Eyes Wide Open: 41-Day Lenten Devotional Sample

Both Damned and Saved…for Us

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” - Romans 8:29-30

The word “predestined” shows up several times in this justly famous passage, and it was once my instinct to avoid it. Predestination has a troublesome history, especially among American Protestants. Certain theologians argued that God determined an arbitrary, mysterious number of individuals to be saved or damned even before the world was made. 

That notion, which was an attempt to make sense of Scripture, led more than a few to the brink of despair, if not over that brink. 

In the nineteenth-century, the great German-American church historian Philip Schaff saw the problem. After surveying the doctrine of predestination, Schaff called for a theologian of the stature of Augustine and Calvin who could “rise above the antagonism of divine sovereignty and human freedom, and… lead us to a system built upon the rock of the historic Christ, and inspired from beginning to end with the love of God to all….”

I have my disagreements with the Swiss theologian Karl Barth, but I think it’s only fair to concede that he was the theologian Schaff hoped for. That arbitrary number of saved and damned? According to Barth, we canknow it: The number is one. 

Christ was both damned and saved on behalf of all of us, and all of us find our salvation in him. If we resist our glorious status (which all of us do, and which some may do eternally), we therefore resist our own handpicked destiny. Barth detonated the conceptual dam that held back the torrent of God’s love on offer in this extraordinary passage. With this in mind, read it again, and get soaked!

Prayer: Father, thank you that you foreknew me and predestined me to be conformed to the image of your Son. You called me, justified me, glorified me. Whether or not I feel it – and perhaps especially when I don’t – it remains as good as done! Amen.

- Written by Matthew Milliner