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Previous | Next Working together for good
Tim Geddert
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose”
(Romans 8:28, KJV).
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1. For Greek students:
This results from two facts: first, the word panta has the same form whether it is used as subject or object; second, the word panta, though plural, can be used with a singular verb.
2. For Greek students:
If you were to check an NIV Bible (preferably an older edition), you would see an interesting (though slightly misleading) footnote. That footnote alludes to the two ways I have mentioned of translating the text. It also indicates (correctly) that a small number of ancient manuscripts include two words in Romans 8:28 which are absent from most manuscripts and were not taken into account by the KJV translators. Those words are “ho theos” (i.e., “God” used as a subject). If those words were original, we would have no choice but to declare the NIV right and the KJV wrong. As it is, we need to make a judgement call, and, based on both linguistic and theological considerations, the NIV is judged far more likely than the KJV. The NIV footnote is misleading if it is taken to imply that the NIV translation is based on better manuscripts than the KJV. In fact, they are based on exactly the same ones. It is not unlikely that an early scribe, recognizing that the text could be interpreted two ways, slipped in the extra words to make sure that the text was understood correctly (i.e., the way we now read it in the NIV).
If that was too complicated, let me try once more: the NIV footnote correctly notes that some manuscripts do and some do not explicitly say that God is the subject of the verb. And it also correctly indicates that the verse can be translated two ways. But it wrongly implies that if the words “ho theos” are not considered original, then the verse should be translated as in the KJV.
3. For Greek students:
The first is the same as the one contained in the older version (discussed above).
4. For Greek students:
Re “all things”: panta now is read not as the direct object of the verb, but as an accusative of reference.
Re “these who love God”: The dative case can be used (among other possibilities) as a “dative of advantage” or as an “instrumental of association”. The traditional reading of Romans 8:28 takes the phrase “those who love God” in the first way (God works “for us”; that is, “for our advantage”). The NIV second footnote interprets it the second way (God works “with us” or “alongside of us”). Both are grammatically possible.
5. For Greek students:
Technically this is called polyvalent.
6. For Greek students:
This might mean that the dative is a dative of reference. |
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That is how I once memorized Romans 8:28 many years ago. It has often been a word of hope for me, assuring me that all things, even “bad” things, will turn out “for good” to those who love God. In fact, there was a time when I interpreted this verse to mean that there really are no “bad things” that happen to believers. If things seem bad but really serve to fulfill God’s good purposes for us, then even these things are ultimately good. I guess at the time it did not seem unjust to me that only those who love God are promised the benefit of “everything working out”. Nor was I troubled by the fact that I often did not see the “bad things” magically transformed into “good things”.
I have undergone two changes of mind in my understanding of this verse. I want to share these.
God, not things
The first (minor) adjustment in my understanding of Romans 8:28 happened when I realized that modern versions of the Bible translate it differently at a very crucial point. In the New International Version, for example, the verse does not say that “all things work together” (as though there is some deep magic in the universe that somehow creates the hidden “good” pattern out of all the “bad” pieces). Rather, it says, “In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him.” This version attributes the “working out” not to some universal magic, but directly to God’s active involvement.
Now that I am able to read the verse in the original language (Greek), I know what caused the change from the King James Version to the NIV. The KJV translators viewed the Greek word “panta” (“all things”) as the subject of the verb “sunergei” (“work together”). The NIV translators viewed “panta” as the “object” of the verb.
Both versions (i.e., with “panta” as subject or as object) are grammatically possible in Greek.1 However, the NIV version is to be preferred for a series of reasons:
- Linguistically: The Greek word “sunergei” does not mean “work out” or “fall in place”. In the New Testament it always signifies the active involvement of real actors accomplishing some task. To treat “panta” as the subject implies that everything that happens is actively and consciously working at the project of making good things happen to people who love God. That kind of claim would be odd, to say the least.
- Theologically: The Scriptures never attribute good will and active working to “all things”. If good things are being made to happen, it is because God is at work transforming “all things” into something they would not become on their own.
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Thus, the NIV translation “In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him” is clearly better than the KJV translation “All things work together for good to those who love God.”2
To summarize: I once thought Romans 8:28 was about “all things working out”. I am now persuaded it is about “God working for good in all situations”.
Co-workers, not beneficiaries
Now to the second time I changed my understanding of this verse. Even the translation that is given in the NIV needs to be reconsidered. The biggest problem with the NIV version is that it still misunderstands what the verb “sunergei” (“work together”) really means. The NIV translation, correctly views God as the subject, but incorrectly represents what God is doing. It treats “sunergei” as though it means God is “working things together” (“forming a pattern” or “mixing ingredients together”) so that something new (i.e., something good) emerges. But “sunergei” in Greek is not about one party working various ingredients together; it is about more than one party “working together” on a common project. It means quite literally “work together”.
If Romans 8:28 says that God “works together”, then the appropriate question is not: “What does God work together?” The appropriate question is: “With whom does God work together?” The answer is clearly supplied in Romans 8:28.
I have before me a new edition of the NIV. It contains two footnotes to this verse.3 The second one says: “or . . . works together with those who love Him to bring about what is good.” This way of reading the verse still views “God” as the subject of the verb “works together”. However, in this reading, “those who love God” are not the beneficiaries of God’s interventions; they are God’s co-workers! Romans 8:28 is thus not about God working to bring about good things for us (though God also does that!). Rather, Romans 8:28 is about God working with us to bring about good things in all situations.4
Both of these translations (“for us” and “with us”) are grammatically possible. So how does one decide which is correct?
The best way is to look again at the verb “sunergei”. Is it used in Scripture to speak of “making things fit together / fall into place / produce a pattern”? Or is it used of two parties that are working as a team? In all four other occurrences of this word in the New Testament, it has the latter meaning (Mark 16:20; 1 Corinthians 16:16; 2 Corinthians 6:1; James 2:22.) Of these, the first three speak of God working with people or people working with each other. In the fourth, “faith and works” are viewed metaphorically as two parties “working along with each other”. The only way that “sunergei” is used in the New Testament, then, is when there are two or more parties “working together.” Moreover, the noun associated with this verb, “sunergos” (“co-worker”, “helper”, “fellow worker”), is also always used of two or more parties that are working with each other (Romans 16:3, 9, 21; 1 Corinthians 3:9; 2 Corinthians 1:24; 2 Corinthians 8:23; Philippians 2:25; Philippians 4:3; Colossians 4:11; 1 Thessalonians 3:2; Philemon 1, 24; 2 John 8). Thus, the word “sunergei” is not about making things work together; it is about two parties working together.
Romans 8:28, therefore, is not about God fitting all things together into a pattern for our benefit. It is about God and those who love God working as partners to bring about good in all situations. While we (those who love God and are called according to God’s purposes) may at times also be the beneficiaries of God and others working together, this verse is not about that. It is not about the benefits we receive from God’s action on our behalf. It is rather a call to those who have been “foreknown, predestined, called, justified and glorified” (Romans 8:28-30) to be not only recipients of God’s grace, but also channels of God’s grace to others. We were called by God; we love God; and thus we join God’s work in the world. God is working to bring about good, and we are God’s fellow-workers. God’s good purposes will often come about in terrible situations, not because someone “sat back and trusted God’s promise” but because someone “joined God’s work in the world; became God’s hands and feet; became a tangible expression of God’s love and caring”.
Romans 8:28 is a challenge for us to be those sorts of people. If we are, then ever more people will learn that nothing can separate them from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39). Wherever and whenever they feel separated from God’s love, God is sending co-workers – God is sending us – to assure them in concrete and tangible ways that God still loves them. That is, at any rate, the way I think Romans 8:28 should be interpreted.
Beneficiaries and co-workers
Yet, having said all this, I must confess that it is hard to say farewell to an older interpretation that has been with me since childhood and has comforted and encouraged me in difficult times. Must I abandon my earlier view in order to accept my newer insights? Not necessarily.
Another possibility remains open. Sometimes a sentence in the Bible is “deliberately ambiguous”:5 Two (or more) options are grammatically possible, and both (or more than two) meanings are intended by the author. Perhaps this is one of those situations. I don’t think that the usual readings of the KJV and the NIV are both correct. There I think we need to make a choice. But I am less sure that we need to make a choice between the NIV reading and the one suggested in the NIV’s second footnote. Perhaps this verse is about God working both with us and for us to bring about good in tough situations.6
This understanding would portray the Christian community as a fellowship of “grace-recipients” and at the same time “grace-givers”. God, along with God’s co-workers (our brothers and sisters), has been instrumental in “bringing about good things” in our lives; now we join God and God’s other co-workers in helping to bring about good things in the lives of others. This way of reading Romans 8:28 agrees with the broader context of Romans 8. There we learn that God has not yet made everything turn out for good. That is why all creation, including God’s own children, still groan, waiting for their final redemption (8:18-27). And that is why, in every imaginable difficulty, we can be assured that God’s love never leaves us (8:31-39). The community of those being transformed by God (8:29,30) first receives God’s grace and then passes it on as we “work with God” to bring about what is good.
Tim Geddert is a professor of New Testament at MB Biblical Seminary in Fresno, Calif.
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Last modified June 27, 2000.
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