Romans 8 Footnotes

Despite any alleged evidence to the contrary, nothing can separate God’s people from his perpetual love.

8:29-30 Paul assured his readers that God would accomplish his saving purposes for them. He listed five distinct aspects of salvation, each building on the former. “Foreknew” denotes possession of prior knowledge, which humans or God may possess. God has previously known who his people will be. Some argue that when predicated of God, this is a special knowledge, equivalent to election: the Hebrew word for “knowing” implies establishing an intimate relationship. While God knows his people in a special way, it is not certain Paul here intended foreknew to equal elect, since he knew and used terms for election elsewhere in Romens (8:33; 9:11; 11:5). Besides, how might God have had a special relationship with people before they even existed? In either case, certainly God intimately knows his church (see 2Tm 2:19).

Beyond God’s foreknowledge of his people, he has “predestined” a general outcome for them: being “conformed to the image of his Son,” so that at his coming Christ will exult with his many brothers and sisters who bear his family resemblance. So God calls these his own people (9:24-26); he invites them to be his. Before the bar of justice, God declares them “justified,” or “not guilty.” At Christ’s return, God will glorify his people, restoring the glory diminished by sin (3:23; 8:17).