8-Day Commentary Challenge - Romans 8Sample

THE INDWELLING SPIRIT AND THE TRIUMPHANT EXPERIENCE OF THE LOVE OF GOD, 8:31–39

Verses 31–39 conclude with the highest rung in the ladder of comfort that, from verse 18 onward, writer, like reader, has been mounting. Paul wants to apply this knowledge of certainty and security to elicit from the believer a feeling of confident assurance.

Question 1: “Perhaps Human Threats Will Prove Too Much for Us?,” 8:31–32

God is for us (in forgiveness, in acceptance in Christ, and in the gift of the life-transforming Spirit). Who can legitimately accuse us before Him, for is He not the very One who, to show His love for us, sacrificed the greatest gift He could, His very own Son (vv. 31–32)? In the phrase, “He who did not spare his own Son,” we can see an allusion to Abraham’s offering up his only son, Isaac, whereby he showed his intense love for God (Gen. 22). In the present instance, God Himself is seen as expressing His supreme love for us in not even sparing His own Son from death. If God has already so proved His love to us (5:8), how can anything that happens to us be considered less than the evidence of the outworking of His good (v. 28)? “Along with him, graciously give us all things?” (v. 32b). Dwight L. Moody once illustrated this concept by remarking that if his friend, Mr. Tiffany, had offered him as a gift a large, beautiful diamond, he would not hesitate to ask Mr. Tiffany for some brown paper to wrap up the diamond.

Question 2: “Perhaps We Will Fail Because of Sin in Our Lives?,” 8:33–34

Who can accuse us if God, who is the highest court of appeals, has already acquitted us (v. 33)? Who can condemn us to suffer the penalty and burden of a broken law if Christ Himself, our Judge (John 5:22), has died and risen and is now in heaven interceding to God for us (Luke 22:31–32; Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:24–25)? Grace and grace alone has brought us into this certainty of acceptance with God.

Question 3: “Perhaps Overly Distressing Circum- stances Will Prove God Doesn’t Care?,” 8:35–39

If no person can accuse us, who or what then can separate us from the eternal love of Christ for us? “Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (v. 35). Paul has already experienced all of these except the last and has found that his faith and hope were not destroyed but enlarged (5:3–5). As far as the “sword” (death) is concerned, Paul could refer to the Old Testament (Ps. 44:22) history of the persecution of God’s people not as something marking God’s disfavor but rather as (1) received for Him, “for your [God’s] sake,” (2) continually, “all day long,” and (3) delivered unto death, “as sheep to be slaughtered” (v. 36).

Can any or all of these things in any amount ever detach us from the love of Christ? No! Paul answers, because in fact it is “in all these things” that God works out His plan for good (vv. 28, 37, italics added) and causes us to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (v. 37). No earthly affliction or infliction can disturb this confidence in God’s love for us. But further, Paul is also convinced that no factor of human existence (life or death), nor unseen spiritual power (angels, principalities), nor the expanse of space (height, depth), nor the course of time (present, to come), nor anything in the whole universe of God (any other created thing) can cut us off from this unbelievable consciousness of the love of God, the Father, manifested at the cross and poured out in our hearts when we received the grace of God (vv. 38–39; 5:5). Yet in all this glorious victory we are reminded to not forget the means or the focus of such triumph since it is “through him who loved us” (i.e., Jesus Christ) and “in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vv. 37, 39). An early fifth-century Christian witness well illustrates Paul’s jubilation:

When Chrysostom was brought before the Roman Emperor, the Emperor threatened him with banishment if he remained a Christian. Chrysostom replied, “Thou canst not banish me for this world is my father’s house.” “But I will slay thee,” said the Emperor. “Nay, thou canst not,” said the noble champion of the faith, “for my life is hid with Christ in God.” “I will take away thy treasures.” “Nay, but thou canst not for my treasure is in heaven and my heart is there.” “But I will drive thee away from man and thou shalt have no friend left.” “Nay thou canst not, for I have a friend in heaven from whom thou canst not separate me. I defy thee; for there is nothing that thou canst do to hurt me.”

There is more here in this chapter than any of us can fathom in a lifetime. The great challenge is to live our lives by the power of the indwelling Spirit and in an ever-deepening and widening experience of the unceasing and unconditional love of God for us in Jesus Christ.

This chapter is for me no mere academic exercise. Its truth has profoundly changed my life and captured my heart. I live on the fringes of its bank but yearn to move deeper and deeper into its strong currents. Isaac Watts captures something of the expected response in his popular hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small:

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Note from the Publisher: We hope that you have been encouraged by this 8-day commentary challenge from Alan F. Johnson. You can pick up a copy of Romans - Everyday Bible Commentary at moodypublishers.com