An Iris Awaits: Goodness in Context: A Closer Look at Romans 8:28

After examining Philippians 4:13 in its context in a previous post, today we turn to another of Paul’s epistles to look at another verse that is frequently misunderstood—Romans 8:28, coming near the end of one of the most beautiful chapters in all of Scripture. Although its place in the rest of Romans 8 is often forgotten, this verse is also simply misquoted at times, resulting in just as much misunderstanding as when it is taken out of context. So what does Romans 8:28 say?

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (ESV).

Right off the bat, we should notice that the first word is a huge clue that there is more to see. “And” is a word of addition, so when a verse begins with “and,” we can be confident that there is a multi-part point being made and that the verse in question is only one part of it. So what is the point Paul is making in Romans 8?

To answer that question, we must step back even further and look at the overall outline of the book of Romans. Romans is Paul’s grand theological treatise in which he explains powerful truths about the righteousness of God.[i] The first eleven chapters show our need for a Savior, the means of our salvation, the effect of our salvation, and God’s sovereignty over the whole process, while the last five chapters explore how we are to live in light of our salvation.[ii] Romans 8 is the final chapter in a three-chapter section discussing the effect of our salvation—namely, our sanctification (i.e. our being made holy). In chapter 6, Paul talks about sanctification and sin, in chapter 7 about sanctification and the law, and in chapter 8 about sanctification and the Holy Spirit.[iii]

Paul begins chapter 8 explaining the difference between living in the Spirit and living in the flesh before discussing how those who are in the Spirit are adopted by God and therefore become co-heirs with Jesus. In this section, he returns to the concept of suffering, which he mentioned earlier, where he showed that followers of Jesus can rejoice in suffering because of what it produces in our lives (see Romans 5:3-5). In verse 18, he writes that our current sufferings pale in comparison to the future glory we will experience.

But this future glory is just that—in the future. In the present, we still live in a fallen world struggling against the desires of the flesh that war against our spirits. So as we wait for this future glory, there is a lot of groaning going on, yearning for the day when the new heaven and the new earth come to be. “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. […] 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” (Rom. 8:22-23, 26, ESV, emphasis added). Until our bodies and all of creation are redeemed, we live in partial weakness, even as we have the power of God within us. We have been saved, but the extent of our salvation has not yet been fulfilled—we have yet to be glorified.

In the meantime, we experience hardship and suffering, just as creation experiences wildfires and earthquakes and other disruptions reflective of the fact that the earth has not yet been made new. But in this suffering, we have the comfort of knowing that we are not alone. And more than that, we have an active advocate—the very Spirit of God—who “helps us in our weakness” and “intercedes for us” (v. 26). But as if that wasn’t enough, Paul adds something else about the Spirit: “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” (v. 27). The Spirit doesn’t just pray for us; He prays according to God’s will, meaning His prayers are always perfect and consist of exactly what is needed in each and every situation.

You may have noticed that we made it to verse 27, one verse before the verse of our focus today. So we’ve seen that after establishing what it means to live in the Spirit, what the hope for our future is, and what our present realities still are, Paul gives a string of encouragements. First, the Holy Spirit helps us and intercedes for us (v. 26). Second, He does so in accordance with God’s will (v. 27). And the third we find in verse 28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” So now that we know the preceding context, let’s unpack this verse.

Often, Romans 8:28 is misquoted to say, “We know that all things work together for good.” But this leaves out two key phrases that put conditions on whom this verse can be applied to. As much as we would like it to be true, we can’t use this verse to say all things work together for good for everyone—because they don’t. This encouragement is only “for those who love God,” which, stated another way means “for those who are called according to his purpose.” In other words, only those who fit the description in the preceding verses of chapter 8, those who are filled with the Spirit, who have been adopted as God’s children, are those who can claim this promise.

But even when we get that part right, we can still misunderstand the point of this verse by holding onto a faulty idea of what it means for things to be “good.” In our limited perspective, we think that good equals easy, happy, or pain-free, and that anything difficult, sad, or painful is therefore bad. This view stems from our desire to live a comfortable life. But God’s framework for goodness is different from ours. His ultimate goal for us is not that we be comfortable but that we be holy, so that we may better enjoy and reflect His perfection and glory.

We see this in what comes immediately after verse 28: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (v. 29a, ESV). That is our destination—being made more like Jesus. That is the ultimate good, and that is what God uses “all things” to work toward in the lives of His adopted children.

So the encouragement to us is that God is able to use even the brokenness of the world and flesh we live in to achieve the ultimate purpose for our lives—our sanctification. He is able to take the suffering and the groaning as we wait and make it work together for our good. Because, as Paul said in Romans 5:3-5, God makes it so that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (ESV). In God’s economy, suffering can be redeemed to produce goodness—and it is redeemed in the lives of those who follow Jesus.

So while Romans 8:28 isn’t a blanket promise for everyone to have a “good” life by the world’s standards of goodness, it’s a much better promise—that no matter what we face in life as followers of Jesus, God uses it all for present and eternal good in our lives as He molds us into Christ’s likeness. And there’s more good news, too. Although this verse doesn’t apply to everyone, it does not exclude the possibility of its applying to anyone; that is, the door is open for anyone to call on Jesus and be saved, becoming His follower, an adopted child of God, and a recipient of His Spirit and the promise of Romans 8:28. For anyone who turns from a life of serving self, with all the sin that such a life entails, and turns to a life of serving God, placing their trust in Jesus and what He did for us on the cross, this promise becomes theirs—immediately and eternally. How amazing is the goodness of God!