Romans 8:31-39 Bible Teaching

WELCOME

Grant and Myrna Parker were long standing attendees of CAMPUS but poor health took them out of physical visits.
Grant came in this morning and to us that Myrna passed away yesterday morning at home after battling lung cancer.

PRAYER
WORD SET TO MUSIC
SILENCE

Okay one more week before we dive into chapter 9 or what some see as the predestination chapter. This far in chptr 8 . . .

Romans 8.end
August 15th 2021
Paul has told us that we have an inward hopeful expectation as believers, that we have an ability to communicate with God by His Spirit intimately, and now he has made the point that God has called or invited us (for His own purposes) and that He has also named or chosen those who receive Him.

Perhaps this is the summation of all I was trying to articulate last week and that is we have the incomprehensible knowledge that in our walk God’s purpose is to bring all into His Kingdom as Sons and Daughters – and if that is the case – we know that He is FOR US, on our side, doing all He can do to sustain us in our journey to Him.

However, part of being a human is the constant call from our flesh toward pride.
We want to take credit for things because our flesh is never satisfied. It wants constant recognition, kudos, and validation and all the honors.

But we have to remember that God is the one doing the calling and inviting, and if He wasn’t inviting, and proving His existence to us, none of us would care to find him from the flesh.

In his letter to the Ephesians (2:4) Paul says:

Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Here in Romans chapter eight, when Paul explained the fact that God called them/then to be His, the fact is again made clear.

Just listen to verses 30 and 31, which we covered last week, and how many times Paul refers to God and His work on our behalf:

“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.”

Nine he’s there – emphasizing the biblical reality that God first calls us, and then he does the work through His Son the vine in us, that none of us should boast.

Yes, there is a two way street in that we have to receive and allow and let, but He is always the doer, we are always the receiver.

Going back to the Old Covenant, and I am referring to the Law, some people get the idea that this law was established for the salvation of man. This was never the case since no person was ever able to abide by the perfect law of God, which was summarized by the ten commandments but was actually represented by over 600 tedious applications.

CS Lewis points out that human beings cannot even keep their own laws, let alone the laws of God.

If you don’t think this is true, go back to any list of “resolutions” you have ever made for yourself and you’ll see the inherent failure in us to abide by most of own desires, let alone His.

No, the Law was not in place for salvation, but was more a system that included temporal (temporary) blessings and cursings for the Children of Israel – depending on obedience or disobedientce to them.

This blessing/cursing economy did not have to do with their salvation for the Book of Hebrews makes it plain that nobody could ever be saved by the Law or the blood of goats and sheep.

Salvation can and would only come by way of the shed blood of the promised Messiah.

This point cannot be stated more emphatically because nobody . . . has ever been able to do anything but abide by faith in Him and “His righteous works” for their salvation.

The fact that it is God who does the work while we rest in Him is illustrated for us all the way back to the days of Abraham, the father of our FAITH.

Remember, the Lord promised Abraham, while showing him the stars, that he would have that many offspring, and in Genesis 15:6 it reads:

“And he (Abraham) believed in the LORD; and he (The Lord) counted it to him for righteousness.”

And then the Lord identified himself as the one who brought Abraham out and promised to give Him “a promised land.” At this point Abraham asked God, “How shall I know that I will inherit it?

And the Lord said:

“Take these animals and divide them (or sacrifice them and lay them out.)”

Abraham does it but as the sun set Abraham falls asleep. And then scripture says that while Abraham slept, God passed between the divided sacrifice.

Again, while Abraham, who believe God, slept, God took the action, and made the covenant in the Sacrifice as evidenced by him walking between the slaughtered beast. The afterward, Genesis 15 reads:

“In the same day “the LORD made a covenant with Abram . . .”

So the father of all faith believed, then God made the covenant, and God did the work to fulfilled it while Abraham slept.

So it is with salvation. We believe. God promises to save all and He does the work to ensure His promises are complete . . . while we sleep, while we allow, while we rest in Him and His work, that no man should boast.

Just as we listened to how many times Paul uses the word “He” in verses 29 and 30 of chapter 8, go with me back to the Old Covenant, to Psalm 23. In it we hear the same idea put forth – it is all based on Him. We are present, but He is the strength. Listen:

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”

With all this as a foundation from last week, lets read now from verse 31 to the end of the chapter, and now gaining a blast of encouragement from the fact that in Him we have ultimate hope! Listen to what Paul says now in the face of all this:

(verse 31)

31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Okay, back to verse 31, where Paul after establishing (as it is established all through the Word) that God does the saving work of salvation among men, asks

31 What shall we then say to these things? “If God be for us, who can be against us?”

In other words, “since God has called us, chosen us, and sent us Son to die for us, and since God is on our side – is “for us” – who in heaven or earth could be against us?

God has called us from the foundation of the world, has sent us His Son to save us, has adopted us as His own (Romans 8:15), has granted to us his Spirit, (Romans 8:16-17 and 26-27) and has done all of this by and through His efforts so that none can boast – And SINCE GOD HAS DONE ALL THIS, PROVING THAT HE IS FOR US, according to His good purposes, WHO could be against us?

Who can truly hurt us?
Who can truly destroy us?
Who can remove God from being “for us?”

Sinners may be against us, Dark powers might be a great enemy to our souls, but their power to “destroy us” or take our salvation or our peace or our place as a Child of God is gone. Sure, these rented bodies can be killed, but nothing on earth can hurt our eternal destiny – and with that in hand, we have assurance and strength.

Paul is saying what John would soon write in 1st John 4:4 :

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

I walk by that promise. The Psalmist said it so well:

(Psalm 118:6) “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”

David, whom I relate to greatly, wrote:

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Isaiah poignantly attempts to convince the Jews that their only hope is God, when he said:

Isaiah 60:19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

Paul is trying to show us that in Him there is no reason to fear whatsoever; that we have overcome the ways and means of this world, that we are no longer subject to wringing our hands, fearing the future, and the outcomes handed us here. Instead we are totally empowered to trust in Him, for an expected end.

1st John 5:4 articulates it clearly:

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

Walking, living, breathing, acting and existing by and through this faith, believers – rising above the din of how this world operates . . . (Ephesians 6:12)

“wrestle NOT . . . against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

After setting forth the proposition that if “God is for us, who can be against us?” Paul proceeds to illustrate the point through a bunch of different examples, which take us all the way to the end of the chapter.

In verse thirty-two, he supports the idea that God is for us by referring to God and pointing out

32 He (God) that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

What greater proof of the fact that God loves us (remember, “For God so loved the World” meaning all people) than the fact that on our behalf “He did not spare His own Son” the innocent One! On OUR behalf!

Wow.

I mean, could you allow your child to be taken out to a field by a bunch of barbarians armed with all sorts of venom and anger as a sacrifice for an indifferent world? That is exactly what God did! For us!

“For,” Paul says, “us all.”

Now, Paul is speaking to believers here so that is the context of what “for us all” means.

But as we pointed out last week, He gave His Son up for all the world – especially those who believe. Paul’s reasoning leads him to this point:

“Since God did this with His own Son (on our behalf),” how shall he not (with him) also freely give us all things?

“How will He not (along with His Son) freely give us all things?”

What do you think about that phrase?
How do you interpret it?
That God FREELY gives all things?

The logic here is, since God was willing to “freely give His own Son” as a means to reconcile the world to Himself, and since His own Son was successful in this purposeful reconciliation, How would God now not (hand and hand with His Son) FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS – and naturally, this would mean He freely gives all things that are beneficial and needed and good and necessary for our eternal well-being.

How could or would God (who gave His Son) demand a price for other things that He gives? And how could anyone possibly pay for it? Think about this.

We don’t pay or repay. We do His will because we love Him. Because we are grateful. Love does not pay, love gives unconditionally. Which is why God freely gives us all things.

Did we merit life? Freely given.

Did we merit our abilities and gifts and blessings? Freely given.

Do we pay a bill for the sun, the wind, the ground, our skin, and bones and blood?

Do we rent our intelligence or personalities from Him?

Did we put fish in the sea, the cattle in the fields, the plants on earth?

He who gave His Son has freely given us all things and this is the same with SALVATION. Freely obtained.

So works righteousness is a laughable concept before the living God. This fact led the prophet Isaiah (55:1) to write:

Isaiah 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Jesus said to the woman at the well that if she drank the water he gives she would never thirst again. And He said of Himself in Revelation (21:6)

It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.”

We do not have to earn His love, His salvation, His goodness. He unconditionally gives all of it freely.

Free salvation.
Free resurrection.
Free sanctification.

While we as branches rest in Him.

But remember, in this life He freely gives all things that are needful for our eternal welfare. Wants are not always in this category. Spiritual needs. Not always wants.

When I was in seventh grade I became friends with a girl in our neighborhood. They had just moved in from Texas and her Dad was in the oil business.

They were super worldly – so much so their kids called their parents by their first names. Wealthy, materialistic, and from a very young age and through my associations with them I learned to love all the ways of the world and the finer things of life.

In high school this girl and I believed we were in love, and as things have it, we planned on getting married.

After a year swimming at BYU, I decide to go on a Mormon mission and prayed that I would not lose this non-LDS girl in the process.

I didn’t. But when I got back I knew I was to marry another girl – a better girl – the one who God had freely put in my life.

The high school sweetheart went on to marry one of the biggest names in Vegas, with the two of them owning two high-end hotels together.

She got the life she always wanted and I
thank God for freely giving me not what I wanted but what I needed.

These types of blessings (and all others) are not given by God by merit or money, but they are all bestowed by His love and mercy. So from the beginning to the end of every Christian life the work has always been of His grace – again, “so that no man should boast.”

And since He freely bestows all needful things upon the world (with the rain and sun falling upon both the just and the unjust) what can we suppose His heart is toward those who are His children by faith on His Son!?

Paul continues, elaborating upon this point with a question that is all-together mind blowing. To me, it feels better to insert a therefore here but I don’t want to add or take away from the word so we’ll read (verse 33) as it is. Nevertheless, the passage is a conclusion that Paul makes in light of the aforementioned passages we’ve just covered. And he writes:

33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.

It is important to know that the Greek let’s us in on from where this line is borrowed – a court of law, where an accuser stands before a judge and lays accusations toward another before the court.

Paul borrows from this idea to reassure all believers that there is no “accuser” who has ANY sway or pull before the throne of God toward a Son or Daughter. None. Why? Because it is God who justifies!

It’s like the owner of a thousand acres has allowed you to hunt anywhere you want on his land. And you bag an elk and some workers grab you and take you before the land owner accusing you of poaching!

There is nothing they can say to the landowner since he is the one who has totally justified your actions. And this is just a common landowner! We’re talking about justification that comes from the living GOD Himself!

Look the heck out!

So we have yet another comfort in being His – total justification before Him. And if God is for us, who can be against us. So, Paul adds to this line of thought:

34 Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Now, the idea of Christ making intercession is spoken of often in Christian circles as the ongoing reality but the scripture plainly repeats that Christ would only be at the right hand of the Father making intercession UNTIL all things have been put under his feet (meaning until He has had the total victory over sin, death, hell, Satan) and then scripture says that in His established spiritual Kingdom God would be all in all and that there would only be one on the throne, called the Lord God Almighty.

I believe that this is the scenario today.
You may differ which is okay with me.

And after all this, Paul enters into some rhetorical writing, and verse 35 seems to present us with some circumstances that at first glance might seem powerful enough to cause us to lose our firm position in Christ, saying

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

This is a reference to that day and time directly, and all that they were going through but the principles remain – no THING has the power to separate us from the love of Christ –

I read this to mean that there is nothing that can cause Christ to not love us.

In reference to this list, Paul adds some extra biblical support for there being trials and suffering for the believers in that day, saying:

36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Paul borrows this passage from Psalms 44:22 which was talking about the struggles and perils of the Children of Israel but here applies it to believers.

It’s kind of embarrassing, and certainly humbling, to read Paul’s description of early Saints and believers, that

“For God’s sake they were killed all the day long and counted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Of course in that day this passage was literally applied. Here in the United State and other parts of the world I think we have to interpret these passages as our being killed all the day long to our flesh and this world as I know in my personal life I am dying “all day long” to the desires I nurtured and developed from a young age.

Nevertheless, Paul adds to them/then (which has application to us now):

37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

So while they were suffering death like sheep to a slaughter Paul reminds them that they are more than conquerors THROUGH Him who loved them.

1st Corinthians 15:57 says it well:
“But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And back to 1st John 5:4-5 which again reads:

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Paul wrote in Philippians 4:12-13

“I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

When Paul was struggling with some kind of issue as a result of living in a physical body, He asked God three times to remove it from Him, and God replied in 2nd Corinthians 12:9

“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” So Paul adds, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

In other words, using the line here from Romans 8, “We are more than conquerors,” through Christ in us, given by Him who loved us, God.”

Nothing has the power to take our victory. No thing can subdue us, alienate us from Him or His love for us, nothing can take our eternal confidence; nothing can produce apostasy. Not death. Not trials.

We are the victors, conquerors through Him. Our faith cannot be destroyed!
His love cannot be extinguished!
Our hope cannot fade to black.
Because “through Him, and certainly not by own strength or power, do we stand!

And concluding, and as a means to not let anyone walk away thinking something can take them out of favor with our king, Paul moves on from the circumstantial trials, to a focus on otherworldly powers, and principalities having victory over us, saying (verses 38-39)

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Latin Vulgate translates the first line of this passage to read:

“I am certain.”

“I have not one bit of doubt,” Paul says . . . that . . . (and he gives us a laundry list here – an important laundry list, of things that people might think contain the potential to remove someone from the love God has for them. And he begins with)

“neither Death”

“Not our dying, neither the fear of death, nor all the pains and tortures of the scene called dying, not our attempts, or pleading to avoid it, and, I would suggest, not even a human beings act to bring it upon themselves or others, can separate us from the Love God has for us.”

“Nor life.”

Not the love of life; not an offer of life made to believers by persecutors on condition of renouncing our Christian faith, even the promise of a better life “can separate them from the Love of God.”

“Nor angels.”

Obviously, Paul is referring to the imposition of demonic angels. And while they are powerful and able to cause much unrest, they (nor their influence) does not possess the power to come between Him and us.

“Nor principalities.”

There is not enough hours in this day for me to properly articulate the Christian response to this line.

So let me try and summarize it in a meaningful way.

The word principalities in the Greek is (arcai) (arky).

It is used 56 times in the New Testament and the English words:

Magistrates
Beginnings
Power
Corners
Principalities
First and first estate
Rule

. . . are all used to describe its meaning.

It is most often used to describe magistrates and civil rulers but it is also applied to evil angels, dark powers, spiritual evil from dark places.

Ephesians 6:12, says
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities (arky), against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Colossians 2:15
“And having spoiled principalities (arky) and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

1st Corithians 15:24, speaking of what Jesus will do in the end, says

“Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule (arky) and all authority and power.”

We are going to get heavily into arky powers and kingdoms and their rule over the physical kingdoms of this world in Romans 13, but just know, “arky’s “ have no power or ability to get between us and the love God has for us and that believers are not to be “pro-archy,” (supportive of them), “anti-archy” (in rebellion against them) but anarchists (being unmoved by them and their existences).

Paul goes on . . .

“Nor powers.”
This word (dunameiv) is also often applied to magistrates but it is also applied to evil spirits that have dominion over men. They have no ability to separate us.

“Nor things present.”
Calamities, persecutions, disease to which we are now subject.

“Nor things to come.”
Trials that are headed our way.

“Nor height.”
Not great stature given as a blessing by God to believers . . . not fame, not wealth . . .

“Nor depth.”

Not poverty, nor depression, nor contempt of others . . .

“Nor any other creature.”
Nor any “other” created thing; any “other” thing in the universe.

Nothing . . . could ever, ever “be able to separate us from the love God has for us, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

(long beat) . . . EXCEPT . . .
ourselves.

He will NEVER stop loving us so only we can separate ourselves . . . from Him.

Comments/Questions

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