Christ Life In Us Romans 8:29-30 Conformed to the Image of Christ

Well, there's the verses that we're covering, but since Jim read those, we'll go right on. Like Miles couldn't do these verses today because it would be logical for him to follow up Romans 8.28 with these verses into 29 and 30.

So if you think, and then Mike, you're not doing it. Roger is at home. So you have, the way I think of it is, it's the Super Bowl of verses, right? But it isn't, because the Super Bowl of verses is coming up in the coming weeks. You know, who shall separate us from the love of God, neither height nor depth, And, you know, those verses are the Super Bowl of verses in the Book of Romans. So these verses are the AFC championship set of verses in the Book of Romans.

And so, Bonick's one and two are out this morning. One did not break his foot. but he has a broken back. And then Bonick's 2, can't be here. So here you have Gerrit Stidham, and I'm going to walk you through these verses. And just someone look out the window, if it starts to blizzard, then let me know. That's going to be a... So if you know that analogy. So here we are.

The believer At the end of chapter seven, finds himself in a hole, doesn't he? Because he's purposing to live the life, a sanctified life, by the law. And he can't do that, he finds. He was sanctified in chapter six by reckoning himself dead to sin, separated from the former life in Adam, and its empowering sin nature. So this is just a review of where we are in chapter eight. But in chapter seven, he falls from the staying power of grace, and he's reduced to a puddle. He's a wretched man that I am.

But he finds Jesus Christ again as his savior. But this time, he's not saved for justification. He's already saved. He's saved for sanctification. And that saves him from the power of sin. He has now relief under being under no condemnation in chapter eight. At the beginning of the chapter, he finds refreshment in this empowering of the Holy Spirit. And he has a new mind. He's delivered and victorious.

He also finds that he's a son, an adopted son of God, a child of God. But then something comes along where he has these pains along with the earth and along with creation. He's separated from his Savior and he feels he's desiring to be brought up to heaven and to be with now Christ physically in heaven with his Savior. And to feel to remove himself from earth and that earth is cursed and the sin nature is cursed within him And he's feeling those pains in his natural body So now we're at the stage where God is explaining Glorification and the it's the final and the capstone of our salvation phase three of our salvation so this is where the salvation narrative ends, chapter 9, we go back to a discussion of Israel.

And I don't think we're going to go through those again, right? We're going on to a new book, which is good. But all that leading up to these verses were from man's perspective and our side of things. These verses, and this is critical, So remove yourself out of these verses. Take yourself out. It's all God's side of things. Now he speaks. So in last week in verse 28, we heard the encouraging words of God, the comforting words, that all things, and it's positive, all things work together for the good.

Dark things, bright things, happy things, sad things. times of prosperity times of adversity and and miles brought that out beautifully and you can insert yourself in those and we all do and he Discussed it by remember his illustration Embroidery it looks messy on this side, but then on this side. It's It's a number. He said tapestry, but I think he meant embroidery. It's it's a picture right so I went online and looked up and embroideries from the backside and it's on Reddit, there's a thread, and one of them was just a complete mess and it made me sick, it made me ill.

But then when you saw the picture of the front side of the embroidery, I'm like, oh, it's three pumpkins and one, two, three, and one's orange, one's green, one has a, yeah, so that's a beautiful way of illustrating how God works all things together for the good for the believer.

And it's according to his fixed divine desire, which he does that. And he wills this to be his reality. It's his reality, so he wills it to be. So he does it. Just like the verse said in his deep eternal counsel before the world was made. And that hymn, I could end it right here and go sit down because that hymn that we sang perfectly puts all this just perfectly, that hymn. All the words of that hymn is what this is all about. So he has formulated as his purpose, which is it's the believer's conformity to the person and image of his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the purpose, and that's what it says at the end of verse 28, and that's what we're looking at this morning. So it's very simple.

He's taking all of his called elect ones who are marked out from the very beginning as the hymn says and as the text says too, and Ephesians 1 says it in 4 through 6, just as he chose us before him. before the foundation of the world that he would be that we would be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined predestinated us or predestined us to the adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind attention of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace which we free which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. So he's placed us in Christ, but now he's really telling us we're glorified in Christ. So here's Romans 8, 29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of the Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

And that That purpose word, he called this, according to his purpose, is God's intelligent design. Or I think Newell has it, it's planned in. So it's all done. He designed it, he planned it, he executes it. And it's along the set directional line of this intelligent design he's taking us. Along with our believing brothers and sisters, and that's you and me, he's taking all of us and calling us together to form a new body.

And that body is this, Ephesians 5.27, that, it's a purpose clause, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish, so that more of a purpose clause in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus Ephesians 2 7 more purpose we find in Ephesians 3, 10, and 11, so that he might display this glorious church as the manifold wisdom of God in those ages to come to rulers and authorities in heavenly places in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And I pulled I give the scripture reference of the eternal purpose, and that I made a mistake, that's not Hebrews 13.1, that's Hebrews 13.20, so keep that in mind, it's Hebrews 13.20. But that's his eternal purpose, it's stated right there. He carried it out in Jesus Christ our Lord, so that's what he's He's just telling us what he's doing, how he did it, and he's just letting us know here. God's purpose is wholly apart from any contingencies. And that's where people start to get caught up, you know, of their role in his plan.

But the critical point of all this is Romans 8.28 and 30 is all plural. It's a plurality of believers. It's these and those he foreknew, these he predestinated, those he called, he justified and glorified. That's in verse 30.

But if you if you always think of it as plural. So it's us as a body here at Holly Hills, so it's another church would be another body, and someday it's gonna be all the bodies caught up together with him. It's a plural situation that he's describing here. The goal is creating in Christ is a new entity, a new organization, so that we're able to act as a consort or a companion to the Lord Jesus Christ in the ages to come. So he's going about the work of doing that. He's making us a companion, and He's conforming us to His image. And that word conform is sumorphos. God is fashioning and forming us into His Son's image, into the same likeness.

So if you think of... I think of Adam and Eve in a way similar. Adam was created, but he was lone, so he took a rib out of Adam and he made Eve. And I just wonder if he made Eve in the same way that he made Adam, with the dust and forming another out of clay like he did for Adam. I don't know.

But he could have. He certainly did that for Adam. He formed, he, I think, He really spent a lot of time forming Adam physically because creation is described as he just spoke things into existence, the stars, the moon, the galaxies. That's all spoken.

Light, waters. But then he stops and he gets down in the clay with water and he forms it. Now I'm just thinking, does he, it's like Phil Mills gets on those plastic knee protectors and he, on his knees and he's really forming this out. So that's sumorphous, forming this out.

I think that's what he's doing here in verses 29 and 30 with us to form his bride. So he justified us in Romans 3. He or she or all of us are identified by baptism into the Lord Jesus Christ. This man becomes a new creation. He's a member of a new race. And he's transferred from Adam to the last Adam.

We learn that in Romans 5 and 6. Then we find ourselves as an adopted son in chapter eight, a child of God, an heir of God, and indwelled with the life of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. So that we can fully share in this glory that he's giving us, and he's bringing us up to this, to be a light companion in the ages to come.

And I think you might, give the example, and I'll give the same kind of example, of my poodle Sadie. You talk to her and you give her instructions and she looks at you and you think she knows exactly what you're saying, but she doesn't. You just have this it looks like you're making a connection on a human level, but you're not, because she's a different creature. And so he needs to make a creature, a creation that's able to appreciate him, right, as a spouse would.

So that's, I think, all that he's doing in these verses. It says that Christ is the firstborn among many brethren, and that's protakikos. And that means first in rank. He's first in rank among many brethren. It's not first in time, but it's first in rank. Christ is the, you can say, prototype. And it's interesting to note that before he was the only begotten. He still is, but the soul firstborn is how he's described in the Gospel of John, the only begotten of God.

But it's saying that now God is taking, placing him first among myriads and myriads of like-minded, like-kind ones that are able to intelligently share in his glory. Right? All of this, verses 28, 29, and 30, is God's intelligently designed, mapped out, predestinated, there's that bad word, foreknown answer to a loved one's prayer. And who is that loved one? Well, it's the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in John chapter, oh, there's another typo. It's John 17, 24, not John 14. So John 17, 24, he says, Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am so that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. And he was in the foundation of the world.

So he's just placing us into Christ in these verses. We're placed as a group, as plural. So on to Romans 30. And these, notice the plural, these whom he predestined, he also called. And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. So this is now an easy task in verse 30. Doesn't it follow logically that after he's done all this in 28 and 29, he's just saying that he needs to call out these things and these things are all things that he's done. We are predestinated for this purpose.

It's a preset course. word predestinated is pro-horizo, or before, pro, a horizon, before the horizon. What it's saying is that there's no limits, no defined limits, or I'm sorry, it says limits have been defined beforehand. So as Miles described it, you have a blank canvas and when you, an artist will first draw the line of the horizon to separate out where the ground is going to be and where the air is going to be. So it's before the horizon and it's giving the canvas a boundary, a preset boundary.

I got confused because there's an opposite word that I'm going to get to in just a second. So he set forth a boundary, and he's called us to those boundaries, to that predestination. And the word called that he says in verse 30 is not invited, but it's appointed to. We are called ones. It's an adjective.

Paul calls himself the called apostle in Romans 1.1. So we are called just like him. We are the called ones. You do get a call before salvation, an invitation to the gospel, but that's not the same word called here.

It's the same word but different meaning. And then it follows the word we are justified in verse 30. And of course, right, that's easy because He's kind of going backwards describing it in a backwards fashion But we learned we are justified in back in chapter 3 So all of these truths in chapter 8 is God's working us up to be glorified we are but he's he's Helping us to to understand it to come to where he is and All these difficult words that everyone assigns to these verses, predestinated, called, and foreknown, are all aorist tense.

They're aorist tense, active voice, indicative mood. So they're facts with no variation or shifts. So they're not, he didn't, it's not, It's aorist tense, so you can think about it as in English. past tense, but it's aorist tense. And it's interesting, and Miles had this note that I found from it.

The word aorist is actually ahorizo. So ah is a negation, so that's without horizon. So there's no bounding circle. So there's, the canvas has no, you're not gonna draw the line of the horizon on aorist. So there's no separation of time or in these truths. So they're without time. So that's a kind of cool way to describe the aorist tense. It's just, so you can even forget about time because with God it's just done. He thinks it happens. The aorist tense, these are all aorist tense verbs.

So why then We're going to sort of back up and we're going to discuss why in all these verses, all the election and choosing doctrines, why are they associated with these verses, right? Why, when I got the call from Roger, did he say, oh, you get to do these verses? And then we, you know, I got psyched out back then. And then Miles called me and said, oh, or wrote me, and he said, oh, you get the hot potato verses, right? And so, and then Jim, you're Your introduction was perfect because you were like, okay, and that's why this is the big game, right? All these, and here they are.

We have Calvin's five-point system, Arminius' concept of conditional and unconditional election, that one must be regenerated before he can come to faith. One must be saved, one can be saved, but then he can fall out of salvation by not preserving being the preservation of saints. That's a doctrine that gets put into this. So if he doesn't last, I guess he'll lose his election.

See, now I'm just trying to make sense of all this baggage that's been put on these verses. Limited atonement versus atonement for all, that gets put in here. And then we get into the discussion of how free will, do we have free will? Are we free to make choices? Do we have responsibility?

That's a doctrine that gets put into these verses. If God knows everything beforehand, who will get saved and who will not get saved, what's the point? What's the purpose? It's just like, whoa. And so when I was preparing it, Chafer will give these doctrines lined out, and it's just like masses of information. And what is that? That's our human mind trying to figure all this out. Our natural mind, we want to systematize everything in our natural condition.

And I was going to, before I would have described it with a pen, I think Vern used to do this. So this is pre-time. and this is eternity future, and you're sometimes in here. Well, if you believe here, God will go back here and make you elect. He'll put you back in Christ. And you see, he owns this timeline. It's right here. It's very simple for him to kind of work around the time. He can work this way around the time. This is all quantum physics, by the way. This is real science. So I would explain it like that. And then I'm like, why am I even explaining that? So throw that out. Throw out the timeline. We don't have to do that.

And what this is, me trying to explain how God foreknows you, is I figured it out. Oh, it's because in my mind, I grew up with science fiction. And in science fiction, Doctor Who, Back to the Future, they're always mucking with the timeline. So they can change events. I just got done watching Stranger Things. They discuss the wormhole in the Stranger Things. And man, you want to do that in your natural condition. You want to systematize it. It makes you go crazy, right? Here's Ephesians 1, 3 through 12.

It's small, I won't read it all, but note this. He chose, and I'll read the highlighted portions, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. To the praise of the glory of his, he predestined us to the adoptions as sons in grace. I think I have some of this kind of missing, but going on in blue, he purposed us in him He, to obtain an inheritance, having been predestinated according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will, that would be to the praise of His glory.

And that's all the information in Ephesians 1, 3 through 12. Well, you can see that it's the same words, same doctrine, but Do we ever have this conundrum when we discuss Ephesians? No, we never do. We read it and we say, oh, that's wonderful. We say, great, and then we go on into Ephesians. And there aren't volumes of works written about these things from the Calvinists in Ephesians.

So why is that? I believe, and this is where we'll get to the sermon portion where I'll give some opinions, that it's location, location, location. And that these truths, they're in Romans 8, 29-30, they're right up against contiguous to and buttressed up against Romans 9, 10, and 11. And that's where the Calvinists really go to town. That's where the Arminians really go to town, because he introduces Israel, and Israel is a corporate body.

They come in there and they just start working on, they just start pre-working it because we have the words predestined, foreknown, stuff like that, right up against Israel's chapters 9, 10, 11. So God's sovereign election of the nation of Israel, which is revisited and reestablished in chapters 9 through 11, gives the Reformed theology world, it's a siege wall. So if you think of in ancient times, like we studied in Micah, Lachish, the ancient Judean city where the army, they'll pile up dirt and rocks at a ramp up to the top of the city wall, a siege wall, so that they can come over and attack and take over.

And that's how they conducted military operations back then with a siege wall. So this is, these verses, they kind of drop out later on about the love of God. You know, heighth nor depth will never separate us. They kind of don't worry about that, but they do care about these verses. So it's their siege wall. They want to say that the church now fulfills God's covenant promise to Israel. All of their covenants are now fulfilled in we, the church, because Israel failed. That's what they're getting at.

So point number two is why is the Calvinist tulip system and Arminius' free to choose man both concerned, here's another issue that they bring up. They're concerned with the unregenerated man. A man in Adam, they nestle that man into all this theology presented here. That's the Calvinist tulip system of theology. My question is, should we be discussing the Holy Spirit's salvation work of regenerated and unregenerated man in relation to his predestination, election, and foreknowledge, et cetera, at this point in Romans chapter 8? We should not.

That man is discussed, but you go back to Romans 1 and 2, that's where that man is, the unregenerated man. He's located there. So he belongs nowhere in these verses, which is the end of, this is phase three salvation, this is glorification. So why do they insert this little, it's a little worm or little monkey. traveling around the interstructure of these verses, and you have to grab that guy, that unregenerated man, and you have to throw him off the platform, because he doesn't belong up here, because this is phase three salvation.

So I want you to kind of think about that in your mind. Just grab him, throw him off. and watch him fall. And then what will happen is we'll send Courtney down the ladder and give him the gospel. That's what he needs. But now we're back in Romans chapter 3. He can accept the gospel. So here's this unregenerated Calvin man, or Arminian man. Is there any hope for him if he's not elected? It sounds like there's no hope for him.

Did God elect him to eternal damnation? And here's what they also do. Because we're elect to become conformed to the image of Christ, the natural mind, the systematic mind will say, well, the opposite must be true. He must be unelected and he's going to eternal damnation. It must be eternal damnation. But do these verses say that? No, it doesn't say that.

No. As I said, go back to Romans 1 and 2 and give them the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Paul says it, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, in Romans 1.16. And that man back there, he knows, he hears because it says it in early in Romans. Because that which is known about God is evident within them. God made it evident to them.

They are without excuse. So there, he has ears to hear. That man has a heart. And that heart will hear. And it became suddenly clear to me that when Jesus Christ says in the Gospels, let him who have ears hear. And I thought, okay, that's kind of it. And I never really thought about that.

But that's what he's saying. That man must hear the Gospel and not be concerned with election, his freedom to choose. His responsibility is an unsaved man or woman who needs to be saved. That's the issue. It doesn't matter what timeline it is. Throw that out.

God gives everyone the ability to do this. He says, Christ says in John 5, 25, truly, truly, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, now is, that's present tense, when the dead, that's them, will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. That's categorical. Every one who's ever lived has that opportunity. They don't belong in this discussion of election.

And again, one verse earlier, Christ says, truly, truly, I say unto you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, shall not come into judgment, but has passed out of death and into life. Merriman says, by grace, God provides whatever is necessary for unsaved humans to clearly hear the gospel, despite that they are dead in trespasses and sins. And that's exactly what Paul says at the start of Romans. The Holy Spirit is relentlessly pursuing convicting the world of sin. I think he's wooing the unbeliever to believe with his heart by whatever means necessary.

And I might change my line on this a little bit. I believe that at the core of man is his heart. his intrinsic being. His intrinsic being. And down at that level is where he hears. Up here is his will, his responsibility, his volition, his his choice and stuff, but that's all shot through with the sin nature.

That's gone. He can't rely on any of that stuff. He's pursued by God. And here's how he's pursued, with unerring chase and unperturbed pace. deliberate speed and majestic instancy. They, they beat, and the voice beat more instant than feet. And I'll have to, the little icon there is covering up that word. I think it's beat. But this is Francis Thompson in the Hound of Heaven with unhurring chase. So he's, Francis Thompson, was an Englishman in the 1800s, last part of the 1800s, who was a poet, obviously, and he was a lost man.

Um, he, he was on opioids because he had some, the doctors prescribed him that, and those messed up his, his, his whole mind. And he was a, he was a derelict. He was a, he was a bum. He lived on the streets for years and years. But he would turn in this poetry to this publisher, and he'd come in with a suit, but no shirt under the suit jacket. And he would spend his time in the libraries. Very smart man, but the library had to kick him out of the library because he was smelly. So he was just one of those people.

He was supposed to become a doctor, just had some mental issues, but it's his life story about all during that he's been pursued by love, by the Holy Spirit. In fact, in the poem, he would run, he would go into his mind away from this pursuing Holy Spirit love, love of Christ. And he would purposely, he would go down into the dark things. He would become, what's the word? He would go into hedonism, way far away to escape it, escape it. But then when his mind would clear because of the drug that was the opiate, he would hear that steady, steady footstep. And the poem describes it, but it's constant, and it's just beating along, and it's always on his tail.

And so with that, there's always God gives every opportunity for a person to become saved without any of this systematic doctrine that we add into this. So, lastly, I would like to—this is a bracelet. Well, I don't think I can get through that. about this bracelet, so I'll tell you sometime. So I'll close in prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your saving grace, and we thank you that we're elected in Him. And there's no question, and we thank you for your sovereign grace, that you are sovereign, that you've made everything as it should be with our lives. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.