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We know that all things work together for good to those who love God

Mikuláš Török, 02.01.2012

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Words from Romans 8:28 are well-known. And they are strong so much that it is not easy to believe them. Therefore people downplay them, explain in different ways, and try to make their real message milder. These words are not a happy fact for everybody.

 

 

Also, ‘evasive’ explanations and interpretations appear. I will mention two quite frequent ones: 

 

1. Everything is good (so we should thank for everything, because everything is good, when it works together to good). But this is not the content of  Romans 8:28. It is not stated there that all things are good, and also it is not suitable at all to consider everything to be good. It is needed to distinguish what is good and what is bad, and preferably according to the Bible. But what is written there is that all things, absolutely everything works together for good to them that love God.

 

2. God will turn all things into good ones. And so for it to happen, just prayers are needed and God will do it. But even this is not what is written here. There is written that all things work together for goodHe established it from the beginning and it works throughout all the time; God doesn’t have to actively turn it for good. To make it comprehensible, we could formulate it like so:  He ordered a principle from the beginning that everything should cooperate for the good.

 

The only condition is that we love God. Naturally, also in this it is not needed to be unnecessarily despondent or to deceive ourselves by a mere emotional fervor. We can find enough light in the Bible to be able to clearly assess our relationship with God. In the mirror of the Bible we can see both Him and our relationship with Him. For example, verses of John 14:15 and 23-24 can help us (speaking about that who loves Him loves also his Word and His commandments) or 1John 4:21 (who loves Him loves also brothers). Of course we can find many other places in the Bible which show good relationship with God, reveal the meaning of love for Him. So we are absolutely not kept uncertain, to vainly grope or have just assumptions. It is just up to our sincerity how we accept God’s Word, how we deepen or correct our relationship with Him.

 

But let’s return to our main topic: to them that love God all things work together for good. We must mention yet that the concept of ‘all things’ does not include our sins. But it includes all the circumstances, even the bad ones, all behavior of other people, even the bad ones.

 

The expression ‘work together’ is important. It expresses cooperation (also together with us, our faith), interaction. This means that God determined all things to cooperate, work together for good. Important is the personal attitude of the believer. He should love God and further, by his approach he should not thwart this action (for instance by murmuring, complaining, and scolding).

A good example is Joseph. His life story is fairly well-known. His brothers envied him, couldn’t stand him any longer and so they wanted to get rid of him. They threw him into a well, after that discussed about how to kill him. Finally, they ‘only’ sold him to slavery.

 

But in Genesis 45:1-8 we can read, and even three times (!), that God sent Joseph to Egypt. God needed somebody in Egypt to prevent death of many people because of famine, but primarily to pave the way for Jacob’s family to become a nation there. We should realize that it was hardly possible for Israel to become a nation in conditions of their nomadic way of life. But it was necessary for the future coming of the Messiah. It was essential that they were not only a tribe, but also a nation who received the God’s Law.

 

Joseph probably didn’t realize all connections, but still he clearly knew that God used the bad doing of his brothers for a good purpose. He expresses this in Genesis 50:20 (God meant it unto good, used for good).

 

In the case of Joseph, we can also see the influence of God’s truth if we believe it. Joseph was not subject to nor bitterness, and despair, or depression, nor revenge.

 

The more clearly and fully we understand the contents of this fantastic blessing from Romans 8:28, the more joyful, hopeful, active and positive Christians we will be.

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