Romans 8:30

“ Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified. ”

Here are the successive acts whereby the eternal decree is executed in time. They stand, as it were, between the eternity in which this decree is pronounced, and the eternity in which it is finished. It is to be remarked that the apostle only points out in its accomplishment the acts pertaining to God: calling, justification, glorification, because he is only setting forth that side of the work of salvation which is contained in the decree of predestination, and which consequently depends solely on divine causation. If his intention had been to explain the order of salvation in all its elements divine and human, he would have put faith between calling and justification, and holiness between justification and glorification.

The δέ, then, moreover, at the beginning of the verse is progressive; it indicates the transition from the eternal decree to its realization in time. He who wishes the end must employ the means; the first mean which God puts in operation is His call, which, as we have seen, embraces the outward invitation by preaching, and the inward drawing by the Spirit of grace. Paul does not mean that God addresses this call only to those whom He has predestined to glory, but he affirms that none of those who are predestinated fail to be also called in their day and hour. Not one of those foreknown shall be forgotten. They form a totality, which, once introduced from eternity into time, is faithfully led by God from step to step to the goal fixed beforehand. God would be inconsequent if He acted otherwise.

The plural pronouns whom...them, imply knowledge of the individuals as such. All were present to the mind of God when he decreed the height to which He would raise them.

The call once accepted and it could not fail to be so, since we have to do here only with those whose faith God foreknew a second divine act followed: justification. The καί, also, indicates the continuity of the divine work, the different acts of which follow, and mutually involve one another. Each successive grace is as it were implied in the preceding. Grace upon grace, says John 1:16. On those who have been called and have become believers, there has been passed the sentence which declares man righteous, that is to say, put relatively to God in the position of one who has never done any evil nor omitted any good.

The third step, glorification, is no longer connected with the preceding by καί, also, but by δέ, moreover. This change indicates a shade of difference in the thought. The apostle feels that he is nearing the goal, foreseen and announced in Romans 8:29; and this δέ consequently signifies: and finally. The feeling expressed is that of one who, after a painful and perilous journey, at length reaches the end.

We might be tempted to include holiness here in glorification; for, as has been said, holiness is only the inward side of glory, which is its outward manifestation. But when we remember chaps. 6-8, it seems to us more natural to make holiness the transition from justification to glory, and to regard it as implicitly contained in the former. Once justified, the believer receives the Spirit, who sanctifies him in the measure of his docility, and so prepares him for glory.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that verbs in the past are used to denote the first two divine acts, those of calling and justification; for at the time Paul wrote, these two acts were already realized in a multitude of individuals who were in a manner the representatives of all the rest. But how can he employ the same past tense to denote the act of glorification which is yet to come? Many expositors, Thol., Mey., Philip., think that this past expresses the absolute certainty of the event to come. Others, like Reiche, refer this past to the eternal fulfilment of the decree in the divine understanding. Or again, it is taken as an aorist of anticipation, like that of which we have a striking example, John 15:6; John 15:8. Hodge seems to have sought to combine those different senses when he says: “Paul uses the past as speaking from God's point of view, who sees the end of things from their beginning.” But if it is true that the use of the two preceding aorists was founded on an already accomplished fact, should it not be the same with this? If believers are not yet glorified, their Head already is, and they are virtually so in Him. This is the completed historical fact which suffices to justify the use of the past. Does not Paul say, Ephesians 2:6: “We have been raised up together with Him, and made to sit together with Him in heavenly places”? When the head of a body wears a crown, the whole body wears the same with it.

Paul has thus reached the goal he had set from the beginning, in the last words of the preceding passage (Romans 8:17): “that we may be glorified together with Him.” For he had proposed to himself (Romans 8:1) to show the final abolition of all condemnation, even of that of death, by the law of the Spirit of life which is in Jesus Christ; and he has fulfilled this task. It only remains for him to celebrate in a hymn this unparalleled victory gained in our behalf.

It is obviously too narrow an interpretation of the passage to apply it merely, as Calvin does, to the victory over the sufferings of this present time (Romans 8:18). We have here the consummation of that salvation in Christ, the foundation of which Paul had laid (chaps. 1-5) in the demonstration of the righteousness of faith, and the superstructure of which he had raised in the exposition of sanctification (chaps. 6-8). Hereafter it will only remain to follow this salvation, thus studied in its essence, as it is unfolded on the theatre of history.