Meant for Good
The Life-Changing Promise of Romans 8:28
Dear Friends,
We continue our series on The Ten Most Beloved Bible Verses. Today we turn to “The Mighty Eighth”: Romans chapter eight, verse twenty-eight. Romans 8:28 ranks number five in our curated surveys. Yet for many of us, the truth of this life-changing passage cannot be quantified. This single verse reframes all of life around the controlling truth of all truths: God is in control, and therefore…
Please read on and join me in prayer as we reflect together on Romans 8:28.
Yours faithfully,
Mike
PS: If you haven’t already, you can read my “Ethical Writing Notice” at the bottom of this post. I research and write my own material. I use tools, including machine learning, like Grammarly and Grok, to provide my editorial support. So, all em dashes are mine! (em dashes are often cited as AI writing because, apparently, many folks have never used em dashes before AI. I have and continue to—love those em dashes! I just love—‘em).
What Are the Presenting Issues in Romans 8:28?
Suffering is not a sign of God’s absence. Nor is it necessarily the result of divine judgment, though it may be the self-inflicted consequence of our own choices (for example, decades of smoking tobacco and the subsequent pulmonary disease that follows). We have all observed what appear to be anomalies—young non-smokers who develop lung cancer—and so we are reminded that suffering contains both known and unknown, even unknowable, elements. Suffering is understood, and yet suffering remains a mystery. When we introduce God into the equation—as we must—the mystery deepens. “Why…” becomes the operative word. “How long, O Lord?” echoes through the Psalms; Charles Spurgeon even grouped certain psalms as “the Howling Psalms” because they cry out that very question.
Yet the Bible does not leave us in unresolved pain. It answers painful mystery with saving mystery: in Christ Jesus, Almighty God Himself becomes the Sufferer. The Messiah of Isaiah 53 follows the pattern already visible in Joseph—beaten, thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, falsely accused, then raised to rule, who finally discloses himself in tears to the very brothers who sought his death and declares, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).
Because opposing truths are involved, suffering can be difficult to make sense of. The Bible, however, presents truths from God that we are not required to explain or defend—only to affirm. Concerning suffering, we may therefore say:
• We suffer, in some cases, because of a fallen world;
• We suffer, in other cases, because of fallen human beings;
• We suffer, in some cases, because of our own sin; and
• We suffer, sometimes, because of evil, the evil one, or other dark spiritual forces—creatures already exposed and condemned by the cross of Christ, yet awaiting final judgment.
Subsidiary consequences flow from these primary categories. We can suffer because we love. How often has a parent suffered because the attacks of the world, the flesh, or the devil have fallen upon a child?
One thing is certain: suffering is, in one way or another, a consequence of human free agency and the fallen world that resulted from it. Scripture teaches that free agency—the human ability to decide and act—is not the same as a free will in the absolute sense. The will is the deeper spiritual force that produces agency. We have all known the person who “goes from mind to mouth,” who “has no filter.” That is will moving directly into action.
Whether in Job, in Lamentations, or in the teaching of Jesus after the fall of the tower in Siloam (Luke 13:1–5), we come to see that God is good. He does not afflict willingly. He is sovereign, yet He has permitted the free agency of man that led to mankind’s disobedience and the subsequent fall—a fall that touched all of creation.
Paul was not writing Romans to answer every question about suffering. He wrote to accomplish specific pastoral goals among the believers in Rome. 1Romans is a presentation of the gospel for a particular setting and a particular set of issues. Not least among them was the tension between Jewish and Gentile believers.2 The great theological affirmations of the letter exist because Paul is advocating gospel healing for disparate groups within the church—a theme that runs through much of his correspondence.
Into these larger concerns comes the teaching of Romans 8:28.
What Does It All Mean?
Romans 8:28 is a bright star in a constellation of stars. Consider its immediate context. One cannot understand the verse rightly without hearing what comes before and what follows:
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 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. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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. 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. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:18–39).
Romans 8:28 teaches us a central promise of God’s dealings with His people: God uses the very things that would destroy us to become the things that save us. We see it in Joseph. We see its fullness in the cross of our Lord Jesus—the instrument of shame and death becomes the sign of salvation and new life. Paul, speaking of suffering and persecution, declares that we are “more than conquerors” through the very things that come against us. This promise is the gospel of God (Romans 1:1).
Because of this Christ-centered paradox, this glorious Gospel in Romans 8:28, we receive a promise with power.
The power of courage.
Because we know that all things work together for good, we may live with a Christ-centered courage. Not all things are good—that is the whole point. The things that are bad are transformed by the power of God into instruments that work toward eternal life. Imagine looking at every trial, every failure, as a possible stepping-stone to God’s blessing. This is life without fear, because God is in control.
The power of confidence.
Because all things work together for good, we can be confident in life and confident even in death. This is not confidence in ourselves, nor in science or technology. It is confidence in God Himself. Romans 8:28 produces the confident life because God is in control.
The power of assurance.
Closely related is the assurance that the very things that come against us become the very things God uses to accomplish His good purpose in our lives and in the world. When Fanny Crosby wrote, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine,” and when George Whitefield preached up and down the colonial coast that Christians may know assurance in Christ, they were declaring the same truth: the doctrines of God give us an assurance that brings joy in the presence of sorrow, hope in the presence of despair, and life in the presence of death. God is in control; therefore, we may have assurance of salvation and assurance of the future.
I close with a personal word. I remember hearing Dr. D. James Kennedy preach Romans 8:28 as part of his series Truths That Transform. When he declared that God takes everything in our lives—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and puts it through His divine catalytic converter, so that we may rest assured He is able to bring a future and a hope even out of a painful past, that truth changed my life. I believe it will change yours if you will yield your life to Him today. Receive His promise. This is an invitation to a new way of life. You are no longer a victim. In Christ Jesus, you are a victor. And there is nothing that comes against you that cannot be used by God to bring about good for you.
Dear heavenly Father, I pray for the one reading these words today. Grant repentance and faith to trust in You, and thereby ignite this glorious truth in their lives. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Mark J. Keown, Discovering the New Testament: An Introduction to Its Background, Theology, and Themes: The Pauline Letters, vol. II (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021), 99.
Consider: “Paul wrote Romans for four reasons. First, he wrote to prepare for a visit to the city. He had wanted to travel to Rome many times. He planned to come after traveling to Jerusalem so that he could preach the gospel there (Rom 1:13–15). Second, his plan was to then travel to Spain. He wrote then to garner support for his Spanish mission, Rome functioning as his base (15:24–28). Third, he wrote Romans to ask for prayer as he headed to Jerusalem with the collection, that it would be well received so he could then travel to Rome (15:30–32). His extensive presentation of the gospel prepared for his visits to Rome.
A fourth reason based on the social and historical background is considered by many contemporary Romans scholars. Paul wrote into the tensions swirling in the Roman church after the return of the Jewish leaders from their Claudian exile.”—Mark J. Keown, Discovering, 100.
The Golden Chain
(Romans 8:29–30)
Paul links five unbreakable acts of God in a single, luminous sequence:
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined… and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
Foreknowledge → Predestination → Calling → Justification → Glorification.
Every link is forged by God alone. None can be broken. The chain begins in eternity past and ends in the glory yet to be revealed. Romans 8:28 affirms the settled purpose of the God who works all things according to the counsel of His will. So those He calls, He keeps. If you accomplished your own salvation, you could lose it. But thank God, your eternal life is made possible by the One who gave you life in the first place.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Ethical Writing Statement
The writing, research, and theological substance of this article are my own. I use machine learning tools such as Grammarly and Grok solely as editorial assistants—to refine clarity, structure, grammar, and style. These tools never generate the content, arguments, or voice of the work.
— Michael A. Milton