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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)

This is surely one of the greatest promises of the Christian life and the whole Bible. But, we risk disappointment and doubt if we believe a promise that God does not actually make in this verse. What is God promising in this verse? What is the good that God is working for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose? I don’t think this verse teaches any of the following ideas:

• Everything is actually good, even the things that knock the breath out of our lungs and crush us.
• God works everything for our comfort, convenience, and earthly pleasure in this life.
• We will understand the good God is working in our lives.
• This promise is for every person regardless of what they believe.
• The good means we will have a quick resolution to our pain and suffering in this life.
• The good is about our plans succeeding.
• We will get everything we want in this life. We just need to claim it.

What then is the “good” of Romans 8:28? The context helps us define it. In the verses leading up to Romans 8:28 (the preceding context or what comes before), Paul reminds believers that as children of God and co-heirs with Christ, we must also share in His sufferings in order to share in His glory (Romans 8:16–18). The sufferings of this present life (e.g. persecution, famine, sickness, or even death) are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. In other words, God’s “good” purpose is not to spare His people from hardship but to use suffering as a means of shaping us into Christ’s image and preparing us for eternal glory. The very trials that damage our comfort, health, or happiness are often the very tools God uses to accomplish His redemptive work in us.

The succeeding verses (what comes after) in Romans 8 also make clear that the “good” cannot be material prosperity. Paul declares with certainty that nothing—neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, things present nor things to come—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38–39). If God’s goodness were measured by health or wealth, this assurance would be meaningless, because believers throughout history have lost all those things. Yet even when stripped of every earthly comfort, the Christian remains secure in the unbreakable love of Christ. The true “good” is not comfort in this life but union with Him that cannot be shaken by suffering or death.

Paul’s own life (the authorial context) provides clear evidence that the “good” of Romans 8:28 cannot refer to favorable circumstances. In 2 Corinthians 11:23–28, he describes his ministry marked by great labor, imprisonments, countless beatings, lashings, stoning, shipwreck, and sleepless nights. If health and wealth were the measure of God’s love, Paul would seem cursed rather than blessed. Yet he was deeply loved and used by God to spread the gospel and strengthen the church. Therefore, the “good” that God works for those who love Him is not temporal ease but eternal transformation: our growing likeness to Christ, perseverance in faith, and ultimate glorification with Him. God’s purpose is not to make life easy, but to make His people holy and secure in His everlasting love.

The best argument is the immediate context of Romans 8:28-30. In verses 29-30, Paul fleshes out the eternal purpose he mentioned in verse 28. The passage defines the “good” that God is causing in the lives of believers as “conformity to Christ” in verse 29. Nothing can ultimately thwart God’s eternal plan of salvation within the life of the Christian, not even sufferings, for it all serves the purpose of Christ being the firstborn among his brothers. Paul does not mean that all things serve the comfort or convenience or worldly interests of believers; it is obvious that they do not. What he means is they assist our salvation, our ongoing conformity to Christ until the Day we receive our glorious resurrection bodies. It is our final or true good the passage is talking about. Our eschatological good. Not merely our health or wealth during this age. In this sense, the Lord uses all things, including the difficult ones, to mold us more into His likeness.

Biblical scholar David Garland writes, “The good does not refer to what humans conventionally regard as good—the things they may believe make for happiness, such as health, wealth and comfort. The good refers to the believers’ final redemption so that they might be glorified with Christ (8:17–18, 21, 30). Paul assures his audience that even the most harrowing and heart-rending things that can happen to believers do not jeopardize the glory that God promises them as co-heirs with Christ. Their suffering produces ‘endurance’, which produces ‘character’, which produces ‘hope’, which will not fail (5:3–5). As they are co-sufferers with Christ, their sufferings only draw them nearer to God (cf. Phil. 1:12–14, 19–24) and to ever closer conformity to the image of his Son (8:29; 2 Cor. 4:8–18; Phil. 3:10–11; 1 Pet. 4:13).”

We must let God define the “good” lest we believe a promise He never made. There are higher goods that the Lord is after within our lives and He began that process before time even began. The higher goods that He is aiming for often include the difficulties and sufferings we endure along the way. We can rest assured though that suffering isn’t meaningless, God is working out an eternal plan within our lives and human history, we aren’t alone in our trials, and God will reconcile all things in the End after everything is said and done. As the old hymn says: “And we’ll understand it better by and by.”

What do New Testament scholars say about the “good” in verse 28?

“What is remarkable, though, us that even suffering and tribulation turn out for the good of the Christian. The idea expressed here cannot be compared to Stoicism or to a Pollyannaish view of life. The former is excluded by Paul’s creational theology, which posits God as the Lord, creator, and personal governor of the world. The latter is a misunderstanding of the text, for the text does not say all things are intrinsically good or pleasant, but instead that the most agonizing sufferings and evils inflicted on believers will be turned to their good by God. It is correct, then, to say that good is eschatological since the “good” will be evident and fully realized only at the end time.” Thomas Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998), 449-450.

“We must be careful to define “good” in God’s terms, not ours. The idea that this verse promises the believer material wealth or physical well-being, for instance, betrays a typically Western perversion of “good” into an exclusively material interpretation. God may well use trials in these areas to produce what he considers a much higher “good”: a stronger faith, a more certain hope (cf. 5:3–4). But the promise to us is that there is nothing in this world that is not intended by God to assist us on our earthly pilgrimage and to bring us safely and certainly to the glorious destination of that pilgrimage.

Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 529–530.

“Essentially, it promises that nothing will touch our lives that is not under the control and direction of our loving heavenly Father. Everything we do and say, everything people do to us or say about us, every experience we will ever have—all are sovereignly used by God for our good. We will not always understand how the things we experience work to good, and we certainly will not always enjoy them. But we do know that nothing comes into our lives that God does not allow and use for his own beneficent purposes. Paul’s overarching purpose in Romans 5–8 is to give us assurance for the life to come. But verses like 8:28 show that he also wants to give us assurance for the present life as well. God has ordained not only the ends but the means.”

Douglas J. Moo, Romans, The NIV Application Commentary: From Biblical Text to Contemporary Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 278.

The “good” that is the goal toward which all things are cooperating is the resurrection of the dead, which will result in the glorification of God’s people with Christ and the redemption of their bodies from the decay that now plagues all creation because of sin

Frank Thielman, Romans, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 410.

“The “good” of which Paul spoke is not necessarily what we think is best, but as the following verse implies, the good is conformity to the likeness of Christ. With this in mind it is easier to see how our difficulties are part of God’s total plan for changing us from what we are by nature to what he intends us to be. Moral advance utilizes hardship more often than not.”

Robert H. Mounce, Romans, vol. 27, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 187–188.