Jesus. So we pray that you will meet us where we are, because you know us, and it is for your voice that we want to listen, and it is your hand that we want to reach out and take hold of us, so that whatever this day remains for us to bring, that we might say, “I heard the voice of Jesus, and I came to him.”

Hear our prayers, and enable us to look to you unreservedly as we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] Romans 8:17 (ESV).

[2] Matthew 16:22 (paraphrased). See also Mark 8:32.

[3] Matthew 16:23; Mark 8:33 (ESV).

[4] Matthew 16:24–25 (ESV). See also Mark 8:34–35; Luke 9:23–24.

[5] Adelaide Anne Procter, “My God, I Thank Thee” (1858).

[6] 1 Peter 1:3, 6 (paraphrased).

[7] 1 Timothy 6:8 (ESV).

[8] Sanford Fillmore Bennett, “In the Sweet By and By” (1868).

[9] See 2 Corinthians 11:23–27.

[10] Psalm 13:1–2 (paraphrased).

[11] Samuel Rutherford to Lady Kenmure, Anwoth, Sept. 14, 1634, inLetters of Samuel Rutherford, ed. Andrew A. Bonar (London: Oliphants, [1904?]), 101.

[12] Proverbs 18:10 (paraphrased).

[13] Romans 8:20 (NIV).

[14] Genesis 3:16–19 (paraphrased).

[15] William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.5. Paraphrased.

[16] See Ephesians 2:12.

[17] Revelation 22:3 (ESV).

[18] See Revelation 21:3.

[19] 1 John 3:2 (paraphrased).

[20] 2 Corinthians 5:2 (NIV).

[21] James S. Stewart,A Faith to Proclaim(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1953), 45.

[22] John 21:15–17 (ESV).

[23] Christopher J. H. Wright, The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 211.

[24] Benjamin B. Warfield, Faith and Life: “Conferences” in the Oratory of Princeton Seminary (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1916), 200.

[25] Fanny Jane Crosby, “Building Day by Day” (1890). Lyrics lightly altered.

[26] John Calvin, Commentaries of the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, trans. John Owen (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), 313–14.

[27] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 1:314.

[28] See Esther 4:14.

[29] Genesis 50:20 (paraphrased).

[30] Genesis 50:20 (paraphrased).

[31] 1 John 4:19 (ESV).

[32] Amos 3:2 (ESV).

[33] Ephesians 1:13 (paraphrased).

[34] James Grindlay Small, “I’ve Found a Friend” (1863).

[35] Romans 10:14 (paraphrased).

[36] John 3:16 (ESV).

[37] The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 13, The “Miscellanies”: Entry Nos. a–z, aa–zz, 1–500, ed. Thomas A Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 174.

[38] Psalm 95:7–8; Hebrews 3:7–8, 15; 4:7 (ESV).

[39] Luke 23:34 (paraphrased).

[40] Augustus Montague Toplady, “Rock of Ages” (1776).

[41] Horatius Bonar, “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” (1846). Lyrics lightly altered.