“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” 

Romans 8:28

First, All things are caused by God.

Our whole system of doctrine will either enable us to believe the Apostle’s words or else hinder us. God is not a Deist Creator. He does not set the ball in motion at first and then walk away from his world. He is everywhere. He is involved. The Scriptures say, “Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?” (Amos 3:6) and he is the God “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). And there is that classic Old Testament account of Joseph, standing before his brothers who had betrayed him:

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20).

That verse gives us a side note as well: that a love of God’s providence keeps us from vengeance. To know not only that justice is in God’s hands, but that it was his design, completely, that brought about the whole drama in which the injustice occurred. 

Divine sovereignty is the efficient, or ultimate, cause, yet divine glory is the end cause. Paul ends those mysterious three chapters at the heart of Romans with the doxology, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36). The end cause is the answer to the Why question. And Paul’s answer is the GLORY of God. 

What about the bad things—even the worst things—that happen to us? Consider that the most evil action ever, happening to the only wholly innocent ever, is the same event that brought the most good to mankind,

“for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:27-28).

Simply reflecting on this reality makes us ascribe the work to wise Providence and not to chance or fate. It causes us to compare the happy lot of the Christian versus the misery of those for whom all things are rotting. It bridles our discontent and begets thanksgiving.

Second, All things are for His glory and our good. 

The first thing that we mean by all things working together for good is that each thing is good because of God’s good use of it. That God causes all things shows his power; but that God causes all things for good shows his goodness too. God even cares for the whole animal world: “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (Ps. 104:30); “And not one [sparrow] is forgotten before God” (Lk. 12:6). Not only do all things show divine goodness, but also divine wisdom.

That means that whenever God chooses a thing to happen, his designs are those that achieve the highest good. The ends of God’s decisions are the wisest ends because it is unthinkable that God could ever decree things to happen that have better alternatives: “In wisdom have you made them all” (Ps. 104:24); “With him are strength and sound wisdom; the deceived and the deceiver are his (Job 12:16). The wise ordering of all events puts everything that ever happens as subordinate ends in line with God’s chief end. The chief end of God is to glorify himself. Every other end of God, in each thing, is subordinate. 

A subordinate cause to God’s glory is the good of the believer. Paul makes plain who this particular providence is for: those who are “called.” Now what does God use for his children? Start with trials. Affliction sanctifies, such that the believer will call it GOOD—“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (Ps. 119:71). The story of Luther is mentioned, that he could not understand many of the Psalms until he was in affliction. I must say that this has been my own experience. We are slow learners in our comfort, but honors students in our pains. 

God uses evil without ever needing evil. Darkness is made to be God’s servant from the beginning, as he separated the light from the darkness (Gen. 1:4), and he says through Isaiah, “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Is. 45:7).

This is important, lest we infer that God needs anything in the nature of evil in order to bring about the best of all possible worlds. Some views in the church have God handling light and darkness like some yin and yang that he has to just deal with. But if good and evil are both ultimate opposites, then we have no guarantee of this great hope that all things work to good in the end.

This is not simply a hopeful prediction, but an invincible promise! You see how the right theology matters for ultimate hope? We cannot have the fruit of Romans 8:28 without the roots of verses 29 and 30. 

This good must be a perfect good, since the context of the rest of the passage is the perfection of the saints who persevere. So each thing that God causes for our good is a good that will come to perfection. It is not that a “little bit” of good will come out of it, but rather our highest good is being achieved in what seems to be the worst calamities. God uses all the best things and the worst things—albeit in different ways and for different reasons, respectively—for the good of every believer.