By Mark W. Christy, PhD
Among Traditionalists, the supposed human possession of a libertarianly free will takes precedence of any and all other theological matters to such an extent that all relevant biblical passages are read in light of this affirmation. One such text is Romans 8:28-30 where Paul writes, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”[i] For the Traditionalist to be proved correct, Paul must not be saying that God’s control of all things impedes in any way on libertarian freedom. To determine Paul’s intent and his alignment with libertarian theology, this article will examine Romans 8:28-30.
The context of v.28 begins with a discussion in v.26 about human weaknesses among Christians in regard to their internal and external battle with evil (cf. 8:1-25). In v.27, Paul comforts believers with the knowledge of the Holy Spirit’s intercession on their behalf. In v.28, he provides still more comfort to believers by ensuring them that all things, no matter how vile and no matter their source, are somehow within God’s sovereign control. While God’s direction of all things is clearly done for the sake of “those who love God,” He nevertheless must control all things in some manner so as to render the amount of control discussed in v.28.
Leighton Flowers, a Traditionalist, admits that God “has a mysterious way of working out things for the greatest good,” and somehow “redeems occurrences of evil for a good purpose in the lives” of Christians.[ii] Despite these two admissions, Flowers nevertheless desires to dismiss what he believes to be the standard Calvinistic rendering of Romans 8:28 which, he contends, holds to divine meticulous determinism whereby God is charged with directly authoring a sin so as to maintain His divine control of all things. Strangely however, Flowers acknowledges that John MacArthur, a prominent Calvinist, supports his basic position submitted at the beginning of this paragraph.
Essentially, Flowers has incorrectly understood the common Calvinistic position which was indeed given by MacArthur. Calvinists typically understand God to be employing what they term as His common grace. With this grace, God restrains evil so that it only occurs to the extent that His restraints are removed. By controlling evil in this manner, humanity (along with Satan and his demons) remain personally and solely responsible for their sin even while God limits the extent to which they can engage in it.
Despite his apparent admissions which suggest his confirmation of the Calvinistic interpretation of Romans 8:28 where Paul is thought to be confirming the sovereign control of God of all things, Flowers ultimately stands against this interpretation due his commitment to Traditionalism. Unfortunately, he fails to demonstrate how Romans 8:28 supports the libertarian stance. Instead, he simply tries to assign an application for Paul’s teaching that is historic in nature.
Specifically, Flowers says, “The focus of the apostle’s observation is on the saints of old, those from the elect nation of Israel who were called to fulfill God’s plan to redeem His creation.”[iii] Despite his claim, he backtracks on his own comment immediately by saying that Paul’s message is applicable to all Christians. Within the text itself, one wonders how Flowers is able to deduce Paul’s focus on Old Testament (OT) saints.
In Romans 1:7, Paul makes it clear that his epistle is being written to the Church in Rome. Throughout Romans 8, Paul’s use of first-person and second-person pronouns along with directly referring to his audience as “brethren” in v.12 make it obvious that Paul’s focus was on the believers in Rome and his task of delivering the gospel to them. Concerning v.28, Paul certainly could be drawing from the OT as an example to support his argumentation. This, however, is not what Paul is doing despite Flowers’ claim. In v.28, Paul offers a propositional truth statement and not an example. For this reason, Flowers himself can draw the same conclusions about Paul’s meaning as MacArthur and other Calvinists. If this is the case (and simply reading v.28 should make this glaringly obvious), why does Flowers awkwardly and wrongly introduce the OT saints into his comments on v.28?
The answer, simply put, is Flowers’ own theological commitment to Traditionalism. His position demands that he make space within the Scripture for the libertarian will. With this in view, Flowers moves on to v.29 with his own misguided understanding that Paul’s focus in v.28 was on OT saints. Just as he reconfigured v.28 to be an example (despite being in actuality a propositional truth claim), he now sees v.29 as mere evidence for Paul’s “claim in verse 28 by reflecting on God’s faithfulness to His chosen nation,” in other words, the Israelites.[iv] Here, Flowers inserts an extra biblical claim into v.28 which is nowhere present in the text itself.
Flowers’ previously-noted, extratextual claim, “[t]he focus of the apostle’s observation is on the saints of old,” has now become, through a clear case of circular reasoning on Flowers’ behalf, Paul’s claim, and so, Paul himself, according to Flowers, sets out to provide evidence to support his claim (which was actually imposed on him by Flowers). With Paul’s purposes in v.29 permanently altered (at least for Flowers), Flowers is able to misinterpret “those whom He foreknew” in v.29 to be referring to these OT saints.[v]
Flowers’ insertion of non-Pauline purposes into the text ultimately allows him to relegate divine foreknowledge to God’s knowledge of people who loved God in the past. He admits that Paul could have meant that these people loved before ever actually existing: “fore-loved is a viable and even likely meaning of the term proginōskō.”[vi] To better understand Paul’s actual meaning, one should return to the text and remove the dubious claim, imposed by Flowers, from the interpretation process.
God’s proginōskō, His foreknowledge, is knowledge (ginōskō) that comes before (pro). “Those” in v.29 (“For those whom He foreknew”) refers to “those who love God” in v.28. Therefore, Paul is saying God knew believers before. To determine when this foreknowledge of believers began, one must look in the phrase that follows: “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son” (v.29). According to Paul then, whomever is foreknown by God is known to be a believer before their time in this world begins (cf. Eph 1:4; 2 Tim 1:9).
With this understanding of proginōskō in place, the faithful interpreter is left with two options as to Paul’s meaning. Either Paul is referring to God’s foreknowledge of who would believe, or he is advocating the idea that God elects those who believe in eternity past. When one reexamines v.29, one finds that God foreknows persons and predestines them personally. Nowhere does this text suggest that God impersonally knows people based upon a foreknowledge of their faith response. This personal nature of proginōskō can be seen when its root is used in 1 Corinthians 8:3: “but if anyone loves God, he is known [ginōskō is the root of known] by Him.” As this verse demonstrates, God’s knowing (ginōskō) a person has a definitive personal dimension.
[P]roginōskō also appears in 1 Peter 1:20, “For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.” Here, God’s foreknowledge of His Son is certainly personal in nature, and this knowledge emanates from before creation. At this point, it may help to draw a distinction between God’s foreknowledge of believers and His predestination of them since Paul employs both ideas in v.29: “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined.” According to J. M. Gundry-Volf, “While foreknowledge denotes the exercise of God’s will to establish a special relationship with those who God graciously elects before all time, predestination expresses God’s appointing of them to a specific goal before all time.”[vii] That goal, which Paul expresses directly, is “to become conformed to the image of His Son” (v.29).[viii]
With the information provided thus far, one can surmise that Paul means to say that God personally and individually chooses (or foreknows) those who will become believers since His choice, following Gundry’s argument that demonstrates the direct connection between God’s foreknowledge and predestination work in regard to election, predestines them to such. Because this is so, Paul could say in Romans 11:2, “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.” In other words, to be foreknown is to be accepted by God.
With a biblically correct understanding whereby divine foreknowledge and predestination are intimately woven into the purpose and person of God in eternity past, one can then discern Paul’s teaching in v.30. In this verse, Paul forms what some theologians refer to as the Golden Chain. Beginning with predestination, which has now been shown to connect directly to God’s foreknowledge, Paul in v. 30 demonstrates all believers have been elected, justified, and even glorified in eternity past: “these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” In conclusion, Paul in Romans 8:28-30 is articulating the doctrine of election where God has sovereignly elected those who believe unto salvation before time began. While some Traditionalists, like Flowers, prefer to limit the scope of Paul’s words to OT saints, this limitation on the application of Paul’s propositional truth claims only leads to a misinterpretation of the text that may suit the goals of the Traditionalists but fails to deal fairly with the text itself.
[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.
[ii]Leighton Flowers, The Potter’s Promise: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Soteriology (Coppell, TX: Trinity, 2017), 81-83.
[iii]Ibid., 84.
[iv]Flowers, The Potter’s Promise, 85.
[v]Ibid., 85.
[vi]Ibid., 87.
[vii]J. M. Gundry-Volf, “Foreknowledge of God,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 310.
[viii]Flowers, The Potter’s Promise, 92. In Flowers argumentation, he raises what he obviously believes to be a major red flag against the Calvinistic understanding of predestination. In his words, “The past tense [of predestine] suggests that Paul is referring to former generations of those who have loved God and were called to fulfill His redemptive purpose.” Believing that this past tense usage by Paul affirms his wrongly held contention that Paul’s words in Romans 8:28-30 were limited to OT saints, Flowers writes, “Calvinists must explain away the use of the past tense verbs in order to maintain their interpretation of Paul’s intent.” In response, it may be tempting for the Calvinist to charge Flowers with a lack of rigor in his thinking. Calvinists understand predestination to be a divine work of God to have occurred in eternity past, hence Paul’s usage of the past tense.