Ep 268: Christ’s Image and Human Glory | A Political Reading of Romans 8:29-30

In this episode I explore an easily-overlooked text with surprising political implications. In Romans 8:29-30, Paul claims that we were “predestined to become conformed to the Image of His Son” and that because of this will have been “glorified”. What does Paul mean? In her book Conformed to the Image of His Son, Dr. Haley Goranson Jacob argues that Paul is claiming believers are conformed to Jesus’s status and  function as the Son of God who rules over creation, and that our glorification denotes a sharing in that rule. She explains how ‘glory’ when applied to humans in the Greek Old Testament regularly denotes power, authority, and dominion, that the restoration of human glory is an important subtheme in Romans 5-8, and that the sharing in Christ’s inheritance which Paul articulates in Romans 8:12-17 is a participation in his rule. The language of ‘image’ in Romans 8:29 is evocative of Genesis 1 and Psalm 8, where humans are, as God’s image-bearers, given dominion over His creation, and since Jesus now rules are king over all creation his family, defined by faith and the Spirit, participate in that rule. The political implications are significant; I discuss how the church is God’s set-apart family and that we are given the task of and empowered to rule over creation, which we must do in conformity with the crucified Messiah. The church exercises political power, but the political power must be cruciform and congruent with Christ’s Messianic reign. I also discuss how passages like this should be brought into the conversation about the Bible and politics. 

Media Referenced:            

Ephesians 1 Episode: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-248-far-above-all-rule-and-authority-ephesians-115-23/

Philippians 2 Episode: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-248-far-above-all-rule-and-authority-ephesians-115-23/

Galatians 4 w/ Cody Cook: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-245-galatians-41-7-and-deliverance-from-this-evil-age-with-cody-cook/

Liberty and Authority: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-184-liberty-authority-and-the-political-spectrum/

The Protestant Libertarian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and a part of the Christians For Liberty Network. The Libertarian Christian Institute can be found at www.libertarianchristians.com.

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Transcript

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This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show. All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. I am excited for today's episode for a couple of reasons. Number one, obviously the episode's going to be great. We're going to look at passage in Romans that I think has often been overlooked in the conversation about the relationship between the New Testament and politics. And because I'm also, for the next like minute or so, going to give you a sneak peek at my brand new book, Politics, Economics, New Testament Interpretation, which, if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see that just over my right shoulder. Very excited about that. And in fact, I have a copy right here. So this is what my new book looks like: Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation. As you can see, it is very thick. Here I'm holding up to the camera for those of you guys that are watching home. Looks very good. Now, um, Doug Stewart, the Libertarian Christian Institute, been working as a publisher on this one, sent a couple of advanced copies my way. So right now, I am going through this book and proofreading it, finding all of the minor formatting error errors, any capitalization errors or anything like that that we might have missed. We're gonna get all that fixed up, and then we are going to get a final release date for this book. I am so excited to get this out to you guys. Essentially, what I do is I define basic political and economic concepts. What is capitalism and socialism? How do we understand the political spectrum? It's not progressive versus conservative, but liberty versus authority. And then within that framework, I go through almost every text in the New Testament that deals with a political or economic theme, including many that would surprise most readers, many texts that haven't been brought into the conversation about the relationship between Christianity and then politics and economics. So I am so excited for you guys to get this. And as soon as I get more information about this, I'm gonna get it out there to you. But right now, tentatively, we're looking at late September, early August for a release date. So you better believe we'll be promoting this. We'll make sure that you know exactly how to get a copy of this book. I'm gonna try to send this out to as many people as I know, get on some shows and promote these ideas. Uh, again, I have a really amazing listener base. You guys are a really amazing listener base, and I know that you care about these issues. And this is my opportunity to go over everything in the New Testament. So the book is basically like uh 150 or 160 pages of methodology and then like 500 pages of exegesis, where I just go through the Bible and interpret it in light of the concepts that we explore in the opening chapters of the book. And since the book is titled Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation, not only are we talking about political and economic categories, but there's also a lot in the book just about how to read the Bible. Like how does the Bible work as a collection of historical documents that are binding on believers today? So there's a lot of hermeneutical questions that are addressed in that book as well. I think you're gonna love it, and I'm excited to get it out to you, but you can see that over my shoulder on the shelf. However, one of the problems with writing a book that was that big, and I we we've gotten to the point where I don't think that with our printing press, I could have made the book any bigger because I just don't think they could have printed it if it was any bigger. Um, so there are obviously some passages that are somewhat relevant that you have to discard or not include or not treat to its fullest extent. I think the most disappointing part of the book for me was I just didn't get a good, uh it's it's good, it's okay, it's fine. But I could have done a much better job of going through Hebrews in particular and kind of drawing out some of the political and economic significance of the letter to the Hebrews. However, still a great section on Hebrews. There are just a couple of passages, though, that I wish I would have addressed, passages that I didn't really think had as much political impact as they actually do. But since I've gotten done writing this book, it's been apparent to me that, oh, uh, there were a couple of passages in the New Testament that I just didn't really think had the legs that they did. And so one of them, I had Cody Cook on the show to talk about Galatians four, and I'll post a link to that talking about um Christ overcoming the stoikea and what does that mean for our conception of nationalism and Christian identity in Galatians 4. I thought that was a really interesting angle that I did not take in the book. And then I just got done with another book a few weeks ago called Conform to the Image of His Son, which is by Haley Gorens and Jacob. And if you're watching the video, that is going to be over my left shoulder, over that way. Uh, and it's a really phenomenal book that explores Paul's language in Romans eight about us being conformed to the image of Christ and then also us being glorified and what all of that looks like. And as I read through the book, which I've had on my Amazon wish list for a long time and a podcast that I listen to on a regular basis called Um Brian and Ryan's Bible Bistro, which I would highly recommend you checking out. They did an older episode that I had just discovered on this book. And I was like, you know what? I need to pull the trigger and read this. I've been kind of on a little bit of a Romans kick over the last couple of months. And man, not only was this book fantastic, but there are also a lot of political implications that I want to discuss. And this passage at the end of Romans chapter eight might be an overlooked passage with a lot of political significance. So I want to talk about this book, the thesis of this book, and how this can help shape our understanding as help help us uh I'm sorry, I'm messing all this up. How this book can help shape, there we go, our understanding of our political vocation as Christians. So we're gonna go through this today. Um, so again, if you're watching on YouTube, I got my slideshow up here. If not, you can just listen along at home. But we're gonna go through the passages, kind of work through the thesis of the book, and then at the end, I'm gonna give my thoughts as to why I think this is such a politically relevant thesis. So uh Christ's image and human glory, two of the biggest ideas that are going to be discussed in this book. And this book is a study of Romans 8, 29, and 30. And I've I've put the most relevant parts of Paul's rhetoric in Romans eight in bold. Here is what the apostle Paul says. This is Romans 8, 29 through 30. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren, and these whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. Remember that I am reading from the NASB 95 translation. But the two operative phrases here is that we were predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, obviously, Jesus, the image of God's son. So what does it mean for us to be conformed to the image of his son? What's going on with that phrase? And then at the end of what is sometimes called the golden chain in Romans 8:30, those who are predestined are also glorified. And is there any significance of this concept of glorification? It's a word that we use in church all the time. And like we hear it in worship songs, and if you're go to more of a traditional church. And even though I go to a modern church, I do love the traditional service and I was raised that way. So if you listen to some old school hymns, you'll hear the word glory and glorified, the words glory and glorified a lot. What do these mean? And what's the significance of Paul using them at this point in his argument? So this book is designed to explore those concepts. Now, the thesis of Haley Gorenson's Jacobs or Haley Gorenson Jacobs book is conformed to the image of his son, is this it's that Romans 8, 29 through 30 argues that we as believers are conformed to Jesus' status and function as the Son of God who rules over creation, and our glorification denotes a sharing in that rule. So, in other words, when Paul says we're conformed to the image of his son, well, the image of God's son is that God's son rules over the entire created order. And so if we're conformed to that image, then we also inherit his status, right? So if Jesus is the ruler of all creation and we're to be conformed to him, then a part of that has to be the fact that we share in his rule over all creation. And the word glory or glorification as it's applied to believers also denotes a sharing in that rule. So both of these concepts, both our conforming to the image of God's son and our glorification, have to do with ruling over or stewarding creation, which, if you listen to the show, you realize that there are obvious political implications to that. If it's the if Gorenson Jacob's thesis is correct, and being conformed to the image of the Son of God does mean that we are in some sense co-ruling with him, which is very similar to what Paul says in Ephesians 1 and also Colossians 1 and 2, then there has to be political consequences for believers in that. And if we are glorified in Christ and that glorification denotes a sharing in his rule, then that also entails political consequences for the church as well. Now the question is this is a great thesis, but does this bear up in the exegesis? And I have, for a long time on the show, tried to avoid very contentious theological issues, and I've done that mostly successfully. But as you know, I introduced the idea of Theology Thursday a couple of weeks ago. And I think that actually the Thursday before this episode is released should be my first official Theology Thursday episode where we're gonna talk about just these theological issues that don't necessarily relate directly to politics and economics. They can, but wider theological issues. So we're gonna get into some of those today. So I'll be showing my theological cards and some of this. Romans is, of course, always a place where there is just a firestorm of controversy about these theological issues. So, what better place to introduce this new era, this post-book era of the Protestant Libertarian podcast than talking about a bunch of controversial passages in Romans? So, anyways, uh Gorenson Jacob isn't just arguing this from theology. She dives into the text and she really works her way through some of these concepts. So let's go ahead and take a look at what the word glory might mean. Because again, Paul's claim in Romans 8:30 is that we are glorified through our relationship with Christ. So she looks at the author Jacob looks at how the word glory is used in the Old Testament. And in particular, since Paul is writing in Greek in the LXX, the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And she comes to the conclusion, and you can get the book, she has a, I want to take a picture of it, but the text would have been too small for the screen. But in the book, she has a chart that basically outlines every single usage of doksa, which is the Greek word for glory and its cognates in the Greek Old Testament. And the primary meaning for the word glory or doksa in the Old Testament is that it denotes power, dominion, or authority. And this is particularly true when it is applied to humans. Now, sometimes glory refers to kind of like a transcendent state when people shine or when people have something incredible happen to them. But generally, the the illumination or the what we might call glorification is a result of the power or the dominion or the authority that one possesses. And when this word is used of human beings in the Greek Old Testament, when doksa and cognates are used of human beings, it always denotes power, dominion, or authority. So in other words, when somebody is glorified, when a person is glorified or shares in glory, that means that that person possesses power, dominion, or authority. And this is a term that is in the Septuagint used of human rulers, right? So we know that there's a good lexicographical basis for understanding the language of glory that Paul uses in Romans eight as an extension of this concept of power, dominion, and authority. Remember that Paul knows his Old Testament very well and he's familiar with the Greek Old Testament. So of course, this is going to be the predominant context in which this language makes sense. Now, the classic example is from Psalm 8. And in particular, this is from Psalm 8, 4 through 6. Now, I put Psalm 8, 4 through 6 on the screen, but I'm going to read the entire psalm because it's short. And this is a psalm about how God has invested human beings with the responsibility to rule over all creation. So, in other words, it's Genesis 1, 26 through 28, and really Genesis 1 through 2 in a microcosm. And I love the psalm. And here's what the psalmist says: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who have displayed your splendor above the heavens? From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, you have established strength because of your adversaries to make the enemy and the revengeful cease. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him? So this is an admission in verse four that human beings are before the ultimate creator, just humble beings, like we're not on par with God. However, the psalmist is going to come around and say, Yet you have made him a little lower, referring to humans, you have made him a little lower than God, and you crown him with glory and majesty, glory being a cognitive doksa in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. You make him to rule over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beast of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth. So you can see here that the term, the Greek term glory and the Greek translation of the Old Testament is used in particular. And so going back to Romans 8, 30, when Paul talks about our glorification, it most likely lines up with this idea. Now we know from Romans chapter one that Paul very much thinks in terms of the Genesis narrative and from Romans chapter five, because in Romans chapter one, Paul talks about the fall of man. And in Romans chapter five, Paul talks about the curse of Adam being dispensed or distributed upon all of humanity. So Paul is thinking in terms of Genesis all throughout his letter. So since Psalm 8 uses the term glory to refer to the human vocation in Genesis, I mean, this is exactly Psalm 8 is just an expansion of Genesis 1, 26 through 28. Human beings are given dominion over God's creation, and that is very good. That's the way that human, that's what human beings are supposed to do. Well, when Paul uses a term like glory in when Paul uses a term like glory in Romans 8, this is most likely what he's referring to. So that's the first piece of the puzzle there, right? The summary, or not the summary, but the summation of the argument that Paul makes in Romans 8, 29 through 30 is that humans will ultimately be glorified. And if the glorification of human being beings entails their wisely ruling over God's creation, well, that's about dominion and power and authority, which is exactly what the Greek word doksa denotes. And that means that human beings have a particular task to rule over this creation. And Paul is saying that in Christ, that has been fulfilled through those who put their faith in him. So very interesting, right? And plenty of evidence for this. So that is a very, very interesting concept. Now, she's going to talk about the restoration of glory as the narrative substructure in Romans. So this is what I was alluding to earlier: that if you look in particular at Romans 5 through 8, although this goes back to earlier sections of Romans, the restoration of human glory is a part of this idea. So I'm going to read you what she says in the concluding section to this chapter. She says, the glory that is talked about in Romans, this is the glory for which all God's people hope. The glory of Psalm 8, right? The glory that we are given dominion over all creation. She says this this is the glory for which all God's people hope, Romans 5.2. This refitted, rejeweled, and replaced crown of glory originally bestowed on humanity in Psalm 8, understood in tandem with Genesis 1, and quickly rejected in Genesis chapter 3. Through the Sun, God would, or though this through the Sun, God would undo what Adam did, condemn sin in the flesh, which is Romans 8.3, and restore humanity's crown of glory. Though his point reaches its climax in Romans 8.30, nowhere does Paul make it more clear than in Romans 5.17. If because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. This is believers' hope of glory. And to arrive back at where we started, this is why doxa and doxadzo cannot be translated in Romans either as splendor or radiance, even as words representing the visible presence of God, though these may exist in the background. To be glorified is to experience a transformation of status, to be exalted to a new status, one of honor, associated with a representative reign over creation, crowned with glory and honor as Adam was meant to be and as the Messiah now is. The significance of this introduction to Paul's use of doksa cannot be overstated. Understanding glory as humanity's honorable position, associated with its dominion over the created order as God's vice regent will be fundamental to understanding conform to the image of God's Son in Romans 8, 29b, both within the immediate context of Romans 8 and with the larger context of Romans 1.8. So again, this is going back, and she goes on a little bit more with that, talking about some details that we don't necessarily need for this show, but looking at the big picture of Romans, Paul does talk about how we will reign in life through Jesus Christ, right? That Jesus Christ allows human beings to reign in life through his grace, through the free gift that was given to us in Christ. So comparing, going back to Romans 5.16, Adam and the fall, and how that tarnished the glory of man, Paul says in Romans 5.17 that we will reign in life through that one man, Jesus Christ. And so those who are in the Messiah conform to the image of his son are those who are going to be glorified and therefore reign with him. That a part of the grace of God was that it allowed human beings to exercise the status that they were given in Genesis 1, 26 through 28, which was tarnished with the fall of Adam, that we are image-bearing creatures who were designed by God to rule over his creation wisely. And Paul, when he discusses our glorification as a part of the grace of God that was given to us in Christ, is acknowledging implicitly and explicitly in many places, like in Romans 5, that we are once again going to wisely rule over creation. Very interesting argument. Now, Paul makes this argument in the immediate context of Romans 8. And one of the things that we have to do here is that we have to kind of step back and think about what the big what like what is the big picture of Romans, right? And there are several different reasons why Paul wrote Romans. And one of those very important reasons is to address the Jew Gentile issue in the church in Rome. Now, we see from Paul's letter to the Galatians, which was most likely written before Romans, that the Jew-Gentile issue, the the con or the the really the crisis in the early church of the relationship between Jews and Gentiles had kind of reached ahead to the point where people like Peter, leaders like Peter, were not no longer eating or dining with the Gentiles and separating themselves from them. But as Paul makes abundantly clear, all those who put their faith in Israel's Messiah and who have been given the gift of the Spirit are part of God's family equally. Therefore, even though the Jews might have a privileged position in God's family only because the line of Israel ran through the Jews in the kingdom of God, they're on the exact same footing as their Gentile counterparts, because what really matters is faith and the spirit. And this is the basis for the renewed people of God. So there's an implied ecclesiology in there as well. And this is where in systematic theology, I think that there are a lot of theological constructs that have tried to pull apart some of those ideas. They've tried to pull apart salvation, they've tried to pull apart justification, they've tried to pull apart sanctification, and they've tried to pull apart ecclesiology. And while all of these are discrete ideas in Paul's mind, they're all also intimately connected. So you cannot have one without the other. And so in the big picture, Paul is really worried about the integrity and the identity of the church. And in Galatians, he has to deal with that head on. Whereas in Romans, it's quite possible that the Jews and the Gentiles in the Roman community are not actually at odds with each other, but Paul wants to prevent them from becoming so. And so he writes this long letter in part to address the Jew-Gentile issue, which is why in the thesis statement of Romans, Romans 1, 16 through 17, Paul says he's not ashamed of the gospel of God for it as the power of salvation, or for it is God's power of salvation to all who have faith for the Jew first and also to the Greek, right? So this is a main idea. So uh, whatever we make of all of the other rhetoric, and Paul talks about all of these massive ideas, the one of the underlying themes is what is the identity of the church? And the identity of the church is those that have put their faith in Israel's Messiah and begin the gift of the Holy Spirit. And these ideas are going to reach their head in Romans 8. So here's what Paul says in Romans 8, 12 through 17, building up to this passage in Romans 29 through 30. He says, So then, brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And this is a massive statement, even before we move on from this. From Romans 5 on, Paul talks extensively about how the consequences of sin is death, whether that's Adam's sin, the sin of the man in the garden, which conferred physical death on all of Of humanity or the sin of Israel against God, which conferred death upon the nation because they violated the covenant. And Deuteronomy 28 in particular said, hey, if you violate the covenant, God is going to put the nation to death, which is exactly what happened. And so Paul is going to talk about how a part of this whole Christ event is that Jesus is able to overcome the problem of sin and death established by Adam and give his followers new life. This is exactly why Paul says in Romans chapter six that we cannot continue in sin because of God's grace, because the whole purpose of God's grace is to help us overcome sin and therefore overcome death. It's why the whole world dies in Adam, but is made alive in Christ. And so he's constantly playing on this idea that, you know, the way, as he says at the very end of Romans 6, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God, or but the free gift of God is grace through righteousness in Christ Jesus, depending on what your translation is, it might phrase it a little bit differently. So there's this idea that there's this connection between sin and death. And it is the Holy Spirit that helps us put to death the deeds of the flesh. The Holy Spirit helps us to crucify sin so that we can continue to live into the identity that God gave us. And he talks about this, Paul does in terms of sanctification in Romans chapter six as well. So this is something that is a Wesley, and I love the idea of sanctification, very much drawn to that passage. So Paul's saying here at the outset that if we, through the power of the Spirit that is given to us when we put our faith in Christ, put the or if we're submitting to the spirit, we will put to death the deeds of the body and live. So he goes on in verse 14, and this is very important for what we're gonna say later on. He goes on in verse 14. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God, for you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out. Abba Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we might also be glorified with him. So think about this concept here. All right, what Paul is saying is that believers put to death the deeds of the flesh through the power of the spirit. And verse 14, this is a great summary of Galatians. All who are being led by the Spirit are the sons of God. How do you tell who is a part of God's family? It is those that have put their faith in the Messiah and have been given the gift of the Spirit. And the Spirit is what enables us to put to death the deeds of the flesh. And then he casts this in terms of adoption, that we're not going back into slavery. Um, we are moving forward into the spirit of adoption as sons. And then the spirit himself testifies that we are God's children. Those who are in Christ are the family of God. And if we are children with God, then we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. So we inherit whatever Christ inherits. Well, according to Romans 1 and Romans 15 and 16 and Romans chapter 8, as we're going to read here in just a little bit. And then this is very common Pauline convention. You look at Philippians 2, Ephesians chapter 1, Colossians 1 and 2, we see this all over the place. Christ, what did he inherit? The entire world. Like Christ is the Messiah, and by virtue of his death, resurrection, and ascension, where he currently sits ruling at the right hand of the Father, he has inherited everything. And so if we are God's children, then we have also inherited all of that with him, including the dominion mandate to rule wisely over God's creation, right? We are called to do exactly that. And so Paul connects this in Romans 8:17 with this concept of glorification. If we have inherited as members of Christ's family, everything that was given to him, including dominion over creation, the Psalm 8, Genesis 1, 26 through 28 mandate to wisely rule God's good creation, then we are also glorified with him. So the inheritance entails and includes not just glorification, but glorification is a part of that. And so we can already see how this thesis of glorification, being conformed to the image of God's son, has to do with what he inherited as the Messiah, which is everything. So moving on, we see these themes working themselves out in Romans 8, 18 through 25. And this is one aspect of Jacob's book that I thought that was really helpful here. She's uh Paul says uh in Romans 8, 18, and I've highlighted the relevant parts on the screen. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. That, and I have this in bold, this is verse 21, the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption, and to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We'll come back to that. Paul goes on, for we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body, for in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we eager eagerly wait for it. So let's circle back to verse 21 here. So the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Well, what happens in Genesis chapter three when the man and the woman rejects God? What happens to them? One of the consequences for the man is that it's a lot harder to farm. The land fights against the human being. And this is exactly the way that it's casted in the third chapter of Genesis. That whereas in God's original created order, if human beings relied in him and exercised their dominion mandate, then they would be able to cultivate and keep the earth without, not without work, because human beings were designed to work, but without a fight, right? The the creation, the world, the animals, the plants, the ground, the the elements would not fight back against humans. But because human beings rebelled, they had a much harder road to a harder road to hoe. There's a good farming metaphor right there, right? They had a much harder road to go because the creation was fighting back against humanity as a part of the consequences for their sin. And this is a part of what's at play in Romans chapter five and that Adam Christ typology, that a part of the sin of Adam was bringing death on all of the created order, and human beings tarnished now, even though they still have the dominion mandate, that mandate has been tarnished by human sin. Paul is saying here that the creation, which was supposed to be subjected to wise human beings, will be set free from its corruption because of the glory of the children of God. So there's this idea of glory, again, going back to Psalm 8 and then the wider context of the word doksa in the Old Testament, referring to authority or dominion of human beings. So the creation itself will be set free into the glory of the children of God. Those who are in Christ that have inherited Christ's rule over all creation are also glorified. And so now all of creation can be redeemed because human beings' glory has been redeemed. And that glory is the glory of, in particular, us wisely ruling over God's creation. So we can see all these parallels between Genesis 1 and 2 and Psalm 8 all coming together here in Romans chapter 8 under the language of glory and Paul's thought. So there's a lot of stuff going on in this passage that is highly relevant to the understanding of the human vocation that we as believers must have. Okay, very good. So uh Paul is gonna go on here, and here's another question. All right. So we're we're finally getting in, finally getting into Romans 8, 28 through 30. So we've read everything up to this point in or most of the relevant text in Romans 8 up to this point. They're all relevant, but you know what I mean. Um, and so here is what Paul is going to say. We're gonna read Romans 8, 28 through 30 again. I've highlighted the word firstborn because I think this is going to add even more to this idea that we are co-heirs, co-rulers, and co-glorified with Christ. So Paul says, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose. All right. And what was the purpose? All right, to be a part of his family, and what was God's family entrusted with? What was the purpose of God's family to wisely rule over creation, and in the eschatological age to spread the gospel of Christ? Verse 29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren, and these whom he predestined, he also called, and these whom he called, he also justified, and these whom he justified, he also glorified. So we have this concept, firstborn, thrown in there with being conformed to the image of his son, so that he will be the firstborn among many brethren. Well, we are the many brethren, he is the firstborn, uh, and because of that we are glorified. So is this concept of firstborn connected in any way to being conformed to the image of his son, especially as it relates to our inheritance with him, as Paul says earlier in Romans 8, and does this have anything to do with glorification? Uh, if you look at the Old Testament, it does. So we have two royal psalms in Psalm 89 and Psalm 110. And in both of these psalms, we have this idea of a ruling figure who is the firstborn, a ruling figure who is the first over all creation. And I want to read this passage, particularly in Psalm 89, 20 through 29. This is a messianic psalm, and this is what it says about the descendant of David. It says, I have found David my servant, with my holy oil I have anointed him, with whom my hand will be established, my arm also will strengthen him, the enemy will not deceive him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him, but I shall crush his adversaries before him and strike those who hate him. My faithfulness and my loving kindness will be with him, and in my name his horn will be exalted. I shall also set his hand on the sea, and his right hand on the rivers. He will cry to me, You are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. I also shall make him my firstborn, there it is, the highest of the kings of the earth. My loving kindness I will keep to him forever, and my covenant shall be confirmed to him, so I will establish his descendants forever in his throne as the days of heaven. So, what does it mean for the Son of David to be God's firstborn? It means that he rules over all creation, that he is the one who, by virtue of God's choice, rules over everything. It's a very powerful passage. And if we go back to Romans 8, 28 through 30, when Paul says that he that God predestined us to become conform to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. Well, if we are conform to the image of his son and he's the firstborn, then that means that, and we are also, as Paul says earlier in Romans 8, heirs to the promise of Christ. This is what he's talking about in Psalm 89. I shall also make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth, and I will establish his descendants forever in his throne as the days of heaven. And then in Psalm 110, another royal psalm that plays on these themes, where it says, The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will stretch forth your sep your strong scepter from Zion, saying, Rule in the midst of your enemies, your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power and holy array from the womb of the dawn. Your youth are to you as the dew. The Lord has sworn he will not change his mind, your priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek, which is big in Hebrews. The Lord is at your right hand, he will shatter kings in the day of his wrath, he will judge among the nations, he will fill them with corpses, he will shatter the chief men over a broad country, he will drink from the brook by the wayside, therefore he will lift up his head. So Gorens and Jacob is going to argue that this psalm, this royal psalm, which is thematically similar to Psalm 89, is also kind of in the background of Paul's mind in Romans chapter 8. It's this idea that the firstborn rule over all creation. Jesus is the firstborn among many brethren. Those brethren inherit his rule and they are also glorified with him. So looking at the Old Testament evidence, the evidence from Paul's scriptures backs up or supports the claims that Gorens and Jacob is making about Romans eight, that this is about rule and authority and about how, in part, God's rule and authority over creation through human beings is re-established through the firstborn, the Messiah, God's son, the promised descendant of David, Jesus himself. So it's a very important concept there. So if we go back to Romans 8, 28 to 30, and we start tying all of these concepts together. Here is what Paul says, starting in verse 28. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called, and these whom he called, he also justified, and these whom he justified, he also glorified. So we can see all of these ideas coming together in this passage. We are conformed to the image of his son. And not only are we conformed to the image of his son, but we are predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. Now the Greek word for predestined is pre-or a pro-orizo, which means to ordain or determine beforehand. The reason why I don't really like the translation predestined for pro-orizo is that predestination is often kind of read back into this reformation framework where people are very concerned about your eternal destiny, where you will go after you die. But it's pretty clear from the way that Paul is using pro-orizzo here, and then in Ephesians 1, which is another important passage where Paul uses that, that he's not at all talking about the eternal destination, or at least not explicitly or directly talking about the eternal destination of those who are in Christ. Although this could be, as I said, implied in his use of the term. No, instead, what Paul is talking about here is that those who are called according to his purpose are predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. So in other words, those who are part of God's family by virtue of having or by virtue of faith and the possession of the Spirit will be conformed to the image of his son. And the image of God's son is that of the firstborn over all creation, that who is ruling over all creation. And Gorenson Jacob, even though I didn't highlight this maybe as well as I should have here, relates this idea of image back to Genesis 1 and 2. What are human beings in Genesis 1 and 2 or the image or the icon of God? We're made in the image and likeness of God. And so by appealing to this image language, it is yet another allusion that Paul makes to the Genesis story. And we have to remember that Paul is steeped in Israel's scriptures. He understands the narrative of the Old Testament. He's intimately familiar with these passages in both a thematic and a detailed technical sort of way. And so Paul can easily play on this language to evoke this story for his audience in Rome. And he presupposes that many of the Romans would be able to hang along with him because there are a lot of times that Paul will introduce a concept such as the Davidic status of Jesus and then not explain it because he just assumes that they already understand that part of the story. And I also make this case in my book, and I think it's kind of unique. I'm not a scholar, but I know that there are scholars out there that make a similar argument. But I believe that the world that these Pauline churches was swimming in, the intellectual world that these Pauline churches were swimming in, were the intellectual world of the oral Jesus tradition. Now, I think that it's probably a safe bet that Mark at least was written after Paul wrote the majority of his letters. And so the written gospels that we have postate the letters of Paul. However, it wasn't as if for the first 30 or 40 years of Christian history, those who put their faith in Christ were completely uninterested in him as a person. We also we often get this notion, especially in older biblical scholarship, that the Paul that we read in the letters is not concerned about the historical Jesus at all. They're not concerned about any of the details of Jesus' life because he doesn't include them in his letters. But there are so many places where Paul alludes to these massive themes in the gospel, in the gospels, that he just leaves unexplained. He doesn't have to explain these concepts or these themes to his audience, meaning that they probably already know it. And we know that oral traditions were circulating about Jesus from the time that Jesus uttered these words during his ministry. And so while the believers in Rome did not have access to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, they would have been very much familiar with the oral Jesus tradition. And I think that when Paul showed up and proclaimed his gospel to these various cities around the Mediterranean, that this would include a lot of the material from the early Jesus tradition that would eventually work their way into the Gospels. So given the fact that the like the Jesus tradition is heavily steeped in allusions to and citations of the Old Testament, it's really not that much of a stretch that Paul could use a word like image or use a word like firstborn or use a word like glorified, which have a ton of Old Testament significance and resonance, and just accept or just presuppose that his audience would know what he was talking about. I don't think that he had to stop and explain all of these terms because Paul did not think that there would have been a lot of confusion about what he said. So I think we're justified to read these Old Testament echoes, allusions, and citations into these texts, because this is clearly what Paul's getting at. And Judaism, obviously, Paul is a Jew. He never abandons his Jewish heritage. This is the foundation for everything that Paul believes, right? So he's operating in this scripture milieu. So when you look at an explosive passage like Romans 28 through 30, and especially 29 through 30, where we have this idea of being conformed to the image of God's son, um, Jesus being the firstborn among many brethren, and those who believe in him being glorified, well, then we know that there's something significant going on here. And if we look at the context in which all of these concepts are formed in the Old Testament, it all has to do with dominion, power, and glory over God's created order, right? It has to do with the way that human beings rule over all creation. And since Jesus is the firstborn among many brethren of whom we are a part of this family and we inherit what Christ inherited, then we also co-rule over all creation now. And this is not just something that we do in the present. I would love to be able to talk about predestination more, but I just want to put this marker down here that when Paul uses the language of pro-arizo of predestination in Romans 8 and Ephesians 1, and you can even look at Romans 9 through 11 is a great example of this too. It's always in the context of the family of God. It's always in the context of defining who is and who is not a member of God's corporate family, who is a part of the eschatological Israel. And so I think, and I know that this might be a little controversial for some of my reformed listeners, but just give this a thought because I don't think it's necessarily incompatible with the wide brushstrokes of reformed theology. But I think that Paul often uses, or Paul pretty much exclusively uses this language of predestination, not in an individual sense to denote where individuals go when they die, but it's about the calling and the establishment of the church. It's about the family of God. So God always predestined, God always preordained that there would be a people who would be conformed to the image of his son, the firstborn among many brethren, and those who have the spirit, who are putting to death the deeds of the flesh, are glorified in him and able to rule over all creation, setting creation free from the corruption, which it was subjected to in Adam, which is a connection with Romans chapter five and Romans chapter one. So we see all of these things coming together. So I wanted to put that marker down. But that seems to be the way that Paul is using this language here. Either way, either way, what we can't deny is that human beings are conformed to the image of his son, who is the Messiah over all creation, rules over all things, and because of that, we are glorified. Here is how Gorenson Jacob summarizes her argument in the book. So this comes from the final chapter. She says, I have suggested that conformed to the image of God's firstborn son, that is glorified, is the ultimate task for which God purposed and called his children. And the first part of the chapter I outlined the structure of Romans 8, 28 through 30 and demonstrated that Paul's placement of Romans 8.29b within the three verses makes conformity to the firstborn son the eternally decreed conclusion to that narrative. It is what believers are purposed to do. This ultimate goal of conformity, that is glory, is not only a purpose of the future. Rather, believers are called even in the present to represent God within creation and to cooperate with God to bring redemption to that creation. Believers are children of God and co-heirs with Christ. They are conformed to the image of God's firstborn son, participating in his role as the reigning representative of God within the cosmos. In my systematic treatment, this is again another summary of her argument here, uh of the phrase conform to the image of his son. If you're looking at this in on YouTube, that's that's that phrase in Greek. I have argued that Romans 8.29 refers to the believer's participation in the firstborn son rule over creation as God's eschatological family and as renewed humanity. Exactly what I've been talking about for the last 30 minutes. This rule is the reinstitution of humanity's dominion over creation as God's vice regent, as is narrated, as is narrated in Genesis 1 26 through 28 and picked up in Psalm 8 5 through 8. Believers are conformed to the image of God's Son on the basis of their adoption into God's family, Romans 8, 14 through 16, and thus their participation in the Messiah's sonship, Romans 8 29. Adopted children of God share in the firstborn son inheritance, Romans 8 17, his possession rule over the earth, which is to say. That they share in the Son's glory, Romans 8:17. Conformity to the Son is glorification, the fulfillment of God's purposes for calling his children, Romans 8, 28 to 30. Believers are glorified in part in the present, Romans 8:30, through their participation with God and bringing redemption to creation, Romans 8, 18 to 28. They'll be glorified and full of the resurrection when they too will experience the resurrection of the body, and with the firstborn son will be at the right hand of the Father, crowned with glory and honor, and with all things under their feet. Man, there's a lot going on there. I'm gonna take a little bit of drink of water before we wrap this thing up. All right, delicious, very good. So what does this mean for us? I really do as libertarians, right? As Christian libertarians or as Christians that are trying to deduce political and economic and social principles from this ancient text. What are we to do with this passage? It's one I wish I would have thought through before I read my book, right? Um, but I think that there's a lot going on here. It's very clear that God gave human beings the responsibility of wisely ruling over and stewarding God's creation. That is our mandate, that is our task, and it always has been since the beginning of creation. This is our role, and a part of the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, is us being redeemed and restored through the power of the Spirit to be glorified with Christ, to inherit his rule over all creation. So who is now currently ruling over all creation? Well, it is Christ. It's the ascended Christ, the Messiah. This is Revelation 4 and 5. This is Ephesians 1, all of these clear pictures in the New Testament that clearly portray Jesus as sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven, currently ruling over all creation, as the universal Lord and Messiah. And those of us, Jews and Gentiles alike, who have put their faith in the Messiah and been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, also share in his responsibility because we've inherited what is his through being associated with him. We share in his responsibility of wisely ruling over creation. That is our mandate, that is our job, and that is inherently political in the wider sense of the term, right? In the ancient world, the concept of politics wasn't just about the political process, although it certainly was. It was about any activity that happened outside of the home, what we might call social interactions today, because in antiquity there was no hard distinction between society, politics, and economics as we pretend like we have in the modern world. So the calling of the church is inherently political because it has to do with our outward-facing witness to the world and our responsibility of exercising God's wise rule over all creation. So we know that we have a mandate to rule over this world, but we are conformed to the image of the crucified Messiah. And this is a big part of what Paul does in Philippians chapter 2. And I had a whole episode on this a couple of months ago where we broke down Philippians 2 and what that means for Christian ethics and politics. We believe that we worship a crucified Messiah. And as Paul says in Philippians 2, 5 through 11, the reason why Paul Jesus was exalted to the right hand of the Father and currently rules over all creation. And on the final day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord is precisely because even though he existed in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a human being in his incarnation and then dying a humiliating death on the cross. So not only is Jesus the source of our salvation, the source of the rescue and the liberation, he also has defined the shape of our salvation. What does it mean for human beings to wisely rule over God's created order? Well, it means that we have to follow God's Son. We have to be conformed to the image of his son. Our glorification is in following the pattern of the Messiah who wisely rules. And how does the Messiah wisely rule? Well, as Paul has been making the claim all throughout Romans, it's through his sacrificial death. He's the propitiation for our sins. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but are justified freely as a gift through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. This is Romans 3, 23 and 24. So there is no exercise of dominion over creation that does not involve cruciformity, that does not involve believers being conformed to the cross of Christ. And this is where the Christian nationalists are right in the sense that they understand that the Bible does give the people of God, the church, the commandment to rule over all creation. They are wrong in thinking that it is Gentilish power. They're wrong in thinking that the power that we exercise is the power of the pagan empires that Jesus has conquered in his death and resurrection. They're wrong in thinking that we have to follow in the sin of Adam and try to establish our own power instead of using the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit. So the institution of Christian dominion begins and ends with the church sacrificially modeling the death and resurrection and ascension of Christ and all that we do. So automatically that means that the modern model of authoritarian socialism, where nation states are given arbitrary power to exercise dominion over people without their consent, using threats of violence and coercion in order to implement their policies, is completely incompatible with any Christian conception of rule. And that's exactly what the Christian nationalists get wrong is that they want the dominion mandate. They want the restoration of glory, they want to be conformed to the image of God's Son and inherit his rule over creation, but they want to do so in a way that is antithetical to the model of kingship that Christ actually reveals to us in his cross. Now, this does not mean that God does not want us to exercise any sort of control or anything like that at all. And in fact, quite the opposite. If we take a look at passages like 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and 1 Corinthians chapter 6, you know, we'll go with 1 Corinthians chapter 6, just for the sake of simplicity. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul is dealing with this problem where believers in the church in Corinth are taking one another before the courts and suing each other, probably just for the purpose of shaming each other to try to gain some sort of social capital. And Paul makes the case that in 1 Corinthians 6, this is completely unacceptable behavior for believers because in the Eschaton, it's believers who are going to judge angels. Like we're going to judge the entire world together. And so can't we even solve these problems ourselves? Like, aren't I and what Paul says, like, aren't you even competent enough to constitute the smallest courts? And so the point of that passage in Romans 6, and one of the things that I think we've often missed in our interpretation of Romans 6, at least as it relates to ecclesiology, is that Paul does believe that the called-out Israel of God, family of Abraham, is defined by faith in the Messiah. And we are demarcated and separated from the rest of the world, but we have to solve our own internal problems. We should not be looking to the coercive violence of secular government to solve problems in the church. And within this framework, there are going to be leaders in the church, people like Peter, like Paul, who will have positions of authority. And that's completely natural. And if you take, for instance, Paul's teachings on spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 seriously, God equips various people with different gifts for the building up of the church and the proclamation of the gospel. And this all ties into big picture, the church wisely ruling over creation on Christ's behalf, ruling for him, being a co-heir, a co-ruler, a glorified uh ruler over creation in Christ conformed to the image of his son. So when Christians engage, which is necessary, right? Whenever you have a group, you have to have hierarchies. This is something that the egalitarian progressives don't understand and that the Marxists don't understand. In the real world, you cannot have a classless, quote unquote, classless society because you have to have leaders. But these are in the church leaders that are equipped by God and that lead with humility and sacrifice and sacrifice and a sacrificial disposition and grace and mercy on the pattern of Christ. These are not people that wield power like the Gentiles. This is what Jesus says in Mark chapter 10. The greatest among you must be your servants, servants. Don't rule like the Gentiles rule, right? The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. It is not to be this way among you, but those who want to be leaders must be servants of others. Greatness comes through serving in the kingdom of God. So this is not me saying, and I'm going to make this abundantly clear here, that ah, well, you know, we don't need any sort of order or anything like that. What it means is that Christians need to reject the paradigm of authoritarian socialism because we're not going to outsource the responsibility that God has given us to be glorified and deformed to the image of his son to secular authorities who rule with violence and coercion. And also that the church needs to get its act together and start taking care of its own business, right? We need to start being the people that lead by example, showing the world exactly who Christ is and modeling our churches on the reign of Christ, which means that yes, as with any church, you have to have people in positions of power. But those people who are in positions of power must be servants of all, which is in complete and utter opposition to the way that most American and most Western Christians understand political power today. We absolutely have to reject paradigms that do not take into consideration the fact that the church was predestined by God to be conformed to the image of his son. And is this radical? Yes. Does this mean that we are arguing essentially for the church to think of itself as its own political entity with a unique responsibility of wisely sacrificially ruling over creation on God's behalf? Yes, it does. Does it mean that we as Christians need to be conformed to the image of his son, not only in his rule, but in the way that he acquired his rule through incarnation and death? Yes, it does. Does this mean that we have to challenge all of our convenient political and economic presuppositions? Yes, it does. And that's going to be the challenge. And that's what I want to leave us with today. Uh something that I think it's it's worth thinking about again and again. Uh, one thing that I will say I've not really done enough of on the show is building a positive case for Christian politics. Most of what I do on the show, and in fact, the main thesis of my book, Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation, is a critique of the prevailing modern ideology of authoritarian socialism with both progressives and conservatives hold. Whether you're a progressive Christian or a Christian nationalist, you are an authoritarian socialist by definition. And I explain all this in my book, and I'll probably go over this at some point in my, and I think I have an old episode called like uh liberty and authority in the political spectrum or something like that, where I go into detail, and maybe I'll try to link this in the show notes if I remember it correctly, or if I remember to do so. But I've not really given a positive program for the church, other than that we need to, it's been my work has been more deconstructive, right? It's that authoritarian socialism, which is what we're all enthralled to in the modern world, is just not compatible with Christianity. And moving forward, I want to actually make a positive program. Of course, the question is there are a lot of different ways to do this as Christians. Are we going to be congregationalist? Are we going to be denominationalist? Do we need to try to work to um like, you know, I think we should all be working to move above ecumenical divisions. I don't think that those ecumenical divisions are necessarily wrong, but there are some people that would say, well, maybe we need to start blurring the lines between these different ecumenical or between these different traditions within Christianity. I don't really know exactly how to work that out yet. Um, and I'm open to, you know, obviously suggestions or thoughts, but we do have a huge responsibility as a church to make sure that we are establishing God's rule over all creation by taking care of those that are around us, by loving and serving others and by worshiping him, because this is what God has called us to do. And what it means to be conformed to the image of God's son and to share in his glory is that we wisely rule over all creation on his behalf. We have to reject modern political conventions, and the church needs to start thinking bigger thoughts about politics and economics. Okay, so hopefully you guys enjoyed that show today. That was a great book, and I am still reflecting and thinking on the significance of that. So I appreciate that you guys were able to work help me work through this in my head today. I think that this episode turned out pretty well and that there's a lot to chew on. Uh, as always, if you want some clarifications on anything that I said, I know I made a lot of off-handed uh theological comments, and I'd be happy to explain my position on all of those issues. Please reach out to me at the Protestant Libertarian Podcast at gmail.com. Like I said, politics, economics, New Testament interpretation, it is coming and it is coming very soon. And I will continue to give you guys updates on this and probably do some episodes where I talk about some of the main ideas in that book to get you all hyped about it. So, you know, anything you can do to get the show out, anything you can do to support the show, please, please, please, all that you do helps me out. So the big ones, if you can just go to your favorite, whatever whatever you're listening to this podcast on, if you can go and give me a five-star review and leave me, or if you can go and give me a five-star rating and leave me your review, that would be awesome. If you are on YouTube and you can like this video, subscribe to my channel, that makes a huge impact. If you want to go to libertarianchristians.com and donate, that makes a huge impact too. Tell your family, tell your friends. I just we just want to get these ideas out there. These ideas are important and the world needs to hear them. So again, I appreciate everything that you guys do. I love all of you. Um, and one more comment, too. If you have ideas for theology Thursday, send them my way. I've already gotten some great input, and I'm looking forward to uh getting some episodes on that out later on this summer. So again, I love you guys. Thank you for everything that you do all the time. And I will see you guys on Tuesday. Have a good one. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at theprotestantlibertarian at gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter. You can follow me at the handle at Pro Liberty Pod. Again, that is at Pro Liberty Pod. And you can also visit me at the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com. At the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com, you can also support the Christians for Liberty Network and the Libertarian Christian Institute. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and we will see you next Tuesday.