This is such an amazing passage of scripture, that it is really difficult to boil it down to just one principle or doctrine. It really is the summary of Paul’s gospel or good news, up to this point. In this passage he gives us a continuing string of assurances and blessings and benefits for those who have been saved. In this chapter he is actually presenting the various stages of our salvation, from justification to sanctification, to our glorification. And this summary reaches it’s crescendo in these last verses which talk about the surety and guarantee of our salvation because of God’s love for us.
We have been studying this chapter for a few weeks now, and while it is beneficial to break it down verse by verse and really examine in detail each of the doctrines presented here, the downside is that it’s possible to lose sight of the magnificence of the totality of what God has done in Christ Jesus for us. It’s like listening to a symphony of a great piece of classical music, and skipping the earlier parts and just listening to the last segment when it reaches it’s crescendo. That might be an interesting way to listen, but I think you would miss the various parts building up to the great climax.
So before we look today at the climax of Paul’s presentation of our salvation, let me first go back to the beginning of chapter 8 and just remind you of the highlights there, and that will hopefully serve to set up the grand finale.
Starting in vs 1, Paul talks about the beginning of our salvation, which is our justification, and said there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation! Consider that! All my transgressions, all my sins, all my shortcomings, all are wiped clean by Jesus Christ. He paid my debt, and even further, God transferred His righteousness to my account.
Furthermore, he says in vs 11 that having been made righteous, God has given us the means of sanctification, by His Spirit to indwell us. Think of that! The Spirit of the Living God has been given to indwell us that we might have spiritual life, that we might live righteously through His power working in us.
And the fact that the Spirit indwells sets up the blessing of sonship. Vs 14, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Paul goes on to enumerate the tremendous blessings we are guaranteed as the children of God. Those blessings include the immediate and intimate access to God as our heavenly Father. And furthermore, that as children of God we share in the inheritance of Christ. Imagine that! The inheritance of Christ is to be shared with us - former slaves, former enemies of God, but now adopted into HIs family, made co heirs with Jesus Christ.
But part of what we share with Christ is the sufferings of Christ. And that suffering is also a blessing. It is a privilege to share in Christ’s sufferings, for to the degree that we suffer with Him, we shall also share in His glory. vs 17, and if [we are] children, [then] heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
And even suffering is a blessing, because as vs 28 tells us, God is working all things together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. Just think of that! God uses our weaknesses, our sufferings, even things that were meant as evil towards us, to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. In the process of our sanctification, God uses all things to work together for good, for His purpose.
And His purpose - HIs eternal plan for us - is to bring many sons to the glory of His kingdom. He has predetermined that we would be His children from eternity past, and He has worked all things after the counsel of His will, so that those whom He foreknew, He also predestined, and those He predestined, He also called, and those He called, He also justified, and those He justified, He also glorified. God is the author and finisher of our salvation. Our future is a certainty, so that God speaks of our glorification as though it has already been finalized. Imagine that! God’s plan is for our good, to give us a future and a hope, and it is certain and guaranteed by HIs word which cannot fail.
Now we come to the crescendo. And Paul himself seems to almost be at a loss for words at considering the incredible wonders of our salvation. He says in vs31 “What then shall we say to these things?” It’s as if he is exclaiming “What more can I say?” “How can I express the wonders of God’s love for us?” And really, the wonders of our salvation should leave us speechless as well when we consider all that God has done for us. Nothing that affects our salvation has been contingent upon what we might do for God but is founded upon what God has done for us. As Jonah 2:9 says, “salvation is from the Lord.” Our salvation is all of God, God’s undeserved favor towards us. It was He who procured all these blessings for us.
And since the Almighty God of heaven, the Holy Son of God Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirt have all cooperated and agreed together to bring many sons to glory, then we must conclude with Paul that “If God is for us, then who or what can be against us?” We are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ over every thing that might come against us.
Consider for a moment that question, “If God is for us.” The devil would love you to get you to a point through trials and difficulties of life so that you might ask “Is God really for us?” It sometimes seems that everything is against us, and in such times we might doubt even that God is for us. But Paul wants us to know for sure that God is for us, and he offers us proof in vs32, that God did not spare His only Son for our sake, but gave Him up to die in our place. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”
There can be no greater assurance of God’s concern for us, and watch care over us, than the fact that God gave Jesus, HIs only, beloved Son, to be the sacrificial lamb for us, that we might be given eternal life. God did not spare Jesus, He did not mitigate the severity of the punishment for our sin to any degree, so that our judgment might be paid in full, so that He could adopt us as HIs children.
We can be assured that God is for us by the one verse of scripture that probably every Christian should have memorized; John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Certainly we can be assured that God is for us, considering what God has done for us.
And if that is true, then we can learn from the greater to the lessor that God will freely give us all things. Vs32 “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” What things is he talking about? This is not a proof text for “name it and claim it”. Does he mean any thing we desire? I would have to say that is not my experience. I have asked for many things in my life as a Christian and God has chosen not to give them to me. And maybe it was better that I did not get everything I wanted or asked for.
But what I think Paul is talking about are the things mentioned so far in this text which I highlighted while ago. All the blessings and benefits of my salvation are guaranteed. He will not withhold them, but He richly pours out His grace upon me. As the song “Great is Thy Faithfulness” says, “all I have needed thy hand has provided, great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.” So since God is for us, who can be against us?
Paul rephrases that question who can be against us, by saying “who will bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ Jesus who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” Perhaps the entity that Paul is referencing who is against us is none other than the enemy, which is Satan. Satan is called the accuser in Revelation 12:10 “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” You will remember that Satan accused Job, God’s servant.
But the answer that is given against any accusation against us that Satan might make is that it is God who justifies. We are justified by faith is what God has done. How did God justify us? By condemning His own Son, putting the penalty for our sin upon Jesus, that we might go free. Isaiah speaks of the reason God justified us in Isaiah 53:10-11 “But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting [Him] to grief; If He would render Himself [as] a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” God justified us on the basis of what Christ did for us on the cross. And the accuser cannot ask God to engage in double jeopardy. Any accusations in the light of our justification have no validity. We have already been assured in vs 1 that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. Now we are reminded in vs 34 that there can be no condemnation because Jesus was condemned in our place.
And as vs 34 tells us, Christ is now at the right hand of God, interceding for us. It’s as if God is the judge, Satan is the prosecutor, and Jesus Christ is the Intercessor, our defense attorney. And by virtue of HIs intercession we have no fear of condemnation from the accuser.
Jesus said during HIs ministry on earth that no greater love has any man than this, than a man lays down his life for his friends. Jesus Christ willingly laid down His life for us, that we might be His friends, and even more than friends, His family. That we might be adopted into the family of God. He loved us enough to leave the glory of heaven, to leave HIs place at the right hand of God, in order to humble Himself to become a man, that He might die for His enemies and procure their salvation. And Paul emphasizes our assurance is secure because of the love of Christ.
Earlier Paul asked, “if God is for us?” And I said that Satan often attacks us in hope that we will think that God is not for us. That He does not care about our circumstances. But we have seen many assurances that God does care. However, another attack of the devil on those who are afflicted is often to make them think that God does not love us. Satan suggests that if God loved us, He would never let us go through what we are going through here on earth.
So Paul asks that question in vs 35. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Listen, our love for God may waver, but Christ’s love for us will never fail. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Paul gives us in this verse seven circumstances that the devil might use to try to convince us that God doesn’t love us. The first is affliction. Some commentators have said that affliction speaks of outward affliction and distress speaks of inward distress. I think of Job who was afflicted with boils. Affliction is often physical, it may be an illness. It’s on the outside, or comes from the outside. But the second circumstance Paul mentions is distress. Distress speaks of a inward condition. It’s an inward distress of the mind or soul. It’s being torn apart on the inside with fear or worry.
The third means of causing us to doubt God’s love is persecution. Persecution can come from many sources, in many different forms, but it is a deliberate attack on your faith. Famine is the fourth, and that may be hunger, but it may include any lack of necessities. I will tell you that God does not always supply all our needs immediately. God sometimes allows us to suffer famine, long beyond when we think God should have answered. And your faith will be tested in times of famine, to see if you will still trust the Lord when He seemingly does not supply what He has promised.
Nakedness refers to a lack of clothing. Not necessarily actually naked, but in need of clothing. Clothing is a basic, fundamental need, and the lack of it is something that Satan would test us through.
Peril is danger. As a Christian we can sometimes experience danger. In the hymn “Amazing Grace” it has the line, “through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come, but grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” Paul spoke of his own experience with danger in 2 Cor. 11 saying he had often been “in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers.”
And the final circumstance that might be faced is the sword. The sword refers to death, perhaps by execution. It should be noted that every one of those trials were something that the apostle Paul had personally experienced up to that point, except the sword. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 11:23 about all the hardships and difficulties that he had experienced as an apostle. He had been stoned, whipped, shipwrecked, stranded at sea, hungry, thirsty, in poverty, etc, all during his ministry. It must be understood that we too are going to experience such things from time to time. The only thing Paul had not experienced at the time of this writing was the sword. But within a few years, he would succumb to that as well, and lose his head at the hand of the Emperor Nero.
Thus Paul could agree with the Psalmist in quoting Psalm 44:22, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” The reality of suffering in our Christian faith goes against our contemporary theology a lot of times. We somehow think that our Christianity is supposed to insulate us from suffering and sickness and death. But in fact, Paul indicates that suffering is a very present reality.
Jesus Himself promised suffering for His followers. He said the servant is not above his master. If they hated Him, they will hate us as well. He said in John 16:33 "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
So even though we will experience tribulation, any or all of those seven circumstances Paul listed, as Christ has overcome, so we will overcome. Paul says in vs 37, “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” We overwhelmingly conquer in spite of all these tribulations. In the midst of these tribulations, in fact, even by means of these tribulations, we are more than conquerors.
Remember back in vs 28 Paul talked about all things working together for good. And we said that the things he was talking about was various types of suffering. He was using suffering to conform us to the image of Christ. And now Paul says that in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. They cannot hurt us, but even can be used to help us. They all work together for good.
He goes on to enumerate those things in vs 38, as the symphony builds to it’s grand finale; “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Not even the greatest enemy, our physical death can defeat us, because we have been given eternal life. It can’t defeat us because He lives, and because He lives, we live and will ever live with Him. And life itself cannot defeat us, even with all it’s distractions, and worries and cares. Life cannot separate us from God, because our life is given by God. He holds our life in HIs hand. By Him we live and breath and exist. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
No angel or principality, whether a fallen or holy angel, as powerful as they may be, can separate us from the love of God. Speaking of the fallen angels, 1 John 4:4 says “greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. God loves us more than the angels. When angels fell in sin, God did not send Jesus to die for them but held them in eternal condemnation. But God so loved us, that even when we were sinners Christ died for us.
Neither can things present or things to come separate us from the plan and love of God. I look at all that is going on in our country today, all that is going on in the world, and I am almost overwhelmed. The future seems almost hopeless. But God is not overwhelmed. All things are going according to His plan. And His plan includes me. He plan is for me. He has chosen me to be a child of God and to share His kingdom with Him forever. He has promised good to me. And nothing that happens in this world can change HIs love for me.
Nor, says Paul, can any powers hurt me. No power of government can separate me. Government may take away my rights, they may take away my citizenship, they may lock me up in prison, but they can’t take away God’s love for me. Neither can height nor depth. I think of that every time I fly in an airplane. I am just as safe and just as loved by God at 30,000 feet in the air as I am on solid ground. Jesus said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. He has promised to be with me in all things, no matter where I might go or how far.
Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night," Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike [to You.] For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, [And] skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained [for me,] When as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.”
And back in Romans 8, just in case Paul left anything out, he adds, "nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing, absolutely nothing whatsoever, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
We that on Jesus have trusted and believed, God has secured for us a salvation that is beyond description and comprehension, that surpasses the tribulations and trials of this world, and in fact makes us more than conquerors in Christ. As Christ triumphed over death and the grave, so we will triumph over death and the grave. As He ascended into heaven, so we will ascend to heaven. As He sits on a throne in heaven, so we shall sit on thrones in heaven. As He lives forever more, so we shall live forever more with Him. This is our inheritance. It is our future glorification, which is already in progress, so that we are already considered as seated in the heavenly places according to Ephesians 1:20. Our name card is already reserving our place at the table, and God is preparing a place for us there with Him.
I pray that you have these assurances of your salvation today. If you do not have this assurance of your salvation, I hope that you will trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that you may have the forgiveness of sins, the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and be filled with the presence of His Holy Spirit. Christ has made all these things possible through His death, burial and resurrection. Believe in Him and be saved and receive the adoption as a child of God, and enter into the inheritance which God has prepared for those who love Him. It is a free gift of God. He loves you enough to die for you. I hope that you will trust in Him and believe in Him as your Savior today that you might have life.
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