190407 The Golden Chain

Romans 8:27-30  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. ²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ 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. ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

This passage of Scripture is filled with great good news. It begins with the idea that even when we do not know how to pray we have an intercessor. When a person is born again they are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. The resident Holy Spirit intercedes for us. At the same time as Paul told Timothy, “there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Timothy 2:5) Jesus said he would never leave us nor forsake us. As a consequence, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us as does our mediator the Lord Jesus Christ! But there is more! Our text contains what has been called the “Golden Chain” that cannot be broken. Let’s look at the links in that chain.

The truths contained in today’s message should be a great comfort to God’s people.

God has always acted for the good of his people. Looking back through history we can see God’s hand at work.

Marty Stewart wrote a beautiful song that goes like this:

There is an unseen hand to me that leads through ways, I cannot see.
While going through, this world of woe this hand still leads, me as I go.
I'm trusting to, the unseen hand that guides me through, this weary land.
And some sweet day, I'll reach that strand Still guided by, the unseen hand.

I long to see, my Savior's face and sing the story, of his grace.
And there upon, that golden strand I'll praise him for, his guiding hand.
I'm trusting to, the unseen hand that guides me through, this weary land.
And some sweet day, I'll reach that strand Still guided by, the unseen hand.
 The word of God tells us that we should be absolutely clear — God knows everything that will happen before it happens.

Foreknew. Let’s look at Isaiah 46:9-10. remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, ¹⁰ declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

Here, our Father God is affirming the fact that he is aware of everything that happens. He not only knows who will be saved he has already inscribed their names in the Lamb’s Book of Life. God does not save a person because he is looked at the person’s life and knows he will be saved. Whether a person will be saved or not is not based on the fact that God knows they will believe! God, looking into the future, thought of certain people in saving relationship to him, and in that sense, he “knew them”. This is a personal knowledge of the heart of each individual. We are not saved by any action of ours. We are saved by God’s sovereign purpose only.

Those God foreknew he also…

Predestined. Let’s look at Ephesians 1:11-12. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹² so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

We obtain salvation because we have been predestined according to his purpose.

During Jesus’ time on earth from the time of his birth to his ascension into heaven, the Father thought of us as going through everything that Jesus went through. Jesus is our representative taking our place and paying the price for our sin. When Jesus perfectly obeyed the Father God credited that obedience to us.

Jesus, who had no sin of his own, took our sin, nailed it to the cross, took it in the grave and left it there! God did this not because of our goodness but because of his loving grace. Once we come into the world our union with Christ becomes real. This is great good news! The Bible tells us that we have died and been raised with Jesus! As a result, we have new life in Jesus. We are, therefore, joined to all other believers as one body in Jesus.

We have died to our old way of living and been born again into a new life. As a consequence of God’s foreknowledge and predestination of us we are…

Called. Let’s look at the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus did not say we will find rest because we are worthy of rest. We are to come to him with all our struggles and enter into his work for us. How do we come to the place where we can put our burdens on him? The calling presented here is an act of God the Father in which he summons people to himself. That summons comes through human agents such as a preacher or missionary and results in saving faith.

Charles Spurgeon asked that rhetorical question one evening while listening to a sermon. In his own words: “The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment—I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, "I ascribe my change wholly to God."

We might not go through the same process that Pastor Spurgeon did but I believe everyone who is born again arrives by circumstances beyond our control.

Those who have come to love God should anticipate God’s working good into everything. All of us are like the thief on the cross! We are told nothing about him except that he was a criminal! He knew something about Jesus because he knew enough to ask for help. That man had gone through a similar treatment as Jesus. He had been beaten and required to carry his own cross to the place of execution. He was nailed to that cross and it was raised up to expose him to the rude crowds while experiencing excruciating pain. He also had to put up with the rebuke of his fellow criminal towards Jesus. After asking the man on the third cross if he feared God he turned to Jesus and said, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “today you will be with me in paradise.” He brought nothing to the table except his total unworthiness. We bring nothing either.

There, but for the grace of God, go I!

Everyone God has predestined to be conformed to the image of his son will take on the appearance of the Father.

God called those he had predestined to salvation and he justified them. This word is not used very often today in the biblical sense.

Justified. Let’s look at Romans 3:23-25. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

We cannot earn our salvation because we cannot justify ourselves. We have all sinned. We have all come short of the standard that God has set us. Only by the grace of God can we be redeemed!

Justification is a legal declaration by God. God declares the ungodly to be righteous in his sight.

This is not a result of their righteousness but in their faith. Justification means to declare someone not guilty. In God’s legal declaration of justification, he declares that we are just in his sight. It means that he declares we have no penalty to pay for sin because the penalty is already paid. The second aspect of justification not only says that we are not guilty but goes on to say that we are righteous. We are not righteous in our own strength we are righteous in his. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that, in order to achieve our justification, God made Jesus the Christ to be sin. He had no sin of his own so he could bear our sin. God could then impute his righteousness to us. David, in the 32^nd Psalm, pronounced those whose sins are covered as blessed. We have now dealt with the “easy” words in this passage. Now we come to, in my opinion, the more difficult subject — glorification!

Glorified. Let’s look at Romans 8:16-17. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

The accepted definition of glorification is: “Glorification is the final step in the application of redemption. It will happen when Christ returns and raises from the dead the bodies of all believers for all time who have died, and reunites them with their souls, and changes the bodies of all believers who remain alive, thereby giving all believers at the same time perfect resurrection bodies like his own.” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p 828.)

I do not question the theologians who compiled this statement. I do want to approach the subject of our resurrection body and when it occurs. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 20 proclaims that God powerfully worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heaven. That is glorification as I understand it! Then in chapter 2 verse six that same power is applied to us. We are raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Let’s go back to our original “Golden Chain”. The links are: “foreknew”, “predestined”, “called”, “justified” and “glorified”. Every one of these words is aorist, active, indicative, third person, singular in Greek. That’s a fairly complicated grammar for non-scholars. It is past tense in English. So, if glorified is past tense it has already happened! Each of the links in the chain is past tense — already happened! Paul’s statement to the Ephesians chapter 2 verse six puts us in the heavenly places! Already a done deal!

You don’t “feel” like it? Using Bill Gillam’s terms, “Rain on your feelings”! God does not live in the same kind of time dimension as we do. In God’s mind if we are born again — that, of course, happened in the past. We are also now seated in the heavenlies. We were with Christ in the punishment of sin on the cross. We were buried with him. And we were raised up with him. Therefore we are glorified with him! Jesus, in his high priestly prayer, John 17, asked the Father to glorify him with the glory that he had with Jesus before the world existed. Then he said, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,” it seems to me that the doctrine of glorification must include past, present, and future. We were glorified (with Jesus), we are being glorified, and we will be glorified! The chain cannot be broken because God sees it as already done!

This “Golden Chain” promised in the word of God is completely the work of God. There is nothing that we do to make this happen! Our responsibility is to respond to God’s direction. Each of these verbs is past tense. We do not “feel” these things and then they happen. These things happen to us in the mind of God and by his power and then, if He wills, we may have feelings related to it. It is a great and wonderful thing to know that God knows us in a very intimate way, that he destined us to be his children before he created the universe. That, in his time, he called us and we responded because it was his call. Having received the call He justified us and confidently he has glorified us.

All scriptures quotes are from: The Holy Bible: English standard version. 2001. Wheaton, Ill, Standard Bible Society.