The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Romans 8:28 limits God’s works to those who love Him

Help me out here:

Why on earth did Paul say it this way and appear to limit the works of God – which we recognize here on this site as moving to His purposes of ultimate reconciliation for all – merely to those who love Him? Doesn’t that leave many out? Except UR leaves NO ONE out.

Just moments later (35) Paul asks “WHO shall separate us from the love of Christ?” and then, in what must be some of the most moving passages of the entire bible (for me anyway) Paul emphatically lists, rather comprehensively too, all the things that can NEVER separate us from God’s love. Which of course makes it all rather awkward to reduce God’s vast love merely to those who have the ability to love Him back.

While I love this passage overall and welcome it into the pantheon of UR passages, this phrase – “for the good of those who love him” – is rather exclusive and troublesome.

Any help here??

TotalVictory
Bobx3

Bob,

I think this is a case of taking one line a bit too narrowly out of the context of the whole passage.

The first 17 verses of chapter 8 go into detail about the fact that Christians are freed from their carnal nature not by the law but by Jesus becoming their perfect sin offering; thereby condemning sin in sinful man (verse 3 - interestingly not condemning the man). They are then exhorted to put to death the misdeeds of the body by living in the spirit (verses 12-14)

It sounds as if there had been some grumbling that life wasn’t a bed of roses now that they were Christians as verse 18 starts the passage about Paul not counting worthy the present sufferings compared to the glory that will be revealed in them. Note that he wasn’t saying his present sufferings weren’t worthy compared to the great life he was expecting in heaven - but the glory that would be revealed in them - to whom is this glory revealed?

He then goes on to say

Both the firstfruit Christians and the Creation are groaning in travail hoping for something - will either hope be dashed in the end???

Then comes the passage concerning God working all things to the good of those who love Him. He is exhorting them to stand firm in their faith even though they are suffering because God will turn that suffering into glory revealed to the whole of Creation which will then be liberated into the glorious freedom of the Sons of God.

In other words the whole thrust of this chapter is one of encouragement to downhearted firstfruit Christians - the rest of us heathens are not really the focus of the passage except as the bait for the firstfruits to continue in faithfulness (i.e. fish they will catch in the end :smiley: ).

You guys get to taste eternal life in the here and now (as you bathe in the lake of fire); the rest of us have to wait until you lot are perfected and we go “WOW! look at them! sign me up”

The same theme of hope is seen here also…

Well that was sure a conversation killer! :unamused:

Actually JeffA, some conversations conclude not because they were “killed” but because such a definitve, superb, conclusive response has been made!

Thanks!

TotalVictory
Bobx3

You are very welcome - :blush:

Not at all; I thought it was a pretty good exegesis! :smiley:

Some additional things (not many, though, since you did a great job already):

1.) I would say that “the creation” is not restricted only to “the heathen” (although on the other hand, the two terms are actually rather interestingly interrelated in regard to this topic–but that’s another discussion). “The creation” is everything–the total scope of all not-God creation. (The paragraph of Rom 8:18-22 is one of the several Big Themes underlying the fantasy series I’m supposed to be editing this summer instead of doing much composition here on the forum… :mrgreen: )

2.) As Jeff says, the larger scope (particularly regarding Israel as the usual archetype of rebel against God, through chp 11) shows that in fact God is working for the good to those who, at the moment, are stumbling over Him, too.

3.) The problematic verse, 28, is notoriously difficult to translate, and shows up in two distinct versions in the textual record: one with {ho theos} following after {sunergei} (synergy, as we would say), and one without {ho theos}. Both readings have ancient and noteworthy witnesses in the textual record, but the shorter reading has a much more diversified support among textual families. Also, it is easier to explain the addition of {ho theos} as an explanatory gloss–since {sunergei} can be taken to imply a personal subject, and since authorities may have worried in pagan Mediterranea that readers would understand Paul to be talking about Nature personified as the bride of God, i.e. “all things”, working together for good to those who love God. (It’s one thing to use a mother-figure in labor as, y’know, a colorful metaphor; and another to imply that “the creation” is somehow a person actually acting as God’s agent.)

This is probably why my older version of the NASB (not sure about newer revisions) goes with the inclusion of a second {ho theos}, over against the decision of the USB editors, whom otherwise they usually follow. (The variant is still represented in the sidenotes as "some ancient mss read, “all things work together for good”.)

Another reason to go with the shorter reading, is that it makes at least a little more grammatic sense in the sentence.

But, on the other hand, the immediately following sentences are all about the action of God: those whom He foreknew, He also predestined, that He might be the chief (first-born) among many brethren; and whom He predestined, He also called; and whom He called He justified and also glorified. So there is some rationale there for reading {ho theos} (the God) back into verse 28 as the implied doer of action in working-together.

Green, unsurprisingly, tries to have both uses of “God” in the sentence; but then, surprisingly, doesn’t follow the textual version in his actual Greek. So his literal translation reads, “But we know that God works together all things for good to the (ones) loving God, to the (ones) being called according to His purpose”.

But his super-literal translation goes with the actual text on his page (which happens to follow the USB this time).

So, in Greek (with [square brackets] indicating the probable glossed addition, not found in Green’s or the USB’s textual representation):

{oidamen de hoti tois agapo_sin ton theon panta sunergei [ho theos] eis agathon tois kata
we know And that the (ones) loving God all things together [God] for good the (ones) according to

prothesin kle_tois ousin}
purpose called out being.

The reader should be able to see why translators would be inclined to pull out their hair and make broad guesses as to what exactly is being written here, even without the inclusion of {ho theos} as a supposed subject of the sentence.

Does {de} (a weak conjunction) mean ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘yet’ or a more general ‘now’? (I’ve seen translations each way.) Does {tois} mean ‘the ones who’, ‘those’ ‘these’? Does {panta} really mean ‘all things’ collectively, or ‘all’ in some more abstract way? What the heck is the subject of the sentence? Is there only one sentence, or two? Do the two parts make one sentence, two sentences, or are they actually connected to the preceding and subsequent material respectively? Does {sunergi} mean ‘together-acting’?–‘together-working’?–only ‘together’? (Probably not the latter, I would say, but Green ignores the {ergi} portion, for example, in his super-literal translation.) Heck, does it mean ‘fellow-worker’?! (as in 1 Cor 16:16:) Does {eis} mean ‘for’, or ‘into’, or ‘to’? (Or maybe even ‘toward’, like {pros}?) The usage of {agapo_sin} and {agathon} in the two clauses, looks suggestive as cognates of each other, but does that mean anything special? Does {kata} mean ‘according to’, or some other more basic meaning such as ‘down’? Does {kle_tois} mean ‘called out’, or ‘called these/those’ or ‘these/those called’, or just ‘called’? (Probably not the latter, I would say.) {ousin} is some sort of actionable verb, right? But how does that fit into anything? Does {prothesin} (i.e. a grammatic object form of {prothesis}) mean ‘purpose’, and if so in which way? Or does it mean the cakes of bread in the front part of the tabernacle, which in theory may only be eaten by priests but of which Christ pointed out that David and his men, when hungry, ate them on the sabbath and did not sin!?!

AAAHHHHHHH!!! :mrgreen: … … just… write down anything, okay? We’ve got a lot of Bible to translate. Whatever sounds good in our theology already, that’ll work. Add another reference to God if that helps.

I’ll let other people go hunt up various translations for it, or make some educated inferences themselves. I have my own guess, but I’ll save it for later. :wink: Busyness is occurring back here at the office…

ETA: none of which should be considered to take away from Jeff’s fine analysis. :slight_smile: Mainly the big discussion was to explain why in the middle of this great suggestively universalistic language, there’s this weird throw-off sentence.

LOL Jeff!

I gotta couple of those myself. I wonder who leads in Conv. killers? i’ve got one on Craig lane in Talbotts corner thats a real humdinger :slight_smile: LOL

I’m wondering what the judgement may be for my apparent convo killer in the “wrath” thread. The silence sometimes makes me think: “Dang - they must be thinking why even bother? This dudes GONE off the deep end:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

FB!!! LOL!
I’m ROFL! That’s exactly how I feel after about 9 months of silence.

I even tried to ask, if i’m out of it please someone show me and all I hear are crickets! LOL!

Funny stuff!

Tumbleweed…

This might have been what Jason was trying to get at, but I couldn’t find it in the (albeit scholarly) mass of text in his post.

There is an alternate translation/ reading from some MSS of this verse that reads thus: “And we know that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good – with those who have been called according to his purpose.”

This reading gives a much more universalistic slant to this verse, and is how I think it makes the most sense…

Rather than working for the good of only those who love him, instead, he works together with those who love him (and have been called according to his purpose) to bring about what is good (for everyone).

That would make a lot of sense and as you say give quite a universalistic flavour to the verse.

Perhaps you’d like to apply for the position of ‘Jason translator’ on a permanent basis :smiley:

Yes, well; that might be alright if I actually understood what he was saying more than half the time… :mrgreen: