Read: Romans 8:28-30 - STEP Bible, Bible Gateway
St Paul teaches us that the whole cosmos is affected by human brokenness, by human sin. Why? Because the whole cosmos was intended to work in concert, to work together, for the glory of God and of his children. And hence when the glory of the children of God is damaged by sin and brokenness, so too the cosmos is damaged.
But the very fact that the whole cosmos was designed for the purposes of bringing glory to God and to his adopted children in the first place, suggests that there is a deep, underlying plan of God that has been orchestrating things since the very beginning. And the very fact that God orchestrated anything – rather than just leaving the universe to get on with its process of decay and entropy since sin came into it – implies that God has always has also always been orchestrating us. It implies that, since time immemorial, God has been shaping, forming, and growing his family of adopted children in order that it should include you and me. It implies that God was always going to make it happen that you and I would place our faith and trust in him, and come to be adopted as his children.
Theologians have tied themselves in all sorts of knots over what Paul means by ‘predestination’, and what it means for the mechanics of salvation. But what Paul means here is nothing less and nothing more than this: that God has always, since for ever, chosen you and me to be his children, and he has set about making it happen.
That means that our inheritance as joint heirs with Christ need never be in doubt. If God has been orchestrating his family since the very beginning with the express intention that it includes us, he is hardly going to abandon us now, or at any point in the future! So when we are suffering, when the sorrows of life crowd around us, let us rejoice in this: God has chosen us since the very beginning, and he will never, ever let us go.
These devotions were originally written for the parish of All Saints, Ascot and we are grateful for permission to republish them on Fulcrum.
Patrick is curate of All Saints’, Ascot in Berkshire. A musicologist by training, he is married to Lydia, a university lecturer, and dad to Madeleine. He writes (sporadically) at benedixisti.wordpress.com and tweets (even more sporadically) as @patrickgilday.