Romans 8
8
God’s Spirit Makes Us His Children
1So those who are believers in Christ Jesus can no longer be condemned. 2The standards of the Spirit, who gives life through Christ Jesus, have set you free from the standards of sin and death. 3It is impossible to do what God’s standards demand because of the weakness our human nature has. But God sent his Son to have a human nature as sinners have and to pay for sin. That way God condemned sin in our corrupt nature. 4Therefore, we, who do not live by our corrupt nature but by our spiritual nature, are able to meet God’s standards in Moses’ Teachings.
5Those who live by the corrupt nature have the corrupt nature’s attitude. But those who live by the spiritual nature have the spiritual nature’s attitude. 6The corrupt nature’s attitude leads to death. But the spiritual nature’s attitude leads to life and peace. 7This is so because the corrupt nature has a hostile attitude toward God. It refuses to place itself under the authority of God’s standards because it can’t. 8Those who are under the control of the corrupt nature can’t please God. 9But if God’s Spirit lives in you, you are under the control of your spiritual nature, not your corrupt nature.
Whoever doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ doesn’t belong to him. 10However, if Christ lives in you, your bodies are dead because of sin, but your spirits are alive because you have God’s approval. 11Does the Spirit of the one who brought Jesus back to life live in you? Then the one who brought Christ back to life will also make your mortal bodies alive by his Spirit who lives in you.
12So, brothers and sisters, we have no obligation to live the way our corrupt nature wants us to live. 13If you live by your corrupt nature, you are going to die. But if you use your spiritual nature to put to death the evil activities of the body, you will live. 14Certainly, all who are guided by God’s Spirit are God’s children. 15You haven’t received the spirit of slaves that leads you into fear again. Instead, you have received the spirit of God’s adopted children by which we call out, “Abba! #8:15 Abba is Aramaic for “father.” Father!” 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17If we are his children, we are also God’s heirs. If we share in Christ’s suffering in order to share his glory, we are heirs together with him.
God’s Spirit Helps Us
18I consider our present sufferings insignificant compared to the glory that will soon be revealed to us. 19All creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal who his children are. 20Creation was subjected to frustration but not by its own choice. The one who subjected it to frustration did so in the hope 21that it would also be set free from slavery to decay in order to share the glorious freedom that the children of God will have. 22We know that all creation has been groaning with the pains of childbirth up to the present time.
23However, not only creation groans. We, who have the Spirit as the first of God’s gifts, also groan inwardly. We groan as we eagerly wait for our adoption, the freeing of our bodies ⌞from sin⌟. 24We were saved with this hope in mind. If we hope for something we already see, it’s not really hope. Who hopes for what can be seen? 25But if we hope for what we don’t see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
26At the same time the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don’t know how to pray for what we need. But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words. 27The one who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit has in mind. The Spirit intercedes for God’s people the way God wants him to.
Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love
28We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God—those whom he has called according to his plan. 29This is true because he already knew his people and had already appointed them to have the same form as the image of his Son. Therefore, his Son is the firstborn among many children. 30He also called those whom he had already appointed. He approved of those whom he had called, and he gave glory to those whom he had approved of.
31What can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32God didn’t spare his own Son but handed him over ⌞to death⌟ for all of us. So he will also give us everything along with him. 33Who will accuse those whom God has chosen? God has approved of them. 34Who will condemn them? Christ has died, and more importantly, he was brought back to life. Christ is in the honored position—the one next to God the Father on the heavenly throne. Christ also intercedes for us. 35What will separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or violent death separate us from his love? 36As Scripture says:
“We are being killed all day long because of you.
We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37The one who loves us gives us an overwhelming victory in all these difficulties. 38I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us.#8:38 The last part of verse 39 (in Greek) has been moved to verse 38 to express the complex Greek sentence structure more clearly in English. We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces 39or powers in the world above or in the world below, or by anything else in creation.
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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
Romans 8
8
Life in the Spirit
1So now anyone who is in Christ Jesus is not judged guilty. 2That is because in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you#8:2 you Some Greek copies have “me.” Also in the next sentence. free. It made you free from the law that brings sin and death. 3The law was without power because it was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do: He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that everyone else uses for sin. God sent him to be an offering to pay for sin. So God used a human life to destroy sin. 4He did this so that we could be right just as the law said we must be. Now we don’t live following our sinful selves. We live following the Spirit.
5People who live following their sinful selves think only about what they want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about what the Spirit wants them to do. 6If your thinking is controlled by your sinful self, there is spiritual death. But if your thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. 7Why is this true? Because anyone whose thinking is controlled by their sinful self is against God. They refuse to obey God’s law. And really they are not able to obey it. 8Those who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.
9But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. 10Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God. 11God raised Jesus from death. And if God’s Spirit lives in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. Yes, God is the one who raised Christ from death, and he will raise you to life through his Spirit living in you.
12So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want. 13If you use your lives to do what your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.
14The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them. 15The Spirit that we received is not a spirit that makes us slaves again and causes us to fear. The Spirit that we have makes us God’s chosen children. And with that Spirit we cry out, “Abba,#8:15 Abba An Aramaic word that was used by Jewish children as a name for their fathers. Father.” 16And the Spirit himself speaks to our spirits and makes us sure that we are God’s children. 17If we are God’s children, we will get the blessings God has for his people. He will give us all that he has given Christ. But we must suffer like Christ suffered. Then we will be able to share his glory.
We Will Have Glory in the Future
18We have sufferings now, but these are nothing compared to the great glory that will be given to us. 19Everything that God made is waiting with excitement for the time when he will show the world who his children are. The whole world wants very much for that to happen. 20Everything God made was allowed to become like something that cannot fulfill its purpose. That was not its choice, but God made it happen with this hope in view: 21That the creation would be made free from ruin—that everything God made would have the same freedom and glory that belong to God’s children.
22We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain like a woman ready to give birth to a child. 23Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God’s promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children. I mean we are waiting for our bodies to be made free. 24We were saved to have this hope. If we can see what we are waiting for, that is not really hope. People don’t hope for something they already have. 25But we are hoping for something we don’t have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.
26Also, the Spirit helps us. We are very weak, but the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We don’t know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself speaks to God for us. He begs God for us, speaking to him with feelings too deep for words. 27God already knows our deepest thoughts. And he understands what the Spirit is saying, because the Spirit speaks for his people in the way that agrees with what God wants.
28We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. These are the people God chose, because that was his plan. 29God knew them before he made the world. And he decided that they would be like his Son. Then Jesus would be the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. 30God planned for them to be like his Son. He chose them and made them right with him. And after he made them right, he gave them his glory.
God’s Love in Christ Jesus
31So what should we say about this? If God is for us, no one can stand against us. And God is with us. 32He even let his own Son suffer for us. God gave his Son for all of us. So now with Jesus, God will surely give us all things. 33Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one! God is the one who makes them right. 34Who can say that God’s people are guilty? No one! Christ Jesus died for us, but that is not all. He was also raised from death. And now he is at God’s right side, speaking to him for us. 35Can anything separate us from Christ’s love? Can trouble or problems or persecution separate us from his love? If we have no food or clothes or face danger or even death, will that separate us from his love? 36As the Scriptures say,
“For you we are in danger of death all the time.
People think we are worth no more than sheep to be killed.” Psalm 44:22
37But in all these troubles we have complete victory through God, who has shown his love for us. 38-39Yes, I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love—not death, life, angels, or ruling spirits. I am sure that nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us or nothing below us—nothing in the whole created world—will ever be able to separate us from the love God has shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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