Unbreakable Link of Salvation

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)

This is the passage where the unbreakable link of salvation, or the golden chain of salvation, is found. It’s a comfort to know that God holds everything in our salvation – the beginning, the end, and everything in between. That is why this passage is worth memorizing and worth daily remembering because it points us to our great God who saved us. Kindly join me as I meditate upon God’s amazing grace when He foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified us.

The first word to be mentioned in the unbreakable link is “foreknew”. The knowledge of God that is talked about here is not just God’s prior knowledge, meaning that God knows all things that will happen before it happens. It’s deeper than that. The level of knowledge used here is deeper than intellectual head knowledge, it is knowledge in an intimate sense. A knowledge that goes deeper than the intellect and has one’s loving affection. Just as it is used in other verses like in this passage: “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain” (Gen. 4:1). This level of knowing is used to describe the consummation of a couple’s love and then the conception of the miracle of child-bearing. And God, our Husband, fully knows us deeply and intimately, that it is better to use “foreloved” instead of “foreknew”. Indeed, it is sweeter to know that before the foundation of the world, God chose to set His heart upon us.

The heartbeat of our salvation is grounded upon God’s love for us. A love that transcends time because it is given before time began. And this same eternal love has set our destiny toward Christlikeness as mentioned in this passage: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”. His eternal love governed our wonderful destiny: conformity to Christ. God, by His love, decided beforehand what will take place in the end for us. He wants to save us through Christ, for Christ, and to Christ. That is why our life’s ultimate end is Christlikeness because it is the only way that we would be a pleasing offering for our Savior, that our lives point to Him because our image reflects His image. Even though we could never fully reflect Christ in our sanctification, we will fully reflect Him in our glorification because sin will be no more. He is our Firstborn, and we have eternity to perfectly follow hard after Him to image His image.

But the problem is, we were dead in our sins. (Eph. 2:1) We have no power to pursue Christlikeness because the Holy Spirit, our Sanctifier and Enabler, only dwells in us after receiving and trusting the truth of the gospel. (Eph. 1:13) That is why, calling, the third sequence in the unbreakable link, is essential. It is found in this passage: “And those whom he predestined he also called“. God loved us eternally but starts the work of salvation in our souls by means of calling us to Himself through the preaching of the gospel. Apart from Christ, we were dead in our sins. (Eph. 2:1) Through the hearing of the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16), we were made alive. God revives people from their spiritual death through the life-giving work of the gospel by means of His life-giving Spirit. Just as Christ, cried out and said to dead Lazarus, “Lazarus, come forth.” (Jn. 11:43), and Lazarus gained physical life out of his physical death. So, God imparts to us spiritual life, through the trumpet call of the gospel, for us to be made alive from our spiritual death. This is the effectual calling of God. Effectual in the sense that God really brought us to spiritual life just as Lazarus was brought up to physical life.

After we are brought to spiritual life, we come to faith in Christ and are justified. That is why calling precedes justification, as we can see in this passage: “and those whom he called he also justified”. Apart from the grace of God, we are dead in our sins. We are incapable of responding to the things of God because a dead man cannot do anything. A dead man cannot see the beauty of Christ. Present all the sumptuous foods to a dead man, he will still not respond because he has no life in him that empowers him to see, delight, and eat the foods placed before him. Hence, God’s calling us from the dead to spiritual life is a necessary requirement before we would ever come to Him by faith and consequently be justified in Christ. Through God’s work in our souls by means of effectual calling, we now have the capacity to see, delight, and take hold of our irresistible Savior. In this act of holding Christ with the arms of faith, we are justified. Through faith in Christ, God clothes us with His spotless robe of righteousness. We now stand faultless and blameless in the sight of God, because we are covered by the perfection of Jesus. The wonderful gift of righteousness of Christ is ours by faith. And on that basis alone, we are declared righteous, not guilty, in the sight of our perfect Judge. This is the beauty of justification that our verdict is righteous instead of guilty because the righteousness of Christ is given into our spiritually bankrupt account. Let us marvel at the justifying work of our Savior. He died for our sins’ penalty, He lived for our righteousness, and He rose to secure our justification. We cling to Christ alone.

From being foreknown, to being predestined, to being called, to being justified, to being glorified as stated in this passage: “those whom he justified he also glorified.” God will lose no one whom He set His love upon. He will lead us unto the end. The fact that glorified is written by the apostle Paul in the past tense means that our glorification is so sure to happen that is like a thing of the past. That is how they write it in that context. If someone is so sure of a future event to happen, they convey that assurance by rendering the verb in its past tense. Our God is indeed faithful in finishing what He started. He has loved us from the beginning until the very end. What an amazing love! In our glorification, sin will be no more. And we will see our God face to face.

As we meditate on this unbreakable link, our assurance in God grows stronger. Truly, nothing and no one can ever break this link because it is God who authors and accomplishes it all together. As you can notice, each sequence in this unbreakable link, are all acts of God. Indeed, this is what gives us assurance, that it is God who authored our salvation. And He is not just the Author, He is also the Accomplisher, the Sustainer, and the Finisher. With that, let us give back all the glory due to Him for indeed from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. (Rom. 11:36)