What Did Paul Mean in Romans 8:29?
By Jonathan Mitchell
Let us begin with Paul's thoughts in the immediate context of this verse:
28. Now [look], we have seen, and thus know with complete perception, and we are aware, that to those habitually or progressively loving, accepting, and giving themselves to, God - to the folks being called and invited according to, and in congruence with, [the] Purpose (or: for, in, and with, those progressively experiencing participation in, unambiguous love for, and the urge toward union with, this Divine Nature - in, with, by, and for, the people being invited down from, and in line with, the pattern of an advanced Placing, congruent with a Design, and corresponding to a before-Placing and a prior Setting-forth)- He is constantly working all things together into good and is progressively co-energizing ALL HUMANITY together into that which is advantageous, worthy of admiration, noble and of excellent qualities, [with MS p46: Yet we know that God is continuously joining ALL together (or: working together with everything) into Goodness, by those continuously loving God...]
This must be the apex of all of his arguments: this statement of what Paul has seen, and thus knows. It is not just hearsay. He has received this revelation from the risen Christ, and he has seen it in all the patterns of the OT.
Dr. David Byrd, in an internet blog on this verse, commented: "How do we know this? We know this because a groaning Israel, with a promise of something akin to resurrection, received liberation from Egypt. God heard, God understood, and God acted."
Lawrence Garcia shares:"This is where Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 15 become understandable, that a resurrected humanity will not necessarily be occupying some vague heaven, but rather God's new world. 'Glory' is what Adam had (Ps. 8) as co-regent of creation. Our 'glorification' in the eighth chapter of Romans corresponds to the creation being set free from corruption in a cosmic exodus, notice the context is the oft quoted 'all things work together for good' (Rom. 8.28), again an echo of the creation pronouncements in Genesis when God called his work 'good.'
Though this passage can be used for our individual problems, we cannot forget the surrounding context, that being, God is going to set his 'world to rights' (N.T. Wright) and all things will work together for good. This makes total sense seeing Abraham is put forth in the fourth chapter as the inheritor of the world and us being co-heirs with Christ in chapter 8. Thus, we are incorporated into the Abrahamic world-wide blessing plan of God through the Messiah Jesus." (from a personal email)
Now what Paul and we have seen is expressed with the term those (the people; the folks) in the dative case, with no expressed preposition. I think that the bold rendering TO THOSE... TO the FOLKS is the most important. It is TO us - to our perception, to our way of thinking, to our understanding - God is working all into Good. He has opened our eyes to see His plans and purposes: to restore the entire universe, and to bring all humanity into the life of Christ, i.e., into Himself. To US, what He is doing (which was once a secret) is now revealed. His plan makes sense of all the chaos and ruin which characterize the world of the first Adam. His plan is LIFE from out of the Death. We saw His plan in the death and resurrection of the Author and Finisher of His faithfulness to God and to His own (humanity).
Our call and invitation - why we were picked out to be a part of the firstfruit of God's great harvest - was, and is, according to [the] purpose - His purpose:
"Within and in union with Whom we were (or: are) also chosen (or: appointed) by lot (or: were made an allotted portion; or: received an inheritance), being previously marked out (or: being before designated) in keeping with (or: down from; corresponding to; in accord with) a before-placed (or: predetermined-by-setting-forth) aim and design of the One continuously operating (effecting; energizing) all things (or: the whole) in accord with (or: down from; in line with; in correspondence to) the deliberated purpose (intent; design; plan; determined counsel) of His will (or: resultant decision of His resolve; effect of His desire)" Eph. 1:11.
"to the end that now (at this present time), in union with the highest heavens, God's greatly diversified (exceedingly varied in colors, as a tapestry that depicts a scene; or: = many-phased) wisdom could be made known - through the called-out community - to the governments (or: rulers; sovereignties; chief ones) as well as to the authorities and folks with privilege among those situated upon elevated positions, in accord with (or: down from; corresponding to) a purpose of the ages (a fore-designed aim, plan and object [which He is bent on achieving] of the unspecified time-periods) which He formed (forms; made; constructs; produced) within the Christ by our Lord, Jesus" Eph. 3:10-11.
The second rendering of Rom. 8:28 conflates the other functions of the dative case, as well as expressing other words of this clause differently and conflating their meanings:
"for, in, and with, the people progressively experiencing love for God - in, with, by, and for, the people being invited down from an advanced placing, congruent with a design and corresponding to a before-placing and a prior setting forth."
Notice some key phrases: an advanced placing; a design; a before-placing; a prior setting forth. This sounds a lot like the sovereignty of God in action upon humans. Not much about our choosing anything here. He has a plan for every human - we all fit somewhere in His giant puzzle.
But wait, there is more:
"He is constantly working all things together into good and is progressively working all humanity together into that which is advantageous, worthy of admiration, noble and of excellent qualities."
The word all is both masculine and neuter, so both implications should be expressed: not just all things but also all humanity (this is what the masculine implies - and the word all is primarily used in reference to people, in the NT). I could not help but conflate the other meanings of the word good: that which is advantageous, worthy of admiration, noble and of excellent qualities. This is what He is transforming humanity to be.
Following other MSS, I have one more translation on offer:
29. because those whom He foreknew (whom He knows from previous intimate experience; [cf Acts 2:23a]), He also (or: then) marked out beforehand (determined, defined and designed in advance) people conformed to, [i.e.] copies of (joint-forms with; having the same form of), the image (material, derived likeness; portrait; form) of His Son (or: He previously divided, separated and bounded conformed-patterns from the image and form of His Son) into the [situation for] Him to be (or: to continually exist being) the Firstborn among, within the center and sphere of, and in union with, many brothers (= a vast family from the same Womb; [cf Rom.8:21; Gal. 4:26; 1 Pet. 1:1-2, 20])!
And this is why vs. 28 is true, since vs. 29 continues: "because..." This is now saying something about His firstfruits: those. Jacob/James spoke of this in his letter,
"Being purposed (intended; willed), from pregnancy He brought us forth by a Word (collected thought; message) of Truth and Reality - [placed] into us - to be (or: to continuously exist being) a specific firstfruit of His created beings (or: of the effects of His act of creating; or: from the results of the creation which is Himself)" - Jas. 1:18
But let us import Paul's words from Rom. 11:16,
"Now since (or: But if) the Firstfruit [is] holy (set-apart and consecrated; sacred), the kneaded mixture (the result of the lump which is mingled and reduced to a uniform consistency by treading, kneading or beating) also [is]; and since (or: if) the Root [is] holy (set-apart, sacred, different from the norm), so also [are] the branches (the shoots; the boughs)."
The Firstfruit is the Messiah plus His many-membered body. The Root is rooted in the OT. The branches of a tree or a vine are the place of harvest. The Christ (with His body as a part of Him) fulfilled the type and pattern in Israel's ceremony of the "waving of the Sheaf" (Lev. 23: 11, 12, 15). This sheaf represented the whole harvest (all mankind). It was "a sheaf of the firstfruits" (Lev. 23:10). We have in all of these examples the principle of the One representing the Many (as in Rom. 5:12-21).
But let us return to the first portion of the verse to unpack more goodies:
"whom He foreknew (whom He knows from previous intimate experience), He also marked out beforehand (determined, defined and designed in advance) [as] copies (joint-forms) of the image (material likeness; portrait; mirrored image) of His Son (or: He previously divided, separated and bounded conformed patterns from the image of His Son)."
The word foreknew is pro-ginosko. From the prefix pro- we get the fore- and the "previous." The verb means "to know by intimate or personal experience." From this word some folks see human pre-existence, since this can be implied from the phrase "whom He knows from previous intimate experience." However, we could also see this foreknowledge of our person in the situation described in Isa. 44:2 & 24,
"Thus says Yahweh, your Maker and Former from the belly...."
Or, as in the case with Jesus choosing His disciples, His Father knew them over the period of their growing years, as well as when they were in the womb.
"When Israel was a youth [Yahweh] loved him (and after knowing Israel for 400 years, during their stay in Egypt) [He] called [His] son out of Egypt" (Hos. 11:1).
The point is: God knows whom He chooses to be His instruments for His work (even Pharaoh and Cyrus).
So these He also marked out beforehand - or, determined, defined and designed in advance. Sure looks like an operation of His sovereignty, doesn't it! Paul uses the participle form of this same verb in Eph. 1:5a,
"In love [He was] marking us out beforehand (or: definitively appointing us in advance; before-setting our boundaries and defining us, with a designation) [and directing us] into a placing in the condition of a son (or: a deposit of the Son; a setting in place which is the Son; the constituting as a son; a placing in the Son)."
And these folks were marked out [as], or to be, copies (literally: joint-forms) of the image of His Son. This is a refinement of God's original purpose,
"Let us make humanity in our image."
These are chosen to be the material likeness, a portrait, the mirrored image of the Son.
Reading image (vs. 29, above) as an ablative instead of a genitive (both functions have the same spelling), this last clause can read,
"He previously divided, separated and bounded conformed patterns from the image of His Son."
The purpose of this is to create a body of Anointed brothers of Christ to bear His image to all the world and in every succeeding generation. And so we hear Paul giving this purpose in the words,
"into the [situation for] Him to be (or: to continually exist being) the Firstborn among, within the center of, and in union with many brothers (= a vast family of believers)!"
And here C.H. Dodd makes an insightful comment, "[I]t is enough to know that Christ is to be the firstborn of a great brotherhood - a brotherhood which, as we are to be told later, will ultimately include all mankind (Rom. 11:32)" - The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel p 142.
Once again David Byrd anchors Paul's ideas within the historical context of the story of Israel, and considering the subject of the upcoming chapters of 9-11, I think that he is right on target:
"Again, if we trace the context of the passage, its connection to the exodus of Israel, and its placement within the whole of the letter that seems to have to do primarily with the family of God and its representation of the kingdom of God, in and for the world, we realize that thoughts about predestination, in the sense of determining "who's in and who's out," are simply not on the field. Once we put that out of the way, what we see - and this seems to be far more appropriate - is that the passage is about the covenant faithfulness of the Creator God, that faithfulness that is recorded in the narrative of Israel that runs back to the story of Adam, and the impetus for the unified covenant family that is composed of all peoples to take up its role. The passage is about what God is going to do for His creation, how He has been doing it, how He is going to do it, and about the people of the covenant getting on board with and participating in that plan" (ibid).
(or: makes and sets right, frees from guilt and liberates from bondage, while making them fair and placing them in rectified covenant relationships in the Way pointed out). Now further, those whom He rightwised (or: liberates and turns in the right direction), these He also instantly glorified (or: filled with imagination; or: = filled with the Glory of the Lord; [cf Ex. 40:34-35])
(or: makes of reputation which calls forth praise; gives a splendid, assumed-appearance; gives honorable thoughts and opinions; clothes with splendor). [cf Ex. 16:7-10; 24:16]
Here Paul continues to give more information about this firstfruit body of believers (those in the earth, in each generation, who represent all of humanity - the ultimate harvest). We become the Jerusalem who is above (Gal. 4:26), the ongoing community that continues giving birth to babies in the kingdom. So these, whom He has raised up into the heavens in Christ, He also at once called, who are also the ones that He also in one stroke (conveying the punctiliar action of the aorist tense of these verbs) rightwised by the eschatological deliverance (etc.) through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In the two uses of the verb rightwised (dikaioo) I present the wide scope of the meaning of this verb which Paul uses here to express the wide scope of God's deliverance in setting humanity free and the liberating action which Christ performed for all that were in Adam.
Ben Witherington III rightly see that,"If vss. 29-30 stood alone, then Paul would indeed sound like the most deterministic of early Jews, such as we sometimes find in some of the early Jewish literature at Qumran and elsewhere" (Conflict & Community in Corinth p 231).
With the above verses from Paul in mind, together with the various comments, we will turn to some thoughts on the doctrine of Predestination, on offer from Friedrich Schleiermacher, in The Christian Faith (the apocryphile press 2011).
Speaking of regenerate persons,"From the very beginning of our progress in sanctification, it is one with our feeling of absolute dependence [a central theme in this book], and is bound up with that feeling not only in so far as we are conscious of our activity in the Kingdom of God as an activity divinely produced by means of Christ's mission, but also in so far as the course of each man's progress is one with the position assigned him in the general context of human relationships.
The natural expression for this fact is to say that the ordinance according to which redemption realizes itself in each life is one and the same thing with the carrying out of the divine government of the world in respect of that person.... The self-consciousness that thus expresses itself is, however, not a personal and merely individual consciousness, but the common feeling of all who find themselves within the circle of Christ's influence.... it follows that the individual's being drawn... is simply the result of the fact that the justifying divine activity is in manifestation determined by, and forms part of, the general government of the world.... nothing happens in the kingdom of grace without divine fore-ordination" (ibid pp 546-7; brackets added).
Regarding what we observe in regard to the rest of humanity, as contrasted to regenerate persons, he states,"For naturally at any particular moment, the majority are being held in reserve for some later moment; this is in accordance with the order of the divine decree, since in every process of development in time there is necessarily a successiveness even of what is originally simultaneous. Only in this limited sense, therefore - that is, only at each point where we can make a comparison between those laid hold of by sanctification and those not yet laid hold of - ought we to say that God omits or passes over some, and that He rejects those He passes over.... On this account we can never cease to regard them as objects of the same divine activity that gathered the Church together, and as embraced along with us all under the same divine fore-ordination.... it follows that no divine fore-ordination can be admitted as a result of which the individual would be lost to fellowship with Christ. Thus we may reasonably persist in holding this single divine fore-ordination to blessedness, by which the origin of the Church is ordered" (ibid p 548).
"If, however, we proceed on the definite assumption that all belonging to the human race are eventually taken up into living fellowship with Christ, there is nothing for it but this single divine fore-ordination. We infer from it that [if] for such a one this fore-ordination has not been fulfilled during his lifetime... the state in which he dies is only an intermediate state. Such is the faith in Christ which ascribes to Him a claim and power over the whole human race... and in which there is encountered no contradiction between the end in view, in the divine plan of salvation, and the result accomplished by the divine government of the world" (ibid p 549; brackets added).
"All that our assumption adds to it is this, that the totality of the new creation is equal to the general mass... the general mass eventually becomes equal to the totality of the new creation" (ibid p 550).
So now we return to the theme of this study:
Repeating Schleiermacher (p 549), "there is nothing... but this single divine fore-ordination," or, in the above verse, a "foreknowing," and a being "marked out beforehand": "each person within the result of his or her own set division, or position [in line](or: effect of ordered placement; appointed class; proper rank; arranged time, or order, in the procession; or: = place in a harvest calendar, the season of maturity)" (1 Cor. 15:23).
Jonathan
Return To Jonathan Mitchell's Page