<p>8:28&nbsp;<i>And we know that to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose- all things work together for good</i>- A reference to the eternal &ldquo;good&rdquo; of the Kingdom age, i.e., &lsquo;so that we might enter the Kingdom&rsquo;? The future Kingdom is called &ldquo;good things&rdquo; in Is. 52:7 (quoted in Rom. 10:15) and Jer. 8:15.<i>&nbsp;All things work together for good</i>&nbsp;doesn&rsquo;t mean that somehow everything will work out OK for us in this life- for so often they don&rsquo;t. We are asked to carry the Lord&rsquo;s cross, to suffer now and be redeemed in glory later at His return. &ldquo;All things&rdquo; may refer to &ldquo;all creation&rdquo; in Rom. 8:22, as if to say that everything in the whole of creation works together for our ultimate &ldquo;good&rdquo;. But that &ldquo;good&rdquo; must be defined within Paul&rsquo;s usage of the term in Romans; and he doesn&rsquo;t ever use it in the sense of material good in this life. Consider how he uses the word: &ldquo;Doing good&rdquo;, righteous behaviour (Rom. 2:7,10); &ldquo;a good man&rdquo;, a righteous man, maybe in reference to the moral purity of the Lord Jesus (Rom. 5:7); &ldquo;no good thing dwells within me... the good that I would do, I do not&rdquo; (Rom. 7:18,19). Remember that Paul is writing Romans 8 in commentary upon and extension to his lament in Romans 7 that he cannot do the good that he would. Now he is taking comfort that in the bigger picture, man is not alone in creation; all things in this world are somehow working together within God&rsquo;s master plan so that we shall in fact do good, be righteous; both in our lives in Christ today and ultimately for eternity in God&rsquo;s Kingdom. For those who &ldquo;love God&rdquo;, who in their innermost beings delight in God&rsquo;s law, somehow life works out, albeit in a very complex way, so that we may do that which is good, and have the goodness of Christ&rsquo;s righteousness eternally counted to us. Despite having lamented that he himself fails to &ldquo;do good&rdquo; as he would wish (Rom. 7:19), Paul urges us all to &ldquo;do good&rdquo; in the practical section of Romans. We are to cleave to the good, overcome evil with good, do good, be wise to that which is good and simple concerning evil (Rom. 12:2,9,21; 13:3; 16:19). Clearly Paul doesn&rsquo;t wish us to understand his frustration with his human condition as any excuse for giving up the effort. And the indwelling spirit of Christ seeks to orchestrate all things in the whole of creation to work together so that we may succeed in that doing of good. Snow in Latvia or flash floods in Australia may be brought about by cosmic forces which operate exactly so that we may... help up that old man who has slipped on the ice, take in that family who lost their home. And of course it all works out far more subtly than this, hour by hour. God has begun a &ldquo;good work s.w. in us&rdquo; and will bring it to completion in the day of Christ&rsquo;s return (Phil. 1:6). And all things in the whole of creation are somehow orchestrated to that end. Thus at baptism we were created in Christ Jesus unto good works (Eph. 2:10). And He gives us &ldquo;all sufficiency to abound to every good work&rdquo; (2 Cor. 9:8), we are sanctified and prepared Gk. &lsquo;provided for&rsquo; to perform every good work God intends for us (2 Tim 2:21); fully equipped by God to do every good work in His purpose for us (2 Tim. 3:17). Each time in these verses, the Greek word for &ldquo;good&rdquo; is the same as in Rom. 8:28. All this puts paid once and for all to the idea that we can do no good work because we don&rsquo;t have the money, the life situation, the resources. We have every sufficiency to do those good works intended for us; but we must &ldquo;be ready to every good work&rdquo; (Tit. 3:1), prepared to grasp the moment, living in the spirit of&nbsp;<i>carpe diem</i>. And thus we shall be &lsquo;established&rsquo; in every good work we put our hands to (2 Thess. 2:17), none shall ultimately harm us if we follow after performing these good works (1 Pet. 3:13), we shall be made perfect or completed &ldquo;in every good work in the doing of His will&rdquo; (Heb. 13:21). All things work together for good especially when the &ldquo;good works&rdquo; are in the context of assisting others towards the Kingdom. Paul&rsquo;s concise summary of us in this verse as those who &ldquo;love God&rdquo; recalls 1 Jn. 4:20,21; 5:2- we only love God when we love others. The uncommon Greek word translated &lsquo;work together&rsquo; is to be found in the great preaching commission in Mk. 16:20, where it is observed that the Lord Jesus &lsquo;worked together with&rsquo; those who sought to preach the Gospel in all the world. This appears to be a comment upon the Lord&rsquo;s promise that in this work of preaching the Gospel, He would be with His preachers unto the end of the world (Mt. 28:20). Whilst this can be understood as the end of the age, it seems to me that the Lord is saying that in taking the Gospel to the whole world, He will be with them in it, right to the ends of the world- be it in witnessing to Amazonian Indians or to your unbelieving family in a run down apartment block in Moscow or London or New York. We are workers together with Him in the work of saving others (2 Cor. 6:1); yet all things in all creation are also working together to this end. By becoming part of that huge operating system, dynamized as it is by God&rsquo;s Spirit, we will experience God working with us. Somehow, resources become available; somehow we meet the right people.&nbsp; But all this happens if we are those who &ldquo;love God&rdquo;. If our love for Him and the furtherance of His glory in human lives is paramount, then we will naturally find ourselves part of this positive, triumphant system which always is lead in triumph in Christ. Paul uses the same Greek word translated &lsquo;work together&rsquo; in the practical section of Romans, where he three time speaks of his brethren as his &lsquo;workers together&rsquo;, or co-workers (Rom. 16:3,9,21). I suggest that Paul has in view here that he was co-working with those brethren as co-workers with God. The co-working he refers to doesn&rsquo;t simply mean that these brethren worked together with Paul. They were co-workers in the sense of being like Paul, co-workers- with God. All this isn&rsquo;t only encouragement to those faced with decision making on a large scale- e.g. a mission organization wondering if they have the resources to open a new front of work, or provide significant care to a needy group. More personally, it applies to each of us. We each have good works before ordained that we should walk in them, live a way of life which achieves them (Eph. 2:10). We need to ask the Lord to reveal what they are, to review our station and place within life&rsquo;s network and perceive them, remembering that &ldquo;the unexamined life isn&rsquo;t worth living&rdquo;, and seek to go for them. The idea is commonly expressed that for now, I shall work in my career, in my business, and then I shall have the resources to serve God as I vaguely imagine I could in some specific way. Manic capitalism has succeeded in commodifying everything, turning everything into a price tag. But the good works God has in mind for us aren&rsquo;t usually of that nature. Kindness, acceptance, comfort, forgiveness, interest in others&rsquo; needs and sufferings... these are the essence of being as Christ in this world. This is Christianity, Christ-ness, being like Christ. For He achieved all He did &ldquo;with a minimum of miracle&rdquo; as Robert Roberts put it, and with hardly any cash behind Him. And so all this working together towards ultimate &ldquo;good&rdquo; shall be possible and is possible, for those who in the core of their hearts truly &ldquo;love God&rdquo;. This is another allusion, surely, to Romans 7:15-24, where Paul is saying that in his heart he loves God, but is frustrated by his flesh. I have no doubt that most of you my readers are in this category- of loving God. The Jewish mind would&rsquo;ve been jogged by the reference to &lsquo;loving God&rsquo; to the classic definition of loving God- to love Him with our heart and mind (Mt. 22:37). And this is exactly what Paul is saying he does in Romans 7, delighting in God&rsquo;s law in his mind, despite serving sin in his flesh.</p><p>Here Paul starts to introduce the concept of calling, election according to God&rsquo;s purpose. He doesn&rsquo;t just start talking of Divine calling and predestination without a context. His whole message in Romans 1-8 is that we are saved by grace; and the fact there is some element of predestination and calling over and above our will and works is solid proof that salvation is by grace- and that we who know we have been called, in that we have heard the call of the Gospel which contains that call, really are those who have been chosen to live eternally. Again and again, the message Paul preaches here is too good news. We struggle to qualify what he is saying, to allow our works and obedience a greater factor in the final algorithm of Divine salvation. But time and again we return to the question- why do I know all this, why am I reading these words, hearing this call, when so many others have lived and died without it? Why is it that I &lsquo;get it&rsquo; about God, but my brother or my sister was never interested from babyhood? Why me, why her, why you, and not the guy next door? For all our philosophy, wise cracks and clever words, there is no abidingly satisfactory answer. It is of God&rsquo;s grace and not of ourselves. Paul specifically connects our calling with God&rsquo;s grace in 2 Tim. 1:9: &ldquo;Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace&rdquo;. Note how the ideas of calling, grace and God&rsquo;s purpose all run together here as they do in Rom. 8:28. The &ldquo;purpose of God&rdquo; is further defined in Rom. 9:11 as not depending upon human works. We were called because we were called, by grace, quite independent of what works we would or would not do. Eph. 1:11 says that we are &ldquo;predestinated according to the purpose of God&rdquo;. The whole idea of calling according to a predetermined Divine purpose means we are predestinated. We need not struggle over whether we have been called or not. The call, the invitation to the Kingdom, is in the Gospel. Any who hear it have been called. If I invite you to an event, you are invited, you are called to it. Lest there be any doubt, Paul began Romans by assuring us that we are called just as surely as he was (Rom. 1:1,6,7). He opens 1 Corinthians the same way- speaking of his calling and then using the same word to describe how his readers are likewise the called (1 Cor. 1:1,2,24). The calling of God is &ldquo;without repentance&rdquo; in the sense that we can never be disinvited, become &lsquo;uncalled&rsquo; (Rom. 11:29).&nbsp; And if we are called, then we are predestinated (Eph. 1:11). Whilst calling doesn&rsquo;t mean final acceptance with God- for we must make our calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1:10), to not be saved at the last day would require us to have wilfully fought against the predestined desire of God to save us, to have reasoned against destiny. Paul&rsquo;s great theme in Romans 1-8 is that we are &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo; by status through having believed into Him by baptism. This connects with this theme of calling according to the Divine purpose, because God &lsquo;purposed His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus our Lord&rsquo; (Eph. 3:11). If we are in Him, then we are in God&rsquo;s eternal purpose, we will continue eternally because God&rsquo;s purpose for us is eternal. We would have to wilfully reject that status if we are to somehow come out of that eternal purpose. Being &ldquo;in&rdquo; God&rsquo;s purpose means that His purpose, His will, His Spirit, is to become ours- hence Paul can use the same word to speak of his &ldquo;purpose&rdquo; in life (2 Tim. 3:10).</p><p>&ldquo;According to His purpose&rdquo; can be applied to the first clause of the verse, &ldquo;all things work together for good&rdquo; within the overall purpose of God to save us. It doesn&rsquo;t have to modify the idea of our calling. Joseph stands as a pattern for us all. When Paul wrote that all things work together for our good (Rom. 8:28), he was echoing how in all the grief of Joseph's life, the rejection by his brethren, the cruel twists of fate as they seemed at the time...&nbsp;<i>God meant it for good</i>&nbsp;(Gen. 50:20). This same wonderful process will come true in our lives- for they too are equally directed by a loving Father. God's whole purpose, according to Paul, is that we should become like His Son-and to this end all things are directed in God's plan for us (Rom. 8:28,29). To achieve the &quot;measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ&quot; is the 'perfection' or maturity towards which God works in our lives. As we read of Him day by day, slowly His words and ways will become ours. The men who lived with Jesus in the flesh are our pattern in this; for the wonder of the inspired record means that His realness comes through to us too. Time and again, their spoken and written words are reflective of His words, both consciously and unconsciously.</p>