God's Calling and Our Predestination to Glory in Romans 8
"This chapter.... is a continuation of the subject discussed in the previous chapter, and is intended mainly to show that the gospel could effect what the Law was incapable of doing.” (Albert Barnes) “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (Rom 8:1) "... Jesus Christ has broken the power of sin and death through his death on the cross. The era of bondage to sin has ceased. By the power of the Spirit, believers are enabled to keep God’s law, albeit imperfectly. Those who have received the end-time gift of the Spirit are also assured of the resurrection promised to Israel, for in Ezek. 37 the Spirit and resurrection are closely conjoined. The church as God’s people has now received the promises of Israel. Those who belong to Christ are adopted, God’s sons, his children and heirs. If the church has received the promises made to Israel, they await the consummation of the promise of a new creation initially made to Israel (Rom. 8:18–25; cf. Isa. 65:17; 66:22).” (“Romans —Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT" by Thomas R. Schreiner)
“So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” (Romans 8:7-8) “Regarding this text, Calvinist commentator John Murray says that ‘Enmity against God’ is nothing other than total depravity and ‘cannot please God’ nothing less than total inability (Murray, Epistle to the Romans,)….
But, as with the discussion of Romans 7, it is important to know what Paul means when he writes about ‘the flesh’ in his letters. The flesh is dead and dying. The flesh is separated from God, is corrupted, and when the believer attempts to operate through the flesh, only sin-tainted behavior results.” (Romans 8:7-8, Enmity with God, and Calvinism By Jeremy Myers)
This does not speak of total depravity. It speaks to believers, beckening them to live according to the Spirit while suffering persecution. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” (Rom 8:14) Jesus likewise said: “It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:63)
“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (Rom 8:15-18) We begin to set "our sights on the eschatological inheritance that awaits believers. Here Paul describes this inheritance in terms of being glorified together with Christ, and thereby he anticipates verse 29, where God’s purpose in predestining believers is to conform them to the image of his Son and to make him the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. This future glory, however, is conditioned upon suffering with Christ [for His sake] in the present age" (“Romans —Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament" by Thomas R. Schreiner)
“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us (the saints) with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” (Rom 8:26-27) This intercession is not made for everyone but Paul preached that any who hear and respond to the preached Word.. and call on Jesus’ name will be saved. According to Romans 10:11-13, "For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”(Isaiah 28:16) For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”(Joel 2:32a) “One of the delightful things about studying the Bible is that just when we think we have mastered one of its great doctrines another complementary doctrine comes along to challenge our still limited understanding and stretch our vision.” [Bible Study Fellowship International] And here we have gone from “He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens” (Romans 9:18) to the identity of those on whom He will have mercy—“whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”(Joel 2:32a; Romans 10:13 ) ”For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as Yahweh has said, among the remnant whom Yahweh calls.” (Joel 2:32b)
Romans 8:28-31-The calling herein described is not a deterministic calling for specific individuals that can’t be resisted resulting in glorification. Rather, “many are called,” Jews and then Gentiles, “but few elect’ (Mat. 22:14)— to answer that call.
“And we know (by abundant testimonies of old and new workings of the Spirit of God) that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28) “Christians are often represented as called of God. The word κλητός klētos is sometimes used to denote an external invitation, offer, or calling; Matthew 20:16; Matthew 22:14. But excepting in these places, it is used in the New Testament to denote those who had accepted the call, and were true Christians; Romans 1:6-7; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 24; Revelation 17:14.” (Barnes ) “In some way they have heard His voice speaking to them, and they have responded. The calling has thus been an effectual call because it has resulted in their loving God. And it is a call made ‘in accordance with His purpose’. Whatever men’s thought may be concentrated on, God’s thoughts are focused on the salvation of His own, and on His [futuristic] presentation of them in His sight as holy, unblameable and unreproachable (Col 1:22). ” (Pett) “Notice that this verse does not say everything that happens is good, or even everything that happens is God’s will. To the contrary, it says God is like a weaver, weaving together all sorts of things to a good end. God can even use suffering and sin and even evil for the good of those who love him.” (Does Romans 9-11 Teach Calvinist Predestination? By Ben Witherington III)
“For whom He foreknew,” “In customary Semitic fashion, Paul seems to be using the word know to mean ‘intimately love.’ This is clearly his meaning when, two chapters later, he refers to Israel as the people ‘whom [God] foreknew’ (Rom. 11:2). In this context, Paul has Israel as a corporate whole in mind, not individual Jews, for one of his primary goals throughout Romans 9–11 is to show that not all Jews are real Israelites. Israel was in God’s affection and plan long before she became a nation—she was foreloved—even though at the time Paul was writing most of the Jews individually had rejected God’s plan.” (Gregory Boyd) These— the faithful remant of Israel of old and the Church of new—“He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren." (Rom 8:29)
“That, 'as they had borne the image of the earthly Adam, they might also bear the image of the heavenly,' 1 Cor. 15:49 - ‘having glorious bodies like to his,’ says Theodoret: and this agrees well with the scope and subject-matter of this chapter...; for as here these brethren are said to be 'co-heirs with him (Rom 8:17), the Elder-brother. So elsewhere he is styled, ‘The First-born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence,’ (Col 1:18) or ‘that they might be ‘changed into his image’ (2 Cor 3:18) by the participation of the same Spirit.” (Thomas Coke)
He intimately loves the the universal church- those who have answered their calling of God. “There is no reason to add all the esoteric theological baggage of God looking through corridors of time or making arbitrary ‘sovereign’ choices about who He will and will not love before the world began.” (Admin at Soteriology101) "This predestination is not a determination as to who goes to heaven, but rather the predetermination that all those who traveled the roads of suffering would be conformed more like Christ.” (Daniel Weierbach)
"Three chapters later Paul refers to Israel as “[God’s] people whom he foreknew” (Rom 11:2). If this is in fact its meaning in 8:29, then Paul is simply claiming that God loved the church before he called them just as he loved Israel before he called them.… What God loved ahead of time (ultimately from the foundation of the world) was the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, the church considered as a corporate whole (Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, 118).... Whatever foreknowledge Paul is talking about, he is not referring to some sort of exhaustive, all-encompassing knowledge of all events and all people from before all time, for this would lead to the conclusion that all those whom God foreknows will end up in glorification.” (Greg Boyd)
Paul didn’t want them to leave off without the prize. Perhaps Paul was using the prophetic perfect, as the Hebrew prophets often did, to herein describe the end of belief in the Gospel. "’Moreover, whom He did predestined’— or describe beforehand by His holy prophets, as persons who should resemble the Messiah; ‘these,’ in due time, ‘He also called’ — by His Word and Spirit; and ‘whom He called’— when obedient to the heavenly calling, Acts 26:19; ‘these He also justified’— accounted righteous, pardoned, and accepted; ‘and whom he justified,’ provided they continued in His goodness, Romans 11:2; ‘these He,’ in the end, also glorified.’
The apostle does not affirm, either here or in any other part of his writings, that precisely the same number of persons are called, justified, and glorified. He does not deny that a believer may fall away and be cut off, between his special calling and his glorification, Romans 11:22. Neither does He deny that many are called who are never justified. He only affirms that this is the method whereby God leads us, step by step, toward heaven.“ (Joseph Benson)
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom 8:31) God is for the church. He grafted us in with Israel, according to His own divine purpose.
“In view of this how can we see anyone who is against us as particularly relevant? If God is for us, any adversary must pale before the Almighty.” (Peter Pett) Believers should not fear anyone but Him who threatens body and soul. “They need not fear any accusations against them, because the One who has declared them righteous is God Himself, and He has done so on the basis of the perfect work of Jesus Christ (33-34)."(Bridgeway Commentary by Donald Flemming)
Rom 8: 35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." (Ps 44:22) Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
"Nor should they fear persecution or even martyrdom, because through Christ they are assured of final victory (35-37). No matter what happens to them, nothing can separate them from the unchanging love of God (38-39).” (Bridgeway Commentary by Donald C. Flemming)
“I do think that this question has been generally misunderstood. The apostle is referring to the persecutions and tribulations to which genuine Christians were exposed through their attachment to Christ, and the gracious provision God had made for their support and final salvation. As in this provision God had shown his infinite love to them in providing Jesus Christ as their sin-offering, and Jesus Christ had shown his love in suffering death upon the cross for them; so, here, he speaks of the love of the followers of God to that Christ who had first loved them. Therefore the question is not, Who shall separate the love of Christ from us? or prevent Christ from loving us? but, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who or what shall be able to remove our affection from him?...
Shall tribulation? - Θλιψις , grievous affliction, or distress of any kind; from θλιβω , to compress, oppress, straiten, etc.; any thing by which a man is rendered miserable.
Or distress? - Στενοχωρια , a word of nearly the same import with the former, but more intense in its signification. It signifies straitness, being hemmed in on every side, without the possibility of getting out or escaping; from στενος , strait or narrow, and χωρος , a place.
Or persecution? - Διωγμος , from διωκω , to pursue, press upon, prosecute, signifies such pursuing as an enemy uses in order to overtake the object of his malice, that he may destroy him.
Or famine? - Λιμος , from λειπω , to fail; the total want of bread, and all the necessaries of life.
Or nakedness? - Γυμνοτης , being absolutely without clothing; forcibly expressed by the derivation of the word γυια μονα εχων , having one‘s limbs only, being totally unclothed.
Or peril? - Κινδυνος , a state of extreme and continued danger, perplexing and distressing with grievous forebodings and alarms; derived from κινει τας οδυνας , it excites anguish; because much evil is felt, and much more feared.
Or sword? - Μαχαιρα , slaughter; the total destruction of life, and especially beheading, and such like, done by the order of the civil magistrate; for the word is used in this epistle, Romans 13:4, to signify the authority and power which he has of judicially terminating life; i.e. of inflicting capital punishment.
As it is written – ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ (Ps 44:22) And these are no more than we may naturally expect from the present constitution of the world, and the positive predictions of the prophet, Psalm 44:22, who foresaw that a wicked world would always persecute and oppress the true followers of God.
Nay - as the prophet adds in the same place, all this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, nor dealt falsely in thy covenant, Romans 8:17, Romans 8:18, so all these things may happen unto us; but in all these things we are more than conquerors; We abide faithful in the new covenant of our God; and He is faithful who has promised to support and make us more than conquerors; i.e. to give us a complete triumph over sin, and death, and hell, not leaving one enemy unsubdued.” (Adam Clarke Commentary)