More Than Conquerors

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

Romans 8:31–39 – Romans: The Righteousness of God
Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 11, 2023 (am)

A relative who holds different theological convictions than I do once asked me: What leads you to believe that the Bible teaches the eternal security of those who trust in Christ as Savior? I answered by referencing this morning’s text: Rom.8:31-39. Then I added: And actually, Rom.8:18-39; and really Rom.5:1-8:39, or even Rom.3:21-8:39. Really, the whole of the letter to Rome makes that argument, along with key texts in Paul’s other letters. Then there’s also the teachings of Jesus, especially several of those recorded in John’s Gospel, and also in John’s first letter, and in Revelation. Then there’s also the assurances of the OT prophets to Israel, and many assertions to that effect in the Psalms. Perhaps you get the picture!

I believe the whole of God’s Word teaches that salvation is in His hands—that He grants it to those whom He chooses, as we’ll see clearly in the next chapter, and that He’ll never retract it from those to whom He’s given it. But I don’t believe there’s any passage in Scripture that expresses that latter thought, our security in Christ, more clearly and compellingly than this one before us today. And it’s recognized by many as the climax of the letter up to this point (Moo 2018 559). It’s moved along by as many as thirteen questions, but two of those capture the heart of this rich text.

If God Is For Us, Who Can Be Against Us? 31-34

Paul transitions toward his conclusion of this section of his letter we know as c.8 by raising a familiar question. 31 What then shall we say to these things? … That’s the question once we’ve heard that those whom God predestined and called to salvation and justified, he also glorified (30)—a future blessing so certain to come to those whose faith is fixed in Christ that it can be referred as a past action! It’s as good as done! And it’s such a grand and glorious future blessing that we groan in our longing for its eventual arrival (23), as does the whole [cosmos] along with us (22), just yearning to experience that day when the sufferings of this present time (18) are made to look light and momentary in comparison to the eternal weigh of glory (2Co.4:17) that will be revealed to us (18) on that day! But not just on that day. Even now we can be so assured of this coming glory that we can be confident; we can know that all things work together for good for those who are called [to this salvation], for those who love God (28) enabled by His grace! 31 What then shall we say to these things? …

The only answer can be the first of our key questions, one that actually lands more like an assertion. 31 … If God is for us, who can be against us? The best answer: Who cares? That’s actually the point Paul is making here. If God is for us, it couldn’t matter less who [is] against us! It doesn’t make a bit of difference! That’s the level of confidence Rom.8 is written to instill in all of us who’ve trusted Christ as Savior and Lord. There is… no condemnation for [us]! (1) And nothing will be able to separate [us] from [His] love! (39)

I’ve often been asked: What is your favorite verse in the Bible? I usually answer: There’s just no way for me to choose. But this next verse (32) comes as close as any. You can tell by how often I quote it—our theme verse for today—32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? If God facilitated our salvation through the death of his Son, what would He possibly withhold from us once we receive that salvation by faith in Christ? Nothing is more precious to the Father than his Son, and the Spirit Who is one God with Them, and Whom He’s also given to us! (5:5; 9-11; cf. 1Jo.4:13)

Once again, this question is a virtual assertion! God won’t withhold anything from those for whom He’s already given his Son, and to whom He’s already given His Spirit! Then Paul just keeps going, heaping up assertion upon irreversible assertion, yet still in the form of questions. 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. You know what? We’d get a clearer idea of the strength of this statement if we put the second sentence in front of the first as a conditional. [If] God [is the One] who justifies, who [can] bring any charge against [His] elect? If the all-powerful, all-knowing God Who is perfectly holy has declared us not guilty, who in this world is going to make any charge against us stick? Who’s going to win a guilty verdict? Before what court? 34 Who [can] condemn [us if it’s] Christ Jesus… who died [for us], who laid down His life in our place such that He paid fully for our sin and gave us His righteousness as a gift? 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised in victory over not just sin and death in general, but our sin and death in particular—and more than even that, who is at the right hand of God, having finished His work of redemption, and who indeed is interceding for us right along with the Holy Spirit (26).

Paul is just driving home this assertion that’s disguised as the core question which captures this section. If God is for us, [it doesn’t make one bit of difference] who’s against us because He has cared for every aspect of our justification, covering all things past, present, and future! And the reliability of our justification doesn’t rest on the consistency of our living up to it, but on the reliability of Jesus having lived up to it already, then granting us His righteousness by faith. Our salvation in Christ is a finished work! It’s a fully done deal!

Who Shall Separate Us from the Love of Christ? 35-39

And since that is so, Paul asks this next core question that carries us through the remainder of this passage, and actually is the assertion that uniquely expresses all Paul has written thus far. It draws together not only the entire series of questions but also the whole of the letter: here we have the summa summarum (Seifrid 636), the sum of sums (wiktionary), the all in all (Cambridge). 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? …

Paul answers this question directly in vv.38-39. But first he runs through a reminder of some things he’s already taught earlier in this chapter. He gives a seven-fold list of sufferings that might be thought to separate us from the love of Christ. We’re familiar with seven-fold lists from Rev. They communicate fullness, completeness. So, this one here expresses the fullness of suffering in this life which might be received by Christians as evidence that we have indeed fallen from the love of Christ. 35 … Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? The kind of troubles that Paul lists appear both ironically in the book of Job and straightforwardly in early Jewish writings as acts of divine vengeance reserved for the rebellious and disobedient (cf. Job 5:17–35; Sir. 39:28–31; Pss. Sol. 13:1–12; 15:1–13; L.A.B. 3:9; on this and the following observations, see Ebner 1991: 381–86). They also appear occasionally elsewhere… suggesting the punitive work of the Creator (Job 5:17–27; Sir. 40:8–11) (Seifrid 636). [These] afflictions represent many of the problems Paul encountered in his apostolic ministry (1 Cor. 4:10–13; 2 Cor. 6:4–5; 11:22–27), and they have often been identified as the messianic woes or birth pangs (Schreiner 455) of the end times.

But with his quotation of Psa.44:22 (36), Paul helps us see his point. The context of Psa.44 is the suffering of God’s people in circumstances where their guilt was not the cause. And that’s made clear with the opening words of the quote. Sometimes our [suffering] is for [God’s] sake. [Psa.44] does not develop it, but it implies the revolutionary thought that suffering may be a battle-scar rather than a punishment; the price of loyalty in a world which is at war with God. If this is so, [suffering] as well as… victory may be a sign of fellowship with him, not of alienation. So, Paul quotes v.22 not with the despair of the ‘more than defeated’ (see on 9-16, above), but with conviction that ‘in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us’ (Rom. 8:36f.) (Kidner 187). In other words, affirming that such things as are listed here not only don’t reflect that we’ve been cut off from the love of Christ, but as we endure them, clinging to Him in faith, they actually prove that we haven’t been cut off from [it]! The very next verse in Psa.44 begins: 23 Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Does that remind you of any other passage? How about Jesus’ disciples in the boat? Mar.4:37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat…. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Sometimes it seems to us like God is [asleep] when we feel like He should be awake and present and active. But He’s working in us through precisely such times. That’s the bigger picture. But here it’s more particular. Here we see that such suffering sets the context for us to be strengthened in our faith as just one more manifestation that all things truly are working together for our good (28).

So, shall [any of this seven-fold list separate us from the love of Christ? 37 No, in all these things we are not just conquerors, but more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure, Paul wrote, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, a ten-fold list, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I believe the best way to take this description is not to try to find distinct and contrasting, complementary meanings to each of these words Paul has listed here, or to press the obvious pairings to cover a comprehensive listing of the all the known categories of existence in the universe. Clearly there are some discernible categories: nothing in death or in life can separate us from the love of Christ. No power in the seen or unseen world can do it. Nothing over the passage of time can do it, the past up to the present, and extending indefinitely into the future. Nothing high or low, which draws our minds to Paul’s description of the vast dimensions of the love of Christ (Eph.3:18-19). But basically, I believe this is best taken as a poetic flourish of images crafted to serve as a powerful telescope magnifying the grand and limitless, final focal point in Paul’s list, namely, [everything] in all creation being summarily dismissed as having any power to impede the bond of love between Christ and His people, all those who are reconciled to God in Him!

Putting these two lists together, though, does give us a sense that we’re being invited to include anything else that can tempt us to believe it might separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, keep in mind that all the instruction Paul has offered so far in this letter is calling us to live into the grace that is ours and the new freedoms that are afforded to us by our faith in Christ. But as we’re doing that, no amount of stumbling over stubborn, hard-to-break sins is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. They’re all covered, past, present, and future by the sacrifice of Christ. No struggle with the temptations of our flesh is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. No relational struggle or conflicted relationship, no troubled marriage or wayward child is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. No financial reversal or vocational injustice, no lost job or failed exam is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord as we continue to look to Him. No health situation, no childhood (or adult) cancer or chemotherapy, no life-threatening disease or diagnosis at any age, no amniotic fluid embolism or micro arterial-venal malformation, no motorcycle accident or flood-swollen river—no such things are able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. No painful or frightening indication of our aging, no reminder of our profound inadequacy, our inability to handle or redirect or at times even endure the unpredictable ups and downs in this untamed world is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. None of these, 39 … nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Conclusion

This is our salvation in Christ! And it is secure—as secure as His finished work on the cross for all who believe. No one in this universe outside of God Himself is able to separate us from His love in Christ Jesus our Lord. And He’s the One Who awakened us to the love of Christ! And He will never renege on that offer, that gift. Bottom line, if God is for us, it truly couldn’t matter less who is against us, regardless of who that might be! Have you ever heard any better news?

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Resources

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NEXT SUNDAY: The Children of Promise Are Counted as Offspring, Romans 9:1–13