Well, I don’t know if this topic has already been covered on this board (and I don’t know who may read this and wish to discuss it considering that there hasn’t been much activity on this board lately), but I’d like to submit that Romans 8:29-32 are meant to be a clear picture of God’s plan of restoring His bride, the church, to a right relationship with Him in a glorified state, and that we (the whole church) are not even close to being there yet.

 

I’ll start off by outlining and describing what’s going on in 29-30.  Later, in another post, show how 31 and 32 mirror it.  I think the current translations of 31-32 (the “if God is for us, who can be against us” verses) may be an incomplete picture of what Paul was trying to convey based on what I’ve found.

 

In verses 29-30, they can be outlined as follows:

foreknew (proginosko) à predestine (proorisen)*  à called (kaleo)  à justified (dikaioo) à glorified (doxazo)

* = To be conformed (summorphous) to the image (icon) of the Son, to be firstborn (prototokon)

 

As I explained about proginosko in the “Dynamic Omniscience” thread, this seems to convey a dynamic, or a “getting to know” knowledge.  Now we should ask in which context this word would work, or even be coherent: if God were inside time (A-Theory of time, presentism) or outside time (B-Theory, 4-dimensionalism). If God were outside of time, Paul’s usage of the word “proginosko” would make no sense in this context.  In the 4-dimentional theory of time, this entails that God already has decided who would be part of the Bride (ie the Church); this is a knowledge that is final--no changes are possible. Here, it seems that we have a contradiction: everything about the Bride is finalized but the knowledge is not finalized, it’s still dynamic.  However, if God is moving with us in time, this word, ginosko, fits the context because as the number of people who are within the Bride change, so does God’s knowledge of such.  We can agree that God already knew there will  be a Bride, whether one subscribes to presentism or 4-dimentionalism.  In the context of presentism (A-Theory), of who the Bride consists is not yet settled because the future is still open (as argued in the paper written by a very handsome man (my hubby) and two other cool people).  Thus here, there is no conflict, the consistency of the Bride and the knowledge of Her are both dynamic.

 

Next with predestine, this gets into some cool imagery stuff.  With “proorisen” (predestine), this does give a sense of finality- this is the second phase in the plan.  With “predestine” this is a plan already set in place by God, and Paul gives us the details of what happens in this phase. 

So, what did God plan?  Paul states we (individually**) will be “summorphed” to the “icon” of the Son along with many co-believers (brothers & sisters). (Rom 8:29) 

 

**- Paul doesn’t use toutous (“them”) until verse 30, so the interpretation of individuals morphing & welding to the body of Christ is a reasonable and plausible interpretation, I believe.

 

            After I finish my analysis of this verse, hopefully you’ll see where the “vine and the branches” fit in and the “in Christ there is no Greek or Jew”, you can’t distinguish the Gentile branches from the Jewish branches.  What does “summorphed” mean?  “Sum” comes from “sun” (pronounced “soon”) which translators have translated it to be “with”, but it is much stronger than “meta”(NT: 3326) or “para” (NT: 3844) according to Strong’s.  That’s why I consider it to be as strong as welding.  When branches are grafted onto a tree, once the grafting process is complete, the tissue of the grafted branch and the vine become “one”.  This process takes time but in the process, branches can also fall off and die.  “Morph” (NT: 3444) is (1)synonymous to “icon” and (2) get this (From Vine’s):

[As a noun] an excellent definition of the word is that of Gifford: "morphe is therefore properly the nature or essence, not in the abstract, but as actually subsisting in the individual, and retained as long as the individual itself exists.... Thus in the passage before us morphe Theou is the Divine nature actually and inseparably subsisting in the Person of Christ.... For the interpretation of 'the form of God' it is sufficient to say that (1) it includes the whole nature and essence of Deity, and is inseparable from them, since they could have no actual existence without it; and (2) that it does not include in itself anything 'accidental' or separable, such as particular modes of manifestation, or conditions of glory and majesty, which may at one time be attached to the 'form,' at another separated from it....

Remember about Adam: he was made in the icon of God (“icon” being a visual representation of who God is) until Adam’s and Eve’s divorce from God.  As we were “in the loins of Abraham” (Heb 7:5), so were we “in the loins” of Adam.  Now our goal, set forth by God, is to meld to the icon of God found in Christ, to be “in the loins” of Christ. 

So the whole imagery I envision is like a tree.  We (1) from our own free choice, we join to the Bride of Christ as a Gentile branch links on to the vine, and (2) conform to the vine, having the mind of Christ, becoming part of the body, becoming the image of the image (ie, here is the character solidification process), the individuals become solidified within the Bride, then (3) God calls forth His Bride, (4) He justifies His Bride (consecrates the marriage), and finally (5) glorifies His Bride, which is bringing her back to the original place she was in before the fall.  I’ll get into (3), (4), and (5) later.  Gotta do some homework for class now.  (Yuck… I prefer doing stuff like this instead!)

 

I don’t know if anyone will even find this interesting or useful, but writing this out has really helped me understand the depth of the Bible a bit more.  I now totally see the theme of the Divorce that happened in Genesis and the Reunion of the Bride and Groom in Revelation (and I understand now why God says “my name is Jealous”… oooh, can’t wait until I get to that part!! It all comes from understanding what “Jealous” actually means.  The word is soooo misused in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  “Jealous” actually shows how much the Bride is loved.).

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In the creation account of Genesis 2, God had finished creating the world, and after creating Adam He placed him in the garden at its center. God gave Adam only one commandment. That was to not eat of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. In verse 18, God says that “It is not good that man should be alone.” This is a loving creator showing concern for His creation and wanting him to be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. So they go on a search to find Adam a “helper”. After going through every animal of the land and air, Adam realizes that there were none that were suitable for him. So God puts Adam to sleep, takes a rib from Adam’s side and fashions a woman that is comparable to him.

The rib was an interesting choice of parts to take and form woman from. I see two different applications for the use of the rib in this story. Someone once mentioning to me how that the rib God took from Adam could have been part of his genetic makeup. Have you ever noticed how men have XY chromosomes while women have XX? When God took the rib, could it have been a chromosomal “rib”, making an X into a Y chromosome? The other is that the word rib means a literal rib. The original word for rib in Hebrew is "tsela"which can mean rib, plank, timber, side, chamber, etc. Where it starts to get interesting is when you look at the usages of the word. The rib is the part of the body that protects, or more accurately houses the heart, and the heart is considered the temple of God. Likewise of the 32 instances that "tsela" is used in the Old Testament, all but two (other than the references to Adams rib) are in reference to the framing material used to build either the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the alter in the temple or chambers of the temple. These are all either parts of Gods temple, the place where His Spirit resided, or instruments used in His worship. As you notice, both applications for rib are in reference to the building blocks in which the Temple of God is built.

After God removed the rib, He “closed up the flesh in its place”. I always thought this meant that God closed up the flesh through which the rib was removed. That is what a doctor would do after removing an organ, for example, through an incision. That may be part of it, but I believe this verse is talking also of the filling in of the void where the rib once was. Though the void doesn’t seem to be present, the body still remembers and must compensate for its missing member, ever desiring to be reunited. Also the rib that has since been transformed into the body of woman yearns to be returned to the body from which it once was taken. To put it another way, God made us whole in the presence of our individual lack, so in turn we may be reunited in community.

When God presented the woman (Eve) to Adam, he said “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”, this is that reunion of the flesh and bone, the refilling of the individual lack through relational means. This is the first marriage in the history of humankind. Adam had to give up his rib as a dowry, so that he may be united with Eve.
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One other thought... If we are the bride of Christ, then that means that Christ made an active choice to take us as His bride. Now think of John 5.19 "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner." So, what does that say about the Father?