The Purpose of Salvation
Romans 8:29
We find ourselves in the section of Romans 8 that is very familiar, Romans 8:28 to 30 where it says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose, for whom He foreknew He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren, and whom He predestined, these He also called and whom He called these He also justified, these He also glorified."
Now this is a very familiar and a very important portion of Scripture that we have already been discussing. In fact, we've pretty well made our way through verse 28 and find ourselves at verses 29 and 30. Let me back up and just introduce it a little bit.
Many people wonder and debate about this issue of whether you can lose your salvation. It's a sad thing to realize but it is an issue incessantly under debate even today, and it has been for centuries in the church.
It has been an issue which has split the whole of Christendom into two camps. On one side there's the belief that salvation is eternal and you can't lose your salvation, on the other side there's belief that salvation is not necessarily eternal but can be forfeited by sin.
This is an unnecessary debate, I believe, because the Word of God is so abundantly clear on the matter of the believer's security. In fact, these three verses present the clearest and most powerful statement of security in all of Scripture.
They guarantee without exception that all those who are genuinely saved will enter into final glory. And verse 28 starts out clarifying this guarantee by saying, "We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the true lovers of God, who have come to Christ in faith."
God causes all things, that is good things and bad things and neutral things, all things no matter what they are, we went through the whole long list of those things...He causes all things to work together for good. That is the pledge of verse 28.
The question then comes...why is God doing that? And the answer comes at the end of verse 28, "Because we have been called according to His purpose." That's clearly the key phrase. God's purpose is fulfilled by keeping us all the way to glory. God's purpose is fulfilled only when we are brought to ultimate good which is our eternal glory.
We are forever secured because God purposed it that way. Look at verse 26, "The Spirit is interceding for us with groanings for glory that are too deep for words." They're some kind of inter-Trinitarian communion.
Go down to verse 34, "The Son is at the right hand of God interceding for us to make sure we get to glory."
So, the purpose of God is our eternal glory. The intention of the intercession of Christ is our eternal glory. The intention of the intercession of the Spirit is our eternal glory. And all of that is working together for the purpose of God. And the Son and the Spirit are assuring the fulfillment of the divine purpose.
Now the divine purpose then is unfolded in verses 29 and 30.
In fact, you could say verses 29 and 30 modify the final phrase of verse 28, "Called according to His purpose which is that whom He foreknew He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn of many brethren, whom He predestined He called, whom He called He justified, whom He justified He glorified." That's the plan. That's the purpose of God, that's the will of God.
Those two verses then define for us God's eternal purpose in salvation.
So the general truth of this text is this: God causes all to work together for our eternal good. Why? Because that is His purpose.
We can also agree that if God causes something, it's going to happen. And to underscore that, we have verse 31, "If God is for us, who in the universe can possibly be against us successfully?" No one, since God is superior. So we are secure eternally in the purpose of God. It is the purpose of God to save us eternally.
The purpose of God is to bring us to glory. You cannot escape that, it is everywhere in the New Testament teaching about salvation.
The reason we are confident in our eternal salvation is because that is the plan.
That is all wrapped up in that little statement: “called according to His purpose," That is the phrase that unlocks everything.
And then for clarification, he adds verse 29, "For whom He foreknew He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son."
Think about that word, predestined. We’ll spend more time here next week, but for now just get this in your head:
Pre means before.
Destined or destiny means something that is yet to happen; a destination.
So in a simple way, to be “predestined” means we have a predetermined ending.
Now follow His thinking: Predestination doesn’t have so much to do with the beginning of your salvation as it does the end of it which is to be conformed to the image of His Son.
God has predetermined that every person that responds to His call in faith, will one day finally arrive in glory, and when we get there, we'll be like Jesus Christ. It is predetermined; it cannot fail; it will not fail; as a part of that group that loves God and are the called according to His purpose, I will be conformed to the image of His Son.
Now as we look at these two verses, I want us to see just two points, and we'll look a little bit into this today, and then we'll finish up next time. I don’t want to overload us.
Today I want us to see the purpose of salvation and then next week we’ll look at the progress of it. The purpose of salvation and the progress of salvation.
There is a clear statement of the purpose of salvation here in verse 29, "He predestined us to become conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn of many brethren."
I know it will come as a shock to many of you, but the purpose of salvation was not primarily for you.
The purpose of salvation was not primarily to deliver you from hell and take you to heaven so you could just sit on a cloud and pluck a harp and live in some mansion and be free from sin and walk on streets of gold and have a great old time forever. That’s all true, but it is a sort of secondary corollary benefit.
Instead, the purpose of your salvation was so that you could be conformed to the image of His Son.
Well what does that mean? Well God's plan in salvation was to make the saved like the Son. To make the saved like Christ.
Therefore, forgiveness of sin, (that's a wonderful benefit), removal of guilt, the granting of peace and joy and love and all of that, all of those are a part of the reality of salvation, but the goal is to make you like Jesus Christ.
And salvation cannot stop short of that and still be the salvation God planned. Understand? It cannot just end with calling. God doesn’t just call and then hope it works our OK.
Your salvation cannot end with justification. It can’t even end with sanctification.
The plan of God, the purpose of God, the salvation of God, because it is the purpose of His will, is that we be brought all the way to glory, and then this great phrase, "Conformed to the image of His Son." For salvation to be complete, it must eventually arrive there, or it is not salvation as God defines it. It must end in glorification.
We have been saved in hope, it says back in verses 17, 19 and 21. And the hope in which we've been saved is that some day we'll be like Christ.
Now let's look at that phrase. "To be conformed..."
It literally means to bring to the same form with. Is that not unimaginable? I mean look around!! Look in the mirror!! It is really possible that we can be brought to the same form as Jesus?
And yet that is God's plan. You say, "How in the world is He going to do that?"
Well I don’t know, but I will tell you this: If He can take nothing and create the whole universe, then He can probably handle giving me a form like unto the glorious body of Jesus Christ.
You say, "What does that mean? We're all going to look like Him and be 33 years old and have shoulder-length hair and a beard?" Well some of you ladies wouldn't really be too attractive under such conditions; for others, it might be an improvement!
But that’s not what He’s talking about.
It's talking about your holiness, your blamelessness, your righteousness, your spiritual perfection. I don't know all that it means except to say you will have a body like His glorious body and the only thing we know about His glorious body is what we see in His post-resurrection appearances.
He was visible. He was touchable. He could speak, He could eat. He could transport Himself supernaturally. He could live in time and space and out of it. He was perfect and sinless and visible to those He chose to reveal Himself.
And we're going to be brought into the same form as the resurrection body of Jesus Christ in whatever way glorified humanity can be like incarnate deity we'll be like Christ. And it's a spiritual reality. There will be a glorified body.
Look at the word there "conformed to the image." This is interesting. Image is the word from which we get our word “icon”.
You know what an icon is? It's a statue or a replica or a representative.
The word is used in four other verses with a similar reference to Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15 and Colossians 3:10, and it refers to a purposefully derived likeness, not an accidental one.
When you go about to produce an icon, to produce a replica of somebody else, it's not accidental. A statue is a replica and that's exactly what the word conveys. We're going to be in the image of Jesus Christ and that somehow God is going to shape us into a replica of Jesus Christ. We will not be Jesus Christ, as the son is not his father, but we will bear the image of Jesus Christ as in some ways a son is a replica of his father.
When God made man, He made him in His image and in His likeness according to Genesis 1:26. But that original image was defaced and marred by sin so that that original body had to be discarded in the grave.
But there is coming a time in eternal glory when the intention of God that man would be made in His own image will again be restored. He became one of us, that we might be conformed to Him.
This is an incredible thing. First John 3 is the familiar promise: Verse 1, "See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us." How great is God's love for us? This great, "That we should be called children of God. For this reason the world doesn't know us because it didn't know Him." Beloved, I love this, verse 2, "Now we are children of God." It is true, we are now children of God. "But it has not yet appeared as yet what we shall be." This isn't the final image. "We know that when He appears we shall be...what?...like Him." Wow!
The whole plan of salvation is to make us like Him...inwardly and outwardly. In our redeemed and righteous and holy spirit, and our glorious, perfect, supernatural, resurrection body we're going to be like Christ.
That is what God had in mind before the foundation of the world. That's what God had in mind when He saved us and that is exactly what is going to happen.
But why does He want this? There's a reason and a motive behind that.
Back to verse 29, "That He might be the firstborn among many brethren."
Why does He want to make us like Christ? So that there will be many brethren among whom Christ will be the firstborn. God, the Father is so thrilled with Jesus, He wants to reproduce Him over and over and over again.
Now “firstborn” is not a chronological reference. This doesn’t mean the first one in order, but the rather it means “the premiere one”. The firstborn was always the most notable child, the one who inherited everything, the one who had the rights and privileges and honors, it's the position of pre-eminence.
You see, God had a plan and the plan was that there would gather around Christ a redeemed humanity made in His image who would view Him as preeminent and thus forever and ever and ever they would praise and honor and glorify His name...and that's why we were saved.
Why do we need to be like Him? Because that allows us not only to praise and honor His name by what we ascribe to Him, but to reflect that through our likeness to Him.
It’s just another way to point to the matchless perfection and glory and magnificence of Jesus!
You see, the ultimate end of salvation is the glory of the Son. And the glory of the Son calls for His pre-eminence among the whole redeemed humanity who will see that pre-eminence and forever and ever and ever glorify Him.
The ultimate objective in conforming us to His image is that He may be the most glorious among many who are glorious.
God wanted holy glorified beings that forever and ever and ever would recognize the majesty and the wonder and the preeminence of His Son.
It's just a tremendous concept. He is the pre-eminent one among many brethren. Hebrews 2 says He's not ashamed to call us brother...isn't that marvelous? We will have an intimate relationship with Him, but He will be the chief one.
He will receive all the praise and all the honor and all the glory. The only glory we will have is that derived from Him. The only righteousness we will have is that granted from Him. The only beauty and magnificence in our bearing will be because we have His image.
That's why Paul would say to the Galatians, "I'm not satisfied until Christ is fully formed in you." David said, like this, "I will only be content or satisfied when I awake in Your likeness."
The central point in the history of redemption is the glory of the Son on display for all eternity before the redeemed saints and angels. He is eternally to be glorified, eternally to be exalted. He stands over and above the multitude of the redeemed as their King, Priest, Prophet and Savior.
And, beloved, that's why even here in this life before we get there, the object of our life is to glorify Christ. That's why worship is such a priority for us. That's why we're not spending our time when we come together with foolish things.
That's why we're not dealing with trivial things, fussing around with entertainment and man-centered things.
We have been redeemed, we have been ordained from before the foundation of the world to the end that we would give the pre-eminence to Christ, and that's what we do.
And until we get to that point, we still pursue the goal. What did Paul say in Philippians 3? I press toward the goal," what is the goal? "The goal is the prize of the upward call." What's the price of the upward call? "Christ's likeness."
If that's the prize of the upward call when I go to glory, it's the goal in life while I'm here, so I pursue Christ's likeness here because that's why I was saved in the first place. And that's the purpose of salvation.
You see, it’s true:
It’s not about you and me; It’s about Him.
