4. The Core and Capstone

© Daniel Yordy – 2020

In my many attempts to set out Paul’s gospel for us to get a handle on it, I have never looked at Romans 8:18-30 as a complete whole inside of Romans 8. We must do that here for two reasons. First, as I am working on this passage in The Jesus Secret II, I want to lay this out here before I finish that section there. Second, in order for us to be impacted overwhelmingly by what’s coming up in the next letters, we must “bear hug” Paul’s gospel into ourselves.

First, Paul sets the gospel as his topic. I have decided to return the Greek eullagion, or good news, to its Anglo-Saxon rendition as God-Spell or God-Story, reduced over time to “gospel.”

The gospel… is the power of God carrying all who are actively believing into salvation… For inside of the gospel the just approval of God is unveiled out from faith into faith; as it has been written, “The just will live out from faith” (Habakkuk 2:4) (Romans 1:16-17).

Okay, wow, we’ve just been sidetracked. I have never seen before the clarity by which Paul defines the gospel. The good news IS the carrying power of God. Carrying whom? – those who are just out from faith. Carrying them where? – into something called “salvation.” Then, inside of this carrying power of God something incredible, something not known or seen anywhere else, is unveiled – the just approval of God.

Peter said something quite similar to this.

You who are being guarded, watched over, and kept inside of the power of God and carried through faith into a salvation ready to be unveiled inside of the final season of opportunity (1 Peter 1:5).

Peter added this thought as well, making “carrying grace” and “the carrying power of God” to be synonymous, two terms speaking of the same thing. – Actively expect upon your own carrying grace inside of the unveiling of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13). [I quoted this verse in the first chapter of this series, but as I look more closely at the Greek words, I see that this is a more accurate translation and will be closer to the final JSV.]

Paul also raises the questions of the “when” of this salvation ready to be unveiled, but he answers that question as well.

Being aware of the season of opprotunuty, that the hour for you to awaken out of sleep is already here; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is advanced, and the day has drawn near. – Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:11-12 & 14).

As synergeoing [with God], we also encourage you not to receive and welcome the grace of God into emptiness. For He says: “In an acceptable time, I listened to you, and inside a day of salvation, I helped you” (Isaiah 49:8). Behold, now is the time of favor and of good welcome; behold now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

John also positions this question of “the day of salvation.”

Now have come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ, because… (Revelation 12:10). – In that day you will know that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you (John 14:20).

Salvation, then, has two expressions, one inward and personal and the other outward and together. “You inside of Me and I inside of you” is inward and personal to each one. “The Church which is His body, the fullness of Jesus who fills all inside of all” (Ephesians 1:23) is outward and together.

The truth is, these are the ruling New Testament definitions of this thing called “salvation.” All other references simply add to these inward and outward meanings. Nowhere in the Bible is “salvation” equated with where someone goes after they are dead.

Let’s rephrase Paul’s definition of “the gospel.”

Inward and personal – The gospel IS the power and grace of God carrying you into symmorphy with Jesus, sharing the same form, He inside of you and you inside of Him.

Outward and together – The gospel is the power and grace of God carrying you into the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Jesus who fills all inside of all.

But what about the when? Is it today or someday?

Paul gives full answer to that question before he starts his argument. Out from faith and into faith – the just will live through faith. Or, as Jesus said, Let it be to you according to your faith. And as Peter said, Receiving the result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

That means that Jesus’ qualifying words, “In that day,” mean whatever you want them to mean. To those who want them to mean TODAY, by their faith, they receive living inside of a Jesus who lives inside of them TODAY. And for those who want those three little words to mean someday, they will remain someday forever. They cannot know salvation at all until they change “someday” to TODAY.

Now, we are trying to outline Paul’s argument of what his “gospel” really is. And we see that he has placed what will be the single primary point of the gospel right here before he starts.

The gospel is the power of God carrying you into the knowledge of symmorphy with Jesus.

I do like this business of looking carefully at what God actually says.

Now, although the inward and personal meaning of salvation comes first and is Paul’s argument from Romans 1:18 through 10:13, we know that he also means fully the outward and together meaning of salvation, because he switches to the topic of the church, of being members of one another, from 10:14 through 15:13.

At the same time, both the personalness and the togetherness of salvation are fully included inside of Romans 8:29, and, even more than that, inside of Romans 8:18-30.

We see, then, that Paul gives us the full essential meaning of “his gospel” before he begins the larger argument.

However, before we can follow Paul’s argument, we must bring into the picture the GREAT ISSUE, life versus death, wages versus gift, sin versus just innocence.

Paul defines and assumes a definition of this issue all the way through, a definition that is NOT old covenant. In fact, he makes it clear that the law is part of the problem, the law of sin and death.

For ALL have missed the target and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
From Jesus’ words in John 17:1-3, we can assume rightly that the “glory” of God and the “knowledge” of God, God showing Himself as He is, are the same thing.

The question is, then, what is the other side of the real issue, the opposite of Romans 3:23? The other side is not being declared just and innocent, although that is THE required pre-requisite, that which must come first.

The opposite of missing the target is hitting the target. The opposite of falling short is living in.

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God (Romans 6:10 – NKJV). Here is the same in the JSV. – Because He died, He died to all disconnection from God once for all; because He lives, He lives connected to and fused together with God.

The ENTIRE issue, then, is living disconnected from God versus living connected fully together with God, eating of the tree of death versus eating of the tree of life, living by your own human performance versus living inside of another Person.

Paul then argues every conceivable aspect of this issue from Romans 1:18 through Romans 8:17. And he finishes that argument and brings it to its full conclusion in verses 14-17a.

For those who are led and carried by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery again into fear, but you have received the Spirit of placement and setting forth as sons, inside of whom we cry, “My Daddy, the Father!” The Spirit Himself shares witness together with our spirit, that we are children born out from God. And if children, then also heirs, heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs together with Christ.

That’s it. That is the entire conclusion of this brilliant argument setting forth the great issue.

It is not the salvation of God.

Picture a Saturn rocket taking off from Cape Canaveral. Those massive engines are delivering the enormous POWER required to get the small little cabin on top out into orbit. Once the gravity pulling the believer down into sin and death has been broken, however, then the mighty engines of our justification fall away, and we are launched out into the wondrous glory of salvation with no more reference whatsoever to escaping gravity.

Paul ends the conclusion of the removal from us of all thought of sin and death with a look forward at what is about to come, here beyond the reach of gravity. For that reason, we understand that this “if indeed” has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the issue of any disconnection from God.

 If indeed we share together with His suffering that we might also share together with His glory.

“If indeed” is pointing us forward to the mighty relationship with God that God intended to have with us from the beginning, this sharing of the same form, this synergeoing together, even in the travail of suffering, to turn all created things into intrinsic goodness.

What I am saying is that Romans 8:18-30 is high up inside of the glory and knowledge of God with ZERO reference to anything that once pulled us down.

The salvation of God contains NO answers to sin. God’s answers to sin have dropped fully away; they are no longer needed.

Wow, I was hoping for clarity, but when I started I was thinking I needed to lay out Paul’s argument regarding the issue step by step. But I see now that such an approach would not work because the whole point is the utter and total separation of God’s answer to the issue of sin versus not-sin, that it is no longer in the picture. It has completed its work and dropped away.

Romans 8:18-30, then, is a description of our full and living union with God, that is, with Our Daddy, the Father, as we possess to full measure NO consciousness of sins.

Inside of his argument setting forth the great issue, of course, Paul returns to the garden where it began to show how Christ is the full and living antidote to everything deadly that Adam chose and then channeled into the cosmos.

Now, in his setting forth of his description of our glorious SALVATION, Paul is no longer referencing the antidote to Adam. Instead, he is setting out God’s purpose from the beginning, the reality God intended mankind to be completely separate from Adam’s world of sin and death.

Before we layout the pattern of Romans 8:18-30, however, let’s look at what comes after. You see, what comes after CANNOT be a return to what came before.

In verse 31 Paul says this - What then do we say to these things? If God is for our sakes, who or what could be against us?

Paul is not talking about the great issue that he developed in the first several chapters of Romans. You see, that argument of our full justification through faith, our full re-connection with God, has lifted us up into more than a near orbit just beyond the reach of gravity. Romans 8:18-30 is us living in an entirely different realm of reality. We are “on a different planet” one might say.

And so the remainder of Romans 8 can be nothing more than filling in the gaps regarding this glorious salvation, as well as providing that story-line that the Spirit of God will later connect with Chapter 12 of John’s vision.

More than that, even though here and there through Romans 9:1 to 15:13 Paul does fill in some gaps in his earlier argument of justification through faith, yet he continues to add to our understanding of our glorious salvation as well. Throughout the last section, however, except for a few brief warnings, Paul has no intention of re-introducing any consciousness of sins.

He has no such intention, for he has placed us utterly together with God FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS.

Salvation then is God through us, together with us, for the sake of others.

And this is really becoming cool.

Romans 8:18-30 is the core and the capstone of Paul’s gospel, unrelated to our justification, and is a description of our glorious salvation, a wondrous relationship with God that is right now and forever.

To place this understanding upon God’s pattern of the Tabernacle of Moses, then, we see exactly this same thing.

From the moment we find ourselves standing in front of the Gate, hearing some preacher convicting us of our sins and our need for Jesus, all the way to our entrance through the Veil into the Holiest, it’s all an EMERGENCY RESCUE, it is this entire argument Paul lays out regarding our justification, just as if we have never sinned once or ever known disconnection from God.

Romans 8:18-30, then, has nothing to do with that desperate escape, but is now entirely you and me living inside the Holy of Holies, utterly together with God, that is, the normal Christian life, and ready to go forth with Father as His Ark into every place, setting creation free.

Now we are ready for Romans 8:18-30. I am going to number the points as an outline separate from the Geneva Bible numbering of the verses.

Part I: I Set Creation Free.
1. For I reckon, I speak, I place to my account, that the sufferings of this present season of opportunity are not worthy and have no value compared towards the glory ready to be unveiled inside of us.

2. For the eager anticipation of the creation awaits intently for the unveiling, that is, the removal of that which hides the sons of God.

3. For the creation was made subject to purposelessness, not willingly, but through being subjected on the basis of the hope that creation itself will also be made free from the slavery of decay into the freedom of the glory of the children birthed out from God.

4. Indeed, we are aware that the entire creation groans together and travails together until now.

Part II: The Spirit Joins Me Together With God.
5. Not only that, but even we ourselves, possessing the firstfruit of the Spirit, we also groan inside ourselves, eagerly expecting the placement and setting forth as sons, that is, the redemption of our body.

6. Indeed, we were saved inside of this hope.

7. Hope that is being seen outwardly, however, is not hope; for if one sees something outwardly, for what is he hoping? If, on the other hand, we hope for what we do not see, we expect it eagerly through steadfastness. 

8. In the same way, the Spirit also joins as help together with our weakness; for we are not aware of the things that are necessary for us to pray, but the Spirit personally brings us in line with Father for the sake of others, with inexpressible groanings.

9. Even more than that, the One who is actively searching hearts, that is, to know present needs, is aware of the thinking of the Spirit, because, according to all the details that are God, He joins us together with God – as on the Mercy Seat – for the sake of the holy ones.

Part III: Jesus and I Share the Same Form Together
10. We are fully aware that those who love God are synergeoing with God, directing all things into goodness.

11. These are those who are being called according to the finest details of His pro-thesis, that is, His set-forth purpose.

12. Because those whom He pro-knows, that is, whom He knows inside Himself as part of Himself, He also pro-determined them symmorphosed with the image of His Son.

13. Into Jesus being the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, that is, of His same kind, born of the same womb.

14. Even more than that, those whom He pro-determined, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He has already made fully just and innocent; and even more than that, those whom He made just and innocent, these He has already fully glorified.

You see how it ends – already fully connected with all that is the glory of God, a glory, however, that is known through our travail with God for the sake of others, just as Jesus defined glory in John 17.

Now, my purpose here is not to teach or re-teach the endless vistas of truth and reality found inside this amazing layout of our glorious salvation. My purpose is to place this description out as a whole piece so that we can see all of its parts fully integrated together.

Before we do that, however we must point out briefly the incredible CRIME committed by Nicene theology against the most important passage in the Bible.

Part I is eliminated entirely as being not only completely irrelevant to the Christian life, but placed into the grab bag of HERESY. Think of that, one third of Paul’s expression of our glorious salvation has been placed into heresy, something that no one touches or considers. We can safely assume that a “gospel” that does not need Romans 8:19-22 as its entrance is no gospel at all.

Then, Part III is utterly perverted into the Calvinist horror of predestination either to heaven or to hell after you are dead. Where on earth do they find heaven or hell in this description? And God’s already accomplished – symmorphosed with the image of His Son, the absolute of our present COVENANT WITH GOD is cast far away into someday only.

And Part II, this precious approach to the wonder of sharing heart with God, is left as just a few more fairly irrelevant details of a Christian life that is always falling short.

By this savagery, this core and capstone of Paul’s gospel, this description of our glorious salvation, is shattered completely. And thus its little broken-apart bits just become more unrelated ideas inside the great “Christian” “struggle against sin in the flesh.”

Here is what Paul said about all those theologians and preachers who so cavalierly rip apart and cast aside our glorious salvation. – Let them be accursed – Let them be pledged to ruin and loss! (Galatians 1).

Our anger is just and pure.

Nonetheless, we place it entirely into the love of our Daddy, the Father.

Let’s look again at this wondrous layout of the normal Christian life.

















What you see in this picture is a vast cosmic structure that is a common function of the flow of electricity, regardless of the size of the phenomena.

On the one side is the electricity flowing in, in the center is the pinch, and on the other side is the electricity flowing out. For that reason, the “pinch” aspect of flowing electricity creates what is called an “hour-glass” form and appears that way when you look at it from the right angle.

This phenomenon of the natural universe is a picture to us of how God works.

Romans 8:30 is the electricity flowing in, that is, Paul’s summation of our justification resulting in an already and fully completed glorification. The glory is finished before anything else starts. God completes everything BEFORE He sets anything into motion.

The pinch, then, which at the cosmic level results in a cluster of galaxies and at the galactic level results in a star, and at the human level results in your eye or the point of connection in a circuit or the point of discharge, is Romans 8:29 – the Covenant.

The electricity flowing out, then, is not just Romans 8:28, synergeoing together with God turning all things towards goodness, but, in fact, Romans 8:28 is the entirety of Romans 8:18-28.

The outflow of God through us, together with us, is the topic of the entirety of Romans 8:18-28, that is, points 1-10 in our list. Then we see that the second part of Romans 8:28 is the introduction to the pinch, that is, the Covenant.

That means we must actually divide this layout differently. This not a “correction”; both of these layouts are very useful to us.

Part I: Synergeoing with God. (God flowing out from us, together with us.)
1. Glory ready to be unveiled inside of us.
2. The unveiling of the sons of God.
3. Creation itself … into the freedom of the glory of the children birthed out from God.
4. The entire creation groans together and travails together until now.
5. We also groan inside ourselves, eagerly expecting the redemption of our body.
6. Indeed, we were saved inside of this hope.
7. We expect it eagerly through steadfastness. 
8. The Spirit also joins as help together with our weakness; … the Spirit personally brings us in line with Father for the sake of others.
9. He joins us together with God – as on the Mercy Seat – for the sake of the holy ones.
10. We are fully aware that those who love God are synergeoing with God, directing all things into goodness.

Part II: Symmorphy with Jesus. (God with us.)
11. These are those who are being called according to the finest details of His pro-thesis, that is, His set-forth purpose.
12. Because those whom He pro-knows, that is, whom He knows inside Himself as part of Himself, He also pro-determined them symmorphosed with the image of His Son.
13. Into Jesus being the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, that is, of His same kind, born of the same womb.

Part III: Already Finished. (God having already entered into us.)
14. These He has already fully glorified.

This is so incredibly good. The truth is, my purpose is this layout, as I said. Now we are much more able to see everything coming up in this ongoing study inside of our GLORIOUS SALVATION, the glorious liberty of the children birthed out from God.

At the same time, we are gaining ever clearer pictures of the Highway of God, God coming through.