Paul Lytle
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The Width and Depth of Power

A Look at Romans 8:28

This is the first essay I wrote about my favorite verse in the Bible: Romans 8:28. I'm not completely happy with it, but this is one of those verses I'm going to go back to over and over again in my life, so you'll probably see much more on this one in the future.

I've been feeling a bit like Truman Burbank lately.

I am referring to the film The Truman Show, in which Truman Burbank is unknowingly a character on a reality television show that films him every hour of every day. Everyone else on the show is an actor, from his wife to his best friend to a myriad of extras on the street. Everything is there for his benefit, and everyone reacts to him. Of course, he does not know what's going on. But sometimes he notices those strange coincidences. Sometimes his willing suspension of disbelief wanes a little, and he begins to realize that the focus of everything is him.

Do you ever feel like that? That the coincidences are too great? Are there times when you look over your shoulder, expecting to find the Candid Camera in a dark corner?

As I look back upon my life as a Christian, and even before, I can see a definite path running through the center of my life. Even when I, like Truman, was unaware of that path, still my feet were upon it. Before my conversion, that path was leading steadily toward a conversion, and the most unlikely people were there to help me reach that point.

Now this path is not the same as that "narrow road" that leads to Heaven, for there were many times when I was not on that narrow road. But instead this seems to be my own personal highway, created just for me, that would put me on the narrow road and force me to stay.

I will give a more recent example. Not long ago, I felt it upon my heart to start a Christian Rock band. Now, I have tried to form bands (mostly secular) before and failed, but this time the right people just seemed to show up. Of course, I tried my own devices first, but got no where. I asked around and posted ads, and months went by without a bite. Even though I knew that this was something I had to do for God, I tried to do it by my own brilliance. But when I turned it over to God, three people expressed interest from different sources within one day. Our drummer came to us not even looking for a band. But I felt the need to post a listing on a website, and he was on that website to rent trucks. Just by chance, he noticed my posting, and he too felt it on his heart to play music for Christ.

The coincidence here is great, and it happened with each member of the band. Each of the other four members felt a calling and was led to me. When you begin to delve into the mathematics of that, you would very likely find the probability difficult to express. It's not hard to form a band of people who want to have fun or make money, but when five people feel called to one another, led to that point, we are speaking of something different. But like Truman, I find myself in the right place at the right time, and I am able to take another step on that path.

Am I being a little paranoid here? Am I being a little vain? Surely I am not so important that God would spend so much time on little ol' me!

But wait! I said I feel a bit like Truman, but am I the only one? The other members of the band also felt a calling to music ministry, and they too were led together. A fine bunch of Trumans we all are!

I am reminded of one of my favorite Bible verses, one that has been a great comfort to me through the years. It reads:

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.
-Romans 8:28

That is a bold statement, when you really consider it. I mean, sure, if you said, "We are generally working toward the good," or, "Eventually all will be made right," then that's something we can understand. But that's not what is said here. "God causes all things to work together for good . . ." John McArthur says that this verse "is breathtaking in its magnitude, encompassing absolutely everything that pertains to a believer's life" (471). Is this true? Certainly God has a plan, but to say that God's plan encompasses everything? But that is what we are saying here? Let us examine the verse more closely:

Yes, we already know, do we not? We all feel like Truman sometimes. We can all see that path running through the middle of our lives if we look. We have all felt that extreme sense of coincidence and known that something extraordinary was working from the outside to make things right.

But here is the problem: How can we all be like Truman? I mean that Truman Burbank was the star of the show and everyone was there for him. That's easy! But how can my actions be working for the good for other Christians when the actions of those other Christians (and everyone else around me) be working for my good? How can we all be the stars of a very personalized show?

Imagine, if you will, a novelist. A skilled novelist can, by careful plotting and patience, create a story in which all of his characters and events, in the end, advance the good. I have been reading several of Shakespeare's comedies lately, and sometimes this happens. Oh, there is often one villain who gets the short end of the stick, but everyone else ends up married or wealthy or something beneficial. Besides that one villain, things generally work out for everyone involved. That's the sort of story I am thinking of.

Of course, the more characters and more events he places into the novel, the more complicated this task would be. At a hundred characters, it would be nearly impossible to have everything work toward the good and still maintain and good plot. Even Shakespeare limited it to about five to ten. The novelist can, of course, cheat his way out of the problem by having everyone win the lottery, but let us assume that he is trying to create a quality novel here. Imagine then, a thousand characters, and a million, and then a billion. We can get a glimpse of the complexity of this one verse when we think of it in those terms. God's power must be clear to us when we see the scope of this promise.

Now we are beginning to glimpse the scope and size of the power of God. Such an infinitely complicated equation is, by human standards, impossible, and yet God can do it. He can arrange everything so that each action is personal to every believer around, and each act, even the worst atrocity, works to the good.

And it gets even more complicated! Hyper-Calvinists will often point to verses like this, or when God hardens Pharaoh's heart, as proof of their vision of God, which is a vision that does not allow even the smallest of opinions from anyone but God. In this belief, we are basically puppets to God's will and cannot even express a desire of our own. Well, since the following verses deal with predestination directly (even using the word), it is not a subject that we can avoid. Paul speaks of predestination and those who are "chosen" enough that we cannot brush it under the rug. It exists. God does chose, and he does predestine (see Ephesians 1:4, for example).

But what of the verses that deal with choices? Why does Jesus scold the Disciples for their lack of faith if they have nothing to do with that faith? The message of Christ seems misdirected if we accept the totalitarianism of Hyper-Calvinism.

But this very discussion suggests how both views may be correct. Here we have God making all things work for the good for believers, and even though each event has its own causes and effects, it has the greater cause of God's action, and the greater effect of working toward the good in tandem with other events. Say we have a rain storm. Well, we can have a lengthy discussion of the science that causes the rainstorm, and we can also see the effect it has on the grass and such. But at the same time, the event has a spiritual cause, which is God, and a spiritual result, which could be anything that works for the good. Perhaps the rain will quench the thirst of a people, or help them grow food. Or perhaps the rain keeps a person from going out when he would have been in a wreck before. There are millions of possibilities for the rain, and the natural event can have a miraculous result.

Both the science and the spiritual are true in this case, and God's power is not weakened when we say that a high pressure front caused the rain. No, God is still in control, and God brought that rain to that place and in that time, but He can orchestrate the natural to His will.

Can we not say the same of Predestination and Free Will? Can an action not be my own while still being God's? It is not doubting His power to say so, but rather realizing the fuller greatness of His power. He is able to allow us to follow our own path while building that path Himself at the same time.

Is there an analogy from our lives we can use to explain this? Not fully, but perhaps a small one will help. There have been several times when I just really want, say, Mexican food for dinner. I have craved it all day, but out of politeness and love, I ask my wife where she would like to go. To my utter delight, she will sometimes say that she is simply dying for Mexican food!

When I drive my wife to such a restaurant, I am making the path, since I am the one who is driving. But that is not to say that she has not chosen the path as much as I have. Sometimes we have chosen the path separately, as in the example above, not knowing that the other person chose it also. Likewise, God has made our paths, and in His way forced us upon it, but we have chosen it also and will walk every step by our own free will.

My example hardly reveals the full relationship here. The magnitude of such a structure is difficult for us to comprehend. In our limited power we have seen how one man's will often runs into another's, but even when two people's wills coincide, it is merely agreement, not both people acting upon a single will. Let us return to our novelist. He has constructed a plot in which all events and characters work toward the good, but what if those characters had a say in things also? Could he keep control over the plot when his goals and the goals of his subcreation must work in tandem? Well, authors do this sort of thing all the time; we often hear an author speak of how his characters make their own decisions, and it is true in good writers. But in this we have added an extra complication. Now the novelist must limit his characters more so that he can more easily control them.

The great puzzle is so great that we cannot solve it. And yet to put our own failings upon God will help us none. To say that God must control every action we make simply because we cannot control an environment that is open to other input doubts the absolute power of God. Likewise, to say that God has little or no influence on this world because of Free Will comes up short. No, God can do all things, and all at once. He can give us absolute freedom of choice while controlling that choice, and also structuring events and choices to work toward the good.

Maybe a return to our friend Truman Burbank will help us. Truman simply went about his life, little suspecting that he was being manipulated by a television producer who was running the show of Truman's life. In the movie, there are many times when Truman's path is forced upon him, even if Truman does not know. In a much larger sense, God is doing the same with us. Like Truman, we walk upon a prearranged path, and yet we have chosen to walk it.

Works Cited

McArthur, Jr., John. The McArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 1-8. Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1991.

Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible. 1706.