“It Is Accomplished”
But we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose Romans 8:28
The Good – I love this verse. It gives hope and direction in a world that often seems chaotic and destructive. It is a resounding call to remember Who is sovereign. It is an opportunity for me to trust that He knows what He is doing.
But, there are a lot of problems with this verse, some with terrible consequences. Leon Morris does an excellent job of clarifying the issue in his commentary on Romans. Basically, the question is the discrepancy between observable reality and the good that God will bring to pass. In the ancient world there were plenty of sayings about everything working out for the best. We still have those myths today. They are still wrong. Everything doesn’t work out for the best. Bad things happen. Paul is not talking about life in general. He is talking about life for those who are called by God. All the rest of humanity suffers under the power of the prince of this world. If we start thinking that everything will work out no matter what our relationship to the Father is, we are fools! Those who do not live according to His purposes are subject to the worst of delusions. Things in their lives are not going to work out at all, even if they seem to be rewarding now. The biblical perspective is always about the final result, not the intermediate appearance.
So, God engineers the lives of those who love Him and are called by Him in ways that accomplish His good purposes. These are not the ones who have heard the message. These are the ones who have committed themselves to obeying the message. God promises that He is engineering their lives in ways that will result in the final good. God is the active agent here, not us. He is bringing all this to pass. That means that He is taking all of the substance of our lives and managing it all so that His purposes will be accomplished. If you want to see what that looks like, look at Jesus.
“It is accomplished,” are the last words Jesus spoke from the cross. Jesus reached the final result of the good in His earthly life by dying as the innocent sacrifice for the guilty. Everyone who watched it happen thought it was a mistake, a tragedy, a waste. They went away shattered, frightened and hopeless. But God was engineering something marvelous. He was turning the world’s worst travesty of justice into the world’s greatest victory over evil. That’s the perspective we need. Life with God does not promise to be easy. In fact, it will more than likely be filled with trouble because in God’s engineering the innocent accept the debt of the guilty, the persecuted pray for the persecutors, the righteous do good for their enemies and the holy sacrifice themselves for the unholy. Displaying the character of the Father hurts – but, God is good and He engineers our lives so that we find joy and peace and love along the road. The answer to every twist and turn is still the same: Lord, You are holy. That’s why we need to add the article to the word agathon. It is the good, the final good, that lies ahead. Nothing else will do.
Topical Index: Finish
