Romans 8:28 has been translated many ways. This article invites you, the reader, to participate in putting the puzzle together. The puzzle pieces are those in the figure that have boxes above. (We need not look at the last half of the verse as it does not vary substantially from bible to bible.)
- There is no controversy over the verb, which is “works” or “work.”
- The subject of the verb is a bit tricky because it isn’t actually there. In Greek it is okay to leave out the subject if it is obvious from the context. So, three options are available, and it is up to the translator to choose either “God,” “The Holy Spirt,” or “All things.” The “all things” noun is a bit of a problem itself because the word in the Greek text is simply the one translated “all,” which is an adjective usually modifying a noun but in this case it is masquerading as a noun so the translator will translate it a “all things” to cover all the bases.
- There is also the possibility of a prepositional phrase, although the preposition is missing in the Greek. So, if you don’t choose “all things” as the subject of the sentence, you can insert it as a phrase modifying the verb “works,” which would read “works in all things.”
So how do you put those puzzle pieces together? There are three alternatives (Actually four, because the default subject in this case would be is a singular third-person pronoun, but “He works ” would render the whole verse completely ambiguous.):
Proposal A:
Proposal A chooses “God” because there isn’t anybody but God who can work for so many things. That puts the “all things” puzzle piece into a phrase because it has to go somewhere else if it is not made the subject.
Proposal B differs from A and is justified because of the fact that Romans 8:1 through 8:27 discuss the Holy Spirit and there is every reason to expect 8:28 to be carrying on the same thread. Nevertheless, because Christians know that the Holy Spirit is, or procedes from, God, both A and B are acceptable from a theological, if not completely grammatical point of view. This option may edge out Proposal A because the context actually IS the Holy Spirit.
Many bibles use Proposal C, which makes “All things” the subject of the sentence which eliminates the option of using that word as a preposititional phrase. We then have “All things work [together] for the good….
Experts in Greek grammar probably prefer this option, but may grudgingly admit that the other two options are possible. Theologians, on the other hand, have good reason to stand up and yell “heresy!” as “things” can’t possibly work for good unless you are a pantheist rather than a Christian.
So I hope you will consider Option B, “The Holy Spirit works in all things for the good for those who are called according to his purpose.”
A final word. One has to respect our translators, who work hard to get us the best possible readings from an ancient Greek text. Sadly, however, there seems to be a divide between the biblical studies teams responsible for our translations and the theologians who, in this case, would have saved them from serious error. But I suspect the problem may not be quite that simple. The publication of God’s word is a profitable business wiith numerous competitors. Christians looking at a shelf of bibles in a retail outlet might look up such popular verses as Romans 8:28 and make their purchasing decisions on whehter the verse reads according to what they are used to, thus perpetuating the error. So the choice of translation may ultimately be an economic one. After all, Paul has been misquoted in this verse ever since the 1611 when the first king James bibles came off the printing presses.
Leave a Reply