Romans 8:31-39
What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? …
Having someone powerful inclined toward your good makes all the difference in the world. Like being best friends with your boss’s boss’s boss, you can walk through life confident and secure. With God for you, who can be against you? And not just who, but what? Paul has in mind here any and every possible opposition. Nothing can stand against the one standing with God.
How God is For Us
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? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
First, God gave his own son for us, proving that he loves us and that he’s generous.
Some live as though God is merely tolerating them, like an annoyed father his obnoxious kids. But this isn’t the case. God so loved the world that he gave his only son (John 3:16). There is a soft spot in his heart for us.
So he’s generous with us, not stingy. His gifts aren’t begrudgingly given. On the contrary, he is motivated and capable of doing things beyond our understanding for our good. He made the great leap from the throne of heaven to the animal trough in Bethlehem for you. Will he not then take one more small step for your good?
In your struggle, could he not fix everything in a moment? Does he not want your good? Of course he could and of course he does. This means that there must be some reason he does not. The fact that God is for us makes all the difference in the same way it makes all the difference if the person cutting you open is a surgeon and not a madman. Christians, we are children of a father who says yes as often as possible. He delights to give his kids good things. But sometimes he must say no; and in those times we can rest in the truth that he is for us and he knows what is best.
Second, he took our guilt and made us innocent.
Many feel as though Christian ministry is one of condemnation, but it isn’t true. Ours is the ministry of reconciliation. We don’t go into the wold with the message of condemnation. We go into the world with the message of the one who takes condemnation from us. God is clearly for us. He gave his son to take our condemnation so he could adopt us as sons. And whats more, Jesus is not bitter about it. He’s praying for us right now!
How it Affects Us
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, of famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
The fact that God is for us makes us more than conquerors. Conquerors get rid of the conquered. They kill or vanquish their foes. But we don’t need to get rid of our adversaries, because in all their opposition toward us, they are actually working for us. They are our servants. How?
1) The adversities Paul lists in this passage can’t separate us from Jesus. They only separate us from false loves, our idols.
2) It is in these things that God displayed his love for us:
– Charges and condemnation: Jesus’ trial and work on the cross
– Tribulation and distress: Jesus’ sweat drops of blood while preparing for the trial and cross
– Persecution: Jesus’ mockery and torture during the trial and cross
– Famine and nakedness: Jesus’ spartan living and naked death
– Danger and sword: Jesus’ arrest, abuse, and death
3) It is in these things that our identity with Jesus is forged. As 1 Peter 2:19-23 states, to this you’ve been called. And it’s not just super-saints who are called to this. It’s all Christians, including one of our college students who recently summed it all up beautifully in a Facebook status update:
About to make my status ‘Ready for life to be easy’ but then I thought, the harder life becomes, the deeper my need for Jesus. I am so blessed for every single time of struggle, loneliness, difficulty, and every plan gone awry, because I have grown in Christ infinitely with each. There is no greater relationship than the one we have with God!
Indeed, God’s best gifts come wrapped in suffering.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present not things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
