We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Romans 8:28: What Does It Mean?

image by James Thobe

image by James Thobe

The Bible is very clear that God has nothing to do with evil. There is “no darkness” in God. (I Jn 1:5). Far from intentionally bringing about evil, God’s “eyes are too pure to look on evil” (Heb. 1:13).   All evil, therefore, must be ultimately traced back to decisions made by free agents other than God. Some of these agents are human. Some of these agents are angelic. Either way, evil originates in their willing, not God’s.

This isn’t to say that God can’t bring good out of evil. Scripture teaches that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him…” (Rom 8:28). As I read this passage, the phrase “works for” (sunergēo) is all important. In the Greek, “sun” is a prefix meaning “with” or “alongside of.” “Ergēo” means to work to bring something about (we get the word “energy” from it).  So the term literally means to work with or along side other things or other people to bring something about. So, it seems that in this passage God is promising to work with us and alongside the circumstances he finds us in to bring good out of evil.

But think about this. If “all things” were already an expression of God’s will, because God is supposedly behind everything, why would God have to work with us and alongside circumstances to bring good about? If all things are already an expression of God’s will, there’s nothing outside of God’s will for him to work with or alongside of.

In this light, I suggest the passage is teaching us not that all things happen for a divine purpose, as though God wills all that comes to pass, but that all things happen with a divine purpose. Whatever comes to pass, however much against God’s will it may be, God works to brings a good purpose to it.

He is, after all, an infinitely intelligent God who is able to anticipate each and every possible event as if it were a certainty. Whatever comes to pass, therefore, God has an eternally prepared plan in place on how best to respond to it. I believe this is why the Bible depicts God’s providence not only as a rule of power, but even more so as a rule of wisdom. If God himself brought things about or faced an eternally pre-settled future, devoid of possibilities, he’d need no wisdom in steering the world toward his objectives.

Related Reading

Doesn’t Peter Suggest Our Suffering is God’s Will? (podcast)

Greg wrestles suffering out of God’s will.  Episode 662 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0662.mp3

Tragedy Strikes and Coherence Goes Out the Window

I encourage you to read Aurora shooting inspires various perspectives on God and belief, written by Electa Draper and published on the front page of the Denver Post Monday. The article shows how differently believers process tragedies, and illustrates the centrally important role one’s picture of God plays in these responses. For today, I’d like…

What, Father, Do You Desire This Minute?

Frank Laubach, a 20th century missionary to Philippines, wrote about the challenge of being continually aware of the presence of God and learning to respond to God’s promptings. He wrote, “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in…

When God Needs an Intercessor

In the previous two posts, we have been exploring biblical narratives that point to how God’s knowledge is temporally conditioned and thus supports an open view of the future, or open theism as it is commonly called. The first addressed how God regrets and the second how God discovers. In this post, I want to…

Topics:

God’s Regrets and Divine Foreknowledge

One aspect of the portrait of God in Scripture that suggests the future is partly open is the fact that God sometimes regrets how things turn out, even prior decisions that he himself made. For example, in the light of the depravity that characterized humanity prior to the flood, the Bible says that “The Lord…

Topics:

Podcast: Doesn’t Jesus Violate the Free Will of Demons When He Casts Them Out?

Greg discusses the free will of demons and speculates on whether God is ever violent towards spiritual entities. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0163.mp3