“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some verses in the Bible that just lend themselves to bumper stickers and cheap, Christian-themed wall art from places like Hobby Lobby. The promise they seem to make or the encouragement they seem to offer is so good that even the least cynical person almost can’t help but wonder if it’s too good to be true. Regular skeptics immediately start thinking of all the obvious exceptions and counterexamples to show why it’s not, and therefore why none of the Bible can be trusted. This is one of those verses. Let’s talk about what Paul is saying here, what exactly he means by it, and why it’s such good news.

Let’s start with what this doesn’t mean, and then we’ll break it down. Paul does not mean here to say that everything is good. This does not mean that everything that happens to us is good. Evil is a thing, and sometimes we encounter it. Well, I should be more precise. Evil is not a thing. It is the absence of a thing. It is the absence of good. Either way, sometimes we encounter things, situations, and even people that are not good.

To pretend otherwise is silly. It’s disingenuous. It’s dishonest. Paul tends to be pretty clear-eyed in his writings. He doesn’t hold back from the truth. Saying that somehow all things are good would be dishonest. Thus, Paul doesn’t say that. Exactly what Paul does say is a matter of some debate, although the major options get us to the same place. What Paul is expressing here is confidence in the sovereignty and the goodness of God.

He says that we know this. Do we? Well, knowledge is defined as justified, true belief. Okay, are we justified in believing what follows? A quick survey of Biblical history plus history sense plus a willingness to accept the teachings of Jesus as true (which we do because He rose from the dead – everything eventually comes back to the resurrection) give ample justification for this belief.

But is it true? There are a couple of lines that point us in the direction of concluding in favor of the truthfulness of what Paul says here. The first is Scripture itself. If we take what God has revealed in the Scriptures as true (and there’s good reason to do that, although a full exploration of those reasons is beyond the scope of today’s post), then the truthfulness of Paul’s claim is obvious.

The second line isn’t as strong as the scriptural support, but it is compelling nonetheless. Over the last several years there has been a growing body of research into near death experiences (NDEs). This research comes from countless interviews with people who were medically dead and subsequently came back to life. While the stories they tell are by no means all the same, there are several powerful and consistent themes. Most of them report being in a heavenly place that is beautiful and peaceful and in which everything is restored. They report seeing past loved ones who are now whole and well and sometimes younger looking than they were when they died by several years. Many report encounters with Jesus Himself. It is a place that powerfully gives the sense that all things have indeed been worked together for good for those who are committed to following Jesus.

So, yes, it is perfectly right and acceptable to say we know this. And what do we know? That all things work together for the good of those who love God. A couple of translations phrase it like this: In all things God works for the good of those who love Him. In one version what is clearly implied is made explicit in the other. The point is that for those who love God, He works all things or works in all things (the Greek can be translated either way) such that the final outcome is good no matter where they start or where they wind along the way to that end.

Again, this doesn’t mean that all things are good. This doesn’t mean that the path to the good toward which God is aiming is going to be smooth and easy. Paul isn’t saying that here and nowhere in the Scriptures are we given even an inkling of an idea that this is the case. The path to the good end God has planned for those who are His is often excruciatingly difficult. That word, excruciatingly, literally means “out of the cross.” It’s a reminder of the pain and suffering Jesus went through to achieve for us God’s ultimately good end of eternal salvation for all those willing to place their faith in Him.

So, no, all things are not themselves easy or good. But we serve a God who can bring good from out of any starting materials. Because He is essentially good by nature and is thus the source of all goodness, when God shows up, goodness is going to be the result no matter what the situation looks like in its current state. Let’s go back again to the cross. When Jesus died, the devil thought he had achieved the ultimate victory. But that apparent defeat of the Son of God – the ultimate evil – was transformed into the ultimate good when Jesus came walking back out of His tomb on the third day.

Our God is big enough and powerful enough and smart enough that He can accomplish His good plans no matter what our circumstances happen to be. It doesn’t matter how bad they seem. It doesn’t matter how hopeless they seem. It doesn’t matter whether or not we can see any way out of or around them. Nothing. God is sovereign. His will will happen. And His will is good.

As good as that sounds, though, there’s a catch here. God’s good plans are only good for those who are willing to receive them. If I plan a really awesome party, invite you to the party, but you don’t come to the party, you don’t gain any of the benefits of being at the party. This is what Paul is getting at when he says that all things work together for the good of those who love God.

Wait, so does that mean we have to have some kind of warm and fuzzy feeling toward God in order to benefit from His good plans? Nope. When we see the word love used in the Scriptures we should never think about it in the kind of emotional terms that are the most common today when people are talking about love. Love in the Scriptures is always volitional. It is a decision to choose someone, to be committed to that person, over and above our commitment to anyone or anything else. It is consciously putting that person in the place of absolute priority in our lives.

The good God plans to accomplish in and through and for us is only something we are going to experience if we choose Him and His path through life. If we choose a different path that wanders off in another direction, leading us away from the party God has planned, we won’t gain any of the benefits of being at the party. God doesn’t force Himself on us. If someone doesn’t want Him, He’ll let them choose that. It’s not a good choice, and He does everything He can without violating their ability to make meaningful and consequential choices to convince them otherwise, but it is a choice someone can make.

And before you go thinking, it isn’t at all unfair or unjust of God to limit the benefits of His good plans to those who choose Him. What would be unjust would be for Him to force people who have rejected Him to nonetheless be stuck with Him and His plans. Yes, the outcome of rejecting Him isn’t good, but it’s not like He hasn’t made that clear. He’s the creator of everything. He is sovereign over all of His creation. No one is somehow autonomous, operating entirely independently of Him. In His grace and humility, though, He gives the creatures He made, the ones who bear His very image, the ability to choose whether or not they want to be with Him. And then He honors that choice. Our ability to truly love Him demands as much. If someone decides not to love Him, they can do that. He’ll let them. What an amazing God we serve!

He is worthy of glory for allowing people to not choose Him in spite of all His efforts to convince them otherwise. He is worthy of glory for delivering those who choose to embrace evil in their rejection of Him to the punishment they deserve and indeed which they have freely chosen. And He is worthy of glory for inviting those who have chosen Him into the full measure of His goodness, demonstrating once and for all His ability to work all things together for the good of those who love God.

What about this last part of the verse, this being “called according to his purpose.” That’s just another identifier of this group of people who love Him. They have chosen Him freely and of their own volition, and they have chosen Him because they have been called according to His purposes. God’s sovereignty is without exception, and we freely choose to follow Him faithfully. It’s a biblical both-and that has tormented scholars and interpreters for centuries. And yet the various contributors to the Scriptures consistently hold both positions in this uncomfortable tension without offering any kind of a neat resolution. So, we won’t try to construct one here.

The bottom line is this: If you are following Jesus, God’s good plans are for you. Whatever things look like now, they will be brought around to good and glorifying of God in the end. In the end, all things will be glorifying of God. We can either be a part of the group celebrating that or hating it, but they’ll all glorify Him all the same. Praise the Lord that He is a God of such faithful sovereignty!