Series: Romans
Title: God’s Eternal Purpose
Text: Rom 8: 28-31
Date: March 3, 2019
Place: SGBC, NJ
Romans 8: 28: And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to his purpose. 29: For
whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the
image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30: Moreover whom he did predestinate,
them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he
justified, them he also glorified. 31:
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us?” (Ro 8:28-31 AV)
Proposition: Everything God
brings to pass in time God purposed in eternity.
God’s eternal purpose is what God determined before to
be done. When God purposed it, it is
done. When God thought it, it is done. Then God brings his eternal purpose to pass
in time.
Isaiah 14:24: The
LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to
pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
Romans 8: 28: And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to
his purpose.
God is working his eternal purpose in everything that
comes to pass. It is called providence.
When God says “all things” it includes everything that
comes to pass. Our fall into sin and
death in Adam, our afflictions, temptations, desertion by loved ones, betrayal,
things good and bad, happy and sad, great and small—all are according to God’s
eternal purpose.
The good that God works in all things is our spiritual good.
Psalm 84: 11: For
the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no
good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
Proverbs 12:21: There shall no evil happen to the just: but the wicked
shall be filled with mischief.
Think of everything that happened to Joseph. His brothers rejected him. He was sold him into slavery. He ended up in prison in Egypt. Then he was exalted to be Pharaoh’s chief of
staff. He said to his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for
good.”
But God only works all things together for good for a
particular people—“to them that love God,
to them who are the called.” The
sinner who passes his entire life hating God, hating Christ, hating his people,
hating his gospel, God gave him what he wanted, his own will and way. But God worked nothing for that man’s
spiritual good. God works all things together for good to
them that love God—and God qualifies who it is that loves God—those God has
called.
Romans 8:
28:…according to his eternal purpose.
This is how God works all things together for good for
his people. He does it according to his
eternal purpose. There is no such thing
as chance or fate or luck. We should drop
those words from our vocabulary. Everything in time that comes to pass is by
God because God purposed it from eternity.
Isaiah 14: 27:
For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is
stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
Psalm 33:11: The
counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all
generations.
Amos 3:6: Shall
a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be
evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Subject: God’s Eternal
Purpose
Proposition: Everything God
brings to pass in time God purposed in eternity.
Every verb in this passage is in the past tense. It is in the Greek “aorist” tense which means
past action that is complete. When God
purposed these things in eternity, they were done. Scripture says the “works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb 4:3) Then God brought his eternal purpose to
pass in time.
FOREORDINATION
Rom 8: 29: For
whom he did foreknow,…
God’s eternal purpose begins with God foreknowing or
foreordaining his people to eternal life.
The foreknowledge of God here is not God’s knowledge of all things future. It includes that but it is more than that.
Note, it says “for whom” and not “what” he
foreknew. God’s foreknowing is not God knowing
before that some would believe on him.
If that were the case God would not have predestinated nor called us. God’s omniscience is a divine attribute; foreknowledge
is a divine act. Nothing can be foreseen
that is not predetermined by God. Everything
God knows will come to pass in time because it is what God predetermined to
come to pass and what God brings to pass.
God foreknew his people in that he eternally,
everlastingly loved his people, he knew his people as his choice. He foreordained his people to be his own.
Jeremiah 31:3: The LORD hath appeared
of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved
thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
John 17:23: I in them, and thou in
me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou
hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
God also foreknew Christ before the foundation of the
world. But it certainly does not mean
that God foresaw that Christ would lay down his life therefore God chose him to
be the Savior. It meant God foreordained
everything that Christ accomplished.
1 Peter 1: 20: Who verily was foreordained before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,…
On the day of Pentecost Peter preached that Christ’s
death was foreordained by God—it was “foreknown”—determined before.
Acts 2:23: Him, being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands
have crucified and slain:
God’s elect are his people by the same determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. It is
God foreordaining that we are his. In
eternity, we were his. It was done! Christ said on the day of judgment, many will
boast of their works, but he will say, “Depart
from me, I never knew you.”
2 Timothy 2:19:
Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth
them that are his. And, Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from
iniquity.
PREDESTINATION
Romans 8:
29: For whom he foreknew, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his Son.
All things work together for good to them that love
God, to them that are the called, because who God foreknew in eternity, God
also did set their destination. God determined
the end from the beginning. Predestination
is God presetting our destination beforehand—pre-destination.
Ephesians 1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4: According as he hath chosen us in
him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love: 5: Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will, 6: To the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
If anyone desires for Christ to have all preeminence then
they should love God’s predestination. It
is because the purpose of predestination is to make his people like his Son “that Christ might be the firstborn among
many brethren.” It is to give Christ
all preeminence.
Colossians 1:
18: And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the
firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the
preeminence.
God looked upon his perfect, righteous, holy Son and predestinated
his people to be conformed to the image of his Son to give his Son all
preeminence as our Elder Brother—the firstborn!
Our eternal inheritance is ours because God predestinated us to have it
in Christ and by Christ.
Ephesians 1:11:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to
the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
CALLING
Romans 8: 30:
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called:
The word means “named and made to bear a name.” Before the world was made, God called his people. God called all his people from eternity. He made us bear his name from eternity in Christ
Jesus.
2 Timothy 1: 9:
[God] hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in
Christ Jesus before the world began,…
Galatians 4: 4: But when the fulness of the time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5: To redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6:
And BECAUSE YE ARE SONS, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
This was not according to our works or according to
any goodness in us. It was by God’s free
and sovereign grace. Since God purposed
it, he works all things together for our good, and at his appointed time, he sends
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts and irresistibly calls us. The sure certain result is we come to him
through faith in Christ, crying, Abba, Father!
1 Peter 2:9…that
ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness
into his marvellous light:
1 John 3:1: Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Brethren, are you noticing that all of this is of God
and worked by God and none of it is of us?
It was done from before the foundation of the world and that is why God brings
it to pass in time.
Ecclesiastes 3:14: I know that, whatsoever
God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from
it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
JUSTIFICATION
Romans 8:
30…and whom he called, them he also justified:
God justified
his people in his eternal purpose. When
God “blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him
before the foundation of the world” those blessings included this spiritual
blessing of justification. This was
God’s eternal purpose—his eternal decree in Christ Jesus his Son—this is God,
Isaisah 46:10: Declaring the end from the beginning,
and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel
shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: 11
Calling…the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I
have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also
do it.
In eternity, when
God called Christ to execute his counsel from a far country, God looked
only to his Son and our Surety became “the
lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13: 8). Therefore, in the fulness of time, the
Son of God took flesh and went to the cross and justified his people by his
blood.
Acts 4: 28: For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy
counsel determined before to be done.
When God called us to believe on Christ, he purged our
conscience to know “by him all that
believe are justified from all things from which you could not be justified by
the law of Moses” (Acts 13: 39). In
other words, he justified us in the court of our conscience through faith in
his blood.
Then there is coming a day in judgment when God shall
declare us justified before all! We were
justified from eternally in the lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
justified representatively on the cross by Christ’s blood, justified
experimentally in the court of our conscience and shall be justified
declaratively before all in the day of judgment.
GLORIFICATION
Romans 8:
30:…and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
This is too great for me! Did God glorify his people in eternity? Yes, he did in Christ!
John 17:5: And
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had
with thee before the world was.
God the Father glorified his Son as our Mediator when
he trusted the whole work into his hands.
All the glory of that office was given to him before the world was. Since God’s elect were in him and blessed
with all spiritual blessings, we were glorified in him from the beginning. Brethren, the point I want you to get from
this is all God’s elect have been one with Christ from eternity.
But there is coming a day when we will know exactly
what it is to be glorified with Christ when we awake with his likeness perfectly
conformed to our Redeemer.
APPLICATION
So, brethren, we have no reason to doubt or worry. The Spirit of God guarantees us “that all things work together for good to
them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8: 31:
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against
us?
Amen!