The original context is important. It is part of the preceding passage where Paul says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
In accordance with God’s will. That is important because what follows is based completely on our aligning our lives with God’s will. It is not about God working everything out for our good as defined by us but about his eternal interest in his will. In fact, the original context in Romans is not really about how God works everything out in this world or how we can somehow shoehorn everything that happens to us into a mold that makes us think everything happens to teach us a lesson or to make us better people. It’s certainly not about trying to find the silver lining in every cloud or looking for the pattern in events that makes us feel God is somehow making everything fit in our lives. It is not about trying to find a particular pattern in things that happen in our lives so we can put them in a box we call “things that worked together for good.” No, it is how we are started on a journey that will produce “glory that will be revealed” in a future that is beyond our understanding or knowing.
The word for “good” is “agatha” and it means more than pleasant or even making sense. It means more than looking back and understanding why things turned out the way they did although that’s not a bad thing. It means “for the maturity of” or “for the perfection of” or often “for the conformity to Christ”. Goodness is not by our definition or interpretation but by God’s. It means God will do what needs doing to conform us to the image of Christ and that does not mean everything working out. It’s easy to reflect on all the missed opportunities that would have been disasters, failures that became blessings and dodged bullets and call it “all things work together for good.” But only if those things lead us to conformity to the image of Christ are they doing so. Bad things that turn out good are not the same thing. In fact, one of the cruelest things we can say to a person suffering a great loss is to easily quote, “all things work together for good.” Paul means so much more than this. It often means affliction and suffering. But, most of all, it means the attribution of humility. Time and again Paul describes the humility of Christ as the defining characteristic of the Christian life. Look at Philippians 2:58: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
In the end, the definition of “good” is maturity and our being conformed to God’s purposes. Ephesians 1:11 says we were chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:14 says that the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession to the praise of his glory.” Finally, Jesus responds to the question of the disciples about his not having eaten anything by saying, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
Our purpose is not something we create for ourselves no matter how idealistic it may be. Our purpose is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our purpose is to be conformed to the likeness of Christ and as possessions of God to bring glory to his name. Sometimes it is hard to understand the love of God that will stop at nothing to bring us to that conformity. While we naturally want the easy path it is not always the easy path that brings us to humility. While we want a God who loves us in a way that is safe and comforting, that is not always what God gives us.
C.S. Lewis’ celebrated children’s book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, tells of the adventures of four children in the magical kingdom of Narnia. The story is fun, but it’s also an allegory of Christ and salvation, with Christ represented by the lion Aslan. When in Narnia, the children meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who describe the mighty lion to them.
“Is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. Certainly not. I tell you he is King of the wood and the son of the great emperor-beyond-the-sea. Don’t you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Our King is not safe but he’s good.
The whole aim of this passage is not the immediate but the eternal and it is, again, the purpose of God to begin now in this life to conform us to the image of Christ.
2. Paul was never focused on making this life central. His whole life was spent preparing people for what he knew to be real life or what we called what is behind the curtain last week. That is why, for Paul, heaven is not speculation. He has seen the outskirts of it but has been forbidden to describe it.
What if a person from the most undeveloped, backward, dirty, poor, disease ridden village in India were taken to the Ritz hotel in Paris for an evening and then told to go home and prepare people to live there someday but not tell them what it is like? How do you prepare people for a life they cannot imagine especially when they only want to think about making life a little better in the village. Less poverty. Less disease. Better food. Cleaner.
Making a better life in the village made no sense at all to Paul. As he says in 1 Corinthians 15:19: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” Paul’s whole life was about preparing the Church for Christ and, ironically, it turned out that the very things that he called the fruit of the Spirit were those things that made life better. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are the very things that have made a better life in the village possible. But that was not the limit of Paul’s interest.
We have distorted the Gospel to focus the lens completely on this life and making all things work together for good in a way that we can understand in the here and now. It’s like trying to use the Hubble telescope as a magnifying glass. We want the particular and the immediate and Paul’s perspective is so much broader.
Our misuse of these verses creates frustration on our part. We want the “good” now. We want the “all things” now. We want the “victory” now. We may see partly or we may see a single thread in the quilt but it is nothing compared to what is in store for us when our good is worked out and we are conformed to the image of Christ.
3. But surely there is some relevance for us now in our lives. Yes, there is. It is to begin now to develop the qualities and habits of character that over time will start us in the right direction of conformity. In “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis says it this way. “Again, Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse —so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.” Our character and habits matter now.
It is to begin now to understand that the glory of our lives is to serve his purposes and not our own. Oswald Chambers writes, “Wherever you are you are put there by God, and by the reaction of your life on the circumstances around you, you will fulfill God’s purpose.” So, instead of constantly working to change our circumstances we will begin to look for ways to discover his greater purpose in them.
4. Of course, the ultimate assurance is that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. As we said earlier, it is not always the kind of love we prefer or have been sold. It is, sometimes, like the title of Mark Galli’s book, “A Great and Terrible Love” because it does not stop when it begins to hurt. It is the love that never gives up. It is the love that will never let go until it has accomplished it’s purpose.
In chemistry there are three types of bonds. The weakest is a mixture. Two things, like salt and sugar, are mixed together but are easily separated. The next is a compound like salt and water. They combine to form a new substance that has entirely different properties from the original components and while they are harder to separate they are not inseparable. The third we call an element like gold or silver or lead. The atoms cannot be separated or broken down. They are one thing through and through. That is what happens when we are joined to Christ. We are not a mixture or a compound. We are joined to an element and nothing can separate us from him ever. Nothing whatever. Is that the way you see your relationship with him? Do you see his being mixed into your life? Do you see him having a strong bond with your life? Or, do you see yourself, as inseparable from him no matter what?
5. Look at the phrase in verse 38. In the Greek it says “for I have been persuaded.”
Persuaded by what? By an easy life? By pleasant experiences? By study? No. By hard times and suffering. By life.
Paul started out just the opposite. The slightest infraction would separate him from God. I think this is what he is saying. “I did not start out believing this but I’ve experienced everything that I could have feared and going through it has produced in me the deepest confidence and certainty that none of those things had the ability to separate us from the love of Christ or leave us alone and abandoned.”
But there is something else here. He is not just saying I have become persuaded that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. He says nothing can separate “us”. Paul always talks about us. Nothing can separate us. We are more than conquerors. If God is for us. The great strength of the Gospel is not to create unusual individual saints, or isolated lives of self-improvement but a sense of us. God is not just working for the “good” in our individual lives but for the perfection of the church. These things he puts in our lives are not just for us but for others. God works in your life to grow me in ways I cannot understand nor can you. Nothing God does in your life or mine is wasted or accomplished for you or me alone.
Again, C.S. Lewis says it this way. “The individualism in which we begin is only a parody or shadow of personality. True personality lies ahead…. And the key to it does not lie in ourselves. It will not be attained by development from within outwards. It will come to us when we occupy those places in the structure of the eternal cosmos for which we were designed or invented…. We are marble waiting to be shaped, metal waiting to be run into a mold.” Our true selves will be revealed when we find the place we fit in the larger purposes of God. Do you remember how Jesus answered the question of the disciples about who was the greatest in Luke 22? He told them they were being prepared to be judges. Paul says the same thing. We are not being prepared to be extraordinary individuals. Instead, we are being prepared for playing a part in the kingdom of God.
That is why Paul describes the Church as a body with many parts. The only way we will discover the purpose for which we are created is in fellowship with others. The only way we will serve in a way that pleases God is to be part of a fellowship of other believers. We cannot become conformed to the image of Christ on our own. We cannot fulfill our role apart from the rest of the body.
But, there is another encouragement from this. Have you heard of peer-to-peer lending? It’s a relatively new practice that allows individuals to create pools of money that then lend money directly to individuals. In a sense, something of the same can go on in our lives. There are times we need to “borrow” faith and confidence from others because we have run dry. Sometimes if I can’t believe or I am afraid or overwhelmed I need to hear Paul say “us” and I know that includes me even when I don’t feel like it. I lean on his confidence when I can’t find my own and it’s okay for you to do it too. We are not self-sufficient and there are times when we need to lean on others. Do you remember the healing of the paralytic whose friends dropped him down to Jesus through a hole in the roof? What did Jesus say? “When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Sometimes it is that way with us, isn’t it? We need the faith of our friends in those times when we may have none of our own. We need to borrow and to lean.
So, think about these things this week.
Do you need to see God work things out now?
Do you want love that comforts or that which conforms you to Christ?
Are you looking for a purpose for your life that you define?
Do you believe nothing can separate you from the love of God?
Is your life defined by the word me or by the word us?
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”