SCRIPTURE Romans 8:28-30 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.  Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” 

COMMENTARY First, this passage of Scripture is clear it applies to those that love God and continue to love God (continuous present tense of love).  Those who love God obey God.  Those who love and obey God (ex. John 14:21-23), and continue to do so, will most certainly follow the salvific path to glorification.  Remember God knows who will endure to the end.  We do not but it certainly is not all those who name Christ as Lord (ex. Luke 6:46, Matthew 7:21).  God knows who will attempt to walk with the Holy Spirit and who will not.  In short, the doctrine of eternal security can make sense in this passage (Romans 8:28–29) from God’s perspective because He knows the future.  That is why He could write the names of the truly saved in the book of life of the Lamb before the foundation of the world – He knows.  This is why we should ask proponents of the doctrine as currently taught “Have you seen the book of life? Is my name in it?” 

But there are also a number of different ways of interpreting this passage.  We won’t go through all of these but these include the idea of these not being a chain but rather a series of facts, the idea that the term foreknowledge actually means “before knowledge” because of the past tense forms (aorist indicative) of the events which would mean the chain is actually addressing what God has done in the past as a mean of encouraging believers under persecution in Rome, etc.  Giving credence to this understanding is the fact that the Greek word foreknow (proginóskó) is actually used in Scripture to refer to things that were known from before (ex. Acts 26:5). In addition, the final step in the chain, glorification, has occurred for those that were known before.

We also note here that neither all of God’s parts of salvation, nor any of men’s, are mentioned within what is considered the golden chain here suggesting this is not meant to be an exhaustive or guaranteed process.  Hence, there are real and serious questions as to whether the golden chain can be interrupted.  For example, the man at the wedding banquet was called, but not chosen.