Text -- Romans 8:20-39 (NET)

8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility– not willingly but because of God who subjected it– in hope 8:21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. 8:23 Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 8:24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 8:25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance. 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 8:27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will. 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose, 8:29 because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 8:30 And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified. 8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all– how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 8:36 As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Rom 8:20

Was subjected ( hupetagē ).

Second aorist passive indicative of hupatassō (cf. Rom 8:7).

Robertson: Rom 8:20

To vanity ( tēi mataiotēti ).

Dative case. Rare and late word, common in lxx. From mataios , empty, vain. Eph 4:17; 2Pe 2:18.

Robertson: Rom 8:20

Not of its own will ( ouch hekousa ).

Common adjective, in N.T. only here and 1Co 9:27. It was due to the effect of man’ s sin.

Robertson: Rom 8:20

But by reason of him ( alla dia ton ).

Because of God.

Robertson: Rom 8:20

In hope that ( Ephesians' helpidi hoti ).

Note the form helpidi rather than the usual elpidi and so Ephesians' . Hoti can be causal "because"instead of declarative "that."

Robertson: Rom 8:21

The creation itself ( autē hē ktisis ).

It is the hope of creation, not of the Creator. Nature "possesses in the feeling of her unmerited suffering a sort of presentiment of her future deliverance"(Godet).

Robertson: Rom 8:22

Groaneth and travaileth in pain ( sunstenazei kai sunōdinei ).

Two more compounds with sun . Both rare and both here alone in N.T. Nature is pictured in the pangs of childbirth.

Robertson: Rom 8:23

The first fruits ( tēn aparchēn ).

Old and common metaphor.

Robertson: Rom 8:23

Of the Spirit ( tou pneumatos ).

The genitive of apposition. The Holy Spirit came on the great Pentecost and his blessings continue as seen in the "gifts"in 1 Corinthians 12-14, in the moral and spiritual gifts of Gal 5:22. And greater ones are to come (1Co 15:44.).

Robertson: Rom 8:23

Even we ourselves ( kai autoi ).

He repeats for emphasis. We have our "groaning"(stenazomen ) as well as nature.

Robertson: Rom 8:23

Waiting for ( apekdechomenoi ).

The same verb used of nature in Rom 8:19.

Robertson: Rom 8:23

Our adoption ( huiothesian ).

Our full "adoption"(see Rom 8:15), "the redemption of our body"(tēn apolutrōsin tou sōmatos hēmōn ). That is to come also. Then we shall have complete redemption of both soul and body.

Robertson: Rom 8:24

For by hope were we saved ( tēi gar elpidi esōthēmen ).

First aorist passive indicative of sōzō . The case of elpidi is not certain, the form being the same for locative, instrumental and dative. Curiously enough either makes good sense in this context: "We were saved in hope, by hope, for hope"(of the redemption of the body).

Robertson: Rom 8:25

With patience ( di' hupomonēs ).

Paul repeats the verb apekdechomai of Rom 8:23.

Robertson: Rom 8:26

Helpeth our infirmity ( sunantilambanetai tēi astheneiāi hēmōn ).

Present middle indicative of sunantilambanomai , late and striking double compound (Diodorus, lxx, Josephus, frequent in inscriptions, Deissmann, Light, etc. , p. 87), to lend a hand together with, at the same time with one. Only twice in N.T., here and Luk 10:40 in Martha’ s plea for Mary’ s help. Here beautifully Paul pictures the Holy Spirit taking hold at our side at the very time of our weakness (associative instrumental case) and before too late.

Robertson: Rom 8:26

How to pray ( to ti proseuxōmetha ).

Articular clause object of oidamen (we know) and indirect question with the deliberative aorist middle subjunctive proseuxōmetha , retained in the indirect question.

Robertson: Rom 8:26

As we ought ( katho dei ).

"As it is necessary."How true this is of all of us in our praying.

Robertson: Rom 8:26

Maketh intercession ( huperentugchanei ).

Present active indicative of late double compound, found only here and in later ecclesiastical writers, but entugchanō occurs in Rom 8:27 (a common verb). It is a picturesque word of rescue by one who "happens on"(entugchanei ) one who is in trouble and "in his behalf"(huper ) pleads "with unuttered groanings"(instrumental case) or with "sighs that baffle words"(Denney). This is work of our Helper, the Spirit himself.

Robertson: Rom 8:27

He that searcheth ( ho eraunōn ).

God (1Sa 16:7).

Robertson: Rom 8:27

According to the will of God ( kata theon ).

See note on 2Co 7:9-11 for this phrase kata theon (according to God). The Holy Spirit is the "other Paraclete"(Joh 14:16) who pleads God’ s cause with us as Christ is our Paraclete with the Father (1Jo 2:1). But more is true as here, for the Holy Spirit interprets our prayers to God and "makes intercession for us in accord with God’ s will."

Robertson: Rom 8:28

All things work together ( panta sunergei ).

A B have ho theos as the subject of sunergei (old verb, see 1Co 16:16; 2Co 6:1). That is the idea anyhow. It is God who makes "all things work together"in our lives "for good"(eis agathon ), ultimate good.

Robertson: Rom 8:28

According to his purpose ( kata prothesin ).

Old word, seen already in Act 27:13 and for "shewbread"in Mat 12:4. The verb protithēmi Paul uses in Rom 3:24 for God’ s purpose. Paul accepts fully human free agency but behind it all and through it all runs God’ s sovereignty as here and on its gracious side (Rom 9:11; Rom 3:11; 2Ti 1:9).

Robertson: Rom 8:29

Foreknew ( proegnō ).

Second aorist active indicative of proginōskō , old verb as in Act 26:5. See Psalms 1:6 (lxx) and Mat 7:23. This fore-knowledge and choice is placed in eternity in Eph 1:4.

Robertson: Rom 8:29

He foreordained ( proōrisen ).

First aorist active indicative of proorizō , late verb to appoint beforehand as in Act 4:28; 1Co 2:7. Another compound with prȯ (for eternity).

Robertson: Rom 8:29

Conformed to the image ( summorphous tēs eikonos ).

Late adjective from sun and morphē and so an inward and not merely superficial conformity. Eikōn is used of Christ as the very image of the Father (2Co 4:4; Col 1:15). See note on Phi 2:6. for morphē . Here we have both morphē and eikōn to express the gradual change in us till we acquire the likeness of Christ the Son of God so that we ourselves shall ultimately have the family likeness of sons of God. Glorious destiny.

Robertson: Rom 8:29

That he might be ( eis to einai auton ).

Common idiom for purpose.

Robertson: Rom 8:29

First born among many brethren ( prōtotokon en pollois adelphois ).

Christ is "first born"of all creation (Col 1:15), but here he is "first born from the dead"(Col 1:18), the Eldest Brother in this family of God’ s sons, though "Son"in a sense not true of us.

Robertson: Rom 8:30

Called ( ekalesen )

Robertson: Rom 8:30

- Justified ( edikaiōsen )

Robertson: Rom 8:30

- Glorified ( edoxasen ).

All first aorist active indicatives of common verbs (kaleō , dikaioō , doxazō ). But the glorification is stated as already consummated (constative aorists, all of them), though still in the future in the fullest sense. "The step implied in edoxasen is both complete and certain in the Divine counsels"(Sanday and Headlam).

Robertson: Rom 8:31

For these things ( pros tauta ).

From Rom 8:12 on Paul has made a triumphant presentation of the reasons for the certainty of final sanctification of the sons of God. He has reached the climax with glorification (edoxasen in Rom 8:30). But Paul lets the objector have his say as he usually does so that in Rom 8:31-39 he considers the objections.

Robertson: Rom 8:31

If God is for us, who is against us? ( ei ho theos huper hēmōn ,tis kath' hēmōṅ ).

This condition of the first class carries Paul’ s challenge to all doubters. There is no one on a par with God. Note the two prepositions in contrast (huper , over, kata , down or against).

Robertson: Rom 8:32

He that ( hos ge ).

"Who as much as this"(ge here magnifying the deed, intensive particle).

Robertson: Rom 8:32

Spared not ( ouk epheisato ).

First aorist middle of pheidomai , old verb used about the offering of Isaac in Gen 22:16. See note on Act 20:29.

Robertson: Rom 8:32

Also with him ( kai sun autōi ).

The gift of "his own son"is the promise and the pledge of the all things for good of Rom 8:28. Christ is all and carries all with him.

Robertson: Rom 8:33

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’ s elect? ( tis egkalesei kata eklektōn theou̇ ).

Future active indicative of egkaleō , old verb, to come forward as accuser (forensic term) in case in court, to impeach, as in Act 19:40; Act 23:29; Act 26:2, the only N.T. examples. Satan is the great Accuser of the brethren.

Robertson: Rom 8:33

It is God that justifieth ( theos ho dikaiōn ).

God is the Judge who sets us right according to his plan for justification (Rom 3:21-31). The Accuser must face the Judge with his charges.

Robertson: Rom 8:34

Shall condemn ( katakrinōn ).

Can be either present active participle (condemns) or the future (shall condemn). It is a bold accuser who can face God with false charges or with true ones for that matter for we have an "Advocate"at God’ s Court (1Jo 2:1), "who is at the right hand of God"(hos estin en dexiāi tou theou ) "who also maketh intercession for us"(hos kai entugchanei huper hēmōn ). Our Advocate paid the debt for our sins with his blood. The score is settled. We are free (Rom 8:1).

Robertson: Rom 8:35

Shall separate ( chōrisei ).

Future active of old verb chorizō from adverb chōris and that from chōra , space. Can any one put a distance between Christ’ s love and us (objective genitive)? Can any one lead Christ to cease loving us? Such things do happen between husband and wife, alas. Paul changes the figure from "who"(tis ) to "what"(ti ). The items mentioned will not make Christ love us less. Paul here glories in tribulations as in Rom 5:3.

Robertson: Rom 8:36

Even as it is written ( kathōs gegraptai ).

He quotes Psa 44:23.

Robertson: Rom 8:36

We are killed ( thanatoumetha ).

Present passive indicative of thanatoō for which see note on Rom 7:4. Same idea of continuous martyrdom in 1Co 15:31.

Robertson: Rom 8:36

As sheep for the slaughter ( hōs probata sphagēs ).

Objective genitive (sphagēs ).

Robertson: Rom 8:37

Nay ( alla ).

On the contrary, we shall not be separated.

Robertson: Rom 8:37

We are more than conquerors ( hupernikōmen ).

Late and rare compound. Here only in N.T. "We gain a surpassing victory through the one who loved us."

Robertson: Rom 8:38

For I am persuaded ( pepeismai gar ).

Perfect passive participle of peithō , "I stand convinced."The items mentioned are those that people dread (life, death, supernatural powers, above, below, any creature to cover any omissions).

Robertson: Rom 8:39

To separate us ( hēmās chōrisai ).

Aorist active infinitive of chorizō (same verb as in Rom 8:35). God’ s love is victor over all possible foes, "God’ s love that is in Christ Jesus."Paul has reached the mountain top. He has really completed his great argument concerning the God-kind of righteousness save for its bearing on some special problems. The first of these concerns the fact that the Jews (God’ s chosen people) have so largely rejected the gospel (chapters 9-11).

Vincent: Rom 8:20

Vanity ( ματαιότητι )

Only here, Eph 4:17; 2Pe 2:18. Compare the kindred verb became vain (Rom 1:21 note), and the adjective vain (1Co 3:20; 1Pe 1:18). Vain is also used to render κενός (1Co 15:14, 1Co 15:58; Eph 5:6; Jam 2:20). Κενός signifies empty ; μάταιος idle , resultless . Κενός , used of persons, implies not merely the absence of good, but the presence of evil. So Jam 2:20. The Greek proverb runs. " The empty think empty things." Μάταιος expresses aimlessness . All which has not God for the true end of its being is μάταιος . Pindar describes the vain man as one who hunts bootless things with fruitless hopes. Plato (" Laws," 735) of labor to no purpose. Eze 13:6, " prophesying vain things (μάταια )," things which God will not bring to pass. Compare Tit 3:9. Here, therefore, the reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends.

Vincent: Rom 8:20

By reason of Him who hath subjected ( διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα )

God, not Adam nor Satan. Paul does not use the grammatical form which would express the direct agency of God, by Him who hath subjected, but that which makes God's will the occasion rather than the worker - on account of Him . Adam's sin and not God's will was the direct and special cause of the subjection to vanity. The supreme will of God is thus removed " to a wider distance from corruption and vanity" (Alford).

Vincent: Rom 8:21

In hope because ( ἐπ ' ἐλπίδι ὅτι )

The best texts transfer these words from the preceding verse, and construe with was made subject , rendering ὅτι that instead of because . " The creation was subjected in the hope that," etc. In hope is literally on hope, as a foundation. The hope is that of the subjected , not of the subjector . Nature " possesses in the feeling of her unmerited suffering, a sort of presentiment of her future deliverance" (Godet). Some adopt a very suggestive connection of in hope with waiteth for the manifestation .

Vincent: Rom 8:21

Glorious liberty ( ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης )

Better, and more literally, as Rev., liberty of the glory . Liberty is one of the elements of the glorious state and is dependent upon it. The glory is that in Rom 8:18. The Greek student will note the accumulation of genitives, giving solemnity to the passage.

Vincent: Rom 8:22

For

Introducing the proof of the hope , not of the bondage .

Vincent: Rom 8:22

Groaneth - travaileth together ( συστενάζει - συνωδίνει )

Both only here in the New Testament. The simple verb ὠδίνω to travail , occurs Gal 4:19, Gal 4:27; Rev 12:2; and the kindred noun ὠδίν birth-pang , in Matthew and Mark, Acts, and 1Th 5:3. See on Mar 13:9; see on Act 2:24. Together refers to the common longing of all the elements of the creation, not to its longing in common with God's children. " Nature, with its melancholy charm, resembles a bride who, at the very moment when she was fully attired for marriage, saw the bridegroom die. She still stands with her fresh crown and in her bridal dress, but her eyes are full of tears" (Schelling, cited by Godet).

Vincent: Rom 8:24

By hope ( τῇ ἐλπίδι )

Better in hope. We are saved by faith. See on 1Pe 1:3.

Vincent: Rom 8:24

Hope - not hope

Here the word is used of the object of hope. See Col 1:5; 1Ti 1:1; Heb 6:18.

Vincent: Rom 8:26

Helpeth ( συναντιλαμβάνεται )

Only here and Luk 10:40, on which see note. " Λαμβάνεται taketh . Precisely the same verb in precisely the same phrase, which is translated 'took our infirmities'," Mat 8:17 (Bushnell).

Vincent: Rom 8:26

As we ought ( καθὸ δεῖ )

Not with reference to the form of prayer, but to the circumstances: in proportion to the need. Compare 2Co 8:12; 1Pe 4:13.

Vincent: Rom 8:26

Maketh intercession for ( ὑπερεντυγχάνει )

Only here in the New Testament. The verb ἐντυγχάνω means to light upon or fall in with ; to go to meet for consultation, conversation, or supplication. So Act 25:24, " dealt with," Rev., " made suit." Compare Rom 8:34; Rom 11:2; Heb 7:25.

Vincent: Rom 8:26

Which cannot be uttered ( ἀλαλήτοις )

This may mean either unutterable or unuttered .

Vincent: Rom 8:28

Work together ( συνεργεῖ )

Or, are working together , now, while the creation is in travail. Together refers to the common working of all the elements included in πάντα all things .

Vincent: Rom 8:28

For good

Jacob cried, all these things are against me . Paul, all things are working together for good .

Vincent: Rom 8:29

Did foreknow ( προέγνω )

Five times in the New Testament. In all cases it means foreknow . Act 26:5; 1Pe 1:20; 2Pe 3:17; Rom 11:2. It does not mean foreordain . It signifies prescience , not preelection . " It is God's being aware in His plan, by means of which, before the subjects are destined by Him to salvation, He knows whom He has to destine thereto" (Meyer).

It is to be remarked:

1. That προέγνω foreknew is used by the apostle as distinct and different from predestinated (προώρισεν ).

2. That, strictly speaking, it is coordinate with foreordained . " In God is no before." All the past, present, and future are simultaneously present to Him. In presenting the two phases, the operation of God's knowledge and of His decretory will, the succession of time is introduced, not as metaphysically true, but in concession to human limitations of thought. Hence the coordinating force of καὶ also .

3. That a predetermination of God is clearly stated as accompanying or (humanly speaking) succeeding, and grounded upon the foreknowledge.

4. That this predetermination is to the end of conformity to the image of the Son of God, and that this is the vital point of the passage.

5. That, therefore, the relation between foreknowledge and predestination is incidental, and is not contemplated as a special point of discussion. God's foreknowledge and His decree are alike aimed at holy character and final salvation.

" O thou predestination, how remote

Thy root is from the aspect of all those

Who the First Cause do not behold entire!

And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained

In judging; for ourselves, who look on God,

We do not known as yet all the elect;

And sweet to us is such a deprivation,

Because our good in this good is made perfect,

That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will"

Dante, " Paradiso ," xx ., 130-138 .

Vincent: Rom 8:29

To be conformed ( συμμόρφους )

With an inner and essential conformity. See on transfigured , Mat 17:2.

Vincent: Rom 8:29

To the image ( τῆς εἰκόνος )

See on Rom 1:23. In all respects, sufferings and moral character no less than glory. Compare Rom 8:18, Rom 8:28, Rom 8:31, and see Phi 3:21; 1Co 15:49; 2Co 3:18; 1Jo 3:2, 1Jo 3:3. " There is another kind of life of which science as yet has taken little cognizance. It obeys the same laws. It builds up an organism into its own form. It is the Christ-life. As the bird-life builds up a bird, the image of itself, so the Christ-life builds up a Christ, the image of Himself, in the inward nature of man.... According to the great law of conformity to type, this fashioning takes a specific form. It is that of the Artist who fashions. And all through life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet perfectly definite process goes on 'until Christ be formed' in it" (Drummond, " Natural Law in the Spiritual World" ).

Vincent: Rom 8:29

First-born ( πρωτότοκον )

See on Rev 1:5. Compare Col 1:15, Col 1:18, note.

Vincent: Rom 8:32

Spared ( ἐφείσατο )

Mostly in Paul. Elsewhere only Act 20:29; 2Pe 2:4, 2Pe 2:5. Compare Gen 22:16, which Paul may have had in mind.

Vincent: Rom 8:32

His own ( ἰδίου )

See on Act 1:7; see on 2Pe 1:3, 2Pe 1:20.

Vincent: Rom 8:32

With Him

Not merely in addition to Him, but all gifts of God are to be received, held, and enjoyed in communion with Christ.

Vincent: Rom 8:32

Freely give

In contrast with spared .

Vincent: Rom 8:33

Shall lay - to the charge ( ἐγκαλέσει )

Only here by Paul. Frequent in Acts. See Act 19:38, Act 19:40; Act 23:28, Act 23:29; Act 26:2, Act 26:7. Lit., " to call something in one." Hence call to account ; bring a charge against .

The following clauses are differently arranged by expositors. I prefer the succession of four interrogatives: Who shall lay? etc. Is it God? etc. Who is He that condemneth? Is it Christ? etc.

Vincent: Rom 8:34

Rather ( μᾶλλον )

" Our faith should rest on Christ's death. but it should rather also so far progress as to lean on His resurrection, dominion, and second coming" (Bengel). " From the representations of the dead Christ the early believers shrank as from an impiety. To them He was the living, not the dead Christ - the triumphant, the glorified, the infinite, - not the agonized Christ in that one brief hour and power of darkness which was but the spasm of an eternal glorification" (Farrar, " Lives of the Fathers," i. 14).

Vincent: Rom 8:37

We are more than conquerors ( ὑπερνικῶμεν )

A victory which is more than a victory. " A holy arrogance of victory in the might of Christ" (Meyer).

Vincent: Rom 8:38

Powers ( ἀρχαί )

Angelic, higher than mere angels.

Vincent: Rom 8:38

Things present ( ἐνεστῶτα )

Only in Paul and Heb 9:9. The verb literally means to stand in sight . Hence to impend or threaten . So 2Th 2:2; 2Ti 3:1; 1Co 7:26. Used of something that has set in or begun . So some render here. Bengel says: " Things past are not mentioned, not even sins, for they have passed away."

Wesley: Rom 8:20

Abuse, misery, and corruption.

Wesley: Rom 8:20

Namely, God, Gen 3:17, Gen 5:29. Adam only made it liable to the sentence which God pronounced; yet not without hope.

Wesley: Rom 8:21

Destruction is not deliverance: therefore whatsoever is destroyed, or ceases to be, is not delivered at all. Will, then, any part of the creation be destroyed? Into the glorious liberty - The excellent state wherein they were created.

Wesley: Rom 8:22

With joint groans, as it were with one voice.

Wesley: Rom 8:22

Literally, is in the pains of childbirth, to be delivered of the burden of the curse.

Wesley: Rom 8:22

To this very hour; and so on till the time of deliverance.

Wesley: Rom 8:23

That is, the Spirit, who is the first-fruits of our inheritance.

Wesley: Rom 8:23

Persons who had been privately adopted among the Romans were often brought forth into the forum, and there publicly owned as their sons by those who adopted them. So at the general resurrection, when the body itself is redeemed from death, the sons of God shall be publicly owned by him in the great assembly of men and angels.

Wesley: Rom 8:23

From corruption to glory and immortality.

Wesley: Rom 8:24

Our salvation is now only in hope. We do not yet possess this full salvation.

Wesley: Rom 8:26

Nay, not only the universe, not only the children of God, but the Spirit of God also himself, as it were, groaneth, while he helpeth our infirmities, or weaknesses. Our understandings are weak, particularly in the things of God our desires are weak; our prayers are weak.

Wesley: Rom 8:26

Many times.

Wesley: Rom 8:26

Much less are we able to pray for it as we ought: but the Spirit maketh intercession for us - In our hearts, even as Christ does in heaven.

Wesley: Rom 8:26

The matter of which is from ourselves, but the Spirit forms them; and they are frequently inexpressible, even by the faithful themselves.

Wesley: Rom 8:27

Wherein the Spirit dwells and intercedes.

Wesley: Rom 8:27

Though man cannot utter it. What is the mind of the Spirit, for he maketh intercession for the saints - Who are near to God.

Wesley: Rom 8:27

According to his will, as is worthy of God. and acceptable to him.

Wesley: Rom 8:28

This in general; though we do not always know particularly what to pray for.

Wesley: Rom 8:28

Ease or pain, poverty or riches, and the ten thousand changes of life.

Wesley: Rom 8:28

Strongly and sweetly for spiritual and eternal good.

Wesley: Rom 8:28

His gracious design of saving a lost world by the death of his Son. This is a new proposition. St. Paul, being about to recapitulate the whole blessing contained in justification, (termed "glorification," Rom 8:30,) first goes back to the purpose or decree of God, which is frequently mentioned in holy writ.

Wesley: Rom 8:28

When a man has a work of time and importance before him, he pauses, consults, and contrives; and when he has laid a plan, resolves or decrees to proceed accordingly. Having observed this in ourselves, we are ready to apply it to God also; and he, in condescension to us has applied it to himself.

The works of providence and redemption are vast and stupendous, and therefore we are apt to conceive of God as deliberating and consulting on them, and then decreeing to act according to "the counsel of his own will;" as if, long before the world was made, he had been concerting measures both as to the making and governing of it, and had then writ down his decrees, which altered not, any more than the laws of the Medes and Persians. Whereas, to take this consulting and decreeing in a literal sense, would be the same absurdity as to ascribe a real human body and human passions to the ever - blessed God.

This is only a popular representation of his infallible knowledge and unchangeable wisdom; that is, he does all things as wisely as a man can possibly do, after the deepest consultation, and as steadily pursues the most proper method as one can do who has laid a scheme beforehand. But then, though the effects be such as would argue consultation and consequent decrees in man, yet what need of a moment's consultation in Him who sees all things at one view?

Nor had God any more occasion to pause and deliberate, and lay down rules for his own conduct from all eternity, than he has now. What was there any fear of his mistaking afterwards, if he had not beforehand prepared decrees, to direct him what he was to do? Will any man say, he was wiser before the creation than since? or had he then more leisure, that he should take that opportunity to settle his affairs, and make rules (or himself, from which he was never to vary?

He has doubtless the same wisdom and all other perfections at this day which he had from eternity; and is now as capable of making decrees, or rather has no more occasion for them now than formerly: his understanding being always equally clear and bright, his wisdom equally infallible.

Wesley: Rom 8:29

Here the apostle declares who those are whom he foreknew and predestinated to glory; namely, those who are conformable to the image of his Son. This is the mark of those who are foreknown and will be glorified, 2Ti 2:19. Phi 3:10, Phi 3:21.

Wesley: Rom 8:30

In due time.

Wesley: Rom 8:30

By his gospel and his Spirit.

Wesley: Rom 8:30

When obedient to the heavenly calling, Act 26:19.

Wesley: Rom 8:30

Forgave and accepted.

Wesley: Rom 8:30

Provided they "continued in his goodness," Rom 11:22, he in the end glorified - St. Paul does not affirm, either here or in any other part of his writings. that precisely the same number of men are called, justified, and glorified. He does not deny that a believer may fall away and be cut off between his special calling and his glorification, Rom 11:22. Neither does he deny that many are called who never are justified. He only affirms that this is the method whereby God leads us step by step toward heaven.

Wesley: Rom 8:30

He speaks as one looking back from the goal, upon the race of faith. Indeed grace, as it is glory begun, is both an earnest and a foretaste of eternal glory.

Wesley: Rom 8:31

Related in the third, fifth, and eighth chapters? As if he had said, We cannot go, think, or wish anything farther.

Wesley: Rom 8:31

Here follow four periods, one general and three particular. Each begins with glorying in the grace of God, which is followed by a question suitable to it, challenging all opponents to all which, "I am persuaded," &c., is a general answer. The general period is, If God be for us, who can be against us? The first particular period, relating to the past time, is, He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not freely give us all things? The second, relating to the present, is, It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? The third, relating to the future, is, It is Christ that died - Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Wesley: Rom 8:32

This period contains four sentences: He spared not his own Son; therefore he will freely give us all things. He delivered him up for us all; therefore, none can lay anything to our charge.

Wesley: Rom 8:32

For all that follows justification is a free gift also.

Wesley: Rom 8:32

Needful or profitable for us.

Wesley: Rom 8:33

The above cited author observes, that long before the coming of Christ the heathen world revolted from the true God, and were therefore reprobated, or rejected.

But the nation of the Jews were chosen to be the people of God, and were therefore styled, "the children" or "sons of God," Deu 14:1;

"holy people," Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2;

"a chosen seed," Deu 4:37;

"the elect," Isa 41:8-9; Isa 43:10;

"the called of God," Isa 48:12.

And these titles were given to all the nation of Israel, including both good and bad.

Now the gospel having the most strict connexion with the Books of the Old Testament, where these phrases frequently occur; and our Lord and his apostles being native Jews, and beginning to preach in the land of Israel, the language in which they preached would of course abound with the phrases of the Jewish nation. And hence it is easy to see why such of them as would not receive him were styled reprobated. For they no longer continued to be the people of God; whereas this and those other honourable titles were continued to all such Jews as embraced Christianity. And the same appellations which once belonged to the Jewish nation were now given to the gentile Christians also together with which they were invested with all the privileges of "the chosen people of God;" and nothing could cut them off from these but their own wilful apostasy.

It does not appear that even good men were ever termed God's elect till above two thousand years from the creation. God's electing or choosing the nation of Israel, and separating them from the other nations, who were sunk in idolatry and all wickedness, gave the first occasion to this sort of language. And as the separating the Christians from the Jews was a like event, no wonder it was expressed in like words and phrases only with this difference, the term elect was of old applied to all the members of the visible church; whereas in the New Testament it is applied only to the members of the invisible.

Wesley: Rom 8:34

Our faith should not stop at his death, but be exercised farther on his resurrection, kingdom, second coming.

Wesley: Rom 8:34

Presenting there his obedience, his sufferings, his prayers, and our prayers sanctified through him.

Wesley: Rom 8:35

Toward us? Shall affliction or distress - He proceeds in order, from less troubles to greater: can any of these separate us from his protection in it ; and, if he sees good, deliverance from it?

Wesley: Rom 8:36

That is, every day, continually.

Wesley: Rom 8:36

By our enemies; by ourselves. Psa 44:22.

Wesley: Rom 8:37

We are not only no losers, but abundant gainers, by all these trials. This period seems to describe the full assurance of hope.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

This is inferred from Rom 8:34, in an admirable order: - Neither death" shall hurt us; For "Christ is dead:" "Nor life;" 'is risen" Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers; nor things pre - sent, nor things to come;" "is at the right hand of God:" "Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature;" "maketh intercession for us." Neither death - Terrible as it is to natural men; a violent death in particular, Rom 8:36.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

With all the affliction and distress it can bring, Rom 8:35; or a long, easy life; or all living men.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

Whether good (if it were possible they should attempt it) or bad, with all their wisdom and strength. Nor principalities, nor powers - Not even those of the highest rank, or the most eminent power.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

Which may befal us during our pilgrimage; or the whole world, till it passeth away.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

Which may occur either when our time on earth is past, or when time itself is at an end, as the final judgment, the general conflagration, the everlasting fire. Nor height, nor depth - The former sentence respected the differences of times; this, the differences of places. How many great and various things are contained in these words, we do not, need not, cannot know yet.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

In St. Paul's sublime style, is put for heaven.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

For the great abyss: that is, neither the heights, I will not say of walls, mountains, seas, but, of heaven itself, can move us; nor the abyss itself, the very thought of which might astonish the boldest creature.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

Nothing beneath the Almighty; visible enemies he does not even deign to name.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

Either by force, Rom 8:35; or by any legal claim, Rom 8:33, &c.

Wesley: Rom 8:38

Which will surely save, protect, deliver us who believe in, and through, and from, them all.

JFB: Rom 8:19-22

"The apostle, fired with the thought of the future glory of the saints, pours forth this splendid passage, in which he represents the whole creation groaning under its present degradation, and looking and longing for the revelation of this glory as the end and consummation of its existence" [HODGE].

JFB: Rom 8:19-22

(compare Phi 1:20).

JFB: Rom 8:19-22

Rather, "the creation."

JFB: Rom 8:19-22

"is waiting for the revelation"

JFB: Rom 8:19-22

That is, "for the redemption of their bodies" from the grave (Rom 8:23), which will reveal their sonship, now hidden (compare Luk 20:36; Rev 21:7).

JFB: Rom 8:20

"the creation."

JFB: Rom 8:20

That is, through no natural principle of decay. The apostle, personifying creation, represents it as only submitting to the vanity with which it was smitten, on man's account, in obedience to that superior power which had mysteriously linked its destinies with man's. And so he adds

JFB: Rom 8:20

"who subjected it."

JFB: Rom 8:20

Or "in hope that."

JFB: Rom 8:21

"even the creation itself."

JFB: Rom 8:21

Its bondage to the principle of decay.

JFB: Rom 8:21

Rather, "the liberty of the glory."

JFB: Rom 8:21

That is, the creation itself shall, in a glorious sense, be delivered into that freedom from debility and decay in which the children of God, when raised up in glory, shall expatiate: into this freedom from corruptibility the creation itself shall, in a glorious sense, be delivered (So CALVIN, BEZA, BENGEL, THOLUCK, OLSHAUSEN, DE WETTE, MEYER, PHILIPPI, HODGE, ALFORD, &c.).

JFB: Rom 8:22

If for man's sake alone the earth was cursed, it cannot surprise us that it should share in his recovery. And if so, to represent it as sympathizing with man's miseries, and as looking forward to his complete redemption as the period of its own emancipation from its present sin-blighted condition, is a beautiful thought, and in harmony with the general teaching of Scripture on the subject. (See on 2Pe 3:13).

JFB: Rom 8:23

Or "not only [so], but even we ourselves"--that is, besides the inanimate creation.

JFB: Rom 8:23

Or, "the Spirit as the first-fruits" of our full redemption (compare 2Co 1:22), moulding the heart to a heavenly frame and attempering it to its future element.

JFB: Rom 8:23

Though we have so much of heaven already within us.

JFB: Rom 8:23

Under this "body of sin and death," and under the manifold "vanity and vexation of spirit" that are written upon every object and every pursuit and every enjoyment under the sun.

JFB: Rom 8:23

Manifestation of our

JFB: Rom 8:23

From the grave: "not (be it observed) the deliverance of ourselves from the body, but the redemption of the body itself from the grave" [BENGEL].

JFB: Rom 8:24

Rather, "For in hope we are saved"; that is, it is more a salvation in hope than as yet in actual possession.

JFB: Rom 8:24

For the very meaning of hope is, the expectation that something now future will become present.

JFB: Rom 8:24

The latter ending when the other comes.

JFB: Rom 8:25

That is, then, patient waiting for it is our fitting attitude.

JFB: Rom 8:26-27

Or, "But after the like manner doth the Spirit also help.

JFB: Rom 8:26-27

Rather (according to the true reading), "our infirmity"; not merely the one infirmity here specified, but the general weakness of the spiritual life in its present state, of which one example is here given.

JFB: Rom 8:26-27

It is not the proper matter of prayer that believers are at so much loss about, for the fullest directions are given them on this head: but to ask for the right things "as they ought" is the difficulty. This arises partly from the dimness of our spiritual vision in the present veiled state, while we have to "walk by faith, not by sight" (see on 1Co 13:9 and 2Co 5:7), and the large admixture of the ideas and feelings which spring from the fleeting objects of sense that there is in the very best views and affections of our renewed nature; partly also from the necessary imperfection of all human language as a vehicle for expressing the subtle spiritual feelings of the heart. In these circumstances, how can it be but that much uncertainty should surround all our spiritual exercises, and that in our nearest approaches and in the freest outpourings of our hearts to our Father in heaven, doubts should spring up within us whether our frame of mind in such exercises is altogether befitting and well pleasing to God? Nor do these anxieties subside, but rather deepen, with the depth and ripeness of our spiritual experience.

JFB: Rom 8:26-27

Rather, "Himself." (See end of Rom 8:27).

JFB: Rom 8:26-27

That is, which cannot be expressed in articulate language. Sublime and affecting ideas, for which we are indebted to this passage alone! "As we struggle to express in articulate language the desires of our hearts and find that our deepest emotions are the most inexpressible, we 'groan' under this felt inability. But not in vain are these groanings. For 'the Spirit Himself' is in them, giving to the emotions which He Himself has kindled the only language of which they are capable; so that though on our part they are the fruit of impotence to utter what we feel, they are at the same time the intercession of the Spirit Himself in our behalf."

JFB: Rom 8:27

Rather, "But," inarticulate though these groanings be.

JFB: Rom 8:27

The Spirit

JFB: Rom 8:27

As the Searcher of hearts, He watches the surging emotions of them in prayer, and knows perfectly what the Spirit means by the groanings which He draws forth within us, because that blessed Intercessor pleads by them only for what God Himself designs to bestow.

JFB: Rom 8:27

That thin veil which parts the seen from the unseen--if He is even thus to me "Fairer than the children of men," what shall He be when He stands confessed before my undazzled vision, the Only-begotten of the Father in my own nature, and I shall be like Him, for I shall see Him as He is? (6) "The patience of hope" (1Th 1:3) is the fitting attitude for those who with the joyful consciousness that they are already "saved" (2Ti 1:9; Tit 3:5), have yet the painful consciousness that they are saved but in part: or, "that being justified by His grace, they are made (in the present state) heirs according to the hope (only) of eternal life," Tit 3:7 (Rom 8:24-25). (7) As prayer is the breath of the spiritual life, and the believer's only effectual relief under the "infirmity" which attaches to his whole condition here below, how cheering is it to be assured that the blessed Spirit, cognizant of it all, comes in aid of it all; and in particular, that when believers, unable to articulate their case before God, can at times do nothing but lie "groaning" before the Lord, these inarticulate groanings are the Spirit's own vehicle for conveying into "the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth" their whole case; and come up before the Hearer of prayer as the Spirit's own intercession in their behalf, and that they are recognized by Him that sitteth on the Throne, as embodying only what His own "will" determined before to bestow upon them (Rom 8:26-27)! (8) What a view do these two verses (Rom 8:26-27) give of the relations subsisting between the Divine Persons in the economy of redemption, and the harmony of their respective operations in the case of each of the redeemed!

THIRD: Triumphant Summary of the Whole Argument (Rom 8:28-39).

JFB: Rom 8:28

Or, "Moreover," or "Now"; noting a transition to a new particular.

JFB: Rom 8:28

The order in the original is more striking: "We know that to them that love God" (compare 1Co 2:9; Eph 6:24; Jam 1:12; Jam 2:5) "all things work together for good [even] to them who are the called (rather, 'who are called') according to His (eternal) purpose." Glorious assurance! And this, it seems, was a "household word," a "known" thing, among believers. This working of all things for good is done quite naturally to "them that love God," because such souls, persuaded that He who gave His own Son for them cannot but mean them well in all His procedure, learn thus to take in good part whatever He sends them, however trying to flesh and blood: and to them who are the called, according to "His purpose," all things do in the same intelligible way "work together for good"; for, even when "He hath His way in the whirlwind," they see "His chariot paved with love" (Son 3:10). And knowing that it is in pursuance of an eternal "purpose" of love that they have been "called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ" (1Co 1:9), they naturally say within themselves, "It cannot be that He 'of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things,' should suffer that purpose to be thwarted by anything really adverse to us, or that He should not make all things, dark as well as light, crooked as well as straight, to co-operate to the furtherance and final completion of His high design."

JFB: Rom 8:29

As touching this "calling according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28).

JFB: Rom 8:29

Foreordain. In what sense are we to take the word "foreknow" here? "Those who He foreknew would repent and believe," say Pelagians of every age and every hue. But this is to thrust into the text what is contrary to the whole spirit, and even letter, of the apostle's teaching (see Rom 9:11; 2Ti 1:9). In Rom 11:2, and Psa 1:6, God's "knowledge" of His people cannot be restricted to a mere foresight of future events, or acquaintance with what is passing here below. Does "whom He did foreknow," then, mean "whom He foreordained?" Scarcely, because both "foreknowledge" and "foreordination" are here mentioned, and the one as the cause of the other. It is difficult indeed for our limited minds to distinguish them as states of the Divine Mind towards men; especially since in Act 2:23 "the counsel" is put before "the foreknowledge of God," while in 1Pe 1:2 "election" is said to be "according to the foreknowledge of God." But probably God's foreknowledge of His own people means His "peculiar, gracious, complacency in them," while His "predestinating" or "foreordaining" them signifies His fixed purpose, flowing from this, to "save them and call them with an holy calling" (2Ti 1:9).

JFB: Rom 8:29

That is, to be His sons after the pattern, model, or image of His Sonship in our nature.

JFB: Rom 8:29

"The First-born," the Son by nature; His "many brethren," sons by adoption: He, in the Humanity of the Only-begotten of the Father, bearing our sins on the accursed tree; they in that of mere men ready to perish by reason of sin, but redeemed by His blood from condemnation and wrath, and transformed into His likeness: He "the First-born from the dead"; they "that sleep in Jesus," to be in due time "brought with Him"; "The First-born," now "crowned with glory and honor"; His "many brethren," "when He shall appear, to be like Him, for they shall see Him as He is."

JFB: Rom 8:30

"And," or "Now"; explanatory of Rom 8:29 --In "predestinating us to be conformed to the image of His Son" in final glory, He settled all the successive steps of it. Thus

JFB: Rom 8:30

The word "called" (as HODGE and others truly observe) is never in the Epistles of the New Testament applied to those who have only the outward invitation of the Gospel (as in Mat 20:16; Mat 22:14). It always means "internally, effectually, savingly called." It denotes the first great step in personal salvation and answers to "conversion." Only the word conversion expresses the change of character which then takes place, whereas this "calling" expresses the divine authorship of the change, and the sovereign power by which we are summoned, Matthew-like, Zaccheus-like, out of our old, wretched, perishing condition, into a new, safe, blessed life.

JFB: Rom 8:30

Thus.

JFB: Rom 8:30

Brought into the definite state of reconciliation already so fully described.

JFB: Rom 8:30

Brought to final glory (Rom 8:17-18). Noble climax, and so rhythmically expressed! And all this is viewed as past; because, starting from the past decree of "predestination to be conformed to the image of God's Son" of which the other steps are but the successive unfoldings--all is beheld as one entire, eternally completed salvation.

JFB: Rom 8:31

"We can no farther go, think, wish" [BENGEL]. This whole passage, to Rom 8:34, and even to the end of the chapter, strikes all thoughtful interpreters and readers, as transcending almost every thing in language, while OLSHAUSEN notices the "profound and colossal" character of the thought.

JFB: Rom 8:31

If God be resolved and engaged to bring us through, all our enemies must be His; and "Who would set the briers and thorns against Him in battle? He would go through them. He would burn them together" (Isa 27:4). What strong consolation is here! Nay, but the great Pledge of all has already been given; for,

JFB: Rom 8:32

Rather, "He surely." (It is a pity to lose the emphatic particle of the original).

JFB: Rom 8:32

"withheld not," "kept not back." This expressive phrase, as well as the whole thought, is suggested by Gen 22:12, where Jehovah's touching commendation of Abraham's conduct regarding his son Isaac seems designed to furnish something like a glimpse into the spirit of His own act in surrendering His own Son. "Take now (said the Lord to Abraham) thy son, thine only, whom thou lovest, and . . . offer him for a burnt offering" (Gen 22:2); and only when Abraham had all but performed that loftiest act of self-sacrifice, the Lord interposed, saying, "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou HAST NOT WITHHELD THY SON, THINE ONLY SON, from Me." In the light of this incident, then, and of this language, our apostle can mean to convey nothing less than this, that in "not sparing His own Son, but delivering Him up," or surrendering Him, God exercised, in His Paternal character, a mysterious act of Self-sacrifice, which, though involving none of the pain and none of the loss which are inseparable from the very idea of self-sacrifice on our part, was not less real, but, on the contrary, as far transcended any such acts of ours as His nature is above the creature's. But this is inconceivable if Christ be not God's "own (or proper) Son," partaker of His very nature, as really as Isaac was of his father Abraham's. In that sense, certainly, the Jews charged our Lord with making Himself "equal with God" (see on Joh 5:18), which He in reply forthwith proceeded, not to disown, but to illustrate and confirm. Understand Christ's Sonship thus, and the language of Scripture regarding it is intelligible and harmonious; but take it to be an artificial relationship, ascribed to Him in virtue either of His miraculous birth, or His resurrection from the dead, or the grandeur of His works, or all of these together--and the passages which speak of it neither explain of themselves nor harmonize with each other.

JFB: Rom 8:32

Not to death merely (as many take it), for that is too narrow an idea here, but "surrendered Him" in the most comprehensive sense; compare Joh 3:16, "God so loved the world that He GAVE His only-begotten Son."

JFB: Rom 8:32

That is, for all believers alike; as nearly every good interpreter admits must be the meaning here.

JFB: Rom 8:32

How can we conceive that He should not.

JFB: Rom 8:32

Rather, "also with Him." (The word "also" is often so placed in our version as to obscure the sense; see on Heb 12:1).

JFB: Rom 8:32

All other gifts being not only immeasurably less than this Gift of gifts, but virtually included in it.

JFB: Rom 8:33-34

Or, "bring any charge against."

JFB: Rom 8:33-34

The first place in this Epistle where believers are styled "the elect." In what sense this is meant will appear in next chapter.

JFB: Rom 8:34

To make good the purposes of His death. Here, as in some other cases, the apostle delightfully corrects himself (see Gal 4:9; and see on Rom 1:12); not meaning that the resurrection of Christ was of more saving value than His death, but that having "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself"--which though precious to us was to Him of unmingled bitterness--it was incomparably more delightful to think that He was again alive, and living to see to the efficacy of His death in our behalf.

JFB: Rom 8:34

"also"

JFB: Rom 8:34

The right hand of the king was anciently the seat of honor (compare 1Sa 20:25; 1Ki 2:19; Psa 45:9), and denoted participation in the royal power and glory (Mat 20:21). The classical writings contain similar allusions. Accordingly Christ's sitting at the right hand of God--predicted in Psa 110:1, and historically referred to in Mar 16:19; Act 2:33; Act 7:56; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; 1Pe 3:22; Rev 3:21 --signifies the glory of the exalted Son of man, and the power in the government of the world in which He participates. Hence it is called "sitting on the right hand of Power" (Mat 26:64), and "sitting on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb 1:3) [PHILIPPI].

JFB: Rom 8:34

Using all His boundless interest with God in our behalf. This is the top of the climax. "His Session at God's right hand denotes His power to save us; His Intercession, His will to do it" [BENGEL]. But how are we to conceive of this intercession? Not certainly as of one pleading "on bended knees and with outstretched arms," to use the expressive language of CALVIN. But yet, neither is it merely a figurative intimation that the power of Christ's redemption is continually operative [THOLUCK], or merely to show the fervor and vehemence of His love for us [CHRYSOSTOM]. It cannot be taken to mean less than this: that the glorified Redeemer, conscious of His claims, expressly signifies His will that the efficacy of His death should be made good to the uttermost, and signifies it in some such royal style as we find Him employing in that wonderful Intercessory Prayer which He spoke as from within the veil (see on Joh 17:11-12): "Father, I WILL that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am" (see on Joh 17:24). But in what form this will is expressed is as undiscoverable as it is unimportant.

JFB: Rom 8:35-36

This does not mean "our love to Christ," as if, Who shall hinder us from loving Christ? but "Christ's love to us," as is clear from the closing words of the chapter, which refer to the same subject. Nor would the other sense harmonize with the scope of the chapter, which is to exhibit the ample ground of the believer's confidence in Christ. "It is no ground of confidence to assert, or even to feel, that we will never forsake Christ; but it is the strongest ground of assurance to be convinced that His love will never change" [HODGE].

JFB: Rom 8:35-36

"None of these, nor all together, how terrible soever to the flesh, are tokens of God's wrath, or the least ground for doubt of His love. From whom could such a question come better than from one who had himself for Christ's sake endured so much? (See 2Co. 11:11-33; 1Co 4:10-13). The apostle says not (remarks CALVIN nobly) "What," but "Who," just as if all creatures and all afflictions were so many gladiators taking arms against the Christians [THOLUCK].

JFB: Rom 8:36

(Psa 44:22) --quoted as descriptive of what God's faithful people may expect from their enemies at any period when their hatred of righteousness is roused, and there is nothing to restrain it (see Gal 4:29).

JFB: Rom 8:37

Not, "We are so far from being conquered by them, that they do us much good" [HODGE]; for though this be true, the word means simply, "We are pre-eminently conquerors." See on Rom 5:20. And so far are they from "separating us from Christ's love," that it is just "through Him that loved us" that we are victorious over them.

JFB: Rom 8:38-39

Whether good or bad. But as the bad are not called "angels," or "principalities," or "powers," save with some addition to show that such are meant (Mat 25:41; Col 2:15; Eph 6:12; 2Pe 2:4 --except perhaps 1Co 6:3), probably the good are meant here, but merely as the same apostle supposes an angel from heaven to preach a false gospel. (So the best interpreters).

JFB: Rom 8:38-39

No condition of the present life and none of the unknown possibilities of the life to come.

JFB: Rom 8:39

Rather, "created thing"--any other thing in the whole created universe of God

JFB: Rom 8:39

"All the terms here are to be taken in their most general sense, and need no closer definition. The indefinite expressions are meant to denote all that can be thought of, and are only a rhetorical paraphrase of the conception of allness" [OLSHAUSEN].

JFB: Rom 8:39

Thus does this wonderful chapter, with which the argument of the Epistle properly closes, leave us who are "justified by faith" in the arms of everlasting Love, whence no hostile power or conceivable event can ever tear us. "Behold what manner of love is this?" And "what manner of persons ought we to be," who are thus "blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ?"

JFB: Rom 8:39

Inasmuch as they are nothing to this stupendous gift, and indeed but the necessary sequel of it--will in due time be forthcoming (Rom 8:32). (6) In return for such a sacrifice on God's part, what can be considered too great on ours? (7) If there could be any doubt as to the meaning of the all-important word "JUSTIFICATION" in this Epistle--whether, as the Church of Rome teaches, and many others affirm, it means "infusing righteousness into the unholy, so as to make them righteous," or, according to Protestant teaching, "absolving, acquitting, or pronouncing righteous the guilty" Rom 8:33 ought to set such doubt entirely at rest. For the apostle's question in this verse is, "Who shall bring a charge against God's elect?" In other words, "Who shall pronounce" or "hold them guilty?" seeing that "God justifies" them: showing beyond all doubt, that to "justify" was intended to express precisely the opposite of "holding guilty"; and consequently (as CALVIN triumphantly argues) that it means "to absolve from the charge of guilt." (8) If there could be any reasonable doubt in what light the death of Christ is to be regarded in this Epistle, Rom 8:34 ought to set that doubt entirely at rest. For there the apostle's question is, Who shall "condemn" God's elect, since "Christ died" for them; showing beyond all doubt (as PHILIPPI justly argues) that it was the expiatory (character of that death which the apostle had in view). (9) What an affecting view of the love of Christ does it give us to learn that His greatest nearness to God and most powerful interest with Him--as "seated on His right hand"--is employed in behalf of His people here below (Rom 8:34)! (10) "The whole universe, with all that it contains, so far as it is good, is the friend and ally of the Christian; and, so far as it is evil, is more than a conquered foe" (Rom 8:35-39) [HODGE]. (11) Are we who "have tasted that the Lord is gracious," both "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation" (1Pe 1:5), and embraced in the arms of Invincible Love? Then surely, while "building ourselves up on our most holy faith," and "praying in the Holy Ghost," only the more should we feel constrained to "keep ourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (Jud 1:20-21).

Clarke: Rom 8:20

For the creature was made subject to vanity - The Gentile world were subject to vanity of mind; but how? not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same. May we not say, it became vain willingly, but was made subject to vanity unwillingly? For, let us recur to the origin of Gentilism, the confusion of languages, by reason of the attempt to build the tower of Babel; and though there are some passages in the gloss of the Targumists upon this matter that are sufficiently ridiculous, yet as to their scope and design they are worthy of notice. "They said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, and let its head reach unto the top of heaven; and let us make a house of worship in the top of it; and let us put a sword in his hand that he may wage war for us against our enemies, before we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."It is an ancient tradition among the Jews, that this tower was built on an idolatrous account. The confusion of tongues, by which true religion was lost in the world, is a proof that the builders of this tower sinned against God in the highest degree. They were inclined to vanity, i.e. idolatry, Willingly; but they were subjected to vanity Unwillingly; for this proceeded from the just indignation and vengeance of God. From this time the world lay under heathenism till the bringing in of the Gospel, upwards of 2000 years after. See Lightfoot.

Clarke: Rom 8:21

Because the creature - This and the preceding verse should be thus connected: in hope That ( ὁτι ) the creature itself also shall be delivered. The word φθορα denotes, very frequently, sinful corruption. So, 2Pe 1:4 : Corruption through lust, της εν επιθυμια φθορας . 2Co 11:3 : Lest your minds should be corrupted. 1Co 15:33 : Evil communications corrupt good manners. The sense, therefore, of the apostle in this place seems to be: the Gentile world shall, in time, be delivered from the bondage of their sinful corruption, i.e. the bondage of their lusts and vile affections; and be brought into such a noble liberty as the sons of God enjoy.

Clarke: Rom 8:22

The whole creation groaneth and travaileth - If it be inquired how the Gentile world groaned and travailed in pain; let them who explain this of the fabric of the material world, tell us how that groans and travails? They must needs own it to be a borrowed and allusive phrase: but in the sense above given, the very literal construction may be admitted.

Clarke: Rom 8:23

And not only they, but ourselves also - Neither the Gentiles only, but we Jews also, (however we belong to a nation envious of the heathen), to whom God hath granted the first fruits of the Spirit; we sigh among ourselves for their sakes, waiting for the adoption; that is, the redemption of our mystical body, whereof the Gentiles make a very great part. Lightfoot’ s works. vol. ii. p. 359 and 707

The scope and design of St. Paul in these verses may be thus summed up: - The apostle shows that the whole creation is in a suffering state, into which it has been brought by the disobedience of one man, Adam; therefore, it was made subject to vanity - pain, sickness, and death; not willingly, for mankind had no part in that transgression which "brought death into the world and all our wo;"but God subjected the whole, purposing to afford them a deliverance and infusing into every heart a hope that a more auspicious era should take place; and it is through the influence of this hope, which every man possesses, that the present ills are so patiently borne, because all are expecting better days. The great deliverer is the Messiah, and the Gospel days the auspicious era which God intended to bring forward. They who believe in Christ with a heart unto righteousness are freed from the bondage of their sinful corruption, and brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God; and they look forward with joyous expectation, waiting for the general resurrection, when their bodies also shall be redeemed from corruption, and the whole man, body and soul, be adopted into the family of heaven Above, as their souls had been previously adopted into the family of faith Below. And although it may be said that the redemption provided by the Gospel can not be an object of hope to those who have never heard of it; yet, as every man has hope, and this hope is inspired by God for this very purpose; that it may be the means of supporting them in the ills of life, and God, in inspiring it, had respect to the glorious state of Christianity, therefore it is this state, in effect, that the whole creation are longing for. So Jesus Christ is said, by the Prophet Haggai, Hag 2:7, to be the desire of all nations; and yet not one of the nations of the earth had, at that time, heard of him. And thus, as Dr. Whitby has very properly remarked, "desire and expectation are ascribed to creatures, in reference to things they want, and which tend to their advantage; notwithstanding they explicitly know nothing of them."

Clarke: Rom 8:24

For we are saved by hope - We are supported and are comfortable in the expectation we have of receiving from the hand of our God all the good we need in the troubles and adversities of this life, and of having our bodies raised from corruption and death at the general resurrection

Clarke: Rom 8:24

Hope that is seen is not hope - As hope signifies the expectation of future good, so it necessarily supposes that the object of it is not seen, i.e. not enjoyed; for to see, in Scripture language, sometimes signifies to enjoy, as in Job 7:7 : Mine eye shall no more See (margin, Enjoy) good. Job 9:25 : My days flee away, and See no good; i.e. enjoy no prosperity. Psa 50:23 : I will Show the salvation of God: I will give that man to enjoy my salvation who walks uprightly. Mat 5:8 : Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall See God; that is, they shall enjoy his favor and blessing. See also Joh 3:36; Heb 12:14, and 1Jo 3:2. The hope that is seen, that is, enjoyed, is no longer hope, it is fruition: and a man cannot hope for that which he has in his possession.

Clarke: Rom 8:25

But if we hope for that we see not - If we have a well-grounded expectation of our resurrection and final glorification, knowing that such things are necessarily future, and must for a certain time be delayed; then do we patiently wait for them, continue patiently to endure the common ills of life, and whatever tribulations we may be exposed to in consequence of our Christian profession; for we know, Faithful is he who has promised. Hope is a sort of universal blessing, and one of the greatest which God has granted to man. To mankind, in general, life would be intolerable without it; and it is as necessary as faith is even to the followers of God

The ancients have a very instructive and elegant fable concerning it. "Prometheus having made a human body, went up to heaven, and stole some celestial fire to animate it: Jupiter, incensed at the theft, sent down Pandora, with a box full of diseases and plagues of every kind, as an ensnaring present to Prometheus; but he refused to accept it. Epimetheus took and opened it, and instantly all those diseases, etc., by which mankind have been made miserable, flew out, and spread themselves over the whole earth; and only Hope remained at the bottom of the box."This fable explains itself, as to its main design. Men find life, with its various and unavoidable ills, only supportable by the hope they have of not only getting safely through them, but of enjoying a state of blessedness in the end. Hope is still at the bottom; and therefore man is encouraged to bear up in all the pressures of life. Take away hope, and then black despair and indescribable wretchedness would be the instant result. Hope stands justly among the highest mercies of God.

Clarke: Rom 8:26

The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities - The same Spirit, το πνευμα, mentioned before as bearing witness with ours that we are the children of God; and consequently it is not a disposition or frame of mind, for the disposition of our mind surely cannot help the infirmities of our minds

The word συναντιλαμβανεται is very inadequately expressed by helpeth. It is compounded of συν, together, αντι, against, and λαμβανομαι, to support or help, and signifies such assistance as is afforded by any two persons to each other, who mutually bear the same load or carry it between them. He who prays, receives help from the Spirit of God; but he who prays not receives no such help. Whatever our strength may be, we must put it forth, even while most implicitly depending on the strength of God himself

Clarke: Rom 8:26

For we know not what we should pray for as we ought - And should therefore be liable to endless mistakes in our prayers, if suitable desires were not excited by the Holy Spirit and power received to bring these desires, by prayer, before the throne of grace

Clarke: Rom 8:26

But the Spirit itself - Αυτο το πνευμα, The same Spirit, viz. the Spirit that witnesses of our adoption and sonship, Rom 8:15, Rom 8:16, makes intercession for us. Surely if the apostle had designed to teach us that he meant our own sense and understanding by the Spirit, he never could have spoken in a manner in which plain common sense was never likely to comprehend his meaning. Besides, how can it be said that our own spirit, our filial disposition, bears witness with our own spirit; that our own spirit helps the infirmities of our own spirit; that our own spirit teaches our own spirit that of which it is ignorant; and that our own spirit maketh intercession for our own spirit, with groanings unutterable? This would have been both incongruous and absurd. We must therefore understand these places of that help and influence which the followers of God receive from the Holy Ghost; and consequently, of the fulfillment of the various promises relative to this point which our Lord made to his disciples, particularly in Joh 14:16, Joh 14:17, Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26, Joh 15:27; Joh 16:7; and particularly Joh 16:13, Joh 16:14 : Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.

Clarke: Rom 8:27

He maketh intercession for the saints - The word εντυγχανω signifies to apply one’ s self to a person in behalf of another; to intercede or negotiate for. Our Lord makes intercession for us, by negotiating and managing, as our friend and agent, all the affairs pertaining to our salvation. And the Spirit of God makes intercession for the saints, not by supplication to God on their behalf, but by directing and qualifying their supplications in a proper manner, by his agency and influence upon their hearts; which, according to the Gospel scheme, is the peculiar work and office of the Holy Spirit. See Taylor

Clarke: Rom 8:27

According to the will of God - Κατα Θεον· According to the mind, intention, or design of God. And thus the prayers which we offer up, and the desires which subsist in the unutterable groanings, are all such as are pleasing in the sight of God. So that God, whose is the Spirit, and who is acquainted with the mind of the Spirit, knows what he means when he leads the saints to express themselves in words, desires, groans, sighs, or tears: in each God reads the language of the Holy Ghost, and prepares the answer according to the request

From all this we learn that a fluency in prayer is not essential to praying: a man may pray most powerfully in the estimation of God, who is not able to utter even one word. The unutterable groan is big with meaning, and God understands it, because it contains the language of his own Spirit. Some desires are too mighty to be expressed; there is no language expressive enough to give them proper form and distinct vocal sound: such desires show that they came from God; and as they came from him, so they express what God is disposed to do, and what he has purposed to do. This is a matter of great encouragement to all those who are agonizing to enter in at the strait gate.

Clarke: Rom 8:28

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God - To understand this verse aright, let us observe

1.    That the persons in whose behalf all things work for good are they who love God, and, consequently, who live in the spirit of obedience

2.    It is not said that all things shall work for good, but that συνεργει, they work now in the behalf of him who loveth now, αγαπωσι ; for both verbs are in the present tense. All these things work together; while they are working, God’ s providence is working, his Spirit is working, and they are working Together with him. And whatever troubles, or afflictions, or persecutions may arise, God presses them into their service; and they make a part of the general working, and are caused to contribute to the general good of the person who now loves God, and who is working by faith and love under the influence and operation of the Holy Ghost. They who say sin works for good to them that love God speak blasphemous nonsense. A man who now loves God is not now sinning against God; and the promise belongs only to the present time: and as love is the true incentive to obedience, the man who is entitled to the promise can never, while thus entitled, (loving God), be found in the commission of sin. But though this be a good general sense for these words, yet the all things mentioned here by the apostle seem more particularly to mean those things mentioned in Rom 8:28-30

Clarke: Rom 8:28

To them who are the called according to his purpose - Dr. Taylor translates τοις κλητοις, the invited; and observes that it is a metaphor taken from inviting guests, or making them welcome to a feast. As if he had said: Certainly all things work together for their good; for this reason, because they are called, invited, or made welcome to the blessings of the covenant, (which is ratified in eating of the covenant sacrifice), according to God’ s original purpose first declared to Abraham, Gen 17:4 : Thou shalt be a father of many nations - and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, Gen 18:18. Thus this clause is to be understood; and thus it is an argument to prove that all things, how afflictive soever, shall work for our good while we continue to love God. Our being called or invited, according to God’ s purpose, proves that all things work for our good, on the supposition that we love God, and not otherwise. For our loving God, or making a due improvement of our calling, is evidently inserted by the apostle to make good his argument. He does not pretend to prove that all things shall concur to the everlasting happiness of all that are called; but only to those of the called who love God. Our calling, thus qualified is the ground of his argument, which he prosecutes and completes in the two next verses. Our calling he takes for granted, as a thing evident and unquestionable among all Christians. But you will say: How is it evident and unquestionable that we are called? I answer: From our being in the visible Church, and professing the faith of the Gospel. For always, in the apostolic writings, all that are in the visible Church, and profess the faith of the Gospel, are numbered among the called or invited; i.e. among the persons who are invited to feast on the covenant sacrifice, and who thus, in reference to themselves, confirm and ratify the covenant. As for what is termed effectual calling, as distinguished from the general invitations of the Gospel, it is a distinction which divines have invented without any warrant from the sacred writings. Our calling, therefore, is considered by the apostle in the nature of a self-evident proposition, which nobody doubts or denies; or which, indeed, no Christian ought to doubt, or can call in question, Taylor’ s notes.

Clarke: Rom 8:29

For whom he did foreknow, etc. - " In this and the following verse the apostle shows how our calling is an argument that all things work together to advance our eternal happiness, by showing the several steps which the wisdom and goodness of God have settled, in order to complete our salvation. In order to this he first gives us, in this verse, the foundation and finishing, or the beginning and end, of the scheme of our redemption: For whom God did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. To foreknow, here signifies to design before, or at the first forming of the scheme; to bestow the favor and privilege of being God’ s people upon any set of men, Rom 11:2. This is the foundation or first step of our salvation; namely, the purpose and grace of God, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began, 2Ti 1:9. Then, he knew or favored us; for in this sense the word to know is taken in a great variety of places, both in the Old and New Testaments. And as he knew the Gentiles then, when the scheme was laid, and before any part of it was executed, consequently, in reference to the execution of this scheme, he foreknew us. This is the first step of our salvation, and the end or finishing of it is our conformity to the Son of God in eternal glory, Rom 8:17, which includes and supposes our moral conformity to him. When God knew us, at the forming of the Gospel scheme; or, when he intended to bestow on us the privilege of being his people; he then destinated or designed us to be conformed to the image of his Son; and, as he destinated or determined us then to this very high honor and happiness, he pre-destinated, fore-ordained, or pre-determined us to it. Thus we are to understand the foundation and finishing of the scheme of our salvation. The foundation is the foreknowledge, or gracious purpose of God; the finishing is our being joint heirs with Christ. Now, our calling or invitation (see on Rom 8:28 (note)) stands in connection with both these

1.    It stands in connection with God’ s foreknowledge; and so it is a true and valid calling: for we are called, invited, or chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, who may bestow his blessings upon any people, as may seem good in his sight, 1Pe 1:2; consequently, we have a good title to the blessings of the Gospel to which we are called or invited. And this was to be proved, that the Jew, to whom the apostle particularly wrote, might see that the Gentiles being now called into the Church of God was not an accidental thing, but a matter which God had determined when he conceived the Gospel scheme. Thus our calling is connected with God’ s foreknowledge

2.    It stands also in connection with our being conformed to the image of his Son; for we are invited by the Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2Th 2:14. And therefore, supposing, what the apostle supposes, that we love God, it is certain, from our being called, that we shall be glorified with the sons of God; and so our calling proves the point, that all things should work together for our good in our present state, because it proves that we are intended for eternal glory; as he shows in the next verse. For we must understand his foreknowing, predestinating, calling, and justifying, in relation to his glorifying; and that none are finally glorified, but those who, according to his purpose, are conformed to the image of his Son."Taylor

Clarke: Rom 8:29

The first-born among many brethren - That he might be the chief or head of all the redeemed; for His human nature is the first fruits of the resurrection from the dead; and He is the first human being that, after having passed through death, was raised to eternal glory. See Dr. Taylor.

Clarke: Rom 8:30

Whom he did predestinate, etc. - The Gentiles, whom He determined to call into his Church with the Jewish people, He called - He invited by the preaching of the Gospel, to believe on his Son Jesus Christ. It is worthy of note, that all that is spoken here refers to what had already taken place; for the calling, justifying, and glorifying are here represented as having already taken place, as well as the foreknowing and the predestinating. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the apostle refers to what God had already done among the Jews and Gentiles: though he may also speak of the things that were not as though they were

Clarke: Rom 8:30

He also justified - Pardoned the sins of all those who with hearty repentance and true faith turned unto him

Clarke: Rom 8:30

He also glorified - He has honored and dignified the Gentiles with the highest privileges, and he has already taken many of them to the kingdom of glory, and many more are on their way thither; and all who love him, and continue faithful unto death, shall inherit that glory eternally. Hence it is added, them he also glorified; for all the honors which he confers on them have respect to and are intended to promote their endless felicity; and though the terms are here used in a more general sense, yet, if we take them more restrictedly, we must consider that in the work of justification sanctification is implied; justification being the foundation and beginning of that work. From all this we learn that none will be glorified who have not been sanctified and justified; that the justified are those who have been called or invited by the Gospel of Christ; that those who have had this calling are they to whom God determined to grant this privilege - they did not choose this salvation first, but God sent it to them when they knew him not - and therefore the salvation of the Gentile world, as well as that of the Jews, comes through the gratuitous mercy of God himself, was the result of infinite designs, and stands on the same ground as the calling, etc., of the Jewish people. The word δοξα, which we render glory, and δοξαζω, to glorify, both mean to render illustrious, eminent, etc., etc., in various parts of the New Testament; and in this sense the verb is used Joh 11:4; Joh 12:23, Joh 12:28; Joh 13:31, Joh 13:32; Joh 14:13; Joh 15:8; Joh 21:19; Act 3:13; Act 11:13; in none of which places eternal beatification can be intended. Here it seems to mean that those whom God had called into a state of justification he had rendered illustrious by innumerable gifts, graces, and privileges, in the same manner as he had done to the Israelites of old

The whole of the preceding discourse will show that every thing here is conditional, as far as it relates to the ultimate salvation of any person professing the Gospel of Christ; for the promises are made to character, and not to persons, as some have most injudiciously affirmed. The apostle insists upon a character all along from the beginning of the chapter. Rom 8:1 : There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Rom 8:13 : If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, etc. The absolute necessity of holiness to salvation is the very subject of his discourse; this necessity he positively affirms, and establishes by the most solid arguments. At the very entrance of his argument here, he takes care to settle the connection between our calling and our love and obedience to God, on purpose to prevent that mistake into which so many have fallen, through their great inattention to the scope of his reasoning. Rom 8:28 : All things work together for good - To whom? To Them that Love God: to them that are the called according to his purpose. To them that love God, because they are called according to his purpose; for those only who love God can reap any benefit by this predestination, vocation, or any other instance of God’ s favor. See the observations at the end of this chapter, (Rom 8:39 (note)).

Clarke: Rom 8:31

What shall we then say to these things? - What conclusion should we draw from the above premises? From all that was already laid down in the preceding chapters, but especially in the preceding verses, from Rom 8:28-30 inclusive. As if he had said: What comfort may we derive from these doctrines? God has called us all to holiness, and to love to him, which is the principle of holiness. We are persecuted and despised, it is true, and we may be more so; but, as God has called us to love him, and all things work together for good to them that love him; and, as his covenant with Abraham, while he was in his Gentile state, shows his gracious purpose towards us Gentiles, whom he has foreknown, who have been objects of his gracious foreknowledge, as well as the Jews, and who have now the fullest proof that we were so, by his sending us the Gospel, and showing us, in it, that if the Israelites were to be a holy priesthood, a royal nation, we are no less favored, as he has predestinated, from the beginning determined, that we should be conformed to the image of his Son, who is to be the first-born among many brethren, the head and chief of all converted Jews and Gentiles, and, in order to our final salvation, has called, invited us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, has justified those who do believe, and has glorified, highly honored, and adorned them with innumerable gifts and graces, and, if they continue to possess that faith which worketh by love, will bring them, both body and soul, to his eternal glory, their bodies being made like unto his glorious body: - seeing, therefore, all these things are so, what comfort in our tribulations shall we derive from them? - Why this: If God be for us, who can be against us? He who is infinitely wise has undertaken to direct us: He who is infinitely powerful has undertaken to protect us: He who is infinitely good has undertaken to save us. What cunning, strength, or malice, can prevail against his wisdom, power, and goodness? None. Therefore we are safe who love God; and not only shall sustain no essential damage by the persecutions of ungodly men, but even these things work together for our good.

Clarke: Rom 8:32

He that spared not his own Son - And can we, his sincere followers, doubt of the safety of our state, or the certainty of his protection? No: for if he loved us, Gentiles and Jews, so intensely as to deliver up to death his own Son for us all, can he withhold from us any minor blessing? Nay, will he not, on the contrary, freely give us all things? For if he told Abraham, who is the father of the faithful, and representative of us all, and with whom the covenant was made, that, because he had not withheld from him his only son Isaac, but delivered him up to that death which he thought his God had required, in blessing, he would bless him; and in multiplying, he would multiply him; that his seed should possess the gate of his enemies; and that in it all the nations of the earth should be blessed, Gen 22:16-19; will He not give US all that was spiritually intended by these promises, whose only begotten Son was not sacrificed in a figure, but really, in order to purchase every blessing that the soul of man can need and that the hand of God can dispense.

Clarke: Rom 8:33

This and the two following verses contain a string of questions, most appropriately introduced and most powerfully urged, tending to show the safety of the state of those who have believed the Gospel of the grace of God. I shall lay these verses down as they are pointed by the best Greek critics: -

"Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’ s elect? - God who justifieth? Who is he that condemneth? - Christ who died? or, rather, who is risen again? He, who is at the right hand of God? He, who maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? - Tribulation? or distress? or persecution? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or sword?"In all these questions the apostle intimates that if neither God nor Christ would bring any charge against them who love him, none else could. And as God justifies through Christ who died, consequently no charge can lie against these persons, as God alone could produce any; and He, so far from doing this, has justified them - freely forgiven their trespasses

For the proper meaning and sense of the terms chosen, elect, called, etc., etc., see the discourse prefixed to this epistle; and especially Section 6, p. 19, etc., and Section 7, p. 23, etc.

Clarke: Rom 8:34

Who is even at the right hand of God - To which he has exalted our human nature, which he took in conjunction with his Divinity; and there he maketh intercession for us - manages all the concerns of his own kingdom in general, and of every member of his Church in particular.

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? - I do think that this question has been generally misunderstood. The apostle is referring to the persecutions and tribulations to which genuine Christians were exposed through their attachment to Christ, and the gracious provision God had made for their support and final salvation. As in this provision God had shown his infinite love to them in providing Jesus Christ as their sin-offering, and Jesus Christ had shown his love in suffering death upon the cross for them; so, here, he speaks of the love of the followers of God to that Christ who had first loved them. Therefore the question is not, Who shall separate the love of Christ from us? or prevent Christ from loving us? but, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who or what shall be able to remove our affection from him? And the questions that immediately follow show that this is the sense of the passage; for the tribulation, distress, etc., which he enumerates, are things by which they might be affected, but by which Christ could not be affected; and, consequently, the question most evidently refers to their love to him who had first loved them, and, while it affords a strong presumption of their perseverance, furnishes a most powerful argument against apostasy

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Shall tribulation? - Θλιψις, grievous affliction, or distress of any kind; from θλιβω, to compress, oppress, straiten, etc.; any thing by which a man is rendered miserable

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Or distress? - Στενοχωρια, a word of nearly the same import with the former, but more intense in its signification. It signifies straitness, being hemmed in on every side, without the possibility of getting out or escaping; from στενος, strait or narrow, and χωρος, a place

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Or persecution? - Διωγμος, from διωκω, to pursue, press upon, prosecute, signifies such pursuing as an enemy uses in order to overtake the object of his malice, that he may destroy him

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Or famine? - Λιμος, from λειπω, to fail; the total want of bread, and all the necessaries of life

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Or nakedness? - Γυμνοτης, being absolutely without clothing; forcibly expressed by the derivation of the word γυια μονα εχων, having one’ s limbs only, being totally unclothed

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Or peril? - Κινδυνος, a state of extreme and continued danger, perplexing and distressing with grievous forebodings and alarms; derived from κινει τας οδυνας, it excites anguish; because much evil is felt, and much more feared

Clarke: Rom 8:35

Or sword? - Μαχαιρα, slaughter; the total destruction of life, and especially beheading, and such like, done by the order of the civil magistrate; for the word is used in this epistle, Rom 13:4, to signify the authority and power which he has of judicially terminating life; i.e. of inflicting capital punishment.

Clarke: Rom 8:36

As it is written - And these are no more than we may naturally expect from the present constitution of the world, and the positive predictions of the prophet, Psa 44:22, who foresaw that a wicked world would always persecute and oppress the true followers of God.

Clarke: Rom 8:37

Nay - as the prophet adds in the same place, all this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten thee, nor dealt falsely in thy covenant, Rom 8:17, Rom 8:18, so all these things may happen unto us; but in all these things we are more than conquerors; We abide faithful in the new covenant of our God; and He is faithful who has promised to support and make us more than conquerors; i.e. to give us a complete triumph over sin, and death, and hell, not leaving one enemy unsubdued.

Clarke: Rom 8:38

For I am persuaded - After the blessed experience we have had of support by the grace and Spirit of him that loved us, that neither fear of death, nor hope of life, nor evil angels, nor principalities, nor powers, persecuting us for Christ’ s sake; nor the things we endure at present, nor the things to come, whatever tribulation we may be called to suffer in future;

Clarke: Rom 8:39

Nor height - of honor, nor depth - of ignominy, nor any other creature, ουτε τις κτισις ετερα, (nor any other thing whatever), shall be able to separate us, who love God, from the love of God, which he has vouchsafed to us in Christ Jesus. See Whitby. And for farther observations on the subject of the 29th and 30th verses, see at the end of the chapter, (the following notes)

1.    The confidence expressed by the apostle at the end of this chapter, is as rational as it is bold. On the premises laid down by him, in reference to which he has most logically conducted his whole argument, the conclusion to which he arrives is as natural and forcible as it is legitimate. The permanency of the Christian Church, in all the tribulations it has endured from pagans and papists, is a full proof of the correctness of the apostle’ s reasoning. The true followers of Christ can never be forsaken by him. And his Church, which is founded on the rock, can never be shaken down by the tempests of persecution. And what God does for his Church in general, (the collective body of those who believe in the Lord Jesus, love, and obey him), he does for every individual in that body: no man that trusts in him can be confounded. While the love of God is in his heart, and the work of God in his hand, he may be as fully persuaded as he is of his own being, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other thing whatsoever, shall be able to separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. The reader who has any knowledge of what is great, commanding, and sublime in composition, will not hesitate to add here, with Dr. Taylor: "The conclusion of this chapter is the most elegant and sublime piece of writing I remember ever to have read. It is founded on the grand and solid principles of the Gospel; it breathes the true spirit of Christian magnanimity; raises our minds far above all things created; and shows, in a bright and heavenly view, the greatness of soul and the strong consolation which the Gospel inspires. God grant that it may stand clear before our understandings, and be transcribed into all our hearts! They who despise the Gospel despise all that is great, and happy, and glorious!

2.    The doctrine of the necessity of personal holiness, so clearly and strongly laid down in the former part of this chapter, should be deeply considered by every person professing godliness; and while from the seventh chapter they learn that they have an infected and morally diseased nature, they should learn from the eighth that to destroy the work of the devil was Jesus Christ manifested; and that no soul can be said to be saved by Jesus Christ who is not saved from its sins. What a full proof is it of the fallen state of man, that there should be found persons professing Christianity more fervent in their pleadings for the necessary continuance of indwelling sin, than they are for the mind that was in Christ. The seventh chapter, because there are some expressions which, being misunderstood, seem to favor this doctrine, is read and incessantly quoted: the eighth chapter, though given by the same inspiration, yet because it so strongly shows the necessity of being saved from all sin, is seldom read and scarcely ever quoted

3.    The restoration of the brute creation to a state of happiness has been thought by several to be the doctrine of Rom 8:19-25. In the notes on those verses I have given reasons against this opinion, and have proved that the Gentiles, and not the irrational part of the creation, are the persons of whom the apostle speaks; nor can any consistent interpretation be given of the place, if it be applied to the brute creation. But, although this doctrine is not contained in the above verses, it does not follow that the doctrine itself is not true. Indeed, there are several reasons which render the supposition very probable

1.    The brute creation never sinned against God, nor are they capable of it, and consequently cannot be justly liable to punishment

2.    But the whole brute creation is in a state of suffering, and partake of the common infirmities and privations of life, as well as mankind: they suffer, but who can say that they suffer justly

3.    As they appear to be necessarily involved in the sufferings of sinful man, and yet neither through their fault nor their folly, it is natural to suppose that the Judge of all the earth, who ever does right, will find some means by which these innocent creatures shall be compensated for their sufferings

4.    That they have no compensation here, their afflictions, labors, and death prove; and if they are to have any compensation, they must have it in another state

5.    God, the fountain of all goodness, must have originally designed them for that measure of happiness which is suited to the powers with which he had endowed them; but, since the fall of man, they never had that happiness; and, in their present circumstances, never can

6.    In reference to intelligent beings, God has formed his purposes in reference to their happiness on the ground of their rational natures. He has decreed that they shall be happy if they will, all the means of it being placed within their power; and, if they be ultimately miserable, it is the effect of their own unconstrained choice. Therefore his purpose is fulfilled, either in their happiness or misery; because he has purposed that they shall be happy if they please, and that misery shall be the result of their refusal

7.    But it does not appear that the brute creation are capable of this choice; and it is evident that they are not placed in their present misery through either their choice or their sin; and if no purpose of God can be ultimately frustrated, these creatures must be restored to that state of happiness for which they have been made, and of which they have been deprived through the transgression of man

8.    To say that the enjoyments which they have in this life are a sufficient compensation, is most evidently false; for, had not sin entered into the world, they would have had much greater enjoyments, without pain, excessive labor and toil, and without death, and all those sufferings which arise from its predisposing causes. Nor does it appear that they have much happiness from eating, drinking, and rest, as they have these only in the proportion in which they are necessary to their existence as the slaves of men. Therefore, allowing that they have even gratification and enjoyment in life, they have much less than they would have had had not sin entered into the world; and consequently they have been deprived of the greater portion of the happiness designed for them by their bountiful Creator

9.    It is therefore obvious that the gracious purpose of God has not been fulfilled in them; and that, as they have not lost their happiness through their own fault, both the beneficence and justice of God are bound to make them a reparation

10.    Hence it is reasonable to conclude that, as from the present constitution of things they cannot have the happiness designed for them in this state, they must have it in another

4.    On the subject of the foreknowledge of God, some observations have been made at the conclusion of the notes on the second chapter of Acts. On the subject of the prescience and predestination mentioned here, Rom 8:29, Rom 8:30, vast volumes have been written, and the Christian world greatly agitated and perplexed. These doctrines of men have very little place in the texts in question. After a long and serious investigation of this business, I am led to conclude that, whether the doctrine of the decrees be true or false, it does not exist in these verses

    No portion of the word of God has been more unhappily misunderstood than several parts of the Epistle to the Romans; because men have applied to individuals what belongs to nations; and referred to eternity transactions which have taken place in time

    We have already seen that one grand aim of the apostle in writing this epistle was

1.    To prove, to both Jews and Gentiles, that they were all under sin, and that neither of them had any claim either on the justice or beneficence of God; yet he, of his own free mercy, had revealed himself to the Jews, and crowned them with innumerable privileges; and

2.    That, as he was no respecter of persons, his mercy was as free to the Gentiles as to them, being equally their God as he was the God of the Jews, and therefore had, by the Gospel, called them to a state of salvation; and to this display of his mercy the two verses in question seem particularly to refer, and show us not what God will do for some selected individuals, but what he has already done for nations

    After having shown that the whole Gentile world was groaning and travailing in pain together, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, he shows that it was, according to the affectionate purpose, προθεσιν, of God, that the Gentiles should be also called into the glorious liberty of the sons of God - into equal privileges with the Jews. He therefore represents them as objects of God’ s gracious foreknowledge. That the word προγινωσκω, which literally signifies to know, or discern beforehand, and to know so as to determine, signifies also to approve, or love before, to be well affected to, is not only evident from ידע yada in Hebrew, but also from the simple verb γινωσκω, in Greek, by which it is translated, and to which the compound verb repeatedly answers, without any extension of meaning by means of the preposition, as its use among the best Greek writers proves: and it is evident that the apostle uses the word in the sense of loving, being graciously affected to, Rom 11:1, Rom 11:2. I say then, hath God cast away his people, which he Foreknew, ὁν προεγνω ; to whom he has been so long graciously affected? By no means. As, therefore, he had been so long graciously affected towards the Jews, so has he towards the Gentiles. His call of Abraham, and the promises made to him, are the proof of it. The Jews, thus foreknown, were called into a glorious state of salvation, and endowed with privileges the most extraordinary ever bestowed on any people; as their whole history testifies. But is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, Rom 3:29; and to prove this is the main subject of the ninth chapter. Now, as he is the God of the Gentiles, he foreknew, had from the beginning a gracious purpose to them as well as to the Jews; and, being thus graciously disposed towards them, he determined προωρισε, from προ, before, and ὁριζω, to bound, define, etc., he defined, circumscribed, and determined the boundaries of this important business from the beginning, that they also should be taken into his Church, and conformed to the image of his Son; and, as Jesus Christ was to be their pattern, it must be by his Gospel that they should be brought into the Church; and consequently, that bringing in could not take place before the revelation of Christ. Having therefore thus foreknown and thus predestinated them Also, he called them Also by the Gospel; he justified them Also on their believing; and he glorified them Also, dignified them also with the same privileges, blessings, honors, and Divine gifts: so that they were now what the Jews had been before, the peculiar people of God. The apostle, therefore, speaks here not of what they should be, or of what they might be, but of what they then were - the called, the justified, the highly honored of God. See the note on Rom 8:30

    It is strange that so obvious a meaning of the passage should not have been noticed; but the word δοξαζω, which we render to glorify, and by which we understand eternal beatification, which it is very seldom used to express, being taken in this sense in the passage in question, fixed the meaning of the preceding terms; and thus the whole passage was applied to things eternal, which had reference only to things in time. This seems to me to be the true key of the passage, and the whole scope of the epistle, and especially of the context, which shows that this is the sense in which it should be understood. The passages understood in this way illustrate the infinite mercy and wisdom of God; they show that whatever appearances his providential dealings may assume of partiality towards any particular people, yet he is equally the Father of the spirits of all flesh; hateth nothing that he hath made; is loving to all; that his tender mercies are over all his works; and that he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come unto the knowledge of the truth and be saved. Hence, whatever he did for the Jews he purposed to do for the Gentiles: if he foreknew, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified the former; he Also foreknew, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified the latter; having brought them into the same state of salvation, with a vast extension of blessings and higher degrees of honor. As the Jews forfeited their privileges, and now, instead of being glorified, instead of being highly honored, and rendered illustrious, they are degraded, brought down, and rendered contemptible; because they have not made a proper use of their election, they are now reprobated; so a similar reverse awaits the Gentiles if they sin after the similitude of their transgression; and it is against this that the apostle so solemnly warns them, Rom 11:20-22 : Because of unbelief they (the Jews) were broken off - thou (the Gentiles) standest by faith. If God spared not the Natural Branches, take heed lest he also spare not Thee. Behold the goodness and severity of God! on them which Fell severity; but toward Thee goodness, If Thou Continue in his goodness; otherwise Thou Also shalt be Cut Off

5.    This is also a lesson of solemn instruction to Christians in general: God has called them into a glorious state of salvation, and has furnished them with every requisite help to enable them to work out that salvation with fear and trembling. As it is an awful thing to receive the grace of God in vain, (whether that grace imply the common benefits of the Gospel, or those especial blessings received by believing souls), so every person professing godliness should be jealous over himself lest he should trifle with matters of eternal moment; for, should he even neglect so great a salvation, his escape would be impossible. Heb 2:3; and if so, to what severe punishment must they be exposed who despise and reject it?

Calvin: Rom 8:20

20.For to vanity has the creation, etc He shows the object of expectation from what is of an opposite character; for as creatures, being now subject to corruption, cannot be restored until the sons of God shall be wholly restore; hence they, longing for their renewal, look forward to the manifestation of the celestial kingdom. He says, that they have been subjected to vanity, and for this reason, because they abide not in a constant and durable state, but being as it were evanescent and unstable, they pass away swiftly; for no doubt he sets vanity in opposition to a perfect state.

Not willingly, etc. Since there is no reason in such creatures, their will is to be taken no doubt for their natural inclination, according to which the whole nature of things tends to its own preservation and perfection: whatever then is detained under corruption suffers violence, nature being unwilling and repugnant. But he introduces all parts of the world, by a sort of personification, as being endued with reason; and he does this in order to shame our stupidity, when the uncertain fluctuation of this world, which we see, does not raise our minds to higher things.

===But on account of him, === etc. He sets before us an example of obedience in all created things, and adds, that it springs from hope; for hence comes the alacrity of the sun and moon, and of all the stars in their constant courses, hence is the sedulity of the earth’s obedience in bringing forth fruits, hence is the unwearied motion of the air, hence is the prompt tendency to flow in water. God has given to everything its charge; and he has not only by a distinct order commanded what he would to be done, but also implanted inwardly the hope of renovation. For in the sad disorder which followed the fall of Adam, the whole machinery of the world would have instantly become deranged, and all its parts would have failed had not some hidden strength supported them. It would have been then wholly inconsistent that the earnest of the Spirit should be less efficacious in the children of God than hidden instinct in the lifeless parts of creation. How much soever then created things do naturally incline another way; yet as it has pleased God to bring them under vanity, they obey his order; and as he has given them a hope of a better condition, with this they sustain themselves, deferring their desire, until the incorruption promised to them shall be revealed. He now, by a kind of personification, ascribes hope to them, as he did will before.

Calvin: Rom 8:21

21.Because the creation itself, etc. He shows how the creation has in hope been made subject to vanity; that is, inasmuch as it shall some time be made free, according to what Isaiah testifies, and what Peter confirms still more clearly. It is then indeed meet for us to consider what a dreadful curse we have deserved, since all created things in themselves blameless, both on earth and in the visible heaven, undergo punishment for our sins; for it has not happened through their own fault, that they are liable to corruption. Thus the condemnation of mankind is imprinted on the heavens, and on the earth, and on all creatures. It hence also appears to what excelling glory the sons of God shall be exalted; for all creatures shall be renewed in order to amplify it, and to render it illustrious.

But he means not that all creatures shall be partakers of the same glory with the sons of God; but that they, according to their nature, shall be participators of a better condition; for God will restore to a perfect state the world, now fallen, together with mankind. But what that perfection will be, as to beasts as well as plants and metals, it is not meet nor right in us to inquire more curiously; for the chief effect of corruption is decay. Some subtle men, but hardly sober-minded, inquire whether all kinds of animals will be immortal; but if reins be given to speculations where will they at length lead us? Let us then be content with this simple doctrine, — that such will be the constitution and the complete order of things, that nothing will be deformed or fading.

Calvin: Rom 8:22

22.For we know, etc. He repeats the same sentiment, that he might pass over to us, though what is now said has the effect and the form of a conclusion; for as creatures are subject to corruption, not through their natural desire, but through the appointment of God, and then, as they have a hope of being hereafter freed from corruption, it hence follows, that they groan like a woman in travail until they shall be delivered. But it is a most suitable similitude; it shows that the groaning of which he speaks will not be in vain and without effect; for it will at length bring forth a joyful and blessed fruit. The meaning is, that creatures are not content in their present state, and yet that they are not so distressed that they pine away without a prospect of a remedy, but that they are as it were in travail; for a restoration to a better state awaits them. By saying that they groan together, he does not mean that they are united together by mutual anxiety, but he joins them as companions to us. The particle hitherto, or, to this day, serves to alleviate the weariness of daily languor; for if creatures have continued for so many ages in their groaning, how inexcusable will our softness or sloth be if we faint during the short course of a shadowy life. ²⁵⁹

Calvin: Rom 8:23

23.And not only so, etc. There are those who think that the Apostle intended here to exalt the dignity of our future blessedness, and by this proof, because all things look for it with ardent desire; not only the irrational parts of creation, but we also who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God. This view is indeed capable of being defended, but there seems to me to be a comparison here between the greater and the less; as though he said, “The excellency of our glory is of such importance even to the very elements, which are destitute of mind and reason, that they burn with a certain kind of desire for it; how much more it behoves us, who have been illuminated by the Spirit of God, to aspire and strive with firmness of hope and with ardour of desire, after the attainment of so great a benefit.” And he requires that there should be a feeling of two kinds in the faithful: that being burdened with the sense of their present misery, they are to groan; and that notwithstanding they are to wait patiently for their deliverance; for he would have them to be raised up with the expectation of their future blessedness, and by an elevation of mind to overcome all their present miseries, while they consider not what they are now, but what they are to be.

===Who have the beginnings, === etc. Some render the word first-fruits, ( primitias ,) and as meaning a rare and uncommon excellency; but of this view I by no means approve. To avoid, therefore, any ambiguity, I have rendered the word beginnings, ( primordia , the elements,) for I do not apply the expression, as they do, to the Apostles only, but to all the faithful who in this world are besprinkled only with a few drops by the Spirit; and indeed when they make the greatest proficiency, being endued with a considerable measure of it, they are still far off from perfection. These, then, in the view of the Apostle, are beginnings or first-fruits, to which is opposed the complete ingathering; for as we are not yet endued with fullness, it is no wonder that we feel disquietude. By repeating ourselves and adding in ourselves, he renders the sentence more emphatical, and expresses a more ardent desire, nor does he call it only a desire, but groaning: for in groaning there is a deep feeling of misery.

===Waiting for the adoption, === etc. Improperly indeed, but not without the best reason, is adoption employed here to designate the fruition of the inheritance to which we are adopted; for Paul means this, that the eternal decree of God, by which he has chosen us to himself as sons before the foundation of the world, of which he testifies to us in the gospel, the assurance of which he seals on our hearts by his Spirit, would be void, except the promised resurrection were certain, which is its consummation. ²⁶⁰ For to what end is God our Father, except he receives us after we have finished our earthly pilgrimage into his celestial inheritance? To the same purpose is what he immediately subjoins, the redemption of the body. For the price of our redemption was in such a way paid by Christ, that death should notwithstanding hold us tied by its chains, yea, that we should carry it within us; it hence follows, that the sacrifice of the death of Christ would be in vain and fruitless, except its fruit appeared in our heavenly renovation.

Calvin: Rom 8:24

24.For by hope, etc. Paul strengthens his exhortation by another argument; for our salvation cannot be separated from some kind of death, and this he proves by the nature of hope. Since hope extends to things not yet obtained, and represents to our minds the form of things hidden and far remote, whatever is either openly seen or really possessed, is not an object of hope. But Paul takes it as granted, and what cannot be denied, that as long as we are in the world, salvation is what is hoped for; it hence follows, that it is laid up with God far beyond what we can see. By saying, that hope is not what is seen, he uses a concise expression, but the meaning is not obscure; for he means simply to teach us, that since hope regards some future and not present good, it can never be connected with what we have in possession. If then it be grievous to any to groan, they necessarily subvert the order laid down by God, who does not call his people to victory before he exercises them in the warfare of patience. But since it has pleased God to lay up our salvation, as it were, in his closed bosom, it is expedient for us to toil on earth, to be oppressed, to mourn, to be afflicted, yea, to lie down as half-dead and to be like the dead; for they who seek a visible salvation reject it, as they renounce hope which has been appointed by God as its guardian. ²⁶¹

Calvin: Rom 8:25

25.If then what we see not, etc. This is an argument derived from what the antecedent implies; for patience necessarily follows hope. For when it is grievous to be without the good you may desire, unless you sustain and comfort yourselves with patience, you must necessarily faint through despair. Hope then ever draws patience with it. Thus it is a most apt conclusion — that whatever the gospel promises respecting the glory of the resurrection, vanishes away, except we spend our present life in patiently bearing the cross and tribulations. For if life be invisible, we must have death before our eyes: if glory be invisible, then our present state is that of degradation. And hence if you wish to include in a few words the meaning of the whole passage, arrange Paul’s arguments in this way, “To all the godly there is salvation laid up in hope; it is the character of hope to look forward to future and absent benefits: then the salvation of the faithful is not visible. Now hope is not otherwise sustained than by patience; then the salvation of the faithful is not to be consummated except by patience.”

It may be added, that we have here a remarkable passage, which shows, that patience is an inseparable companion of faith; and the reason of this is evident, for when we console ourselves with the hope of a better condition, the feeling of our present miseries is softened and mitigated, so that they are borne with less difficulty. ²⁶²

Calvin: Rom 8:26

26.And likewise the Spirit, etc. That the faithful may not make this objection — that they are so weak as not to be able to bear so many and so heavy burdens, he brings before them the aid of the Spirit, which is abundantly sufficient to overcome all difficulties. There is then no reason for any one to complain, that the bearing of the cross is beyond their own strength, since we are sustained by a celestial power. And there is great force in the Greek word συναντιλαμβάνεται, which means that the Spirit takes on himself a part of the burden, by which our weakness is oppressed; so that he not only helps and succours us, but lifts us up; as though he went under the burden with us. ²⁶⁴ The word infirmities, being in the plural number, is expressive of extremity. For as experience shows, that except we are supported by God’s hands, we are soon overwhelmed by innumerable evils, Paul reminds us, that though we are in every respect weak, and various infirmities threaten our fall, there is yet sufficient protection in God’s Spirit to preserve us from falling, and to keep us from being overwhelmed by any mass of evils. At the same time these supplies of the Spirt more clearly prove to us, that it is by God’s appointment that we strive, by groanings and sighings, for our redemption.

For what we should pray for, etc. He had before spoken of the testimony of the Spirit, by which we know that God is our Father, and on which relying, we dare to call on him as our Father. He now again refers to the second part, invocation, and says, that we are taught by the same Spirit how to pray, and what to ask in our prayers. And appropriately has he annexed prayers to the anxious desires of the faithful; for God does not afflict them with miseries, that they may inwardly feed on hidden grief, but that they may disburden themselves by prayer, and thus exercise their faith.

At the same time I know, that there are various expositions of this passage; ²⁶⁵ but Paul seems to me to have simply meant this, — That we are blind in our addresses to God; for though we feel our evils, yet our minds are more disturbed and confused than that they can rightly choose what is meet and expedient. If any one makes this objection — that a rule is prescribed to us in God’s word; to this I answer, that our thoughts nevertheless continue oppressed with darkness, until the Spirit guides them by his light.

But the Spirit himself intercedes, ²⁶⁶ etc. Though really or by the event it does not appear that our prayers have been heard by God, yet Paul concludes, that the presence of the celestial favor does already shine forth in the desire for prayer; for no one can of himself give birth to devout and godly aspirations. The unbelieving do indeed blab out their prayers, but they only trifle with God; for there is in them nothing sincere, or serious, or rightly formed. Hence the manner of praying aright must be suggested by the Spirit: and he calls those groanings unutterable, into which we break forth by the impulse of the Spirit, for this reason — because they far exceed the capability of our own minds. ²⁶⁷ And the Spirit is said to intercede, not because he really humbles himself to pray or to groan, but because he stirs up in our hearts those desires which we ought to entertain; and he also affects our hearts in such a way that these desires by their fervency penetrate into heaven itself. And Paul has thus spoken, that he might more significantly ascribe the whole to the grace of the Spirit. We are indeed bidden to knock; but no one can of himself premeditate even one syllable, except God by the secret impulse of his Spirit knocks at our door, and thus opens for himself our hearts.

Calvin: Rom 8:27

27.But he who searches hearts, etc. This is a remarkable reason for strengthening our confidence, that we are heard by God when we pray through his Spirit, for he thoroughly knows our desires, even as the thoughts of his own Spirit. And here must be noticed the suitableness of the word to know; for it intimates that God regards not these emotions of the Spirit as new and strange, or that he rejects them as unreasonable, but that he allows them, and at the same time kindly accepts them, as allowed and approved by him. As then Paul had before testified, that God then aids us when he draws us as it were into his own bosom, so now he adds another consolation, that our prayers, of which he is the director, shall by no means be disappointed. The reason also is immediately added, because he thus conforms us to his own will. It hence follows, that in vain can never be what is agreeable to his will, by which all things are ruled. Let us also hence learn, that what holds the first place in prayer is consent with the will of the Lord, whom our wishes do by no means hold under obligation. If then we would have our prayers to be acceptable to God, we must pray that he may regulate them according to his will.

Calvin: Rom 8:28

28.And we know, etc. He now draws this conclusion from what had been said, that so far are the troubles of this life from hindering our salvation, that, on the contrary, they are helps to it. It is no objection that he sets down an illative particle, for it is no new thing with him to make somewhat an indiscriminate use of adverbs, and yet this conclusion includes what anticipates an objection. For the judgment of the flesh in this case exclaims, that it by no means appears that God hears our prayers, since our afflictions continue the same. Hence the Apostle anticipates this and says, that though God does not immediately succour his people, he yet does not forsake them, for by a wonderful contrivance he turns those things which seem to be evils in such a way as to promote their salvation. If any one prefers to read this verse by itself, as though Paul proceeded to a new argument in order to show that adversities which assist our salvation, ought not to be borne as hard and grievous things, I do not object. At the same time, the design of Paul is not doubtful: “Though the elect and the reprobate are indiscriminately exposed to similar evils, there is yet a great, difference; for God trains up the faithful by afflictions, and thereby promotes their salvation.”

But we must remember that Paul speaks here only of adversities, as though he had said, “All things which happen to the saints are so overruled by God, that what the world regards as evil, the issue shows to be good.” For though what [Augustine] says is true, that even the sins of the saints are, through the guiding providence of God, so far from doing harm to them, that, on the contrary, they serve to advance their salvation; yet this belongs not to this passage, the subject of which is the cross.

It must also be observed, that he includes the whole of true religion in the love of God, as on it depends the whole practice of righteousness.

===Even to them who according to his purpose, === etc. This clause seems to have been added as a modification, lest any one should think that the faithful, because they love God, obtain by their own merit the advantage of deriving such fruit from their adversities. We indeed know that when salvation is the subject, men are disposed to begin with themselves, and to imagine certain preparations by which they would anticipate the favor of God. Hence Paul teaches us, that those whom he had spoken of as loving God, had been previously chosen by him. For it is certain that the order is thus pointed out, that we may know that it proceeds from the gratuitous adoption of God, as from the first cause, that all things happen to the saints for their salvation. Nay, Paul shows that the faithful do not love God before they are called by him, as in another place he reminds us that the Galatians were known of God before they knew him. (Gal 4:9.) It is indeed true what Paul intimates, that afflictions avail not to advance the salvation of any but of those who love God; but that saying of John is equally true, that then only he is begun to be loved by us, when he anticipates us by his gratuitous love.

But the calling of which Paul speaks here, has a wide meaning, for it is not to be confined to the manifestation of election, of which mention is presently made, but is to be set simply in opposition to the course pursued by men; as though Paul had said, — “The faithful attain not religion by their own efforts, but are, on the contrary led by the hand of God, inasmuch as he has chosen them to be a peculiar people to himself.” The word purpose distinctly excludes whatever is imagined to be adduced mutually by men; as though Paul had denied, that the causes of our election are to be sought anywhere else, except in the secret good pleasure of God; which subject is more fully handled in the first chapter to the Ephesians, and in the first of the Second Epistle to Timothy; where also the contrast between this purpose and human righteousness is more distinctly set forth. ²⁶⁸ Paul, however, no doubt made here this express declaration, — that our salvation is based on the election of God, in order that he might make a transition to that which he immediately subjoined, namely, that by the same celestial decree, the afflictions, which conform us to Christ, have been appointed; and he did this for the purpose of connecting, as by a kind of necessary chain, our salvation with the bearing of the cross.

Calvin: Rom 8:29

29.For whom he has foreknown, etc. He then shows, by the very order of election, that the afflictions of the faithful are nothing else than the manner by which they are conformed to the image of Christ; and that this was necessary, he had before declared. There is therefore no reason for us to be grieved, or to think it hard and grievous, that we are afflicted, unless we disapprove of the Lord’s election, by which we have been foreordained to life, and unless we are unwilling to bear the image of the Son of God, by which we are to be prepared for celestial glory.

But the foreknowledge of God, which Paul mentions, is not a bare prescience, as some unwise persons absurdly imagine, but the adoption by which he had always distinguished his children from the reprobate. ²⁶⁹ In the same sense Peter says, that the faithful had been elected to the sanctification of the Spirit according to the foreknowledge of God. Hence those, to whom I have alluded, foolishly draw this inference, — That God has elected none but those whom he foresaw would be worthy of his grace. Peter does not in deed flatter the faithful, as though every one had been elected on account of his merit; but by reminding them of the eternal counsel of God, he wholly deprives them of all worthiness. So Paul does in this passage, who repeats by another word what he had said before of God’s purpose. It hence follows, that this knowledge is connected with God’s good pleasure; for he foreknew nothing out of himself, in adopting those whom he was pleased to adopt; but only marked out those whom he had purposed to elect.

The verb προορίζειν, which some translate, to predestinate, is to be understood according to what this passage requires; for Paul only meant, that God had so determined that all whom he has adopted should bear the image of Christ; nor has he simply said, that they were to be conformed to Christ, but to the image of Christ, that he might teach us that there is in Christ a living and conspicuous exemplar, which is exhibited to God’s children for imitation. The meaning then is, that gratuitous adoption, in which our salvation consists, is inseparable from the other decree, which determines that we are to bear the cross; for no one can be an heir of heaven without being conformed to the image of the only-begotten Son of God.

That he may be, or, that he might be, the first-born, etc.; for the Greek infinitive, εἶναι, may be rendered in these two ways; but I prefer the first rendering. But in mentioning Christ’s primogeniture, Paul meant only to express this, — that since Christ possesses a pre-eminence among the children of God, he is rightly given to us as a pattern, so that we ought to refuse nothing which he has been pleased to undergo. Hence, that the celestial Father may in every way bear testimony to the authority and honor which he has conferred on his own Son, he will have all those whom he adopts to be the heirs of his kingdom, to be conformed to his example. Though indeed the condition of the godly is apparently various, as there is a difference between the members of the same body, there is yet a connection between every one and his own head. As then the first-born sustains the name of the family, so Christ is placed in a state of pre-eminence not only that he might excel in honor among the faithful, but also that he might include all under him himself under the common name of brotherhood.

Calvin: Rom 8:30

30.And whom he has foredetermined, ( præfinivit,) them has he also called, etc. That he might now by a clearer proof show how true it is that a conformity with the humiliating state of Christ is for our good, he adopts a graduating process, by which he teaches us, that a participation of the cross is so connected with our vocation, justification, and, in short, with our future glory, that they can by no means be separated.

But that readers may better understand the Apostle’s meaning, it may be well to repeat what I have already said, — that the word foredetermine does not refer to election, but to that purpose or decree of God by which he has ordained that the cross is to be borne by his people; and by declaring that they are now called, he intimates, that God had not kept concealed what he had determined respecting them, but had made it known, that they might resignedly and humbly submit to the condition allotted to them; for calling here is to be distinguished from secret election, as being posterior to it. That none then may make this objection — that it appears to no one what lot God has appointed for him, the Apostle says, that God by his calling bears an evident testimony respecting his hidden purpose. But this testimony is not only found in the outward preaching of the gospel, but it has also the power of the Spirit connected with it; for the elect are there spoken of, whom God not only addresses by the outward word, but whom he also inwardly draws.

Justification may fitly be extended to the unremitted continuance of God’s favor, from the time of our calling to the hour of death; but as Paul uses this word throughout the Epistle, for gratuitous imputation of righteousness, there is no necessity for us to deviate from this meaning. What Paul indeed had in view was to show that a more precious compensation is offered to us, than what ought to allow us to shun afflictions; for what is more desirable than to be reconciled to God, so that our miseries may no longer be tokens of a curse, nor lead us to ruin?

He then immediately adds, that those who are now pressed down by the cross shall be glorified; so that their sorrows and reproaches shall bring them no loss. Though glorification is not yet exhibited except in our Head, yet as we in a manner behold in him our inheritance of eternal life, his glory brings to us such assurance respecting our own glory, that our hope may be justly compared to a present possession.

We may add, that Paul, imitating the style of the Hebrew language, adopts in these verbs the past instead of the present tense. ²⁷⁰ A continued act is no doubt what is meant, according to this import, “Those whom God now, consistently with his purpose, exercises under the cross, are called and justified, that they may have a hope of salvation, so that nothing of their glory decays during their humiliation; for though their present miseries deform it before the world, yet before God and angels it always shines forth as perfect.” What Paul then means by this gradation is, That the afflictions of the faithful, by which they are now humbled, are intended for this end — that the faithful, having obtained the glory of the celestial kingdom, may reach the glory of Christ’s resurrection, with whom they are now crucified.

Calvin: Rom 8:31

31.What then, etc. The subject discussed having been sufficiently proved, he now breaks out into exclamations, by which he sets forth the magnanimity with which the faithful ought to be furnished when adversities urge them to despond. And he teaches us in these words that with the paternal favor of God is connected that invincible courage which overcomes all temptations. We indeed know, that judgment is usually formed of the love or of the hatred of God, in no other way than by a view of our present state; hence when things fall out untowardly, sorrow takes possession of our minds, and drives away all confidence and consolation. But Paul loudly exclaims, that a deeper principle ought to be inquired after, and that they reason absurdly who confine themselves to the sad spectacle of our present warfare. I indeed allow, that the scourges of God are in themselves justly deemed to be tokens of God’s wrath; but as they are consecrated in Christ, Paul bids the saints to lay hold, above all things, on the paternal love of God, that relying on this shield they may boldly triumph over all evils; for this is a brazen wall to us, so that while God is propitious to us we shall be safe against all dangers. He does not, however, mean, that nothing shall oppose us; but he promises a victory over all kinds of enemies.

If God be for us, etc. This is the chief and the only support which can sustain us in every temptation. For except we have God propitious to us, though all things should smile on us, yet no sure confidence can be attained: but, on the other hand, his favor alone is a sufficient solace in every sorrow, a protection sufficiently strong against all the storms of adversities. And on this subject there are many testimonies of Scripture, which show that when the saints rely on the power of God alone, they dare to despise whatever is opposed to them in the world.

“When I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I shall not fear evils, for thou art with me.” (Psa 23:4.)

“In the Lord I trust: what shall flesh do to me.”
(Psa 56:11.)

“I shall not fear the thousands of the people who beset me.”
(Psa 3:6.)

For there is no power either under or above the heavens, which can resist the arm of God. Having him then as our defender, we need fear no harm whatever. Hence he alone shows real confidence in God, who being content with his protection, dreads nothing in such a way as to despond; the faithful are doubtless often shaken but are never utterly cast down. In short, the Apostle’s object was to show, that the godly soul ought to rely on the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, and not to depend on outward things.

Calvin: Rom 8:32

32.=== He who has not spared his own son, === etc. As it greatly concerns us to be so thoroughly persuaded of the paternal love of God, as to be able to retain our rejoicing on its account, Paul brings forward the price of our redemption in order to prove that God favors us: and doubtless it is a remarkable and clear evidence of inappreciable love, that the Father refused not to bestow his Son for our salvation. And so Paul draws an argument from the greater to the less, that as he had nothing dearer, or more precious, or more excellent than his Son, he will neglect nothing of what he foresees will be profitable to us. ²⁷³

This passage ought to remind us of what Christ brings to us, and to awaken us to contemplate his riches; for as he is a pledge of God’s infinite love towards us, so he has not been sent to us void of blessings or empty, but filled with all celestial treasures, so that they who possess him may not want anything necessary for their perfect felicity. To deliver up means here to expose to death.

Calvin: Rom 8:33

33.=== Who shall bring an accusation, === etc. The first and the chief consolation of the godly in adversities, is to be fully persuaded of the paternal kindness of God; for hence arises the certainty of their salvation, and that calm quietness of the soul through which it comes that adversities are sweetened, or at least the bitterness of sorrow mitigated. Hardly then a more suitable encouragement to patience could be adduced than this, a conviction that God is propitious to us; and hence Paul makes this confidence the main ground of that consolation, by which it behoves the faithful to be strengthened against all evils. And as the salvation of man is first assailed by accusation, and then subverted by condemnation, he in the first place averts the danger of accusation. There is indeed but one God, at whose tribunal we must stand; then there is no room for accusation when he justifies us. The antithetic clauses seem not indeed to be exactly arranged; for the two parts which ought rather to have been set in opposition to each other are these: “Who shall accuse? Christ is he who intercedes:” and then these two might have been connected, “Who shall condemn? God is he who justifies;” for God’s absolution answers to condemnation, and Christ’s intercession to accusation. But Paul has not without reason made another arrangement, as he was anxious to arm the children of God, as they say, from head to foot, with that confidence which banishes all anxieties and fears. He then more emphatically concludes, that the children of God are not subject to an accusation, because God justifies, than if he had said that Christ is our advocate; for he more fully expresses that the way to a trial is more completely closed up when the judge himself pronounces him wholly exempt from guilt, whom the accuser would bring in as deserving of punishment. There is also a similar reason for the second clause; for he shows that the faithful are very far from being involved in the danger of condemnation, since Christ by expiating their sins has anticipated the judgment of God, and by his intercession not only abolishes death, but also covers our sins in oblivion, so that they come not to an account.

The drift of the whole is, that we are not only freed from terror by present remedies, but that God comes to our aid beforehand, that he may better provide for our confidence.

But it must be here observed, as we have before reminded you, that to be justified, according to Paul, is to be absolved by the sentence of God, and to be counted just; and it is not difficult to prove this from the present passage, in which he reasons by affirming one thing which nullifies its opposite; for to absolve and to regard persons as guilty, are contrary things. Hence God will allow no accusation against us, because he has absolved us from all sins. The devil no doubt is an accuser of all the godly: the very law of God and their own conscience convict them; but all these prevail nothing with the judge, who justifies them. Therefore no adversary can shake or endanger our salvation.

Further, he so mentions the elect, as one who doubted not but that he was of their number; and he knew this, not by special revelation, (as some sophists falsely imagine,) but by a perception ( sensu - feeling) common to all the godly. What then is here said of the elect, every one of the godly, according to the example of Paul, may apply to himself; for this doctrine would have been not only frigid, but wholly lifeless had he buried election in the secret purpose of God. But when we know, that there is here designedly set before us what every one of the godly ought to appropriate to himself, there is no doubt but that we are all encouraged to examine our calling, so that we may become assured that we are the children of God.

Calvin: Rom 8:34

34.Who is he that condemns? === etc. As no one by accusing can prevail, when the judge absolves; so there remains no condemnation, when satisfaction is given to the laws, and the penalty is already paid. Now Christ is he, who, having once for all suffered the punishment due to us, thereby declared that he undertook our cause, in order to deliver us: he then who seeks hereafter to condemn us, must bring back Christ himself to death again. But he has not only died, but also came forth, by a resurrection, as the conqueror of death and triumphed over all its power.

He adds still more, — that he now sits at the right hand of the Father; by which is meant, that he possesses dominion over heaven and earth, and full power and rule over all things, according to what is said in Eph 1:20. He teaches us also, that he thus sits, that he may be a perpetual advocate and intercessor in securing our salvation. It hence follows, that when any one seeks to condemn us, he not only seeks to render void the death of Christ, but also contends with that unequalled power with which the Father has honored him, and who with that power conferred on him supreme authority. This so great an assurance; which dares to triumph over the devil, death, sin, and the gates of hell, ought to lodge deep in the hearts of all the godly; for our faith is nothing, except we feel assured that Christ is ours, and that the Father is in him propitious to us. Nothing then can be devised more pestilent and ruinous, than the scholastic dogma respecting the uncertainty of salvation.

===Who intercedes, etc. It was necessary expressly to add this, lest the Divine majesty of Christ should terrify us. Though, then, from his elevated throne he holds all things in subjection under his feet, yet Paul represents him as a Mediator; whose presence it would be strange for us to dread, since he not only kindly invites us to himself, but also appears an intercessor for us before the Father. But we must not measure this intercession by our carnal judgment; for we must not suppose that he humbly supplicates the Father with bended knees and expanded hands; but as he appears continually, as one who died and rose again, and as his death and resurrection stand in the place of eternal intercession, and have the efficacy of a powerful prayer for reconciling and rendering the Father propitious to us, he is justly said to intercede for us.

Calvin: Rom 8:35

35.Who shall separate us, etc. The conviction of safety is now more widely extended, even to lower things; for he who is persuaded of God’s kindness towards him, is able to stand firm in the heaviest afflictions. These usually harass men in no small degree, and for various reasons, — because they interpret them as tokens of God’s wrath, or think themselves to be forsaken by God, or see no end to them, or neglect to meditate on a better life, or for other similar reasons; but when the mind is purged from such mistakes, it becomes calm, and quietly rests. But the import of the words is, — That whatever happens, we ought to stand firm in this faith, — that God, who once in his love embraced us, never ceases to care for us. For he does not simply say that there is nothing which can tear God away from his love to us; but he means, that the knowledge and lively sense of the love which he testifies to us is so vigorous in our hearts, that it always shines in the darkness of afflictions: for as clouds, though they obscure the clear brightness of the sun, do not yet wholly deprive us of its light; so God, in adversities, sends forth through the darkness the rays of his favor, lest temptations should overwhelm us with despair; nay, our faith, supported by God’s promises as by wings, makes its way upward to heaven through all the intervening obstacles. It is indeed true, that adversities are tokens of God’s wrath, when viewed in themselves; but when pardon and reconciliation precede, we ought to be assured that God, though he chastises us, yet never forgets his mercy: he indeed thus reminds us of what we have deserved; but he no less testifies, that our salvation is an object of his care, while he leads us to repentance.

But he calls it the love of Christ, and for this reason, — because the Father has in a manner opened his compassions to us in him. As then the love of God is not to be sought out of Christ, Paul rightly directs to him our attention, so that our faith may behold, in the rays of Christ’s favor, the serene countenance of the Father. The meaning is, — that in no adversities ought our confidence to be shaken as to this truth — that when God is propitious, nothing can be adverse to us. Some take this love in a passive sense, for that by which he is loved by us, as though Paul would have us armed with invincible courage ²⁷⁵ but this comment may be easily disproved by the whole tenor of Paul’s reasoning; and Paul himself will presently remove all doubt by defining more clearly what this love is.

Tribulation, or distress, or persecution? etc. The pronoun masculine which he used at the beginning of the verse, contains a hidden power: for when he might have adopted the neuter gender and said — “What shall separate us?” etc., he preferred ascribing personality to things without life, and for this end, — that he might send forth with us into the contest as many champions as there are of temptations to try our faith.

But these three things have this difference: tribulation includes every kind of trouble or evil; distress is an inward feeling, when difficulties reduce us to such an extremity, so that we know not what course to pursue. Such was the anxiety of Abraham and of Lot, when one was constrained to expose his wife to the danger of prostitution, and the other, his daughters; for being brought to straits and being perplexed, they found no way of escape. Persecution properly denotes the tyrannical violence by which the children of God were undeservedly harassed by the ungodly. Now though Paul denies in 2Co 4:8, that the children of God are reduced to straits, στενοχωρεῖσθαι, he does not yet disagree with himself; for he does not simply make them to be exempt from anxious solicitude, but he means that they are delivered from it, as also the examples of Abraham and Lot testify.

Calvin: Rom 8:36

36.As it is written, etc. This testimony adds no small weight to the subject; for he intimates, that the dread of death is so far from being a reason to us for falling away, that it has been almost ever the lot of God’s servants to have death as it were present before their eyes. It is indeed probable, that in that Psalm the miserable oppression of the people under the tyranny of Antiochus is described; for it is expressly said, that the worshippers of God were cruelly treated, for no other reason but through hatred to true religion. There is also added a remarkable protestation, that they had not departed from the covenant of God; which Paul, I think, had especially in view. It is no objection that the saints there complain of a calamity which then unusually pressed on them; for since they show, that they were oppressed with so many evils, having before testified their innocence, an argument is hence fitly drawn, that it is no new thing for the Lord to permit his saints to be undeservedly exposed to the cruelty of the ungodly. But this is not done except for their good; for the Scripture teaches us, that it is alien to the righteousness of God to destroy the just with the wicked, (Gen 18:23); but that, on the contrary, it is meet for him to requite affliction to those who afflict, and rest to those who are afflicted. (2Th 1:6.) And then they affirm that they suffer for the Lord; and Christ pronounces them blessed who suffer for the sake of righteousness. (Mat 5:10.) By saying that they died daily, they intimated that death was so suspended over them, that their life differed but little from death.

Calvin: Rom 8:37

37.We do more than conquer, etc.; that is, we always struggle and emerge. I have retained the word used by Paul, ²⁷⁶ though not commonly used by the Latins. It indeed sometimes happens that the faithful seem to succumb and to lie forlorn; and thus the Lord not only tries, but also humbles them. This issue is however given to them, — that they obtain the victory.

That they might at the same time remember whence this invincible power proceeds, he again repeats what he had said before: for he not only teaches us that God, because he loves us, supports us by his hand; but he also confirms the same truth by mentioning the love of Christ. ²⁷⁷ And this one sentence sufficiently proves, that the Apostle speaks not here of the fervency of that love which we have towards God, but of the paternal kindness of God and of Christ towards us, the assurance of which, being thoroughly fixed in our hearts, will always draw us from the gates of hell into the light of life, and will sufficiently avail for our support.

Calvin: Rom 8:38

38. He is now carried away into hyperbolic expressions, that he might confirm us more fully in those things which are to be experienced. Whatever, he says, there is in life or in death, which seems capable of tearing us away from God, shall effect nothing; nay, the very angels, were they to attempt to overturn this foundation, shall do us no harm. It is no objection, that angels are ministering spirits, appointed for the salvation of the elect, (Heb 1:14 :) for Paul reasons here on what is impossible, as he does in Gal 1:8; and we may hence observe, that all things ought to be deemed of no worth, compared with the glory of God, since it is lawful to dishonor even angels in vindicating his truth. ²⁷⁹ Angels are also meant by principalities and powers, ²⁸⁰ and they are so called, because they are the primary instruments of the Divine power: and these two words were added, that if the word angels sounded too insignificant, something more might be expressed. But you would, perhaps, prefer this meaning, “Nor angels, and whatever powers there may be;” which is a mode of speaking that is used, when we refer to things unknown to us, and exceeding our capacities.

===Nor present things, nor future things, === etc. Though he speaks hyperbolically, yet he declares, that by no length of time can it be effected, that we should be separated from the Lord’s favor: and it was needful to add this; for we have not only to struggle with the sorrow which we feel from present evils, but also with the fear and the anxiety with which impending dangers may harass us. ²⁸¹ The meaning then is, — that we ought not to fear, lest the continuance of evils, however long, should obliterate the faith of adoption.

This declaration is clearly against the schoolmen, who idly talk and say, that no one is certain of final perseverance, except through the gift of special revelation, which they make to be very rare. By such a dogma the whole faith is destroyed, which is certainly nothing, except it extends to death and beyond death. But we, on the contrary, ought to feel confident, that he who has begun in us a good work, will carry it on until the day of the Lord Jesus. ²⁸²

Calvin: Rom 8:39

39.Which is in Christ, etc. That is, of which Christ is the bond; for he is the beloved Son, in whom the Father is well pleased. If, then, we are through him united to God, we may be assured of the immutable and unfailing kindness of God towards us. He now speaks here more distinctly than before, as he declares that the fountain of love is in the Father, and affirms that it flows to us from Christ.

Defender: Rom 8:20

"Vanity" is equivalent to "futility." Because of sin, the creation was made to operate under a law which specifies a universal process of decay and death. This law of morpholysis is recognized by science as a basic principle pervading the whole universe. It is also called the law of increasing entropy (meaning turning inward) or the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Every system in the physical and biological worlds has a tendency to turn inward and feed on itself to maintain its structure and activity, but this simply causes it to run down, disintegrate and die, unless it somehow becomes opened to outside sources of energy, information, food, etc. Even if it does remain an open system, this internal tendency continues to act in opposition to the incoming energy. Since even the latter will eventually be exhausted, the whole creation is thus in bondage to this principle of futility or vanity But since this law has been imposed by God, He also can remove it, and so there still is "hope.""

Defender: Rom 8:21

"Corruption" is equivalent to "decay," and this is yet another way of stating the entropy principle. Everything tends to decay, running down from a created state of organized complexity to one of randomness and disorganized chaos. This law is thus called a "bondage;" the universe is enslaved by it, and there is no natural principle available to supersede it. Such a law is clearly the exact converse of the notion of evolution, which views the universe as gradually organizing itself over long ages by natural processes into its present state of high complexity and activity. The entropy law, which is supported without exception by all observation and scientific study, seems to stipulate that evolution on any significant scale is impossible. It also explains the fact that evolution has never been observed to occur in the present and the fact that there is no evidence it ever occurred in the past."

Defender: Rom 8:22

The reference to "the whole creation" indicates that the divine curse extends through the entire created cosmos, not just to the earth. Scientific observation has confirmed this. That is, the law of entropy operates throughout the cosmos. Since it was man's sin that brought God's curse on the ground - the very elements of the created earth, the "dust of the ground" (Gen 2:7) out of which all things were made by God - it may be that his sin had universal repercussions. On the other hand, it may be that Satan's sin, which took place in the angels' domain in the heavens, brought on the curse there.

Defender: Rom 8:22

The creation is now travailing like a woman about to deliver a child. Its delivery into the glorious new age to come is thus associated with the manifestation of the children of God."

Defender: Rom 8:25

The blessed "hope" of the Christian is "the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" (Tit 2:13)."

Defender: Rom 8:26

The whole creation "groaneth" (Rom 8:22), we ourselves "groan within ourselves" (Rom 8:23) and the Spirit "maketh intercession for us with groanings" (Rom 8:26). The Greek word (stenagmos) refers to intense, yet inaudible, sighing. We who believe in God, the entire creation of God, and God Himself, are all yearning for the day when there shall be "no more curse" (Rev 22:3)."

Defender: Rom 8:27

The indwelling Holy Spirit makes intercession for us here on earth, as God searches our hearts, and the Lord Jesus "ever liveth to make intercession for [us]" (Heb 7:25) in heaven. What grace and blessing!

Defender: Rom 8:27

If we pray according to God's will, "we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him" (1Jo 5:14, 1Jo 5:15). Yet we often do not know what His will is. But then the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us "according to the will of God." No wonder "all things work together for good" for those who are the prayer requests of the Spirit."

Defender: Rom 8:28

Evidently those "who are the called" are the same as those "that love God.""

Defender: Rom 8:29

God's "foreknowledge" is much more than just having prescience of what will happen in the future, but its full meaning is beyond our finite comprehension. That foreknowledge precedes "election" is evident from 1Pe 1:2, and that it precedes "predestination" is evident from this verse. The same word (Greek proginosko) is translated "foreordained" in 1Pe 1:20, where it clearly speaks of more than merely knowing ahead of time what will happen.

Also, Act 2:23 speaks of Christ as being delivered to be crucified "by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," and Act 15:18, reveals that "known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." His works surely were not planned merely by His foreknowledge of what they would be. Similarly, God "foreknew" that Israel would be His people (Rom 11:2), yet He later chose them by His own will. It clearly suggests planning ahead of time, not just knowing ahead of time. Nothing takes God by surprise; His decisions are not determined by our decisions. Yet in every case where God's planning and predestinating are involved (Act 2:23), it is also true that those who acted according to His foreknowledge carried out those acts of their own volition. He promises "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom 10:13). Yet He also says that "he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4). Our finite minds cannot fully apprehend both truths concurrently, yet we can rejoice in both with our hearts. God understands, because His understanding is infinite, and we rest in that.

Defender: Rom 8:29

Those whom God has foreknown, and who have therefore come to Christ when God called, will one day be so transformed as to be like Christ Himself (Phi 3:21; 1Jo 3:2), with the family resemblance as His brethren. This is our pre-destiny."

Defender: Rom 8:30

Once this marvelous sequence begins with God's foreknowledge of those He would call, it is carried through so inevitably that Paul can even speak of us as "glorified" in the past tense. It is already an accomplished fact in the mind and purpose of God."

Defender: Rom 8:34

We must never forget that the one making these amazing promises is the one who has defeated death and the grave. At least twenty-one times in Scripture He is said to be at God's right hand, and at least four times He is said to be interceding there for us."

Defender: Rom 8:35

This is perhaps the most marvelous passage in the Scripture that assures us of the permanence of our salvation. Seventeen things are listed which can never separate us from the love of God in Christ (Rom 8:35, Rom 8:38, Rom 8:39) climaxing with the comprehensive "any other creation" (Rom 8:39). On the corresponding significance of the number seventeen (see notes on Joh 21:11)."

TSK: Rom 8:20

the creature : Rom 8:22; Gen 3:17-19, Gen 5:29, Gen 6:13; Job 12:6-10; Isa 24:5, Isa 24:6; Jer 12:4, Jer 12:11; Jer 14:5, Jer 14:6; Hos 4:3; Joe 1:18

TSK: Rom 8:21

Because : 2Pe 3:13

into the glorious : Rom 8:19; Rev 22:3-5

TSK: Rom 8:22

the : etc. or, every creature, Rom 8:20; Mar 16:15; Col 1:23

groaneth : Psa 48:6; Jer 12:11; Joh 16:21; Rev 12:2

TSK: Rom 8:23

which have : Rom 8:15, Rom 8:16, Rom 5:5; 2Co 5:5; Gal 5:22, Gal 5:23; Eph 1:14, Eph 5:9

even we : Rom 8:26, Rom 7:24; 2Co 5:2-4, 2Co 7:5; Phi 1:21-23; 1Pe 1:7

waiting : Rom 8:19, Rom 8:25; Luk 20:36; Phi 3:20,Phi 3:21; 2Ti 4:8; Tit 2:13; Heb 9:28; 1Jo 3:2

the redemption : Luk 21:28; Eph 1:14, Eph 4:30

TSK: Rom 8:24

saved : Rom 5:2, Rom 12:12, Rom 15:4, Rom 15:13; Psa 33:18, Psa 33:22, Psa 146:5; Pro 14:32; Jer 17:7; Zec 9:12; 1Co 13:13; Gal 5:5; Col 1:5, Col 1:23, Col 1:27; 1Th 5:8; 2Th 2:16; Tit 2:11-13; Heb 6:18, Heb 6:19; 1Pe 1:3, 1Pe 1:21; 1Jo 3:3

but hope : 2Co 4:18, 2Co 5:7; Heb 11:1; 1Pe 1:10,1Pe 1:11

TSK: Rom 8:25

with patience : Rom 8:23, Rom 2:7, Rom 12:12; Gen 49:18; Psa 27:14, Psa 37:7-9, Psa 62:1, Psa 62:5, Psa 62:6, Psa 130:5-7; Isa 25:9, Isa 26:8; Lam 3:25, Lam 3:26; Luk 8:15, Luk 21:19; Col 1:11; 1Th 1:3; 2Th 3:5; Heb 6:12, Heb 6:15, Heb 10:36, Heb 12:1-3; Jam 1:3, Jam 1:4, Jam 5:7-11; Rev 1:9, Rev 13:10; Rev 14:12

TSK: Rom 8:26

infirmities : Rom 15:1; 2Co 12:5-10; Heb 4:15, Heb 5:2

for we : Mat 20:22; Luk 11:1-13; Jam 4:3

but : Rom 8:15; Psa 10:17; Zec 12:10; Mat 10:20; Gal 4:6; Eph 2:18, Eph 6:18; Jud 1:20,Jud 1:21

with : Rom 7:24; Psa 6:3, Psa 6:9, Psa 42:1-5, Psa 55:1, Psa 55:2, Psa 69:3, Psa 77:1-3, Psa 88:1-3, Psa 102:5, Psa 102:20, Psa 119:81; Psa 119:82, Psa 143:4-7; Luk 22:44; 2Co 5:2, 2Co 5:4, 2Co 12:8

TSK: Rom 8:27

And he : 1Ch 28:9, 1Ch 29:17; Psa 7:9, Psa 44:21; Pro 17:3; Jer 11:20, Jer 17:10, Jer 20:12; Mat 6:8; Joh 21:17; Act 1:24, Act 15:8; 1Th 2:4; Heb 4:13; Rev 2:23

knoweth : Psa 38:9, Psa 66:18, Psa 66:19; Jam 5:16 *Gr.

because : or, that

he maketh : Rom 8:34; Eph 2:18

according : Jer 29:12, Jer 29:13; Joh 14:13; Jam 1:5, Jam 1:6; 1Jo 3:21, 1Jo 3:22, 1Jo 5:14, 1Jo 5:15

TSK: Rom 8:28

we know : Rom 8:35-39, Rom 5:3, Rom 5:4; Gen 50:20; Deu 8:2, Deu 8:3, Deu 8:16; Psa 46:1, Psa 46:2; Jer 24:5-7; Zec 13:9; 2Co 4:15-17, 2Co 5:1; Phi 1:19-23; 2Th 1:5-7; Heb 12:6-12; Jam 1:3, Jam 1:4; 1Pe 1:7, 1Pe 1:8; Rev 3:19

them : Rom 5:5; Exo 20:6; Deu 6:5; Neh 1:5; Psa 69:36; Mar 12:30; 1Co 2:9; Jam 1:12; Jam 2:5; 1Jo 4:10,1Jo 4:19, 1Jo 5:2, 1Jo 5:3

the called : Rom 8:30, Rom 1:6, Rom 1:7, Rom 9:11, Rom 9:23, Rom 9:24; Jer 51:29; Act 13:48; Gal 1:15; Eph 1:9, Eph 1:10, Eph 3:11; 1Th 5:9; 2Th 2:13, 2Th 2:14; 2Ti 2:19; 1Pe 5:10

TSK: Rom 8:29

whom : Rom 11:2; Exo 33:12, Exo 33:17; Psa 1:6; Jer 1:5; Mat 7:23; 2Ti 2:19; 1Pe 1:2; Rev 13:8

he also : Eph 1:5, Eph 1:11; 1Pe 1:20

to be : Rom 13:14; Joh 17:16, Joh 17:19, Joh 17:22, Joh 17:23, Joh 17:26; 1Co 15:49; 2Co 3:18; Eph 1:4, Eph 4:24; Phi 3:21; 1Jo 3:2

that he might : Psa 89:27; Mat 12:50, Mat 25:40; Joh 20:17; Col 1:15-18; Heb 1:5, Heb 1:6; Heb 2:11-15; Rev 1:5, Rev 1:6

TSK: Rom 8:30

Moreover : Rom 8:28, Rom 1:6, Rom 9:23, Rom 9:24; Isa 41:9; 1Co 1:2, 1Co 1:9; Eph 4:4; Heb 9:15; 1Pe 2:9; 2Pe 1:10; Rev 17:14, Rev 19:9

he called : Rom 3:22-26; 1Co 6:11; Tit 3:4-7

he justified : Rom 8:1, Rom 8:17, Rom 8:18, Rom 8:33-35, Rom 5:8-10; Joh 5:24, Joh 6:39, Joh 6:40, Joh 17:22, Joh 17:24; 2Co 4:17; Eph 2:6; Col 3:4; 1Th 2:12; 2Th 1:10-12, 2Th 2:13, 2Th 2:14; 2Ti 2:11; Heb 9:15; 1Pe 3:9, 1Pe 4:13, 1Pe 4:14, 1Pe 5:10

TSK: Rom 8:31

What : Rom 4:1

If : Gen 15:1; Num 14:9; Deu 33:29; Jos 10:42; 1Sa 14:6, 1Sa 17:45-47; Psa 27:1-3; Psa 46:1-3, Psa 46:7, Psa 46:11, Psa 56:4, Psa 56:11, Psa 84:11, Psa 84:12, Psa 118:6; Isa 50:7-9, Isa 54:17; Jer 1:19, Jer 20:11; Joh 10:28-30; 1Jo 4:4

TSK: Rom 8:32

that : Rom 5:6-10, Rom 11:21; Gen 22:12; Isa 53:10; Mat 3:17; Joh 3:16; 2Co 5:21; 2Pe 2:4, 2Pe 2:5; 1Jo 4:10

delivered : Rom 4:25

how : Rom 8:28, Rom 6:23; Psa 84:11; 1Co 2:12, 1Co 3:21-23; 2Co 4:15; Rev 21:7

TSK: Rom 8:33

Who : Rom 8:1; Job 1:9-11, Job 2:4-6, 22:6-30, Job 34:8, Job 34:9, Job 42:7-9; Psa 35:11; Isa 54:17; Zec 3:1-4; Rev 12:10,Rev 12:11

of God’ s : Isa 42:1; Mat 24:24; Luk 18:7; 1Th 1:4; Tit 1:1; 1Pe 1:2

It is : Rom 3:26; Isa 50:8, Isa 50:9; Gal 3:8; Rev 12:10,Rev 12:11

TSK: Rom 8:34

Who : Rom 8:1, Rom 14:13; Job 34:29; Psa 37:33, Psa 109:31; Jer 50:20

It is Christ : Rom 4:25, Rom 5:6-10, Rom 14:9; Job 33:24; Mat 20:28; Joh 14:19; Gal 3:13, Gal 3:14; Heb 1:3, Heb 9:10-14, Heb 10:10-14, Heb 10:19-22, Heb 12:2; 1Pe 3:18; Rev 1:18

who is even : Mar 16:19; Act 7:56-60; Col 3:1; Heb 8:1, Heb 8:2, Heb 12:1; 1Pe 3:22

who also : Rom 8:27; Isa 53:12; Joh 16:23, Joh 16:26, Joh 16:27, Joh 17:20-24; Heb 4:14, Heb 4:15, Heb 7:25, Heb 9:24; 1Jo 2:1, 1Jo 2:2

TSK: Rom 8:35

shall separate : Rom 8:39; Psa 103:17; Jer 31:3; Joh 10:28, Joh 13:1; 2Th 2:13, 2Th 2:14, 2Th 2:16; Rev 1:5

shall tribulation : Rom 8:17, Rom 5:3-5; Mat 5:10-12, Mat 10:28-31; Luk 21:12-18; Joh 16:33; Act 14:22; Act 20:23, Act 20:24; 2Co 4:17, 2Co 6:4-10, 2Co 11:23-27; 2Ti 1:12, 2Ti 4:16-18; Heb 12:3-11; Jam 1:2-4; 1Pe 1:5-7, 1Pe 4:12-14; Rev 7:14-17

TSK: Rom 8:36

For thy : Psa 44:22, Psa 141:7; Joh 16:2; 1Co 15:30; 2Co 4:11

as sheep : Isa 53:7; Jer 11:19, Jer 12:3, Jer 51:40; Act 8:32

TSK: Rom 8:37

Nay : 2Ch 20:25-27; Isa 25:8; 1Co 15:54, 1Co 15:57; 2Co 2:14, 2Co 12:9, 2Co 12:19; 1Jo 4:4; 1Jo 5:4, 1Jo 5:5; Rev 7:9, Rev 7:10, Rev 11:7-12, Rev 12:11, Rev 17:14, Rev 21:7

him : Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2, Eph 5:25-27; 2Th 2:16; 1Jo 4:10,1Jo 4:19; Jud 1:24; Rev 1:5

TSK: Rom 8:38

For I : Rom 4:21; 2Co 4:13; 2Ti 1:12; Heb 11:13

that : Rom 14:8; Joh 10:28; 1Co 3:22, 1Co 3:23, 1Co 15:54-58; 2Co 5:4-8; Phi 1:20-23

nor : 2Co 11:14; Eph 1:21, Eph 6:11, Eph 6:12; Col 1:16, Col 2:15; 1Pe 3:22, 1Pe 5:8-10

TSK: Rom 8:39

Nor : Eph 3:18, Eph 3:19

height : Exo 9:16, Exo 9:17; Psa 93:3, Psa 93:4; Isa 10:10-14, Isa 10:33, Isa 24:21; Dan 4:11, Dan 5:18-23; 2Th 2:4; Rev 13:1-8

depth : Rom 11:33; Psa 64:6; Pro 20:5; Mat 24:24; 2Co 2:11, 2Co 11:3; 2Th 2:9-12; Rev 2:24, Rev 12:9, Rev 13:14, Rev 19:20, Rev 20:3, Rev 20:7

shall be : Joh 10:28-30; Col 3:3, Col 3:4

love : Rom 8:35, Rom 5:8; Joh 3:16, Joh 16:27, Joh 17:26; Eph 1:4, Eph 2:4-7; Tit 3:4-7; 1Jo 4:9, 1Jo 4:10,1Jo 4:16, 1Jo 4:19

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Rom 8:20

For the creature - The renewed creature; the Christian mind. This is given as a reason for its aspiring to the full privileges of adoption, that the present state is not one of choice, or one which is preferred, but one to which it has been subjected for wise reasons by God.

Subject to vanity - The word "subject to"means placed in such a state; subjected to it by the appointment of another, as a soldier has his rank and place assigned him in an army. The word "vanity"here ματαιότης mataiotēs is descriptive of the present condition of the Christian, as frail and dying; as exposed to trials, temptations, and cares; as in the midst of conflicts, and of a world which may be emphatically pronounced vanity. More or less, the Christian is brought under this influence; his joys are marred; his peace is discomposed; his affections wander; his life is a life of vanity and vexation.

Not willingly - Not voluntarily. It is not a matter of choice. It is not what is congenial to his renewed nature. That would aspire to perfect holiness and peace. But this subjection is one that is contrary to it, and from which he desires to be delivered. This describes substantially the same condition as Rom 7:15-24.

But by reason - By him διά dia . It is the appointment of God, who has chosen to place his people in this condition; and who for wise purposes retains them in it.

Who hath subjected the same - Who has appointed his people to this condition. It is his wise arrangement. Here we may observe,

(1) That the instinctive feelings of Christians lead them to desire a purer and a happier world, Phi 1:23.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 hat it is not what they desire, to be subjected to the toils of this life, and to the temptations and vanities of this world. They sigh for deliverance.

\caps1 (3) t\caps0 heir lot in life; their being subjected to this state of vanity, is the arrangement of God. Why it is, he has not seen fit to inform us fully. He might have taken his people at once to heaven as soon as they are converted. But though we know not all the reasons why they are continued here in this state of vanity, we can see some of them:

(a)    Christians are subjected to this state to do good to their fellow sinners. They remain on earth for this purpose: and this should be their leading aim.

(b)    By their remaining here the power of the gospel is shown in overcoming their sin; in meeting their temptations; in sustaining them in trial; and in thus furnishing living evidence to the world of the power and excellency of that gospel. This could not be attained if they were removed at once to heaven.

©    It furnishes occasion for some interesting exhibitions of character - for hope, and faith, and love, and for increasing and progressive excellence.

(d)    It is a proper training for heaven. It brings out the Christian character, and fits it for the skies. There may be inestimable advantages, all of which we may not see, in subjecting the Christian to a process of training in overcoming his sins, and in producing confidence in God, before he is admitted to his state of final rest.

(e)    It is fit and proper that he should engage here in the service of Him who has redeemed him. He has been ransomed by the blood of Christ, and God has the highest claim on him in all the conflicts and toils, in all the labors and services to which he may be subjected in this life.

In hope - See the note at Rom 5:4. Hope has reference to the future; and in this state of the Christian, he sighs for deliverance, and expects it.

Barnes: Rom 8:21

Because - This is the ground of his hope, and this sustains him now. It is the purpose of God that deliverance shall be granted, and this supports the Christian amidst the trials to which he is subjected here. The hope is, that this same renewed man shall be delivered from all the toils, and cares, and sins of this state.

The creature itself - The very soul that is renewed; the ransomed man without essential change. It will be the same being, though purified; the same man, possessed of the same body and soul, though freed from all the corruptions of humanity, and elevated above all the degradations of the present condition. The idea is everywhere presented, that the identical person shall be admitted to heaven without essential change, 1Co 15:35-38, 1Co 15:42-44. That this is the hope of all Christians, see 2Pe 3:13.

From the bondage of corruption - This does not differ materially from "vanity,"Rom 8:20. It implies that this state is not a willing state, or not a condition of choice, but is one of bondage or servitude (see Rom 7:15-24); and that it is a corrupt, imperfect, perishing condition. It is one that leads to sin, and temptation, and conflict and anxiety. It is a condition often which destroys the peace, mars the happiness, dims the hope, enfeebles the faith, and weakens the love of Christians, and this is called the bondage of corruption. It is also one in which temporal death has dominion, and in the bondage of which, believers as well as unbelievers shall be held. Yet from all this bondage the children of God shall be delivered.

The glorious liberty - Greek, The freedom of the glory of the children of God. This is,

(1) "Liberty."It is freedom from the bondage under which the Christian groans. It will be freedom from sin; from corruption; from evil desires; from calamity; from death. The highest "freedom "in the universe is that which is enjoyed in heaven, where the redeemed are under the sovereignty and government of their king, but where they do that, and that only, which they desire. All is slavery but the service of God; all is bondage but that law which accords with the supreme wish of the soul, and where commands accord with the perfect desires of the heart.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 his is glorious liberty. It is encompassed with majesty; attended with honor; crowned with splendor. The heavenly world is often described as a state of glory; Note, Rom 2:10.

Of the children of God - That the children of God shall enjoy.

Barnes: Rom 8:22

For we know - The sentiment of this verse is designed as an illustration of what had just been said.

That the whole creation - Margin, "every creature."This expression has been commonly understood as meaning the same as "the creature"in Rom 8:20-21. But I understand it as having a different signification; and as being used in the natural and usual signification of the word "creature,"or "creation."It refers, as I suppose, to the whole animate creation; to all living beings; to the state of all created things here, as in a condition of pain and disorder, and groaning and death. Everything which we see; every creature which lives, is thus subjected to a state of servitude, pain, vanity, and death. The reasons for supposing that this is the true interpretation, are,

(1)    That the apostle expressly speaks of "the whole creation, of every creature, qualifying the phrase by the expression "we know,"as if he was drawing an illustration from a well-understood, universal fact.

(2)\caps1     t\caps0 his interpretation makes consistent sense, and makes the verse have a direct bearing on the argument. "It is just an argument from analogy."

He had Rom 8:20-21 said that the condition of a Christian was one of bondage and servitude. It was an imperfect, humiliating state; one attended with pain, sorrow, and death. This might be regarded as a melancholy description, and the question might arise, why was not the Christian at once delivered from this? The answer is in this verse. "It is just the condition of everything."It is the manifest principle on which God governs the world. The whole creation is in just this condition; and we are not to be surprised, therefore, if it is the condition of the believer. It is a part of the universal system of things; it accords with everything we see; and we are not to be surprised that the church exists on the same principle of administration; in a state of bondage, imperfection, sorrow, and sighing for deliverance.

Groaneth - Greek, Groans together. All is united in a condition of sorrow. The expression denotes mutual and universal grief. It is one wide and loud lamentation, in which a dying world unites; and in which it has united "until now."

And travaileth in pain together - This expression properly denotes the extreme pain of parturition. It also denotes any intense agony, or extreme suffering; and it means here that the condition of all things has been that of intense, united, and continued suffering; in other words, that we are in a world of misery and death. This has been united; all have partaken of it: it has been intense; all endure much: it has been unremitted; every age has experienced the repetition of the same thing.

Until now - Until the time when the apostle wrote. It is equally true of the time since he wrote. It has been the characteristic of every age. It is remarkable that the apostle does not here say of "the whole creation,"that it had any hope of deliverance; an additional consideration that shows that the interpretation above suggested is correct, Rom 8:20-21, Rom 8:23. Of the sighing and suffering universe, he says nothing with respect to its future state. He does not say that the suffering brutal creation shall be compensated, or shall be restored or raised up. He simply adverts to the fact that it suffers, as an illustration that the condition of the Christian is not singular and special. The Scriptures say nothing of the future condition of the brutal creation.

Barnes: Rom 8:23

And not only they - Not only the creation in general. "But ourselves also."Christians.

Which have the first-fruits of the Spirit - The word used ἀπαρχὴ aparchē denotes properly the first-fruits of the harvest, the portion that was first collected and consecrated to God as an offering of gratitude, Deu 26:2; Exo 23:19; Num 18:13. Hence, the word means what is first in order of time. Here it means, as I suppose, that the Christians of whom Paul was speaking had partaken of the first influences of the Spirit, or had been among the first partakers of his influences in converting sinners. The Spirit had been sent down to attend the preaching of the gospel, and they were among the first who had partaken of those influences. Some, however, have understood the word to mean a pledge, or earnest, or foretaste of joys to come. This idea has been attached to the word because the first-fruits of the harvest were a pledge of the harvest, an evidence that it was ripe, etc. But the word does not seem to be used in this sense in the New Testament. The only places where it occurs are the following; Rom 8:23; Rom 11:16; Rom 16:5; 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23; 1Co 16:15; Jam 1:18; Rev 14:4.

Groan within ourselves - We sigh for deliverance. The expression denotes strong internal desire; the deep anguish of spirit when the heart is oppressed with anguish, and earnestly wishes for succor.

Waiting for the adoption - Waiting for the full blessings of the adoption. Christians are adopted when they are converted Rom 8:15, but they have not been yet admitted to the full privileges of their adoption into the family of God. Their adoption when they are converted is secret, and may at the time be unknown to the world. The fullness of the adoption, their complete admission to the privileges of the sons of God, shall be in the day of judgment, in the presence of the universe, and amidst the glories of the final consummation of all things. This adoption is not different from the first, but is the completion of the act of grace when a sinner is received into the family of God.

The redemption of the body - The complete recovery of the body from death and corruption. The particular and striking act of the adoption in the day of judgment will be the raising up of the body from the grave, and rendering it immortal and eternally blessed. The particular effects of the adoption in this world are on the soul. The completion of it on the last day will be seen particularly in the body; and thus the entire man shall be admitted into the favor of God, and restored from all his sins and all the evil consequences of the fall. The apostle here speaks the language of every Christian. The Christian has joys which the world does not know; but he has also sorrows; he sighs over his corruption; he is in the midst of calamity; he is going to the grave; and he looks forward to that complete deliverance, and to that elevated state, when, in the presence of an assembled universe, he shall be acknowledged as a child of God. This elevated privilege gives to Christianity its high value; and the hope of being acknowledged in the presence of the universe as the child of God - the hope of the poorest and the humblest believer - is of infinitely mere value than the prospect of the most princely inheritance, or of the brightest crown that a monarch ever wore.

Barnes: Rom 8:24

For we are saved by hope - It cannot be said that hope is the instrument or condition of salvation. Most commentators have understood this as meaning that we have as yet attained salvation only in hope; that we have arrived only to a condition in which we hope for future glory; and that we are in an attitude of waiting for the future state of adoption. But perhaps the word "saved"may mean here simply, we are kept, preserved, sustained in our trials, by hope. Our trials are so great that nothing but the prospect of future deliverance would uphold us; and the prospect is sufficient to enable us to bear them with patience. This is the proper meaning of the word "save"; and it is often thus used in the New Testament; see Mat 8:25; Mat 16:25; Mar 3:4; Mar 8:35. The Syriac renders this, "For by hope we live."The Arabic, "We are preserved by hope."Hope thus sustains the soul in the midst of trims, and enables it to bear them without a complaint.

But hope that is seen - Hope is a complex emotion, made up of an earnest desire, and an expectation of obtaining an object. It has reference, therefore, to what is at present unseen. But when the object is seen, and is in our possession, it cannot be said to be an object of hope. The Word hope here means the object of hope, the thing hoped for.

What a man seeth - The word "seeth"is used here in the sense of possessing, or enjoying. What a man already possesses, he cannot be said to hope for.

Why - How. What a man actually possesses, how can he look forward to it with anticipation?

Barnes: Rom 8:25

But if we hope ... - The effect here stated is one which exists everywhere. Where there is a strong desire for an object, and a corresponding expectation of obtaining it - which constitutes true hope - then we can wait for it with patience. Where there is a strong desire without a corresponding expectation of obtaining it, there is impatience. As the Christian has a strong desire of future glory, and as he has an expectation of obtaining it just in proportion to that desire, it follows that he may bear trials and persecutions patiently in the hope of his future deliverance. Compared with our future glory, our present sufferings are light, and but for a moment; 2Co 4:17. In the hope of that blessed eternity which is before him, the Christian can endure the severest trial, and bear the intensest pain without a complaint.

Barnes: Rom 8:26

Likewise the Spirit - This introduces a new source of consolation and support, what is derived from the Spirit. It is a continuation of the argument of the apostle, to show the sustaining power of the Christian religion. The "Spirit"here undoubtedly refers to the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, and who strengthens us.

Helpeth - This word properly means, to sustain with us; to aid us in supporting. It is applied usually to those who unite in supporting or carrying a burden. The meaning may be thus expressed: "he greatly assists or aids us."

Our infirmities - Assists us in our infirmities, or aids us to bear them. The word "infirmities"refers to the weaknesses to which we are subject, and to our various trials in this life. The Spirit helps us in this,

(1)    By giving us strength to bear them;

(2)    By exciting us to make efforts to sustain them;

(3)    By ministering to us consolations, and truths, and views of our Christian privileges, that enable us to endure our trials.

For we know not ... - This is a specification of the aid which the Holy Spirit, renders us. The reasons why Christians do not know what to pray for may be,

(1)    That they do not know what would be really best for them.

(2)\caps1     t\caps0 hey do not know what God might be willing to grant them.

(3)\caps1     t\caps0 hey are to a great extent ignorant of the character of God, the reason of his dealings, the principles of his government, and their own real needs.

(4)\caps1     t\caps0 hey are often in real, deep perplexity. They are encompassed with trials, exposed to temptations, feeble by disease, and subject to calamities. In these circumstances, if left alone, they would neither be able to bear their trials, nor know what to ask at the hand of God.

But the Spirit itself - The Holy Spirit; Rom 8:9-11.

Maketh intercession - The word used here ὑπερεντυνγχάνει huperentungchanei , occurs no where else in the New Testament. The word ἐντυνγχάνω entungchanō , however, is used several times. It means properly to be present with anyone for the purpose of aiding, as an advocate does in a court of justice; hence, to intercede for anyone, or to aid or assist in any manner. In this place it simply means that the Holy Spirit greatly assists or aids us; not by praying for us, but in our prayers and infirmities.

With groanings - With sighs, or that deep feeling and intense anxiety which exists in the oppressed and burdened heart of the Christian.

Which cannot be uttered - Or rather, perhaps, which is not uttered; those emotions which are too deep for utterance, or for expression in articulate language. This does not mean that the Spirit produces these groanings; but that in these deep-felt emotions, when the soul is oppressed and overwhelmed, he lends us his assistance and sustains us. The phrase may be thus translated: "The Spirit greatly aids or supports us in those deep emotions, those intense feelings, those inward sighs which cannot be expressed in language, but which he enables us to bear, and which are understood by Him that searcheth the hearts."

Barnes: Rom 8:27

And he that searcheth the hearts - God. To search the heart is one of his attributes which cannot be communicated to a creature; Jer 17:10.

Knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit - Knows the desires which the Holy Spirit excites and produces in the heart. He does not need that those deep emotions should be expressed in words; he does not need the eloquence of language to induce him to hear; but he sees the anxious feelings of the soul, and is ready to aid and to bless.

Maketh intercession for the saints - Aids and directs Christians.

According to the will of God - Greek, "According to God."It is according to his will in the following respects:

(1) The Spirit is given according to his will. It is his gracious purpose to grant his aid to all who truly love him.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he desires which he excites in the heart of the Christian are those which are according to his will; they are such as God wishes to exist; the contrite, humble, and penitent pleading of sinners for mercy.

\caps1 (3) h\caps0 e superintends and guards Christians in their prayers.

It is not meant that they are infallible, or that they never make an improper petition, or have an improper desire; but that he has a general superintendence over their minds, and that so far as they will yield themselves to his direction, they shall not be led into error That man is most safe who yields himself most entirely to the influence of the Holy Spirit. And the doctrine here stated is one that is full of consolation to the Christian. We are poor, and needy, and ignorant, and blind; we are the creatures of a day, and are crushed before the moth. But in the midst of our feebleness we may look to God for the aid of his Spirit, and rejoice in his presence, and in his power to sustain us in our sighings, and to guide us in our wanderings.

Barnes: Rom 8:28

And we know - This verse introduces another source of consolation and support, drawn from the fact that all flyings are under the direction of an infinitely wise Being, who has purposed the salvation of the Christian, and who has so appointed all things that they shall contribute to it.

All things - All our afflictions and trials; all the persecutions and calamities to which we are exposed. Though they are numerous and long-continued yet they are among the means that are appointed for our welfare.

Work together for good - They shall cooperate; they shall mutually contribute to our good. They take off our affections from this world; they teach us the truth about our frail, transitory, and lying condition; they lead us to look to God for support, and to heaven for a final home; and they produce a subdued spirit. a humble temper, a patient, tender, and kind disposition. This has been the experience of all saints; and at the end of life they have been able to say it was good for them to be afflicted; Psa 119:67, Psa 119:71; Jer 31:18-19; Heb 12:11.

For good - For our real welfare; for the promotion of true piety, peace, and happiness in our hearts.

To them that love God - This is a characteristic of true piety. To them, afflictions are a blessing. To others, they often prove otherwise. On others they are sent as chastisements; and they produce complaining, instead of peace; rebellion, instead of submission; and anger, impatience, and hatred, instead of calmness, patience, and love. The Christian is made a better man by receiving afflictions as they should be received, and by desiring that they should accomplish the purpose for which they are sent; the sinner is made more hardened by resisting them, and refusing to submit to their obvious intention and design.

To them who are the called - Christians are often represented as called of God. The word κλητός klētos is sometimes used to denote an external invitation, offer, or calling; Mat 20:16; Mat 22:14. But excepting in these places, it is used in the New Testament to denote those who had accepted the call, and were true Christians; Rom 1:6-7; 1Co 1:2, 1Co 1:24; Rev 17:14. It is evidently used in this sense here - to denote those who were true Christians. The connection as well as the usual meaning of the word, requires us thus to understand it. Christians are said to be called because God has invited them to be saved, and has sent into their heart such an influence as to make the call effectual to their salvation. In this way their salvation is to be traced entirely to God.

According to his purpose - The word here rendered "purpose" πρόθεσις prothesis means properly a proposition, or a laying down anything in view of others; and is thus applied to the bread that was laid on the table of show-bread; Mat 12:4; Mar 2:26; Luk 6:4. Hence, it means, when applied to the mind, a plan or purpose of mind. It implies that God had a plan, purpose, or intention, in regard to all who became Christians. They are not saved by chance or hap-hazard. God does not convert people without design; and his designs are not new, but are eternal. What he does. he always meant to do. What it is right for him to do, it was right always to intend to do. What God always meant to do, is his purpose or plan. That he has such a purpose in regard to the salvation of his people, is often affirmed; Rom 9:11; Eph 1:11; Eph 3:11; 2Ti 1:9; Jer 51:29. This purpose of saving his people is,

(1)    One over which a creature can have no control; it is according to the counsel of his own will; Eph 1:11.

(2)\caps1     i\caps0 t is without any merit on the part of the sinner - a purpose to save him by grace; 2Ti 1:9.

(3)\caps1     i\caps0 t is eternal; Eph 3:11.

(4)\caps1     i\caps0 t is such as should excite lively gratitude in all who have been inclined by the grace of God to accept the offers of eternal life. They owe it to the mere mercy of God, and they should acknowledge him as the fountain and source of all their hopes of heaven.

Barnes: Rom 8:29

For whom he did foreknow - The word used here προέγνω proegnō has been the subject of almost endless disputes in regard to its meaning in this place. The literal meaning of the word cannot be a matter of dispute. It denotes properly to "know beforehand;"to be acquainted with future events. But whether it means here simply to know that certain persons would become Christians; or to ordain, and constitute them to be Christians, and to be saved, has been a subject of almost endless discussion. Without entering at large into an investigation of the word, perhaps the following remarks may throw light on it.

\caps1 (1) i\caps0 t does not here have reference to all the human family; for all are not, and have not, been conformed to the image of his Son. It has reference therefore only to those who would become Christians, and be saved.

\caps1 (2) i\caps0 t implies "certain knowledge."It was certainly foreseen, in some way, that they would believe, and be saved. There is nothing, therefore, in regard to them that is contingent, or subject to doubt in the divine Mind, since it was certainly foreknown.

\caps1 (3) t\caps0 he event which was thus foreknown must have been, for some cause, certain and fixed; since an uncertain event could not be possibly foreknown. To talk of a foreknowing a contingent event, that is, of foreknowing an event as certain which may or may not exist, is an absurdity.

\caps1 (4) i\caps0 n what way such an event became certain is not determined by the use of this word. But it must have been somehow in connection with a divine appointment or arrangement, since in no other way can it be conceived to be certain. While the word used here, therefore, does not of necessity mean to decree, yet its use supposes that there was a purpose or plan; and the phrase is an explanation of what the apostle had just said, that it was "according to the purpose of God"that they were called. This passage does not affirm why, or how, or, "on what grounds"God foreknew that some of the human family would be saved. It simply affirms the fact; and the mode in which those who will believe were designated, must be determined from other sources. This passage simply teaches that he knew them; that his eye was fixed on them; that he regarded them as to be conformed to his Son; and that, thus knowing them, he designated them to eternal life. The Syriac renders it in accordance with this interpretation: "And from the beginning he knew them, and sealed them with the image of his Son,"etc. As, however, none would believe but by the influences of his Spirit, it follows that they were not foreknown on account of any faith which they would themselves exercise, or any goodworks which they would themselves perform, but according to the purpose or plan of God himself.

He also did predestinate - See the meaning of the original of this word explained in the notes at Rom 1:4; see also the Act 4:28 note; and 1Co 2:7 note. In these places the word evidently means to determine, purpose, or decree beforehand; and it must have this meaning here. No other idea could be consistent with the proper meaning of the word, or be intelligible. It is clear also that it does not refer to external privileges, but to real conversion and piety; since that to which they were predestinated was not the external privilege of the gospel, but conformity to his Son, and salvation; see Rom 8:30. No passage could possibly teach in stronger language that it was God’ s purpose to save those who will be saved. Eph 1:5, "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto himself."Eph 1:11, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."

To be conformed to the image of his Son - To resemble his Son; to be of like form with the image of his Son. We may learn here,

(1) That God does not determine to save people, whatever their character may be. The decree is not to save them in their sins, or whether they be sinful or holy. But it has primary respect to their char acter. It is that they "should be"holy; and, as a consequence of this, that they should be saved.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he only evidence which we can have that we are the subjects of his gracious purpose is, that we are "in fact"conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ. For this was the design of the decree. This is the only satisfactory proof of piety; and by this alone can we determine that we are interested in his gracious plan of saving people.

That he might be the first-born - The first-born among the Hebrews had many special privileges. The idea here is,

(1)    That Christ might be pre-eminent as the model and exemplar; that he might be clothed with special honors, and be so regarded in his church; and yet,

(2)    That he might still sustain a fraternal relation to them; that he might be one in the same great family of God where all are sons; compare Heb 2:12-14.

Many brethren - Not a few. The purpose of God is that many of the human family shall be saved.

Barnes: Rom 8:30

Moreover ... - In this verse, in order to show to Christians the true consolation to be derived from the fact that they are predestinated, the apostle states the connection between that predestination and their certain salvation. The one implied the other.

Whom he did predestinate - All whom he did predestinate.

Them he also called - Called by his Spirit to become Christians. He called, not merely by an external invitation, but in such a way as that they in fact were justified. This cannot refer simply to an external call of the gospel, since those who are here said to be called are said also to be justified and glorified. The meaning is, that there is a certain connection between the predestination and the call, which will be manifested in due time. The connection is so certain that the one infallibly secures the other.

He justified - See the note at Rom 3:24. Not that he justified them from eternity, for this was not true; and if it were, it would also follow that he glorified them from eternity, which would be an absurdity. It means that there is a regular sequence of events - the predestination precedes and secures the calling; and the calling precedes and secures the justification. The one is connected in the purpose of God with the other; and the one, in fact, does not take place without the other. The purpose was in eternity. The calling and justifying in time.

Them he also glorified - This refers probably to heaven. It means that there is a connection between justification and glory. The one does not exist without the other in its own proper time; as the calling does not subsist without the act of justification. This proves, therefore, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. There is a connection infallible and ever existing between the predestination and the final salvation. They who are subjects of the one are partakers of the other. That this is the sense is clear,

(1)    Because it is the natural and obvious meaning of the passage.

(2)\caps1     b\caps0 ecause this only would meet the design of the argument of the apostle. For how would it be a source of consolation to say to them that whom God foreknew he predestinated, and whom he predestinated he called, and whom he called he justified, and whom he justified "might fall away and be lost forever?"

Barnes: Rom 8:31

What shall we then say ... - What fairly follows from the facts stated? or what conclusion shall we draw in regard to the power of the Christian religion to support us in our trials from the considerations which have been stated? What the influence is he proceeds to state.

If God be for us - Be on outside, or is our friend, as he has shown himself to be by adopting us Rom 8:15, by granting to us his Spirit Rom 8:16-17, Rom 8:26-27, and by his gracious purpose to save us, Rom 8:29-30).

Who can be against us? - Who can injure or destroy us? Sinners may be against us, and so may the great enemy of our souls, but their power to destroy us is taken away. God is more mighty than all our foes; and he can defend and save us; see Psa 118:6. "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what man can do unto me."The proposition advanced in this verse, Paul proceeds to illustrate by various specifications, which continue to the end of the chapter.

Barnes: Rom 8:32

He that spared not - Who did not retain, or keep from suffering and death.

His own Son - Who thus gave the highest proof of love that a father could give, and the highest demonstration of his willingness to do good to those for whom he gave him.

But delivered him up - Gave him into the hands of men, and to a cruel death; Note, Act 2:23.

For us all - For all Christians. The connection requires that this expression should be understood here with this limitation. The argument for the security of all Christians is here derived from the fact, that God had shown them equal love in giving his Son for them. It was not merely for the apostles; not only for the rich, and the great; but for the most humble and obscure of the flock of Christ. For them he endured as severe pangs, and expressed as much love, as for the rich and the great that shall be redeemed. The most humble and obscure believer may derive consolation from the fact that Christ died for him, and that God has expressed the highest love for him which we can conceive to be possible.

How shall he not - His giving his Son is a proof that he will give to us all things that we need. The argument is from the greater to the less. He that has given the greater gift will not withhold the less.

All things - All things that may be needful for our welfare. These things he will give freely; without money and without price. His first great gift, that of his Son, was a free gift; and all others that we may need will be given in a similar manner. It is not by money, nor by our merit, but it is by the mere mercy of God; so that from the beginning to the end of the work it is all of grace. We see here,

(1)    The privilege of being a Christian. He has the friendship of God; has been favored with the highest proofs of divine love; and has assurance that he shall receive all that he needs.

(2)\caps1     h\caps0 e has evidence that God will continue to be his friend. He that has given his Son to die for his people will not withdraw the lesser mercies that may be necessary to secure their salvation. The argument of the apostle here, therefore, is one that strongly shows that God will not forsake his children, but will keep them to eternal life.

Barnes: Rom 8:33

Who shall lay anything to the charge - This expression is taken from courts of law, and means, who shall accuse, or condemn, or so charge with crime before the tribunal of God as to cause their condemnation?

God’ s elect - His chosen people. Those who have been chosen according to his eternal purpose; Note, Rom 8:28. As they are the chosen of God, they are dear to him; and as he purposed to save them, he will do it in such a way as that none can bring against them a charge that would condemn them.

It is God that justifieth - That is, who has pardoned them, and admitted them to his favor; and pronounced them just in his sight; Notes, Rom 1:17; Rom 3:24. It would be absurd to suppose that he would again condemn them. The fact that he has justified them is, therefore, a strong proof that they will be saved. This may be read with more force as a question, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’ s elect? Shall God who justifieth?"The Greek will bear either mode of rendering. The passage implies that there would be a high degree of absurdity in supposing that the same being would both justify and condemn the same individual. The Christian, therefore, is secure.

Barnes: Rom 8:34

Who is he that condemneth? - Who shall pass sentence of condemnation, and consign to perdition? The function of passing sentence of condemnation on people shall pertain to Christ, the judge of quick and dead, and the apostle proceeds to say that it was certain that he would not condemn the elect of God. They were therefore secure.

It is Christ that died - Or as it may be rendered, "Shall Christ who has died, condemn them?"The argument here is, that as Christ died to save them, and not to destroy them, he will not condemn them. His death for them is a security that he will not condemn them. As he died to save them, and as they have actually embraced his salvation, there is the highest security that he will not condemn them. This is the first argument for their security from the death of Christ.

Yea rather, that is risen again - This is a second consideration for their security from his work. "He rose for their justification"(Note, Rom 4:25); and as this was the object which he had in view, it follows that he will not condemn them.

Who is even at the right hand of God - Invested with power, and dignity, and authority in heaven. This is a third consideration to show that Christ will not condemn us, and that Christians are secure. He is clothed with power; he is exalted to honor; he is placed at the head of all things. And this solemn enthronement and investiture with power over the universe, is with express reference to the salvation of his church and people; Mat 28:18-19; Joh 17:2; Eph 1:20-23. The Christian is, therefore, under the protection of Christ, and is secure from being condemned by him.

Who also maketh intercession for us - Note, Rom 8:26. Who pleads our cause; who aids and assists us; who presents our interests before the mercy-seat in the heavens. For this purpose he ascended to heaven; Heb 7:25. This is the fourth consideration which the apostle urges for the security of Christians drawn from the work of Christ. By all these, he argues their complete security from being subject to condemnation by him who shall pronounce the doom of all mankind, and therefore their complete safety in the day of judgment. Having the Judge of all for our friend, we are safe.

Barnes: Rom 8:35

Who shall separate us - That is, finally or entirely separate us. This is a new argument of the apostle, showing his strong confidence in the safety of the Christian.

From the love of Christ - This expression is ambiguous; and may mean either our love to Christ or his love to us. I understand it in the former sense, and suppose it means, "Who shall cause us to cease to love the Saviour?"In other words, the love which Christians have for their Redeemer is so strong, that it will surmount and survive all opposition and all trials. The reason for so understanding the expression is, that it is not conceivable how afflictions, etc. should have any tendency to alienate Christ’ s love "from us;"but their supposed tendency to alienate "our love"from him might be very strong. They are endured in his cause. They are caused, in a good degree, by professed attachment to him. The persecutions and trials to which Christians are exposed on account of their professed attachment to him, might be supposed to make them weary of a service that involved so many trials. But no, says the apostle. Our love for him is so strong that we are willing to bear all; and nothing that these foes of our peace can do, can alienate us from him and from his cause. The argument, therefore, is drawn from the strong love of a Christian to his Saviour; and from the assurance that nothing would be able to separate him from that love.

On the other hand, it is alleged that "the object of the apostle is to assure us, not so immediately of our love to God, as of his love to us, by directing our attention to his predestinating, calling, justifying, and glorifying us, and not sparing his own Son, but delivering him up for us; that in addition to this it contributes more to our consolation, to have our minds fixed upon God’ s love to us, than upon our love to him, which is subject to so many failings and infirmities."Haldane.

Indeed the whole of this passage proceeds, in its triumphing strain, on the ground of what God and Christ have done "for us,"and not on the ground of anything belonging to us. It is therefore improbable, that the apostle, in the midst of such a strain, should introduce the love of the creature to God, as a just reason for such unparalleled confidence. It is more natural to the Christian to triumph in the love of Christ to him, than in any return he can make. He can glory in the strength of the former, while he mourns over the weakness of the latter. As to the objection that afflictions can have no tendency to alienate Christ’ s love, these are the "very things"that alienate people from us. There are persons who are called "summer friends"because they desert us in the winter of adversity. But the love of Christ is greatly exalted by the fact, that none of all possible adverse circumstances, of which the apostle enumerates not a few, shall ever change his love.

Shall tribulation - θλίψις thlipsis . Note, Rom 2:9. The word properly refers to pressure from without; affliction arising from external causes. It means, however, not infrequently, trial of any kind.

Or distress - στενοχωρία stenochōria . This word properly means "narrowness of place;"and then, great anxiety and distress of mind, such as arises when a man does not know where to turn himself or what to do for relief. It refers, therefore, to distress or anxiety "of mind,"such as the early Christians were often subject to from their trials and persecutions; 2Co 7:5,"Without were fightings, "within were fears;"see the note at Rom 2:9.

Or persecutions - Note, Mat 5:11. To these the early Christians were constantly exposed.

Or famine - To this they were also exposed as the natural result of being driven from home, and of being often compelled to wander amidst strangers, and in deserts and desolate places.

Or peril - Danger of any kind.

Or sword - The sword of persecution; the danger of their lives to which they were constantly exposed. As all these things happened to them in consequence of their professed attachment to Christ, it might be supposed that they would tend to alienate their minds from him. But the apostle was assured that they had not this power, but that their love to the Saviour was so strong as to overcome all, and to bind them unalterably to his cause in the midst of the deepest trials. The fact is, that the more painful the trials to which they are exposed on his account, the more strong and unwavering is their love to him, and their confidence in his ability to save.

Barnes: Rom 8:36

As it is written - Psa 44:22. This passage the apostle quotes not as having originally reference to Christians, but as "aptly descriptive"of their condition. The condition of saints in the time of the psalmist was similar to that of Christians in the time of Paul. The same language would express both.

For thy sake - In thy cause; or on account of attachment to time.

We are killed - We are subject to, or exposed to death. We endure sufferings equivalent to dying; compare 1Co 4:9, "God hath set forth us the apostles last, "as it were appointed to death."

All the day long - Continually; constantly. There is no intermission to our danger, and to our exposure to death.

We are accounted - We are reckoned; we are regarded, or dealt with. That is, our enemies judge that we ought to die, and deem us the appropriate subjects of slaughter, with as little concern or remorse as the lives of sheep are taken.

Barnes: Rom 8:37

Nay - But. Notwithstanding our severe pressures and trials.

In all these things - In the very midst of them; while we are enduring them we are able to triumph; compare 1Co 15:57.

We are more than conquerors - We gain the victory. That is, they have not power to subdue us; to alienate our love and confidence; to produce apostasy. We are the victors, not they. Our faith is not destroyed; our love is not diminished; our hope is not blasted. But it is not simple victory; it is not mere life, and continuance of what we had before; it is more than simple triumph; it augments our faith, increases our strength, expands our love to Christ. The word used here is a strong, emphatic expression, such as the apostle Paul often employs (compare 2Co 4:17), and which is used with great force and appropriateness here.

Through him ... - Not by their own strength or power. It was by the might of the Saviour, and by his power pledged to them, and confirmed by the love evinced when he gave himself for them; compare Phi 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."

Barnes: Rom 8:38

For I am persuaded - I have a strong and unwavering confidence. Latin Vulgate, "I am certain."The expression here implies unwavering certainty.

Neither death - Neither the fear of death, nor all the pains and tortures of the dying scene, even in the most painful trials of persecution; death in no form.

Nor life - Nor the hope of life; the love of life; the offer of life made to us by our persecutors, on condition of abjuring our Christian faith. The words evidently refer to times of persecution; and it was not uncommon for persecutors to offer life to Christians, on condition of their renouncing attachment to the Saviour, and offering sacrifice to idols. All that was demanded in the times of persecution under the Roman emperors was, that they should throw a few grains of incense on the altar of a pagan god, as expressive of homage to the idol. But even this they would not do. The hope of life on so very easy terms would not, could not alienate them from the love of Christ.

Nor angels - It seems to be apparent that "good angels"cannot be intended here. The apostle was saying that nothing would separate Christians from the love of Christ. Of course, it would be implied that the things which he specifies might be supposed to have some power or tendency to do it. But it is not conceivable that good angels, who are "sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation"Heb 1:14, should seek to alienate the minds of Christians from the Saviour, or that their influence should have any such tendency. It seems to be clear, therefore, that he refers to the designs and temptations of evil spirits. The word "angels"is applied to evil spirits in Mat 25:41; 1Co 6:3.

Nor principalities - ( ἀρχαὶ archai ). This word usually refers to magistrates and civil rulers. But it is also applied to evil angels, as having dominion over people; Eph 6:12, "For we wrestle against ...principalities;"Col 2:15, "And having spoiled principalities:"1Co 15:24, "When he shall have put down all rule;"Greek, ἀρχήν archēn . Some have supposed that it refers here to magistrates and those in authority who persecuted Christians; but the connection of the word with angels seems to require us to understand it of evil spirits.

Nor powers - This word δυνάμεις dunameis is often applied to magistrates; but it is also applied to evil spirits that have dominion over men; 1Co 15:24. The ancient Rabbis also give the name powers to evil angels. (Schleusner.) There can be no doubt that the Jews were accustomed to divide the angels of heaven into various ranks and orders, traces of which custom we find often in the Scriptures. And there is also reason to suppose that they made such a division with reference to evil angels, regarding Satan as their leader, and other evil spirits, divided into various ranks, as subordinate to him; see Mat 25:41; Eph 6:12; Col 2:15. To such a division there is probably reference here; and the meaning is, that no order of evil angels, however powerful, artful, or numerous, would be able to alienate the hearts of Christians from their Redeemer.

Nor things present - Calamities and persecutions to which we are now subject.

Nor things to come - Trials to which we may be yet exposed. It evinced strong confidence to say that no possible trials should be sufficient to destroy their love for Christ.

Barnes: Rom 8:39

Nor height - This has been variously understood. Some have regarded it as referring to evil spirits in the air; others, to high and lofty speculation in doctrine; others, to heaven - to all that is in heaven. I regard it here as a synonymous with prosperity, honor, elevation in this life. The meaning is, that "no possible circumstances"in which Christians could be placed, though surrounded with wealth, honor, splendor, and though elevated to rank and function, could alienate them from the love of Christ. The tendency of these things to alienate the mind, to engross the affections, and to occupy the time, all know; but the apostle says that even these would not be sufficient to withdraw their strong love from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Nor depth - Nor the lowest circumstances of depression, poverty, contempt, and want; the very lowest rank of life.

Nor any other creature - Nor any other created thing; any other thing in the universe; anything that can occur. This expresses the most unwavering confidence that all who were Christians would certainly continue to love the Lord Jesus, and be saved.

Shall be able - Shall have power to do it. The love to Christ is stronger than any influence which they can exert on the mind.

The love of God - The love which we have to God.

Which is in Christ Jesus - Which is produced and secured by his work. Of which he is the bond, the connecting link. It was caused by his mediation; it is secured by his influence; it is in and through him, and him alone, that people love God. There is no true love of God which is not produced by the work of Christ. There is no man who truly loves the Father, who does not do it in, and by the Son.

Perhaps there is no chapter in the Bible on the whole so interesting and consoling to the Christian as this; and there certainly is not to be found any where a specimen of more elevated, animated, and lofty eloquence and argumentation. We may remark in view of it,

(1)    That it is the highest honor that can be conferred on mortal man to be a Christian.

(2)\caps1     o\caps0 ur trials in this life are scarcely worth regarding in comparison with our future glory.

(3)\caps1     c\caps0 alamities should be borne without a complaint; nay, without a sigh.

(4)\caps1     t\caps0 he Christian has every possible security for his safety. The purposes of God, the work of Christ, the aid of the Holy Spirit, and the tendency of all events under the direction of his Father and Friend, conspire to secure his welfare and salvation.

(5)\caps1     w\caps0 ith what thankfulness, then, should we approach the God of mercy.

In the gospel, we have a blessed and cheering hope which nothing else can produce, and which nothing can destroy. Safe in the hands of God our Redeemer, we may commit our way to him, whether it lead through persecutions, or trials, or sickness, or a martyr’ s grave: and triumphantly we may wait until the day of our complete adoption, the entire redemption of soul and body, shall fully come.

Poole: Rom 8:20

If these words be understood of the world, and all the creatures therein contained, then they show the creature’ s present condition; it is

subject to vanity and that, either in regard of its insufficiency, it falling short of that for which it was first created and ordained; then a thing is said to be vain, when it doth not answer or reach its proper end: or in respect of its transitoriness and uncertainty, of which see 1Co 7:31 Heb 1:11,12 1Jo 2:17 . The next verse tells us it is subject to the bondage of corruption as well as vanity. Now this must needs be an unwilling subjection, therefore it is here said it is not subject willingly i.e. of its own accord, or of its proper instinct and inclination. What the will is in those that are rational, the inclination is in those things that are natural; how comes it then into this condition? The next clause tells us, it is

by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope: i.e. God, for the sin of man, hath cursed the creature, and subjected it to vanity and corruption: see Gen 3:17 4:12 Lev 26:19,20 . And though he hath done this, yet there is ground to expect and hope that the creature shall return again to its former estate wherein it was created; that it shall be delivered and restored into a better condition, as in the next verse. Those that by the creature understand the Gentile world, give a different interpretation of these words; they say that the Gentiles are made subject to vanity, i.e. to idolatry, or a vain, superstitious worship, (idols are called vanities, Act 14:15 ), or to a miserable, wretched estate; that (as Hesychius notes) is the import of the word vanity. And this not so much of their own accord, or by their own free choice, but by the power and malice of Satan, to whom they are justly given up of God; he rules in their hearts, carries them captive at his will, subjects them to all villany and misery. And it is reasonable to suppose of these poor heathens, that they are willing to be rescued (at least some, and a considerable number of them) from under this vanity and slavery, as it is said, Rom 8:22 .

Question. But if he that thus subjects them be the devil, how is he said to do this in hope?

Answer. These words, in hope, belong to the end of the former verse; all the rest of this verse being read or included in a parenthesis: q.d. The creature attends the manifestations of the sons of God in hope: meanwhile it is subject to vanity, &c.

Poole: Rom 8:21

If this verse be understood of the heavens and the earth, and the things therein, the meaning is, that the creatures, in their kind, and according to their capacity, shall be partakers of that liberty and freedom, which in the children of God is accompanied with unspeakable glory; they shall not partake with the saints in glory, but of that liberty, which in the saints hath great glory attending it, and superadded to it. The creature, at the day of judgment, shall be restored (as before) to that condition of liberty which it had in its first creation; as, when it was made at first, it was free from all vanity, bondage, and corruption, so it shall be again at the time of the general resurrection: see Act 3:19,21 2Pe 3:13 . Those that by the creature would understand the Gentile world, give the sense of this verse: That the very heathens also shall, by the gospel and grace of Christ, be rescued from those courses of sin and corruption, to which they have been long enslaved, into that glorious condition not only of free-men, redeemed by Christ out of their bondage to sin and Satan, but even of the sons of God, to have right to his favour, and that never fading inheritance.

Poole: Rom 8:22

If here again the heavens and the earth, with what is therein, be understood, then the apostle further enlargeth upon their present state and condition; before they waited and expected deliverance, now they groan and travail in pain. They also are metaphorical expressions; one is taken for a man who hath upon him a heavy burden, another from a woman that is near her delivery. And this they do

until now i.e. from the fall of Adam to this present day. They that understand the words of the Gentile world, thus interpret them: We, the apostles and ministers of Jesus Christ, do find by experience, that the Gentiles are very forward to receive the gospel when they hear it, whilst the Jews generally reject it. The Gentile world is, as it were, in pangs of travail ever since Christ’ s time till now, ready to bring forth sons and daughters to God.

Poole: Rom 8:23

The apostle had asserted and concluded, Rom 8:18 , that there is a future glory to be revealed hereafter in the saints, such as infinitely transcends their sufferings now; and this he had confirmed from the earnest expectation of the creature, (the pronoun they is not in the original), and now he further confirms it from the expectation which is in believers themselves.

The first-fruits of the Spirit hereby he means that righteousness, joy, and peace, which believers have in this life; these are the fruits of the Spirit, and called first-fruits in regard of their order; and in regard of their quantity, they are but a handful in comparison of the whole, little in regard of the fulness which they shall have in heaven; and in regard also of their signification, the grace and comforts of the Spirit of God in this life are pledges to us of that abundance and fulness of joy, which we shall partake of in the life to come, as the first-fruits of the Jews were an evidence to them of the ensuing crop.

Groan within ourselves among ourselves, say some, but it is better read in our translation, within ourselves. It expresses the manner of the saints groaning under sin and affliction; it is inward, and from the heart.

Waiting for the adoption: now we are the sons of God; why then should we wait for what we have already?

Answer. We have the right, but not the full possession, of our inheritance: the apostle himself explains his meaning in the next words.

The redemption of our body i.e. our perfect deliverance from sin and misery; this phrase is used in other places; see Luk 21:28 Eph 4:30 .

But why of our body, and not of our souls? Because their souls would be in actual possession of the inheritance before that day, or because the miseries and troubles of this life are conveyed to the whole man by the body, so that the redemption of the body is in effect the redemption of the whole man.

Poole: Rom 8:24

Though we certianly believe there is such a redemption or salvation belonging to us, according to the promise of God, yet for the present we have no possession of it; all the salvation we have at present is in

hope which, according to the nature of it, is of things not yet enjoyed, for vision or possession puts an end to hope; no man hopes for what he sees and enjoys.

Poole: Rom 8:25

q.d. If we indeed hope for redemption and salvation, which is out of sight, then it is meet that we do with patience digest and bear all our present evils and sufferings; true hope is accompanied always with a patient waiting for the things hoped for; therefore you read of the patience of hope, 1Th 1:3 : see Heb 6:12 10:36 .

Poole: Rom 8:26

Likewise: this referreth us, either to the work of the Spirit, before noted, Rom 8:11 ; he quickeneth, and he likewise helpeth: or rather, to hope, in the foregoing verse; hope helpeth to patience, so also the Spirit.

Helpeth our infirmities the word imports such help, as when another of greater strength steps in, and sustains the burden that lies too heavy upon our shoulders; or it is borrowed from nurses, that help their little children that are unable to go, upholding them by their hands or sleeves.

For we know not what we should pray for as we ought: one way whereby the Spirit helps us, is by teaching us to pray. Prayer doth greatly relieve us under the cross, and is a great refuge in trouble: but we knowing not how to pray

as we ought either in regard, of matter or manner, herein therefore the Spirit aids or helps us, as it follows. But how is it said we know not what to pray for, when we have the Lord’ s prayer, which contains a perfect rule and summary of all things meet to be prayed for? Though the Lord’ s prayer he a rule in general, yet we may be to seek in particulars: God’ s own children many times ask they know not what; see Job 6:8 Jon 4:3 Mar 10:38 2Co 12:8 .

But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us: there is a twofold intercession, one of Christ, of which we read, Rom 8:34 ; the other of the Spirit, of which this place speaks. How doth the Spirit make intercession for us?

Answer. By making intercession in us, or by helping us to pray. The Spirit is called, Zec 12:10 , the Spirit of supplications. It is by him, Rom 8:15 , that we cry, Abba, Father: he cries so in our hearts; Gal 4:6 , God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. The Spirit of our Father speaketh in us, Mat 10:20 : he suggests to us what we should pray for; he helps us to suitable dispositions, and many times to suitable expressions in prayer: see Eph 6:18 Jud 1:20 .

With groanings which cannot be uttered with inward sighs and groans, which cannot be expressed by words. There may be prayer, where there is no speech or vocal expression. A man may cry, and that mightily to God, when he uttereth never a word: see Exo 14:15 1Sa 1:13 .

Poole: Rom 8:27

He that searcheth the hearts this phrase is a periphrasis of God, and is spoken of him after the manner of men. God doth not properly search or inquire into any thing; but because amongst men knowledge comes by searching, therefore, by way of resemblance, this is attributed to God, though that which is intended by it is only this, that God knoweth the heart, Jer 17:10 Act 1:24 .

Knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit both with the knowledge of apprehension and approbation.

Maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God: our prayers shall be sure to speed, if they are of this sort, 1Jo 5:14,15 . Praying according to the will of God, respects;

1. The matter of our prayers.

2. The manner of our praying.

3. The end thereof, Jam 4:3 .

Poole: Rom 8:28

Another argument to comfort us under the cross, from the benefits of it;

We know that all things, &c It is not matter of guess only and conjecture, but of certainty and assurance. How is this known?

1. By the testimony of God; the Scripture tells us as much, Psa 128:1,2 Isa 3:10 .

2. By our own experience; we are assured of it by the event and effects of all things, both upon ourselves and others.

All things even sin itself; because from their falls, God’ s children arise more humble and careful. Afflictions are chiefly intended; the worst and crossest providences, those things that are evil in themselves, they work for good to the children of God.

Work together here is their operation, and their co-operation: First, they work together with God. What the apostle says of himself and others in the ministry, 2Co 6:1 , that may be said of other things, especially of afflictions; they are workers together with God. Some read the words thus, God co-operates all to good. Again, they work together with us; we ourselves must concur, and be active herein; we must labour and endeavour to get good out of every providence. Once more, they work together amongst themselves, or one with another. Take this or that providence singly, or by itself, and you shall not see the good it doth; but take it in its conjunction and connexion with others, and then you may perceive it. One exemplifies it thus: As in matter of physic, if you take such and such simples alone, they may poison rather than cure; but then take them in their composition, as they are made up by the direction of a skilful physician, and so they prove an excellent medicine.

For good sometimes for temporal good, Gen 1:20 ; always for spiritual and eternal good, which is best of all. All occurrences of providence shall serve to bring them nearer to God here, and to heaven hereafter.

According to his purpose: these words are added to show the ground and reason of God’ s calling us; which is nothing else but his own purpose and good pleasure; it is not according to our worthiness, but his purpose: see 2Ti 1:9 .

Poole: Rom 8:29

Having let fall a word in the former verse concerning the purpose of God, he thinks good, in what follows, to pursue that subject, and a little to enlarge upon it.

Whom he did foreknow i.e. with a knowledge of approbation; for otherwise, he foreknew all persons and things: or, whom he did foreknow for his own, Joh 10:14,27 Ro 11:2 2Ti 2:19 . This foreknowledge of God is the ground of our election: see 1Pe 1:2 .

He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son whom he was pleased to approve of, and to pitch his free love and favour upon, he severed from the common lump and mass of mankind, and did appoint them

to be conformed to the image of his Son i.e. to be conformed to him in holiness and sufferings here, and in glory hereafter: see 1Co 15:49 2Co 3:18 Eph 1:4-6 Phi 3:20,21 1Jo 3:2 .

That he might be the first-born among many brethren this is the limitation of the forementioned conformity; though there be a likeness in us unto Christ, yet there is not an equality; he still retaineth the dignity of the first-born, and hath a double, yea, a far greater portion; he is Head and Ruler of all the family in heaven and in earth, Psa 45:7,8 .

Poole: Rom 8:30

He hath already given them the beginning and pledge thereof in grace; and will in due time bring them to the possession of eternal life and glory. Some, under this term of glorification would have sanctification included; because, otherwise, they think there is a great defect in this chain of salvation, here set down by the apostle, of which sanctification is one special link; but this is rather to be couched and included in effectual calling, which is the third link, and already spoken of.

Poole: Rom 8:31

What shall we then say to these things? Some refer this question to what is said in the verses immediately preceding: others, to what he had said, Rom 8:28 ; and others go higher, and refer it to all that he said before. Some by these things understand afflictions and sufferings more especially; What shall we say to these, or what need we be disheartened by these? For if God, &c.

If God be for us i.e. seeing God is for us; it is a note of certainty, not of ambiguity; see Rom 8:9 . He takes it for granted, as that which cannot be denied; see Psa 46:7,11 118:6,7 .

Who can be against us? i.e. none can; none can be against us successfully, none can be against us safely; such will harm themselves more than us: see Psa 56:1 . Maximilian, the emperor, so admired this sentence, that he caused it to be written over the table where he used to dine and sup; that having it often in his eye, he might have it also in his mind.

Poole: Rom 8:32

He that spared not his own Son: this phrase either shows the bounty of God, that he did not withhold Christ; or the severity of God, that he did not favour, but afflict and punish him, Isa 53:4,5,11 .

But delivered him up: see Act 2:23 . This doth not excuse Judas, no, nor Pilate and the Jews; though they executed God’ s purpose, yet they acted their own malice and wickedness.

For us all this plainly refers to such persons as he had before mentioned, such as God foreknew, predestinated, called, &c., which is not all men in general, but a set number of persons in particular: it is an expression both of latitude and restriction; of latitude, in the word all; of restriction, in the word us.

How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? q.d. Without question he will; it may be confidently inferred and concluded: He that hath given the greater, will not stick to give the less. Christ is more than all the world, or than all other gifts and blessings whatsoever.

Poole: Rom 8:33

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’ s elect? Who can implead such, or put in any accusation against them? There is nothing to accuse them of, they are justified; and there is none to accuse them:

It is God that justifieth the Supreme Judge hath absolved them. This seems to be taken out of Isa 50:8,9 . They were Christ’ s words there, and spoken of God’ s justifying him; they are every believer’ s words here, and intended of God’ s justifying them. Here seems to be two reasons of their indemnity; one is implied, i.e. God’ s electing them: the other expressed, i.e. God’ s justifying and acquitting of them.

Poole: Rom 8:34

Who is he that condemneth? As none can accuse the elect of God, so much less can any condemn them, see Rom 8:1 .

It is Christ that died and it is he that is the Judge, and must condemn them, if they be condemned. His deatk frees them from condemnation; thereby he hath made a sufficient atonement and satisfaction for all their sins; and that which hath long ago satisfied in heaven for the sins of all the elect, may very well serve to satisfy the heart and conscience of a believing sinner here on earth. Such a one may thrown down the gauntlet, as the apostle doth, and challenge all the world. Let conscience, carnal reason, law, sin, hell, and devils, bring forth all they can, it will not be sufficient to condemnation; and that because of Christ’ s death and satisfaction.

Yea rather, that is risen again: the resurrection of Christ hath a special influence upou our justification; and therefore the apostle puts a rather upon it, and that comparatively to the death of Christ: see Rom 4:25 , and; See Poole on "Rom 4:25" .

Who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us: faith finds matter of triumph, not only from Christ’ s death and resurrection, but from his session at the right hand of God, and intercession for us.

Poole: Rom 8:35

Who shall separate us? He continues his triumph: he does not say what, but who; though he instanceth in things, and not in persons, yet it is expressed personally, because that these things do commonly do us hurt in the improvement of persons, whether of Satan or wicked men, who are instrumental thereunto.

From the love of Christ understand it either actively, from our love of him; or passively, from his love of us. The latter seems to be chiefly intended;

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ or from the sense and manifestation thereof?

Shall tribulation, &c He makes an enumeration of particular evils, of seven in number; and he begins with the lesser, and rises to the greater; placing them in order, not casually, but by choice. The word tribulation signifies any thing that presseth or pincheth us.

Or distress? The word properly signifies straitness of place, and is transferred from the body to the mind, to point out the anguish or perplexity thereof.

Or persecution; the word properly signifies a driving from place to place; banishment is implied therein, if not chiefly intended: see Mat 10:23 .

Or peril; any danger or hazard of life, in any kind whatsoever: see 2Co 11:26 .

Or sword; this is put figuratively for death itself, especially violent death.

Poole: Rom 8:36

He cites this testimony to prove that none of the forementioned evils, no, not death itself, can separate believers from the love of Christ: it is taken out of Psa 44:22 . The argument seems to be this: The saints of old have endured all manner of sufferings, and yet were not separated from the love of God; therefore such sufferings cannot separate them now.

For thy sake not for our sins’ sake, but for Christ’ s, or for righteousness’ sake, Mat 5:10 10:18,39 1Pe 3:14 .

We are killed: how could they say this? Killing takes away all complaining, and makes the parties so dealt with incapable of saying how it is with them. This expression notes the danger and desperateness of their condition. It is usual in Scripture to set forth an eminent danger under the notion of death: see 1Co 15:31 2Co 1:10 4:11 .

All the day long i.e. continually, without ceasing: see Psa 38:6,12 71:24 73:14 Pro 23:17 Rom 10:21 .

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter i.e. we are designed for destruction. Our enemies make account they can destroy us, as men do sheep, that they have by them in the slaughter-house. They reckon they have us at command, and can cut us off when they list. Or rather thus, they make no reckoning of our destruction; they make no more of killing us, than butchers do of killing sheep: our death is very cheap in their account, Psa 44:11,12 . Here let me insert a tragical story of the Christians of Calabria, that suffered persecution, A.D. 1560. They were all shut up in one house together, as in a sheepfold: an executioner comes in, and among them takes one, and blindfolds him with a muffler about his eyes, and so leadeth him forth to a larger place, where he commandeth him to kneel down; which being done, he cutteth his throat, and so leaveth him half dead; and taking his butcher’ s knife and muffler, all of gore blood, he cometh again to the rest, and so leading them one after another, he despatcheth them, to the number of eighty-eight, no otherwise than a butcher doth his sheep. Fox’ s Acts and Monuments.

Poole: Rom 8:37

Nay, in all these things i.e. in tribulation, distress, & c. as before, Rom 8:35 .

We are more than conquerors or, we overcome. We conquer when we ourselves are conquered; we conquer by those which are wont to conquer others; we beat our enemies with their own weapons. The meaning seems to be this: The devil aims, in all the sufferings of God’ s children, to draw them off from Christ, to make them murmur, despair, &c.; but in this he is defeated and disappointed, for God inspires his children with such a generous and noble spirit, that sufferings abate not their zeal and patience, but rather increase them. "We Christians laugh at your cruelty, and grow the more resolute," said one of Julian’ s nobles to him.

Through him that loved us: a short description of Christ, together with a reason of a Christian’ s success. The conquest he hath over sin, and over sufferings also, is not from himself, or his own strength, but from Christ, &c.: see Rom 7:24,25 1Co 15:57 2Co 2:14 2Ti 4:17 .

Poole: Rom 8:38

For I am persuaded or, I am fully assured, not by any special revelation, but by the same spirit of faith, which is common to all believers, 2Co 4:13 .

Neither death, nor life i.e. neither fear of death, nor hope of life.

Nor angels

1. The evil angels; for the good angels would not attempt the separating us from the love of Christ.

2. There are some, that think the good angels to be also here intended; and they understand it by way of supposition: q.d.

If they should endeavour such a thing, they would never effect it: and thus they make the apostle here to argue, as he doth in another place, Gal 1:8 .

Nor principalities, nor powers some would have the evil angels to be here intended, and the good angels in what went before; in Col 2:15 , they are thus termed: but others, by principalities and powers, do rather understand persecuting princes and potentates.

Nor things present, nor things to come i.e. the evils and pressures that are upon us now, or that shall be upon us hereafter. He makes no mention of the things past, for they are overcome already.

Poole: Rom 8:39

Nor height, nor depth i.e. neither the height of honour and worldly advancement, nor the depth of disgrace and worldly abasement. Some take height and depth for a comprehensive expression, which the Scripture uses, when he takes in all, and leaves nothing out.

Nor any other creature this is added to the rest, as an &c. at the end of a sentence; and to supply whatever our fancies might in this case, frame to themselves. Or the apostle here makes an end of his induction; and because it had been endless to reckon up all the creatures, he closeth in this manner: If there be any other creature.

Shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord which he bears to us, as members of Christ, and by faith united to him: see Rom 8:35 , and the notes there.

PBC: Rom 8:20

See Barnes: Ro 8:20

PBC: Rom 8:21

See Barnes: Ro 8:21

PBC: Rom 8:22

See Barnes: Ro 8:22

PBC: Rom 8:23

See Barnes: Ro 8:23 

PBC: Rom 8:28

See PBtop: PERSEVERANCE AND PRESERVATION

See Philpot: THE WORKING OF ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR GOOD

Ro 8:28 demonstrates the certainty of regeneration: " And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." Who loves God? " The called." Why are they called? Because God " purposed" to call them. The new birth is a provision of the everlasting covenant: " God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." {2Ti 1:9} Now trace the " whom’s" and the " them’s" in Ro 8:29-30. The same group of people God foreknew, He predestinated. The same people He predestinated, He called. The same people He called, He justified, and the same people He justified, He glorified. The end of verse thirty includes exactly the same number of people who were embraced at the beginning of verse twenty-nine. This indicates that everyone that God loved and Christ Jesus redeemed, will be quickened by the Spirit. The past tense (" called" ) is employed to show that since God decreed it, it is just as sure to occur as if it had already taken place.

298

PBC: Rom 8:29

According to Paul in Ro 8:29-30, God’s predestination did not deal with events, but people. The text says, " 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." Events cannot be conformed to the image of God’s Son, but people can. Do you see the emphasis of the word whom? This entire lesson deals with people, not fatalistic events. It begins before man was created, and it concludes with the ultimate glorification of those whom God first foreknew. Grammatically, the first whom, those foreknown, must exactly equal the last whom, those glorified. The grammar of the sentence requires it, the honor of God demands it, and the Bible teaches it from beginning to end.

534

PBC: Rom 8:30

2. " This perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree Ro 8:30; 9:11,16 of election, flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father; upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ Ro 5:9-10; Joh 14:19 and union with Him, the Heb 6:17-18 oath of God, the abiding of His Spirit, and the 1Jo 3:9 seed of God within them, and the nature of the Jer 32:40 covenant of grace; from all which ariseth also the certainty and infallibility thereof."

See PBtop: GOD IS SOVEREIGN

Haydock: Rom 8:23

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Redemptionem corporis, i.e. complete happiness, says St. John Chrysostom, p. 119. Greek: toutesti ten apertismenen doxan.

Haydock: Rom 8:24

For we are saved by hope, as it is the will of God we should be, waiting and hoping with patience for the things which we have not seen, which neither the eye hath seen, nor the ear hath heard, &c. (1 Corinthians ii. 9.) ---

And the spirit also helpeth our infirmity...asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. [4] If we understand this according to the common exposition, of the divine spirit of the Holy Ghost, the sense is, says St. Augustine, that the Holy Ghost maketh us ask: but we may understand the spirit of God and his grace, diffused in our souls, and in particular that gift of the Holy Ghost, called the spirit of prayer, given to the new Christians, which taught them what to ask, and how to pray. See St. John Chrysostom. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 8:26

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Postulat pro nobis, i.e. says St. Augustine, interpellare nos facit...nobisque interpellandi et gemendi inspirat affectum.

Haydock: Rom 8:28

To them that love God, all things work together unto good. All trials, temptations, afflictions, must be taken as coming from the hand of God, who ordains or permits them for the greater good of his elect. ---

For the good of those, who, according to his purpose [5] are called the saints. Literally, according to purpose: but it seems certain that to translate his purpose, is only to give the literal sense, if we compare this place with other texts, both in the Greek and Latin, where the same words signify according to God's good will, or his eternal decree, and not according to the purpose, or will of men, as some expound it. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Secundum propositum vocati sunt sancti, Greek: tois kata prothesin. See Romans ix. 11. Ephesians iii. 11. where in the Latin is secundum præfinitionem, and 2 Timothy i. 9. non secundum opera nostra, sed secundum propositum suum, et gratiam, where he speaks of God, Greek: sosantos emas...kata idian prothesin.

Haydock: Rom 8:29

For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son, in suffering with Christ, in following his doctrine, in imitating his life. This foreknowledge of God, according to St. Augustine,[6] is not merely a foreseeing of what men will do by the assistance and graces of God's ordinary providence, much less a foreseeing of what they will do by their own natural strength, as the Pelagian heretics pretended: but is a foreknowledge including an act of the divine will, and of his love towards his elect servants; (as to know in the Scriptures, when applied to God, is many times the same as to approve and love) God therefore hat foreseen or predestinated, or decreed that these elect, by the help of his special graces, and by the co-operation of their free-will, should be conformable to the image of his Son, that so his Son, even as man, might be the first-born, the chief, and the head of all that shall be saved. (Witham) ---

God hath preordained that all his elect shall be conformable to the image of his Son. We must not here offer to dive into the secrets of God's eternal election: only firmly believe that all our good, in time and eternity, flows originally from God's free goodness; and all our evil from man's free will. (Challoner)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

St. Augustine, de dono persev. chap. xviii. prædestinatione Deus ea præscivit, quæ fuerat ipse facturus. And again, chap. xiv. Prædestinatio est præscientia et præparatio beneficiorum, quibus certissime liberantur quicunque liberantur. See Bellar. and Petau, as to St. Augustine's opinion. But I never in these short notes touch upon any thing that regards the opinions in Catholic schools; my design being nor more than a literal exposition of the text.

Haydock: Rom 8:30

And whom he predestinated, them he also called to the true faith and to his service, without any deserts in them, nay, when all mankind were guilty of eternal death, by original sin. ---

And whom he called, them he also justified, by faith, by hope, by a love of him, and a true penance. ---

And whom he justified, them he also glorified. That is, hath decreed to glory. Yet not all who have been justified, but only his elect, who are under his special protection, and to whom he grants a perseverance in his grace to the end: so that the call to faith, their sanctification, their final perseverance, and glorification in heaven, are the effects of their free election and predestination. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 8:31

What shall we then say to these things? That is, though we live amidst temptations and afflictions in this life, we need not fear as long as we are faithful in the service of God, under his protection. ---

If God be for us, who is against us, or who shall hinder us from being saved. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 8:32

He that spared not, &c. This is another argument for us to hope in the goodness of God, who hath so loved the world, that he hath delivered, and given his true and only Son for us all, to redeem all and every one, and has by his death obtained helps and graces by which we may all be saved. ---

How hath he not also, with him, given us all things? That is, since he has given for us his only Son, how can we doubt, but that, with him, he will give us all gifts and graces? He hath given us, says St. John Chrysostom, his Son himself, and how can we doubt of other blessings? (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 8:33-34

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of the elect of God? God who justifieth. Others read without an interrogation, it is God who justified us: the sense will scarce be different; for it is the same as to say, we need not fear that God will accuse us, since by his mercy he hath been pleased to die, and to rise again from death for us. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 8:35

Who then, or what shall separate us from the love of Christ? Neither devils, nor men, nor any thing in nature, unless it be by our own fault, and unless we wilfully and sinfully leave God. ---

I am sure. In the Greek, I am [7] fully persuaded, that nothing can separate us, &c. In fine, another argument to prove we ought to have a firm hope in God, is that Christ Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, also intercedeth for us. Christ, as man, intercedeth, prayeth for us, is our advocate and chief mediator See Hebrews vii. Christ is truly said to pray for us in heaven, though it is not the custom of the Church to call upon him in this manner, "Christ pray for us;" because being God, as well as man, he has all things under his command. (Witham)

Haydock: Rom 8:38

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Certus sum, Greek: pepeismai, persuasus sum. No one has an absolute certainty that they shall be saved.

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Haydock: Rom 8:39

So powerful and efficacious, so certain and unchangeable is the love of God, which conducts us to the kingdom of bliss, that no creature can separate us from it, either by making us cease to love him, or by frustrating our love of its effect, viz. life everlasting. (Estius)

Gill: Rom 8:20

For the creature was made subject to vanity,.... This designs the vanity and emptiness of the minds of the Gentiles, who were without God and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, without the law and Gospel, and grace of God; also the vain conceits they had of themselves, of their wisdom, knowledge, learning, and eloquence; likewise their vain philosophy, particularly their gross idolatry, their polytheism, or worshipping of many gods; together with their divers lusts and vices, to which they were addicted, to such a degree, that they might be truly said to be made subject thereunto, being under the government of these things, slaves unto them, and in such subjection, as that they could not deliver themselves from it; though it is said,

not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Though they were willingly vain, yet they were not willingly made subject to vanity; they willingly went into idolatrous and other evil practices, but the devil made them subject, or slaves unto them; he led them captive at his will, and powerfully worked in them, by divine permission, so that they became vassals to him, and to their lusts; for he seems to be designed, "by him who hath subjected the same", and not Adam, by whom sin entered into the world.

Gill: Rom 8:21

Because the creature itself also,.... The phrase in hope, which stands in our version, at the end of the preceding verse, should be placed in the beginning of this, and be read in connection with Rom 8:19 being a parenthesis, thus: "the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God, in hope that the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption"; and so it is placed in some copies, and in the Syriac version: that is, "the Gentiles" earnestly wait and expect a larger number of converts among them, in hopes that ere long the whole Gentile world will be freed from

the bondage of corruption, under which it at present groaned; by which is meant, the bondage they were in, not only to their sinful lusts, but to Satan the god of this world; and particularly to their idols, by which they corrupted themselves, and to which they were enslaved: they hope for a deliverance from hence,

into the glorious liberty of the children of God; which designs either the liberty of grace the children of God have here; and which consists in a freedom from the dominion of sin and Satan, from the law and bondage of it, in the free use of Gospel ordinances, in liberty of access to God, and a freedom from the fear of death, and a glorious liberty it is; or the liberty of glory the saints shall enjoy in the other world, which will lies in a freedom from the prison of the flesh, from the body of sin and death, from all sorrows and afflictions, from all reproaches and persecutions, from the temptations of Satan, from doubts, fears, and unbelief, and in the full vision of God through Christ, and in a free conversation with angels and saints.

Gill: Rom 8:22

For we know that the whole creation groaneth,.... As a woman with child, ready to bring forth: for it is added,

and travaileth in pain together until now; regeneration is owing to the grace of God, which is compared to "seed", of which men are born again; the means of conveying it is the Gospel, and ministers are the instruments of begetting souls to Christ, and who travail in birth till Christ be formed in them: now the Gospel being carried by the apostles into the Gentile world, and being succeeded there, it was like a woman big with child, ready to bring forth many sons to God; for as it was prophesied, so it came to pass, that "more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife", Isa 54:1; and these births were attended with pain. The apostles preached the word with much contention, and the Gentiles received it in much affliction, though with the joy of the Holy Ghost; as a woman rejoices when a man child is brought forth, though the birth has been attended with pain and labour. This was an united groan, and travail of all the converted Gentiles in the several parts of the world, together with the ministers of the Gospel, earnestly desiring more instances of conversion among them; and this vehement desire had appeared "until now", from the first time of the preaching of the Gospel among the Gentiles, to the writing of this epistle; and supposes, that though there were many spiritual births, there were more to come; as there has been, and will be more abundantly, in the latter day: and moreover, this painful labour, and these united groans for spiritual births, the apostles were well acquainted with, and therefore could say, "we know", &c. by their preaching among them, in whom they could easily observe, and do in their writings take notice, how eagerly desirous they were of having the Gospel preached unto them.

(The whole creation was brought under a curse because of Adam's sin. This curse will be removed in the eternal state when Christ will restore the creation to the way it was in the beginning. Editor.)

Gill: Rom 8:23

And not only they, but ourselves also,.... Not only they Gentiles, but we Jews likewise:

which have the firstfruits of the Spirit: meaning either the apostles, who were all Jews, and who most of them received the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit on the day of "Pentecost", which was the day of the firstfruits, Num 28:26; and to which there seems to be an allusion here; or else the Jewish converts in general: to the Jews the promises of the Messiah were made; to them he first came; the Gospel was first preached unto them, and some of them first believed in Christ; they had the grace of God communicated to them in conversion, which they received as the firstfruits, with respect to an after increase; or in regard to glory, like the firstfruits, grace is of the same kind with glory, and is a pledge and earnest of it; saints judge by grace the firstfruits, what glory is, and therefore long after it; now of these persons thus described it is said,

even we ourselves groan within ourselves; their groans were inward from their hearts, not hypocritical or were among themselves, common to them all; and that not merely on their own account, the corruptions of their hearts, the sufferings they endured for the sake of the Gospel, and in a longing expectation for the heavenly glory, but also for the conversion of the Gentiles, for which they incessantly laboured, and prayed night and day;

waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Adoption is explained by the redemption of the body; and by the one may be known what the other means: by "the redemption of our body" is not meant the redemption of God's elect, body and soul, by the blood and death of Christ, which was already finished; and which the saints, who had received the firstfruits, were partakers of in themselves, and therefore could not be said to be waiting for it: but it designs either the redemption of the natural body, by the resurrection from the dead; when the bodies of the saints will be delivered from that mortality, corruption, weakness, and dishonour, under which they lie in the grave; when they will be refined and spiritualized, and freed from everything which makes them an incumbrance, and an uneasiness to their souls or spirits now; or else the redemption of the mystical body the church, of which the Gentiles make a considerable part, and is to be understood of a deliverance of the church, from the distresses and persecutions it then laboured under; or rather of a making up of the body, the church, by a redemption or deliverance of that part of it, which lay among the Gentiles, from that vanity and bondage of corruption, to which it was subject, into the manifestation and glorious liberty of the sons of God: and then by "adoption" is meant, the special grace of adoption, manifested to the Gentiles in their effectual calling; which the Jews who had received the firstfruits of the Spirit were waiting for, and had good reason to expect, from many prophecies in the writings of the Old Testament; and to which they were the more encouraged, by many appearances of the grace and power of God, attending the ministry of the Gospel among them; and which adoption will be more fully manifested in the resurrection morn; wherefore also the inheritance, which the whole mystical body the church will then enter upon the possession of, may well be called "the adoption", because the saints are adopted to it; adoption gives them the title to it, none but adopted ones will enjoy it; and their enjoyment of it will be the full manifestation and completion of the grace of adoption; this saints are waiting for, both for themselves and others, and it is worth waiting for; for it is "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, which fades not away, reserved in the heavens", 1Pe 1:4, and there is good ground to wait for it; it is a bequest of their heavenly Father, who has adopted them; it is a gift of his free grace; it is already in the hands of Christ, with whom they are co-heirs; and they have already the Spirit, as the earnest of it.

Gill: Rom 8:24

For we are saved by hope,.... We who have received the firstfruits, who were in a lost perishing condition, and by nature no better than others, than the Gentiles, are saved by sin and wrath to come by Christ, with a spiritual and everlasting salvation. They were already saved in the preparations and purposes of God; in the covenant of grace; in the arms and hands of Christ, through his purchase; and as considered in him; and with respect to the inchoation and application of salvation, in effectual calling, and their right unto it by the righteousness of Christ; and with regard to the certainty of it, in faith and hope: the manner in which they are said to be saved, is "by", or "in hope"; not that hope is the cause of salvation, but the means by which souls are brought to the enjoyment of it; salvation, or glory, is the object of it:

but hope that is seen, is not hope; for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for? in the former clause, "hope" signifies the grace itself, but here the object of it; which is represented as unseen, not yet fully enjoyed, something future, and to be hoped for; as the resurrection of the dead, which is the object of hope, and is unseen, and even incredible to carnal reason, and is to come, and good foundation there is in divine revelation, to hope for it; and the hope of it is of great use to the saints, whilst in this world of trouble: eternal glory and happiness is also the object of the hope of believers; it is said to be the hope of their calling, which they are called by grace to; the hope of righteousness, which the righteousness of Christ is the ground and foundation of; and that blessed hope, the sum of their happiness; and hope laid up for them in heaven, where it is safe and secure; all which is unseen, and yet to come; but good reason there is to hope for it, since the Scriptures of truth so clearly express it; and the person, blood, and righteousness of Christ, lay such a solid foundation for hope of it: the Alexandrian copy reads, "why doth he yet wait for?" and so the Ethiopic version, with which agrees the Syriac version, reading the whole, "for if we see it, why should we wait for it?"

Gill: Rom 8:25

But if we hope for that we see not,.... Whether it be the hour of death, or the second coming of Christ, or the resurrection of the dead, and eternal glory; all which are unseen by us, and to be hoped for:

then do we with patience wait for it; as that which is certain and real, as something valuable, which will be satisfying, and be received with the utmost joy. This supposes, that the persons who wait for it believe it, and their interest in it, at least hope they have one; that they have a valuable esteem and affection for it; that they are not in a state of perfection and happiness; and that they sit loose by the things of this world, and are ready to part with the one, and grasp the other: the manner of their waiting is "with patience"; a grace, of which God is the efficient, Christ is the exemplar, and the word the means; and which is of great use under afflictions from the hand of God, under the reproaches and persecutions of men, under desertions and want of answers in prayer, under the temptations of Satan, and in the expectation of the heavenly glory.

Gill: Rom 8:26

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities,.... The Spirit of God which dwells in us, by whom we are led, who is the spirit of adoption to us, who has witnessed to our spirits, that we are the children of God, whose firstfruits we have received, over and above, and besides what he has done for us, "also helpeth our infirmities"; whilst we are groaning within ourselves, both for ourselves and for others, and are waiting patiently for what we are hoping for. The people of God, all of them, more or less, have their infirmities in this life. They are not indeed weak and infirm, in such sense as unregenerate persons are, who have no spiritual strength, are ignorant of their weakness, do not go to Christ for strength, nor derive any from him, and hence can perform nothing that is spiritually good: nor are they all alike infirm; some are weaker in faith, knowledge, and experience, than others; some are of more weak and scrupulous consciences than others be: some are more easily drawn aside through corruption and temptation than others are; some have weaker gifts, particularly in prayer, than others have, yet all have their infirmities; not only bodily afflictions, persecutions of men, and temptations of Satan, but internal corruptions, and weakness to oppose them, and to discharge their duty to God and man; and also have their infirmities in the exercise of grace, and in the performance of the work of prayer; though they are not left to sink under them, but are helped by "the Spirit": by whom is meant, not any tutelar angel, or the human soul, or the gift of the Spirit in prayer, but the Holy Spirit of God himself; who, as the word here used signifies, "helps together", with hope and patience, graces which he has implanted, and which he invigorates and draws forth into act and exercise; or with the saints labouring under their burdens; or with the Father and the Son, who also are helpers of the saints: and this helping of them implies, that their infirmities and burdens are such as they must sink under, unless they are helped; and which is done by the Spirit, by bringing to remembrance, and applying the precious promises of the Gospel, by shedding abroad the love of God in their hearts, by acting the part of a comforter to them, by putting strength into them, and by assisting them in prayer to God:

for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. The children of God are not ignorant of the object of prayer, that it is God, and not a creature, God, as the God of nature, providence, and grace, God in the persons of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit, and with a view to his glorious perfections: nor of the way of coming to God in prayer, through Christ; nor of the manner of performing it in faith, with fervency, sincerity, reverence, humility, and submission; nor who they should pray for, for themselves, for all men, even enemies, particularly for the saints, and ministers of the Gospel; nor of many other things respecting prayer, as that it is both their duty and privilege; their own inability, and the need of the assistance of the Spirit in it; but what they are ignorant of is chiefly the matter of prayer: indeed the whole Bible is an instruction in general to this work, so is the prayer Christ taught his disciples, and the several prayers of saints recorded in the Scriptures; the promises of God, and their own wants and necessities, may, and do, greatly direct them; as for instance, when under a sense of sin, to pray for a discovery of pardoning grace; when under darkness and desertions, for the light of God's countenance; when under a sense of weakness of grace, and the strength of corruptions, for fresh supplies of grace and strength, for communion with God in ordinances, for more grace here, and glory hereafter; but what of all things they seem to be, at least at some times, at a loss about, is what to pray for with respect to things temporal, such as riches, honour, friends, &c. to have present afflictions removed, or temptations cease; and too often it is, that they pray with greater importunity for lesser things, than for things of more importance; and more from an intemperate zeal, and with a view to self, than for the glory of God:

but the Spirit itself maketh intercession, for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered; not the spirit of a man; or the gift of the Spirit in man; or a man endued with an extraordinary gift of the Spirit; but the Holy Ghost himself, who makes intercession for the saints: not in such sense as Christ does; for he intercedes not with the Father, but with them, with their spirits; not in heaven, but in their hearts; and not for sinners, but for saints: nor in the manner as Christ does, not by vocal prayer, as he when on earth; nor by being the medium, or way of access to God; nor by presenting the prayers of saints, and the blood and sacrifice of Christ to God, as Christ does in heaven; nor as the saints make intercession for one another, and for other persons: but he intercedes for them, by making them to intercede; he indites their prayers for them, not in a book, but in their hearts; he shows them their need, what their wants are; he stirs them up to prayer, he supplies them with arguments, puts words into their mouths, enlarges their hearts, gives strength of faith in prayer, and all the ardour and fervency of it; he enables them to come to God as their Father; and gives them liberty and boldness in his presence, which requires an heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, faith in the blood and righteousness of Christ, and a view of God, as a God of peace, grace, and mercy: and this intercession he makes, "with groanings which, cannot be uttered"; not that the Spirit of God groans, but he stirs up groans in the saints; which suppose a burden on them, and their sense of it: and these are said to be "unutterable"; saints, under his influence, praying silently, without a voice, as Moses and Hannah did, 1Sa 1:13, and yet most ardently and fervently; or as not being able to express fully what they conceive in their minds, how great their burdens are, and their sense of their wants.

Gill: Rom 8:27

And he that searcheth the hearts,.... This is peculiar to God, and a "periphrasis" of him; angels, neither good nor bad, can search into the hearts of men; one man cannot know the heart of another, nor any man fully know his own; this is the prerogative of God: and

he knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit; not the spirit of men, but of God: that affectionate desire and meaning of the Spirit of God, in the unalterable groans of the saints; he knows the wise meaning there is in them, for so φρονημα may signify, and is opposed to the carnal mind, or wisdom of the flesh, which desires foolish things. The searcher of hearts knows this, not barely by his omniscience, but he regards it, approves of it, attends, and gives an answer to it; which is no small encouragement to pray, though it be but with sighs and groans unutterable; since the omniscient God understands, and respects such kind of prayer: and the reason is,

because he, the Spirit of God,

maketh intercession for the saints, according to the will of God; the persons for whom he intercedes are saints: to whom Christ is made sanctification; who are called to be saints; are sanctified by the Spirit of God, and walk after him: now such are the objects of God's delight, they are chosen by him, preserved in Christ, and have his righteousness imputed to them; to these he has made known his Gospel, has given his grace, and will at last the inheritance; so that intercession made for such will certainly be regarded: it may be rendered, "he maketh intercession for holy things according to God"; for spiritual blessings, divine favours, things that belong to God; or divine things, which are agreeably to his nature and will: and since it is the Holy Spirit that makes intercession, and the persons are holy for whom he makes it, and this is made for holy things, and all according to the will of God, which the Spirit of God must fully know, saints may be confident of the prevalence and success of such intercession.

Gill: Rom 8:28

And we know that all things work together for good,.... There is a temporal good, and a spiritual good, and an eternal one. Temporal good is what the men of the world are seeking after, and generally have the greatest share of, and the saints the least; and yet they have as much as is needful for them, and what they have, they have with a blessing; and even sometimes afflictions work for the temporal good of God's children: spiritual good lies in a lively exercise of grace and a conformity of the soul to God; and is what the men of the world least regard, and the saints most; and sometimes afflictions issue in this sort of good, as they do also in eternal good, for they work for us an exceeding weight of glory: by "all things" may be meant, all beings good and bad: all good beings eternal or created: eternal, as Jehovah the Father, all his perfections, purposes, promises, provisions, and performances; Jehovah the Son, as the mighty God, and as Mediator, all that he is in himself, all that he has in himself, all that he has done, or is doing, all his titles, characters, and relations; Jehovah the Spirit, in his person, offices, and operations; these all have worked together in the council of peace, in the covenant of grace, and in redemption; and they do work together in sanctification, and so they will in glorification, and that for the good of the saints: all created ones, as good angels, good magistrates, good ministers of the Gospel: all evil beings, as devils, persecuting magistrates, heretics, and false teachers: all things, good and bad: all good things, outward peace and prosperity, external gifts, the ministry of the word, the administration of ordinances, church censures, admonitions, and excommunications; all evil things, sin the evil of evils: original sin, or the fall of Adam, which contains all other sins in it, was attended with aggravating circumstances, and followed with dismal consequences, yet has been overruled for good; hereby a Saviour became necessary, who was sent, came, and wrought out salvation; has brought in a better righteousness than Adam lost; entitled his people to a better life than his was, and makes them partakers of the riches both of grace and glory: actual sin, inward or outward; indwelling sin; which is made use of, when discovered, to abate pride, to lead to an entire dependence on Christ, to teach saints to be less censorious, to depend on the power and grace of God to keep them, and to wean them from this world, and to make them desirous of another, where they shall be free from it; outward sins, of others, or their own; the sins of others, of wicked men, which observed, raise an indignation in the saints against sin, and a concern for God's glory, and to look into their own hearts and ways, and admire the grace of God to them, that this is not their case; of good men, which are recorded, and may be observed, not for example and encouragement in sin, but for admonition, and to encourage faith and hope under a sense of it; of their own, for humiliation, which issues in weakening the power of sin in themselves, and the strengthening of the graces of others: but from all this it does not follow, that God is the author of sin, only that he overrules it to wise and gracious purposes; nor should any take encouragement to sin, to do evil that good may come; nor is sin itself a real good; nor is it to be said that it does no hurt; for though it cannot hinder the everlasting salvation of God's people, it does a great deal of hurt to their peace and comfort; and that it is made to work in any form or shape for good, is not owing to its own nature and influence, which is malignant enough, but to the unbounded power and unsearchable wisdom of God: all evils or afflictions, spiritual and temporal, work together for good; all spiritual ones, such as the temptations of Satan, which are made useful for humiliation, for the trial of grace, to show us our weakness, our need of Christ, and to conform us to him, and also to excite to prayer and watchfulness; the hidings of God's face, which make his presence the more prized when enjoyed, and the more desirable. Temporal afflictions, afflictions in body, name, or estate, nay even death itself, all work together for the good of God's people. The Jews tell us of one Nahum, the man Gamzu, who, they say, was ^k so called, because of everything that happened to him he used to say, גם זו לטובה, "Gam zu letobah", "this is also for good": and they give instances of several misfortunes which befell him, upon which account he used these words, and how they proved in the issue to his advantage: agreeably to this is the advice given by them,

"for ever (say they ^l) let a man be used to say, all that the Lord does, לטב עביד, "he does for good".''

Now that all things do work together for good, the saints "know", and are firmly persuaded of; both from the word and promises of God, and from the instances of Jacob, Joseph, Job, and others, and also from their own experience: and it is to be observed, that it is not said that all things "have" worked together, and so they may again, or that they "shall" work together, but all things work together for good; they "now" work together, they are always working together, whether it can be observed or not: prosperity and adversity, whether in things temporal or spiritual, work "together", and make an intricate woven work in providence and grace; which will be viewed with admiration another day: one copy reads, "God works together", or "causes all things to work together for good"; and so the Ethiopic version, "we know that God helps them that love him, to every good thing": and to this agrees the Syriac version, "we know that to them that love God, he in everything helps them to good"; and certain it is, that God is the efficient cause, that makes all things work together for his people's good. The persons to whom all things work together for good, are described as such

that love God; a character, which does not agree with all the sons and daughters of Adam: love to God is not naturally in men; it is wrought in the soul in regeneration, and is an evidence of it; it grows up with faith, which works by it; without it, a profession of religion is vain; and where it is once wrought, it lasts for ever; it ought to be superlative and universal, constant, warm and ardent, hearty and sincere: such who have it, show it by a desire to be like to God, and therefore imitate him, by making his glory the supreme end of their actions; by being careful not to offend him; by delighting in his presence, in his people, word, ordinances, ways, and worship; and by undervaluing the world, and all things in it, in comparison of him; who is to be loved for the perfections of his being, the characters and relations he stands in and bears to his people, and on account of the love with which he has loved them, and which is indeed the spring and source of theirs. They are further described, as such

who are the called according to his purpose. The called of God and of Jesus Christ; not to any office, or by the external ministry of the word only, but by special grace; from darkness to light, from bondage to liberty, from the company of sinful men to fellowship with Christ, from a trust in their own righteousness to a dependence on his, to grace here, and glory hereafter; which is done according to the purpose of God: the persons called are fixed upon by God; none are called but whom God purposed to call; those who are called can assign no other reason of it than the will of God; and no other reason but that can be given why others are not called; the time when, the place where, the means whereby persons are called, are all settled and determined by the will, and according to the purpose of God.

Gill: Rom 8:29

For whom he did foreknow,.... The foreknowledge of God here, does not intend his prescience of all things future; by which he foreknows and foretells things to come, and which distinguishes him from all other gods; and is so called, not with respect to himself, with whom all things are present, but with respect to us, and which is eternal, universal, certain, and infallible; for in this sense he foreknows all men, and if this was the meaning here, then all men would be predestinated, conformed to the image of Christ, called by grace, justified and glorified; whereas they are a special people, whom God has foreknown: nor is this foreknowledge to be understood of any provision or foresight of the good works, holiness, faith, and perseverance of men therein, upon which God predestinates them to happiness; since this would make something out of God, and not his good pleasure, the cause of predestination; which was done before, and without any consideration of good or evil, and is entirely owing to the free grace of God, and is the ground and foundation of good works, faith, holiness, and perseverance in them: but this regards the everlasting love of God to his own people, his delight in them, and approbation of them; in this sense he knew them, he foreknew them from everlasting, affectionately loved them, and took infinite delight and pleasure in them; and this is the foundation of their predestination and election, of their conformity to Christ, of their calling, justification, and glorification: for these

he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son; having perfect, distinct, special knowledge of them, joined with love to them, he predetermined, or fore-appointed them in his eternal mind, in his everlasting and unchangeable purposes and decrees to this end, conformity to the image of Christ; which is not to be understood of the Spirit of Christ: God's elect indeed are chosen to be holy, and through sanctification of the Spirit, but are never said to be conformed, made like to the Spirit, nor is the Spirit ever called the image of Christ; but this designs either likeness to Christ as the Son of God, or conformity to him in his human nature. There is indeed a great disparity between the sonship of Christ, and of the saints; he is the eternal and natural Son of God, he is the one and only begotten Son, they are adopted ones, yet in some things there is a likeness; as he is the Son of God, so are they the sons of God, though not in the same sense; as he is a beloved Son, so are they; as he is the firstborn with respect them, they are the firstborn with respect to angels; as he has an inheritance, so have they; moreover, he has a very great concern in their sonship; the predestination of them to it is by him; the blessing itself is founded on union to him, on their conjugal relation to him, and his assumption of their nature; it comes to them through his redemption, and is actually bestowed on them by him; and this conformity to Christ as sons, will mere fully appear hereafter, when they shall be like him, and see him as he is: or this may be understood of the saints' conformity to Christ in his human nature, both here and hereafter: here in holiness; the image of God was in in his first creation, this is defaced by sin; and in regeneration, the image of Christ is stamped, his grace is wrought in them, his Spirit is put into them, to enable them to walk in him, and after him: this will be complete hereafter, and will consist in perfect holiness, being freed from the very being, as well as the power and guilt of sin; in perfect knowledge of everything that will tend to their happiness; and in glory like to Christ, both in soul and body:

that he might be the firstborn among many brethren; the persons among whom Christ is the firstborn are described by their relation, "brethren"; to one another, being related to the same Father, regenerated by the same grace, taken into the same family, and heirs of the same glory; and to Christ, which relation, as brethren to him, is not merely founded on his incarnation, but in their adoption; and which is evidenced by their regeneration, and doing the will of his Father; an which relation he owns, and is not ashamed of: they are also described by their number, "many"; for though they are but few, when compared with the world; yet they are many, a large number, considered by themselves; and among these, Christ is the "firstborn"; he is the firstborn of God, the begotten of the Father, he is the first begotten, and as such he is the only begotten; he is the firstborn of Mary, she had none before him, and he is the only one that ever was born in the manner he was; he is the first begotten from the dead, his resurrection is called a begetting, and he was the first in time that rose from the dead by his own power, and to an immortal life, and the first in causality and dignity. Christ is the firstborn with respect to all creatures in general; he was begotten of the Father before all creatures were; he is the first cause of them all, the governor, basis, and support of them: and he is the firstborn with respect to the saints; who are of the same nature with him, are made partakers of the divine nature, are sons in the same family, though not in the same class of sonship: moreover, this character may regard not so much birth as privilege which belongs to Christ as Mediator; who, as the firstborn had, has the blessing, the government, the priesthood, and the inheritance; all which is owing to, and is one end of divine predestination. The Cabalistic ^m writers among the Jews give the name of "firstborn" to the second Sephira, number, or person, "Wisdom", which answers to the Son of God.

Gill: Rom 8:30

Moreover, whom he did predestinate,.... Not to sufferings, which are not expressed nor designed, but to grace and glory after mentioned. This predestination is of particular persons, who, in consequence of it, are called, justified, and glorified; it is the effect of divine grace, and entirely owing to it; it is the source of all the other blessings of grace, and is therefore placed at the head of them, and secures them all:

them he also called; not to afflictions: many may be called to afflictions, and endure them, who are neither justified nor glorified; besides, the people of God, though they meet with many afflictions, between their call to eternal glory, and their enjoyment of it, yet they are not so much called to afflictions, as to patience under them: their call is of grace, by special grace, to peculiar blessings of grace, and to a kingdom and glory; and this their calling is secured by predestination, and connected with glorification: and whom he called,

them he also justified; the meaning of which is, not that he approved of them as sincere and faithful, on account of their faith and patience in sufferings; for neither of their sufferings, nor of their faith and patience in them, is there the least mention in the passage; nor can any instance be produced of the use of the word "justified" in this epistle, or elsewhere in this sense: but the meaning is, that such persons whom God predestinates and calls, he makes them righteous by the imputation of the righteousness of his Son unto them; which is unto all, and upon all them that believe; by which they are justified before God, and in their own consciences, from all sin, and so secured from all wrath and condemnation; wherefore glorification stands inseparably connected with it:

and whom he justified, them he also glorified; which is not meant of being made glorious under sufferings; nor of being made glorious by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; for the word is never used in this sense, nor is God ever said to glorify his people in this way; and the apostle is speaking of the saints in general, and not of particular ones: if this was the sense, none would be predestinated, called, and justified, but such who have the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; and none would have the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, but such persons; whereas many have had these, and yet no interest in the grace of God, and everlasting happiness: but eternal glory is here meant, which is what the apostle had been speaking of in the context; is what the elect are predestinated and called unto; and which their justification gives them a right and title to; and will consist in a likeness to Christ, in communion with him, in an everlasting vision of him, and in a freedom from all that is evil, and in an enjoyment of all that is good; and so the great end of predestinating grace will be answered in them mentioned in the foregoing verse: now this glorification may be said to be already done, with respect to that part of God's elect, who are in heaven, inheriting the promises; and is in some sense true also of that part of them which is on earth, who are called and justified; being made glorious within by the grace of Christ, and arrayed and adorned with the glorious robe of his righteousness; by the one they have a meetness, and by the other a right to eternal glory; of which this grace they have received is the beginning, pledge, and earnest: besides, they are already glorified in Christ, their head and representative, and in the view of God, and with respect to the certainty of it, it being prepared and made ready for them, is in the hands of Christ for them, and is insured to their faith and hope. It is an observation of a Jewish writer ⁿ,

"that a thing שנגזר להיות, "which is decreed to be", is spoken of in the past tense:''

this is the Scripture style concerning things decreed, and such is the glorification of all God's elect.

Gill: Rom 8:31

What shall we then say to these things? &c. Either to these afflictions, shall we murmur and repine at them? no, since they work together for our good, and are not to be compared with our future glory, which is certain; for if we suffer with, and for Christ, we shall be glorified together: or to these blessings just now mentioned, as the foreknowledge of God, divine predestination, effectual calling, free justification, and eternal glorification, what can be said to these? nothing can be added to them, they are a complete set of blessings, wanting nothing; nor can the greatness of them be fully expressed, or the freeness of God's grace displayed in them, sufficiently declared: what remains for us to do, but to be thankful for them, and glory in them? or what can be said "against" them? nothing at all, they cannot be contradicted or gainsaid; they are true and faithful sayings; they can never be made void, and of no effect, by hell or earth; nor ought our unbelieving hearts to have anything to say against interest in them: or what is to be said, or inferred "from" them? why, the free, sovereign, unchangeable, and everlasting love of God, in providing and bestowing such benefits; and the certainty of salvation, which is infallibly secured hereby:

if God be for us; or, "seeing he is for us", has an affection for us, which appears from the gift of himself, Son, and Spirit, and all the blessings of grace and glory; and is on our side: as that he is on the side of his people, is evident from his preservation of them from the evils of the world and their own corruptions; from the supports he gives them under afflictions and temptations; from his carrying on the work of grace upon them, notwithstanding all the opposition made unto it; and from their safety and security they enjoy by him, notwithstanding the power of their enemies; he is so for them, and on their side, as that he will certainly save them. This he has determined to do, he has sent his Son to obtain salvation for them, his Spirit to apply it to them, and keeps them by his power to the full enjoyment of it: and since this is the case,

who can be against us? none can be against them. There are some that cannot possibly be against them; if Jehovah the Father is not against them, the Son cannot be against them, nor the Spirit; good angels cannot be against them, so far from it, that they rejoice at their good, minister to them, and are a guard about them; the law cannot be against them, because it is fulfilled in them; nor justice, because it is satisfied, and all its demands answered: and though there may be some who may be against them, and oppose themselves to them, yet their opposition is to no purpose; they will never prevail over them to their ruin and destruction; as neither sin, nor Satan, nor the world, nor death itself.

Gill: Rom 8:32

He that spared not his own Son,.... It is said that God spared not the angels that sinned, nor the old world, which was full of violence, nor Sodom and Gomorrah, whose wickedness was great, nor the Egyptians and their firstborn, refusing to let Israel go, nor the Israelites themselves, when they transgressed his laws, nor wicked men hardened in sin; all which is not to be wondered at; but that he should not spare "his own Son", his proper Son, of the same nature with him, and equal to him, the Son of his love, and who never sinned against him, is very amazing: he spares many of the sons of men in a providential way, and in a way of grace, but he did not spare his own Son, or abate him anything in any respect, what was agreed upon between them, with regard to the salvation of his people; as appears by his assuming human nature, with all its weaknesses and infirmities; by his having laid on him all the iniquities of his people, and all the punishment due unto them he inflicted on him, without the least abatement; and by his sufferings not being deferred at all, beyond the appointed time; when full satisfaction for all their sins were demanded, the whole payment of their debts to the uttermost farthing insisted on, and all done according to the utmost strictness of divine justice: and which was not out of any disaffection to him; nor because he himself deserved such treatment; but because of the counsel, purpose, and promise of God, that his law and justice might be fully satisfied, and his people completely saved: moreover, the sense of the phrase may be learnt from the use of it in the Septuagint version of Gen 22:12, "thou hast not withheld thy Son, thine only Son from me", which that renders ουκ εφεισο, "thou hast not spared thy beloved Son for me": so God did not spare his Son, because he did not withhold him:

but delivered him up for us all. That is, God the Father delivered him, according to his determinate counsel and foreknowledge, into the hands of wicked men; into the hands of justice, and to death itself; not for all men, for to all men he does not give Christ, and all things freely with him, nor are all delivered from condemnation and death by him; wherefore if he was delivered up for all men, he must be delivered up in vain for some; but for "us all", or "all us", whom he foreknew, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified; and not merely as a martyr, or by way of example only, and for their good, but as their surety and substitute, in their room and stead: wherefore

how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Christ is God's free gift to his elect; he is given to be a covenant to them, an head over them, a Saviour of them, and as the bread of life for them to live upon: he is freely given; God could never have been compelled to have given him; Christ could never have been merited by them; nothing that they could give or do could have laid him under obligation to have bestowed him on them; yea, such were the persons, and such their characters, for whom he delivered him up, that he might have justly stirred up all his wrath against them; and yet such was his grace, that he has given his own Son unto them; and not him alone, but "all things" with him: all temporal good things, needful and convenient; all spiritual blessings, a justifying righteousness, pardon of sin, sanctifying grace, adoption, and eternal life: and all "freely", in a sovereign way, according to his own good will and pleasure, without any obligation or compulsion; not grudgingly nor niggardly, but cheerfully and bountifully, absolutely, and without any conditions; for he is not moved thereunto by anything in them, or performed by them.

Gill: Rom 8:33

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?.... The elect of God are a certain select number of persons, whom he has so loved, as of his sovereign good will and pleasure, to choose in Christ before the foundation of the world, unto eternal life and salvation, by certain ways and means of his own appointing, as sanctification and faith, so that they are peculiarly his: but are these persons chargeable with nothing criminal? yes, with Adam's sin; with a want of original righteousness; with multitudes of sins before conversion, some of them with very great ones; and all, even after conversion, with frequent infirmities and backslidings: and will none rise up and exhibit charges of this nature against them? yes, even now, they very often bring charges against themselves; they are very apt to charge one another; Satan, the accuser of the brethren, lays many things to their charge very frequently, and so do the men of the world; but all these charges avail nothing, since none of the divine persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, lay anything against them: not God the Father, for

it is God that justifieth; he against whom sin is committed, who is the lawgiver, and the righteous judge, justifies them from every charge; not by teaching them the way of justification, nor by infusing righteousness into them, or on account of any works of righteousness done by them, but by pronouncing them righteous through the imputation of the righteousness of his Son unto them: observe, that "God's elect", as such, are the objects of justification; which proves the eternity of it; the speciality of it as belonging to particular persons, and the everlasting security and continuance of it.

Gill: Rom 8:34

Who is he that condemneth,.... That is, the elect of God: all mankind are deserving of condemnation, and are under the sentence of it, as in Adam; some are foreordained to condemnation; all in final impenitence and unbelief, are condemned already; and the whole world of the ungodly will be condemned at the last day; but none of God's elect are, or shall be condemned: for they are loved with an everlasting love; they are chosen unto salvation; they are in Christ, where there is no condemnation; they are brought to believe in him, and by him are justified from all sin, and so are secure from condemnation. They are indeed deserving of it as others, considered in themselves; and are under the sentence of it, as in Adam, with the rest of mankind; and in their own apprehensions, when convinced of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And are there none that will condemn them? yes, their own hearts often condemn them; they are very forward to condemn one another; the world condemns them, and so does the god of it: but neither Father, Son, nor Spirit, will condemn them; not the Father, for he justifies; nor the Son, for

it is Christ that died: that he died is certain; the death he died was the death of the cross; the persons he died for were God's elect; the reason of his dying for them was to make atonement for their sins; this came to pass through his substitution in their room and stead; this death of his was but once, yet of an eternal efficacy, and so a full security of them from all condemnation: for sin, the cause of condemnation, was removed by it; the condemnation itself was bore by Christ in their stead; the law and justice of God were satisfied by it; pardon of sin was procured by his blood; and complete justification obtained by his active and passive obedience; all which is confirmed by his resurrection, session at God's right hand, and intercession: wherefore it is added,

yea, rather that is risen again. As the death, so the resurrection of Christ, is the security of God's elect from condemnation; inasmuch as Christ rose again, as a conqueror over death, and over sin, the sting of death, and over Satan, who had the power of death; and also as a surety, having given satisfaction to law and justice: he engaged as a surety for his people; God in justice, and according to his righteous law, dealt with him, and by him as such; he satisfied both, and therefore was set free by them; hence neither law nor justice can condemn; besides he rose again as a common person, head and representative of his people, and for their justification: he first stood charged with all their sins, which by his Father, and with his own consent, were imputed to him; he was condemned and suffered death for them; when he rose from the dead, he was justified and acquitted from them all; and all his people were justified in him, and with him: yea, the resurrection of Christ is rather a greater security from condemnation, than his death; Christ's death expiated sin, but his resurrection brought in the everlasting righteousness; notwithstanding Christ's death, had he not risen again, we should have been in our sins, and so liable to condemnation; Christ's dying showed that he was arrested and condemned, but his resurrection shows that he is discharged, and we in him:

who is even at the right hand of God. The ascension of Christ, his entrance into heaven, and session at the right hand of God, are also a very considerable security of God's elect from condemnation; for when he ascended from earth to heaven in human nature, accompanied by angels, of which they and his disciples were witnesses, he led captivity captive, or triumphed over those that led his people captive, as sin, Satan, the law, death, and every other enemy of theirs; he entered into heaven to prepare it for them, to take possession of it in their name, to appear in the presence of God for them, and as having obtained the eternal redemption of them, where he was received with a welcome, as the surety and head of the chosen ones, and then sat down at the right hand of God; which shows that he had done his work, and to satisfaction, is advanced above all, power is given to him, all things are put under him, and he is head over all things to the church: and since he is at the right hand of God, as an advocate and intercessor for his people, it will be to no purpose, and of no avail, that Satan, or any other enemy, is at their right hand to resist them:

who also maketh intercession for us; which is done, not by vocal prayer, as in the days of his flesh on earth; or as supplicating an angry judge; or as controverting: a point in the court of heaven; but by the appearance of his person for us, by the presentation of his sacrifice, by offering up the prayers and praises of his people, by declaring it as his will, that such and such blessings be bestowed upon them, and by seeing to it, that the benefits of his death are applied to those, for whom they were designed; which intercession of Christ proceeds upon the foot of a satisfaction made; it always continues, and is ever prevalent, and so has a considerable influence to secure from condemnation. The apostle, in this verse, seems to have in view a passage in Job 34:29; which the Septuagint render, "and he gives peace, and who is he that condemneth?"

Gill: Rom 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?.... By "the love of Christ" is not meant the saints' love to Christ, but his love to them; he is indeed the object of their love, and so strong is their love to him, that it can never be destroyed; for though there may be an abatement in the fervour of it, it can never be lost; yet this is never called the love of Christ: besides, the apostle is speaking not of their love to Christ, but of the love of God and Christ to them, throughout the context; and his design is, to strengthen the faith of God's people, and comfort their souls, under their various afflictions: now nothing more effectually serves such purposes, than the love of Christ; and the things here instanced in are such, as are apt to inject doubts and fears, about interest in the love of Christ, and of the love of God in Christ, as it is interpreted in some following verses: moreover, the separation here interrogated is not of Christ from us, but of us from him; whereas was it our love to Christ, which is here meant, it should rather have been put, who shall separate him from us, and not us from the love of Christ? That Christ does love the elect of God, who are the persons here spoken of, is evident from his undertaking for them, espousing their persons, assuming their nature, dying in their room and stead, paying off their debts, and redeeming their persons, by going to prepare a place for them, by interceding for them, by supplying them with all grace, and using them in the most free and familiar manner; which love of his is wonderful, matchless, and inconceivable, special and peculiar, free and undeserved, exceeding affectionate, unchangeable, durable, and for ever. This is the bond of union to Christ; and the union which is made by it is exceeding near and close; it is real; perfect, and indissoluble, nothing can separate from it: not

tribulation; or "affliction", which springs from his love, and is the fruit of it; and notwithstanding that, he rests in his love; this is not taken away, but is often sensibly enjoyed, in the midst of afflictions:

or distress; whether of body or mind; straitness in the affairs and circumstances of life, or straitness of mind, in the exercise of grace, and discharge of duty; for "though we believe not, yet he abides faithful", 2Ti 2:13, to his covenant and promises:

or persecution: from the world; for this is rather an evidence that Christ has loved them chosen and called them, because the world hates them:

or famine: want of the necessaries of life, as food and drink; being exposed to great hunger and thirst, which has sometimes been the lot of the dear children of God:

or nakedness; want of proper clothing, or the use of common apparel; wandering about in sheep skins and goat skins, which has been the case of some, of whom the world was not worthy, and so no proof of separation from the love of Christ:

or peril; dangers from different quarters, by different persons and ways; such as the Apostle Paul had trial of, who was highly in the love of Christ, 1Co 11:26;

or sword; that is, death by the sword; which death James the brother of John died, Act 12:13, now, though this may separate the head from the body, and separate soul and body, yet cannot separate from the love of Christ.

Gill: Rom 8:36

As it is written, for thy sake we are killed,.... This passage is a citation out of Psa 44:22; and the meaning is, that for the sake of God, and his pure worship, Old Testament saints were frequently put to death, or exposed to the persecutions of men, which often issued in death; as New Testament saints have been, for the sake of Christ and his Gospel, even

all the day long; that is, they were liable to death all the day long; or every day, one or other of them was put to death:

we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter; they were reckoned as fit for nothing else, and were continually exposed unto it; were used as sheep are, as if they were made for no other use and service, but to be slaughtered; hence they are called, "the flock of slaughter", Zec 11:7; and as this expresses the brutality of their persecutors, so their harmlessness, meekness, humility, and patience in sufferings, being under them like lambs or sheep. This testimony is produced, to show that suffering death has been the common lot of the saints in all ages: and is designed to animate the people of God under the Gospel dispensation, to suffer with cheerfulness; the allusion may be to the lambs and sheep daily slain for sacrifice; either to the lambs of the sacrifice slain morning and evening; or to others that were slain in any part of the day from morning to night, for other sacrifices, in the court of the tabernacle and temple.

Gill: Rom 8:37

Nay, in all these things,.... The former words being inserted in a parenthesis, these are an answer to the question in Rom 8:35, "what shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation?" &c. "nay", it shall not, nor any of the other things mentioned: "in all these things"; afflictions, distresses, persecutions, famine, nakedness, sword, or any other thing of the same kind:

we are more than conquerors; not only over sin and Satan, but the world, the reproaches, afflictions, and persecutions of it; which they cheerfully and courageously undergo, insomuch that they are not only conquerors, but "more than conquerors": they have above overcome, they have exceedingly the better of it; for they not only patiently bear afflictions and persecutions, but they glory in them; their experience, faith, and joy, are often increased by them; they have sometime solicited, and even wearied their persecutors; they have got the victory with ease, over Satan and his hellish emissaries, by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony: but this is not owing to themselves, or through their own strength, but

through him that loved us; meaning either God the Father, whose love is mentioned in the following verses, or rather the Lord Jesus Christ; and so some copies express it, "through Christ that loved us": "through him", who has got the victory over all his and his people's enemies, and makes them sharers in his conquests; "through him", who is able to help them, and has strength sufficient to carry them through, and brings them off more than conquerors; who has loved them, still loves them, and whose love engages his power to stand by them and protect them against all their enemies.

Gill: Rom 8:38

For I am persuaded,.... These words with the following, express the strong persuasion, and full assurance of faith the apostle had, that nothing whatever could separate him and the rest of God's people, from his love towards them in Christ Jesus. This persuasion not only regards himself, but others; and is not conjectural, but certain; and which did not arise from any special and extraordinary revelation, but is founded upon the nature of the love of God itself, the security of it in Christ, and of the persons of God's elect in him; upon eternal predestination, and the unalterable purposes of God; upon the promise and oath of God; upon adoption, and the gracious witnessings, assistances, and inhabitation of the Spirit; and is greatly increased by the consideration of the death, resurrection, and intercession of Christ. The things enumerated, which are not able to separate from the love of God, are as follow:

death; death separates men from the world, their worldly habitations and substance; it separates the soul from the body, and one friend from another; and in process of time, may take off all thoughts and affections for departed friends, but it is not able to separate from the love of God; it is so far from it, that it lets the soul into the fullest enjoyment of it: and as corporeal death, so no other kind of death can do it; for if the death of the body cannot, the death of afflictions never can; and as for a moral or spiritual death, and an eternal one, these shall never befall the children of God:

nor life; this natural and temporal life, which is frail and mortal; the love of God is better than this life, and this itself is the effect of divine favour; wherefore this can never separate from the love of God, nor anything in it: the life of believers is indeed filled up with troubles and exercises, and attended with much imperfection and sin; but nothing does, or can alienate the affections of God from his children; for though he exercises them with the trials of life, and chastises them for their sins, yet his loving kindness be does not take away from them:

nor angels; by whom are meant evil angels, the devils; for as for good angels, they never attempt to separate God and his people; they rejoice at their good, minister to them, are their guardians whilst here, at death they carry their souls to heaven, and at the last day will gather all the elect together; but evil angels do endeavour it, by temptations to sin, and accusations for it; by stirring up heresies and persecutions, in order to destroy them, but cannot succeed; for the saints are upon God's heart, are in Christ's hands, and on him the rock; and the Spirit of God is in them, who is greater than he that is in the world:

nor principalities: civil magistrates; who though they may separate them from their company, and cast them out as evil; may separate them in prisons one from another; and separate soul and body, by killing the latter, which is all they can do; yet they cannot separate neither soul nor body from the love of God: the Jews often say, that if all the nations of the world were gathered together, they could not extinguish ⁿ or cause to cease ^o, or take away the love which is between God and his people Israel ^p:

nor powers; either the same with the former; or false teachers who had the power of working miracles in confirmation of their doctrines, by which they deceived many; and if it had been possible, would have deceived the elect of God, but that was impossible:

nor things present; present evils, the afflictions of the present life; God does not cease to love when he afflicts his people; yea, afflictions spring from his love, and in them he afresh manifests his love to them; they are overruled for their good, and issue in eternal glory. Present temptations also may be meant. The best of saints have been exposed unto them; Christ himself was not exempted from them; these do not, nor cannot separate from the love of God; which is manifest from the regard which God and Christ have to tempted ones, by sympathizing with them, supporting and succouring of them, rebuking the tempter, and delivering from them. Present desertions, or the hidings of God's face, which often is the case of his dear children, can have no such effect; their relation to God still continues; they have great nearness unto him, are engraven on the palms of his hands, are set as a seal on his heart, and he bears a strong affection to them; though, for wise reasons, he is pleased for a moment to hide himself from them: yea, the present body of sin and death saints carry about with them in this life, cannot separate them; sin has separated the angels from God, who rebelled against him; it drove Adam out of the garden of Eden, and will exclude the wicked from the divine presence to all eternity; and it often separates between God and his own people, with respect to communion, but never with respect to union to him, or interest in him; for he knew what they would be when he set his love upon them; his love broke through all the corruptions of nature and sins of life in their conversion; and appears to continue the same from the strong expressions of his grace to them, notwithstanding all their backslidings; could sin separate in this sense, no one would remain the object of his love. Now this does not suppose that God loves sin, nor does it give any encouragement to it; for though it cannot separate from interest in God, yet it does from the enjoyment of him. Again, present good things may be designed, the good things of this life, temporal enjoyments; these are given in love; and though they may be but few, they are in mercy, and with a blessing; and the great mercy of all is, that these are not their all, nor do they take off their value and esteem for the love of God, which is better to them than all the things of life; and though "the prosperity of fools shall destroy them", Pro 1:32, the prosperity of the saints shall never be their ruin:

nor things to come; whether good or bad, prosperous or adverse; more afflictions, fresh difficulties with the body of sin; an hour of temptation, and time of distress that is to come upon all the earth; or the evil days of old age; God will never leave, nor forsake his people, or cause his loving kindness to depart from them, in whatsoever state or condition they may come into: the Vulgate Latin version adds, "nor fortitude"; and the Ethiopic version, "nor powers"; and one copy adds it in the beginning of Rom 8:39, "nor power".

Gill: Rom 8:39

Nor height, nor depth,.... Neither heaven, earth, nor hell, nor any of the inhabitants of either, or anything in either; no high or low place, to be cast down from the one, or into the other; nor the height of honour and prosperity, or the depth of meanness and adversity; nor the height of power, or depth of policy in men or devils;

nor any other creature. This takes in the whole compass of created beings in heaven, earth, and sea; and most strongly expresses the inseparableness of the saints from the love of God, by anything or creature whatever; nothing in the whole universe

shall be able to separate us the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord: by "the love of God", is not meant the saints' love to God; for though this is sometimes called the love of God, it is from him, as the author of it, and to him, as the object of it, and may be said to be in Christ, or by him, and can never be lost; yet the apostle would not have expressed such a strong confidence and full persuasion about this, and would rather have said, had this been his meaning, that nothing shall be able to separate our love from God, or God from our love, and not us from the love of God; besides, he is speaking of that love by which we are more than conquerors, and manifestly intends the love with which God loves his people, particularly the love of God the Father: and this is "in Christ Jesus our Lord"; he has expressed it in and through Christ, in choosing and blessing them in him, and in sending him to die for them; and it still continues in him, and is in him as their Lord, head, husband, and Redeemer; and is a reason why nothing can separate them from it: which is to be understood, not of the effects of love, and the application of it, which may be suspended for a time; nor of the manifestation and sense of it, which believers may be without for a while; nor of any sort of separation from God, for saints themselves may be separated from him, with respect to intimate sensible communion and fellowship; but the sense of this passage is, that they can never be separated from the love of God, so as that that union which is made by it between God and them can ever be dissolved, or they cease to have any share or interest in his love. This the apostle was persuaded could never be.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Rom 8:20

¹ tn Grk “because of the one”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

NET Notes: Rom 8:23

¹ tn Or “who have the Spirit as firstfruits.” The genitive πνεύματος (pneumatos) can be understood here as possessive (“the firstfruits belonging to the Spirit”) although it is much more likely that this is a genitive of apposition (“the firstfruits, namely, the Spirit”); cf. TEV, NLT.

² tn See the note on “adoption” in v. 15.

³ tn Grk “body.”

NET Notes: Rom 8:25

¹ tn Or “perseverance.”

NET Notes: Rom 8:26

¹ tn Or “for we do not know what we ought to pray for.”

NET Notes: Rom 8:27

¹ sn He refers to God here; Paul has not specifically identified him for the sake of rhetorical power (for by leaving the subject slightly ambiguous, he draws his audience into seeing God’s hand in places where he is not explicitly mentioned).

² tn Grk “he,” or “it”; the referent (the Spirit) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

NET Notes: Rom 8:28

¹ tc ὁ θεός (Jo qeos, “God”) is found after the verb συνεργεῖ (sunergei, “work”) in v. 28 by Ì⁴⁶ A B 81 sa; the shorter reading is found in א C D F G Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï latt sy bo. Although the inclusion is supported by a significant early papyrus, the alliance of significant Alexandrian and Western witnesses favors the shorter reading. As well, the longer reading is evidently motivated by a need for clarification. Since ὁ θεός is textually suspect, it is better to read the text without it. This leaves two good translational options: either “he works all things together for good” or “all things work together for good.” In the first instance the subject is embedded in the verb and “God” is clearly implied (as in v. 29). In the second instance, πάντα (panta) becomes the subject of an intransitive verb. In either case, “What is expressed is a truly biblical confidence in the sovereignty of God” (C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:427).

NET Notes: Rom 8:29

¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God’s Son) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

NET Notes: Rom 8:32

¹ tn Grk “[he] who.” The relative clause continues the question of v. 31 in a way that is awkward in English. The force of v. 32 is thus: “who indeed did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – How will he not also with him give us all things?”

NET Notes: Rom 8:33

¹ sn An allusion to Isa 50:8 where the reference is singular; Paul applies this to all believers (“God’s elect” is plural here).

NET Notes: Rom 8:34

¹ tc ‡ A number of significant and early witnesses, along with several others (Ì^46vid א A C F G L Ψ 6 33 81 104 365 1505 al lat bo), read ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsous, “Jesus”) after Χριστός (Cristos, “Christ”) in v. 34. But the shorter reading is not unrepresented (B D 0289 1739 1881 Ï sa). Once ᾿Ιησοῦς got into the text, what scribe would omit it? Although the external evidence is on the side of the longer reading, internally such an expansion seems suspect. The shorter reading is thus preferred. NA²⁷ has the word in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.

tn Grk “who also.”

NET Notes: Rom 8:35

¹ tn Here “sword” is a metonymy that includes both threats of violence and acts of violence, even including death (although death is not necessarily the only thing in view here).

NET Notes: Rom 8:36

¹ sn A quotation from Ps 44:22.

NET Notes: Rom 8:37

¹ tn BDAG 1034 s.v. ὑπερνικάω states, “as a heightened form of νικᾶν prevail completely ὑπερνικῶμεν we are winning a most glorious victory Ro 8:37.”

² tn Here the referent could be either God or Christ, but in v. 39 it is God’s love that is mentioned.

NET Notes: Rom 8:38

¹ tn BDAG 138 s.v. ἀρχή 6 takes this term as a reference to angelic or transcendent powers (as opposed to merely human rulers). To clarify this, the adjective “heavenly” has been supplied in the translation. Some interpreters see this as a reference to fallen angels or demonic powers, and this view is reflected in some recent translations (NIV, NLT).

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:20

For the creature was made subject to ^{( x )} vanity, not ^{( y )} willingly, but by reason ^{( z )} of him who hath subjected [the same] in ^{( a )} hope,

^{( x )} Is subject to a vanishing and disappearing state.

^{( y )} Not by their natural inclination.

^{( z )} That they should obey the Creator's commandment, whom it pleased to show by their sickly state, how greatly he was displeased with man.

^{( a )} God would not make the world subject to be cursed forever because of the sin of man, but gave it hope that it would be restored.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:21

Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the ^{( b )} bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

^{( b )} From the corruption which they are now subject to, they will be delivered and changed into the blessed state of incorruption, which will be revealed when the sons of God will be advanced to glory.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:22

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and ^{( c )} travaileth in pain together until now.

^{( c )} By this word is meant not only exceeding sorrow, but also the fruit that follows from it.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:23

^{( 22 )} And not only [they], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ^{( d )} ourselves, waiting for the adoption, [to wit], ^{( e )} the redemption of our body.

^{( 22 )} Fifthly, if the rest of the world looks for a restoring, groaning as it were for it and that not in vain, let us also sigh, indeed, let us be more certainly persuaded of our redemption to come, for we already have the first fruits of the Spirit.

^{( d )} Even from the bottom of our hearts.

^{( e )} The last restoring, which will be the accomplishment of our adoption.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:24

^{( 23 )} For we are saved by hope: but ^{( f )} hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

^{( 23 )} Sixthly, hope is necessarily joined with faith: seeing then that we believe those things which we are not yet in possession of, and hope does not refer to the thing that is present, we must therefore hope and patiently wait for that which we believe will come to pass.

^{( f )} This is spoken by the figure of speech metonymy, that is, "hope", which stands for that which is hoped for.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:26

^{( 24 )} Likewise the Spirit also ^{( g )} helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh ^{( h )} intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

^{( 24 )} Seventhly, there is no reason why we should faint under the burden of afflictions, seeing that prayers minister to us a most sure help: which cannot be frustrated, seeing that they proceed from the Spirit of God who dwells in us.

^{( g )} Bears our burden, as it were, so that we do not faint under it.

^{( h )} Incites us to pray, and tells us as it were within, what we will say, and how we will speak.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:27

And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what [is] the ^{( i )} mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints ^{( k )} according to [the will of] God.

^{( i )} What sighs and sobs proceed from the impulse of his Spirit.

^{( k )} Because he teaches the godly to pray according to God's will.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:28

^{( 25 )} And we know that ^{( l )} all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] ^{( m )} purpose.

^{( 25 )} Eighthly, we are not afflicted, either by chance or to our harm, but by God's providence for our great profit: who as he chose us from the beginning, so has he predestined us to be made similar to the image of his Son: and therefore will bring us in his time, being called and justified, to glory, by the cross.

^{( l )} Not only afflictions, but whatever else.

^{( m )} He calls that "purpose" which God has from everlasting appointed with himself, according to his good will and pleasure.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:30

Moreover whom he did ^{( n )} predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

^{( n )} He uses the past tense for the present time, as the Hebrews use, who sometimes describe something that is to come by using the past tense, to signify the certainty of it: and he also is referring to God's continual working.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:31

^{( 26 )} What shall we then say to these things? If God [be] for us, who [can be] against us?

^{( 26 )} Ninethly, we have no reason to fear that the Lord will not give us whatever is profitable for us, seeing that he has not spared his own Son to save us.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:32

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

^{( o )} Give us freely.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:33

^{( 27 )} Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? [It is] ^{( p )} God that justifieth.

^{( 27 )} A most glorious and comfortable conclusion of the whole second part of this epistle, that is of the treatise of justification. There are no accusers that we have need to be afraid of before God, seeing that God himself absolves us as just: and therefore much less need we to fear damnation, seeing that we rest upon the death and resurrection, the almighty power and defence of Jesus Christ. Therefore what can there be so weighty in this life, or of so great force and power, that might cause us to fear, as though we might fall from the love of God, with which he loves us in Christ? Surely nothing, seeing that it is in itself most constant and sure, and also in us being confirmed by steadfast faith.

^{( p )} Who pronounces us not only guiltless, but also perfectly just in his Son.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of ^{( q )} Christ? [shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

^{( q )} With which Christ loves us.

Geneva Bible: Rom 8:37

^{( r )} Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

^{( r )} We not only overcome so great and many miseries and calamities, but are also more than conquerors in all of them.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Rom 8:1-39

1 They that are in Christ, are free from condemnation.

5 What harm comes of the flesh;

13 and what good of the Spirit.

19 The glorious deliverance all things long for,

29 was beforehand decreed from God.

38 Nothing can sever us from his love.

Maclaren: Rom 8:23

The Redemption Of The Body

The adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.'--Romans 8:23.

IN a previous verse Paul has said that all true Christians have received the Spirit of adoption.' They become sons of God through Christ the Son. They receive a new spiritual and divine life from God through Christ, and that life is like its source. In so far as that new life vitalises and dominates their nature, believers have received the Spirit of adoption,' and by it they cry Abba, Father.' But the body still remains a source of weakness, the seat of sin. It is sluggish and inapt for high purposes; it still remains subject to the law of sin and death'; and so is not like the Father who breathed into it the breath of life. It remains in bondage, and has not yet received the adoption. This text, in harmony with the Apostle's whole teaching, looks forward to a change in the body and in its relations to the renewed spirit, as the crown and climax of the work of redemption, and declares that till that change is effected, the condition of Christian men is imperfect, and is a waiting, and often a groaning.

In dealing with some of the thoughts that arise from this text, we note--

I. A Future Bodily Life Is Needed.

That a future bodily life is needed in order to give definiteness and solidity to the conception of immortality.

Before the Gospel came men's belief in a future life was vague and powerless, mainly because it had no Gospel of the Resurrection, and so nothing tangible to lay hold on. The Gospel has made the belief in a future state infinitely easier and more powerful, mainly because of the emphasis with which it has proclaimed an actual resurrection and a future bodily life. Its great proof of immortality is drawn, not merely from ethical considerations of the manifest futility of earthly life which has no sequel beyond the grave, nor from the intuitions and longings of men's souls, but from the historical fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of His Ascension in bodily form into heaven. It proclaims these two facts as parts of His experience, and asserts that when He rose from the dead and ascended up on high, He did so as the first-born among many brethren,' their forerunner and their pattern. It is this which gives the Gospel its power, and thus transforms a vague and shadowy conception of immortality into a solid faith, for which we have already an historical guarantee. Stupendous mysteries still veil the nature of the resurrection process, though these are exaggerated into inconceivabilities by false notions of what constitutes personal identity; but if the choice lies between accepting the Christian doctrine of a resurrection and the conception of a finite spirit disembodied and yet active, there can be no doubt as to which of these two is the more reasonable and thinkable. Body, soul, and spirit make the complete triune man.

The thought of the future life as a bodily life satisfies the longings of the heart. Much natural shrinking from death comes from unwillingness to part company with an old companion and friend. As Paul puts it in 2nd Corinthians, Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon.' All thoughts of the future which do not give prominence to the idea of a bodily life open up but a ghastly and uninviting mode of existence, which cannot but repel those who are accustomed to the fellowship of their bodies, and they feel that they cannot think of themselves as deprived of that which was their servant and instrument, through all the years of their earthly consciousness.

II. The Body That Shall Be' Is An Emancipated Body.

The varied gifts of the Spirit bestowed upon the Christian Church served to quicken the hope of the yet greater gifts of that indwelling Spirit which were yet to come. Chief amongst these our text considers the transformation of the earthly into a spiritual body. This transformation our text regards as being the participation by the body in the redemption by which Christ has bought us with the great price of His blood. We have to interpret the language here in the light of the further teaching of Paul in the great Resurrection chapter of 1st Corinthians, which distinctly lays stress, not on the identity of the corporeal frame which is laid in the grave with the body of glory,' but upon the entire contrast between the' natural body,' which is fit organ for the lower nature, and is informed by it, and the spiritual body,' which is fit organ for the spirit. We have to interpret the resurrection of the body' by the definite apostolic declaration, Thou sowest not that body that shall be … but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him ; and we have to give full weight to the contrasts which the Apostle draws between the characteristics of that which is sown' and of that which is' raised.' The one is' sown in corruption and raised in incorruption.' Natural decay is contrasted with immortal youth. The one is sown in dishonour,' the other is raised in glory.' That contrast is ethical, and refers either to the subordinate position of the body here in relation to the spirit, or to the natural sense of shame, or to the ideas of degradation which are attached to the indulgence of the appetites. The one is sown in weakness,' the other is raised in power'; the one is sown a natural body,' the other is raised a spiritual body.' Is not Paul in this whole series of contrasts thinking primarily of the vision which he saw on the road to Damascus when the risen Christ appeared before him? And had not the years which had passed since then taught him to see in the ascended Christ the prophecy and the pattern of what His servants should become? We have further to keep in view Paul's other representation in 2nd Corinthians v., where he strongly puts the contrast between the corporeal environment of earth and the body of glory,' which belongs to the future life, in his two images: the earthly house of this tabernacle,'--a clay hut which lasts but for a time,--and the building of God, the house not made with hands and eternal.' The body is an occasion of separation from the Lord.

These considerations may well lead us to, at least, general outlines on which a confident and peaceful hope may fix. For example, they lead us to the thought that that redeemed body is no more subject to decay and death, is no more weighed upon by weakness and weariness, has no work beyond its strength, needs no sustenance by food, and no refreshment of sleep. The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them,' suggests strength constantly communicated by a direct divine gift. And from all these negative characteristics there follows that there will be in that future bodily life no epochs of age marked by bodily changes. The two young men who were seen sitting in the sepulchre of Jesus had lived before Adam, and would seem as young if we saw them to-day.

Similarly the redeemed body will be a more perfect instrument for communication with the external universe. We know that the present body conditions our knowledge, and that our senses do not take cognisance of all the qualities of material things. Microscopes and telescopes have enlarged our field of vision, and have brought the infinitely small and the infinitely distant within our range. Our ear hears vibrations at a certain rate per second, and no doubt if it were more delicately organised we could hear sounds where now is silence. Sometimes the creatures whom we call' inferior' seem to have senses that apprehend much of which we are not aware. Balaam's ass saw the obstructing angel before Balaam did. Nor is there any reason to suppose that all the powers of the mind find tools to work with in the body. It is possible that that body which is the fit instrument of the spirit may become its means of knowing more deeply, thinking more wisely, understanding more swiftly, comprehending more widely, remembering more firmly and judging more soundly. It is possible that the contrast between then and now may be like the contrast between telegraph and slow messenger in regard to the rapidity, between photograph and poor daub in regard to the truthfulness, between a full-orbed circle and a fragmentary arc in regard to the completeness of the messages which the body brings to the indwelling self.

But, once more, the body unredeemed has appetites and desires which may lead to their own satisfaction, which do lead to sordid cares and weary toil. The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.' The redeemed body will have in it nothing to tempt and nothing to clog, but will be a helper to the spirit and a source of strength. Glorious work of God as the body is, it has its weaknesses, its limitations, and its tendencies to evil. We must not be tempted into brooding over unanswered questions as to How do the dead rise, and with what body do they come?' But we can lift our eyes to the mountain-top where Jesus went up to pray. And as He prayed the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment became white and dazzling'; and He was capable of entering into the Shekinah cloud and holding fellowship therein with the Father, who attested His Sonship and bade us listen to His voice. And we can look to Olivet and follow the ascending Jesus as He lets His benediction drop on the upturned faces of His friends, until He again passes into the Shekinah cloud, and leaving the world, goes to the Father. And from both His momentary transfiguration and His permanent Ascension we can draw the certain assurance that He shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.'

III. The Redeemed Body Is A Consequence Of Christ's Indwelling Spirit.

It is no natural result of death or resurrection, but is the outcome of the process begun on earth, by which, through faith and the righteousness of faith,' the spirit is life. The context distinctly enforces this view by its double use of' adoption,' which in one aspect has already been received, and is manifested by the fact that now are we the sons of God,' and in another aspect is still waited' for. The Christian man in his regenerated spirit has been born again; the Christian man still waits for the completion of that sonship in a time when the regenerated spirit will no longer dwell in the clay cottage of this tabernacle,' but will inhabit a congruous dwelling in the building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'

Scripture is too healthy and comprehensive to be contented with a merely spiritual regeneration, and is withal gee spiritual to be satisfied with a merely material heaven. It gives full place to both elements, and yet decisively puts all belonging to the latter second. It lays down the laws that for a complete humanity there must be body as well as spirit; that there must be a correspondence between the two, and as is the spirit so must the body be, and further, that the process must begin at the centre and work outwards, so that the spirit must first be transformed, and then the body must be participant of the transformation.

All that Scripture says about rising in glory' is said about believers. It is represented as a spiritual process. They who have the Spirit of God in their spirits because they have it receive the glorified body which is like their Saviour's. It is not enough to die in order to rise glorious.' If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.' The resurrection is promised for all mankind, but it may be a resurrection in which there shall be endless living and no glory, nor any beauty and no blessedness. But the body may be sown in weakness,' and in weakness raised; it may be sown in dishonour' and in dishonour raised; it may be sown dead, and raised a living death. Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.' Does that mean nothing? They that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation,' Does that mean nothing?

There are dark mysteries in these and similar words of Scripture which should make us all pause and solemnly reflect. The sole way which leads to the resurrection of glory is the way of faith in Jesus Christ. If we yield ourselves to Him, He will plant His Spirit in our spirits, will guide and growingly sanctify us through life, will deliver us by the indwelling of the Spirit of life in Him from the law of sin and death. Nor will His transforming power cease till it has pervaded our whole being with its fiery energy, and we stand at the last men like Christ, redeemed in body, soul, and spirit, according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.'

Maclaren: Rom 8:26

The Interceding Spirit

The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.'--Romans 8:26.

PENTECOST was a transitory sign of a perpetual gift. The tongues of fire and the rushing mighty wind, which were at first the most conspicuous results of the gifts of the Spirit, tongues, and prophecies, and gifts of healing, which were to the early Church itself and to onlookers palpable demonstrations of an indwelling power, were little more lasting than the fire and the wind. Does anything remain? This whole great chapter is Paul's triumphant answer to such a question. The Spirit of God dwells in every believer as the source of his true life, is for him the Spirit of adoption,' and witnesses with his spirit that he is a child of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. Not only does that Spirit co-operate with the human spirit in this witness-bearing, but the verse, of which our text is a part, points to another form of co-operation: for the word rendered in the earlier part of the verse helpeth' in the original suggests more distinctly that the Spirit of God in His intercession for us works in association with us.

First, then--

I. The Spirit's Intercession Is Not Carried On Apart From Us.

Much modern hymnology goes wrong in this point, that it represents the Spirit's intercession as presented in heaven rather than as taking place within the personal being of the believer. There is a broad distinction carefully observed throughout Scripture between the representations of the work of Christ and that of the Spirit of Christ. The former in its character and revelation and attainment was wrought upon earth, and in its character of intercession and bestowment of blessings is discharged at the right hand of God in heaven; the whole of the Spirit's work, on the other hand, is wrought in human spirits here. The context speaks of intercession expressed in groanings which cannot be uttered,' and which, unexpressed though they are, are fully understood by Him who searches the heart.' Plainly, therefore, these groanings come from human hearts, and as plainly are the Divine Spirit's voicing them.

II. The Spirit's Intercession In Our Spirits Consists In Our Own Divinely-Inspired Longings.

The Apostle has just been speaking of another groaning within ourselves, which is the expression of the earnest expectation' of the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body ; and he says that that longing will be the more patient the more it is full of hope. This, then, is Paul's conception of the normal attitude of a Christian soul; but that attitude is hard to keep up in one's own strength, because of the distractions of time and sense which are ever tending to disturb the continuity and fixity of that onward look, and to lead us rather to be satisfied with the gross, dull present. That redemption of the body, with all which it implies and includes, ought to be the supreme object to which each Christian heart should ever be turning, and Christian prayers should be directed. But our own daily experience makes us only too sure that such elevation above, and remoteness from earthly thoughts, with all their pettinesses and limitations, is impossible for us in our own strength. As Paul puts it here, We know not what to pray for'; nor can we fix and focus our desires, nor present them as we ought.' It is to this weakness and incompleteness of our desires and prayers that the help of the Spirit is directed. He strengthens our longings by His own direct operation. The more vivid our anticipations and the more steadfast our hopes, and the more our spirits reach out to that future redemption, the more are we bound to discern something more than human imaginings in them, and to be sure that such visions are too good not to be true, too solid to be only the play of our own fancy. The more we are conscious of these experiences as our own, the more certain we shall be that in them it is not we that speak, but the Spirit of the Father that speaketh in us.'

III. These Divinely-Inspired Longings Are Incapable Of Full Expression.

They are shallow feelings that can be spoken. Language breaks down in the attempt to express our deepest emotions and our truest love. For all the deepest things in man, inarticulate utterance is the most self-revealing. Grief can say more in a sob and a tear than in many weak words; love finds its tongue in the light of an eye and the clasp of a hand. The groanings which rise from the depths of the Christian soul cannot be forced into the narrow frame-work of human language; and just because they are unutterable are to be recognised as the voice of the Holy Spirit.

But where amidst the Christian experience of to-day shall we find anything in the least like these unutterable longings after the redemption of the body which Paul here takes it for granted are the experience of all Christians? There is no more startling condemnation of the average Christianity of our times than the calm certainty with which through all this epistle the Apostle takes it for granted that the experience of the Roman Christians will universally endorse his statements. Look for a moment at what these statements are. Listen to the briefest summary of them: We cry, Abba, Father'; We are children of God'; We suffer with Him that we may be glorified with Him'; Glory shall be revealed to usward'; We have the first-fruits of the Spirit'; We ourselves groan within ourselves'; By hope were we saved'; We hope for that which we see not'; Then do we with patience wait for it'; We know that to them that love God all things work together for good'; In all these things we are more than conquerors'; Neither death nor life … nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God.' He believed that in these rapturous and triumphant words he was gathering together the experience of every Roman Christian, and would evoke from their lips a confident Amen.' Where are the communities to-day in whose hearing these words could be reiterated with the like assurance? How few among us there are who know anything of these groanings which cannot be uttered!' How few among us there are whose spirits are stretching out eager desires towards the land of perpetual summer, like migratory birds in northern latitudes when the autumn days are shortening and the temperature is falling!

But, however we must feel that our poor experience falls far short of the ideal in our text, an ideal which was to some extent realised in the early Christian Church, we must beware of taking the imperfections of our experience as any evidence of the unreality of our ,Christianity. They are a proof that we have limited and impeded the operation of the Spirit within us. They teach us that He will not intercede with groanings which cannot be uttered' unless we let Him speak through our voices. Therefore, if we find that in our own consciousness there is little to correspond to those unuttered groanings, we should take the warning: Quench not the Spirit.' Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption.'

IV. The Unuttered Longings Are Sure To Be Answered.

He that searcheth the heart knows the meaning of the Spirit's unspoken prayers; and looking into the depths of the human spirit interprets its longings, discriminating between the mere human and partial expression and the divinely-inspired desire which may be unexpressed. If our prayers are weak, they are answered in the measure in which they embody in them, though perhaps mistaken by us, a divine longing. Apparent disappointment of our petitions may be real answers to our real prayer. It was because Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus that He abode still in the same place where He was, to let Lazarus die that He might be raised again. That was the true answer to the sisters' hope of His immediate coming. God's way of giving to us is to breathe within us a desire, and then to answer the desire inbreathed. So, longing is the prophecy of fulfilment when it is longing according to the will of God. They who hunger and thirst after righteousness' may ever be sure that their bread shall be given them, and their water will be made sure. The true object of our desires is often not clear to us, and so we err in translating it into words. Let us be thankful that we pray to a God who can discern the prayer within the prayer, and often gives the substance of our petitions in the very act of refusing their form.

Maclaren: Rom 8:32

The Gift That Brings All Gifts

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?'--Romans 8:32.

WE have here an allusion to, if not a distinct quotation from, the narrative in Genesis, of Abraham's offering up of Isaac. The same word which is employed in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, to translate the Hebrew word rendered in our Bible as withheld,' is employed here by the Apostle. And there is evidently floating before his mind the thought that, in some profound and real sense, there is an analogy between that wondrous and faithful act of giving up and the transcendent and stupendous gift to the world, from God, of His Son.

If we take that point of view, the language of my text rises into singular force, and suggests many very deep thoughts, about which, perhaps, silence is best.

But led by that analogy, let us deal with these words.

I. Consider This Mysterious Act Of Divine Surrender.

The analogy seems to suggest to us, strange as it may be, and remote from the cold and abstract ideas of the divine nature which it is thought to be philosophical to cherish, that something corresponding to the pain and loss that shadowed the patriarch's heart flitted across the divine mind when the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Not merely to give, but to give up, is the highest crown and glory of love, as we know it. And who shall venture to say that we so fully apprehend the divine nature as to be warranted in declaring that some analogy to that is impossible for Him? Our language is, I will not offer unto God that which doth cost me nothing.' Let us bow in silence before the dim intimation that seems to flicker out of the words of my text, that so He says to us, I will not offer unto you that which doth cost Me nothing.' He spared not His own Son'; withheld Him not from us.

But passing from that which, I dare say, many of you may suppose to be fanciful and unwarranted, let us come upon the surer ground of the other words of my text. And notice how the reality of the surrender is emphasised by the closeness of the bond which, in the mysterious eternity, knits together the Father and the Son. As with Abraham, so in this lofty example, of which Abraham and Isaac were but as dim, wavering reflections in water, the Son is His own Son. It seems to me impossible, upon any fair interpretation of the words before us, to refrain from giving to that epithet here its very highest and most mysterious sense. It cannot be any mere equivalent for Messiah, it cannot merely mean a man who was like God in purity of nature and in closeness of communion. For the force of the analogy and the emphasis of that word which is even more emphatic in the Greek than in the English His own Son,' point to a community of nature, to a uniqueness and singleness of relation, to a closeness of intimacy, to which no other is a parallel. And so we have to estimate the measure of the surrender by the tenderness and awfulness of the bond. Having one Son, His well-beloved, He sent Him.'

Notice, again, how the greatness of the surrender is made more emphatic by the contemplation of it in its double negative and positive aspect, in the two successive clauses. He spared not His Son, but delivered Him up,' an absolute, positive giving of Him over to the humiliation of the life and to the mystery of the death.

And notice how the tenderness and the beneficence that were the sole motive of the surrender are lifted into light in the last words, for us all.' The single, sole reason that bowed, if I may so say, the divine purpose, and determined the mysterious act, was a pure desire for our blessing. No definition is given as to the manner in which that surrender wrought for our good. The Apostle does not need to dwell upon that. His purpose is to emphasise the entire unselfishness, the utter simplicity of the motive which moved the divine will. One great throb of love to the whole of humanity led to that transcendent surrender, before which we can only bow and say,' Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.'

And now, notice how this mysterious act is grasped by the Apostle here as what I may call the illuminating fact as to the whole divine nature. From it, and from it alone, there falls a blaze of light on the deepest things in God. We are accustomed to speak of Christ's perfect life of unselfishness, and His death of pure beneficence, as being the great manifestation to us all that in His heart there is an infinite fountain of love to us. We are, further, accustomed to speak of Christ's mission and death as being the revelation to us of the love of God as well as of the Man Christ Jesus, because we believe that God was in Christ reconciling the world,' and that He has so manifested and revealed the very nature of divinity to us, in His life and in His person, that, as He Himself says, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' And every conclusion that we draw as to the love of Christ is, ipso facto, a conclusion as to the love of God. But my text looks at the matter from rather a different point of view, and bids us see, in Christ's mission and sacrifice, the great demonstration of the love of God, not only because God was in Christ,' but because the Father's will, conceived of as distinct from, and yet harmonious with, the will of the Son, gives Him up for us. And we have to say, not only that we see the love of God in the love of Christ, but God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son' that we might have life through Him.

These various phases of the love of Christ as manifesting the divine love, may not be capable of perfect harmonising in our thoughts, but they do blend into one, and by reason of them all,' God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' We have to think not only of Abraham who gave up, but of the unresisting, innocent Isaac, bearing on his shoulders the wood for the burnt offering, as the Christ bore the Cross on His, and suffering himself to be bound upon the pile, not only by the cords that tied his limbs, but by the cords of obedience and submission, and in both we have to bow before the Apocalypse of divine love.

II. So, Secondly, Look At The Power Of This Divine Surrender To Bring With It All Other Gifts.

How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?' The Apostle's triumphant question requires for its affirmative answer only the belief in the unchangeableness of the Divine heart, and the uniformity of the Divine purpose. And if these be recognised, their conclusion inevitably follows. With Him He will freely give us all things.'

It is so, because the greater gift implies the less. We do not expect that a man who hands over a million of pounds to another, to help him, will stick at a farthing afterwards. If you give a diamond you may well give a box to keep it in. In God's gift the lesser will follow the lead of the greater; and whatsoever a man can want, it is a smaller thing for Him to bestow, than was the gift of His Son.

There is a beautiful contrast between the manners of giving the two sets of gifts implied in words of the original, perhaps scarcely capable of being reproduced in any translation. The expression that is rendered freely give,' implies that there is a grace and a pleasantness in the act of bestowal. God gave in Christ, what we may reverently say it was something like pain to give. Will He not give the lesser, whatever they may be, which it is the joy of His heart to communicate? The greater implies the less.

Farther, this one great gift draws all other gifts after it, because the purpose of the greater gift cannot be attained without the bestowment of the lesser. He does not begin to build being unable to finish; He does not miscalculate His resources, nor stultify Himself by commencing upon a large scale, and having to stop short before the purpose with which He began is accomplished. Men build great palaces, and are bankrupt before the roof is put on. God lays His plans with the knowledge of His powers, and having first of all bestowed this large gift, is not going to have it bestowed in vain for want of some smaller ones to follow it up. Christ puts the same argument to us, beginning only at the other end of the process. Paul says, God has laid the foundation in Christ.' Do you think He will stop before the headstone is put on? Christ said, It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.' Do you think He will not give you bread and water on the road to it? Will He send out His soldiers half-equipped; will it be found when they are on their march that they have been started with a defective commissariat, and with insufficient trenching tools? Shall the children of the King, on the road to their thrones, be left to scramble along anyhow, in want of what they need to get there? That is not God's way of doing. He that hath begun a good work will also perfect the same, and when He gave to you and me His Son, He bound Himself to give us every subsidiary and secondary blessing which was needed to make that Son's work complete in each of us.

Again, this great blessing draws after it, by necessary consequence, all other lesser and secondary gifts, inasmuch as, in every real sense, everything is included and possessed in the Christ when we receive Him. With Him,' says Paul, as if that gift once laid in a man's heart actually enclosed within it, and had for its indispensable accompaniment the possession of every smaller thing that a man can need, Jesus Christ is, as it were, a great Cornucopia, a horn of abundance, out of which will pour, with magic affluence, all manner of supplies according as we require. This fountain flows with milk, wine, and water, as men need. Everything is given us when Christ is given to us, because Christ is the Heir of all things, and we possess all things in Him; as some poor village maiden married to a prince in disguise, who, on the morrow of her wedding finds that she is lady of broad lands, and mistress of a kingdom. He that spared not His own Sou,' not only with Him will give,' but in Him has given us all things.'

And so, brethren, just as that great gift is the illuminating fact in reference to the divine heart, so is it the interpreting fact in reference to the divine dealings. Only when we keep firm hold of Christ as the gift of God, and the Explainer of all that God does, can we face the darkness, the perplexities, the torturing questions that from the beginning have harassed men's minds as they looked upon the mysteries of human misery. If we recognise that God has given us His Son, then all things become, if not plain, at least lighted with some gleam from that great gift; and we feel that the surrender of Christ is the constraining fact which shapes after its own likeness, and for its own purpose, all the rest of God's dealings with men. That gift makes anything believable, reasonable, possible, rather than that He should spare not His own Son, and then should counterwork His own act by Bending the world anything but good.

III. And Now, Lastly, Take One Or Two Practical Issues From These Thoughts, In Reference To Our Own Belief And Conduct.

First, I would say, Let us correct our estimates of the relative importance of the two sets of gifts. On the one side stands the solitary Christ; on the other side are massed all delights of sense, all blessings of time, all the things that the vulgar estimation of men unanimously recognises to be good. These are only make-weights. They are all lumped together into an also.' They are but the golden dust that may be filed off from the great ingot and solid block. They are but the outward tokens of His far deeper and true preciousness. They are secondary; He is the primary. What an inversion of our notions of good! Do you degrade all the world's wealth, pleasantness, ease, prosperity, into an also?' Are you content to put it in the secondary place, as a result, if it please Him, of Christ? Do you live as if you did? Which do you hunger for most? Which do you labour for hardest? Seek ye first the Kingdom' and the King, and all these things shall be added unto you.'

Let these thoughts teach us that sorrow too is one of the gifts of the Christ. The words of my text, at first sight, might seem to be simply a promise of abundant earthly good. But look what lies close beside them, and is even part of the same triumphant burst. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?' These are some of the all things' which Paul expected that God would give him and his brethren. And looking upon all, he says, They all work together for good'; and in them all we may be more than conquerors. It would be a poor, shabby issue of such a great gift as that of which we have been speaking, if it were only to be followed by the sweetnesses and prosperity and wealth of this world. But here is the point that we have to keep hold of--inasmuch as He gives us all things, let us take all the things that come to us as being as distinctly the gifts of His love, as is the gift of Christ Himself. A wise physician, to an ignorant onlooker, might seem to be acting in contradictory fashions when in the one moment he slashes into a limb, with a sharp, gleaming knife, and in the next sedulously binds the wounds, and closes the arteries, but the purpose of both acts is one.

The diurnal revolution of the earth brings the joyful sunrise and the pathetic sunset. The same annual revolution whirls us through the balmy summer days and the biting winter ones. God's purpose is one. His methods vary. The road goes straight to its goal; but it sometimes runs in tunnels dank and dark and stifling, and sometimes by sunny glades and through green pastures. God's purpose is always love, brother. His withdrawals are gifts, and sorrow is not the least of the benefits which come to us through the Man of Sorrows.

So again, let these thoughts teach us to live by a very quiet and peaceful faith. We find it a great deal easier to trust God for Heaven than for earth--for the distant blessings than for the near ones. Many a man will venture his soul into God's hands, who would hesitate to venture to-morrow's food there. Why? Is it not because we do not really trust Him for the greater that we find it so hard to trust Him for the less? Is it not because we want the less more really than we want the greater, that we can put ourselves off with faith for the one, and want something more solid to grasp for the other? Live in the calm confidence that God gives all things; and gives us for to-morrow as for eternity; for earth as for heaven.

And, last of all, make you quite sure that you have taken the great gift of God. He gives it to all the world, but they only have it who accept it by faith. Have you, my brother? I look out upon the lives of the mass of professing Christians; and this question weighs on my heart, judging by conduct--have they really got Christ for their own? Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?' Look how you are all fighting and scrambling, and sweating and fretting, to get hold of the goods of this present life, and here is a gift gleaming before you all the while that you will not condescend to take. Like a man standing in a market-place offering sovereigns for nothing, which nobody accepts because they think the offer is too good to be true, so God complains and wails: I have stretched out My hands all the day, laden with gifts, and no man regarded.

It is only heaven may be had for the asking It is only God that is given away.'

He gives His Son. Take Him by humble faith in His sacrifice and Spirit; take Him, and with Him He freely gives you all things.

Maclaren: Rom 8:37

More Than Conquerors

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.'--Romans 8:37.

IN order to understand and feel the full force of this triumphant saying of the Apostle, we must observe that it is a negative answer to the preceding questions, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?' A heterogeneous mass the Apostle here brigades together as an antagonistic army. They are alike in nothing except that they are all evils. There is no attempt at an exhaustive enumeration, or at classification. He clashes down, as it were, a miscellaneous mass of evil things, and then triumphs over them, and all the genus to which they belong, as being utterly impotent to drag men away from Jesus Christ. To ask the question is to answer it, but the form of the answer is worth notice. Instead of directly replying, No!no such powerless things as these can separate us from the love of Christ,' he says, No! In all these things, whilst weltering amongst them, whilst ringed round about by them, as by encircling enemies, "we are more than conquerors."Thereby, he suggests that there is something needing to be done by us, in order that the foes may not exercise their natural effect. And so, taking the words of my text in connection with .that to which they are an answer, we have three things--the impotent enemies of love; the abundant victory of love; We are more than conquerors'; and the love that makes us victorious. Let us look then at these three things briefly.

I. First Of All, The Impotent Enemies Of Love.

There is contempt in the careless massing together of the foes which the Apostle enumerates. He begins with the widest word that covers everything--affliction.' Then he specifies various forms of it--distress,' straitening, as the word might be rendered, then he comes to evils inflicted for Christ's sake by hostile men--persecution,' then he names purely physical evils, hunger' and nakedness,' then he harks back again to man's antagonism, peril,' and sword.' And thus carelessly, and without an effort at logical order, he throws together, as specimens of their class, these salient points, as it were, and crests of the great sea, whose billows threaten to roll over us; and he laughs at them all, as impotent and nought, when compared with the love of Christ, which shields us from them all.

Now it must be noticed that here, in his triumphant question, the Apostle means not our love to Christ but His to us; and not even our sense of that love, but the fact itself. And his question is just this:--Is there any evil in the world that can make Christ stop loving a man that cleaves to Him? And, as I said, to ask the question is to answer it. The two things belong to two different regions. They have nothing in common. The one moves amongst the low levels of earth; the other dwells up amidst the abysses of eternity, and to suppose that anything that assails and afflicts us here has any effect in making that great heart cease to love us is to fancy that the mists can quench the sunlight, is to suppose that that which lies down low in the earth can rise to poison and to darken the heavens.

There is no need, in order to rise to the full height of the Christian contempt for calamity, to deny any of its terrible power. These things can separate us from much. They can separate us from joy, from hope, from almost all that makes life desirable. They can strip us to the very quick, but the quick they cannot touch. The frost comes and kills the flowers, browns the leaves, cuts off the stems, binds the sweet music of the flowing rivers in silent chains, casts mists and darkness over the face of the solitary grey world, but it does not touch the life that is in the root, And so all these outward sorrows that have power over the whole of the outward life, and can slay joy and all but stifle hope, and can ban men into irrevocable darkness and unalleviated solitude, they do not touch in the smallest degree the secret bond that binds the heart to Jesus, nor in any measure affect the flow of His love to us. Therefore we may front them and smile at them and say:

Do as thou wilt, devouring time,With this wide world, and all its fading sweets'!

my flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.'

You need not be very much afraid of anything being taken from you as long as Christ is left you. You will not be altogether hopeless so long as Christ, who is our hope, still speaks His faithful promises to you, nor will the world be lonely and dark to them who feel that they are lapt in the sweet and all-pervading consciousness of the changeless love of the heart of Christ. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution?'--in any of these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.' Brethren, that is the Christian way of looking at all externals, not only at the dark and the sorrowful, but at the bright and the gladsome. If the withdrawal of external blessings does not touch the central sanctities and sweetness of a life in communion with Jesus, the bestowal of external blessedness does not much brighten or gladden it. We can face the withdrawal of them all, we need not covet the possession of them all, for we have all in Christ; and the world without His love contributes less to our blessedness and our peace than the absence of all its joys with His love does. So let us feel that earth, in its givings and in its withholdings, is equally impotent to touch the one thing that we need, the conscious possession of the love of Christ.

All these foes, as I have said, have no power over the fact of Christ's love to us, but they have power, and a very terrible power, over our consciousness of that love; and we may so kick against the pricks as to lose, in the pain of our sorrows, the assurance of His presence, or be so fascinated by the false and vulgar sweetnesses and promises of the world as, in the eagerness of our chase after them, to lose our sense of the all-sufficing certitude of His love. Tribulation does not strip us of His love, but tribulation may so darken our perceptions that we cannot see the sun. Joys need not rob us of His heart, but joys may so fill ours, as that there shall be no longing for His presence within us. Therefore let us not exaggerate the impotence of these foes, but feel that there are real dangers, as in the sorrows so in the blessings of our outward life, and that the evil to be dreaded is that outward things, whether in their bright or in their dark aspects, may come between-us and the home of our hearts, the love of the loving Christ.

II. So Then, Note Next, The Abundant Victory Of Love.

Mark how the Apostle, in his lofty and enthusiastic way, is not content here with simply saying that he and his fellows conquer. It would be a poor thing, he seems to think, if the balance barely inclined to our side, if the victory were but just won by a hair's breadth and triumph were snatched, as it were, out of the very jaws of defeat. There must be something more than that to correspond to the power of the victorious Christ that is in us. And so, he says, we very abundantly conquer; we not only hinder these things which he has been enumerating from doing that which it is their aim apparently to do, but we actually convert them into helpers or allies. The more than conquerors' seems to mean, if there is any definite idea to be attached to it, the conversion of the enemy conquered into a friend and a helper. The American Indians had a superstition that every foe tomahawked sent fresh strength into the warrior's arm. And so all afflictions and trials rightly borne, and therefore overcome, make a man stronger, and bring him nearer to Jesus Christ.

Note then, further, that not only is this victory more than bare victory, being the conversion of the enemy into allies, but that it is a victory which is won even whilst we are in the midst of the strife. It is not that we shall be conquerors in some far-off heaven, when the noise of battle has ceased and they hang the trumpet in the hall, but it is here now, in the hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot death-grapple that we do overcome. No ultimate victory, in some far-off and blessed heaven, will be ours unless moment by moment, here, to-day, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.'

So, then, about this abundant victory there are these things to say:--You conquer the world only, then, when you make it contribute to your conscious possession of the love of Christ. That is the real victory, the only real victory in life. Men talk about overcoming here on earth, and they mean thereby the accomplishment of their designs. A man has victory,' as it is phrased, in the world's strife, when he secures for himself the world's goods at which he has aimed, but that is not the Christian idea of the conquest of calamity. Everything that makes me feel more thrillingly in my inmost heart the verity and the sweetness of the love of Jesus Christ as my very own, is conquered by me and compelled to subserve my highest good, and everything which slips a film between me and Him, which obscures the light of His face to me, which makes me less desirous of, and less sure of, and less happy in, and less satisfied with, His love, is an enemy that has conquered me. And all these evils as the world calls them, and as our bleeding hearts have often felt them to be, are converted into allies and friends when they drive us to Christ, and keep us close to Him, in the conscious possession of His sweet and changeless love. That is the victory, and the only victory. Has the world helped me to lay hold of Christ? Then I have conquered it. Has the world loosened my grasp upon Him? Then it has conquered me.

Note then, further, that this abundant victory depends on how we deal with the changes of our outward lives, our sorrows or our joys. There is nothing, per se, salutary in affliction, there is nothing, per se, antagonistic to Christian faith in it either. No man is made better by his sorrows, no man need be made worse by them. That depends upon how we take the things which come storming against us. The set of your sails, and the firmness of your grasp upon the tiller, determine whether the wind shall carry you to the haven or shall blow you out, a wandering waif, upon a shoreless and melancholy sea. There are some of you that have been blown away from your moorings by sorrow. There are some professing Christians who have been hindered in their work, and had their peace and their faith shattered all but irrevocably, because they have not accepted, in the spirit in which they were sent, the trials that have come for their good, The worst of all afflictions is a wasted affliction, and they are all wasted unless they teach us more of the reality and the blessedness of the love of Jesus Christ.

III. Lastly, Notice The Love Which Makes Us Conquerors.

The Apostle, with a wonderful" instinctive sense of fitness, names Christ here by a name congruous to the thoughts which occupy his mind, when he speaks of Him that loved us. His question has been, Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? And his answer is, So far from that being the case, that very love, by occasion of sorrows and afflictions, tightens its grasp upon us, and, by the communication of itself to us, makes us more than conquerors. This great love of Jesus Christ, from which nothing can separate us, will use the very things that seem to threaten our separation as a means of coming nearer to us in its depth and in its preciousness.

The Apostle says Him that loved us,' and the words in the original distinctly point to some one fact as being the great instance of love. That is to say they point to His death. And so we may say Christ's love helps us to conquer because in His death He interprets for us all possible sorrows. If it be true that love to each of us nailed Him there, then nothing that can come to us but must be a love-token, and a fruit of that same love. The Cross is the key to all tribulation, and shows it to be a token and an instrument of an unchanging love.

Further, that great love of Christ helps us to conquer, because in His sufferings and death He becomes the Companion of all the weary. The rough, dark, lonely road changes its look when we see His footprints there, not without specks of blood in them, where the thorns tore His feet. We conquer our afflictions if we recognise that in all our afflictions He was afflicted,' and that Himself has drunk to its bitterest dregs the cup which He commends to our lips. He has left a kiss upon its margin, and we need not shrink when He holds it out to us and says Drink ye all of it.' That one thought of the companionship of the Christ in our sorrows makes us more than conquerors.

And lastly, this dying Lover of our souls communicates to us all, if we will, the strength whereby we may coerce all outward things into being helps to the fuller participation of His perfect love. Our sorrows and all the other distracting externals do seek to drag us away from Him. Is all that happens in counteraction to that pull of the world, that we tighten our grasp upon Him, and will not let Him go; as some poor wretch might the horns of the altar that did not respond to his grasp? Nay I what we lay hold of is no dead thing, but a living hand, and it grasps us more tightly than we can ever grasp it. So because He holds us, and not because we hold Him, we shall not be dragged away, by anything outside of our own weak and wavering souls, and all these embattled foes may come against us, they may shear off everything else, they cannot sever Christ from us unless we ourselves throw Him away. In this thou shalt conquer.' They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of His testimony.'

Maclaren: Rom 8:38-39

Love's Triumph

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.'--Romans 8:38-39.

THESE rapturous words are the climax of the Apostle's long demonstration that the Gospel is the revelation of' the righteousness of God from faith to faith,' and is thereby the power of God unto salvation.' What a contrast there is between the beginning and the end of his argument! It started with sombre, sad words about man's sinfulness and aversion from the knowledge of God. It closes with this sunny outburst of triumph; like some stream rising among black and barren cliffs, or melancholy moorlands, and foaming through narrow rifts in gloomy ravines, it reaches at last fertile lands, and flows calm, the sunlight dancing on its broad surface, till it loses itself at last in the unfathomable ocean of the love of God.

We are told that the Biblical view of human nature is too dark. Well, the important question is not whether it is dark, but whether it is true. But, apart from that, the doctrine of Scripture about man's moral condition is not dark, if you will take the whole of it together. Certainly, a part of it is very dark. The picture, for instance, of what men are, painted at the beginning of this Epistle, is shadowed like a canvas of Rembrandt's. The Bible is Nature's sternest painter but her best.' But to get the whole doctrine of Scripture on the subject, we have to take its confidence as to what men may become, as well as its portrait of what they are--and then who will say that the anthropology of Scripture is gloomy? To me it seems that the unrelieved blackness of the view which, because it admits no fall, can imagine no rise, which sees in all man's sins and sorrows no token of the dominion of an alien power, and has, therefore, no reason to believe that they can be separated from humanity, is the true Gospel of despair,' and that the system which looks steadily at all the misery and all the wickedness, and calmly proposes to cast it all out, is really the only doctrine of human nature which throws any gleam of light on the darkness. Christianity begins indeed with, There is none that doeth good, no, not one,' but it ends with this victorious paean of our text.

And what a majestic close it is to the great words that have gone before, fitly crowning even their lofty height! One might well shrink from presuming to take such words as a text, with any idea of exhausting or of enhancing them. My object is very much more humble. I simply wish to bring out the remarkable order, in which Paul here marshals, in his passionate, rhetorical amplification, all the enemies that can be supposed to seek to wrench us away from the love of God; and triumphs over them all. We shall best measure the fullness of the words by simply taking these clauses as they stand in the text.

I. The Love Of God Is Unaffected By The Extremest Changes Of Our Condition.

The Apostle begins his fervid catalogue of vanquished foes by a pair of opposites which might seem to cover the whole ground--neither death nor life.' What more can be said? Surely, these two include everything. From one point of view they do. But yet, as we shall see, there is more to be said. And the special reason for beginning with this pair of possible enemies is probably to be found by remembering that they are a pair, that between them they do cover the whole ground and represent the extremes of change which can befall us. The one stands at the one pole, the other at the other. If these two stations, so far from each other, are equally near to God's love, then no intermediate point can be far from it. If the most violent change which we can experience does not in the least matter to the grasp which the love of God has on us, or to the grasp which we may have on it, then no less violent a change can be of any consequence. It is the same thought in a somewhat modified form, as we find in another word of Paul's, Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord.' Our subordination to Him is the same, and our consecration should be the same, in all varieties of condition, even in that greatest of all variations. His love to us makes no account of that mightiest of changes. How should it be affected by slighter ones?

The distance of a star is measured by the apparent change in its position, as seen from different points of the earth's surface or orbit. But this great Light stands steadfast in our heaven, nor moves a hair's-breadth, nor pours a feebler ray on us, whether we look up to it from the midsummer day of busy life, or from "the midwinter of death. These opposites are parted by a distance to which the millions of miles of the world's path among the stars are but a point, and yet the love of God streams down on them alike.

Of course, the confidence in immortality is implied in this thought. Death does not, in the slightest degree, affect the essential vitality of the soul; so it does not, in the slightest degree, affect the outflow of God's love to that soul. It is a change of condition and circumstance, and no more. He does not lose us in the dust of death. The withered leaves on the pathway are trampled into mud, and indistinguishable to human eyes; but He sees them even as when they hung green and sunlit on the mystic tree of life.

How beautifully this thought contrasts with the saddest aspect of the power of death in our human experience! He is Death the Separator, who unclasps our hands from the closest, dearest grasp, and divides asunder joints and marrow, and parts soul and body, and withdraws us from all our habitude and associations and occupations, and loosens every bond of society and concord, and hales us away into a lonely land. But there is one bond which his abhorred shears' cannot cut. Their edge is turned on it. One Hand holds us in a grasp which the fleshless fingers of Death in vain strive to loosen. The separator becomes the uniter; he rends us apart from the world that He may bring us to God.' The love filtered by drops on us in life is poured upon us in a flood in death; for I am persuaded, that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God.'

II. The Love Of God Is Undiverted From Us By Any Other Order Of Beings.

Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,' says Paul. Here we pass from conditions affecting ourselves to living beings beyond ourselves. Now, it is important for understanding the precise thought of the Apostle to observe that this expression, when used without any qualifying adjective, seems uniformly to mean good angels, the hierarchy of blessed spirits before the throne. So that there is no reference to spiritual wickedness in high places' striving to draw men away from God. The supposition which the Apostle makes is, indeed, an impossible one, that these ministering spirits, who are sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation, should so forget their mission and contradict their nature as to seek to bar us out from the love which it is their chiefest joy to bring to us. He knows it to be an impossible supposition, and its very impossibility gives energy to his conclusion, just as when in the same fashion he makes the other equally impossible supposition about an angel from heaven preaching another gospel than that which he had preached to them.

So we may turn the general thought of this second category of impotent efforts in two different ways, and suggest, first, that it implies the utter powerlessness of any third party in regard to the relations between our souls and God.

We alone have to do with Him alone. The awful fact of individuality, that solemn mystery of our personal being, has its most blessed or its most dread manifestation in our relation to God. There no other Being has any power. Counsel and stimulus, suggestion or temptation, instruction or lies, which may tend to lead us nearer to Him or away from Him, they may indeed give us; but after they have done their best or their worst, all depends on the personal act of our own innermost being. Man or angel can affect that, but from without. The old mystics called prayer the flight of the lonely soul to the only God.' It is the name for all religion. These two, God and the soul, have to transact,' as our Puritan forefathers used to say, as if there were no other beings in the universe but only they two. Angels and principalities and powers may stand beholding with sympathetic joy; they may minister blessing and guardianship in many ways; but the decisive act of union between God and the soul they can neither effect nor prevent.

And as for them, so for men around us; the limits of their power to harm us are soon set. They may shut us out from human love by calumnies, and dig deep gulfs of alienation between us and dear ones; they may hurt and annoy us in a thousand ways with slanderous tongues, and arrows dipped in poisonous hatred, but one thing they cannot do. They may build a wall around us, and imprison us from many a joy and many a fair prospect, but they cannot put a roof on it to keep out the sweet influences from above, or hinder us from looking up to the heavens. Nobody can come between us and God but ourselves.

Or, we may turn this general thought in another direction, and say, These blessed spirits around the throne do not absorb and intercept His love. They gather about its steps in their solemn troops and sweet societies'; but close as are their ranks, and innumerable as is their multitude, they do not prevent that love from passing beyond them to us on the outskirts of the crowd. The planet nearest the sun is drenched and saturated with fiery brightness, but the rays from the centre of life pass on to each of the sister spheres in its turn, and travel away outwards to where the remotest of them all rolls in its far-off orbit, unknown for millenniums to dwellers closer to the sun, but through all the ages visited by warmth and light according to its needs. Like that poor, sickly woman who could lay her wasted fingers on the hem of Christ's garment, notwithstanding the thronging multitude, we can reach our hands through all the crowd, or rather He reaches His strong hand to us and heals and blesses us. All the guests are fed full at that great table. One's gain is not another's loss. The multitudes sit on the green grass, and the last man of the last fifty gets as much as the first. They did all eat, and were filled'; and more remains than fed them all. So all beings are nourished from the King's country,' and none jostle others out of their share. This healing fountain is not exhausted of its curative power by the early comers. I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.' Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.'

III. The Love Of God Is Raised Above The Power Of Time.

Nor things present, nor things to come,' is the Apostle's next class of powers impotent to disunite us from the love of God. The rhythmical arrangement of the text deserves to be noticed, as bearing not only on its music and rhetorical flow, but as affecting its force. We had first a pair of opposites, and then a triplet; death and life: angels, principalities, and powers.' We have again a pair of opposites; things present, things to come,' again followed by a triplet, height nor depth, nor any other creature.' The effect of this is to divide the whole into two, and to throw the first and second classes more closely together, as also the third and fourth. Time and Space, these two mysterious ideas, which work so fatally on all human love, are powerless here.

The great revelation of God, on which the whole of Judaism was built, was that made to Moses of the name I Am that I Am.' And parallel to the verbal revelation was the symbol of the Bush, burning and unconsumed, which is so often misunderstood. It appears wholly contrary to the usage of Scriptural visions, which are ever wont to express in material form the same truth which accompanies them in words, that the meaning of that vision should be, as it is frequently taken as being, the continuance of Israel unharmed by the fiery furnace of persecution. Not the continuance of Israel, but the eternity of Israel's God is the teaching of that flaming wonder. The burning Bush and the Name of the Lord proclaimed the same great truth of self-derived, self-determined, timeless, undecaying Being. And what better symbol than the bush burning, and yet not burning out, could be found of that God in whose life there is no tendency to death, whose work digs no pit of weariness into which it falls, who gives and is none the poorer, who fears no exhaustion in His spending, no extinction in His continual shining?

And this eternity of Being is no mere metaphysical abstraction. It is eternity of love, for God is love. That great stream, the pouring out of His own very inmost Being, knows no pause, nor does the deep fountain from which it flows ever sink one hair's-breadth in its pure basin.

We know of earthly loves which cannot die. They have entered so deeply into the very fabric of the soul, that like some cloth dyed in grain, as long as two threads hold together they will retain the tint. We have to thank God for such instances of love stronger than death, which make it easier for us to believe in the unchanging duration of His. But we know, too, of love that can change, and we know that all love must part. Few of us have reached middle life, who do not, looking back, see our track strewed with the gaunt skeletons of dead friendships, and dotted with oaks of weeping,' waving green and mournful over graves, and saddened by footprints striking away from the line of march, and leaving us the more solitary for their departure.

How blessed then to know of a love which cannot change or die! The past, the present, and the future are all the same to Him, to whom a thousand years,' that can corrode so much of earthly love, are in their power to change as one day,' and one day,' which can hold so few of the expressions of our love, may be as a thousand years' in the multitude and richness of the gifts which it can be expanded to contain. The whole of what He has been to any past, He is to us to-day. The God of Jacob is our refuge.' All these old-world stories of loving care and guidance may be repeated in our lives.

So we may bring the blessedness of all the past into the present, and calmly face the misty future, sure that it cannot rob us of His love.

Whatever may drop out of our vainly-clasping hands, it matters not, if only our hearts are stayed on His love, which neither things present nor things to come can alter or remove. Looking on all the flow of ceaseless change, the waste and fading, the alienation and cooling, the decrepitude and decay of earthly affection, we can lift up with gladness, heightened by the contrast, the triumphant song of the ancient Church: Give thanks unto the Lord: for He is good: because His mercy endureth for ever!'

IV. The Love Of God Is Present Everywhere.

The Apostle ends his catalogue with a singular trio of antagonists; nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,' as if he had got impatient of the enumeration of impotencies, and having named the outside boundaries in space of the created universe, flings, as it were, with one rapid toss, into that large room the whole that it can contain, and triumphs over it all, As the former clause proclaimed the powerlessness of Time, so this proclaims the powerlessness of that other great mystery of creatural life which we call Space. Height or depth, it matters not. That diffusive love diffuses itself equally in all directions. Up or down, it is all the same. The distance from the centre is the same to Zenith or to Nadir.

Here, we have the same process applied to that idea of Omnipresence as was applied in the former clause to the idea of Eternity. That thought, so hard to grasp with vividness, and not altogether a glad one to a sinful soul, is all softened and glorified, as some solemn Alpine cliff of bare rock is when the tender morning light glows on it, when it is thought of as the Omnipresence of Love. Thou, God, seest me,' may be a stern word, if the God who sees be but a mighty Maker or a righteous Judge. As reasonably might we expect a prisoner in his solitary cell to be glad when he thinks that the jailer's eye is on him from some unseen spy-hole in the wall, as expect any thought of God but one to make a man read that grand one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm with joy: If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.' So may a man say shudderingly to himself, and tremble as he asks in vain, Whither shall I flee from Thy Presence?' But how different it all is when we can cast over the marble whiteness of that solemn thought the warm hue of life, and change the form of our words into this of our text: Nor height, nor depth, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.'

In that great ocean of the divine love we live and move and have our being, floating in it like some sea flower which spreads its filmy beauty and waves its long tresses in the depths of mid-ocean. The sound of its waters is ever in our ears, and above, beneath, around us, its mighty currents run evermore. We need not cower before the fixed gaze of some stony god, looking on us unmoved like those Egyptian deities that sit pitiless with idle hands on their laps, and wide-open lidless eyes gazing out across the sands. We need not fear the Omnipresence of Love, nor the Omniscience which knows us altogether, and loves us even as it knows. Rather we shall be glad that we are ever in His Presence, and desire, as the height of all felicity and the power for all goodness, to walk all the day long in the light of His countenance, till the day come when we shall receive the crown of our perfecting in that we shall be ever with the Lord.'

The recognition of this triumphant sovereignty of love over all these real and supposed antagonists makes us, too, lords over them, and delivers us from the temptations which some of them present us to separate ourselves from the love of God. They all become our servants and helpers, uniting us to that love. So we are set free from the dread of death and from the distractions incident to life. So we are delivered from superstitious dread of an unseen world, and from craven fear of men. So we are emancipated from absorption in the present and from careful thought for the future. So we are at home everywhere, and every corner of the universe is to us one of the many mansions of our Father's house. All things are yours and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.'

I do not forget the closing words of this great text. I have not ventured to include them in our present subject, because they would have introduced another wide region of thought to be laid down on our already too narrow canvas.

But remember, I beseech you, that this love of God is explained by our Apostle to be in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Love illimitable, all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but a love which has a channel and a course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours itself over the world. It is not, as some representations would make it, a vague, nebulous light diffused through space as in a chaotic half-made universe, but all gathered in that great Light which rules the day--even in Him who said: I am the Light of the world.' In Christ the love of God is all centred and embodied, that it may be imparted to all sinful and hungry hearts, even as burning coals are gathered on a hearth that they may give warmth to all that are in the house. God so loved the world'--not merely so much, but in such a fashion--that'--that what? Many people would leap at once from the first to the last clause of the verse, and regard eternal life for all and sundry as the only adequate expression of the universal love of God. Not so does Christ speak. Between that universal love and its ultimate purpose and desire for every man He inserts two conditions, one on God's part, one on man's. God's love reaches its end, namely, the bestowal of eternal life, by means of a divine act and a human response. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' So all the universal love of God for you and me and for all our brethren is in Christ Jesus our Lord,' and faith in Him unites us to it by bonds which no foe can break, no shock of change can snap, no time can rot, no distance can stretch to breaking. For I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 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.'

MHCC: Rom 8:18-25

The sufferings of the saints strike no deeper than the things of time, last no longer than the present time, are light afflictions, and but for a moment. How vastly different are the sentence of the word and the sentiment of the world, concerning the sufferings of this present time! Indeed the whole creation seems to wait with earnest expectation for the period when the children of God shall be manifested in the glory prepared for them. There is an impurity, deformity, and infirmity, which has come upon the creature by the fall of man. There is an enmity of one creature to another. And they are used, or abused rather, by men as instruments of sin. Yet this deplorable state of the creation is in hope. God will deliver it from thus being held in bondage to man's depravity. The miseries of the human race, through their own and each other's wickedness, declare that the world is not always to continue as it is. Our having received the first-fruits of the Spirit, quickens our desires, encourages our hopes, and raises our expectations. Sin has been, and is, the guilty cause of all the suffering that exists in the creation of God. It has brought on the woes of earth; it has kindled the flames of hell. As to man, not a tear has been shed, not a groan has been uttered, not a pang has been felt, in body or mind, that has not come from sin. This is not all; sin is to be looked at as it affects the glory of God. Of this how fearfully regardless are the bulk of mankind! Believers have been brought into a state of safety; but their comfort consists rather in hope than in enjoyment. From this hope they cannot be turned by the vain expectation of finding satisfaction in the things of time and sense. We need patience, our way is rough and long; but He that shall come, will come, though he seems to tarry.

MHCC: Rom 8:26-27

Though the infirmities of Christians are many and great, so that they would be overpowered if left to themselves, yet the Holy Spirit supports them. The Spirit, as an enlightening Spirit, teaches us what to pray for; as a sanctifying Spirit, works and stirs up praying graces; as a comforting Spirit, silences our fears, and helps us over all discouragements. The Holy Spirit is the spring of all desires toward God, which are often more than words can utter. The Spirit who searches the hearts, can perceive the mind and will of the spirit, the renewed mind, and advocates his cause. The Spirit makes intercession to God, and the enemy prevails not.

MHCC: Rom 8:28-31

That is good for the saints which does their souls good. Every providence tends to the spiritual good of those that love God; in breaking them off from sin, bringing them nearer to God, weaning them from the world, and fitting them for heaven. When the saints act out of character, corrections will be employed to bring them back again. And here is the order of the causes of our salvation, a golden chain, one which cannot be broken. 1. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. All that God designed for glory and happiness as the end, he decreed to grace and holiness as the way. The whole human race deserved destruction; but for reasons not perfectly known to us, God determined to recover some by regeneration and the power of his grace. He predestinated, or before decreed, that they should be conformed to the image of his Son. In this life they are in part renewed, and walk in his steps. 2. Whom he did predestinate, them he also called. It is an effectual call, from self and earth to God, and Christ, and heaven, as our end; from sin and vanity to grace and holiness, as our way. This is the gospel call. The love of God, ruling in the hearts of those who once were enemies to him, proves that they have been called according to his purpose. 3. Whom he called, them he also justified. None are thus justified but those that are effectually called. Those who stand out against the gospel call, abide under guilt and wrath. 4. Whom he justified, them he also glorified. The power of corruption being broken in effectual calling, and the guilt of sin removed in justification, nothing can come between that soul and glory. This encourages our faith and hope; for, as for God, his way, his work, is perfect. The apostle speaks as one amazed, and swallowed up in admiration, wondering at the height and depth, and length and breadth, of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. The more we know of other things, the less we wonder; but the further we are led into gospel mysteries, the more we are affected by them. While God is for us, and we keep in his love, we may with holy boldness defy all the powers of darkness.

MHCC: Rom 8:32-39

All things whatever, in heaven and earth, are not so great a display of God's free love, as the gift of his coequal Son to be the atonement on the cross for the sin of man; and all the rest follows upon union with him, and interest in him. All things, all which can be the causes or means of any real good to the faithful Christian. He that has prepared a crown and a kingdom for us, will give us what we need in the way to it. Men may justify themselves, though the accusations are in full force against them; but if God justifies, that answers all. By Christ we are thus secured. By the merit of his death he paid our debt. Yea, rather that is risen again. This is convincing evidence that Divine justice was satisfied. We have such a Friend at the right hand of God; all power is given to him. He is there, making intercession. Believer! does your soul say within you, Oh that he were mine! and oh that I were his; that I could please him and live to him! Then do not toss your spirit and perplex your thoughts in fruitless, endless doubtings, but as you are convinced of ungodliness, believe on Him who justifies the ungodly. You are condemned, yet Christ is dead and risen. Flee to Him as such. God having manifested his love in giving his own Son for us, can we think that any thing should turn aside or do away that love? Troubles neither cause nor show any abatement of his love. Whatever believers may be separated from, enough remains. None can take Christ from the believer: none can take the believer from Him; and that is enough. All other hazards signify nothing. Alas, poor sinners! though you abound with the possessions of this world, what vain things are they! Can you say of any of them, Who shall separate us? You may be removed from pleasant dwellings, and friends, and estates. You may even live to see and seek your parting. At last you must part, for you must die. Then farewell, all this world accounts most valuable. And what hast thou left, poor soul, who hast not Christ, but that which thou wouldest gladly part with, and canst not; the condemning guilt of all thy sins! But the soul that is in Christ, when other things are pulled away, cleaves to Christ, and these separations pain him not. Yea, when death comes, that breaks all other unions, even that of the soul and body, it carries the believer's soul into the nearest union with its beloved Lord Jesus, and the full enjoyment of him for ever.

Matthew Henry: Rom 8:17-25

In these words the apostle describes a fourth illustrious branch of the happiness of believers, namely, a title to the future glory. This is fitly annexed to our sonship; for as the adoption of sons entitles us to that glory, so the disposition of sons fits and prepares us for it. If children, then heirs, Rom 8:17. In earthly inheritances this rule does not hold, only the first-born are heirs; but the church is a church of first-born, for they are all heirs. Heaven is an inheritance that all the saints are heirs to. They do not come to it as purchasers by any merit or procurement of their own; but as heirs, purely by the act of God; for God makes heirs. The saints are heirs though in this world they are heirs under age; see Gal 4:1, Gal 4:2. Their present state is a state of education and preparation for the inheritance. How comfortable should this be to all the children of God, how little soever they have in possession, that, being heirs, they have enough in reversion! But the honour and happiness of an heir lie in the value and worth of that which he is heir to: we read of those that inherit the wind; and therefore we have here an abstract of the premises. 1. Heirs of God. The Lord himself is the portion of the saints' inheritance (Psa 16:5), a goodly heritage, Psa 16:6. The saints are spiritual priests, that have the Lord for their inheritance, Num 18:20. The vision of God and the fruition of God make up the inheritance the saints are heirs to. God himself will be with them, and will be their God, Rev 21:3. 2. Joint-heirs with Christ. Christ, as Mediator, is said to be the heir of all things (Heb 1:2), and true believers, by virtue of their union with him, shall inherit all things, Rev 21:7. Those that now partake of the Spirit of Christ, as his brethren, shall, as his brethren, partake of his glory (Joh 17:24), shall sit down with him upon his throne, Rev 3:21. Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst thus magnify him! Now this future glory is further spoken of as the reward of present sufferings and as the accomplishment of present hopes.

I. As the reward of the saints' present sufferings; and it is a rich reward: If so be that we suffer with him (Rom 8:17), or forasmuch as we suffer with him. The state of the church in this world always is, but was then especially, an afflicted state; to be a Christian was certainly to be a sufferer. Now, to comfort them in reference to those sufferings, he tells them that they suffered with Christ - for his sake, for his honour, and for the testimony of a good conscience, and should be glorified with him. Those that suffered with David in his persecuted state were advanced by him and with him when he came to the crown; see 2Ti 2:12. See the gains of suffering for Christ; though we may be losers for him, we shall not, we cannot, be losers by him in the end. This the gospel is filled with the assurances of. Now, that suffering saints may have strong supports and consolations from their hopes of heaven, he holds the balance (Rom 8:18), in a comparison between the two, which is observable. 1. In one scale he puts the sufferings of this present time. The sufferings of the saints are but sufferings of this present time, strike no deeper than the things of time, last no longer than the present time (2Co 4:17), light affliction, and but for a moment. So that on the sufferings he writes tekel , weighed in the balance and found light. 2. In the other scale he puts the glory, and finds that a weight, an exceeding and eternal weight: Glory that shall be revealed. In our present state we come short, not only in the enjoyment, but in the knowledge of that glory (1Co 2:9; 1Jo 3:2): it shall be revealed. It surpasses all that we have yet seen and known: present vouchsafements are sweet and precious, very precious, very sweet; but there is something to come, something behind the curtain, that will outshine all. Shall be revealed in us; not only revealed to us, to be seen, but revealed in us, to be enjoyed. The kingdom of God is within you, and will be so to eternity. 3. He concludes the sufferings not worthy to be compared with the glory - ouk axia pros tēn doxan . They cannot merit that glory; and, if suffering for Christ will not merit, much less will doing. They should not at all deter and frighten us from the diligent and earnest pursuit of that glory. The sufferings are small and short, and concern the body only; but the glory is rich and great, and concerns the soul, and is eternal. This he reckons. I reckon - logizomai . It is not a rash and sudden determination, but the product of a very serious and deliberate consideration. he had reasoned the case within himself, weighed the arguments on both sides, and thus at last resolves the point. O how vastly different is the sentence of the word from the sentiment of the world concerning the sufferings of this present time! I reckon, as an arithmetician that is balancing an account. He first sums up what is disbursed for Christ in the sufferings of this present time, and finds they come to very little; he then sums up what is secured to us by Christ in the glory that shall be revealed, and this he finds to be an infinite sum, transcending all conception, the disbursement abundantly made up and the losses infinitely countervailed. And who would be afraid then to suffer for Christ, who as he is before-hand with us in suffering, so he will not be behind-hand with us in recompence? Now Paul was as competent a judge of this point as ever any mere man was. He could reckon not by art only, but by experience; for he knew both. He knew what the sufferings of this present time were; see 2Co 11:23-28. He knew what the glory of heaven is; see 2Co 12:3, 2Co 12:4. And, upon the view of both, he gives this judgment here. There is nothing like a believing view of the glory which shall be revealed to support and bear up the spirit under all the sufferings of this present time. The reproach of Christ appears riches to those who have respect to the recompence of reward, Heb 11:26.

II. As the accomplishment of the saints' present hopes and expectations, Rom 8:19, etc. As the saints are suffering for it, so they are waiting for it. Heaven is therefore sure; for God by his Spirit would not raise and encourage those hopes only to defeat and disappoint them. He will establish that word unto his servants on which he has caused them to hope (Psa 119:49), and heaven is therefore sweet; for, if hope deferred makes the heart sick, surely when the desire comes it will be a tree of life, Pro 13:12. Now he observes an expectation of this glory,

1. In the creatures Rom 8:19-22. That must needs be a great, a transcendent glory, which all the creatures are so earnestly expecting and longing for. This observation in these verses has some difficulty in it, which puzzles interpreters a little; and the more because it is a remark not made in any other scripture, with which it might be compared. By the creature here we understand, not as some do the Gentile world, and their expectation of Christ and the gospel, which is an exposition very foreign and forced, but the whole frame of nature, especially that of this lower world - the whole creation, the compages of inanimate and sensible creatures, which, because of their harmony and mutual dependence, and because they all constitute and make up one world, are spoken of in the singular number as the creature. The sense of the apostle in these four verses we may take in the following observations: - (1.) That there is a present vanity to which the creature, by reason of the sin of man, is made subject, Rom 8:20. When man sinned, the ground was cursed for man's sake, and with it all the creatures (especially of this lower world, where our acquaintance lies) became subject to that curse, became mutable and mortal. Under the bondage of corruption, Rom 8:21. There is an impurity, deformity, and infirmity, which the creature has contracted by the fall of man: the creation is sullied and stained, much of the beauty of the world gone. There is an enmity of one creature to another; they are all subject to continual alteration and decay of the individuals, liable to the strokes of God's judgments upon man. When the world was drowned, and almost all the creatures in it, surely then it was subject to vanity indeed. The whole species of creatures is designed for, and is hastening to, a total dissolution by fire. And it is not the least part of their vanity and bondage that they are used, or abused rather, by men as instruments of sin. The creatures are often abused to the dishonour of their Creator, the hurt of his children, or the service of his enemies. When the creatures are made the food and fuel of our lusts, they are subject to vanity, they are captivated by the law of sin. And this not willingly, not of their own choice. All the creatures desire their own perfection and consummation; when they are made instruments of sin it is not willingly. Or, They are thus captivated, not for any sin of their own, which they had committed, but for man's sin: By reason of him who hath subjected the same. Adam did it meritoriously; the creatures being delivered to him, when he by sin delivered himself he delivered them likewise into the bondage of corruption. God did it judicially; he passed a sentence upon the creatures for the sin of man, by which they became subject. And this yoke (poor creatures) they bear in hope that it will not be so always. Ep' elpidi hoti kai , etc. - in hope that the creature itself; so many Greek copies join the words. We have reason to pity the poor creatures that for our sin have become subject to vanity. (2.) That the creatures groan and travail in pain together under this vanity and corruption, Rom 8:22. It is a figurative expression. Sin is a burden to the whole creation; the sin of the Jews, in crucifying Christ, set the earth a quaking under them. The idols were a burden to the weary beast, Isa 46:1. There is a general outcry of the whole creation against the sin of man: the stone crieth out of the wall (Hab 2:11), the land cries, Job 31:38. (3.) That the creature, that is now thus burdened, shall, at the time of the restitution of all things, be delivered from this bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:21) - they shall no more be subject to vanity and corruption, and the other fruits of the curse; but, on the contrary, this lower world shall be renewed: when there will be new heavens there will be a new earth (2Pe 3:13; Rev 21:1); and there shall be a glory conferred upon all the creatures, which shall be (in the proportion of their natures) as suitable and as great an advancement as the glory of the children of God shall be to them. The fire at the last day shall be a refining, not a destroying annihilating fire. What becomes of the souls of brutes, that go downwards, none can tell. But it should seem by the scripture that there will be some kind of restoration of them. And if it be objected, What use will they be of to glorified saints? we may suppose them of as much use as they were to Adam in innocency; and if it be only to illustrate the wisdom, power, and goodness of their Creator, that is enough. Compare with this Psa 96:10-13; Psa 98:7-9. Let the heavens rejoice before the Lord, for he cometh. (4.) That the creature doth therefore earnestly expect and wait for the manifestation of the children of God, Rom 8:19. Observe, At the second coming of Christ there will be a manifestation of the children of God. Now the saints are God's hidden ones, the wheat seems lost in a heap of chaff; but then they shall be manifested. It does not yet appear what we shall be (1Jo 3:2), but then the glory shall be revealed. The children of God shall appear in their own colours. And this redemption of the creature is reserved till then; for, as it was with man and for man that they fell under the curse, so with man and for man they shall be delivered. All the curse and filth that now adhere to the creature shall be done away then when those that have suffered with Christ upon earth shall reign with him upon the earth. This the whole creation looks and longs for; and it may serve as a reason why now a good man should be merciful to his beast.

2. In the saints, who are new creatures, Rom 8:23-25. Observe, (1.) The grounds of this expectation in the saints. It is our having received the first-fruits of the Spirit, which both quickens our desires and encourages our hopes, and both ways raises our expectations. The first-fruits did both sanctify and ensure the lump. Grace is the first-fruits of glory, it is glory begun. We, having received such clusters in this wilderness, cannot but long for the full vintage in the heavenly Canaan. Not only they - not only the creatures which are not capable of such a happiness as the first-fruits of the Spirit, but even we, who have such present rich receivings, cannot but long for something more and greater. In having the first-fruits of the Spirit we have that which is very precious, but we have not all we would have. We groan within ourselves, which denotes the strength and secrecy of these desires; not making a loud noise, as the hypocrites howling upon the bed for corn and wine, but with silent groans, which pierce heaven soonest of all. Or, We groan among ourselves. It is the unanimous vote, the joint desire, of the whole church, all agree in this: Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. The groaning denotes a very earnest and importunate desire, the soul pained with the delay. Present receivings and comforts are consistent with a great many groans; not as the pangs of one dying, but as the throes of a woman in travail - groans that are symptoms of life, not of death. (2.) The object of this expectation. What is it we are thus desiring and waiting for? What would we have? The adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Though the soul be the principal part of the man, yet the Lord has declared himself for the body also, and has provided a great deal of honour and happiness for the body. The resurrection is here called the redemption of the body. It shall then be rescued from the power of death and the grave, and the bondage of corruption; and, though a vile body, yet it shall be refined and beautified, and made like that glorious body of Christ, Phi 3:21; 1Co 15:42. This is called the adoption. [1.] It is the adoption manifested before all the world, angels and men. Now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear, the honour is now clouded; but then God will publicly own all his children. The deed of adoption, which is now written, signed, and sealed, will then be recognized, proclaimed, and published. As Christ was, so the saints will be, declared to be the sons of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead, Rom 1:4. It will then be put past dispute. [2.] It is the adoption perfected and completed. The children of God have bodies as well as souls; and, till those bodies are brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God, the adoption is not perfect. But then it will be complete, when the Captain of our salvation shall bring the many sons to glory, Heb 2:10. This is that which we expect, in hope of which our flesh rests, Psa 16:9, Psa 16:10. All the days of our appointed time we are waiting, till this change shall come, when he shall call, and we shall answer, and he will have a desire to the work of his hands, Job 14:14, Job 14:15. (3.) The agreeableness of this to our present state, Rom 8:24, Rom 8:25. Our happiness is not in present possession: We are saved by hope. In this, as in other things, God hath made our present state a state of trial and probation - that our reward is out of sight. Those that will deal with God must deal upon trust. It is acknowledged that one of the principal graces of a Christian is hope (1Co 13:13), which necessarily implies a good thing to come, which is the object of that hope. Faith respects the promise, hope the thing promised. Faith is the evidence, hope the expectation, of things not seen. Faith is the mother of hope. We do with patience wait. In hoping for this glory we have need of patience, to bear the sufferings we meet with in the way to it and the delays of it. Our way is rough and long; but he that shall come will come, and will not tarry; and therefore, though he seem to tarry, it becomes us to wait for him.

Matthew Henry: Rom 8:26-28

The apostle here suggests two privileges more to which true Christians are entitled: -

I. The help of the Spirit in prayer. While we are in this world, hoping and waiting for what we see not, we must be praying. Hope supposes desire, and that desire offered up to God is prayer; we groan. Now observe,

1. Our weakness in prayer: We know not what we should pray for as we ought. (1.) As to the matter of our requests, we know not what to ask. We are not competent judges of our own condition. Who knows what is good for a man in this life? Ecc 6:12. We are short-sighted, and very much biassed in favour of the flesh, and apt to separate the end from the way. You know not what you ask, Mat 20:22. We are like foolish children, that are ready to cry for fruit before it is ripe and fit for them; see Luk 9:54, Luk 9:55. (2.) As to the manner, we know not how to pray as we ought. It is not enough that we do that which is good, but we must do it well, seek in a due order; and here we are often at a loss - graces are weak, affections cold, thoughts wandering, and it is not always easy to find the heart to pray, 2Sa 7:27. The apostle speaks of this in the first person: We know not. He puts himself among the rest. Folly, and weakness, and distraction in prayer, are what all the saints are complaining of. If so great a saint as Paul knew not what to pray for, what little reason have we to go forth about that duty in our own strength!

2. The assistances which the Spirit gives us in that duty. He helps our infirmities, meant especially of our praying infirmities, which most easily beset us in that duty, against which the Spirit helps. The Spirit in the world helps; many rules and promises there are in the word for our help. The Spirit in the heart helps, dwelling in us, working in us, as a Spirit of grace and supplication, especially with respect to the infirmities we are under when we are in a suffering state, when our faith is most apt to fail; for this end the Holy Ghost was poured out. Helpeth, sumantilambanetai - heaves with us, over against us, helps as we help one that would lift up a burden, by lifting over against him at the other end - helps with us, that is, with us doing our endeavour, putting forth the strength we have. We must not sit still, and expect that the Spirit should do all; when the Spirit goes before us we must bestir ourselves. We cannot without God, and he will not without us. What help? Why, the Spirit itself makes intercession for us, dictates our requests, indites our petitions, draws up our plea for us. Christ intercedes for us in heaven, the Spirit intercedes for us in our hearts; so graciously has God provided for the encouragement of the praying remnant. The Spirit, as an enlightening Spirit, teaches us what to pray for, as a sanctifying Spirit works and excites praying graces, as a comforting Spirit silences our fears, and helps us over all our discouragements. The Holy Spirit is the spring of all our desires and breathings towards God. Now this intercession which the Spirit makes is, (1.) With groanings that cannot be uttered. The strength and fervency of those desires which the Holy Spirit works are hereby intimated. There may be praying in the Spirit where there is not a word spoken; as Moses prayed (Exo 14:15), and Hannah, 1Sa 1:13. It is not the rhetoric and eloquence, but the faith and fervency, of our prayers, that the Spirit works, as an intercessor, in us. Cannot be uttered; they are so confused, the soul is in such a hurry with temptations and troubles, we know not what to say, nor how to express ourselves. Here is the Spirit interceding with groans that cannot be uttered. When we can but cry, Abba, Father, and refer ourselves to him with a holy humble boldness, this is the work of the Spirit. (2.) According to the will of God, Rom 8:27. The Spirit in the heart never contradicts the Spirit in the word. Those desires that are contrary to the will of God do not come from the Spirit. The Spirit interceding in us evermore melts our wills into the will of God. Not as I will, but as thou wilt.

3. The sure success of these intercessions: He that searches the heart knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, Rom 8:27. To a hypocrite, all whose religion lies in his tongue, nothing is more dreadful than that God searches the heart and sees through all his disguises. To a sincere Christian, who makes heart-work of his duty, nothing is more comfortable than that God searches the heart, for then he will hear and answer those desires which we want words to express. He knows what we have need of before we ask, Mat 6:8. He knows what is the mind of his own Spirit in us. And, as he always hears the Son interceding for us, so he always hears the Spirit interceding in us, because his intercession is according to the will of God. What could have been done more for the comfort of the Lord's people, in all their addresses to God? Christ had said, "Whatever you ask the Father according to his will he will give it you."But how shall we learn to ask according to his will? Why, the Spirit will teach us that. Therefore it is that the seed of Jacob never seek in vain.

II. The concurrence of all providences for the good of those that are Christ's, Rom 8:28. It might be objected that, notwithstanding all these privileges, we see believers compassed about with manifold afflictions; though the Spirit makes intercession for them, yet their troubles are continued. It is very true; but in this the Spirit's intercession is always effectual, that, however it goes with them, all this is working together for their good. Observe here.

1. The character of the saints, who are interested in this privilege; they are here described by such properties as are common to all that are truly sanctified. (1.) They love God. This includes all the out-goings of the soul's affections towards God as the chief good and highest end. It is our love to God that makes every providence sweet, and therefore profitable. Those that love God make the best of all he does, and take all in good part. (2.) They are the called according to his purpose, effectually called according to the eternal purpose. The call is effectual, not according to any merit or desert of ours, but according to God's own gracious purpose.

2. The privilege of the saints, that all things work together for good to them, that is, all the providences of God that concern them. All that God performs he performs for them, Psa 57:2. Their sins are not of his performing, therefore not intended here, though his permitting sin is made to work for their good, 2Ch 32:31. But all the providences of God are theirs - merciful providences, afflicting providences, personal, public. They are all for good; perhaps for temporal good, as Joseph's troubles; at least, for spiritual and eternal good. That is good for them which does their souls good. Either directly or indirectly, every providence has a tendency to the spiritual good of those that love God, breaking them off from sin, bringing them nearer to God, weaning them from the world, fitting them for heaven. Work together. They work, as physic works upon the body, various ways, according to the intention of the physician; but all for the patient's good. They work together, as several ingredients in a medicine concur to answer the intention. God hath set the one over against the other (Ecc 7:14): sunergei , a very singular, with a noun plural, denoting the harmony of Providence and its uniform designs, all the wheels as one wheel, Eze 10:13. He worketh all things together for good; so some read it. It is not from any specific quality in the providences themselves, but from the power and grace of God working in, with, and by, these providences. All this we know - know it for a certainty, from the word of God, from our own experience, and from the experience of all the saints.

Matthew Henry: Rom 8:29-30

The apostle, having reckoned up so many ingredients of the happiness of true believers, comes here to represent the ground of them all, which he lays in predestination. These precious privileges are conveyed to us by the charter of the covenant, but they are founded in the counsel of God, which infallibly secures the event. That Jesus Christ, the purchaser, might not labour in vain, nor spend his strength and life for nought and in vain, there is a remnant given him, a seed that he shall see, so that the good pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. For the explication of this he here sets before us the order of the causes of our salvation, a golden chain, which cannot be broken. There are four links of it: -

I. Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. All that God designed for glory and happiness as the end he decreed to grace and holiness as the way. Not, whom he did foreknow to be holy those he predestinated to be so. The counsels and decrees of God do not truckle to the frail and fickle will of men; no, God's foreknowledge of the saints is the same with that everlasting love wherewith he is said to have loved them, Jer 31:3. God's knowing his people is the same with his owning them, Psa 1:6; Joh 10:14; 2Ti 2:19. See Rom 11:2. Words of knowledge often in scripture denote affection; so here: Elect according to the foreknowledge of God, 1Pe 1:2. And the same word is rendered fore-ordained, 1Pe 1:20. Whom he did foreknow, that is, whom he designed for his friends and favourites. I know thee by name, said God to Moses, Exo 33:12. Now those whom god thus foreknew he did predestinate to be conformed to Christ. 1. Holiness consists in our conformity to the image of Christ. This takes in the whole of sanctification, of which Christ is the great pattern and sampler. To be spirited as Christ was, to walk and live as Christ did, to bear our sufferings patiently as Christ did. Christ is the express image of his Father, and the saints are conformed to the image of Christ. Thus it is by the mediation and interposal of Christ that we have God's love restored to us and God's likeness renewed upon us, in which two things consists the happiness of man. 2. All that God hath from eternity foreknown with favour he hath predestinated to this conformity. It is not we that can conform ourselves to Christ. Our giving ourselves to Christ takes rise in God's giving us to him; and, in giving us to him, he predestinated us to be conformable to his image. It is a mere cavil therefore to call the doctrine of election a licentious doctrine, and to argue that it gives encouragement to sin, as if the end were separated from the way and happiness from holiness. None can know their election but by their conformity to the image of Christ; for all that are chosen are chosen to sanctification (2Th 2:13), and surely it cannot be a temptation to any to be conformed to the world to believe that they were predestinated to be conformed to Christ. 3. That which is herein chiefly designed is the honour of Jesus Christ, that he might be the first-born among many brethren; that is, that Christ might have the honour of being the great pattern, as well as the great prince, and in this, as in other things, might have pre-eminence. It was in the first-born that all the children were dedicated to God under the law. The first-born was the head of the family, on whom all the rest did depend: now in the family of the saints Christ must have the honour of being the first-born. And blessed be God that there are many brethren; though they seem but a few in one place at one time, yet, when they come all together, they will be a great many. There is, therefore, a certain number predestinated, that the end of Christ's undertaking might be infallibly secured. Had the event been left at uncertainties in the divine counsels, to depend upon the contingent turn of man's will, Christ might have been the first-born among but few or no brethren - a captain without soldiers and a prince without subjects - to prevent which, and to secure to him many brethren, the decree is absolute, the thing ascertained, that he might be sure to see his seed, there is a remnant predestinated to be conformed to his image, which decree will certainly have its accomplishment in the holiness and happiness of that chosen race; and so, in spite of all the opposition of the powers of darkness, Christ will be the first-born among many, very many brethren.

II. Whom he did predestinate those he also called, not only with the external call (so many are called that were not chosen, Mat 20:16; Mat 22:14), but with the internal and effectual call. The former comes to the ear only, but this to the heart. All that God did from eternity predestinate to grace and glory he does, in the fulness of time, effectually call. The call is then effectual when we come at the call; and we then come at the call when the Spirit draws us, convinces the conscience of guilt and wrath, enlightens the understanding, bows the will, persuades and enables us to embrace Christ in the promises, makes us willing in the day of his power. It is an effectual call from self and earth to God, and Christ, and heaven, as our end - from sin and vanity to grace, and holiness, and seriousness as our way. This is the gospel call. Them he called, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand: we are called to that to which we were chosen. So that the only way to make our election sure is to make sure our calling, 2Pe 1:10.

III. Whom he called those he also justified. All that are effectually called are justified, absolved from guilt, and accepted as righteous through Jesus Christ. They are recti in curia - right in court; no sin that ever they have been guilty of shall come against them, to condemn them. The book is crossed, the bond cancelled, the judgment vacated, the attainder reversed; and they are no longer dealt with as criminals, but owned and loved as friends and favourites. Blessed is the man whose iniquity is thus forgiven. None are thus justified but those that are effectually called. Those that stand it out against the gospel call abide under guilt and wrath.

IV. Whom he justified those he also glorified. The power of corruption being broken in effectual calling, and the guilt of sin removed in justification, all that which hinders is taken out of the way, and nothing can come between that soul and glory. Observe, It is spoken of as a thing done: He glorified, because of the certainty of it; he hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling. In the eternal glorification of all the elect, God's design of love has its full accomplishment. This was what he aimed at all along - to bring them to heaven. Nothing less than that glory would make up the fulness of his covenant relation to them as God; and therefore, in all he does for them, and in them, he has this in his eye. Are they chosen? It is to salvation. Called? It is to his kingdom and glory. Begotten again? It is to an inheritance incorruptible. Afflicted: It is to work for them this exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Observe, The author of all these is the same. It is God himself that predestinated, calleth, justifieth, glorifieth; so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him. Created wills are so very fickle, and created powers so very feeble, that, if any of these did depend upon the creature, the whole would shake. But God himself hath undertaken the doing of it from first to last, that we might abide in a constant dependence upon him and subjection to him, and ascribe all the praise to him - that every crown may be cast before the throne. This is a mighty encouragement to our faith and hope; for, as for God, his way, his work, is perfect. He that hath laid the foundation will build upon it, and the top-stone will at length be brought forth with shoutings, and it will be our eternal work to cry, Grace, grace to it.

Matthew Henry: Rom 8:31-39

The apostle closes this excellent discourse upon the privileges of believers with a holy triumph, in the name of all the saints. Having largely set forth the mystery of God's love to us in Christ, and the exceedingly great and precious privileges we enjoy by him, he concludes like an orator: What shall we then say to these things? What use shall we make of all that has been said? He speaks as one amazed and swallowed up with the contemplation and admiration of it, wondering at the height and depth, and length and breadth, of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. The more we know of other things the less we wonder at them; but the further we are led into an acquaintance with gospel mysteries the more we are affected with the admiration of them. If Paul was at a loss what to say to these things, no marvel if we be. And what does he say? Why, if ever Paul rode in a triumphant chariot on this side of heaven, here it was: with such a holy height and bravery of spirit, with such a fluency and copiousness of expression, does he here comfort himself and all the people of God, upon the consideration of these privileges. In general, he here makes a challenge, throws down the gauntlet, as it were, dares all the enemies of the saints to do their worst: If God be for us, who can be against us? The ground of the challenge is God's being for us; in this he sums up all our privileges. This includes all, that God is for us; not only reconciled to us, and so not against us, but in covenant with us, and so engaged for us - all his attributes for us, his promises for us. All that he is, and has, and does, is for his people. He performs all things for them. He is for them, even when he seems to act against them. And, if so, who can be against us, so as to prevail against us, so as to hinder our happiness? Be they ever so great and strong, ever so many, ever so might, ever so malicious, what can they do? While God is for us, and we keep in his love, we may with a holy boldness defy all the powers of darkness. Let Satan do his worst, he is chained; let the world do its worst, it is conquered: principalities and powers are spoiled and disarmed, and triumphed over, in the cross of Christ. Who then dares fight against us, while God himself is fighting for us? And this we say to these things, this is the inference we draw from these premises. More particularly.

I. We have supplies ready in all our wants (Rom 8:32): He that spared, etc. Who can be against us, to strip us, to deprive us of our comforts? Who can cut off our streams, while we have a fountain to go to? 1. Observe what God has done for us, on which our hopes are built: He spared not his own Son. When he was to undertake our salvation, the Father was willing to part with him, did not think him too precious a gift to bestow for the salvation of poor souls; now we may know that he loves us, in that he hath not withheld his Son, his own Son, his only Son, from us, as he said of Abraham, Gen 22:12. If nothing less will save man, rather than man shall perish let him go, though it were out of his bosom. Thus did he deliver him up for us all, that is, for all the elect; for us all, not only for our good, but in our stead, as a sacrifice of atonement to be a propitiation for sin. When he had undertaken it, he did not spare him. Though he was his own Son, yet, being made sin for us, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Ouk epheisato - he did not abate him a farthing of that great debt, but charged it home. Awake, O sword. He did not spare his own Son that served him, that he might spare us, though we have done him so much disservice. 2. What we may therefore expect he will do: He will with him freely give us all things. (1.) It is implied that he will give us Christ, for other things are bestowed with him: not only with him given for us, but with him given to us. He that put himself to so much charge to make the purchase for us surely will not hesitate at making the application to us. (2.) He will with him freely give us all things, all things that he sees to be needful and necessary for us, all good things, and more we should not desire, Psa 34:10. And Infinite Wisdom shall be the judge whether it be good for us and needful for us or no. Freely give - freely, without reluctancy; he is ready to give, meets us with his favours; - and freely, without recompence, without money, and without price. How shall he not? Can it be imagined that he should do the greater and not do the less? that he should give so great a gift for us when we were enemies, and should deny us any good thing, now that through him we are friends and children? Thus may we by faith argue against our fears of want. he that hath prepared a crown and kingdom for us will be sure to give us enough to bear our charges in the way to it. He that hath designed us for the inheritance of sons when we come to age will not let us want necessaries in the mean time.

II. We have an answer ready to all accusations and a security against all condemnations (Rom 8:33, Rom 8:34): Who shall lay any thing? Doth the law accuse them? Do their own consciences accuse them? Is the devil, the accuser of the brethren, accusing them before our God day and night? This is enough to answer all those accusations, It is God that justifieth. Men may justify themselves, as the Pharisees did, and yet the accusations may be in full force against them; but, if God justifies, this answers all. He is the judge, the king, the party offended, and his judgment is according to truth, and sooner or later all the world will be brought to be of his mind; so that we may challenge all our accusers to come and put in their charge. This overthrows them all; it is God, the righteous faithful God, that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? Though they cannot make good the charge yet they will be ready to condemn; but we have a plea ready to move in arrest of judgment, a plea which cannot be overruled. It is Christ that died, etc. It is by virtue of our interest in Christ, our relation to him, and our union with him, that we are thus secured. 1. His death: It is Christ that died. By the merit of his death he paid our debt; and the surety's payment is a good plea to an action of debt. It is Christ, an able all-sufficient Saviour. 2. His resurrection: Yea, rather, that has risen again. This is a much greater encouragement, for it is a convincing evidence that divine justice was satisfied by the merit of his death. His resurrection was his acquittance, it was a legal discharge. Therefore the apostle mentions it with a yea, rather. If he had died, and not risen again, we had been where we were. 3. His sitting at the right hand of God: He is even at the right hand of God - a further evidence that he has done his work, and a mighty encouragement to us in reference to all accusations, that we have a friend, such a friend, in court. At the right hand of God, which denotes that he is ready there - always at hand; and that he is ruling there - all power is given to him. Our friend is himself the judge. 4. The intercession which he makes there. He is there, not unconcerned about us, not forgetful of us, but making intercession. He is agent for us there, an advocate for us, to answer all accusations, to put in our plea, and to prosecute it with effect, to appear for us and to present our petitions. And is not this abundant matter for comfort? What shall we say to these things? Is this the manner of men, O Lord God? What room is left for doubting and disquietment? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Some understand the accusation and condemnation here spoken of of that which the suffering saints met with from men. The primitive Christians had many black crimes laid to their charge - heresy, sedition, rebellion, and what not? For these the ruling powers condemned them: "But no matter for that"(says the apostle); "while we stand right at God's bar it is of no great moment how we stand at men's. To all the hard censures, the malicious calumnies, and the unjust and unrighteous sentences of men, we may with comfort oppose our justification before God through Christ Jesus as that which doth abundantly countervail,"1Co 4:3, 1Co 4:4.

III. We have good assurance of our preservation and continuance in this blessed state, Rom 8:35, to the end. The fears of the saints lest they should lose their hold of Christ are often very discouraging and disquieting, and create them a great deal of disturbance; but here is that which may silence their fears, and still such storms, that nothing can separate them. We have here from the apostle,

1. A daring challenge to all the enemies of the saints to separate them, if they could, from the love of Christ. Who shall? None shall, Rom 8:35-37. God having manifested his love in giving his own Son for us, and not hesitating at that, can we imagine that any thing else should divert or dissolve that love? Observe here,

(1.) The present calamities of Christ's beloved ones supposed - that they meet with tribulation on all hands, are in distress, know not which way to look for any succour and relief in this world, are followed with persecution from an angry malicious world that always hated those whom Christ loved, pinched with famine, and starved with nakedness, when stripped of all creature-comforts, exposed to the greatest perils, the sword of the magistrate drawn against them, ready to be sheathed in their bowels, bathed in their blood. Can a case be supposed more black and dismal? It is illustrated (Rom 8:36) by a passage quoted from Psa 44:22, For thy sake we are killed all the day long, which intimates that we are not to think strange, no not concerning the fiery bloody trial. We see the Old Testament saints had the same lot; so persecuted they the prophets that were before us. Killed all the day long, that is, continually exposed to and expecting the fatal stroke. There is still every day, and all the day long, one or other of the people of God bleeding and dying under the rage of persecuting enemies. Accounted as sheep for the slaughter; they make no more of killing a Christian than of butchering a sheep. Sheep are killed, not because they are hurtful while they live, but because they are useful when they are dead. They kill the Christians to please themselves, to be food to their malice. They eat up my people as they eat bread, Psa 14:4.

(2.) The inability of all these things to separate us from the love of Christ. Shall they, can they, do it? No, by no means. All this will not cut the bond of love and friendship that is between Christ and true believers. [1.] Christ doth not, will not, love us the less for all this. All these troubles are very consistent with the strong and constant love of the Lord Jesus. They are neither a cause nor an evidence of the abatement of his love. When Paul was whipped, and beaten, and imprisoned, and stoned, did Christ love him ever the less? Were his favours intermitted? his smiles any whit suspended? his visits more shy? By no means, but the contrary. These things separate us from the love of other friends. When Paul was brought before Nero all men forsook him, but then the Lord stood by him, 2Ti 4:16, 2Ti 4:17. Whatever persecuting enemies may rob us of, they cannot rob us of the love of Christ, they cannot intercept his love-tokens, they cannot interrupt nor exclude his visits: and therefore, let them do their worst, they cannot make a true believer miserable. [2.] We do not, will not, love him the less for this; and that for this reason, because we do not think that he loves us the less. Charity thinks no evil, entertains no misgiving thoughts, makes no hard conclusions, no unkind constructions, takes all in good part that comes from love. A true Christian loves Christ never the less though he suffer for him, thinks never the worse of Christ through he lose all for him.

(3.) The triumph of believers in this (Rom 8:37): Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors.

[1.] We are conquerors: though killed all the day long, yet conquerors. A strange way of conquering, but it was Christ's way; thus he triumphed over principalities and powers in his cross. It is a surer and a nobler way of conquest by faith and patience than by fire and sword. The enemies have sometimes confessed themselves baffled and overcome by the invincible courage and constancy of the martyrs, who thus overcame the most victorious princes by not loving their lives to the death, Rev 12:11.

[2.] We are more than conquerors. In our patiently bearing these trials we are not only conquerors, but more than conquerors, that is, triumphers. Those are more than conquerors that conquer, First, With little loss. Many conquests are dearly bought; but what do the suffering saints lose? Why, they lose that which the gold loses in the furnace, nothing but the dross. It is no great loss to lose things which are not - a body that is of the earth, earthy. Secondly, With great gain. The spoils are exceedingly rich; glory, honour, and peace, a crown of righteousness that fades not away. In this the suffering saints have triumphed; not only have not been separated from the love of Christ, but have been taken into the most sensible endearments and embraces of it. As afflictions abound, consolations much more abound, 2Co 1:5. There is one more than a conqueror, when pressed above measure. He that embraced the stake, and said, "Welcome the cross of Christ, welcome everlasting life,"- he that dated his letter from the delectable orchard of the Leonine prison, - he that said, "In these flames I feel no more pain than if I were upon a bed of down,"- she who, a little before her martyrdom, being asked how she did, said, "Well and merry, and going to heaven,"- those that have gone smiling to the stake, and stood singing in the flames - these were more than conquerors.

[3.] It is only through Christ that loved us, the merit of his death taking the sting out of all these troubles, the Spirit of his grace strengthening us, and enabling us to bear them with holy courage and constancy, and coming in with special comforts and supports. Thus we are conquerors, not in our own strength, but in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. We are conquerors by virtue of our interest in Christ's victory. He hath overcome the world for us (Joh 16:33), both the good things and the evil things of it; so that we have nothing to do but to pursue the victory, and to divide the spoil, and so are more than conquerors.

2. A direct and positive conclusion of the whole matter: For I am persuaded, Rom 8:38, Rom 8:39. It denotes a full, and strong, and affectionate persuasion, arising from the experience of the strength and sweetness of the divine love. And here he enumerates all those things which might be supposed likely to separate between Christ and believers, and concludes that it could not be done. (1.) Neither death nor life - neither the terrors of death on the one hand nor the comforts and pleasures of life on the other, neither the fear of death nor the hope of life. Or, We shall not be separated from that love either in death or in life. (2.) Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. Both the good angels and the bad are called principalities and powers: the good, Eph 1:21; Col 1:16; the bad, Eph 6:12; Col 2:15. And neither shall do it. The good angels will not, the bad shall not; and neither can. The good angels are engaged friends, the bad are restrained enemies. (3.) Nor things present, nor things to come - neither the sense of troubles present nor the fear of troubles to come. Time shall not separate us, eternity shall not. Things present separate us from things to come, and things to come separate and cut us off from things present; but neither from the love of Christ, whose favour is twisted in with both present things and things to come. (4.) Nor height, nor depth - neither the height of prosperity and preferment, nor the depth of adversity and disgrace; nothing from heaven above, no storms, no tempests; nothing on earth below, no rocks, no seas, no dungeons. (5.) Nor any other creature - any thing that can be named or thought of. It will not, it cannot, separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It cannot cut off or impair our love to God, or God's to us; nothing does it, can do it, but sin. Observe, The love that exists between God and true believers is through Christ. He is the Mediator of our love: it is in and through him that God can love us and that we dare love God. This is the ground of the stedfastness of the love; therefore God rests in his love (Zep 3:17), because Jesus Christ, in whom he loves us, is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.

Mr. Hugh Kennedy, an eminent Christian of Ayr, in Scotland, when he was dying, called for a Bible; but, finding his sight gone, he said, "Turn me to the eighty of the Romans, and set my finger at these words, I am persuaded that neither death nor life, "etc. "Now,"said he, "is my finger upon them?"And, when they told him it was, without speaking any more, he said, "Now, God be with you, my children; I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus Christ this night;"and so departed.

Barclay: Rom 8:18-25

Paul has just been speaking of the glory of adoption into the family of God; and then he comes back to the troubled state of this present world. He draws a great picture. He speaks with a poet's vision. He sees all nature waiting for the glory that shall be. At the moment creation is in bondage to decay.

"Change and decay in all around I see."

The world is one where beauty fades and loveliness decays; it is a dying world; but it is waiting for its liberation from all this and the coming of the state of glory.

When Paul was painting this picture, he was working with ideas that any Jew would recognize and understand. He talks of this present age and of the glory that will be disclosed. Jewish thought divided time into two sections--this present age and the age to come. This present age was wholly bad, subject to sin, and death and decay. Some day there would come The Day of the Lord. That would be a day of judgment when the world would be shaken to its foundations; but out of it there would come a new world.

The renovation of the world was one of the great Jewish thoughts. The Old Testament speaks of it without elaboration and without detail. "Behold I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isa 65:17). But in the days between the Testaments, when the Jews were oppressed and enslaved and persecuted, they dreamed their dreams of that new earth and that renovated world.

"The vine shall yield its fruit ten thousand fold, and on each

vine there shall be a thousand branches; and each branch shall

produce a thousand clusters; and each cluster produce a thousand

grapes; and each grape a cor of wine. And those who have

hungered shall rejoice; moreover, also, they shall behold marvels

every day. For winds shall go forth from before me to bring every

morning the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the close of the

day clouds distilling the dews of health" (Bar 29:5).

"And earth, and all the trees, and the innumerable flocks of

sheep shall give their true fruit to mankind, of wine and of

sweet honey and of white milk and corn, which to men is the most

excellent gift of all" (Sibylline Oracles 3: 620-633).

"Earth, the universal mother, shall give to mortals her best

fruit in countless store of corn, wine and oil. Yea, from heaven

shall come a sweet draught of luscious honey. The trees shall

yield their proper fruits, and rich flocks, and kine, and lambs

of sheep and kids of goats. He will cause sweet fountains of

white milk to burst forth. And the cities shall be full of good

things, and the fields rich; neither shall there be any sword

throughout the land or battle-din; nor shall the earth be

convulsed any more with deep-drawn groans. No war shall be any

more, nor shall there be any more drought throughout the land,

no famine, or hail to work havoc on the crops" (Sibylline

Oracles 3: 744--756).

The dream of the renovated world was dear to the Jews. Paul knew that, and here he, as it were, endows creation with consciousness. He thinks of nature longing for the day when sin's dominion would be broken, death and decay would be gone, and God's glory would come. With a touch of imaginative insight, he says that the state of nature was even worse than the state of men. Man had sinned deliberately; but it was involuntarily that nature was subjected. Unwittingly she was involved in the consequences of the sin of man. "Cursed is the ground because of you," God said to Adam after his sin (Gen 3:17). So here, with a poet's eye, Paul sees nature waiting for liberation from the death and decay that man's sin had brought into the world.

If that is true of nature, it is still truer of man. So Paul goes on to think of human longing. In the experience of the Holy Spirit men had a foretaste, a first instalment, of the glory that shall be; now they long with all their hearts for the full realization of what adoption into the family of God means. That final adoption will be the redemption of their bodies. In the state of glory Paul did not think of man as a disembodied spirit. Man in this world is a body and a spirit; and in the world of glory the total man will be saved. But his body will no longer be the victim of decay and the instrument of sin; it will be a spiritual body fit for the life of a spiritual man.

Then comes a great saying. "We are saved by hope." The blazing truth that lit life for Paul was that the human situation is not hopeless. Paul was no pessimist. H. G. Wells once said: "Man, who began in a cave behind a windbreak, will end in the disease soaked ruins of a slum." Not so Paul. He saw man's sin and the state of the world; but he also saw God's redeeming power; and the end of it all for him was hope. Because of that, to Paul life was not a despairing waiting for an inevitable end in a world encompassed by sin and death and decay; life was an eager anticipation of a liberation, a renovation and a recreation wrought by the glory and the power of God.

In Rom 8:19he uses a wonderful word for eager expectation. It is apokaradokia (603) and it describes the attitude of a man who scans the horizon with head thrust forward, eagerly searching the distance for the first signs of the dawn break of glory. To Paul life was not a weary, defeated waiting; it was a throbbing, vivid expectation. The Christian is involved in the human situation. Within he must battle with his own evil human nature; without he must live in a world of death and decay. Nonetheless, the Christian does not live only in the world; he also lives in Christ. He does not see only the world; he looks beyond it to God. He does not see only the consequences of man's sin; he sees the power of God's mercy and love. Therefore, the keynote of the Christian life is always hope and never despair. The Christian waits, not for death, but for life.

Barclay: Rom 8:26-30

Rom 8:26-27form one of the most important passages on prayer in the whole New Testament. Paul is saying that, because of our weakness, we do not know what to pray for, but the prayers we ought to offer are offered for us by the Holy Spirit. C. H. Dodd defines prayer in this way--"Prayer is the divine in us appealing to the Divine above us."

There are two very obvious reasons why we cannot pray as we ought. First, we cannot pray aright because we cannot foresee the future. We cannot see a year or even an hour ahead; and we may well pray, therefore, to be saved from things which are for our good and we may well pray for things which would be to our ultimate harm. Second, we cannot pray aright because in any given situation we do not know what is best for us. We are often in the position of a child who wants something which would be bound only to hurt him; and God is often in the position of a parent who has to refuse his child's request or compel him to do something he does not want to do, because he knows what is to the child's good far better than the child himself.

Even the Greeks knew that. Pythagoras forbade his disciples to pray for themselves, because, he said, they could never in their ignorance know what was expedient for them. Xenophon tells us that Socrates taught his disciples simply to pray for good things, and not to attempt to specify them, but to leave God to decide what the good things were. C. H. Dodd puts it in this way. We cannot know our own real need; we cannot with our finite minds grasp God's plan; in the last analysis all that we can bring to God is an inarticulate sigh which the Spirit will translate to God for us.

As Paul saw it, prayer, like everything else, is of God. He knew that by no possible human effort can a man justify himself; and he also knew that by no possible effort of the human intelligence can a man know for what to pray. In the last analysis the perfect prayer is simply, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. Not my will, but Thine be done."

But Paul goes on from there. He says that those who love God, and who are called according to his purpose, know well that God is intermingling all things for good to them. It is the experience of life for the Christian that all things do work together for good. We do not need to be very old to look back and see that things we thought were disasters worked out to our good; things that we thought were disappointments worked out to greater blessings.

But we have to note that that experience comes only to those who love God. The Stoics had a great idea which may well have been in Paul's mind when he wrote this passage. One of their great conceptions was the logos (3056) of God, which was God's mind or the reason. The Stoic believed that this world was permeated with that logos (3056). It was the logos (3056) which put sense into the world. It was the logos (3056) which kept the stars in their courses and the planets in their appointed tracks. It was the logos (3056) which controlled the ordered succession of night and day, and summer and winter and spring and autumn. The logos (3056) was the reason and the mind of God in the universe, making it an order and not a chaos.

The Stoic went further. He believed that the logos (3056) not only had an order for the universe, but also a plan and a purpose for the life of every individual man. To put it in another way, the Stoic believed that nothing could happen to a man which did not come from God and which was not part of God's plan for him. Epictetus writes: "Have courage to look up to God and to say, 'Deal with me as thou wilt from now on. I am as one with thee; I am thine; I flinch from nothing so long as thou dost think that it is good. Lead me where thou wilt; put on me what raiment thou wilt. Wouldst thou have me hold office or eschew it, stay or flee, be rich or poor? For this I will defend thee before men.' " The Stoic taught that the duty of every man was acceptance. If he accepted the things that God sent him, he knew peace. If he struggled against them, he was uselessly battering his head against the ineluctable purpose of God.

Paul has the very same thought. He says that all things work together for good, but only to them that love God. If a man loves and trusts and accepts God, if he is convinced that God is the all-wise and all-loving Father, then he can humbly accept all that he sends to him. A man may go to a physician, and be prescribed a course of treatment which at the time is unpleasant or even painful; but if he trusts the wisdom of the man of skill, he accepts the thing that is laid upon him. It is so with us if we love God. But if a man does not love and trust God, he may well resent what happens to him and may well fight against God's will. It is only to the man who loves and trusts that all things work together for good, for to him they come from a Father who in perfect wisdom, love and power is working ever for the best.

Paul goes further; he goes on to speak of the spiritual experience of every Christian. The King James Version rendering is famous. "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." This is a passage which has been very seriously misused. If we are ever to understand it we must grasp the basic fact that Paul never meant it to be the expression of theology or philosophy; he meant it to be the almost lyrical expression of Christian experience. If we take it as philosophy and theology and apply the standards of cold logic to it, it must mean that God chose some and did not choose others. But that is not what it means.

Think of the Christian experience. The more a Christian thinks of his experience the more he becomes convinced that he had nothing to do with it and all is of God. Jesus Christ came into this world; he lived; he went to the Cross; he rose again. We did nothing to bring that about; that is God's work. We heard the story of this wondrous love. We did not make the story; we only received the story. Love woke within our hearts; the conviction of sin came, and with it came the experience of forgiveness and of salvation. We did not achieve that; all is of God. That is what Paul is thinking of here.

The Old Testament has an illuminating use of the word to know. "I knew you in the wilderness," said God to Hosea about the people of Israel (Hos 13:5). "You only have I known of all the families of the earth," said God to Amos (Amo 3:2). When the Bible speaks of God knowing a man, it means that he has a purpose and a plan and a task for that man. And when we look back upon our Christian experience, all we can say is, "I did not do this; I could never have done this; God did everything." And we know well that this does not take freewill away. God knew Israel, but the day came when Israel refused the destiny God meant her to have. God's unseen guiding is in our lives, but to the end of the day we can refuse it and take our own way.

It is the deep experience of the Christian that all is of God; that he did nothing and that God did everything. That is what Paul means here. He means that from the beginning of time God marked us out for salvation; that in due time his call came to us; but the pride of man's heart can wreck God's plan and the disobedience of man's will can refuse the call.

Barclay: Rom 8:31-39

This is one of the most lyrical passages Paul ever wrote. In Rom 8:32there is a wonderful allusion which would stand out to any Jew who knew his Old Testament well. Paul says in effect: "God for us did not spare his own Son; surely that is the final guarantee that he loves us enough to supply all our needs." The words Paul uses of God are the very words God used of Abraham when Abraham proved his utter loyalty by being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command. God said to Abraham: "You have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Gen 22:12). Paul seems to say: "Think of the greatest human example in the world of a man's loyalty to God; God's loyalty to you is like that." Just as Abraham was so loyal to God that he was prepared to sacrifice his dearest possession, God is so loyal to men that he is prepared to sacrifice his only Son for them. Surely we can trust a loyalty like that for anything.

It is difficult to know just how to take Rom 8:33-35. There are two ways of taking them and both give excellent sense and precious truth.

(i) We can take them as two statements, followed by two questions which give the inferences to be made from these statements. (a) It is God who acquits men--that is the statement. If that be so who can possibly condemn men? If man is acquitted by God, then he is saved from every other condemnation. (b) Our belief is in a Christ who died and rose again and who is alive for evermore--that is the statement. If that be so, is there anything in this or any other world that can separate us from our Risen Lord?

If we take it that way two great truths are laid down. (a) God has acquitted us; therefore no one can condemn us. (b) Christ is risen; therefore nothing can ever separate us from him.

(ii) But there is another way to take it. God has acquitted us. Who then can condemn us) The answer is that the Judge of all men is Jesus Christ. He is the one who has the right to condemn--but so far from condemning, he is at God's right hand interceding for us, and therefore we are safe.

It may be that in Rom 8:34Paul is doing a very wonderful thing. He is saying four things about Jesus. (a) He died. (b) He rose again. © He is at the right hand of God. (d) He makes intercession for us there. Now the earliest creed of the Church, which is still the essence of all Christian creeds, ran like this: "He was crucified dead and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead; and sitteth at the right hand of God from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Three items in Paul's statement and in the early creed are the same, that Jesus died, rose again, and is at the right hand of God. But the fourth is different. In the creed the fourth is that Jesus will come to be the judge of the quick and the dead. In Paul the fourth is that Jesus is at God's right hand to plead our case. It is as if Paul said: "You think of Jesus as the Judge who is there to condemn; and well he might for he has won the right. But you are wrong; he is not there to be our prosecuting counsel but to be the advocate to plead our cause."

I think that the second way of taking this is right. With one tremendous leap of thought Paul has seen Christ, not as the Judge but as the lover of the souls of men.

Paul goes on with a poet's fervour and a lover's rapture to sing of how nothing can separate us from the love of God in our Risen Lord.

(i) No affliction, no hardship, no peril can separate us. (Rom 8:35.) The disasters of the world do not separate a man from Christ; they bring him closer yet.

(ii) In Rom 8:38-39Paul makes a list of terrible things.

Neither life nor death can separate us from Christ. In life we live with Christ; in death we die with him; and because we die with him, we also rise with him. Death, so far from being a separation, is only a step into his nearer presence; not the end but "the gate on the skyline" leading to the presence of Jesus Christ.

The angelic powers cannot separate us from him. At this particular time the Jews had a highly developed belief in angels. Everything had its angel. There was an angel of the winds, of the clouds, of the snow and hail and hoarfrost. of the thunder and the lightning, of cold and heat, of the seasons. The Rabbis said that there was nothing in the world, not even a blade of grass, that had not got its angel. According to the Rabbis there were three ranks of angels. The first included thrones, cherubim and seraphim. The second included powers, lordships and mights. The third included angels and archangels and principalities. More than once Paul speaks of these angels (Eph 1:21; Eph 3:10; Eph 6:12; Col 2:10, Col 2:15; 1Co 15:24). Now the Rabbis--and Paul had once been a Rabbi--believed that they were grudgingly hostile to men. They believed that they had been angry when God created man. It was as if they did not want to share God with anyone and had grudged man his share in him. The Rabbis had a legend that when God appeared on Sinai to give Moses the law he was attended by his hosts of angels, and the angels grudged Israel the law, and assaulted Moses on his way up the mountain and would have stopped him had not God intervened. So Paul, thinking in terms of his own day, says, "Not even the grudging, jealous angels can separate us from the love of God, much as they would like to do so."

No age in time can separate us from Christ. Paul speaks of things present and things to come. We know that the Jews divided all time into this present age and the age to come. Paul is saying: "In this present world nothing can separate us from God in Christ; the day will come when this world will be shattered and the new age will dawn. It does not matter; even then, when this world has passed and the new world come, the bond is still the same."

No malign influences (powers) will separate us from Christ. Paul speaks about height and depth. These are astrological terms. The ancient world was haunted by the tyranny of the stars. They believed that a man was born under a certain star and thereby his destiny was settled. There are some who still believe that; but the ancient world was really haunted by this supposed domination of a man's life by the influence of the stars. Height (hupsoma, 5313) was the time when a star was at its zenith and its influence was greatest; depth (bathos, 899) was the time when a star was at its lowest, waiting to rise and to put its influence on some man. Paul says to these haunted men of his age: "The stars cannot hurt you. In their rising and their setting they are powerless to separate you from God's love."

No other world can separate us from God. The word that Paul uses for other (heteros, 2087) has really the meaning of different. He is saying: "Suppose that by some wild flight of imagination there emerged another and a different world, you would still be safe; you would still be enwrapped in the love of God."

Here is a vision to take away all loneliness and all fear. Paul is saying: "You can think of every terrifying thing that this or any other world can produce. Not one of them is able to separate the Christian from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ, Lord of every terror and Master of every world." Of what then shall we be afraid?

Constable: Rom 6:1--8:39

IV. THE IMPARTATION OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS chs. 6--8

The apostle moved on from questions about why people need salvation (1:18-3:20), what God has done to provide it, and how we can appropriate it (3:21-5:21). He next explained that salvation involves more than a right standing before God, which justification affords. God also provides salvation from the present power of sin in the redeemed sinner's daily experience. This is progressive sanctification (chs. 6-8).

When a sinner experiences redemption--"converted" is the subjective term--he or she simultaneously experiences justification. Justification imparts God's righteousness to him or her. Justification is the same thing as "positional sanctification." This term means that God views the believer as completely holy in his or her standing before God. That person is no longer guilty because of his or her sins (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2; 6:11).

However when a sinner experiences redemption, he or she also begins a process of sanctification. This process of becoming progressively more righteous (holy) in his or her experience is not automatic. It involves growth and requires the believer to cooperate with God to produce holiness in daily life. God leads the believer and provides the enablement for him or her to follow, but the believer must choose to follow and make use of the resources for sanctification that God provides.¹⁷¹ This progressive sanctification will end at death or the Rapture, whichever occurs first. Then the believer will experience glorification. Then his experiential condition will finally conform to his legal standing before God. He or she will then be completely righteous as well as having been declared righteous. God will remove our sinful nature and will conform our lives fully to His will (8:29).

In chapters 6-8 Paul explained how justified sinners can become more holy (godly, righteous) in daily living before our glorification. We need to understand our relationship as believers to sin (i.e., victory, ch. 6), to the Law (i.e., liberty, ch. 7), and to God (i.e., security, ch. 8) to attain that worthy goal.

Constable: Rom 8:1-39

C. The believer's relationship to God ch. 8

"Spener is reported to have said that if holy Scripture was a ring, and the Epistle to the Romans its precious stone, chap. viii would be the sparkling point of the jewel."²³⁶

"It is undoubtedly the chapter of chapters for the life of the believer . . ."²³⁷

As the fifth chapter climaxed Paul's revelation concerning the justification of the sinner, so the eighth culminates the truth concerning the sanctification of the saint. Both chapters end by affirming the eternal security of the believer. In chapter 5 our security depends on the Son's life and in chapter 8 on the Spirit's power, both of which rest on the Father's love.²³⁸

This chapter explains the benefits of sanctification made available through the presence and power of God's Holy Spirit who indwells every believer.²³⁹

"It is altogether too narrow a view to see in this portion simply the antidote to the wretched state pictured in chapter 7. Actually the chapter gathers up various strands of thought from the entire discussion of both justification and sanctification and ties them together with the crowning knot of glorification."²⁴⁰

Constable: Rom 8:18-25

3. Our present sufferings and future glory 8:18-25

Paul proceeded to expound on the thought that he introduced at the end of verse 17. This passage gives a very wide perspective of God's great plan of redemption, which is the heart of Paul's theology.²⁶⁴

8:18 In the light of eternity we should view the cost of suffering with Jesus Christ now as insignificant in view of the glory that lies ahead for us (cf. 2 Cor. 4:17). Paul again used a word, pathemata, that means sufferings for any reason and in any form. By glory Paul meant the glory that we will experience at our glorification (v. 17). Our glorification is the third and final aspect of our salvation in which God will deliver us from the presence of sin forever. The Greek preposition eis can mean either "to" (NASB) or "in" (NIV) and probably includes both ideas here in view of the vastness of this glory.

8:19 Paul broadened his view of glorification to include all of creation. He personified it as leaning forward eagerly in anticipation of the great day in which God will fully redeem it too (cf. Gal. 5:5; Phil. 3:20; Heb. 9:28). Then God will reveal His sons as such whereas now we appear simply as Adam's sons.

". . . the word here translated revealing' is apokalupsis, a removal of a covering,--as when some wonderful statue has been completed and a veil thrown over it, people assemble for the unveiling' of this work of art. It will be as when sky rockets are sent up on a festival night: rockets which, covered with brown paper, seem quite common and unattractive, but up they are sent into the air and then they are revealed in all colors of beauty, and the multitude waiting below shout in admiration. Now the saints are wrapped up in the common brown paper of flesh, looking outwardly like other folks. But the whole creation is waiting for their unveiling at Christ's coming, for they are connected with Christ, one with Him, and are to be glorified with Him at His coming."²⁶⁵

8:20 Because of the Fall God subjected the whole creation to "futility" or "frustration." Consequently it never reaches the perfection that He originally intended it to achieve. Probably God is in view as the one who subjected it though Satan and Adam were instrumental in that action.

8:21 In view of prophecies concerning creation's restoration during Messiah's earthly reign, that time was probably in Paul's mind (Jer. 30:23-24; 35). Paul did not have the annihilation of the present earth in view, which will happen at the end of Messiah's earthly reign (cf. 2 Pet. 3:11-13). He was writing of its transformation at the beginning of that reign.

8:22 The creation (excluding man, v. 23) acts as though it is going through birth pains in that it is straining to produce its fruit. Its sufferings are both a result of past events and a portent of future deliverance (cf. v. 20; Matt. 19:28).

8:23 The saints share the sense of groaning and anticipation that Paul described the creation feeling. God will fully redeem both it and us finally. However only the saints have the firstfruits of the Spirit.

God commanded the Israelites to present a portion of their harvest that ripened first as an offering to Himself (Exod. 23:19; Neh. 10:35). This offering acknowledged that the whole harvest was from Him and was really His. It was an offering that the Israelites made in faith confident that the rest of the harvest would follow.

Similarly God's gift of the Spirit at the commencement of the believer's Christian life is His pledge that He will complete the process of salvation. Even though He has redeemed and adopted us there is more of redemption and adoption for us to experience in the future (Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30; 1 John 3:2). When will that take place? It will happen at the Rapture when He glorifies our bodies by making them immortal (Phil. 3:20-21; cf. 1 Cor. 15:44; John 14:1-2). The judgment seat of Christ will follow when we will receive more of our glorious inheritance (1 Pet. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 3:12-15; 2 Cor. 5:10).

8:24-25 In the meantime we should look forward with hope to what God has promised and patiently endure present sufferings (cf. 5:4).

"The point of these two verses is that the attitude of hope, so distinctive of the Christian, implies that there is more in store for him than anything that is his already."²⁶⁶

Constable: Rom 8:26-30

4. Our place in God's sovereign plan 8:26-30

In the foregoing verses Paul spoke of God's plan for creation and the believer. In these verses he showed how central a place His children occupy in the plan He is bringing to completion in history.

8:26 Hope helps us in our sufferings (vv. 24-25) and so does the Holy Spirit. The context suggests that our "weakness" probably refers to all our limitations as creatures (cf. v. 23; 2 Cor. 12:9-10).

The NASB translators understood Paul to be saying, "We do not know how to pray as we should," which implies ignorance concerning the proper method and procedure in prayer. The NIV translators thought he meant, "We do not know what we ought to pray for," implying ignorance regarding the content and subjects of our praying. The Greek text permits either interpretation, though it favors the former interpretation. Jesus gave instruction to His disciples about both content and method (Matt. 6:9-15; Luke 11:2-4).

Perhaps what Paul meant was this. We know how to approach God in prayer and the general subjects that we should pray about. Still we struggle with exactly how to pray most effectively and with exactly what to pray. The basic principle of effective praying is that it must be in harmony with the will of God to be effective (1 John 5:14-15; John 14:13; 15:16; 16:23-24).²⁶⁷ However what the will of God is is often hard for us to ascertain. The Holy Spirit comes to our aid by interceding for us (cf. Luke 10:40).²⁶⁸ "Intercede" means to pray for someone else. "Groanings" or "groans" expresses feelings of compassion for our weak condition. The Holy Spirit requests the Father's help for us with deep compassion (cf. Eph. 6:18).

We should not confuse these "groanings" with praying in tongues. This passage promises all Christians God's help, not just those who had the gift of tongues. Furthermore the Scriptures never connect the gift of tongues with intercessory prayer. This verse seems to be saying that the Holy Spirit prays for us, not that He prays through us to the Father.

"I take it that Paul is saying, then, that our failure to know God's will and consequent inability to petition God specifically and assuredly is met by God's Spirit, who himself expresses to God those intercessory petitions that perfectly match the will of God. When we do not know what to pray for--yes, even when we pray for things that are not best for us--we need not despair, for we can depend on the Spirit's ministry of perfect intercession on our behalf.'"²⁶⁹

8:27 The Father understands the Spirit's intercession for the saints even though we do not hear it. We can know that His intercession is effective in securing God's help for us because the Spirit prays in harmony with God's will.

Thus God Himself by the Spirit comes to our aid whenever we need help. He also assures us in His Word that we will get assistance from the Father. The consequence of this promise should be that when we feel frustrated about our inability to pray about a particular need we can relax. We can have confidence that our compassionate God understands just how we feel and what we want, and He will respond according to His will.²⁷⁰

8:28 "We have been dealing in the first part of the chapter with the human will and its consent to walk by the Spirit. Not so from the 28th verse to the chapter's end. It will be all God from now on!"²⁷¹

Different translators have interpreted this verse in different ways too. Some saw "God" as the subject and have translated it "God causes . . ." (NASB). Others believed that "all things" is the subject and rendered it "all things God works . . ." (NIV). However the differences are not significant. The whole chapter, even all of Scripture, presents God as sovereign over all the affairs of life. Consequently we know what Paul meant. God orders all the events of life, not just the intercession of the indwelling Spirit, so they culminate in the blessing of His children (cf. vv. 26-27).

"All things" means just that, all things. In the context these things include the adversities the believer experiences. The "good" is what is good from God's perspective, and in view of verses 18-27, conformity to the Son of God is particularly prominent (v. 29). Those who love God could be a group of believers who love God more than others. However since Paul described them from the divine side as the elect of God, those who love God must refer to all Christians (cf. 1 John 4:19). This is the only place in Romans where Paul wrote of the believer's love for God; everywhere else he referred to God's love for the believer.

This verse does not say that God causes all things, period. Nowhere in Scripture do we read that God causes sin or evil. He permits these things, but that is much different from initiating them. Therefore when tragedy touches a believer we should not conclude that this is one of the "all things" that God causes. Rather this verse says that God brings good out of all things, even tragedies, for the Christian. The causes of tragedy are Satan, the sinful choices of people, and the consequences of living in a sinful world (cf. James 1:13-14).

8:29 Paul next explained God's calling in terms of His foreknowledge and predestination. It is a mistake to conclude that God knew beforehand who would believe on His Son and then predestined those individuals for salvation. Foreknowledge is a term that specifically describes God's decision to elect (cf. ch. 9; 1 Pet. 1:20). Notice that it is only those whom He foreknows that He predestines, not everyone. This indicates a "limited" foreknowledge, not just general knowledge of everyone and everything. Foreknowledge does not mean simply knowledge that precedes an event.²⁷² The reason for that choice was not human merit (Eph. 1:4) or even the faith of the elect but God's love and purpose (v. 28; cf. Deut. 7:6-8).

"Theologians rightly point out that prior to knowledge must be the divine decree. Unless God determines in some sense that something will happen, he cannot know' that it will. For God to foreknow requires an earlier decree."²⁷³

Predestined means that God determined the destiny of the elect before Creation (Eph. 1:3-4). That destiny is specifically conformity to Jesus Christ's image, much more than just deliverance from sin and death. God accomplished this goal partially through believers' justification. He is presently accomplishing it partially through our progressive sanctification, and He will accomplish it completely through our glorification.

"This blessed hope--that believers will be conformed to the image of His own Son--explains God's dealings with them as His chosen sons in this present age. He is ever at work to reproduce the moral image of Christ in them. All that now comes into their lives He uses for their good to further that glorious goal. His aim for them now is not to make them happy, materially prosperous, or famous, but to make them Christlike. He now uses all things,' the sad as well as the glad, the painful as well as the pleasant, the things that perplex and disappoint as well as the things they eagerly strive and pray for, to further His eternal purpose for them. In His infinite wisdom He knows what is needed to bring about that transformation. For some of His own He may need to use hotter fire and strike with harder blows than in His dealings with others to effect the formation of Christ's image in them. This may be because some believers may be more resistant to His moulding activities or are more prone to insist on their own efforts."²⁷⁴

The Son became as we are (v. 3) so that we could become as He is. In this respect we are brothers of Jesus Christ. "First-born" refers to Jesus Christ's relation to resurrection (cf. Col. 1:15), the event that inaugurated His entrance into the glorified state that we will share with Him eventually.

"This distinctive designation of Jesus Christ expresses His position of priority to and preeminence over all the other members of the family."²⁷⁵

8:30 Paul summarized the steps involved in our realization of God's purpose: calling, justification, and glorification. Though glorification is yet future the apostle spoke of it here as past. He could do so not because it has already happened but because it is so certain to take place that it is as good as having happened already (cf. Isa. 53). Probably Paul left sanctification out of this list because it is the one stage of our salvation in which human cooperation is essential. Paul listed only those things that God does by Himself to stress His sovereign working to bring the believer to His goal.

"The argument, when condensed, comes to this: that the very ones He foreknew, these, without the loss of one, He glorified."²⁷⁶

"Bridging the gap between predestination and justification by faith, God's effectual call brings the elect to salvation. This effectual call consists of a divine summons to salvation along with illumination, through which the elect rightly perceive the gospel and inevitably trust in Jesus Christ."²⁷⁷

"God's intention, Paul emphasizes, is to bring to glory every person who has been justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Our assurance of ultimate victory rests on this promise of God to us."²⁷⁸

Constable: Rom 8:31-39

5. Our eternal security 8:31-39

The apostle developed the fact that God will not lose one whom He has foreknown in this climactic section, and he gloried in this great truth.

"Nowhere in the annals of sacred literature do we find anything to match the power and beauty of this remarkable paean of praise."²⁷⁹

"This whole passage . . . strikes all thoughtful interpreters and readers, as transcending almost every thing in language . . ."²⁸⁰

". . . God's, or Christ's, love is the motif of this paragraph, mentioned three times (vv. 35, 37, 39; cf. Rom. 5:5-8)."²⁸¹

8:31 The key to the believer's security is that, "God is for us." What He has done for us through His Son in the past and what He is doing for us through the Spirit in the present should give us confidence. He will certainly complete His work of salvation by glorifying us in the future (cf. Phil. 1:3). Nobody or nothing can stand in His way.

8:32 God's plan for us cost Him dearly. He did not spare His own Son (cf. Gen. 22). Having made the greatest possible sacrifice for us already we can know that He will also do whatever else may be necessary to conform us to the image of His Son (cf. 2 Pet. 1:3).

"If you buy a costly watch at the jeweller's, he sends it to you in a lovely case which he gives you freely--with your purchase. . . . For all things' of this created universe,--yea, even all gifts or blessings God may give us, here or hereafter, are but nothing, compared with Christ!"²⁸²

"Romans 5:8-10 and 8:32 appear to me to be unanswerable texts for those who deny the scriptural teaching of Christ's substitutionary atonement. These passages state plainly that, if Jesus gave Himself for us in atonement, everything else must follow because, having done the most that He could do in dying as our substitute, the lesser things--such as conviction of sin, repentance, effectual grace, faith--must inevitably follow. God's great eternal purpose, expressed so beautifully in 8:28-30, must reach its fruition in glorification for all those for whom He died."²⁸³

8:33 The question that opens this verse, along with the two others that follow in verses 34 and 35, brings out the implications of "If God is for us, who is against us?" (v. 31).

Satan is the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10; cf. Job 1-2). He charges the elect with sin. However, he gets nowhere with God because all sin is against God ultimately (Ps. 51:4). Therefore God is the only one in the position to charge the believer with guilt. He will not do so because He is for us. He has provided His Son to pay the penalty for our sins, and He has already declared us righteous.

8:34 Jesus Christ is God's appointed judge who will condemn the unrighteous (Acts 17:31), but He will not condemn the elect. Paul cited four reasons. First, He died for us and thereby removed our guilt. Second, He arose from the dead and is therefore able to give life to those who trust Him (cf. John 1:25; 14:19). Third, He has ascended to the position of supreme authority in heaven where He represents us (v. 29).²⁸⁴ Fourth, He presently intercedes to the Father for our welfare (Heb. 4:4-16; 7:25; cf. Rom. 8:26).

8:35 Present trials and sufferings are no indication that God has withdrawn His love from us. Even though the Father allowed His Son to suffer He did not stop loving Him. The Father deals with His adopted sons as He dealt with His unique Son (cf. John 16:33).

8:36 Suffering has always been the portion of the righteous (Ps. 44:22). The sufferings in view are the consequence of our identification with Christ (cf. Acts 5:41; 1 Pet. 2:21-25; 4:14-19).

8:37 Verses 37-39 express very eloquently the impregnability of our position as believers. The Greek word hypernikomen suggests "hyper-conquerors." Our victory is sure! The Cross is the great proof of God's love for us, and it is the basis for our victory. It proves that God is for us (v. 31).

8:38 God will continue to love us when we die, and He will continue to love us whatever may befall us now. He loves us on both sides of the grave. Helpful or hostile angelic beings cannot change God's commitment to us. Nothing that the present or future may hold can do so either. No force of any kind can remove us from His loving care.

8:39 Space cannot separate us from His loving care either. Finally nothing in all creation can drive a wedge between the loving God and His redeemed people. That must include the behavior and belief of His own children as well. Not even the redeemed can remove themselves from God's love in Christ Jesus!²⁸⁵

Someone might contend that even though God will never stop loving us He may withdraw salvation from us if we do not keep loving and obeying Him (cf. Jude 21). However such a statement reflects failure to appreciate the full significance of God's love for the believer. His love involves a commitment to finish the good work that He has begun in us. God has revealed all of Romans 6-8 to help us appreciate this fact. Furthermore the nature of our salvation argues against this view. Salvation is a gracious work of God for us. The fact that we have responsibilities in our progressive sanctification does not mean we have to keep ourselves saved. Our sanctification is only a small part of our total salvation. Sinful behavior cannot separate a believer from his salvation any more than sinful conduct can separate a beloved child from his relationship to his loving Father.

Paul's peon of praise concludes this section of the epistle that expounds God's present work of salvation in and for those He has redeemed (chs. 6-8).

"Nowhere has the feeling of St. Paul been displayed in such overflowing measure, and yet the thread of logical deduction is not broken for an instant. This passage sums up, as we have seen, all that Paul has hitherto expounded in this Epistle."²⁸⁶

"The results of justification are thus fully presented (chapters 5 to 8). No one has ever set them forth so compactly and so profoundly, in a way that is so stimulating, effective, and uplifting."²⁸⁷

College: Rom 8:1-39

B. VICTORY OVER SIN COMES THROUGH

THE HOLY SPIRIT (8:1-13)

For many people Romans 8 is the high point of the Bible, especially because of its emphasis on the Christian's assurance of victory over all opposing forces. Godet (295) remarks that this chapter begins with no condemnation and ends with no separation . It is truly the logical climax of the gospel of grace.

Many commentaries treat Romans 8 as one unit under a single heading. For most, the unifying theme is the Holy Spirit. My approach is slightly different. I agree that the main theme of vv. 1-13 is the sanctifying work of the Spirit, but I think the emphasis shifts in v. 14 to the general subject of glorification, or the Christian's assurance of eternal glory. Thus I see vv. 14-39 as a separate unit.

This helps us to see more clearly how 8:1-13 relates to what precedes it. The opening word of ch. 8, "therefore," indicates a conclusion drawn from something in the earlier context. In 7:7-25 Paul describes the Christian's continuing battle against sin, especially as it indwells the body. In 8:1-13 he shows us that Christ has provided us with what it takes to win this battle, especially the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

1. God Frees Us from Sin's Penalty and Power (8:1-4)

Paul's heart-cry in 7:24, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?", was immediately answered in brief: "Thanks be to God [because he has rescued me] through Jesus Christ our Lord" (7:25a). While the main concern of this question and its answer is freedom from the power of indwelling sin, we need to be reminded again of the main point already established in 3:21-5:21, that the penalty for our sin has been paid in full by Jesus. In the midst of our intense spiritual struggle against sin, in which we are sometimes on the losing end, we need not fear that our forgiveness is in jeopardy. Christ has already secured this for us on the cross.

The decision to interpret 8:1-4 as including a reference to justification (the absence of penalty) is not difficult in view of such phrases as "no condemnation" (v. 1), "a sin-offering" (v. 3), and "he condemned sin" (v. 3). These expressions have a decidedly judicial or forensic connotation. However, other parts of the paragraph seem to refer to sanctification, or overcoming sin's power and living a holy life through the Spirit (vv. 2, 4b). These verses thus include freedom from both sin's penalty and sin's power.

8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . . . "Therefore" shows that a conclusion is being drawn, most likely from the reference to the saving work of Christ in 7:25a. "Now" points to the same event: "Now, in view of what Christ has done." "Condemnation" is katavkrima ( katakrima ), used only here and in 5:16, 18. This is a judicial or forensic term. It refers to a judge's sentence upon a guilty person, not only as pronounced but also as carried out. I.e., it means "penalty, punishment, doom." The word for "no" (oujdevn , ouden ) is emphatic and means "not a single one" of any kind (Lenski, 494). "In Christ Jesus" identifies those to whom this wonderful blessing applies, namely, those who have entered into the saving union with Christ described in 6:1-11.

The point of the verse is this: even though sin still lives in our bodies, causing us at times to do sinful things that we hate, we can be assured that these sins will not condemn us because Christ has already died for them and we belong to Christ. Though we may still sin, we are "justified by his blood" (5:9); there is "no penalty" for us, none of any kind. No disaster or tribulation suffered in this life should now be interpreted as a punishment sent by God. No damnation to eternal hell awaits us after death, and even the sting of physical death has been blunted by the promise of resurrection from the dead (1 Cor 15:53-57).

Some interpreters, especially those who believe 8:1-4 refers equally or solely to the overcoming of sin's power , expand the meaning of "condemnation" to include sin's enslavement of the flesh. Thus they interpret "no condemnation" as including freedom from sin itself, i.e., freedom from its enslaving power. There is little basis for this expanded meaning of katakrima , however. In 5:16, 18 it is clearly opposed to justification (which itself is a forensic concept). There is no good reason or basis for extending its meaning beyond that connotation here. Thus "no condemnation" is the equivalent of "justification" (Stott, 217).

In the KJV 8:1 ends thus: "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." However, these words are not found in 8:1 in the earlier and better manuscripts and are omitted from most modern translations (such as the NIV). The same words appear in 8:4b, though, and will be discussed there.

8:2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. "Because" (gavr , gar ) implies that this verse gives the reason for the statement in v. 1: "There is no condemnation because we have been freed from it by the law of the Spirit of life." At first glance it seems that v. 2 is talking only about the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. This is why many expand the meaning of "condemnation" in v. 1 to include the indwelling power of sin; otherwise Paul would appear to be saying that we are justified (v. 1) because we are sanctified (v. 2), which would be equivalent to justification by works.

But if we do limit "condemnation" to the penalty for sin, and "no condemnation" to justification (as I have done above), how do we avoid this conclusion? By seeing that v. 2 itself is not limited to the sanctifying work of the Spirit. It speaks rather of freedom from "the law of sin and death" in every respect, including death as the penalty for sin.

Through Christ Jesus we are set free from the law of sin and death. This in itself points to the comprehensive nature of this liberation. By applying to us the full scope of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of life sets us free from every aspect of sin and death, including its penalty.

It is difficult to decide exactly what the two uses of "law" (novmo" , nomos ) mean here. We know that it does not mean law in the sense of a set of commandments, whether it be the Mosaic law or God's law in general. The latter connotation appears in vv. 3-4, and the context shows it has a different sense in v. 2.

Also because of the context, I conclude that nomos here has the general sense of "order, rule, pattern, system," as applied on a cosmic scale. The two "laws" named here are the two competing world orders, the two rival life paradigms. The first is the life system in which the Spirit of life operates and dominates; the second is the life system controlled by sin and death. They are related to the contrasting spheres of flesh and Spirit as discussed in vv. 4b-13.

As understood in this general sense, the nomos of v. 2 includes both the conceptual and the concrete, or the connotations of both "governing principle" and "controlling power." It cannot be limited to power alone; this would limit the liberating activity of v. 2 to sanctification, and raise problems regarding the relation between v. 1 and v. 2 (see above). Thus we conclude that nomos also includes the governing principles according to which this power operates (see Bruce, 160; MacArthur, I:403).

Thus in 8:2 Paul is referring to two exclusive and competing world orders. One is the order of the flesh, in which sin is the dominant power and death the inevitable outcome. It is governed by the principle that sin and death are inseparable: wherever sin rules, it always brings death in all its ruinous varieties. The other world or life system is the order of the Spirit, in which the Holy Spirit is the dominating power and life is the inevitable outcome. It is governed by the principle that the Holy Spirit and life are inseparable: wherever the Spirit enters, he always brings life in all its abundance (John 6:63; Rom 8:11; 2 Cor 3:6; Gal 6:8).

Paul's point in this section is that, through Jesus Christ, the governing principle and the controlling power of sin and death have been driven out of our lives by and replaced by the governing principle and the controlling power of the Spirit of life. In 8:1-4 the main point is that the regulating principle that sin always brings death has been shattered by Christ's propitiatory atonement, allowing for the justification of the wicked (4:5). In 8:5-13 the point is that the dominating power of the Spirit overcomes the dominating power of the flesh (the body of sin and death - 6:6; 7:24) in the lives of Christians.

How does v. 2 relate, then, to v. 1? Why is there no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? Because, through Christ and the world order that he has made possible, my life is no longer governed by the rules of sin and death. Yes, my sin deserves the penalty of death, but Christ's death has paid that penalty for me, and the Spirit has applied that redemptive act to my life. This breaks the connection between sin and death! It has set me free from the principle that sin always brings death, and has restored me - a sinner - to the role of a child of God and heir of eternal life (8:15-17). Thus the liberation of 8:2 is the basis for the justification of 8:1.

But it is also the basis for the sanctification of which 8:5-13 speaks. The indwelling Spirit has broken the power of the indwelling sin which seeks to drag me back down into the pits of spiritual death. When Christ gave me his Spirit, the principle and power of life took over, thus ending the illegitimate reign of those usurping tyrants, sin and death.

We should note that the verb "set free" is aorist (past) tense. The act of liberation that set us free from sin's penalty and power (the "double cure") is a past event for any Christian. Specifically, it happened in our Christian baptism, in which we received not only forgiveness of sins (justification) through Christ's blood, but also the indwelling presence of the Spirit of life (Acts 2:38). In that event the course of our lives as well as our ultimate destiny were totally recast or reprogrammed; the sin-brings-death system was replaced by the Spirit-gives-life paradigm.

In this verse some translations read "set me free" (KJV, NIV), and some read "set you free" (NASB, NRSV). The former fits better with the first person singular in 7:7-25 (especially 7:24), but the latter has better manuscript support, according to Cranfield (I:377).

8:3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did . . . . The Greek speaks literally of "the impossible thing of the law." What is this "impossible thing"? The answer is in v. 2: the law (God's commandments as such) cannot set a sinner free from the tyranny of sin and death. The law was "intended to bring life" (7:10), and it can do so when followed completely. But once a person has sinned, the law cannot set him free from sin's penalty and power; it cannot restore him to the sphere of life.

That the law cannot give life to sinners is not due to some inherent flaw or failure in the law itself, since it was not designed for this purpose. This weakness is due rather to "the sinful nature"; literally, "it was weak through the flesh." This may refer to the flesh as incapacitated by sin (cf. the NIV), or it could refer to the inherent limitations of human beings simply as finite creatures. I.e., in the hands of mere men, the law can never deliver us from the consequences of our sins.

But what the law cannot do, God can; and he can do it without violating the integrity of his law. As we have seen (1:17), God cannot disregard his own righteousness in his dealings with men; he must always be true to himself and to the requirements of his law. But once sinners have broken the law's commandments , the only way God can be righteous is to satisfy his law's requirement for punishment . And this is exactly what Jesus came to do - in our place.

The substitutionary atonement of Jesus is the point of vv. 3-4a. Though sin still lives in our bodies, we are not condemned thereby (8:1), because we have been set free from the "sin brings death" principle (8:2). How is this possible? Because God sent his divine Son to suffer the penalty of death in our place (8:3), thereby satisfying the law's requirement (for penalty) and maintaining his own righteousness (8:4a).

God did this by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering . This simple statement contains deep Christological concepts. To say that God "sent" his Son does not in itself imply the Son's pre-existence with the Father in heaven, since the OT often speaks of God's "sending" the prophets. But as Godet suggests (298), when this is combined with the description of Jesus as God's "own Son" (see 8:32), it indicates not only the pre-existence of Christ but his divine nature as well.

On the other hand, "in the likeness of sinful man" refers to the incarnation and human nature of Jesus. "Sinful man" is literally "sinful flesh" or "the flesh of sin." Paul is not saying that flesh is inherently sinful or evil, as dualistic philosophies such as Gnosticism taught. Rather, he is alluding to his consistent teaching in this context that the human body has come under the power of sin and remains so to some extent even for Christians. It is "sinful flesh" because it harbors sin.

But what does it mean to say that Jesus came in the "likeness" of sinful flesh (likeness implying "similar but different")? He came in real flesh, but only in the "likeness" of sinful flesh. His body was fully human in the truest sense. It had everything a human body is supposed to have, but it did not have the corruption caused by sin. It was not necessary for him to assume a sinful human nature in order to be able to redeem us; he only had to have a genuine and complete human nature, which he did.

The purpose of the incarnation is then stated: "to be a sin offering." In the Greek this is a simple prepositional phrase, "concerning sin." Many give it a very general sense, i.e., Jesus came "to deal with sin" (NRSV). The reason for the NIV translation is that the Septuagint regularly uses this very phrase to translate Hebrew terms meaning "as a sin offering" (see Dunn, I:422; Moo, I:512). The following context suggests it is reasonable to think this is how Paul is using it here.

And so he condemned sin in sinful man, or more accurately, "in the flesh." Some take "condemned" in the general sense of "destroyed" or "destroyed the power of." They say Jesus destroyed sin's power by living a sinless life, thereby showing that sin can be resisted and setting a precedent for our sanctification. But this fits neither the context nor the meaning of the word "condemned" (katakrivnw , katakrinô ), which is the verb form of the word "condemnation" in 8:1. This term refers to a judicial act (Moo, I:513). It means that God's judicial sentence against sin "was passed and executed" (Bruce, 161), that "the full weight of God's wrath against sin" was poured out (Cranfield, I:383).

What does the phrase "in the flesh" modify? Some say it goes with "sin," i.e., God condemned the sin that dwells in our flesh, or the sins committed by "sinful man" (NIV). The context, however, favors the view that "in the flesh" modifies the verb, and that it refers to the flesh (human nature) of Jesus Christ. I.e., the very thing the law could not do because of "the flesh" of sinners (v. 3a), God himself has done in "the flesh" of Jesus. The only way we human beings can gain eternal life through the law is to obey its commandments completely, but in our weakness we have all sinned. But Jesus came to earth in our very same flesh, though untainted by sin; and in his flesh he restored us to the sphere of life by allowing sin to be condemned in himself instead of us.

The nuance of the last sentence is significant. It does not say that God condemned Jesus Christ himself, as if he were a sinner. Nor does it say that God condemned us in Jesus Christ. Rather, it says simply that God "condemned sin in the flesh," i.e., he condemned our sin in the flesh of Jesus . This is how God has set us free from the law of sin and death (8:2) in reference to its penalty, namely, through the substitutionary (vicarious) atonement of Jesus.

8:4 This substitutionary atonement was necessary in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us . . . . The word i{na ( hina ), "in order that," shows that this is the intended result or purpose of God's condemning sin in the flesh. The main question is whether this intended result is our justification (8:1) or our sanctification (holy living).

The key to this question is the meaning of dikaivwma (dikaiôma ), translated "righteous requirements" by the NIV. Basically it means "an ordinance, a decree, or a requirement that expresses or upholds righteousness." In 2:26 it is used for "requirements" of the law in the sense of commandments; that is how many take it here. God condemned sin in the flesh in order that the law's requirements for holy living might be fulfilled in us. He set us free from the power of sin, enabling us to live in obedience to his law. A variation of this is that Christ is the one who fulfilled these requirements vicariously for us; his perfect obedience was then imputed to us.

I believe this whole approach to be wrong, however. The first clue is that, unlike 2:26, dikaiôma here is singular ( not plural, contra the NIV). The second clue is the connection between the dikaiôma and the act of condemnation in v. 3b. I.e., that which fulfills the righteous requirement of the law is a judicial act, an act of condemnation. The third clue is that this act of condemnation enables this righteous requirement to be be fulfilled completely, or "fully met" - something we can never personally do with the law's commandments.

These considerations together show that the dikaiôma of the law is not its various commandments, but its decree that sin must be punished. This is how it is used in 1:32 ("righteous decree"). And as we have already seen (1:17), the very essence of the "righteousness of God" which is the content of the gospel is that Jesus came to satisfy the law's requirement for penalty in our place. Here the words "in us" do not mean "by us personally," but as accomplished by Jesus Christ and imputed to us, as the basis for our justification.

Thus far the main emphasis of this paragraph has been on the first part of the double cure, or justification. We have been reminded that, in the face of sin's vicious opposition to us and in the process of our fighting against it, we must not forget that Christ has broken the connection between sin and death; we have been set free from condemnation. In our effort to implement the second part of the double cure (sanctification), we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by doubts about the first part.

But Paul is now ready to leave this subject, and at the end of v. 4 he makes a transition to the main subject of this section on victory (8:1-13), namely, the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. "The law of the Spirit of life" not only sets us free from sin's penalty of death; it also delivers us from the condition of death as it exists in our souls and bodies. This latter aspect of grace has been prominent in chs. 6-7, and will now become the main point in 8:5-13. In ch. 6 Paul shows that our "inner man" or soul has already been set free from sinful corruption. In ch. 7 he laments the fact that our as-yet-unredeemed bodies are still indwelt by sin and are a beachhead for sin's continuing war against our souls. Now he is ready to show us how God himself intervenes in this battle and rescues us from "this body of death" (7:24), namely, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The words at the end of v. 4 are not intended to present a condition for justification; rather, they simply identify those to whom the vicarious suffering of Jesus applies. It does not apply to everyone, but only to those who do not live according to the sinful nature [ sarx ] but according to the Spirit.

The word for "live" is "walk," a term often used in Scripture for conduct or behavior regarded from a moral point of view. As MacArthur well says, one's "walk" is his lifestyle or his "habitual way or bent of life" (I:410). There are only two kinds of people: those whose lifestyle is based on the sarx , and those whose lifestyle is based on the Spirit.

Most people walk according to the sarx . Here sarx refers not to some nebulous "sinful nature" (contra the NIV), but to the flesh or material body which in its fallen state is indwelt by and enslaved to sin, and thus is the source of sinful lusts and inclinations. Those who are "in Christ Jesus," however, walk according to the Spirit. Though some take pneuma here to mean the human spirit, it much more likely means the Holy Spirit (as in 8:2). What it means to walk according to the flesh or Spirit is explained in the introduction to the following section.

2. Sin and Death Are Defeated in Us

Through the Holy Spirit (8:5-13)

Fighting against sin is an intense struggle (7:7-25), but Jesus has provided us with the means for victory through his gift of the indwelling Spirit. Our deliverance comes through Jesus Christ (7:24-25a), because through his redeeming work the energizing power of the Spirit of life enables us to overcome the insidious power of sin and death that remains in our bodies (8:2).

This is what Paul now explains in detail. First he describes the difference between the two "laws" or world orders (8:2) as a contrast between flesh and Spirit (8:5-8). Then he affirms the reality and the nature of the Spirit's victory over the flesh in the life of a Christian (8:9-11). Finally he reminds us that we have a personal responsibility to resist the flesh and to surrender ourselves to the Spirit's power (8:12-13).

Two translation notes are in order. First, where the NIV has "sinful nature" (also "sinful men" and "sinful mind"), the Greek word is savrx ( sarx ) and should be translated "flesh." Also, the Greek uses several expressions to describe the two ways of life as lived within the two world orders: walking according to flesh/Spirit, v. 4; existing according to flesh/Spirit, v. 5; existing in flesh/Spirit, vv. 8-9; and living according to flesh/(Spirit), vv. 12-13. The NIV translates vv. 4, 5, 12-13 the same, i.e., as "live." This may be misleading, especially in v. 5, since there seems to be a difference between being/existing in (according to) flesh or Spirit, and walking/living according to the flesh or Spirit. See v. 12.

Existing in (according to) the flesh or the Spirit refers not to certain specific acts as such, but to a person's life orientation or state of being. On the one hand, a person existing in or according to the flesh is someone whose life is determined by all the things that relate to bodily life in this world. It is someone whose whole being, both body and soul, is basically controlled by the sinful lusts and inclinations of the flesh, e.g., for food, comfort, sex, and pleasure in general. On the other hand, a person existing in or according to the Spirit is someone whose life is oriented around and determined by "the law of the Spirit of life." It is someone who is committed to Spirit-inspired Scripture as his authoritative moral and spiritual compass, and who is committed to using the Spirit's power to live the holy lifestyle prescribed therein.

Walking or living by the flesh or Spirit is different in that it refers to the way a person actually lives. It refers to the lifestyle or conduct that a person chooses to actualize (v. 12). While a person who exists according to the flesh cannot live according to the Spirit (vv. 7-8), a person who exists according to the Spirit can choose to continue to live according to the flesh, to his eternal peril (vv. 12-13).

8:5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The literal NASB translation is better: "For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit." "To set the mind on" (fronevw , phroneô ) means "to think," "to have a specific opinion or attitude" about something. It also means "to focus the mind or attention upon, to be preoccupied with." As MacArthur says, it refers to "the basic orientation, bent, and thought patterns of the mind" (I:416).

Thus a major difference between those existing under the two world orders is the content of their minds. This includes one's daydreams, conscious goals, interests, desires, attitudes, and points of view. One whose life orientation is the flesh is constantly preoccupied with the things of the flesh, i.e., things having to do with one's bodily nature as it exists in this physical world. The one whose life orientation is the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is preoccupied with the things of the Spirit. His desires, goals, and points of view are determined by the truth revealed in Scripture by the Spirit of God.

8:6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace . . . . Literally, "For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace." "Mind" (frovnhma , phronçma ) is the noun form of phroneô (v. 5) and conveys the same idea. It thus means the content of the mind in terms of one's worldview, mindset, and thought patterns.

This verse names a second major characteristic of those who are of the flesh or of the Spirit. On the one hand, the mind of the flesh is death . This refers both to one's present state and to his eternal destiny. The person controlled by his flesh is in a state of spiritual death; he exists according to "the law [world order] of sin and death" (8:2). This is the state of spiritual depravity (not total depravity), which is the second half of the sinner's "double trouble." It is death in the most serious sense, i.e., separation from God (Isa 59:2). Also, to be controlled by the flesh means that one's final destiny is eternal death in the lake of fire (6:23; 7:5; Rev 20:14-15), where separation from God is eternal.

On the other hand, the mind of the Spirit is life and peace . This also refers to one's present state and to his eternal destiny. At conversion we were raised from spiritual death to spiritual life (6:4, 11; 8:10; John 5:24), and we began to exist in a state of objective peace with God and internal peace of mind (5:1-2). This peace with God is in contrast with the mind of the flesh, which exists in a state of enmity toward God (8:7). We should note that it is a state of peace with God , not peace with sin . Thus such peace is consistent with the state of battle against sin described in 7:14-25.

Also, "life and peace" are the final blessings of eternal life and of eternal peace in heaven. To have the mind of the Spirit is to exist according to "the law [world order] of the Spirit of life," and the Spirit's final gift of life is a new body designed for glory (8:11, 23).

8:7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. "Sinful mind" is literally "the mind of the flesh," exactly as in v. 6. This statement is preceded in the Greek by diovti ( dioti ), "because" (untranslated by the NIV). This connects with the first part of v. 6. I.e., the mind of the flesh is death, because it is hostile toward God. "Hostile" is a noun, e[cqra ( echthra ), that means "hostility, hatred, enmity." It is the state that exists between enemies, in contrast with the state of peace in v. 6.

The mind devoted to the flesh is enmity against God because it is committed to everything that God is against. The "carnal mind" (KJV) may not consciously sense itself as being an enemy of God, and may deny that it is so. But the fact remains that "friendship with the world is hatred [ echthra ] toward God" (Jas 4:4). As the maxim says, "The friend of my enemy is my enemy."

The nature of this enmity is explained in the rest of the verse: It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. This is connected to v. 7a by gar , "for, because" (untranslated in the NIV). This shows a causal relation between 7a and 7b. The mind focused on the flesh is an enemy of God because it does not and cannot submit to God's law.

"Law" in this context is the general law of God in any and all of its applicable forms. That peace with God and enmity against God are measured by one's attitude toward his law is significant. It shows that God and his law cannot be separated. To reject God's law is to reject God himself.

The choice between the mind of the flesh and the mind of the Spirit is the choice between the attitude of lawlessness, which is the essence of sin (1 John 3:4), and the attitude of submission to God's law (see 7:22). "Submit" is uJpotavssw (hypotassô ), which in the passive voice means to surrender oneself to the authority of someone or something. To submit to the law of God means to acknowledge its authority and to make a conscious effort to obey it. This is precisely what the mind of the flesh does not do. More significantly, it cannot do so. This theme of inability is continued in the next verse.

8:8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. Literally, "And those who are in the flesh cannot please God." On the phrase "in the flesh," see 7:5. The translation "controlled by" gives the proper sense of it.

This verse is simply reinforcing the point of v. 7b. "Cannot please God" is directly related to "cannot submit to God's law." This shows that what pleases God is inner submission to and external obedience to his law. On the subject of pleasing God, see 12:1-2; 1 Cor 7:32; 2 Cor 5:9; Eph 5:10; 1 Thess 4:1; 2 Tim 2:4; Heb 11:5-6; 13:21; 1 John 3:22.

Paul says that the one whose mind is set on the flesh cannot submit to God's law (v. 7) and cannot please God. What is the nature of this inability? Calvinists and others use these verses as proof-texts for the idea of total inability, which is the core of the doctrine of total depravity (see Murray, I:287; Moo, I:521). These verses are taken to mean that sinners are unable to repent and believe the gospel without the sovereign and irresistible grace of God, which he gives to those whom he unconditionally chooses.

It is important to see, though, that these verses do not teach this kind of inability. They obviously teach that the person controlled by his flesh is unable to do something, but his inability is clearly related to the law, not to the gospel. This is the key to understanding this text.

Basically, such a person is unable to obey any command of the law as God wants it done and as the law requires. He may obey it outwardly; but as long as he exists according to the flesh, he cannot submit to God's law in his heart (Gal 5:6; Heb 11:6). One simply cannot do both at the same time: he cannot set his mind on the flesh and submit to God's law simultaneously (Morris, 306). Thus as long as he is in the flesh, he cannot please God with respect to his law.

The key words are "as long as." A person cannot be pleasing to God in obedience to his law as long as his mind remains set on the flesh. But here is the crucial point: there is no indication whatsoever in this text that a sinner is unable to respond to the gospel, or unable through the power of the gospel to redirect the set of his mind from flesh to Spirit. The context shows that "cannot please God" refers only to an inability to be subject to the law, and does not imply an inability to respond to the gospel. The failure to make this distinction is the main error of Calvinists' interpretation of these verses. In other passages it is clear that sinners are able and expected to respond to the gospel in faith and repentance (John 3:16; Rom 1:17; Rev 22:17; see Matt 23:37).

8:9 In vv. 5-8 Paul gives an objective description of the two orders of flesh and Spirit. Now he begins a personal application to the Roman Christians and Christians everywhere. His point is this: despite the law of sin and death that continues to work in and through your as-yet-unredeemed bodies, and despite the reality of your continuing struggle against its enslaving power, you need not despair, for God has given you a gift of grace second only to the gift of justification through Christ's blood. This second gift of grace is the indwelling Holy Spirit himself. His very presence within you gives you all the resources you need for victory over your flesh now, and for ultimate victory over death in every sense.

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. Literally, "you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit." The "you" is emphatic and draws the Christian reader personally into the sphere of the truth enunciated in the text. Paul flatly states that you (Christians) are not "in the flesh," or "controlled by the flesh." Your life is not oriented to this world; your mind is not set upon the things of this earth. Rather, you are "in the Spirit." Some take this to mean the human spirit. I.e., you are not governed by the desires of your bodies but by the higher inclinations of your spirits. As in the preceding verses, however, it is best to take this as referring to the Holy Spirit. That is, your life now falls within the sphere of the Spirit's influence and power.

This is true, of course, only if the Spirit of God indeed dwells in you. The word "if" is ei[per ( eiper ), which sometimes means "since" (3:30; 2 Thess 1:6). Some take it thus here, in order to eliminate all uncertainty as to the status of Paul's readers. "If" or "if indeed" is probably the intended meaning, though, as in 8:17 (see 1 Cor 15:15). It simply states the condition for being in the Spirit. The point is not to create uncertainty as to one's status, but rather to eliminate other conditions, especially those having to do with human achievement. The fact that we are "in the Spirit" depends not upon what we have accomplished in ourselves, but upon what God has accomplished in us through his Spirit.

The word for "lives" is oijkevw (oikeô ), and is related to the word for "house, dwelling place." The word implies not a temporary, transient visit, but a permanent settling down. When the Holy Spirit is given to us in baptism (Acts 2:38), he takes up permanent residence and makes himself at home within us. He comes to dwell in our very bodies (1 Cor 6:19), which continue also to be indwelt by sin (7:17, 23). Thus he is in position to do battle for us in the very place where we need him most.

And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. This makes the same point in a negative way. Those who do not have the Spirit are outside the sphere of the redeemed. This is not applied personally to Paul's readers, but is stated of the impersonal "anyone." That the Spirit is called both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ suggests that Christ as God the Son is on the same level as God the Father; it implies his deity.

How can we know whether or not the Holy Spirit is dwelling in us? First we must ask whether we have done that which God has specified as the condition for receiving the Spirit: Acts 2:38; 5:32; 19:1-7. Then we must look for the signs of his continuing presence. These signs do not necessarily include the possession of miraculous powers, since these can be present even where Christ and his Spirit are absent (see Matt 7:21-23). The best sign is the presence of the fruit of the Spirit in our character and conduct (Gal 5:22-26), though even this is not an infallible indicator. What we can say is this, that where such fruit is absent, the Spirit is also absent.

This verse clearly ties our relationship to the Spirit with our relationship to Christ. When the Spirit lives in us and we thus "live in the Spirit," we belong to Christ. (This is the implication from the negative statement that one who does not have the Spirit does not belong to Christ.) This same connection is made in 1 Cor 6:19-20.

8:10 But if Christ is in you . . . . Here Paul returns to second person, indicating his confidence that this condition is indeed the condition that applies to his Roman readers. Verse 9 says the Holy Spirit dwells in us; now Paul describes our saved state by saying that Christ dwells in us. This does not equate Christ with the Spirit, but shows the intimate interrelation between them. It also indicates how difficult it is to give an exact or literal description of the Christian's own intimate relation with both Christ and the Spirit. The Spirit is in us; we are in the Spirit. Christ is in us; we are in Christ. Some say the Holy Spirit dwells in us personally and directly, while Christ dwells in us only indirectly through the Spirit (Lard, 258). This is not necessarily the case, however. Both may certainly dwell in us, each for his own purpose.

If Christ is in you, here is where you now stand. First, your body is dead because of sin . . . . The body here no doubt is the physical body, as in v. 11. In what sense does Paul say that "the body is dead" (present tense)? The primary and most obvious reference is to physical death (see v. 11), the idea being that the body is subject to death, under the curse of death, "irrevocably smitten with death" (Godet, 305). It is doomed to die. "Because of sin" must then refer to the sin of Adam (5:12-17), since even sinless infants and young children sometimes die.

But it is also true that the Christian's body is even now still permeated with the spiritual effects of his own sin and thus with a kind of spiritual death (see Romans 7:24). I.e., the physical body is spiritually dead because of the sin that indwells it (7:17-18, 23). Because the Christian's body has not yet been delivered from the power of this spiritual death, it is thus the source of constant struggle.

That we still have "this body of death" is the bad news, but there is also some very good news: yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. The most difficult question here is whether pneuma ("spirit") means the human spirit or the Holy Spirit. Many say the latter, the strongest argument being that the Greek does not say "the spirit is alive" but rather "is life ." In view of the close connection between the Holy Spirit and life (8:2), the affirmation that "the Spirit is life" makes very good sense. On the other hand, to say "the redeemed human spirit is life" is somewhat problematic. (See Cranfield, I:390; Hendriksen, I:252-253.)

Nevertheless many do believe pneuma refers here to the human spirit, the strongest argument being the apparent parallel between "body" and "spirit." I believe the case for this view is stronger, and that the NIV translation is appropriate: "your spirit is alive." Either way the phrasing is a bit awkward.

Whichever view was intended, the other is still true and is actually present by implication. If Paul is saying "the Spirit is life," since this is in contrast with "the body is dead," then we must understand that the Spirit's first and best gift of life was the life he gave to our spirits in the act of regeneration. If Paul is saying "the spirit is alive," then we must understand that the source of this life is the Holy Spirit. (See Titus 3:5.) Either way, the Holy Spirit is the source of our power over sin and our ability to stand against its attacks. This is the main point.

The spirit is alive "because of righteousness." Many take this to mean the imputed righteousness that is the basis for justification. This would mean that in some sense our regeneration is grounded in our justification through the blood of Christ. This is not at all unlikely since "the law of the Spirit of life" is able to operate only "through Jesus Christ" (8:2). Others take it to mean a kind of imparted righteousness. This is not as likely, since it is difficult to separate imparted righteousness from our own righteous living, and since our spirit's being alive seems in no way attributable to our righteous living. It is rather the opposite: we can live righteously because we have been made alive by the Spirit.

8:11 The Christian is a combination of "a dying body and a living spirit," as Stott says (226). But this is not the whole story. Just as our spirits have already been raised from the dead, so also will our bodies one day be rescued from the grip of sin and death and restored once more to a state of pure life. This "body of sin" (6:6), "this body of death" (7:24), is appointed to undergo physical death (Heb 9:27); but after that we shall be raised in new bodies that are no longer susceptible to such death and are no longer infected with sin and spiritual death. While the resurrection of Christ has certainly paved the way for this bodily resurrection and has made it possible, its immediate agent is the Holy Spirit.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you . . . . Paul has already established that the Spirit of God dwells in all who exist according to the Spirit (v. 9). The word "if" (eij , ei ) does not suggest uncertainty but is simply establishing the basis for our hope regarding the resurrection of our bodies. Some would translate it "since."

We may note that this clause reflects the Trinitarian nature of God. "Him who raised Jesus" is God the Father; "the Spirit" of the Father is God the Holy Spirit; Jesus is God the Son.

. . . he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies . . . . If God raised Jesus from the dead, he can also raise up our bodies as well (see 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14). The resurrection of Jesus is thus a basis for our assurance that we too will be raised up in the day when Christ returns. "Mortal bodies" refers to the physical body; it is mortal in the sense that it is subject to death and pervaded by death both physically and spiritually (6:12; 8:10). But no matter how strong a grip death has on our bodies, its power will be completely broken through his Spirit, who lives in you. The present indwelling of the Spirit is a further assurance of our future resurrection. See 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13-14.

It is significant that our promised rescue from this body of sin and death (7:24) does not consist merely of physical death and freedom from bodily existence as such, as many pagan religions teach. According to the Bible physical death itself is something to be rescued from, and the human spirit was not designed to exist apart from a body. Thus our rescue comes only through "the redemption of our bodies" (8:23) in the form of resurrection.

8:12 The approach here is similar to 6:1-13, where a description of the fact of regeneration (1-11) was followed by exhortations to Christians to live consistently with their new inner life (12-13). Here, vv. 5-11 are likewise descriptive. They describe the difference between existing for the flesh and for the Spirit, and affirm that Christians do indeed exist according to the Spirit. Now vv. 12-13 set forth the personal responsibility resting upon those who are in the Spirit.

The facts that we have been regenerated, and that we have received the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, do not in themselves guarantee holy living. They make holy living possible; this is one of the great gifts of grace celebrated in the gospel. But they do not make it automatic and inevitable. Grace does not make us robots; we are still freewill creatures who must personally seize the opportunity and actualize the possibility created by grace.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation . . . . This is directed specifically and personally to Christians (brothers). It is not a formal exhortation, but it has the force of one. Literally it says "we are debtors" (see 1:14). We owe it to God to live a holy life. It is an absolute obligation based on the fact that he is our Creator, and it is a debt of gratitude based on the fact that he is our Redeemer.

. . . but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. Literally, we are debtors "not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh." We owe nothing to the flesh, to our as-yet-unredeemed bodies. We do not "owe it to ourselves" to experience as much physical and earthly pleasure as possible (Phil 3:19).

Actually Paul does not finish his sentence. He tells us we are not debtors to the flesh, but he stops before stating the obvious, namely, that we are debtors to the Spirit, to live according to the Spirit. Without hesitation we can assume that this is his point, in view of the contrast between flesh and Spirit pervading this context. I.e., we owe it to God to take full advantage of the power and the potential existing within us through the Spirit - the power to overcome the sinful cravings of the flesh and the potential to obey God's commandments to the fullest.

Contrary to the NIV, this is the first use in 8:1-13 of the terminology " living according to the flesh" and (by implication) " living according to the Spirit." In 8:4 "walking" is basically the same as "living." But vv. 5, 8-9 speak of being in the flesh or Spirit. Unbelievers are in the flesh, just as Christians are in the Spirit. This is our status, our position, our nature. "Are" describes a reality that exists. But now, given this reality, it is our responsibility to live in accordance with it. Now that we exist in the Spirit, we owe it to him to live up to the potential he provides. (See 6:2.)

8:13 The reason Paul breaks off his sentence is so that he can pursue the theme of living according to the flesh. He issues a solemn warning, stressing the danger of continuing to live the lifestyle of the flesh now that we are in the Spirit. For if you live according to the sinful nature [literally, "flesh"], you will die . . . . "Die" cannot mean die physically, for that will happen regardless. Thus it means die spiritually by reverting to an unsaved condition; or die eternally in hell. Actually these cannot be separated; those who are spiritually dead will die the eternal death. This is the "law of sin and death" (8:2).

This verse is a strong affirmation of the real possibility that a Christian can fall from grace and lose his salvation. Those who cling to the dogma of "once saved, always saved" deny this, of course. Moo (I:528) says he favors the "Calvinist" interpretation, i.e., that "the truly regenerate believer, while often committing 'fleshly' acts, will be infallibly prevented from living a fleshly life-style by the Spirit within." This view, he says, "in no way mitigates the seriousness of the warning Paul gives here." MacArthur (I:422) agrees: "The apostle is not warning genuine believers that they may lose their salvation and be condemned to death if they fall back into some of the ways of the flesh. . . . He is rather saying that a person whose life is characterized by the things of the flesh is not a true Christian and is spiritually dead."

Such comments are incredible in view of the fact that Paul here directs this warning specifically to his "brothers" (v. 12). He is not speaking of an anonymous "anyone" (v. 9) who is not a true Christian, but is speaking directly to these brothers in second person plural: "If you live according to the flesh, you will die." To say that it cannot really happen "in no way mitigates the seriousness of the warning," and to say that the Spirit will "infallibly prevent" the very thing he warns against, approaches the limits of spiritual confusion. Of course it mitigates the seriousness of the warning! If living according to the flesh is impossible for Christians, then this "warning" is meaningless to the very ones to whom it is addressed, and it can be totally ignored.

The warning is serious and relevant: if believers continue to live according to the flesh, they will die. But the warning is balanced by a glorious promise: . . . but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live . . . . This is the Christian's other possibility. He can continue to live the fleshly lifestyle, yes (and die!); or he can put to death the sins of the body (and live!). "Misdeeds" is the word praxis . It means "acts, deeds" or "evil deeds," depending on the context. The latter is the connotation here; hence "misdeeds" (see Acts 19:18; Col 3:9). The misdeeds "of the body" are the sinful deeds that result from the law of sin that resides in the flesh, i.e., the as-yet-unredeemed body (6:6; 7:18, 23-25).

These and any other sins are to be "put to death," mortified (KJV), killed. This is the opposite of living according to the flesh. We can either let these sins continue to live in us and kill us, or we can kill them (see Col 3:5). The latter must be our choice. The sins of the body must be attacked at their very root, where they are imbedded in our flesh on the level of our inclinations and desires. Like Paul, we must beat or buffet our bodies and make them our slaves (1 Cor 9:27), gaining control of our passions. We must train ourselves not only on the level of acting but also on the level of willing or desiring (Phil 2:13).

The point of this is not to punish the body as such, as an end in itself, but to do what is necessary to squelch the sins of the body. This requires spiritual discipline, not necessarily asceticism.

We must note here again the Christian's personal responsibility for this discipline: "if . . . you put to death." Again, this is not automatic and inevitable; we must personally will it and do it. As Lard says (263), "The will is to be your will, the effort your effort, and the result your deed." After all, our spirits have been regenerated and in principle set free from the enslaving power of sin that remains in our bodies, and thus we should be able to bring our bodies under control in the service of righteousness (6:6-7, 12-14).

But this is not the whole story; it is not even the main point of the story. Yes, we have been renewed in our spirits, but we still find ourselves locked in a discouraging struggle with our indwelling sin (7:14-25). So what is the key to victory in this struggle? Whence comes our rescue from this body of death (7:24)? The key to victory lies in these three words: " by the Spirit"! The Spirit's power alone ensures victory in our battle against sin; this is why he lives within us. He gives us the power to put sin to death. "The Spirit of God - and only the Spirit of God - is to be the means of the destruction of the flesh and its activities" (Cranfield, I:394). On a conscious level we are aggressively putting sin to death, but below the level of our consciousness the Spirit is empowering us for this victory. See Lard, 263; MP, 360.

The promise to those who succeed, by the Spirit, is eternal life: "You will live." This can be nothing less than the glory of heaven. This promise is a fitting conclusion to the section on our struggle with and victory over sin (7:14-8:13); and it is also a fitting transition to the next section, which emphasizes our assurance of ultimate victory in the end (8:14-39).

One last question must be raised concerning v. 13. If Paul is here warning Christians that they will lose their salvation if they persist in living according to the flesh, and if he is promising eternal life to those who overcome sin, does this not compromise the basic gospel truth that we become, are, and remain justified by faith ? Does this not make remaining justified dependent on works? No, but it does show the very close connection between faith and works (obedience). Justification is always by faith; but this faith must produce the "obedience of faith" (1:5). Otherwise the faith itself will die, and so will the individual. Faith produces works; but good works also strengthen and nourish faith, while sinful deeds poison and strangle it (see Matt 13:20-22). A Christian who continues to live according to the flesh is like a person who deliberately drinks poison. His faith will die, then he will die. But the Christian who puts sin to death and lives obediently is keeping his faith robust and strong. He will surely live.

Grace is a double cure, and it is all or nothing. One cannot accept the justification that comes by faith, and then refuse the sanctification made possible by the Holy Spirit. That is one of Paul's main points in this whole section (chs. 6-8).

III. 8:14-39 - THE ASSURANCE OF FINAL AND TOTAL VICTORY OVER THE FALLEN WORLD

The theme of this third main part of Romans (chs. 6-8) is that the all-sufficiency of grace gives us victory over sin. The focus is on the second aspect of the double cure: regeneration and sanctification through the Holy Spirit. In sections I and II of Part Three, it has become clear that sanctification cannot be completed until our bodies have been brought within the scope of Christ's redemptive work.

This leads to the subject of glorification, which is the final step of sanctification and the climax of the entire salvation process. When Jesus returns in the last day, the state of glory begins. It will include first of all and primarily the resurrection of believers' bodies into a glorified state (8:23), but will also include the renovation of the universe to be an appropriate home adapted to the eternal needs of glorified human beings (8:20-21; Rev 21:1-7). This is the unifying theme of this present section.

Paul approaches the subject in terms of inheritance . In 4:11-18, where believers are identified as Abraham's heirs (see Gal 3:1-4:7), the emphasis is upon the means of receiving the inheritance, namely, faith in the promises of God. Here the emphasis is upon the full content of this inheritance (a glorified body in a glorified universe), and the assurance that it will indeed be ours, based on our status as God's adopted children.

A. THE HOLY SPIRIT MARKS US

AS SONS AND HEIRS (8:14-17)

The inheritance of glory will be ours because we are sons or children of God. If we have the Spirit of God, we are his children; and if we are his children, we are his heirs. That is the point of this paragraph in a nutshell.

The Spirit plays a key role in this picture, but it is important to define this role carefully. In general, the Spirit provides God's people with two kinds of benefits: those relating to knowledge (e.g., the inspiration of Scripture), and those relating to power (e.g., sanctification). Most interpreters approach vv. 14-17 in terms of knowledge. They think this passage teaches that the Holy Spirit affects us cognitively, directly implanting knowledge in our minds concerning our status as children of God. I believe Paul's main point is quite different, namely, that the Spirit gives us the power to live the kind of life indicative of a child of God, and the power to confidently claim our filial relationship with the Father.

Thus the point is not that the Spirit makes us children of God as such, nor that he makes us aware that we are children of God through some mysterious inner revelation. The idea rather is that the Spirit marks us as God's children indirectly through what he enables us to do. By objectively observing his mark upon our lives, we ourselves as well as others can have assurance that we belong to God's family and are heirs of his glory.

8:14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. This section expands on the promise at the end of v. 13, "You will live" in eternal glory. You will live, that is, if by the Spirit you put to death the sins of the body. But how does putting sin to death lead to eternal glory? Because those who do this "are sons of God," which makes them heirs of eternal life.

The key is to see that putting sins to death by the Spirit in v. 13 is the same general idea as being led by the Spirit in v. 14 (Cranfield, I:395, 401). Those who ignore this connection tend to give "led by the Spirit" a cognitive meaning; i.e., the Spirit leads us by enlightening our minds in some subjective and mystical way. He "guides" us by inwardly showing us the right thing to do or by helping us to know God's will in specific circumstances.

But this is not the point. The Spirit leads us not by subjective enlightenment of our minds, but by inward empowerment of our wills. He "strengthens the human spirit, to enable it to control the flesh" (Lard, 264), i.e., to "put to death the misdeeds of the body." He leads not by overriding our wills and driving or dragging us along. Rather, his leading is an inward prodding of the conscience, an influence upon the heart, an empowerment of the will to do what we already know is right based on the teaching of Scripture. Our problem after all is not ignorance as such but moral weakness. The Spirit leads us by taking our hand and giving us inner strength to walk in the paths of righteousness.

Being led by the Spirit is another term for walking or living according to the Spirit (8:4, 12-13), and includes producing the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:18, 22-25). It refers to one's lifestyle, and means "to have the direction of one's life as a whole determined by the Spirit" (Moo, I:534).

The main point of the verse is this: those led by the Spirit are "sons of God," and that is why they can be sure they will live in eternal glory. The Spirit-led lifestyle is a sign of sonship, and in this way the Spirit's influence upon our lives marks us as God's sons. By enabling us to live the distinctive lifestyle of the redeemed, the Spirit becomes our seal (Eph 1:13-14), our distinguishing mark, our "family crest." Being led by the Spirit is not what makes us children of God; we "are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:26). But by allowing the Spirit to lead us, we show ourselves to be sons of God; we demonstrate that it is so (see Morris, 313; Moo, I:534). We demonstrate it not just to others but to ourselves, and thus we become strengthened in our confidence and assurance of our acceptance with God.

8:15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship [literally, "Spirit of adoption"]. (See 1 Cor 2:12; Gal 4:6; 2 Tim 1:7.) The first question here is whether pneu'ma , ( pneuma , "spirit") refers to the Holy Spirit or to a disposition or attitude of the human heart. The NASB says, "a spirit of slavery" and "a spirit of adoption," meaning the attitudes of a slave and of a son respectively. Most expositors reject this interpretation and rightly see this word as a reference to the Holy Spirit. The verb "received" is aorist (past) tense, indicating a single past event when the Spirit was received, namely, baptism (Acts 2:38). See Cranfield, I:396; Lard, 264.

The idea is this: the Holy Spirit, whom we received in our baptism, is not a spirit who marks us as slaves and thus engenders a slave's servile and cringing approach to God: obedience motivated by fear of punishment. Rather, the Holy Spirit is one who enables us to see ourselves as true sons of God, whose obedience is motivated by loving gratitude and a genuine desire to please him. Just as the Spirit empowers us to put sin to death and obey God's law, so also does he enable us to change our deepest desires and motives and dispositions, and to adjust them from those of a slave to those of a son. As Phil 2:13 says, God (the Holy Spirit) works in us to empower not just our doing but our very willing itself.

The word "again" refers to our pre-Christian lives, where our basic identity was indeed that of a slave to sin and lawlessness (6:17-20) and to the law (7:6). Though the sense of enslavement to sin is still present in us to some degree because of the influence exerted upon us by the sin that still indwells our bodies (7:14-25), we have been set free from sin's inevitability (6:17-22; 8:2), and our basic identity now is that of a son . The Spirit does not rescue us from one kind of slavery just to entangle us in another. True, our present relationship to God is that of slave to master (6:22; Eph 6:6). This imagery is still appropriate as a reminder of our absolute obligation to obey God's will. But regarding our motivation , we now have the freedom of sons. We no longer obey because we feel the yoke on our necks and the whip on our backs. We no longer fear death (Heb 2:14-15); we have no fear of judgment and condemnation. God's fatherly love for us, and our reciprocal love toward him, combine to cast out such fear (1 John 4:18).

The reference to adoption distinguishes our sonship from the unique Sonship of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God (John 3:16), but it does not suggest that ours is a mere pseudo-sonship. In the Greek and Roman cultures of Paul's day, those adopted into a family became sons in every sense of the word, and possessed the same rights as natural sons (see Dunn, I:460; Moo, I:536), especially with regard to inheritance. In fact, one of the main reasons for adopting a son was to appoint an heir for an otherwise sonless father. Now of course, God is not Sonless, and he does not need more heirs in the normal sense of that word (since he is not going to die!), but he wants to add as many as possible to his family so that he can share his unlimited "estate" with them, as an earthly father bestows his goods on his children through his will.

As the Spirit of adoption, the Holy Spirit does not cause the adoption and make us sons of God. Again, his coming into our lives marks us as sons by engendering within us the attitude of sons rather than slaves.

And by him - by the Spirit - we cry, " Abba , Father." "Cry" is kravzw (krazô ), a term used often in the LXX for sincere and urgent prayer, and for heartfelt praise to God (e.g., Isa 6:4). Here likewise it indicates a deeply-felt and emotional acknowledgement of our sonship, poured forth from the heart as a positive counterpart to the mournful outcry of 7:24.

The word abba is Aramaic, which was the Hebrew-like language spoken by Jews in NT times. Abba was the intimate term used by a child to address his male parent, similar to "Dada" or "Daddy" in English. By the time of Jesus it was not limited to the speech of children (Cranfield, I:400); but it was still a term of intimacy and endearment, not one the Jews would presume to use in addressing God. But Jesus used it (Mark 14:36), and from Rom 8:15 and Gal 4:6 it is apparent that Christians were taught to do the same in imitation of their Lord.

Use of this term in addressing God has several implications. First, it is "a family word, expressive of family familiarity and intimacy" (Dunn, I:461). When we use it, we are acknowledging that God is our Father and we are his children. Second, it indicates that our relationship to our Father is one of closeness, tenderness, and childlike confidence. It shows that even the transcendent God is not distant and alien from his children (see 1:8). Third, it expresses our family solidarity with Christ, since our "Abba" is his "Abba." He is "the firstborn among many brothers" (8:29). In a real (though not complete) sense we have a shared sonship and joint heirship with Christ (8:17).

In all three NT passages where the term is used, the full expression is ajbbav oJ pathvr (abba ho patçr ); that is, the Aramaic word is followed by the Greek equivalent. Some think the biblical writers added ho patçr in order to translate abba to those unfamiliar with Aramaic. Others think the entire phrase was "an established formula in the churches," a "single dual-form ejaculatory cry" (Dunn, I:453, 461). Today we would say "Abba! Father!"

To be able to address God as "Abba! Father!" is an indication of our assurance that we are truly his children. By doing so we bear witness to both God and man that we are sons and daughters of God. That we do so by the Spirit reflects the Spirit's role in empowering us to live the kind of life expected of a member of God's family and in enabling us to do so in the spirit of sons and not slaves. In this way the Spirit empowers us to declare our sonship and to claim all the rights and privileges related to it: "Abba! Father!" Again, the Spirit's role is not to add content to our knowledge, but strength to our wills.

8:16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Most agree that this verse speaks of the Holy Spirit bearing witness in relation to our personal spirit (the soul or inner man). But exactly what does this mean? The verb is summarturevw (symmartyreô ), which combines martyreô , "to testify, to bear witness," and syn , "with." Does this mean the Spirit "bears witness with" our spirit, or "bears witness to" our spirit? Most agree that the former is the literal meaning of the word, but they treat it as if it means the latter. In truth, the crucial question is this: to whom is the Spirit's witness addressed? Most commentators say this verse refers to the inward, experiential, subjective testimony of the Spirit directly to our spirit, a testimony that gives us assurance that we are indeed children of God. It is "a direct operation of the Holy Spirit on our spirit," says Morris (317).

Whether the Spirit's testimony is distinct from our testimony is a matter of dispute. Some say v. 15 ("Abba! Father!") is our testimony, while v. 16 is a separate witness altogether. Others combine the two more or less into a single witness. Our cry of "Abba! Father!" is itself the Spirit's testimony, they say, since we could not utter this cry apart from the Spirit. Some versions translate vv. 15b-16 to reflect this idea: "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (NRSV, endorsed by Stott, 232).

I strongly disagree with this view. For one thing, v. 16 does not begin with the common particle indicating a causal connection with the previous verse (gavr , gar , "for, because"). Paul uses gar thirteen times with this meaning in 8:1-26. Why would he omit it here if he wants us to see a causal relationship between the Spirit's testimony (v. 16) and our cry of "Abba! Father!" (v. 15)?

Also, a main point of Romans, especially in 3:21-5:21, is that assurance of salvation is not only possible but is the expected result of a right objective understanding of grace and of what it means to be justified by faith in the atoning blood of Christ. (See the "much more" theme in 5:1-11.) In addition, through his sanctifying power as it affects both our outward lives (v. 14) and our inward consciousness (v. 15), the Spirit has already given us reason to cry "Abba! Father!"

In what way, then, does the Spirit testify along with our spirit, that we are children of God? The natural understanding of the word is that his testimony is directed toward the same audience as our own, namely, to the Father. When we cry "Abba! Father!" we bear witness to him that we are his children. Then the Spirit adds his own testimony to ours, likewise bearing witness to the Father that we are his children. See Smith, II:5.

We have assurance that someone besides ourselves is confirming our testimony to the Father. The fact that Paul is here telling us that the Spirit likewise testifies to the Father that we are his true sons and daughters makes our assurance even more firm. This is similar to the Spirit's intercession between us and the Father in 8:26-27. This is not necessary for the Father's sake, but knowing that it happens gives us a sense of calmness and assurance.

The content of the Spirit's testimony is that we are "children of God" (see 8:21; 9:8; Phil 2:15). This is probably not meant to imply anything different from "sons of God" in v. 14. The point is that we are part of his family (see 2 Cor 6:18).

8:17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ . . . . Here we come to the main point of this paragraph, that we are God's heirs . The argument is very simple: if we are led by God's Spirit, then we are God's children; and if we are God's children, then we are his heirs. This builds upon the prominent OT theme that the Jews were heirs of the "promised land." We now see this as pointing to the higher reality of all believers' ultimate inheritance of all the glories of heaven (1 Pet 1:4).

Our identity as heirs of God involves three emphases. The first is the sheer amount or content of the inheritance, which includes all the riches and wealth of the entire creation. The second point is that our possession of this wealth is still future . We are heirs, but we do not yet possess the full inheritance; we have only a foretaste of it (see v. 23). The third emphasis is the certainty of our ultimate possession of it all. This seems to be the main idea in the concept of "co-heirs with Christ." Our right to be heirs of God is based on our relationship to Jesus, the one true Son and heir (Gal 3:16-29); and our assurance of ultimately receiving the inheritance is as firm and secure as that of Jesus himself. "Whatever inheritance . . . awaits him as Son, also awaits you as children" (Lard, 267; see Cranfield, 1:407).

We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. As in 8:9, ei[per ( eiper ) means "if, if indeed." This specifies a particular condition for heirship, namely, the same one that applied to Jesus: first suffering, then glory. Jesus necessarily followed this path (Luke 24:26; Phil 2:6-11; Heb 2:10; 12:2). If we want to be co-heirs with him, we must be willing to accept this same sequence, since "participation in Christ's glory can come only through participation in his sufferings" (Moo, I:543).

What kind of sufferings are indicated here? The text says simply "if we suffer with, in order that we may also be glorified with." Neither verb has an object ("him"); but both have the prefix syn ("with"), which implies an object. This object is no doubt Christ: "if we suffer with Christ." The concepts of suffering for righteousness' sake and suffering for Christ's sake are found in many passages. The main point, though, is not that being a Christian guarantees suffering. It is rather this, that faithful suffering with Christ guarantees that we will share in his glory (2:3-4; 2 Cor 4:17). On "glory," see 2:7, 10; 3:2. As MacArthur has well said (I:448), "The more a believer suffers in this life for the sake of the Lord, the greater will be his capacity for glory in heaven."

B. THE REDEEMED COSMOS IS OUR INHERITANCE (8:18-25)

This paragraph is a brief explanation of at least part of the "glory" that constitutes our inheritance. The main focus is the promise of redeemed bodies (v. 23). This is appropriate and expected in view of the fact that thus far only our spirits have been regenerated, and the fact that our as-yet-unredeemed bodies are a major source of the sin against which we still struggle. The redemption of our bodies will mean that our entire being has finally been redeemed, and that our victory over sin is complete. Moreover, the redemption of our bodies will be accompanied by the redemption of the entire universe.

8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The point here is the contrast between our present suffering and our future glory. The former includes everything we suffer specifically as Christians, and possibly (in this verse) all the other suffering that we must endure just because we live in a fallen world. The latter includes such things as natural disasters, disease, frustration, and death (see Moo, I:548; Morris, 319). These sufferings are said to belong specifically to the "now time," which refers not to any one period in earth's history but to the whole era of fallenness, from the sin of the first Adam to the return of the second Adam (12:2; Gal 1:4). This is what Scripture calls "this age" in contrast with "that age" (Luke 20:34-35) or "the age to come" (Matt 12:32; Mark 10:30; Eph 1:21). The bad news is that such sufferings exist; the good news is that they will end when we pass into the age to come. Just knowing they are temporary helps us endure them.

Just as this age is marked by suffering, so (for believers) the coming age is the age of glory (see v. 17). This glory will be "revealed in us," or more accurately, "revealed to us." This act of revealing is not a "manifestation of that which already exists" (contra Moo, I:549), since in this context the reference is mainly to our new bodies and the new universe. These exist now only in the mind and plan of God (Murray, I:301), and will be unveiled to us upon completion at the time of the second coming. Even though we are already sons and heirs, we do not yet have our full inheritance. There is still plenty to hope for (8:24-25).

The Greek describes this glory as "coming" or "about to come" (mevllw , mellô , not translated in the NIV). Some take this as an indication that Paul expected this eschatological revelation to happen very soon ("about to be" revealed, NRSV). Others take it as emphasizing the certainty of this future revelation, but not necessarily its imminence. The latter view is probably correct (see v. 13), and the translation should read "the glory that will surely be revealed to us" in the age to come.

The main point is the contrast between the present suffering and the coming glory. While the former may seem serious and odious while we are in the midst of it, we should try to "step back" and view it from the perspective of eternal glory. In terms of weight, the sufferings hardly show up on the scale at all, while the coming glory presses it all the way down. See 2 Cor 4:17.

8:19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. The focus here seems to shift abruptly to "the creation." Though some have included more, the most common and most likely view is that this refers to the physical or natural world, or all of creation except human beings and angels.

This verse depicts the physical universe as earnestly, breathlessly expecting something. This is emphatically stated in rather unusual wording, literally: "the eager expectation of the creation is eagerly awaiting." The noun translated "eager expectation" is usually identified as a compound word that means "to stretch out the head, to crane the neck forward" in an attempt to see something. Phillips translates, "Creation is on tiptoe." Whatever the etymology, the word represents an especially strong sense of expectation. This is compounded by the verb, which itself means "to await eagerly."

What is striking here is that the impersonal creation is pictured as having a personal sense of deep longing and earnest expectation. It is also described as being filled with frustration (v. 20) and groaning (v. 22). In each case nature is being personified , or treated as a personal entity for rhetorical purposes. The OT precedent for this is abundant; see, e.g., Ps 96:12; 98:8; Isa 35:1; 55:12; 65:12-13; Jer 4:28.

Exactly what is the object of the creation's "earnest expectation"? Literally, it is "the revelation of the sons of God." A common explanation of this is that believers are already sons of God, but this sonship is now veiled. At the second coming it will be revealed and will become a matter of public knowledge. (See Cranfield, I:412-413; Dunn, I:470.) This is not the point, however. We are already sons, yes; but until we get our new bodies, our sonship is not complete. Not even we know all the glory that our sonship entails (1 John 3:1-2). Thus not only we, but the whole of creation is eagerly awaiting the unveiling of the "new model" of the human body.

8:20 For the creation was subjected to frustration . . . . This carries the connection between mankind and the creation back to the Fall. The reason the creation's ultimate deliverance is linked to that of mankind is because its fallenness was caused by man's sin. When God placed the human race in charge of the rest of the material creation (Gen 1:26-28), from that point on the fate of the latter was tied to that of the former. When Adam sinned, God declared, "Cursed is the ground because of you" (Gen 3:17). Instead of man's servant, the earth became his antagonist. Instead of perpetuating man's life indefinitely, it is forced to engorge man's dead body into its dusty maw (Gen 3:18-19).

Through this curse the creation was subjected to frustration. "Subjected" is uJpotavssw ( hypotassô ), "to place under the power or authority of." Figuratively, the creation was placed under the power of "frustration." This is the word mataiovth" (mataiotçs ), which is used 37 times in the LXX version of Ecclesiastes ("Vanity of vanities; all is vanity," 1:2, KJV). It conveys the idea of futility, emptiness, purposelessness, and meaninglessness.

The main idea is that the physical universe was originally created to play the role of servant under the lordship of man (Gen 1:26-28). Under this benevolent dictatorship it was intended to serve man's needs and in so doing to glorify God. Man's first sin, however, included an attempt to manipulate the creation and to misuse it for vainglorious purposes. As a result of this sin and its subsequent curse, man became the creation's slave instead of its master. Thus the creation itself was wrested from its original role in the intended order of things and can no longer fulfill its intended function or purpose. Thus the concept of mataiotçs : "lacking the purpose for which it was designed, it has no purpose" (Morris, 321; see Dunn, I:470).

"Frustration" presumes the personal ability to understand this condition of meaninglessness and to feel a sense of helplessness to do anything about it. The NIV translation thus continues the personification of nature, as in v. 19. Understanding it thus, Cranfield (I:413) says, "The sub-human creation has been subjected to the frustration of not being able properly to fulfill the purpose of its existence." This is why it is eagerly awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. When man's redemption fully comes, the creation will then be able to fulfill its own original purpose.

Exactly who subjected the creation to this state of futility? Paul says it occurred not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope . . . . Its state of meaninglessness is not its own fault; it did not choose to rebel against its Maker and abandon its intended role. Its present state is the result of someone else's choice. Indirectly it came from Adam and Eve's decision to sin. Thus some say "the one who subjected it" is Adam. Others rightly see this as referring to God, however. "Subjected" (uJpotavssw , hypotassô ) is an authoritative action, a judicial decision, and thus something only God could rightfully have done (Cranfield, I:414). Man committed the sin, but God pronounced the curse and brought it about. Also, attaching the element of hope to the curse is something only God could have done (Murray, I:303).

The phrase "in hope" more likely modifies "subjected," whether one begins v. 21 with "that" or "because," and whether or not we include a comma after "subjected it." At the very beginning of this age of the curse and of suffering and frustration, God saw fit to include the promise of redemption through the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15). This provided a basis for hope, and this hope in turn became the basis for the creation's eager anticipation (v. 19).

The NIV says the creation was subjected "by the will of the one who subjected it." The Greek says it was subjected "because of" or "for the sake of" the one who subjected it. In what sense was God's action of subjecting the creation to meaninglessness and frustration for his own sake ? It was necessary in order to uphold the integrity of his holiness in the face of sin; he did it to glorify his holy character (see Lard, 272).

8:21 What is the content of this hope that causes the creation to eagerly await the revelation of God's sons? It is the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

The universe is not only "subjected to frustration"; it is also in a state of "bondage to decay." "Decay" (fqorav , phthora ) can mean moral corruption (2 Pet 1:4; 2:19); or, as here, it can mean breakdown and decay in the physical world (2 Pet 2:12). Some decay is natural and was no doubt a part of the good creation from the beginning. For example, the growth and seasonal cycles of plants and trees, and their production of edible fruit, vegetables, seeds, and leaves, will necessarily leave a residue that is reabsorbed by the earth through the process of decay.

The cosmic Fall, however, resulted in a bondage to decay. This means that death and decay overran their intended boundaries and engulfed what was never meant to die and dissolve - especially the bodies of human beings (Gen 3:19b; 1 Cor 15:42). It also means that the entire universe is undergoing an inexorable process of cosmic decay, which is sometimes called the law of entropy. This "refers to the constant and irreversible degradation of matter and energy in the universe to increasing disorder," says MacArthur. Indeed, "the natural bent of the universe - whether of humans, animals, plants, or the inanimate elements of the earth and heavens - is obviously and demonstrably downward, not upward" (I:455-456). I would hardly call it "natural," though. Rather, it is quite unnatural, being the result of God's curse and the source of the frustration noted in v. 20.

The bad news is that the entire cosmos has fallen with Adam; the good news is that the whole thing "will be liberated" from the consequences brought upon it by sin. The final glory that will be revealed to God's children will include not just new and glorified bodies, but also a completely renewed universe to serve as our eternal home. "Creation itself must be redeemed in order that redeemed man may have a fitting environment" (Dunn, I:471). Thus the second coming of Christ will be the time of "the renewal of all things" (Matt 19:28), or the "restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21, NASB). Out of the cleansing cosmic fire will come new heavens and a new earth, completely purged of sin's effects and fully indwelt by righteousness (2 Pet 3:10-13; see Isa 65:17; 66:22; Rev 21:1). In that day the meek will inherit the new earth, in which there will no longer be any curse (Matt 5:5; Rev 22:3).

No wonder the entire universe is eagerly waiting "for the sons of God to be revealed" (v. 19). That will be the day of its own redemption, a cosmic redemption through which it participates in "the glorious freedom of the children of God." The latter phrase is better translated literally, "the freedom of the glory of the children of God," where glory stands in stark and utter contrast with decay . The glorified universe will be the inheritance of every believer. It is in a sense God's gift to Christ and his new bride (Rev 21:1-2), the ultimate wedding gift of a new universe!

8:22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. This verse adds one more description of the (personified) universe's present fallen state. The frustration resulting from being in bondage to decay is depicted as expressing itself in groaning and suffering as if in pain. Two parallel verbs describe this idea: "to groan with" and "to suffer agony with." The prefix "with" (suvn , syn ), attached to both verbs, signifies that all parts of the creation are jointly participating in the pain of purposelessness.

Without its prefix the first verb means to sigh or groan or even complain because of undesirable circumstances from which one longs to be free (see v. 23). The second verb means especially to be in travail or to suffer the pains of childbirth. This is appropriate in view of the fact that pain in childbirth is part of the very curse which is the source of the creation's pain (Gen 3:16). The main point in referring to "the pains of childbirth" is to emphasize the seriousness of the curse under which the creation groans. "Right up to the present time" indicates that the pain of the curse was constant from Eden up to the very moment of Paul's writing. As the context shows, it will continue without relief until the day of our resurrection.

8:23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Not only does the whole creation groan out of frustration at not being able to fulfill its intended purpose, but so do we also ourselves. "We also ourselves" (the literal Greek wording) is stated twice in this verse for emphasis. We Christians - yes, even we Christians - groan inwardly. That is, we also have an inward sense of pain and frustration growing out of our own inability to conform to God's will for us. Having the firstfruits of the Spirit gives us the desire and the ability to live holy lives, but we are still locked in mortal combat with the law of sin that dwells in our unredeemed bodies. To use Stott's term (242-243), as yet we are only "half-saved." Thus we groan because of our own fallenness and sin, and we groan especially out of longing for the completion of our redemption, the gift of a new body. (See 2 Cor 5:2, 4).

The contrast between the "already" and the "not yet" is strong here. The main verb is "we groan," but it is modified by two parallel participles, "having" and "eagerly awaiting." In other words, we already have part of our salvation, part of our inheritance as God's sons; but part of it is still in the future, and we can only look forward to it in earnest hope.

What we already have is called "the firstfruits of the Spirit." The idea of firstfruits was common in Bible times. As the choice part of the harvest, it constituted an appropriate sacrifice or offering to God (Exod 23:19; Lev 23:10-11; Deut 18:4; 26:1-4). The first converts to Christ in a particular area were called "firstfruits" (16:5; 1 Cor 16:15). Christ himself is the firstfruits in reference to the resurrection (1 Cor 15:20, 23).

To say that we have the firstfruits of the Spirit means that even though we do not yet have our complete inheritance as God's children, we have already received a significant portion of it in terms of the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, along with all he has already accomplished for us in the way of regeneration and sanctification. This is the sense in which the Spirit is the " earnest of our inheritance" (Eph 1:13), i.e., the down payment, the first installment, the deposit, the pledge of the fullness of glory (see 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5). In this sense the "firstfruits" are not simply the beginning of the harvest, but are also the guarantee that much more will follow. And as this context shows, the complete inheritance includes the redemption of our bodies and a liberated, glorified universe.

On the other side of this picture, what does Paul say we do not yet have but are eagerly expecting? Our "adoption as sons." This raises a minor problem of interpretation. In vv. 14-16 Paul seems to be saying that we have already been adopted as sons; we are sons and children of God. So how can we be "waiting eagerly" for this adoption? Again, some say our sonship is real but not yet manifested; all we are waiting for is a public announcement of it (e.g., Bruce, 171; Cranfield, I:419). This does not do justice to the intensity of the expectation described in this paragraph, however. The idea is rather that we already have the status of adopted sons, but we do not yet have the full inheritance that goes with our adoption (Moo, I:537, 557). See 8:29. Even though our spirits have already been redeemed by the regenerating power of the Spirit, we will not be fully redeemed until we are clothed with our new bodies. Until then we are only half-saved.

The phrase "redemption of our bodies" has two important implications. First, physical bodies are a natural and necessary part of human existence. We are not complete human beings without them; our spirits are naked without their bodies (2 Cor 5:1-5). Contrary to most religions, we are not redeemed from our bodies; our bodies themselves are redeemed. Second, what will happen to our bodies in that event called "the resurrection" will truly be an act of redemption . This means that (just as in the physical universe as a whole) all the effects of sin will be gone; all defects and imperfections will be corrected: the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will run, the mentally handicapped will understand, and amputees will be made whole.

But the redemption of the body means much more than this. In the context of Rom 6-8, the true glory of the resurrection body is that it will be totally cleansed not just from the effects of sin but from sin itself , i.e., from its evil desires (6:12), its sinful passions (7:5), its indwelling sin (7:17-18), and the law of sin (7:23). It will no longer be a "body of sin" (6:6), a "body of death" (7:24), and "sinful flesh" (8:3). Thus the resurrection of the body is not just the issuing of a new and updated model to replace one that is old and worn out. It is a true act of redemption , an act of deliverance from sin itself. No wonder Paul depicts us and the entire universe as eagerly awaiting this final inheritance. It will be God's final answer to the question of 7:24.

8:24 For in this hope we were saved. "Were saved" is aorist (past) tense; it refers to the conversion event when we entered the sphere of grace. (For similar language see Eph 2:5, 8; 2 Tim 1:9; Titus 3:5.) At that time we were saved, but not completely so. That is why Paul says that we were saved "in hope." This should not be rendered "saved by hope" (contra KJV and Schlatter, 189). The point is that at first our salvation was only partial, but even then we knew that one day it would be made complete. Thus the element of hope has been present in our minds and hearts from the beginning, and we groan and hope at the same time. We groan because part of our salvation is still lacking, but we have the confident expectation that the missing part will one day be ours. (The distinctive element in hope is not uncertainty but futurity .)

But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? Here "hope" refers to the object of our hope. If we already see it, or have it in our possession, it can no longer be the object of hope. That would be a contradiction of terms. We only hope for things that are still in the future, things we know we will have one day but do not have yet.

The main point of this explanation of the futurity of hope is to remind us that a major aspect of our salvation is still in the future. This is meant to give us encouragement in the midst of our present sufferings (v. 18) and our present struggles against sin. Yes, we have been saved, but not completely so; so do not expect perfection and paradise yet. It will come, but in the meantime do not be discouraged and do not give up.

8:25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. The latter part of the verse literally reads, "Through patient endurance (uJpomonhv , hypomonç ) we are eagerly expecting." (The latter word is the same one translated "wait eagerly" in v. 23.) These two aspects of our present attitude correspond to the two elements of hope.

First, since hope involves futurity , it is always for something we do not yet have. Thus hope requires patient endurance. On the meaning of hypomone see 5:3-4; it can also be translated "steadfastness" or "perseverance." As Moo says (I:559), it is basically the ability to bear up under pressures in order to attain desired goals. Thus it is not just a passive waiting as if in a vacuum, but an active confrontation with all that would derail our hope. See 1 Thess 1:3; Heb 10:36; Jas 1:3-4; Rev 13:10; 14:12.

Also, since hope involves certainty , it is always a matter of eager expectation. We can endure the delay, and we can endure the interim struggles and pressures, because we are sure the day of final glory is coming! As Dunn says (I:476), "The Christian perspective is determined not by the frustrations of the present, but by its future hope." To have redeemed bodies, to live forever in God's presence in the redeemed universe - what joyous expectations!

C. GOD PROMISES TO BRING HIS FAMILY

THROUGH EARTHLY TRIALS (8:26-30)

Overall this main section (8:14-39) assures us of ultimate victory over the fallen world. The key to this assurance is our membership in the family of God. The Holy Spirit working in us marks us as God's sons and heirs (8:14-17). Our inheritance is the fullness of glory, including redeemed bodies and a redeemed cosmos (8:18-25). But what about the present, with all its sufferings (8:17-18)? If we are truly God's family - his sons and daughters, why does he let us endure them? And how do we know that they will not overwhelm us and rob us of our victory over sin and the fallen world in general?

This brief paragraph addresses these questions. Paul reassures us that our heavenly Father does not expect us to cope on the basis of our own weakness; he has given us his Spirit to help us. He assures us that it has always been God's purpose to have a large family with many children; he will not allow any amount of earthly obstacles to thwart this purpose. In his omnipotence and wisdom he is able not only to help us overcome such obstacles, but also to use them for our ultimate benefit. He has been from the beginning, is now, and always will be in control of this family-building project. He will see us through it until its intended goal is accomplished.

8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. "In the same way" indicates a comparison with something just preceding. Many think Paul is comparing the Spirit's groaning for us with the groaning of the creation and of ourselves (vv. 22-23). While the idea of a threefold groaning is very interesting, this is probably not the point. More likely the comparison is between the way hope sustains us in the midst of present sufferings (vv. 18-25), and the way the Spirit sustains us by personally aiding us in our weakness. The idea is that we have more than enough resources to keep us going in the midst of earthly trials.

What is the nature of "our weakness"? The word refers, as MacArthur says, to "our human condition in general" (I:466). This includes not only our natural finiteness, but also especially our spiritual weakness or sin-sickness, the second part of our "double trouble." This includes weaknesses related to living in a not-yet-redeemed body and in a sin-corrupted world.

While acknowledging that such weakness exists, Paul's main point is that the Holy Spirit comes to our aid and gives us inward spiritual power at exactly those points where this weakness puts us in danger of doubt and sin. He shoulders the burdens of our suffering and fills in the breaches in our defenses against our spiritual enemies. This is his ongoing work of sanctification, and the very reason for his indwelling. See 8:13; Eph 3:16; Phil 2:13.

One weakness is that we are not even aware of all our weaknesses. Thus we do not always know exactly what to pray for in the prayer aspect of our spiritual warfare (Eph 6:18). The NASB says that "we do not know how to pray," but this is too ambiguous. Paul is not talking about the manner of prayer, but its content (not the "how," but the "what"). Also, he is not talking about all prayer, for surely we know to pray for such things as our daily bread and workers for the harvest, and we know to intercede for the sick. Even in our spiritual warfare, we may know in general what to pray for, but in this and other things we may not know exactly what to pray, or how to word our prayers. In such matters there is a proper kind of petition, one that is within God's will ("what we ought"), but we simply may not know what it is or may not be able to articulate it.

Here is one of the ways the Spirit comes to our aid. In our feeble attempts at heartfelt prayer, he intercedes for us, standing between us and the Father. "Intercede" means to make an appeal to someone on another person's behalf. The same combination of words is used in v. 27, "the Spirit intercedes for the saints"; and in v. 34, "Christ Jesus . . . is also interceding for us." Thus we have two divine intercessors between us and the Father: Jesus intercedes for us in heaven at God's right hand (v. 34), and the Spirit intercedes for us from within our hearts.

This does not negate Christ's role as a unique intercessor or mediator (1 Tim 2:5-6), because he is the only one who stands between us and the Father's wrath, the only one who secures for us the decree of justification. The Spirit's intercession is in the realm of our sanctification and is specifically related to our prayer life. By his divine power he looks upon the deepest levels of our hearts and gives content to our unspoken and uncertain prayers, then he lays these prayers before the Father's throne. Knowing that this happens alleviates the frustration and despair that might otherwise arise out of our uncertainty concerning God's will and our inability to know what to pray for.

The Spirit's intercession takes the form of "groans that words cannot express." "Groans" is the noun form of the verb used in vv. 22-23. It refers to the nonverbal vocalizing of deep inward feelings, as in a sigh or groan. Some think these are our own groanings, as stirred up and enabled by the Spirit, but this does not fit the concept of intercession. Others rightly see them as the Spirit's own groanings, as he extracts the deepest unformed prayers from our hearts and presents them to the Father in a kind of intradivine communication that does not need words. This communication is described as "groans" because it conveys to the Father not only our thoughts but also the deep feelings associated with them.

Exegetes debate whether ajlavlhto" (alalçtos ; "that words cannot express") means "unutterable, inexpressible, unable to be spoken"; or simply "unspoken, unexpressed, wordless." In the final analysis this does not matter, since the reference is to the Spirit's communication and not ours. We assume that whatever is in our hearts could be expressed in words if we knew exactly what to pray for. What the Spirit carries to the Father may or may not be adaptable to human speech; the point is that this communication is not on that level in the first place.

8:27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. This continues the thought of the Spirit's intercession for us in our prayers. Just as the Spirit reads our hearts and translates our uncertain petitions into meaningful prayer (v. 26), so does the Father know the mind of the Spirit and thus receives these prayers into his own bosom (v. 27).

"He who searches our hearts" refers to an aspect of God's omniscience or universal knowledge, namely, the fact that he knows the contents of the hearts of all human beings. The "heart" is equivalent to the soul or spirit or inner man, which includes the mind. The Bible often states that God knows what is in our hearts. The argument here is from the greater to the lesser, or from the less likely to the more likely. If God knows what is in the minds of created beings who are qualitatively different from him and relatively independent of him, then surely he knows what is in the mind of the Spirit himself, who is qualitatively equal with God and one in nature with him. What he sees in the mind of the Spirit are the nonverbal groans that convey the contents of the saints' uncertain and unspoken prayers.

If God the Father can directly search our hearts, why is it necessary for the Spirit to intercede for us? It is not a matter of necessity but of choice. In relation to our redemption the triune God has chosen to divide the various aspects of his redemptive activity among the various persons of the Trinity (see GRe , 159-161). Since the Spirit is specifically responsible for our sanctification, and since this weakness in our prayer life is a matter of sanctification, this intercession is part of his distinctive work; i.e., it is "in accordance with God's will" that the Holy Spirit should intercede for the saints. (On "saints," see 1:7.)

8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. The verb here is sunergevw (synergeô ), "work together"; but how to translate the verse is complicated by a significant textual variation regarding its subject. Some manuscripts include oJ qeov" ( ho theos ), "God," as the obvious subject of the verb; this accounts for the NIV and NASB translations. But many believe that ho theos was not in Paul's original text.

This leaves three alternatives. (1) The subject of synergeô is the Holy Spirit, carried over from vv. 26-27. Most reject this view because it interrupts the flow of thought into v. 29, where the unnamed subject seems clearly to be God. (2) The subject is panta , "all things." This is grammatically possible, and is the view found in the KJV, the NRSV, and the NIV margin. Some object that this seems to leave the fate of Christians in the hands of some sort of positive karmic force rather than the hands of God. (3) The subject of synergeô is "he," i.e., God, carried over from the phrase "to the ones who love God," which precedes the verb in the original. Panta , "all things," would then be the object of the verb, and the meaning would be exactly the same as the NIV. The main objection to this view is that this verb is usually intransitive; it does not take an object.

Despite this objection (3) seems to be the best choice. The only one that is not an option is (1), which makes the Holy Spirit the subject of the verb. Even if we accept (2), "all things work together for good," it is certainly implied that they do so only because God is in control of history and providentially directs all things toward a good end. As the NASB says, "God causes all things to work together for good." Whether or not this is the best translation, it is surely Paul's thought.

How much is included in "all things"? This must be determined by the context, which specifically deals with the ills and adversities of our present earthly life, "our present sufferings" (v. 18; see vv. 33-39). This includes trials and miseries suffered as the consequence of others' sins, but not necessarily our own (Godet, 322).

The promise is that God will bring good consequences out of all adverse circumstances, including persecution and death itself. This is important: Paul does not say that God causes all these circumstances, but that he causes good to come out of them ( GRu , 407-409). This is a function of his special providential control of all things. Also, this promise does not guarantee that each individual adversity will have an "immediate good result" (Smith, II:10). All things working together will ultimately produce good, but not necessarily for us personally or even in our own lifetimes.

What is the "good" toward which God directs all things? It is surely not the shallow materialism of the "health and wealth" gospel, as Moo rightly points out (I:566). On the other hand, we should not limit it only to the ultimate good of "our completed salvation" (contra Stott, 247). It certainly includes this, and some adversities may produce their benefits only at this final stage. But we should include also a whole host of present or intermediate goods (Moo, I:566), spiritual in nature, that contribute toward our sanctification and our ability to serve God and others more effectively (see 5:3-4; 2 Cor 1:3-6; Jas 1:2-4). See GRu , 143-153.

This wonderful promise is not made to all human beings, but only to "the saints" (v. 27), i.e., the adopted children of God (vv. 14-16). Here they are described as "those who love God." This is not intended to make a distinction among Christians, as if some love God and some do not. Rather, it is simply a way of distinguishing Christians from unbelievers. Christians are "those who love God," while non-Christians are those who do not.

The persons to whom this promise applies are also described as those "who have been called according to his purpose." On the concept of calling, see 1:6. Calvinist commentators see this as a reference not to the gospel call that goes out to all, but to an inward, selective, irresistible enabling that inevitably produces saving faith in its chosen recipients. As such it is part of what is called "irresistible grace." Scripture is clear, however, that sinners are called not by a secret, inward operation of the Spirit but by the gospel itself (2 Thess 2:14), and that faith comes by hearing the word of this gospel (10:17). Whether or not this outward call is accompanied by an inward operation of the Spirit, both on the outward and inward levels the call is universal (John 12:32) and resistible (Matt 23:37). See Godet, 323-324.

But why are Christians distinctively described as "the called ones," if others have also received the same call but have just refused to accept it? The answer is that it reminds us of who actually took the initiative in our salvation. Even though we believe the gospel and love God, God loved us first (1 John 4:19) and called us unto himself while we were still in our sins. We did not go looking for God and persuade him to love and accept us. He came looking for us, calling us into his family and inviting us to come to him for salvation (10:13).

Paul declares that we have been called "according to purpose." Many early church fathers took this as a reference to human purpose, i.e., to man's free choice to answer God's call. Today it is almost universally, and rightly, understood as referring to God's purpose, and most versions insert "his." Calvinists usually interpret this as a reference to God's eternal decree to save only the elect (e.g., MacArthur, I:487), but that is not the point.

What does it mean to be called "according to (God's) purpose"? The purpose includes both the ultimate end or goal God has in mind in issuing his call, and the means he has devised for achieving this end. These are explained in vv. 29-30. The goal (v. 29) is that some will "be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." In other words, God has purposed to gather together a family of believers who will love him as their heavenly Father and glorify him forever, and whom he can love and bless as his own children. This is not just God's eternal purpose of redemption , but was originally his eternal purpose of creation itself. But because mankind has fallen into sin, this purpose can now be accomplished only through Jesus Christ as the firstborn of this family, and only through the process of redemption as summed up in the fivefold process of foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification (vv. 29-30). See 2 Tim 1:9.

Thus again v. 28 is meant to give us comfort and assurance in the midst of earthly trials. No matter what adversities may befall us, God's providential power will cause good to come from them for his called ones. We can be sure of this because God's whole purpose for creation and redemption is a glorified family of loving children. The fact is that God wants us saved into his family even more than we do. This is why we know that he will work all things together for our good, and for the ultimate accomplishment of his purpose - because these are the same thing.

8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Here Paul gives more detail about God's purpose. He states exactly what this purpose is (v. 29b), and sums up the means by which God will accomplish it: the act of foreknowledge and the decree of predestination. The relation between this act and this decree may well be the most controversial as well as the most crucial exegetical question in the book of Romans.

The word for "predestined" combines oJrivzw (horizô ), "to determine" (see 1:4), and prov ( pro ), "before," yielding proorivzw (proorizô ). This means "to determine beforehand, to predetermine, to foreordain." The translation "to predestine" suggests the nuance "to predetermine the destiny of." When used of persons with reference to salvation it is closely related to the concept of election (v. 33). The prefix pro indicates that the determination in view took place before the world was created (see Eph 1:4; Rev 17:8).

In this verse the predetermination of an individual's destiny is the point. God predetermined that those whom he foreknew would one day "be conformed to the likeness of his Son." This is often taken as referring to our spiritual re-creation in the moral image of God as perfectly embodied in Jesus Christ. As such it would include our present and continuing sanctification. But this is not the point. In this context the emphasis is on our final inheritance, the eschatological glory of the redeemed body (vv. 11, 23). "The likeness of his Son" refers to the fact that our resurrection bodies will be like that of Christ. It is the same thought and language as Phil 3:21, which says (literally) that our body "will be conformed to the body of his glory." See also 1 Cor 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18.

This interpretation is confirmed by the reference to Christ as "the firstborn among many brethren." In Col 1:15 "firstborn" signifies the unique preeminence of Christ, but the point here is that he is "the firstborn from among the dead" (Col 1:18; see Rev 1:5), i.e., the first to be raised from the dead in a glorified body. (See Acts 13:34; 26:23; Rom 6:9; 1 Cor 15:20.) As such he is the first "among many brethren," i.e., among many others who will also be raised in glorified bodies to constitute God's eternal family. This will be, as Dunn says, "a new race of eschatological people in whom God's design from the beginning of creation is at last fulfilled" (I:484).

This is what is predestined: our final salvation, our conformity to Christ's resurrection body, our inheritance of glory. In other words, even before the world was created, God had already predestined that some individuals would go to heaven, and that the rest would go to hell. It is important to see that such predestination applies to specific individuals and not just to an impersonal plan or group. (See GRu , 338-343.) Thus far we can agree with Calvinism.

But now comes the crucial question: on what basis did God so predestine us? Here is where non-Calvinists part company with Calvinists and other Augustinians. For the latter, God's predestination of certain individuals to salvation is an unconditional election . Prior to creation, they say, in one all-encompassing, efficacious decree, God laid out in detail everything that would take place within the created universe. He decided that he would create X number of human beings, and he unilaterally and unconditionally determined that some of these would ultimately be part of his heavenly family, and that the rest would not.

The key word here is unconditional . That is, for Calvinists, when God was predetermining which individuals would go to heaven, his decision was not contingent upon whether or not these individuals would meet certain conditions, such as faith and repentance. God never responds to human contingencies; this would be contrary to his sovereignty (see GRu , 217-228). This does not mean that he will save anyone apart from faith and repentance. It means rather that when God predestined some to salvation, he not only determined their heavenly destiny but also determined that he would sovereignly bestow upon them the faith and repentance that are prerequisites for heaven. He predestined not only the end but also the means.

This is where Calvinism goes wrong. It is biblical to say that God predestines certain individuals to salvation's end result, heaven; but it is contrary to Scripture to say that these individuals will meet the conditions for going to heaven only because God has predestined them to do so. God predestines the end, but not the means. He predestines all believers to heaven, but he does not predestine anyone to become a believer. Salvation is conditional (see 1:16), and individuals must meet these conditions by their own free-will choice. Therefore predestination itself is conditional; God predestined to heaven those whom he foreknew would meet the required conditions. (See GRu , 343-345.)

Here we come to the crucial point in this verse, i.e., the relation between foreknowledge and predestination. "Those God foreknew he also predestined." We should note that v. 29 says only that God foreknew certain persons ; it does not say specifically what he foreknew about them. In view of the Bible's teaching about salvation in general, many assume that God foreknew "that they would comply with the conditions of justification" (Lard, 282). As Godet puts it (325), they are "foreknown as sure to fulfil the condition of salvation, viz. faith ; so: foreknown as his by faith ."

This answer is not at all unreasonable, but I suggest that v. 28 has already revealed the object of God's foreknowledge. We must not overlook the connection between these two verses, as if v. 29 exists apart from any context. Verse 29 begins (after the conjunction) with the relative pronoun "whom" (translated "those" in the NIV). Ordinarily we would expect an antecedent for this pronoun, and here we find it in v. 28, namely, "those who love God." God foreknew those who would love him. He foreknew that at some point in their lives they would come to love him and would continue to love him unto the end. See the parallel in 1 Cor 8:3, "But if anyone loves God, he is known by him" (NASB). This is exactly the same idea as Rom 8:29a, the former referring to knowledge and the latter to foreknowledge.

We should also note that v. 29 begins with the causative conjunction o{ti ( hoti ), "for, because." This most likely goes with "we know" in v. 28. Thus the thought is quite simple: We know that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called into his eternal family according to his purpose. How do we know this? Because, having foreknown from eternity that they would love him, he has already predestined them to this state of eternal glory! Thus we can be sure that the temporary trials of this life are not able to nullify what the Almighty God himself has already predestined will occur! Rather, he uses them in ways that prepare us to enjoy eternity even more.

Calvinists reject this simple explanation, of course. At issue, they say, is the meaning of the word "foreknow" (proginwvskw , proginôskô ). Since ginôskô means "to know," and pro means "before," it would seem obvious that proginôskô means "to know beforehand" in the sense of prior cognitive or mental awareness. God certainly has such precognition. Because of his unique relation to time, his knowledge is not limited to the now; he knows the past and the future as well as he knows the present ( GC , 255-259, 279-289). The verb "foreknow" is used here and in four other places in the NT: Acts 26:5; Rom 11:2; 1 Pet 1:20; 2 Pet 3:17. (The noun is used twice: Acts 2:23; 1 Pet 1:2.) Everyone agrees that in Acts 26:5 and 2 Pet 3:17, where it refers to human foreknowledge, it has this simple meaning of precognition or prescience.

But Calvinists argue that in all the other passages, in which God is the subject, both the verb and the noun have another connotation altogether, namely, distinguishing love . Included here are two concepts: loving and choosing. Since the word "know" itself at times is "practically synonymous with 'love,' to set regard upon, to know with peculiar interest, delight, affection, and action," foreknowledge in 8:29 must mean "whom he knew from eternity with distinguishing affection and delight," or "whom he foreloved" (Murray, I:317).

The key word, though, is "distinguishing." For Calvinists the foreknowledge of 8:29 is an act by which God (unconditionally) chooses some people out of the mass of future mankind to be the sole recipients of his saving grace. This says "foreknowledge" is the same as "election." As Moo sums it up, "The difference between 'know or love beforehand' and 'choose beforehand' virtually ceases to exist" (I:569). For 8:29 Arndt and Gingrich (710) give the definition of "choose beforehand." Newman and Nida (167) translate it "Those whom God had already chosen." It has the "connotation of electing grace," says Bruce (177).

On what do Calvinists base this peculiar definition of foreknowledge? Mainly they base it upon a few selected biblical uses of the verbs for "to know," in which they find the connotations of "choose" and/or "love." These include the places where "know" is a euphemism for sexual intercourse, and they include a few other OT uses of udy ( yada' - Hebrew for "know"), usually Gen 18:19; Exod 2:25; Jer 1:5; Hos 13:5; and Amos 3:2. Also cited are these NT texts: Matt 7:23; John 10:14; 1 Cor 8:3; 13:12; Gal 4:9; and 2 Tim 2:19. Since "know" in all these passages allegedly means much more than simple cognition, we may conclude that " fore know" in 8:29 and elsewhere also means much more, namely, "distinguishing love bestowed beforehand." Thus, "whom He chose beforehand, he also predestined."

How may we respond to this? By a thorough study of the way the Bible uses the words for "know" and "foreknow." Such a project is outside the scope of this commentary, but we may offer a summary analysis.

First, noncognitive connotations for ginôskô are virtually non-existent in secular Greek. Moo admits that the Calvinist definition of foreknowledge sounds "somewhat strange against the background of broad Greek usage" (I:569).

Second, the use of "know" as a euphemism for sexual relations contributes nothing toward this Calvinist view, since it refers specifically to the sexual act and not to any love that might be associated with it. Also, the act of sexual "knowing" in no way includes the connotation of choosing, but rather presupposes that a distinguishing choice has already been made (via marriage). Finally, the use of "know" for this act is much closer to cognition than either loving or choosing; it connotes cognitive knowing at the most intimate level.

Third, biblical texts where "know" and "foreknow" seem to have a connotation of love or affection (e.g., Exod 2:25; Hos 13:5) prove nothing, because they usually do not specify the reason for God's love-knowledge, and they certainly do not suggest that it was unconditional. In fact, 1 Cor 8:3 seems to say it is conditional: "The man who loves God is known by God."

Fourth, an analysis of the NT texts where the words for "know" have persons as their objects, i.e., where the action of knowing is specifically directed toward persons and not facts as such, shows that in such cases these words never have the connotation of "choosing" or "imposing a distinction." This applies to ginôskô (used c. 52 times in this way), epiginôskô (c. 15 times), and oida (c. 43 times).

Such an analysis yields very helpful insights into the meaning of God's foreknowledge. In order of increasing specificity, the three basic connotations of "know a person" are as follows. (1) Recognition . In this case "to know" means to recognize someone, to know who he is, to know his identity or his true identity, to be able to identify him for who he is, to be acquainted with him, to be familiar with him, to understand him, to know his true nature. This is by far the most common connotation. It is a purely cognitive act. It does not impose an identity upon someone, but perceives that identity. This includes the idea of recognizing someone as belonging to a particular group, as distinct from those who do not. This is the sense in which Jesus "knows" his sheep (John 10:14, 27), even as his sheep know him (John 10:14; see 2 Tim 2:19). This is the connotation of "know" that applies to "foreknow" in 8:29.

(2) Acknowledgment . Here "to know" means not only to have a cognitive knowledge of someone's identity, but also to admit or acknowledge that identity. As such it is an act of will, though it presupposes an act of cognition. The most important thing is that this acknowledging does not impose a particular identity upon anyone, but simply confesses it.

(3) Experience . The third and most intense connotation of "to know" when a person or persons are its object is to know experientially, to experience a relationship with someone. Again, it presupposes cognition but goes beyond it. Most significantly, such knowing is not an act that initiates a relationship but simply experiences it. This connotation is found especially in 1 John. Matt 7:23; 1 Cor 8:3; and Heb 8:11 could be either (1) or (3).

In each case the act of knowing does not create a person's identity or his distinction from other people. It rather presupposes an already-existing identity or distinction; the act of knowing perceives and in some cases acknowledges that identity or distinction. These connotations for knowing fit the term "foreknowledge" very well as it is used in 8:29 and elsewhere. Those whom God from the beginning recognized and acknowledged as his own, he predestined to be members of his glorified family in heaven. (The connotation of experiencing a relationship does not transfer well to the concept of fore knowledge, since foreknowledge as such precedes the existence of its object, precluding an experienced relationship.)

In any case, an analysis of all the uses of "know" with persons as the object undermines the notion that it means "choose," and thus does not support the Calvinist idea that foreknowledge is the same as election or choosing beforehand.

The four other NT uses of "foreknow" and the two uses of "foreknowledge" do not comfortably bear the connotations of "forelove" and "choose beforehand." Acts 26:5 and 2 Pet 3:17 do not refer to God's foreknowledge, but they clearly refer to precognition. Rom 11:2 refers to God's foreknowledge of Israel as a nation and not to any individuals within it. The context suggests that Paul is referring to God's precognition of Israel's rebellion and idolatry. Despite the fact that he foreknew all of this (see 9:22, 27-29; 10:16-21), it was never his plan to reject his people altogether.

In 1 Pet 1:20 Christ is the one foreknown from the foundation of the world; and in the context precognition, not choosing, is the preferred meaning. The contrast is between the hidden and the revealed. Even though the Father knew from the foundation of the world that Christ the Son would be our Redeemer, he did not reveal it until the last days.

The two uses of the noun "foreknowledge" are likewise consistent with the non-Calvinist understanding of "foreknow" in 8:29. First Peter 1:1-2 says that the chosen (are chosen) according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Thus a clear distinction is made between foreknowledge and choosing, and there is no reason to see in foreknowledge anything other than its basic meaning of precognition. Thus the relationship between foreknowledge and election here is exactly the same as that between foreknowledge and predestination in 8:29.

Acts 2:23 refers to the foreknowledge of God the Father; its object is Jesus Christ and the circumstances of his death. Jesus was delivered up "by God's set purpose and foreknowledge." "Set purpose" is equivalent to predestination; the NASB translates it "predetermined plan." I.e., God had already determined from eternity that Christ would die for our sins. That he was delivered up "according to foreknowledge" means that God foreknew all the human acts of participation in Christ's betrayal and death, such as those of Judas and Herod. God did not predetermine these acts, but he knew them in advance and therefore could work his plan along with them and through them.

Sometimes Calvinist exegetes try to equate the foreknowledge and predetermined plan in Acts 2:23 by invoking a rule of Greek grammar. Here is how MacArthur (I:496) argues:

According to what Greek scholars refer to as Granville Sharp's rule, if two nouns of the same case (in this instance, "plan" and "foreknowledge") are connected by kai ("and") and have the definite article (the) before the first noun but not before the second, the nouns refer to the same thing . . . . In other words, Peter equates God's predetermined plan, or foreordination, and His foreknowledge.

Wuest (143-144) puts it almost exactly the same way, that in such a case the second noun "refers to the same thing" as the first; therefore Acts 2:23 shows that predestination and foreknowledge "refer to the same thing."

This argument, however, is seriously flawed. Both MacArthur and Wuest misquote Sharp's rule. The rule does not say that the two nouns in the construction described above "refer to the same thing." It says only that in such a case the second noun "always relates to the same person that is expressed or described in the first noun." There is a huge difference between relating to the same person (or thing) and referring to the same person (or thing). Carson says it is an exegetical fallacy to assume that the latter or strict form of Sharp's rule has universal validity. He says, "If one article governs two substantives joined by kai , it does not necessarily follow that the two substantives refer to the same thing, but only that the two substantives are grouped together to function in some respects as a single entity" ( Fallacies , 84-85). Also, Sharp states his rule as applying only to persons, not to things. As one Greek scholar says, "Non-personal nouns disqualify the construction"; he cites Acts 2:23 as a specific example of this (Young, Greek , 62).

In conclusion, the preponderance of evidence shows that "foreknowledge" is not equivalent to election or choosing, and that in 8:29 it refers to nothing more than the cognitive act by which God knew or identified the members of his family (as distinct from all others) even before the foundation of the world. He identified them by the fact that they were (would be) the ones who loved (would love) him, and who met (would meet) the required conditions for salvation. Knowing through his divine omniscience who these individuals would be, even at that point he predestined them to be part of his glorified heavenly family through resurrection from the dead after the pattern established by the firstborn brother, Jesus Christ.

8:30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Exegetes speak of a "golden chain" or "unbreakable chain" of divine acts in vv. 29-30: God foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies, and glorifies. Each of these is a distinct act, and in the redemptive process they do follow one another in this sequence. However, we must resist the temptation to bind them together into too neat a package.

For one thing, these five acts do not give a complete picture of salvation. There are no overt references to man's part in the process, which is of course consistent with Paul's purpose here; but not even all of God's redemptive acts are named. Notably missing are regeneration and sanctification.

For another thing, the progression of thought in vv. 29 and 30 is not that of one linear chain. Verse 29 is the main point in itself; grammatically and doctrinally it is a complete thought. It refers to two divine acts, foreknowledge and predestination. The latter is primary and is linked directly to one of the chief elements of glorification, specifically, the resurrection. It could be shortened thus: whom he foreknew, he predestined to be glorified.

Verse 30, instead of simply lengthening a chain begun in v. 29, is intended to expand v. 29b by adding a couple of details: the redemptive process does not go directly from predestination to glory; there happen to be a few other steps in between! This verse does not name them all, but mentions two that are representative of the entire process.

Thus the first and the last redemptive acts of v. 30 are carried over from v. 29. "Predestined" has already been explained. "Glorified" refers to the final stage of salvation, eternal life in heaven. This has been a prominent theme in this whole context, and is the point of v. 29b. "Conformed to the likeness of his son" refers to our resurrection in a glorified body.

Why "glorified" is in past tense is a matter of debate, since it has not happened yet. Some say it actually has been accomplished, in the person of Jesus as our representative (see Cranfield, I:433; Godet, 327). But most agree that the past tense refers to the fact that God has already predestined it; therefore it is as certain as if it had already occurred (e.g., Bruce, 178; Moo, I:573).

This verse adds two steps between predestination and glorification, probably to show us that God's predestining believers to glory does not make a mockery of the intervening process. Some have wondered why, in the Calvinist view, the intervening steps are necessary. But when the biblical concept of free will is retained, we see that what comes between the beginning and the end is what makes it possible for God to predestine some to glory in the first place.

The two divine acts given as links between predestination and glorification are calling and justifying . We have already examined the meaning of these concepts; the question now is, why specifically are they inserted here? One reason, as indicated, is to show that intermediate steps such as calling and justifying are necessary. Another reason, possibly, is to indicate that human decisions are not totally absent from this process but are implicitly present as the objects of the divine foreknowledge in v. 29. As we have already seen, the connection with v. 28 shows that the most likely object of God's foreknowledge is believers' love for God. Now, in v. 30, calling and justification are mentioned. Both of these divine acts are necessarily linked to human decisions: God's call must be answered, and justification is given only to faith. These human decisions may thus implicitly be included here as other objects of the divine foreknowledge by which God predestines us to glory.

The primary reference, of course, is to calling and justification as acts of God himself. Calling (see 1:6; 8:28) is the act by which God initiates personal contact with those whom he foreknew and predestined before even the earth existed. As we have seen, this is not some special, irresistible call that goes out only to the chosen few, but the general call of the gospel (contra Dunn, I:485; MacArthur, I:498). Those whom God foreknew and predestined are those who not only hear the call but also accept it (Lard, 283; Godet, 327). "For many are called, but few are chosen" (Matt 22:14, NASB). Lenski comments (562-563),

If it be asked why God did not foreknow, foreordain, call, justify the rest, the biblical answer is found in Matt. 23:37 and similar passages: God did not exclude them, but despite all that God could do they excluded themselves. "These he called" includes the acceptance of the call; and it in no way excludes the extension of the same call with the same power of grace to the rest.

This raises the question of whether "these five links in the chain of God's saving work are unbreakable," as MacArthur avers they are (I:494). According to this understanding, all five of these divine works are applied to the elect and only to the elect as an inseparable package. Only the predestined are called; all those called will be glorified; no one is ever justified except those who are foreknown and predestined to glory. "All five elements are co-extensive," says Murray; "there cannot be one element without the others" (I:320). For example, says Moo, there is an "exact correspondence between those who are the objects of predestining and those who experience this calling" (I:572).

The language of vv. 29-30 does not require such a view, however. Indeed, this chain is unbreakable and its elements co-extensive only if the Calvinist system of unconditional election, irresistible grace, and "once saved, always saved" is true. Once we break away from this system, we can see that some are called but do not respond; thus only one of the five elements applies to them. Since it is possible for someone to become a true believer and become justified, and then to fall away, only two of the elements apply to this group. In the latter case one may be called and temporarily justified, but never foreknown and predestined to be glorified. Such situations are not contrary to 8:29-30. Paul does not say that only those who are predestined are called, but that those who are predestined will without fail be called. Nor does he say that only those who are predestined to glory are justified; those who are so predestined will without fail be justified, though.

In a similar way, Paul does not imply that everyone who is called will be justified - since some refuse the call; nor does he explicitly state that all who have ever been justified (by faith) will without fail be glorified - since some will lose their faith. Here the key to certainty about glorification is predestination, not the intervening links. The point is that all those who are predestined will without fail be glorified, and that they will without fail be called and justified prior to glorification.

Paul has in view here only an audience of sincere believers ("us all," v. 32) who need assurance that God will never fail them or forsake them, and that he can and will see them through to the end. Unlike in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he is not warning wavering believers who are seriously considering apostasy. His purpose here is to assure those who have no intention of abandoning Christ that Christ will not abandon them.

D. GOD'S GRACIOUS LOVE GIVES US

UNSHAKABLE ASSURANCE (8:31-39)

This paragraph is considered by many to be the most blessed and glorious in the entire Bible. In a way that is both spiritually satisfying and poetically pleasing, it sets forth the believer's unshakable assurance and its unassailable foundation in the love of God.

This theme was developed earlier in 5:1-11, where the Apostle tied personal assurance to three items: God's love, Christ's cross, and our faith. At that point Paul's main polemical purpose was to show that we are justified by faith apart from works of law (3:28), therefore he was emphasizing the necessity of a right understanding of justification by faith as the key to a sense of assurance. Here the polemical theme has faded into the background, and the emphasis falls simply on God's love as expressed in the cross as the actual foundation upon which our faith and hope can rest.

Not surprisingly, we find many commentators attempting to use this passage as a basis for the "once saved, always saved" doctrine. Since the theme here is that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, this supposedly means that not even anything we ourselves can do will cause us to lose our salvation (see v. 39 below).

However, this view ignores the element of personal responsibility implicit in the very theme of justification by faith . God's love gives us justification through the blood of Christ, and keeps us justified in the same way, but not apart from our continuing active trust in his blood. In 5:1-11 the role of faith was explicit (5:1-2); here it is implicitly assumed that those whom nothing can separate from the love of God are believers who want to stay within the family of God.

Whether a believer can or cannot lose his faith is not the point in this section. The point is simply this: not even the worst earthly disaster, and not even the strongest spiritual enemy can place us into a circumstance that is so negative that it nullifies and overwhelms the reality of God's love for us as infallibly demonstrated in the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ Jesus our Lord. Not even the worst suffering can outweigh the intrinsic power of the cross to assure us that God loves us and is for us and wants us in his eternal family.

8:31 What, then, shall we say in response to this [literally, "to these things"] ? What are "these things"? In a real sense they include the argument of the entire epistle thus far (Cranfield, I:434-435). Thus this paragraph is a fitting climax to everything that has been presented about the central facts of the gospel, such as grace, the cross, and justification. I think, though, that "these things" refers especially to the subjects of sonship, heirship, and predestination in 8:14-30. In view of the facts about these things, what conclusion can we draw?

If God is for us, who can be against us? "If" does not imply some sort of uncertainty, but is stating an unassailable argument: "If A, then B." And, based on everything we have just said, we know A is a fact; therefore B is also a fact.

"God is for us" is an excellent way to draw together everything Paul has been teaching about the plan of redemption, all the way from God's precreation purpose to our final glorification. It summarizes perfectly God's attitude toward us, his work on our behalf, and our relationship to him. As Cranfield says (I:435), it is "a concise summary of the gospel."

Basically this brief statement means that God is on our side . He is not only "with us," in the sense that he is present alongside us (Ps 23:4; see Isa 7:14, "Immanuel"); he is also "for us" in the sense that he wants "our side" to win. In our conflict with all the personal and personified enemies who desire to drive us back into unbelief, God is on our side and will protect us and defend us from these enemies (Ps 56:9). In the following verses this conflict is presented in the image of a courtroom where we are on trial. That "God is for us" means that he is our Defender, or more specifically he is the Judge who has already decided the case in our favor (8:1).

"Who can be against us" does not mean that we will never have any opposition in our Christian life. It means only that none of our adversaries stands a chance against the one who is our Champion, the one who is defending us. Certainly, we do have enemies, but they are nothing compared with God. Therefore it really does not matter who is against us, since none can prevail against God. "There is no one whose hostility we need fear" (Cranfield, I:435), especially in light of 8:28. See Ps 27:1.

8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all . . . . This recounts the lengths to which God was willing to go to ensure our ultimate victory and our presence in heaven with him, and thereby it establishes the infinite depths of his love for us (John 3:16). Even though his Son, prostrate, cried out for some alternative to the mission that was about to lead him through the very agonies of hell itself (Matt 26:39), God did not spare him so that he might spare us !

God "gave him up for us all" (see 4:25) describes the substitutionary atonement of Christ, his propitiatory sacrifice on Calvary (see 3:24-26). Paul's purpose for bringing this up is to highlight the divine love embodied therein (1 John 4:9-10), so that we might be assured that God is indeed on our side.

"His own Son" means God's unique Son (see 8:3; John 5:18), as distinct from his adopted sons (8:14-16). "Us all" in this context refers to the believers who will constitute the completed family of God. By using first person plural Paul applies this truth especially to the readers of his epistle. This does not support the Calvinist idea of limited atonement; it does not deny that Christ was the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). Paul does not say God gave Jesus up for "us only ." Since Christians are his audience, he simply speaks directly to and about them at this point.

. . . how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? The argument here is from the greater to the lesser (see 5:9-10). God has already given us the greatest possible gift when he gave up his Son for us. Why should we think he will now for some reason withhold the rest of our inheritance, or allow anything to prevent us from receiving it? Along with Jesus will surely come all the gifts of glory promised in the previous context, including a glorified body and a redeemed universe. These are immeasurably precious, but still they are nothing alongside God's gift of his own Son. Since he has already given the latter, how can we doubt that he will give us the former also?

8:33a Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? In vv. 33-34 Paul uses explicit courtroom imagery to undergird our assurance of final victory. He continues to press the contrast of v. 31b, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Christians are pictured as defendants in a judgment scene, with the possibility that witnesses may appear who will bring charges against us and accuse us of being unworthy of salvation. "Bring a charge against" (ejgkalevw , engkaleô ) is a technical legal term referring to such a scenario (see Acts 18:38; 23:29). The primary reference is probably to the final judgment, but in a figurative sense we may think of ourselves as being in this circumstance throughout our Christian life.

Who will dare to bring a charge against God's elect? Actually there are any number of accusers who are eager to rise up against us and magnify our sins and destroy our assurance. Chief among them is Satan, whose name means "adversary," and who is also called "the devil," he who will "bring charges with hostile intent" (AG, 180). Thus "the devil" is the slanderer, the accuser, especially "the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night" (Rev 12:10; see Job 1-2; Zech 3:1-2; Luke 22:31). Others eager to accuse us include unbelievers in general (1 Pet 2:12), and certainly anyone we may have harmed at any time during our lives. We may fear that the law of God itself will rise up to accuse us on Judgment Day. And by no means least, our own conscience accuses us with reference to our sinful deeds (2:15).

So what is the point of Paul's question? Not that accusations will never come, but that they will never hold up under the scrutiny of the Judge who will decide our case. None of the charges brought against us will be valid; we need not fear them. Why not? Because we are God's elect, his chosen ones, the ones whom he foreknew and has already predestined to glory (8:29).

"The elect" or "the chosen ones" is a common way of describing believers in the NT. What was said about predestination in 8:29 applies to this concept as well.

8:33b-34a It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? (See Isa 50:8-9.) Here the courtroom analogy is most intense. The subject of justification comes to the forefront again. Earlier (3:24) we said that justification is a legal or forensic term that refers to a verdict pronounced by a judge. Specifically as an act, justification is the judge's declaration that a defendant is innocent, or more precisely, that no penalty or condemnation will fall upon him. When God justifies us, as the Judge of all he is declaring, "No penalty for you!" (8:1). This has already occurred for us as believers; it is an ongoing reality; and it will take place formally with eternal finality on Judgment Day.

One disturbing thing about the various accusations brought against us by Satan, by unbelievers, even by our own consciences, is that they are so often true! We have sinned; we have done terrible things. But what the accusers do not take into account is that God has already justified us in relation to our sins, i.e., he has taken away their guilt; he has taken their penalty upon himself; he has broken the connection between our sin and its deserved condemnation; he as Judge has already declared, "No penalty for you!"

Thus the accusers can accuse, but they cannot condemn ! This is our "blessed assurance."

On the forensic connotation of "condemn" (katakrivnw , katakrinô ), see 8:3. The fact that "justify" is used here as the opposite of "condemn" shows that it too is a forensic or legal concept. See 3:24.

8:34b Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. This lays out once more the only basis for our justification, namely, the work of Jesus. Four specific phases of his work are mentioned: his death, his resurrection, his enthronement, and his intercession for us.

The first two are past events that are fundamental to our justification and therefore to our assurance (see 3:24; 4:25). The last two are interrelated and together describe Christ's present and ongoing role in our justification, a role that began with his ascension.

That Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father is primarily indicative of his exalted status and honor. The "right hand" of God is a symbol of his almighty power; that Christ is seated at God's right hand means he shares in this power (Ps 110; Matt 28:18).

In this context, though, the emphasis is not on the right hand or power as such, but simply on the close proximity of the crucified and risen Christ to the Father, for the purpose of intercession. This is not the same as the intercession of the Spirit in our prayer life (vv. 26-27). Christ intercedes for us in the sense that he interposes his blood between us and the Father's wrath. As our high priest he presents himself as the sacrifice that has borne this deserved wrath in our place, thus making it possible for us to come to God, to be accepted by him, and to be a part of his intimate family. See Isa 53:12; Luke 23:34; 1 Tim 2:5-6; Heb 4:14-16; 7:25; 1 John 2:1.

8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? This rhetorical question begins Paul's final celebration of assurance, a crescendo of certainty that finally erupts in a triumphant confession of the all-sufficiency of God's infinite and faithful love. The question is framed in terms of separation: who will separate us from the love of Christ? The rest of the paragraph develops this emphatic answer: NO ONE!

The "love of Christ" is not our love for him but his love for us (v. 37). This is not different from "the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (v. 39). This love is not only the subjective love for us within the heart of Jesus, but also all the objective benefits of that love as already bestowed upon us and as promised to us in eternity. Nothing is able to separate us from any of this.

Many persons and many things will try to separate us from his love, i.e., to shake our confidence in his love and tempt us to doubt it and forsake it. Paul has already mentioned sufferings in general (vv. 17-18); here he mentions several specific forms of suffering. None of them, he says, is stronger than Christ's love for us. None of them succeeds as an argument for the proposition that Christ does not really love us after all.

Who shall separate us? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? This is not an exhaustive list. These seven things are "a representative few of the countless ominous circumstances that believers may encounter" in this world (MacArthur, I:510).

"Trouble and hardship" are the same two Greek words used in 2:9 for eschatological penalties. Here they refer to general categories of earthly suffering. "Trouble" (qlivyi" , thlipsis ) refers to pressure, or being pressed and pressured by circumstances. Some think it refers to end-time tribulation, but it should not be limited to this. As MacArthur says, it is "severe adversity in general" (I:511). "Hardship" (stenocwriva , stenochôria ) is not much different. It refers to narrowness, or feeling confined and restricted and hemmed in by circumstances. It is probable that the former refers to the external situations that produce suffering, while the latter is the inner mental state of distress resulting from them.

"Persecution" is a more specific form of trouble and hardship. Probably it refers to persecution suffered because of one's belief (Matt 5:10-12; 1 Cor 4:12; 2 Cor 4:9; 2 Thess 1:4). "Famine" can also mean hunger experienced for any reason, especially because of persecution (1 Cor 4:11; 2 Cor 11:27). The same applies to "nakedness," which can mean destitution in general, being "reduced to rags" (1 Cor 4:11; 2 Cor 11:27). "Danger" refers to being in peril or at risk in general, either from natural or personal threats (2 Cor 11:26). "Sword" is symbolic of violence, especially violent death as in war or judicial penalty (AG, 497). To Christians it represents martyrdom (Acts 12:2; see Heb 11:34-37).

8:36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." This quote from Ps 44:22 is naturally called to mind from the list of sufferings detailed in v. 35, all of which could result in death. This, along with Matt 5:12 and Heb 11:34-37, shows that such suffering is nothing new in the Christian era but has always been the lot of God's people. The death in view is not so-called "natural" death, but the death of martyrdom.

The NIV translation, "face death," is too weak. The word means "being put to death, being killed." This is happening "all day long." Somewhere, every day, at all times of the day, Christians are being killed because of their belief. We are like sheep for slaughter. This is not a reference to the use of sheep as sacrifices, but to the killing of sheep for food. This is how unbelievers often view believers: we are assigned no real value in society and are fit only for slaughter.

All of these things (vv. 35-36) certainly do not happen to all Christians all the time, but they are always a potential danger. If and when they do happen, certain questions will naturally press themselves upon our consciousness: Where is God? Why is he letting this happen to me? Has he abandoned me? Is he real? Does he really love me? Paul's point is that none of these circumstances and no thoughts such as these are able to eclipse or extinguish the glorious light of God's love that shines forth from the cross.

8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Here is Paul's answer to the question in v. 35. Shall any of these things separate us from Christ's love? No! The word is alla , the strong adversative often translated "but." Here it means "rather." I.e., rather than these things separating us from Christ's love, we overcome them all. Literally, "in all these things we are more than conquerors!" In the midst of them all and in spite of them all, we emerge victorious.

The word for "to be more than conquerors" is uJpernikavw (hypernikaô ). The usual word for "to conquer, to be the victor" is nikavw , (nikaô ). Here uJpevr ( hyper ) is added to magnify the certainty and decisiveness of our victory. We not only defeat every enemy and conquer in every adverse circumstance; we over conquer! We do not just survive; we do not just endure. Rather, we win a glorious, overwhelming victory; we prevail completely. To use Hendriksen's word, we are "superconquerors" (I:292). This megavictory occurs not just because we have the inherent strength of conquering heroes. No, it happens because the Holy Spirit empowers us to overcome all spiritual foes (8:13), because God's providence brings good out of all adversities (8:28), and because the knowledge of God's grace through the cross of Christ inspires in us a passion for faithfulness that simply will not be denied.

We overconquer "through him who loved us." This is Jesus (v. 35), and the reference is to his cross. This is shown by the fact that "loved" is an aorist participle, referring to a specific act of love. If in our hearts and minds we keep a firm grip on the meaning and reality of this event, nothing can shake us in our faith, assurance, and hope.

8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In these verses Paul completes his answer to the question in v. 35a. He declares that nothing will be able to separate us from Christ's love. He switches from first person plural to first person singular, indicating that this testimony is not only truth inspired by the Holy Spirit but also his own unshakable personal conviction arising from the depths of his heart. "I am convinced!" he says. Godet (329) calls this Paul's "shout of victory on the battle-field now abandoned by the enemy."

To make his answer more concrete, Paul reels off a list of ten representative things that cannot separate us from the love of Christ. Eight of these are combined into four pairs. Not every item mentioned is necessarily hostile to Christians, though most have the potential for harm. The main point of the listing is to be as comprehensive and inclusive as possible, to cover the whole range of potential sources of "trouble and hardship." This is accomplished especially by the general pairs, life/death, present/future, and height/depth.

Listed first as not having the power to separate us from Christ's love is the related pair, "neither death nor life." It is natural that death should be listed first, since it has just been in the forefront of concern (vv. 35-36), and since it has "loomed throughout chaps. 5-8 as the great hostile power" (Dunn, I:506). Death, the "Great Separator," scares us because it can come in so many fearsome forms. It is especially threatening in the context of martyrdom.

It may seem strange that "life" is also mentioned as something that cannot separate us from Christ's love. The point seems to be to make these potential threats as comprehensive as possible. Thus "life" includes every possible circumstance that might come upon us before we die, including the things mentioned in v. 35. Thus pairing life and death together "is simply a way of embracing every conceivable condition of humankind" (Dunn, I:507).

The next two items also seem to be a pair, "neither angels nor demons." The second term is not actually "demons," but "rulers" (ajrchv , archç ). It could refer to earthly rulers (Luke 12:11; Titus 3:1), but it is also one of Paul's favorite words for angelic beings. As such the KJV usually translates it "principalities." It does not necessarily refer to fallen angels (Col 1:16), but sometimes it does (Eph 6:12; Col 2:15). Though we cannot be sure, that seems to be the connotation here; this is why the NIV translates it "demons."

Though the term "angels" is sometimes used of fallen angels or demons (Matt 25:41; 2 Cor 12:7; 2 Pet 2:4; see 1 Cor 6:3; 11:10), most often it refers to good angels. Thus the NIV translation "angels and demons" seems proper, since pairing these terms in this listing seems intended to cover the whole range of spiritual beings, good and bad.

How good angels can be considered a possible means of separation from Christ's love is somewhat of a puzzle. Men sometimes worship angels (Col 2:18), but good angels always refuse such attempts (Rev 19:10; 22:8-9). Paul poses an hypothetical situation in which "an angel from heaven" preaches a false gospel (Gal 1:8), but if that should happen the angel would no longer be good. We conclude that good angels are included here just to provide a complete spectrum.

The more obvious danger is from demons, who are very active even today in their efforts to thwart God's purposes and to cause believers to stumble (Matt 24:24; Eph 6:10-18; 2 Thess 2:9-10). But Paul's point is that no angel, good or bad, has the power to move us away from the love of Christ. Not even Satan himself, and not even Satan's "best shot," can break the grip of the cross upon our hearts.

The next pair, "neither the present nor the future," does not seem to refer to anything in particular but is included to add to the theme of comprehensiveness. Just as with "death and life," so also "present and future" are all-inclusive with respect to those things that might try to separate us from Christ's love. We are tempted to worry about the future because we do not know what it will bring. But this is irrelevant, since we know that it can bring nothing that is able to nullify the power of Christ's love for us.

The next item, "nor any powers," is not in a pair. Since the word can be used for angelic beings (Eph 1:21; 1 Pet 3:22), some think that is its meaning here. But that raises the question as to why it should be listed separately from "angels and demons." A more likely possibility is that here the term is used in its common meaning of "miracles." The NT has several references to demonic, false miracles (Matt 7:22; 2 Thess 2:9; see Matt 24:24; Rev 13:13; 16:14; 19:20). The point then seems to be that no matter how great a miracle someone might perform, if it is related to a false gospel (Gal 1:8), its power is immediately diminished and negated by the greater power of the cross.

Some see "neither height nor depth" as references to pagan concepts of spiritual beings that rule the regions above the heavens and beneath the earth (or below the horizon), but this is unlikely (see Cranfield, I:443). Probably Paul just adds all-inclusive spatial references here, to go with his all-inclusive temporal references to the present and future. "Neither the highest height nor the deepest depth" can separate us from Christ's love (Cranfield, I:443).

The final item is a catch-all category that includes any other possibility that anyone can imagine: "nor anything else in all creation." The love of God as embodied in the cross of Christ looms so infinitely large that no finite, creaturely contingency can hope to overthrow it.

We should note Paul's language very carefully. He says that none of these things in themselves will ever be able to separate us from the love of God. None will have the power to do so. This is God's promise to us, and it is the basis for our confidence and hope and assurance of final victory. But Paul does not guarantee us that none of these things will ever become the occasion for our separating ourselves from God's love. As is the case with salvation in general, and justification and predestination in particular, so also is our assurance of salvation conditional. It is conditioned upon our own continued trust in the promises of God, which is something that lies within the power of our own free choice.

Some try to avoid this conclusion by pointing out that Paul says no created thing can separate us from Christ's love. Since we ourselves are creatures, that must mean that not even we can do anything to separate ourselves from God's saving love (e.g., Moo, I:589). However, the believer's abilities and decisions are not at issue here. It is assumed that we want to stay within the love of Christ, and that we are going to make every effort to do so. The point and the comfort of this passage is that no third party, no outside circumstance can destroy the saving relationship between us and God, or separate us from his love. That relationship is between us and God alone. Our ultimate salvation is God's loving will and purpose for us, and it will surely come to pass as long as our faith continues to cling to its one and only hope, the cross of Christ.

It is important to see that the love that is the basis for our unshakable assurance is "the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God's love is expressed toward human beings in many different ways, especially in his gifts of creation and providence (Matt 5:43-48). But in the experience of many, these expressions of love are often overshadowed by such things as disease, poverty, and natural disasters. But the love of God embodied in the cross of Christ (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10) is different. It is not affected by contrary circumstances. It alone endures as the solid rock upon which our hope and assurance can safely rest.

As a final note, given the crucial role of the cross not only as the basis for our salvation itself but also as the basis for our assurance of salvation, it is all the more important to have a right understanding of the meaning of the cross, and all the more imperative to preach and teach and meditate upon what God has done for us through this precious instrument of his love.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Rom 8:20

For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope

McGarvey: Rom 8:21

that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God .

McGarvey: Rom 8:22

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now . [And creation thus waits; for at and by reason of the fall of man, it became subject to frailty; i. e., it also fell from its original design and purpose, and became abortive, diminutive, imperfect, and subject to premature decay. And this it did not do of its own accord, but because the will of God ordered that it should be thus altered (Gen 3:17-18); not leaving it, however, without hope that it also should so far share in the redemption of the sons of God as not only to be delivered from the bondage of being corruptible, to which God subjected it, but also to be transferred to the liberty which results from or accompanies the revelation or glorification of the sons of God. And this hopeful waiting is evident, for we Christians know that God designs to make all things new (2Pe 3:13 ; Rev 21:1 ; Rev 21:5), and also that the whole creation so shares man's deterioration and degradation that with him it groans, and has, as it were, the pains of childbirth, even to this hour. The figure of childbirth is appropriate, since nature wishes to reproduce herself in a new, fresh and better form, corresponding to that which she had before the fall of man.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:23

And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body . [And not only do we recognize this vast, unuttered longing of nature, but we find similar groanings even within ourselves, though occupying a much more privileged and advantageous position than nature, having, in the firstfruits of the Spirit, an earnest or inspiring foretaste of the good things to come, and yet, despite our advantage, so exceedingly desirable is the glory yet to be revealed, that even we ourselves groan within ourselves because of those parts wherein we are nearest akin to the material creation, waiting for the time to come when we shall be openly revealed as the adopted children of God, by those changes which culminate in that transformation brought about by the resurrection -- when our mortal, corruptible, weak, dishonored, natural body shall be transfigured into the immortal, incorruptible, powerful, glorified, spiritual body, thus accomplishing the redemption of the body.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:24

For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?

McGarvey: Rom 8:25

But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it . [We groan, I say, waiting for this future blessing. For when we were converted and saved from the world, we were not so saved that all salvation includes was bestowed upon us; but we were saved unto a salvation which even yet exists largely in hope. If it were otherwise, we would now see the things which we still hope for. But when hope is attained it ceases to be hope, for hope applies only to the unattained, not to the attained. But if our full salvation is not yet seen or attained, then should we patiently wait for its attainment, which will be accomplished when we are at last revealed as God's children.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:26

And in like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered [And not only are we encouraged by the sympathetic groaning of creation, and our well-grounded hopes to wait patiently for deliverance and glorification, but we are also in like manner aided in doing so by the ministration of the Holy Spirit, who helps us in our weakness, especially in obtaining the strength, patience, etc., necessary to enable us to endure faithfully until the hour of our deliverance arrives. And we require such help, for, left to ourselves, we would fail to ask for these things which we need, and would spend our time and strength asking for those things which we do not need; for we are not wise enough to pray for the things which, considering our real, present weakness, we ought to pray for. But the Spirit knows these needful things, and he affords a remedy for our weakness by himself interceding for us, not praying independently, or apart from us, but moving and exalting us in our prayer, and stirring within us sighings, longings, aspirations and soulful yearnings for those things which are our real needs, but which are so poorly understood by us that we can not adequately express them in words];

McGarvey: Rom 8:27

and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God . [Though we, in our ignorance, do not know how to express these inward groanings, or yearnings, and though the Holy Spirit, in his operations within us, can not so lead or train us as to make us able to give them articulate utterance, yet God, who searcheth the heart, or that inner man where the Spirit dwells, knows what it is that the Spirit has in mind; i. e., what the Spirit is prompting us to desire, because the Spirit pleads for the saints according to the will of God, asking those things which accord with the plans, purposes and desires of God. "In short," says Beet, "our own yearnings, resulting as they do from the presence of the Spirit, are themselves a pledge of their own realization." The remainder of the chapter gives the third ground of encouragement, which is briefly this: the Christian has nothing to fear (outside of himself), for nothing can defeat the plan or purpose which God cherishes toward him, and nothing can separate him from the love of God.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:28

And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose . [In addition to the encouragements already mentioned, there is this: We know (partly by experience, but primarily by revelation) that all these present ills, hardships, adversities, afflictions, etc., are so overruled of God as to be made to combine to produce the permanent and eternal advantage and welfare of those who love God, even, I say, to those who love God, or who may otherwise be described as those that are called according to his purpose. "All things" evidently refers to all that class of events which threaten to result in evil. The phrase evidently is not to be pressed, for it can hardly include sin or any other thing which injures the soul. The apostle himself, in verses Rom 8:35-39 ; fully describes what he means by "all things." "The love of believers for God," says Lange, "is not the ground of their confidence, but the sign and security that they were first loved of God." The gospel reveals God's purpose to redeem, justify and glorify those who believe in Jesus. Those who accept this gospel through belief in Jesus are truly called of God according to the purpose for which he extended the call. Paul does not regard unbelievers as thus called, as the context shows, for the other descriptive clause which he here applies to the "called" (viz.: "those who love God") would not be applicable to unbelievers. Therefore the two clauses taken together show that Paul is simply speaking of Christians, or those who have heard the gospel, and have accepted it, and have been saved by it. All such know assuredly that God will direct the events of life so that they shall result in good to those called according to his purpose; for his purpose is of such import, such magnitude, such eternal fixedness and perennial vitality, etc., as to be a guarantee that God will permit no temporal accidentals to thwart it.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:29

For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren :

McGarvey: Rom 8:30

and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified . [The keyword which opens the hidden meaning of these two verses is the word purpose, found in verse 28. Before man was created God foresaw his fall, and designed the gospel for his redemption; this fact is well attested by Scripture (Rom 16:25-26 ; 1Co 2:7 ; Eph 1:8 ; Eph 3:9 ; Col 1:25-26). In those times eternal, man, the gospel, justification, etc., existed only in the purpose of God; and it is of these times and conditions that the apostle speaks, showing how God foreknew that a certain class yet to be born would accept of a salvation yet to be provided through the terms of a gospel yet to be made actual. As to this class he foreordained, or fore-decreed, that they should, after the resurrection, bear the image or likeness of his Son, that the Son might have the pre-eminence of being the firstborn (from the dead) among many brethren. And this class, whom in his purpose he thus foreordained, them likewise in his purpose he also called justified and glorified by successive steps, not actually, but in his purpose. Thus the apostle is speaking not of actual decrees, calls, justifications, etc., on the part of God, but of such as existing only in divine contemplation and purpose. So, also, he is not speaking of actual, called, etc., persons, but imaginary, ideal persons, who existed as yet only as a class in the councils or purposes of the Almighty; and Paul's design is not to show the foreordination of any individuals, but to substantiate the assurance of verse 28, by emphasizing the far-reaching purposes of God, which will not suffer afflictions, hardships, or any of the trivialities of time, to frustrate him in working out his eternal plans. That he is not speaking of actualities is shown by the last term in his sequence, viz.: "glorified." Since the apostle is speaking of what transpired in the councils of the Almighty prior to the creation of man, he properly uses the past tense: "glorified;" but if he were speaking of actuality, he would be compelled to use the future tense, to accord with conditions as stated in verse 18, where he clearly recognizes the glorification of man as a future event for which he waits. Thus it is apparent that the foreordination set forth in these two verses is purely hypothetical.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:31

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? [What conclusion, then, are we warranted in drawing from this definite and eternal purpose of God? If he be thus for us, are we not right in saying that all things shall work together for our good, for what is there that can work otherwise in successful opposition to God?]

McGarvey: Rom 8:32

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? [This verse is an answer, and more than an answer, to the question just asked. In it the negative and positive sides of God's actions are suggested, but not fully developed. The full thought may be thus expressed: To bring for his redeemed good out of all things may entail many sacrifices on the part of God -- sacrifices which he might well regret to make on account of love for the thing sacrificed, and others which he might well withhold for lack of love towards the parties for whom the sacrifice is made. But what God has already done in accomplishing his eternal purpose is a guarantee that he will continue to do whatever more may be required. If he spared not his own Son, he will not halt at making any other sacrifice; neither value nor preciousness can cause him to withhold what we need. Again, our unworthiness and insignificance form no obstacle to the outpouring of his most marvelous gifts; for if God delivered up his own Son for us (while we were yet sinners), will he not now even more willingly and freely, to the gift of his Son, add all other gifts which lead to or consummate our glorification? In short, nothing but our own act of apostasy can cause us to fail of our inheritance.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:33

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth ;

McGarvey: Rom 8:34

who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us . ["But, Paul," says some doubting heart, "surely there are ten thousand things which will come to light to do us harm in the all-revealing hour of the judgment. It can not be that all these things shall then work us good." The apostle replies that these things will, at that time, certainly work us no evil, for in that august hour when all of all nations shall be called to give account before the throne of Christ the Judge, who is it that shall lay any charge against those whom the Father has chosen because of their faith in Christ and obedience to him? How could any one presume to attempt any such thing? or what difference would it make if he did attempt it? for it is the Father himself who speaks to the contrary, declaring that the sins of those who believe on Jesus are forgiven, and that they are justified in Jesus. Thus Christians shall be safe during the hearing; but when the hearing is closed, and the fate of each rests in the hands of the Judge, then shall they be equally safe as to the final sentence. Who shall condemn them? There is but one who has the power to do this, and that one is the Judge; and the Judge is none other than Christ Jesus, who died to expiate our sins, lest they should condemn us; who was raised for our justification; who was enthroned at the right hand of God to rule for our sakes, and to judge us; and who even now pleads as our intercessor against our condemnation. Surely the past and present attitudes of Christ towards us guarantee his future conduct, and confirm us in the confidence that he, the unchangeable, will acquit us in that hour, and save us from the condemnation against which he has made such ample preparation and provision. So far as the Father is concerned, the cause of man is settled and sealed, for he has committed judgment to the Son. Whatever contingency there is, lies, therefore, in the bosom of the Son. He has made the sacrifice, and accomplished the work necessary to acquit man at the judgment; but as his decree and sentence are not yet spoken, it is, of course, contingent. Will he change his mind, and condemn man? The apostle answers this question by asking another.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [The thought of Rom 8:28 ; which has not been out of the apostle's mind since he introduced it, here comes once more squarely to the front. Shall any of the hardships of our present life so work evil as to cause Christ to change his present feeling toward us, or his future purpose to justify us? Can we who know his love ask such a question? Can anything in the whole catalogue of hardships work such results? Though in our day the sufferings may vary somewhat from the items given by the apostle, yet they raise the same doubts -- produce in us the same effects. It is natural to man to look upon the sufferings of the Christian life as a contradiction to the scheme of grace. According to our earthly conceptions, a journey which is to end in glorification should continually rise toward it, so that pleasures, joys, honors, etc., should increase daily. When, instead of such a program, we meet with tribulation, anguish, nakedness, etc., it looks to us as if God were leading us the wrong way -- the way that would end in degradation and death, rather than glorification and life. The answer to such thoughts is found in this argument of the apostle. God makes any road lead to good and glorification, and especially those roads which seem to run in the opposite direction; so that we may regard those things which appear to argue his hatred and neglect as, on the contrary, the strongest evidences of his love and care. And this, adds the apostle, is no new truth, for it has been the experience of God's people in the past, as the Scripture testifies.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:36

Even as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter . [Psa 44:22 . This Psalm is supposed to have been written during the Babylonish captivity, and that it is a correct description of the state of the Jew in that day, we may readily conceive from details given in Daniel and Esther. But the Psalm was also prophetic. As the Jew suffered because of the peculiar religion which God had bestowed upon him, so also did the Christian; and in both cases the enemies of the revealed religions looked upon the worshipers as people who were to be killed as a matter of course, without compunction or pity, just as sheep are slain for sacrifice or for the market.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:37

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us . [But though we be in tribulation, and be slain like sheep, yet in all these things we not only gain the conquest, so that we survive them, but we come out more than victors, for we are crowned over them with immortality and eternal life. But this victory is achieved not of ourselves, but because of the love of Christ, who, by his death, won for us these better things. The phrase "more than conquerors" is a single word in the Greek, and means, literally, "over-conquerors." Some see in this a peculiar kind of victory. "This is a new order of victory," says Chrysostom, "to conquer by means of our adversaries." "The adversaries," says Chillingsworth, "are not only overcome and disarmed, but they are brought over to our faction; they war on our side." If such a meaning may be properly put upon this word, then the idea here is beautifully harmonious and consonant with the thought expressed in verse 28, which shows that God indeed causes things which seem to be inimical to serve our interests and further our blessedness.]

McGarvey: Rom 8:38

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers ,

McGarvey: Rom 8:39

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 . [From the various grounds of assurance which he has enumerated in this chapter, Paul gives it as his own personal, final conviction that (apart from the disciple's own will) nothing can separate him from God's love as displayed in the gift of Christ to die for man's redemption, and to reign for man's glorification. To illustrate the wide range of possible antagonism which may arise to oppose man's glorification, he submits a wonderful list of things having such inherent vastness and grandeur that they can not be defined without diminution and loss. If we should attempt to explain him, we would say that neither terrestrial existence, with its phases of life and death; nor celestial existence, reaching from angels to unknown altitudes of rulership; nor time, present or future; nor any other imaginable power; nor space, heavenward or hellward; nor any other form of creation, visible or invisible, known or unknown, can effect a separation between God and those objects of his love whom he has redeemed in Christ. As to the whole passage, the words of Erasmus are a characteristic comment. "Cicero," says he, "never said anything more eloquent." It is far more easy for us all to grasp the rhetorical and superficial beauty of this marvelous passage, which soars to the extreme altitude of divine inspiration, than to appreciate, even in the slightest or most remote degree, the excellencies of the sublime and eternal verities which it seeks to bring home to our consciences. The love of God is so little comprehended by our sinful and finite natures, that expositions of it are to us as descriptions of color are to the blind, or as explanations of melody and harmony are to the deaf. We, as they, admire the verbiage and the skill of him who has dazed our understanding, and are hardly conscious how far we fall short of truly following the conceptions which the writer sought to convey to our spirits.]

NOTE. -- At this point Rom 8:39 the work on Romans was discontinued on the 16th of July, 1908. Since then (in October, 1911) Bro. M^cGarvey went to his rest and reward. Now, June 15, 1914, I resume work alone, and shall miss him. He was to me a considerate editor, a genial companion, a most thoughtful and faithful friend. Soon after the work was discontinued I received from him a much-prized letter, containing these words. "You have written a commentary which will compare favorably with any."

Encouraged in part by so frank a commendation from so competent an authority, I did not destroy my analysis of the Book of Romans; but (though it is very similar to that found in the Introduction) I filed it away, believing that if his judgment were correct, the merits of the work would some day call for its completion. Now, after five years and eleven months, the analysis comes forth from its dusty pigeon-hole and the work is resumed; but he is not here to rejoice with me. How inspiring the thought that he is where the pleasures unknown abound, and where such joy as I would share with him are as dust and weightless motes upon the balances! CINCINNATI, O., June 15, 1914. PHILIP Y. PENDLETON

Commentary -- Other

Critics Ask: Rom 8:26

ROMANS 8:26 —Is the Holy Spirit our mediator or is Christ?

PROBLEM: First Timothy 2:5 asserts that “there is one … Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.” But Romans 8:26 informs us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us to God “with groanings which cannot be uttered.” How can Christ be the only mediator when the Holy Spirit also mediates?

SOLUTION: Christ is the only mediator; the Holy Spirit is only an intercessor. Christ alone died for our sins ( Heb. 1:1-2 ), making reconciliation with God possible ( 2 Cor. 5:19 ). The Holy Spirit did not die for our sins; He prays to the Father on our behalf, based on the redeeming work of Christ. Further, the intercession of the Holy Spirit is not in heaven, as Christ’s work is ( 1 John 2:1-2 ). Rather, it is in us. The indwelling Spirit pleads in us to the Father on the grounds of the mediating work of the Son.   

Critics Ask: Rom 8:30

ROMANS 8:30 —Are all the called ones saved or only some?

PROBLEM: Paul indicates here that all who are “called” by God are eventually “justified” and “glorified” ( Rom. 8:30 ). But Jesus said that “many are called, but few chosen” ( Matt. 20:16 ).

SOLUTION: The word “called” is being used in different senses. This is not uncommon in languages. Take, for example, the following sentence: “The dog would bark by the tree but did not scratch the bark from the tree.” Clearly the word “bark” is used in two different senses. Likewise, Paul and Jesus are using different senses of the word “called” which can be contrasted as follows:   

GENERAL CALL SPECIFIC CALL  

Call for salvation Call of salvation   

For all men Only for believers   

Not effectual Effectual for salvation

In brief, when Jesus referred to a “call” He was speaking of a general invitation for all to believe. Paul, however, has reference to the specific “call” of God by which God brings believers to salvation. The first is the call for salvation to all; the last is the call of salvation to some.   

Evidence: Rom 8:22

QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS

" Mother Nature sure blew it..."

Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and earthquakes kill tens of thousands of people each year. Multitudes endure crippling diseases, endless suffering, and unspeakable pain (see Rom 5:12 footnote). Many non-Christians credit a heartless Mother Nature for giving us all this grief. They fail to consider that " Mother Nature" has a Senior Partner—Father God.

However, if God is responsible for all this heartache, that presents an interesting dilemma. If God is an " all-loving" Father figure, as we are told, we seem to have three choices: 1) God blew it when He made everything (He’s creative but incompetent); 2) God is a tyrant, who gets His kicks from seeing kids die of leukemia; 3) something between God and man is radically wrong. These are our choices...and those who take time to consider the evidence will lean toward number three. Something between man and God is radically wrong, and the Bible tells us what it is.

There is a war going on. We are told that mankind is an enemy of God in his mind through wicked works ( Col 1:21 ). That’s not too hard to see. Man is continually committing violent acts such as murder and rape, lying, stealing, etc., as the daily news confirms. He uses God’s name as a curse word, while Mother Nature gets the glory for His creation—unless there’s a horrible disaster; then man calls that " an act of God."

An applicable acronym for WAR is We Are Right. Any country going to war does so because it has the conviction that it is in the right. However, a quick look at God’s Law shows us who is right and who is wrong. We, not God, are the guilty party. If we want His blessing back on our nation and in our lives, we must make peace with Him, and that is possible only through faith in Jesus Christ.

Evidence: Rom 8:29

The gospel isn’t a treasure to be hoarded; it’s a gift to be shared. GREG LAURIE

Evidence: Rom 8:39

The cost of our redemption was the blood of God’s Son . The Father’s love for us was and is so great, He didn’t hesitate for a moment, but delivered Him up freely for us like a lamb for the slaughter. If that is the case, then what good thing will He hold back from those who walk uprightly in Christ! What demon can make one peep, or mutter an accusation against us, when we have such evidence of God’s love set before our eyes? What trial could ever separate us from the devotion of God in Christ?

Shall the Shepherd, who put His life in great jeopardy by climbing down a precipice to rescue a lost sheep, carry it back carelessly? Will He now let it starve after He risked His very life to rescue it? Will He now stand by idly and let wolves devour the sheep? The Chief Shepherd descended into death itself to deliver us. He has already proven His great love by willingly giving His life for the sheep, so no tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, or even sharp sword will cut us off from such love.

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Romans (Book Introduction)

The Epistle to the Romans

Spring of a.d. 57

By Way of Introduction

Integrity of the Epistle

The genuineness of the Epistle is so generally admitted by scholars that it is unnecessary to prove it here, for Loman, Steck, and the Dutch scholars (Van Manen, etc.) who deny it as Pauline are no longer taken seriously. He wrote it from Corinth because he sent it to Rome by Phoebe of Cenchreae (Rom_16:2) if chapter 16 is acknowledged to be a part of the Epistle. Chapter 16 is held by some to be really a short epistle to Ephesus because of the long list of names in it, because of Paul’s long stay in Ephesus, because he had not yet been to Rome, and because, in particular, Aquila and Priscilla are named (Rom_16:3-5) who had been with Paul in Ephesus. But they had come from Rome before going to Corinth and there is no reason for thinking that they did not return to Rome. It was quite possible for Paul to have many friends in Rome whom he had met elsewhere. People naturally drifted to Rome from all over the empire. The old MSS. (Aleph A B C D) give chapter 16 as an integral part of the Epistle. Marcion rejected it and chapter 15 also for reasons of his own. Renan’s theory that Romans was a circular letter like Ephesians sent in different forms to different churches (Rome, Ephesus, Thessalonica, etc.) has appealed to some scholars as explaining the several doxologies in the Epistle, but they cause no real difficulty since Paul interjected them in his other epistles according to his moods (2Co_1:20, for instance). That theory raises more problems than it solves as, for example, Paul’s remarks about going to Rome (Rom_1:9-16) which apply to Rome. Lightfoot suggests the possibility that Paul added Rom_16:25-27 some years after the original date so as to turn it into a circular letter. But the MSS. do not support that theory and that leaves Rom_15:22-33 in the Epistle quite unsuitable to a circular letter. Modern knowledge leaves the Epistle intact with occasional variations in the MSS. on particular points as is true of all the N.T.

The Time and Place

The place is settled if we accept Rom_16:1. The time of the year is in the spring if we combine statements in the Acts and the Epistle. He says: " I am now going to Jerusalem ministering to the saints" (Rom_15:25). In Act_20:3 we read that Paul spent three months in Corinth. In II Corinthians we have a full account of the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem. The account of the journey from Corinth to Jerusalem is given in Acts 20:3-21:17. It was in the spring between passover at Philippi (Act_20:6) and pentecost in Jerusalem (Act_20:16; Act_21:17). The precise year is not quite so certain, but we may suggest a.d. 57 or 58 with reasonable confidence.

The Purpose

Paul tells this himself. He had long cherished a desire to come to Rome (Act_19:21) and had often made his plans to do so (Rom_1:13) which were interrupted (Rom_15:22), but now he definitely plans to go from Jerusalem, after taking the contribution there (Rom_15:26), to Rome and then on to Spain (Rom_15:24, Rom_15:28). Meanwhile he sends this Epistle that the Romans may know what Paul’s gospel really is (Rom_1:15; Rom_2:16). He is full of the issues raised by the Judaizing controversy as set forth in the Epistles to Corinth and to Galatia. So in a calmer mood and more at length he presents his conception of the Righteousness demanded by God (Rom_1:17) of both Gentile (Rom_1:18-32) and Jew (Romans 2:1-3:20) and only to be obtained by faith in Christ who by his atoning death (justification) has made it possible (Romans 3:21-5:21). This new life of faith in Christ should lead to holiness of life (sanctification, chapters Romans 6-8). This is Paul’s gospel and the remaining chapters deal with corollaries growing out of the doctrine of grace as applied to practical matters. It is a cause for gratitude that Paul did write out so full a statement of his message. He had a message for the whole world and was anxious to win the Roman Empire to Christ. It was important that he go to Rome for it was the centre of the world’s life. Nowhere does Paul’s Christian statesmanship show to better advantage than in this greatest of his Epistles. It is not a book of formal theology though Paul is the greatest of theologians. Here Paul is seen in the plenitude of his powers with all the wealth of his knowledge of Christ and his rich experience in mission work. The church in Rome is plainly composed of both Jews and Greeks, though who started the work there we have no way of knowing. Paul’s ambition was to preach where no one else had been (Rom_15:20), but he has no hesitation in going on to Rome.

JFB: Romans (Book Introduction)

THE GENUINENESS of the Epistle to the Romans has never been questioned. It has the unbroken testimony of all antiquity, up to CLEMENT OF ROME, the apostle's "fellow laborer in the Gospel, whose name was in the Book of Life" (Phi 4:3), and who quotes from it in his undoubted Epistle to the Corinthians, written before the close of the first century. The most searching investigations of modern criticism have left it untouched.

WHEN and WHERE this Epistle was written we have the means of determining with great precision, from the Epistle itself compared with the Acts of the Apostles. Up to the date of it the apostle had never been at Rome (Rom 1:11, Rom 1:13, Rom 1:15). He was then on the eve of visiting Jerusalem with a pecuniary contribution for its Christian poor from the churches of Macedonia and Achaia, after which his purpose was to pay a visit to Rome on his way to Spain (Rom 15:23-28). Now this contribution we know that he carried with him from Corinth, at the close of his third visit to that city, which lasted three months (Act 20:2-3; Act 24:17). On this occasion there accompanied him from Corinth certain persons whose names are given by the historian of the Acts (Act 20:4), and four of these are expressly mentioned in our Epistle as being with the apostle when he wrote it--Timotheus, Sosipater, Gaius, and Erastus (Rom 16:21, Rom 16:23). Of these four, the third, Gaius, was an inhabitant of Corinth (1Co 1:14), and the fourth, Erastus, was "chamberlain of the city" (Rom 16:23), which can hardly be supposed to be other than Corinth. Finally, Phœbebe, the bearer, as appears, of this Epistle, was a deaconess of the Church at Cenchrea, the eastern port of Corinth (Rom 16:1). Putting these facts together, it is impossible to resist the conviction, in which all critics agree, that Corinth was the place from which the Epistle was written, and that it was despatched about the close of the visit above mentioned, probably in the early spring of the year 58.FOUNDER of this celebrated church is unknown. That it owed its origin to the apostle Peter, and that he was its first bishop, though an ancient tradition and taught in the Church of Rome as a fact not to be doubted, is refuted by the clearest evidence, and is given up even by candid Romanists. On that supposition, how are we to account for so important a circumstance being passed by in silence by the historian of the Acts, not only in the narrative of Peter's labors, but in that of Paul's approach to the metropolis, of the deputations of Roman "brethren" that came as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns to meet him, and of his two years' labors there (Act 28:15, Act 28:30)? And how, consistently with his declared principle--not to build on another man's foundation (Rom 15:20) --could he express his anxious desire to come to them that he might have some fruit among them also, even as among other Gentiles (Rom 1:13), if all the while he knew that they had the apostle of the circumcision for their spiritual father? And how, if so, is there no salutation to Peter among the many in this Epistle? or, if it may be thought that he was known to be elsewhere at that particular time, how does there occur in all the Epistles which our apostle afterwards wrote from Rome not one allusion to such an origin of the church at Rome? The same considerations would seem to prove that this church owed its origin to no prominent Christian laborer; and this brings us to the much-litigated question.

For WHAT CLASS of Christians was this Epistle principally designed--Jewish or Gentile? That a large number of Jews and Jewish proselytes resided at this time at Rome is known to all who are familiar with the classical and Jewish writers of that and the immediately subsequent periods; and that those of them who were at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Act 2:10), and formed probably part of the three thousand converts of that day, would on their return to Rome carry the glad tidings with them, there can be no doubt. Nor are indications wanting that some of those embraced in the salutations of this Epistle were Christians already of long standing, if not among the earliest converts to the Christian faith. Others of them who had made the apostle's acquaintance elsewhere, and who, if not indebted to him for their first knowledge of Christ, probably owed much to his ministrations, seemed to have charged themselves with the duty of cherishing and consolidating the work of the Lord in the capital. And thus it is not improbable that up to the time of the apostle's arrival the Christian community at Rome had been dependent upon subordinate agency for the increase of its numbers, aided by occasional visits of stated preachers from the provinces; and perhaps it may be gathered from the salutations of the last chapter that it was up to that time in a less organized, though far from less flourishing state, than some other churches to whom the apostle had already addressed Epistles. Certain it is, that the apostle writes to them expressly as a Gentile Church (Rom 1:13, Rom 1:15; Rom 15:15-16); and though it is plain that there were Jewish Christians among them, and the whole argument presupposes an intimate acquaintance on the part of his readers with the leading principles of the Old Testament, this will be sufficiently explained by supposing that the bulk of them, having before they knew the Lord been Gentile proselytes to the Jewish faith, had entered the pale of the Christian Church through the gate of the ancient economy.

It remains only to speak briefly of the PLAN and CHARACTER Of this Epistle. Of all the undoubted Epistles of our apostle, this is the most elaborate, and at the same time the most glowing. It has just as much in common with a theological treatise as is consistent with the freedom and warmth of a real letter. Referring to the headings which we have prefixed to its successive sections, as best exhibiting the progress of the argument and the connection of its points, we here merely note that its first great topic is what may be termed the legal relation of man to God as a violator of His holy law, whether as merely written on the heart, as in the case of the heathen, or, as in the case of the Chosen People, as further known by external revelation; that it next treats of that legal relation as wholly reversed through believing connection with the Lord Jesus Christ; and that its third and last great topic is the new life which accompanies this change of relation, embracing at once a blessedness and a consecration to God which, rudimentally complete already, will open, in the future world, into the bliss of immediate and stainless fellowship with God. The bearing of these wonderful truths upon the condition and destiny of the Chosen People, to which the apostle next comes, though it seem but the practical application of them to his kinsmen according to the flesh, is in some respects the deepest and most difficult part of the whole Epistle, carrying us directly to the eternal springs of Grace to the guilty in the sovereign love and inscrutable purposes of God; after which, however, we are brought back to the historical platform of the visible Church, in the calling of the Gentiles, the preservation of a faithful Israelitish remnant amidst the general unbelief and fall of the nation, and the ultimate recovery of all Israel to constitute, with the Gentiles in the latter day, one catholic Church of God upon earth. The remainder of the Epistle is devoted to sundry practical topics, winding up with salutations and outpourings of heart delightfully suggestive.

JFB: Romans (Outline)

• INTRODUCTION. (Rom. 1:1-17)
• THE JEW UNDER LIKE CONDEMNATION WITH THE GENTILE. (Rom. 2:1-29)
• JEWISH OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. (Rom 3:1-8)
• THAT THE JEW IS SHUT UP UNDER LIKE CONDEMNATION WITH THE GENTILE IS PROVED BY HIS OWN SCRIPTURE. (Rom 3:9-20)
• GOD'S JUSTIFYING RIGHTEOUSNESS THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, ALIKE ADAPTED TO OUR NECESSITIES AND WORTHY OF HIMSELF. (Rom 3:21-26)
• INFERENCES FROM THE FOREGOING DOCTRINES AND AN OBJECTION ANSWERED. (Rom 3:27-31)
• THE FOREGOING DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ILLUSTRATED FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. (Rom. 4:1-25)
• THE BLESSED EFFECTS OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. (Rom 5:1-11)
• COMPARISON AND CONTRAST BETWEEN ADAM AND CHRIST IN THEIR RELATION TO THE HUMAN FAMILY. (Rom 5:12-21)
• THE BEARING OF JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE UPON A HOLY LIFE. (Rom 6:1-11)
• WHAT PRACTICAL USE BELIEVERS SHOULD MAKE OF THEIR DEATH TO SIN AND LIFE TO GOD THROUGH UNION TO THE CRUCIFIED SAVIOUR. (Rom 6:12-23)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. (Rom. 7:1-25)
• CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE ARGUMENT--THE GLORIOUS COMPLETENESS OF THEM THAT ARE IN CHRIST JESUS. (Rom. 8:1-39)
• THE BEARING OF THE FOREGOING TRUTHS UPON THE CONDITION AND DESTINY OF THE CHOSEN PEOPLE--ELECTION--THE CALLING OF THE GENTILES. (Rom. 9:1-33)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED--HOW ISRAEL CAME TO MISS SALVATION, AND THE GENTILES TO FIND IT. (Rom. 10:1-21)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED AND CONCLUDED--THE ULTIMATE INBRINGING OF ALL ISRAEL, TO BE, WITH THE GENTILES, ONE KINGDOM OF GOD ON THE EARTH. (Rom. 11:1-36)
• DUTIES OF BELIEVERS, GENERAL AND PARTICULAR. (Rom. 12:1-21)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED--POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS--MOTIVES. (Rom 13:1-14)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED--CHRISTIAN FORBEARANCE. (Rom. 14:1-23)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED AND CONCLUDED. (Rom 15:1-13)
• CONCLUSION: IN WHICH THE APOSTLE APOLOGIZES FOR THUS WRITING TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS, EXPLAINS WHY HE HAD NOT YET VISITED THEM, ANNOUNCES HIS FUTURE PLANS, AND ASKS THEIR PRAYERS FOR THE COMPLETION OF THEM. (Rom. 15:14-33)
• CONCLUSION, EMBRACING SUNDRY SALUTATIONS AND DIRECTIONS, AND A CLOSING PRAYER. (Rom. 16:1-27)
• WHY THIS DIVINELY PROVIDED RIGHTEOUSNESS IS NEEDED BY ALL MEN. (Rom 1:18)
• THIS WRATH OF GOD, REVEALED AGAINST ALL INIQUITY, OVERHANGS THE WHOLE HEATHEN WORLD. (Rom 1:18-32)

TSK: Romans (Book Introduction)

The Epistle to the Romans is " a writing," says Dr. Macknight, " which, for sublimity and truth of sentiment, for brevity and strength of expression, for regularity in its structure, but above all, for the unspeakable importance of the discoveries which it contains, stands unrivalled by any mere human composition, and as far exceeds the most celebrated productions of the learned Greeks and Romans, as the shining of the sun exceeds the twinkling of the stars." " The plan of it is very extensive; and it is surprising to see what a spacious field of knowledge is comprised, and how many various designs, arguments, explications, instructions, and exhortations, are executed in so small a compass....The whole Epistle is to be taken in connection, or considered as one continued discourse; and the sense of every part must be taken from the drift of the whole. Every sentence, or verse, is not to be regarded as a distinct mathematical proposition, or theorem, or as a sentence in the book of Proverbs, whose sense is absolute, and independent of what goes before, or comes after, but we must remember, that every sentence, especially in the argumentative part, bears relation to, and is dependent upon, the whole discourse, and cannot be rightly understood unless we understand the scope and drift of the whole; and therefore, the whole Epistle, or at least the eleven first chapters of it, ought to be read over at once, without stopping. As to the use and excellency of this Epistle, I shall leave it to speak for itself, when the reader has studied and well digested its contents....This Epistle will not be difficult to understand, if our minds are unprejudiced, and at liberty to attend to the subject, and to the current scriptural sense of the words used. Great care is taken to guard and explain every part of the subject; no part of it is left unexplained or unguarded. Sometimes notes are written upon a sentence, liable to exception and wanting explanation, as Rom 2:12-16. Here Rom 2:13 and Rom 2:15 are a comment upon the former part of it. Sometimes are found comments upon a single word; as Rom 10:11-13. Rom 10:12 and Rom 10:13 are a comment upon πας [Strong’s 3956]

TSK: Romans 8 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Rom 8:1, They that are in Christ, are free from condemnation; Rom 8:5, What harm comes of the flesh; Rom 8:13, and what good of the Spirit; Rom 8:19, The glorious deliverance all things long for, Rom 8:29. was beforehand decreed from God; Rom 8:38, Nothing can sever us from his love.

Poole: Romans 8 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 8

MHCC: Romans (Book Introduction)

The scope or design of the apostle in writing to the Romans appears to have been, to answer the unbelieving, and to teach the believing Jew; to confirm the Christian and to convert the idolatrous Gentile; and to show the Gentile convert as equal with the Jewish, in respect of his religious condition, and his rank in the Divine favour. These several designs are brought into on view, by opposing or arguing with the infidel or unbelieving Jew, in favour of the Christian or believing Gentile. The way of a sinner's acceptance with God, or justification in his sight, merely by grace, through faith in the righteousness of Christ, without distinction of nations, is plainly stated. This doctrine is cleared from the objections raised by Judaizing Christians, who were for making terms of acceptance with God by a mixture of the law and the gospel, and for shutting out the Gentiles from any share in the blessings of salvation brought in by the Messiah. In the conclusion, holiness is further enforced by practical exhortations.

MHCC: Romans 8 (Chapter Introduction)

(Rom 8:1-9) The freedom of believers from condemnation.

(Rom 8:10-17) Their privileges as being the children of God.

(Rom 8:18-25) Their hopeful prospects under tribulations.

(Rom 8:26, Rom 8:27) Their assistance from the Spirit in prayer.

(Rom 8:28-31) Their interest in the love of God.

(Rom 8:32-39) Their final triumph, through Christ.

Matthew Henry: Romans (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans

If we may compare scripture with scripture, and take the opinion of some devout and pious persons, in the Old Testament David's Psalms, and in the New Testament Paul's Epistles, are stars of the first magnitude, that differ from the other stars in glory. The whole scripture is indeed an epistle from heaven to earth: but in it we have upon record several particular epistles, more of Paul's than of any other, for he was the chief of the apostles, and laboured more abundantly than they all. His natural parts, I doubt not, were very pregnant; his apprehension was quick and piercing; his expressions were fluent and copious; his affections, wherever he took, very warm and zealous, and his resolutions no less bold and daring: this made him, before his conversion, a very keen and bitter persecutor; but when the strong man armed was dispossessed, and the stronger than he came to divide the spoil and to sanctify these qualifications, he became the most skilful zealous preacher; never any better fitted to win souls, nor more successful. Fourteen of his epistles we have in the canon of scripture; many more, it is probable, he wrote in the course of his ministry, which might be profitable enough for doctrine, for reproof, etc., but, not being given by inspiration of God, they were not received as canonical scripture, nor handed down to us. Six epistles, said to be Paul's, written to Seneca, and eight of Seneca's to him, are spoken of by some of the ancients [ Sixt. Senens. Biblioth. Sanct. lib. 2] and are extant; but, upon the first view, they appear spurious and counterfeit.

This epistle to the Romans is placed first, not because of the priority of its date, but because of the superlative excellency of the epistle, it being one of the longest and fullest of all, and perhaps because of the dignity of the place to which it is written. Chrysostom would have this epistle read over to him twice a week. It is gathered from some passages in the epistle that it was written Anno Christi 56, from Corinth, while Paul made a short stay there in his way to Troas, Act 20:5, Act 20:6. He commendeth to the Romans Phebe, a servant of the church at Cenchrea (ch. 16), which was a place belonging to Corinth. He calls Gaius his host, or the man with whom he lodged (Rom 16:23), and he was a Corinthian, not the same with Gaius of Derbe, mentioned Acts 20. Paul was now going up to Jerusalem, with the money that was given to the poor saints there; and of that he speaks, Rom 15:26. The great mysteries treated of in this epistle must needs produce in this, as in other writings of Paul, many things dark and hard to be understood, 2Pe 3:16. The method of this (as of several other of the epistles) is observable; the former part of it doctrinal, in the first eleven chapters; the latter part practical, in the last five: to inform the judgment and to reform the life. And the best way to understand the truths explained in the former part is to abide and abound in the practice of the duties prescribed in the latter part; for, if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, Joh 7:17.

I. The doctrinal part of the epistles instructs us,

1. Concerning the way of salvation (1.) The foundation of it laid in justification, and that not by the Gentiles' works of nature (ch. 1), nor by the Jews' works of the law (ch. 2, 3), for both Jews and Gentiles were liable to the curse; but only by faith in Jesus Christ, Rom 3:21, etc.; ch. 4. (2.) The steps of this salvation are, [1.] Peace with God, ch. 5. [2.] Sanctification, ch. 6, 7. [3.] Glorification, ch. 8.

2. Concerning the persons saved, such as belong to the election of grace (ch. 9), Gentiles and Jews, ch. 10, 11. By this is appears that the subject he discourses of were such as were then the present truths, as the apostle speaks, 2Pe 1:12. Two things the Jews then stumbled at - justification by faith without the works of the law, and the admission of the Gentiles into the church; and therefore both these he studied to clear and vindicate.

II. The practical part follows, wherein we find, 1. Several general exhortations proper for all Christians, ch. 12. 2. Directions for our behaviour, as members of civil society, Rom 13:1-14. 3. Rules for the conduct of Christians to one another, as members of the Christian church, ch. 14 and Rom 15:1-14.

III. As he draws towards a conclusion, he makes an apology for writing to them (Rom 15:14-16), gives them an account of himself and his own affairs (Rom 15:17-21), promises them a visit (Rom 15:22-29), begs their prayers (Rom 15:30-32), sends particular salutations to many friends there (ch. 16:1-16), warns them against those who caused divisions (Rom 16:17-20), adds the salutations of his friends with him (Rom 16:21-23), and ends with a benediction to them and a doxology to God (Rom 16:24-27).

Matthew Henry: Romans 8 (Chapter Introduction)

The apostle, having fully explained the doctrine of justification, and pressed the necessity of sanctification, in this chapter applies himself to the consolation of the Lord's people. Ministers are helpers of the joy of the saints. " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," so runs our commission, Isa 40:1. It is the will of God that his people should be a comforted people. And we have here such a draught of the gospel charter, such a display of the unspeakable privileges of true believers, as may furnish us with abundant matter for joy and peace in believing, that by all these immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. Many of the people of God have, accordingly, found this chapter a well-spring of comfort to their souls, living and dying, and have sucked and been satisfied from these breasts of consolation, and with joy drawn water out of these wells of salvation. There are three things in this chapter: I. The particular instances of Christians' privileges (v. 1-28). II. The ground thereof laid in predestination (Rom 8:29, Rom 8:30). III. The apostle's triumph herein, in the name of all the saints (Rom 8:31 to the end).

Barclay: Romans (Book Introduction)

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS OF PAUL

The Letters Of Paul

There is no more interesting body of documents in the New Testament than the letters of Paul. That is because of all forms of literature a letter is most personal. Demetrius, one of the old Greek literary critics, once wrote, "Every one reveals his own soul in his letters. In every other form of composition it is possible to discern the writercharacter, but in none so clearly as the epistolary." (Demetrius, On Style, 227.) It is just because he left us so many letters that we feel we know Paul so well. In them he opened his mind and heart to the folk he loved so much; and, in them, to this day, we can see that great mind grappling with the problems of the early church and feel that great heart throbbing with love for men, even when they were misguided and mistaken.

The Difficulty Of Letters

At the same time there is often nothing so difficult to understand as a letter. Demetrius (On Style, 223) quotes a saying of Artemon, who edited the letters of Aristotle. Artemon said that a letter ought to be written in the same manner as a dialogue, because it was one of the two sides of a dialogue. In other words, to read a letter is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. So when we read the letters of Paul we are often in a difficulty. We do not possess the letter which he was answering; we do not fully know the circumstances with which he was dealing; it is only from the letter itself that we can deduce the situation which prompted it. Before we can hope to understand fully any letter Paul wrote, we must try to reconstruct the situation which produced it.

The Ancient Letters

It is a great pity that Paulletters were ever called epistles. They are in the most literal sense letters. One of the great lights shed on the interpretation of the New Testament has been the discovery and the publication of the papyri. In the ancient world, papyrus was the substance on which most documents were written. It was composed of strips of the pith of a certain bulrush that grew on the banks of the Nile. These strips were laid one on top of the other to form a substance very like brown paper. The sands of the Egyptian desert were ideal for preservation, for papyrus, although very brittle, will last for ever so long as moisture does not get at it. As a result, from the Egyptian rubbish heaps, archaeologists have rescued hundreds of documents, marriage contracts, legal agreements, government forms, and, most interesting of all, private letters. When we read these private letters we find that there was a pattern to which nearly all conformed; and we find that Paulletters reproduce exactly that pattern. Here is one of these ancient letters. It is from a soldier, called Apion, to his father Epimachus. He is writing from Misenum to tell his father that he has arrived safely after a stormy passage.

"Apion sends heartiest greetings to his father and lord Epimachus.

I pray above all that you are well and fit; and that things are

going well with you and my sister and her daughter and my

brother. I thank my Lord Serapis [his god] that he kept me safe

when I was in peril on the sea. As soon as I got to Misenum I got

my journey money from Caesar--three gold pieces. And things

are going fine with me. So I beg you, my dear father, send me a

line, first to let me know how you are, and then about my

brothers, and thirdly, that I may kiss your hand, because you

brought me up well, and because of that I hope, God willing, soon

to be promoted. Give Capito my heartiest greetings, and my

brothers and Serenilla and my friends. I sent you a little picture

of myself painted by Euctemon. My military name is Antonius

Maximus. I pray for your good health. Serenus sends good

wishes, Agathos Daimonboy, and Turbo, Galloniuson."

(G. Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri, 36.)

Little did Apion think that we would be reading his letter to his father 1800 years after he had written it. It shows how little human nature changes. The lad is hoping for promotion quickly. Who will Serenilla be but the girl he left behind him? He sends the ancient equivalent of a photograph to the folk at home. Now that letter falls into certain sections. (i) There is a greeting. (ii) There is a prayer for the health of the recipients. (iii) There is a thanksgiving to the gods. (iv) There are the special contents. (v) Finally, there are the special salutations and the personal greetings. Practically every one of Paulletters shows exactly the same sections, as we now demonstrate.

(i) The Greeting: Rom_1:1 ; 1Co_1:1 ; 2Co_1:1 ; Gal_1:1 ; Eph_1:1 ; Phi_1:1 ; Col_1:1-2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:1 .

(ii) The Prayer: in every case Paul prays for the grace of God on the people to whom he writes: Rom_1:7 ; 1Co_1:3 ; 2Co_1:2 ; Gal_1:3 ; Eph_1:2 ; Phi_1:3 ; Col_1:2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:2 .

(iii) The Thanksgiving: Rom_1:8 ; 1Co_1:4 ; 2Co_1:3 ; Eph_1:3 ; Phi_1:3 ; 1Th_1:3 ; 2Th_1:3 .

(iv) The Special Contents: the main body of the letters.

(v) Special Salutations and Personal Greetings: Rom 16 ; 1Co_16:19 ; 2Co_13:13 ; Phi_4:21-22 ; Col_4:12-15 ; 1Th_5:26 .

When Paul wrote letters, he wrote them on the pattern which everyone used. Deissmann says of them, "They differ from the messages of the homely papyrus leaves of Egypt, not as letters but only as the letters of Paul." When we read Paulletters we are not reading things which were meant to be academic exercises and theological treatises, but human documents written by a friend to his friends.

The Immediate Situation

With a very few exceptions, all Paulletters were written to meet an immediate situation and not treatises which he sat down to write in the peace and silence of his study. There was some threatening situation in Corinth, or Galatia, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, and he wrote a letter to meet it. He was not in the least thinking of us when he wrote, but solely of the people to whom he was writing. Deissmann writes, "Paul had no thought of adding a few fresh compositions to the already extant Jewish epistles; still less of enriching the sacred literature of his nation. He had no presentiment of the place his words would occupy in universal history; not so much that they would be in existence in the next generation, far less that one day people would look at them as Holy Scripture." We must always remember that a thing need not be transient because it was written to meet an immediate situation. All the great love songs of the world were written for one person, but they live on for the whole of mankind. It is just because Paulletters were written to meet a threatening danger or a clamant need that they still throb with life. And it is because human need and the human situation do not change that God speaks to us through them today.

The Spoken Word

One other thing we must note about these letters. Paul did what most people did in his day. He did not normally pen his own letters but dictated them to a secretary, and then added his own authenticating signature. (We actually know the name of one of the people who did the writing for him. In Rom_16:22 Tertius, the secretary, slips in his own greeting before the letter draws to an end.) In 1Co_16:21 Paul says, "This is my own signature, my autograph, so that you can be sure this letter comes from me" (compare Col_4:18 ; 2Th_3:17 ).

This explains a great deal. Sometimes Paul is hard to understand, because his sentences begin and never finish; his grammar breaks down and the construction becomes involved. We must not think of him sitting quietly at a desk, carefully polishing each sentence as he writes. We must think of him striding up and down some little room, pouring out a torrent of words, while his secretary races to get them down. When Paul composed his letters, he had in his mindeye a vision of the folk to whom he was writing, and he was pouring out his heart to them in words that fell over each other in his eagerness to help.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

The Epistle That Is Different

There is an obvious difference between PaulLetter to the Romans and any other of his letters. Anyone coming from, say, a reading of the Letters to the Corinthians, will immediately feel that difference, both of atmosphere and of method. A very great part of it is due to one basic fact--when Paul wrote to the Church at Rome he was writing to a Church with whose founding he had had nothing whatever to do and with which he had had no personal contact at all. That explains why in Romans there are so few of the details of practical problems which fill the other letters. That is why Romans, at first sight, seems so much more impersonal. As Dibelius put it, "It is of all Paulletters the least conditioned by the momentary situation."

We may put that in another way. Romans, of all Paulletters, comes nearest to being a theological treatise. In almost all his other letters he is dealing with some immediate trouble, some pressing situation, some current error, some threatening danger, which was menacing the Church to which he was writing. Romans is the nearest approach to a systematic exposition of Paulown theological position, independent of any immediate set of circumstances.

Testamentary And Prophylactic

Because of that, two great scholars have applied two very illuminating adjectives to Romans. Sanday called Romans "testamentary." It is as if Paul was writing his theological last will and testament, as if into Romans he was distilling the very essence of his faith and belief. Rome was the greatest city in the world, the capital of the greatest Empire the world had ever seen. Paul had never been there, and he did not know if he ever would be there. But, in writing to such a Church in such a city, it was fitting that he should set down the very centre and core of his belief. Burton called Romans "prophylactic." A prophylactic is something which guards against infection. Paul had seen too often what harm and trouble could be caused by wrong ideas, twisted notions, misguided conceptions of Christian faith and belief. He therefore wished to send to the Church in the city which was the centre of the world a letter which would so build up the structure of their faith that, if infections should ever come to them, they might have in the true word of Christian doctrine a powerful and effective defence. He felt that the best protection against the infection of false teaching was the antiseptic of the truth.

The Occasion Of PaulWriting To Rome

All his life Paul had been haunted by the thought of Rome. It had always been one of his dreams to preach there. When he is in Ephesus, he is planning to go through Achaea and Macedonia again, and then comes a sentence obviously dropped straight from the heart, "After I have been there, I must also see Rome" (Act_19:21 ). When he was up against things in Jerusalem, and the situation looked threatening and the end seemed near, he had one of those visions which always lifted up his heart. In that vision the Lord stood by him and said, "Take courage, Paul. For as you have testified about me at Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also at Rome" (Act_23:11 ). In the very first chapter of this letter Pauldesire to see Rome breathes out. "I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you" (Rom_1:11 ). "So, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome" (Rom_1:15 ). It might well be said that the name Rome was written on Paulheart.

When he actually wrote the Letter to the Romans, the date was sometime in the year A.D. 58, and he was in Corinth. He was just about to bring to its completion a scheme that was very dear to his heart. The Church at Jerusalem was the mother Church of them all, but it was poor, and Paul had organized a collection throughout the younger churches for it (1Co_16:1 ; 2Co_9:1 ). That collection was two things. It was an opportunity for his younger converts to put Christian charity into Christian action, and it was a most practical way of impressing on all Christians the unity of the Christian Church, of teaching them that they were not members of isolated and independent congregations, but of one great Church, each part of which had a responsibility to all the rest. When Paul wrote Romans he was just about to set out with that gift for the Jerusalem Church. "At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem with aid for the saints" (Rom_15:25 ).

The Object Of PaulWriting

Why, then, at such a moment should he write?

(a) Paul knew that the journey to Jerusalem was not without its peril. He knew that he had enemies there, and that to go to Jerusalem was to take his life and liberty in his hands. He desired the prayers of the Roman Church before he set out on this expedition. "Now I appeal to you brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judaea" (Rom_15:30-31 ). He was mobilizing the prayers of the Church before he embarked on this perilous undertaking.

(b) Paul had great schemes simmering in his mind. It has been said of him that he was "always haunted by the regions beyond." He never saw a ship at anchor but he wished to board her and to carry the good news to men across the sea. He never saw a range of mountains, blue in the distance, but he wished to cross them, and to bring the story of the Cross to men who had never heard it. At this time Paul was haunted by the thought of Spain. "I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain" (Rom_15:24 ). "When I have completed this [that is, when he had delivered the collection to the Church in Jerusalem] I shall go on by way of you to Spain" (Rom_15:28 ).

Why this great desire to go to Spain? Rome had opened up that land. Some of the great Roman roads and buildings still stand there to this day. And it so happened that, just at this time, there was a blaze of greatness in Spain. Many of the great figures who were writing their names on Roman history and literature were Spaniards. There was Martial, the master of the epigram. There was Lucan, the epic poet. There were Columella and Pomponius Mela, great figures in Roman literature. There was Quintilian, the master of Roman oratory. And, above all, there was Seneca, the greatest of the Roman Stoic philosophers, the tutor of the Emperor Nero, and the Prime Minister of the Roman Empire. It was most natural that Paulthoughts should go out to this land which was producing such a scintillating galaxy of greatness. What might happen if men like that could be touched for Christ? As far as we know Paul never got to Spain. On that visit to Jerusalem he was arrested and he was never freed again. But, when he was writing Romans, that was his dream.

Paul was a master strategist. He had an eye for the layout of territory like a great commander. He felt that by this time he could move on from Asia Minor and for the time being leave Greece behind. He saw the whole west lying in front of him, virgin territory to be won for Christ. But, if he was to launch a campaign in the west, he needed a base of operations. There was only one such base possible--and that was Rome.

That was why Paul wrote this letter to Rome. He had this great dream in his heart and this great plan in his mind. He needed Rome for a base for this new campaign. He was aware that the Church in Rome must know his name. But he was also aware, for he was a realist, that the reports which reached Rome would be mixed. His opponents were not above spreading slanders and false accusation against him. So he wrote this letter to set out for the Church at Rome an account of the very essence of his belief, in order that, when the time came for action, he might find in Rome a sympathetic Church from which the lines of communication might go out to Spain and the west. It was with such a plan and such an intention, that in A.D. 58 Paul sat down in Corinth to write his letter to the Church at Rome.

The Layout Of The Letter

Romans is at once a very complicated and a very carefully constructed letter. It will therefore help us to find our way through it, if we have in our minds an idea of its framework. It falls into four definite divisions.

(i) Rom 1-8, which deal with the problem of righteousness.

(ii) Rom 9-11, which deal with problem of the Jews, the chosen

people.

(iii) Rom 12-15, which deal with practical questions of life and

living.

(iv) Rom 16 , which is a letter of introduction for Phoebe,

and a list of final personal greetings.

(i) When Paul uses the word "righteousness," he means a right relationship with God The man who is righteous is the man who is in a right relationship with God, and whose life shows it.

Paul begins with a survey of the Gentile world. We have only to look at its decadence and corruption to know that it had not solved the problem of righteousness. He looks at the Jewish world. The Jews had sought to solve the problem of righteousness by meticulous obedience to the law. Paul had tried that way himself, and it had issued in frustration and defeat, because no man on earth can ever fully obey the law, and, therefore, every man must have the continual consciousness of being in debt to God and under his condemnation.

So Paul finds the way to righteousness in the way of utter trust and utter yieldedness. The only way to a right relationship with God is to take him at his word, and to cast oneself, just as one is, on his mercy and love. It is the way of faith. It is to know that the important thing is, not what we can do for God, but what he has done for us. For Paul the centre of the Christian faith was that we can never earn or deserve the favour of God, nor do we need to. The whole matter is one of grace, and all that we can do is to accept in wondering love and gratitude and trust what God has done for us.

That does not free us, however, from obligations or entitle us to do as we like; it means that for ever and for ever we must try to be worthy of the love which does so much for us. But we are no longer trying to fulfil the demands of stern and austere and condemnatory law; we are no longer like criminals before a judge; we are lovers who have given all life in love to the one who first loved us.

(ii) The problem of the Jews was a torturing one. In a real sense they were Godchosen people, and yet, when his Son had come into the world, they had rejected him. What possible explanation could there be for this heart-breaking fact?

The only one Paul could find was that, in the end, it was all Goddoing. Somehow the hearts of the Jews had been hardened; but it was not all failure, for there had always been a faithful remnant. Nor was it for nothing, for the very fact that the Jews had rejected Christ opened the door so the Gentiles would bring in the Jews and all men would be saved.

Paul goes further. The Jew had always claimed that he was a member of the chosen people in virtue of the fact that he was a Jew. It was solely a matter of pure racial descent from Abraham. But Paul insists that the real Jew is not the man whose flesh and blood descent can be traced to Abraham. He is the man who has made the same decision of utter yieldedness to God in loving faith which Abraham made. Therefore, Paul argues, there are many pure-blooded Jews who are not Jews in the real sense of the term at all; and there are many people of other nations who are really Jews in the true meaning of that word. The new Israel was not a racial thing at all; it was composed of those who had the same faith as Abraham had had.

(iii) Rom 12 is so great an ethical statement that it must always be set alongside the Sermon on the Mount. In it Paul lays down the ethical character of the Christian faith. The fourteenth and fifteenth chapters deal with an ever-recurring problem. In the Church there was a narrower party who believed that they must abstain from certain foods and drinks, and who counted special days and ceremonies as of great importance. Paul thinks of them as the weaker brethren because their faith was dependent on these external things. There was a more liberal party, who had liberated themselves from these external rules and observances. He thinks of them as the brethren who are stronger in the faith. He makes it quite clear that his sympathies are with the more liberal party; but he lays down the great principle that no man must ever do anything to hurt the conscience of a weaker brother or to put a stumbling block in his way. His whole point of view is that we must never do anything which makes it harder for someone else to be a Christian; and that that may well mean the giving up of something, which is right and safe for us, for the sake of the weaker brother. Christian liberty must never be used in such a way that it injures anotherlife or conscience.

(iv) The fourth section is a recommendation on behalf of Phoebe, a member of the Church at Cenchreae, who is coming to Rome. The letter ends with a list of greetings and a final benediction.

Two Problems

Rom 16 has always presented scholars with a problem. Many have felt that it does not really form part of the Letter to the Romans at all; and that it is really a letter to some other Church which became attached to Romans when Paulletters were collected. What are their grounds? First and foremost, in this chapter Paul sends greetings to twenty-six different people, twenty-four of whom he mentions by name and all of whom he seems to know very intimately. He can, for instance, say that the mother of Rufus has also been a mother to him. Is it likely that Paul knew intimately twenty-six people in a Church which he had never visited? He, in fact, greets far more people in this chapter than he does in any other letter, and yet he had never set foot in Rome. Here is something that needs explanation.

If Rom 16 was not written to Rome, what was its original destination? It is here that Prisca and Aquila come into the argument. We know that they left Rome in A.D. 52 when Claudius issued his edict banishing the Jews (Act_18:2 ). We know that they went with Paul to Ephesus (Act_18:18 ). We know that they were in Ephesus when Paul wrote his letter to Corinth, less than two years before he wrote Romans (1Co_16:19 ). And we know that they were still in Ephesus when the Pastoral Epistles were written (2Ti_4:19 ). It is certain that if we had come across a letter sending greeting to Prisca and Aquila we should have assumed that it was sent to Ephesus, if no other address was given.

Is there any other evidence to make us think that chapter sixteen may have been sent to Ephesus in the first place? There is the perfectly general reason that Paul spent longer in Ephesus than anywhere else, and it would be very natural for him to send greetings to many people there. Paul speaks of Epaenetus, the first-fruits of Asia. Ephesus is in Asia, and such a reference, too, would be very natural in a letter to Ephesus, but not so natural in a letter to Rome. Rom_16:17 speaks about difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught, which sounds as if Paul was speaking about possible disobedience to his own teaching, and he had never taught in Rome.

It can be argued that the sixteenth chapter was originally addressed to Ephesus, but the argument is not so strong as it looks. For one thing, there is no evidence that the chapter was ever attached anywhere except to the Letter to the Romans. For another thing, the odd fact is that Paul does not send personal greetings to churches which he knew well. There are no personal greetings in Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians, all of them letters to churches he knew well; whereas there are personal greetings in Colossians, although Paul had never set foot in Colosse.

The reason is really quite simple. If Paul had sent personal greetings to churches he knew well, jealousies might well have arisen; on the other hand, when he was writing to churches he had never visited, he liked to establish as many personal links as possible. The very fact that Paul had never been in Rome makes it likely that he would try to establish as many personal connections as possible. Again, it is to be remembered that Prisca and Aquila were banished by edict from Rome. What is more likely than that, after the trouble was over, six or seven years later, they would return to Rome and pick up the threads of their business after their stay in other towns? And is it not most likely that many of the other names are names of people who shared in this banishment, who took up temporary residence in other cities, who met Paul there, and who, when the coast was clear, returned to Rome and their old homes? Paul would be delighted to have so many personal contacts in Rome and to seize hold of them.

Further, as we shall see, when we come to study chapter 16 in detail, many of the names--the households of Aristobulus and Narcissus, Amplias, Nereus and others--well suit Rome. In spite of the arguments for Ephesus, we may take it that there is no necessity to detach chapter sixteen from the Letter to the Romans.

But there is a more interesting, and a much more important, problem. The early manuscripts show some very curious things with regard to Rom 14-16. The only natural place for a doxology is at the very end. Rom_16:25-27 is a doxology, and in most good manuscripts it comes at the end. But in a number of manuscripts it comes at the end of Rom 14 ; two good manuscripts have it in both places; one ancient manuscript has it at the end of Rom 15 ; two manuscripts have it in neither place, but leave an empty space for it. One ancient Latin manuscript has a series of section summaries. The last two are as follows:

50: On the peril of him who grieves his brother by meat.

That is obviously Rom_14:15-23 .

51: On the mystery of the Lord, kept secret before his passion

but after his passion revealed.

That is equally clearly Rom_16:25-27 , the doxology. Clearly, these summaries were made from a manuscript which did not contain chapters fifteen and sixteen. Now there is one thing which sheds a flood of light on this. In one manuscript the mention of Rome in Rom_1:7 and Rom_1:15 is entirely omitted. There is no mention of any destination.

All this goes to show that Romans circulated in two forms--one form as we have it with sixteen chapters, and one with fourteen chapters; and perhaps also one with fifteen chapters. The explanation must be this. As Paul wrote it to Rome, it had sixteen chapters; but Rom 15-16 are private and personal to Rome. Now no other letter gives such a compendium of Pauldoctrine. What must have happened was that Romans began to circulate among all the churches, with the last two local chapters omitted, except for the doxology. It must have been felt that Romans was too fundamental to stop at Rome and so the purely local references were removed and it was sent out to the Church at large. From very early times the Church felt that Romans was so great an expression of the mind of Paul that it must become the possession not of one congregation, but of the whole Church. We must remember, as we study it, that men have always looked on Romans as the quintessence of Paulgospel.

FURTHER READING

Romans

C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (MC; E)

A. M. Hunter, The Epistle to the Romans: The Law of Love (Tch; E)

W. Sanday and A.C. Headlam, Romans (Sixth edition, in two volumes, revised by C. E. B. Cranfield) (ICC; G)

Abbreviations

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC : Moffatt Commentary

Tch: Torch Commentary

E: English Text

G: Greek Text

Barclay: Romans 8 (Chapter Introduction)

The Liberation Of Our Human Nature (Rom_8:1-4)

The Two Principles Of Life (Rom_8:5-11)

Entry Into The Family Of God (Rom_8:12-17)

The Glorious Hope (Rom_8:18-25)

All Is Of God (Rom_8:26-30)

The Love From Which Nothing Can Separate Us (Rom_8:31-39)

Constable: Romans (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Historical Background

Throughout the history of the church, from postapostolic times to the present, Christians have regarded Romans as having been one of the Apostle Paul's epistles.¹ Not only does the letter claim that he wrote it (1:1), but it develops many of the same ideas and uses the same terminology that appear in Paul's earlier writings (e.g., Gal. 2; 1 Cor. 12; 2 Cor. 8-9).

Following his conversion on the Damascus Road (34 A.D.), Paul preached in Damascus, spent some time in Arabia, and then returned to Damascus. Next he travelled to Jerusalem where he met briefly with Peter and James. He then moved on to Tarsus, which was evidently his base of operations and from which he ministered for about six years (37-43 A.D.). In response to an invitation from Barnabas he moved to Antioch of Syria where he served for about five years (43-48 A.D.). He and Barnabas then set out on their so-called first missionary journey into Asia Minor (48-49 A.D.). Returning to Antioch Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians to strengthen the churches that he and Barnabas had just planted in Asia Minor (49 A.D.). After the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), Paul took Silas and began his second missionary journey (50-52 A.D.) through Asia Minor and on westward into the Roman provinces of Macedonia and Achaia. From Corinth, Paul wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians (51 A.D.). He proceeded to Ephesus by ship and then on to Syrian Antioch. From there he set out on his third missionary journey (53-57 A.D.). Passing through Asia Minor he arrived in Ephesus where he labored for three years (53-56 A.D.). During this time he wrote 1 Corinthians (56 A.D.). Finally Paul left Ephesus and travelled by land to Macedonia where he wrote 2 Corinthians (56 A.D.). He continued south and spent the winter of 56-57 A.D. in Corinth. There he wrote the Epistle to the Romans and sent it by Phoebe (16:1-2) to the Roman church.

The apostle then proceeded from Corinth by land clockwise around the Aegean Sea back to Troas in Asia where he boarded a ship and eventually reached Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, the Jews arrested Paul and imprisoned him (57 A.D.). He arrived in Rome as a prisoner and ministered there for two years (60-62 A.D.). During this time he wrote the Prison Epistles (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon). The Romans freed Paul, and he returned to the Aegean area. There he wrote 1 Timothy and Titus, experienced arrest again, suffered imprisonment in Rome a second time, wrote 2 Timothy, and died as a martyr under Nero in A.D. 68.²

We know very little about the founding of the church in Rome. According to Ambrosiaster, a church father who lived in the fourth century, an apostle did not found it (thus discrediting the Roman Catholic claim that Peter founded the church). A group of Jewish Christians did.³ It is possible that these Jews became believers in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) or at some other time quite early in the church's history. By the time Paul wrote Romans the church in Rome was famous throughout the Roman Empire for its faith (1:18).

Purpose

Paul wrote this epistle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit for several reasons.⁴ He wanted to prepare the way for his intended visit to the church (15:22-24). He evidently hoped that Rome would become a base of operations and support for his pioneer missionary work in Spain and the western portions of the empire that he had not yet evangelized. His full exposition of the gospel in this letter would have provided a solid foundation for their participation in this mission.

As Paul looked forward to returning to Jerusalem between his departure from Corinth and his arrival in Rome, he was aware of the danger he faced (15:31). He may have written the exhaustive exposition of the gospel that we have in Romans to set forth his teaching in case he did not reach Rome. From Rome his doctrine could then go out to the rest of the empire as others preached it. Paul may have viewed Romans as his legacy to the church, his last will and testament.

Another reason for writing Romans was undoubtedly Paul's desire to minister to the spiritual needs of the Christians in Rome even though they were in good spiritual condition (15:14-16). The common problems of all the early churches were dangers to the Roman church as well. These difficulties included internal conflicts, mainly between Jewish and Gentile believers, and external threats from false teachers. Paul gave both of these potential problems attention in this epistle (15:1-8; 16:17-20).

Paul also wrote Romans as he did because he was at a transition point in his ministry, as he mentioned at the end of chapter 15. His ministry in the Aegean region was solid enough that he planned to leave it and move farther west into new virgin missionary territory. Before he did that, he planned to visit Jerusalem where he realized he would be in danger. Probably therefore Paul wrote Romans as he did to leave a full exposition of the gospel in good hands if his ministry ended prematurely in Jerusalem.

"The peculiar position of the apostle at the time of writing, as he reviews the past and anticipates the future, enables us to understand the absence of controversy in this epistle, the conciliatory attitude, and the didactic and apologetic elements which are all found combined herein."⁵

The great contribution of this letter to the body of New Testament inspired revelation is its reasoned explanation of how God's righteousness can become man's possession.

The Book of Romans is distinctive among Paul's inspired writings in several respects. It was one of the few letters he wrote to churches with which he had had no personal dealings. The only other epistle of this kind was Colossians. It is also a formal treatise within a personal letter.⁶ Paul expounded on the gospel in this treatise. He probably did so in this epistle rather than in another because the church in Rome was at the heart of the Roman Empire. As such it was able to exert great influence in the dissemination of the gospel. For these two reasons Romans is more formal and less personal than most of Paul's other epistles.

The Epistle to the Romans is, by popular consent, the greatest of Paul's writings. William Tyndale, the great English reformer and translator, referred to Romans as "the principle and most excellent part of the New Testament." He went on to say the following in his prologue to Romans that he wrote in the 1534 edition of his English New Testament.

"No man verily can read it too oft or study it too well; for the more it is studied the easier it is, the more it is chewed the pleasanter it is, and the more groundly [sic] it is searched the preciouser [sic] things are found in it, so great treasures of spiritual things lieth hid therein."⁷

Martin Luther wrote the following commendation of this epistle.

"[Romans] is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes."⁸

Message⁹

Throughout the history of the church Christians have recognized this epistle as the most important book in the New Testament. The reason for this conviction is that it is an exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Luther called Romans "the chief part of the New Testament and the perfect gospel." Coleridge, the English poet, declared it to be "the most profound work in existence." Frederick Godet, the French commentator, described it as "the cathedral of the Christian faith."¹⁰

To appreciate the message of this book it will be helpful first to consider Paul's presuppositions. He based these, of course, on Old Testament revelation concerning cosmology and history.

First, Paul assumed the God of the Old Testament. He assumed God's existence and full deity. He believed that God is holy and just. He also held that God is the creator, sustainer, and sovereign ruler of the universe.

Second, Paul's view of man is that he is subject to God's government of the universe. Man has received a measure of freedom from God, so he can choose to pursue sin. However, if he does so, he is still in the sovereign hand of God. God can allow the consequences of his sins to have their effects on him both now and forever. Man is also in authority over the rest of the material creation (Gen. 1:28). What man has experienced, the material creation also has experienced and reflects as a result of man's action.

Third, Paul's view of history was that of Old Testament revelation. The important historical events for Paul were those in his Scriptures.

Adam was the first man. He rebelled against God's authority. The result was threefold: the practical dethronement of God in the minds of Adam's descendents, the degradation of humanity, and the defilement of creation. This is a very different view of history from what evolutionists and humanists take. Man has lost his scepter because he rebelled against God's scepter.

Two other individuals were specially significant in history for Paul as we see in Romans: Abraham and Jesus Christ. God called Abraham to be a channel of blessing to the world. Christ is the greatest blessing. Through Him people and creation can experience restoration to God's original intention for them.

These are Paul's basic presuppositions on which all his reasoning in Romans rests. Romans is not the best book to put in the hands of an unsaved person to lead him or her to salvation. John is better for that purpose. However, Romans is the best book to put in the hands of a saved person to lead him or her to understand and appreciate our salvation.

We turn now to the major revelations in this book. These are its central teachings, the emphases that distinguish Romans from other books of the Bible.

First, Romans reveals the tragic helplessness of the human race. No other book of the Bible looks so fearlessly into the abysmal degradation that has resulted from human sin. If you read only 1:18-3:20, you will become depressed by its pessimism. If you keep reading, you will conclude from 3:21 on that we have the best, most optimistic news you have ever heard. This book is all about ruin and redemption. Its first great revelation is the absolute ruin and helplessness of the human race.

Paul divides the ruined race into two parts. The first of these is the Gentiles who have the light of nature. God has given everyone, Gentiles and Jews, the opportunity of observing and concluding two things about Himself: His wisdom and power. The average person as well as the scientist concludes that Someone wise must have put the natural world together, and He must be very powerful. Nevertheless having come to that conclusion he turns from God to vain reasonings, vile passions, unrighteous behavior, envy, murder, strife, deceit, insolence, pride, and perverted conduct. Just read today's newspaper and you will find confirmation of Paul's analysis of the human race.

The other part of the ruined race is the Jews who, in addition to the light of nature, also had the light of Scripture. Paul observed that in spite of his greater revelation and privilege the Jew behaves the same way as the Gentile. Yet he is a worse sinner. Having professed devotion to God and having claimed to be a teacher of the Gentiles because of his greater light he disobeys God and causes the Gentiles to blaspheme His name. Paul concluded, "There is none righteous, no, not one" (3:10). "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (3:23).

The second major revelation of Romans is the magnificence of the divine plan of salvation. This plan centers on Jesus Christ whom Paul introduced on the very first page of his letter (1:3-4). God declared to everyone that the Jesus of the Gospels is His Son by resurrecting Him.

Two words describe Christ's relation to the divine plan of salvation: manifestation and propitiation. The righteousness manifested in Him is available to people through His propitiation. God's righteousness is available to everyone because Jesus died as the perfect offering for sin. The righteousness we see in Jesus in the Gospel records is available to those who believe that His sacrifice satisfied God (3:21, 25).

We can also describe God's relation to the plan of salvation with two words: holiness and love. The plan of salvation that Romans expounds resulted from a holy God reaching out to sinful humanity lovingly (3:22, 24). This plan vindicates the holiness of God as it unveils God's gracious love (chs. 9-11).

Man's relation to the plan of salvation is threefold. It involves justification, the imputation of God's righteousness to the believing sinner. It also involves sanctification, the impartation of God's righteousness to the redeemed sinner. Third, it involves glorification, the perfection of God's righteousness in the sanctified sinner. In justification God lifts the sinner into a relationship with Himself that is more intimate than we would have enjoyed if we had never sinned. In sanctification God progressively transforms the sinner into the Savior's image by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. In glorification God finally restores the sinner to the place God intended for us to occupy in creation.

The creation's relation to the plan of salvation is twofold. God restores creation's king, man, to his intended position. Second, creation realizes all of its intended possibilities that sin has denied it.

Let us note next some of the lessons of this book. What did God want us to learn from it?

First, Romans calls us to measure ourselves by divine rather than human standards. We sometimes evaluate ourselves and one another by using the criteria that our age sets or that we set. However to know our true condition we must use the criteria that God sets. This standard reveals that we are all guilty before God. This is one of the great lessons that Romans teaches us.

Second, Romans calls us to live by faith rather than by sight. God did not come any closer to mankind in the incarnation of Christ than He ever had been. Yet in the incarnation the nearness of God became more obvious to people. In the resurrection the Son of God became observable as the Son of God to human beings. All the glories of salvation come to us as we believe God. Romans contrasts the folly of trying to obtain salvation by working for it with trusting God, simply believing what He has revealed as true.

Third, Romans calls us to dedicate ourselves to God rather than living self-centered lives (12:1). This is the reasonable response to having received salvation. We should give ourselves to God. God's grace puts us in His debt. Paul did not say that if we fail to dedicate ourselves to God we are unsaved. Rather he appeals to us as saved people to do for God what He has done for us, namely giving ourselves out of love. When we do this, we show that we truly appreciate what God has done for us.

On the basis of these observations I would summarize the message of Romans in these words. Since God has lovingly provided salvation for helpless sinners through His Son, we should accept that sacrifice by faith and express our gratitude to God by dedicating our lives to Him.

In conclusion let me suggest an application of the message of Romans.

In view of the greatness of the salvation that God has provided as Romans reveals, we, as Paul, have a duty to communicate this good news to the world (1:14-17; Matt. 28:19). We do this both by lip and life, by explanation and by example (8:29). Our living example will reflect death to self as well as life to God (6:13).

Constable: Romans (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction 1:1-17

A. Salutation 1:1-7

1. The writer 1:1

2. The subject of the epistle 1:2-5

3. The original recipients 1:6-7

B. Purpose 1:8-15

C. Theme 1:16-17

II. The need for God's righteousness 1:18-3:20

A. The need of all people 1:18-32

1. The reason for human guilt 1:18

2. The ungodliness of mankind 1:19-27

3. The wickedness of mankind 1:28-32

B. The need of good people 2:1-3:8

1. God's principles of judgment 2:1-16

2. The guilt of the Jews 2:17-29

3. Answers to objections 3:1-8

C. The guilt of all humanity 3:9-20

III. The imputation of God's righteousness 3:21-5:21

A. The description of justification 3:21-26

B. The defense of justification by faith alone 3:27-31

C. The proof of justification by faith from the law ch. 4

1. Abraham's justification by faith 4:1-5

2. David's testimony to justification by faith 4:6-8

3. The priority of faith to circumcision 4:9-12

4. The priority of faith to the promise concerning headship of many nations 4:13-17

5. The exemplary value of Abraham's faith 4:18-22

6. Conclusions from Abraham's example 4:23-25

D. The benefits of justification 5:1-11

E. The universal applicability of justification 5:12-21

IV. The impartation of God's righteousness chs. 6-8

A. The believer's relationship to sin ch. 6

1. Freedom from sin 6:1-14

2. Slavery to righteousness 6:15-23

B. The believer's relationship to the law ch. 7

1. The law's authority 7:1-6

2. The law's activity 7:7-12

3. The law's inability 7:13-25

C. The believer's relationship to God ch. 8

1. Our deliverance from the flesh by the power of the Spirit 8:1-11

2. Our new relationship to God 8:12-17

3. Our present sufferings and future glory 8:18-25

4. Our place in God's sovereign plan 8:26-30

5. Our eternal security 8:31-39

V. The vindication of God's righteousness chs. 9-11

A. Israel's past election ch. 9

1. God's blessings on Israel 9:1-5

2. God's election of Israel 9:6-13

3. God's freedom to elect 9:14-18

4. God's mercy toward Israel 9:19-29

5. God's mercy toward the Gentiles 9:30-33

B. Israel's present rejection ch. 10

1. The reason God has set Israel aside 10:1-7

2. The remedy for rejection 10:8-15

3. The continuing unbelief of Israel 10:16-21

C. Israel's future salvation ch. 11

1. Israel's rejection not total 11:1-10

2. Israel's rejection not final 11:11-24

3. Israel's restoration assured 11:25-32

4. Praise for God's wise plans 11:33-36

VI. The practice of God's righteousness 12:1-15:13

A. Dedication to God 12:1-2

B. Conduct within the church 12:3-21

1. The diversity of gifts 12:3-8

2. The necessity of love 12:9-21

C. Conduct within the state ch. 13

1. Conduct towards the government 13:1-7

2. Conduct toward unbelievers 13:8-10

3. Conduct in view of our hope 13:11-14

D. Conduct within Christian liberty 14:1-15:13

1. The folly of judging one another 14:1-12

2. The evil of offending one another 14:13-23

3. The importance of pleasing one another 15:1-6

4. the importance of accepting one another 15:7-13

VII. Conclusion 15:14-16:27

A. Paul's ministry 15:14-33

1. Past labors 15:14-21

2. Present program 15:22-29

3. Future plans 15:30-33

B. Personal matters ch. 16

1. A commendation 16:1-2

2. Various greetings to Christians in Rome 16:3-16

3. A warning 16:17-20

4. Greetings from Paul's companions 16:21-24

5. A doxology 16:25-27

Constable: Romans

Romans

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Romans (Book Introduction)

THE

EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

TO THE ROMANS.

INTRODUCTION.

After the Gospels, which contain the history of Christ, and the Acts of the Apostles, which contain the history of the infant Church, we have the Epistles of the Apostles. Of these fourteen have been penned on particular occasions, and addressed to particular persons, by St. Paul; the others of St. James, St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude, are called Catholic Epistles, because they are addressed to all Christians in general, if we except the two latter short epistles of St. John. --- The epistles of St. Paul contain admirable advice, and explain fully several tenets of Christianity: but an humble and teachable mind and heart are essentially requisite to draw good from this inexhaustible source. If we prepare our minds by prayer, and go to these sacred oracles with proper dispositions, as to Jesus Christ himself, not preferring our own weak judgment to that of the Catholic Church divinely inspired, and which he has commanded us to hear, and which he has promised to lead in all truth unto the end of the world, we shall improve both our mind and heart by a frequent and pious perusal. We shall learn there that faith is essentially necessary to please God; that this faith is but one, as God is but one; and that faith which shews itself not by good works, is dead. Hence, when St. Paul speaks of works that are incapable of justifying us, he speaks not of the works of moral righteousness, but of the ceremonial works of the Mosaic law, on which the Jews laid such great stress as necessary to salvation. --- St. Peter (in his 2nd Epistle, chap. iii.) assures us that there were some in his time, as there are found some now in our days, who misconstrue St. Paul's epistles, as if he required no good works any more after baptism than before baptism, and maintaining that faith alone would justify and save a man. Hence the other apostles wrote their epistles, as St. Augustine remarks in these words; "therefore because this opinion, that faith only was necessary to salvation, was started, the other apostolical epistles do most pointedly refute it, forcibly contending that faith without works profiteth nothing." Indeed St. Paul himself, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, (Chap. xiii. 2.) positively asserts: if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. --- This epistle, like most of the following, is divided into two parts: the first treats of points of doctrine, and extends to the eleventh chapter inclusively; the second treats of morality, and is contained in the last five chapters: but to be able to understand the former, and to practise the latter, humble prayer and a firm adherence to the Catholic Church, which St. Paul (1 Timothy chap. iii.) styles, the pillar and ground of truth, are undoubtedly necessary. Nor should we ever forget what St. Peter affirms, that in St. Paul's epistles there are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Peter chap. iii. ver. 16.) (Haydock) --- St. Paul had not been at Rome when he wrote this epistle, which was in the year fifty-seven or fifty-eight, when he was preparing to go to Jerusalem with the charitable contributions and alms, collected in Achaia and Macedonia, for the benefit and relief of the poor Christians in Judea, and at Jerusalem; and after he had preached in almost all places from Jerusalem even to Illyris, Illyrium, or Illyricum. See this Epistle, chap. xv. It was written in Greek. It is not the first in order of time, though placed first, either because of the dignity of the chief Christian Church, or of its sublime contents. --- The apostle's chief design was not only to unite all the new Christian converts, whether they had been Gentiles or Jews, in the same faith, but also to bring them to a union in charity, love, and peace; to put an end to those disputes and contentions among them, which were particularly occasioned by those zealous Jewish converts, who were for obliging all Christians to the observance of the Mosaic precepts and ceremonies. They who had been Jews, boasted that they were the elect people of God, preferred before all other nations, to whom he had given this written law, precepts, and ceremonies by Moses, to whom he had sent his prophets, and had performed so many miracles in their favour, while the Gentiles were left in their ignorance and idolatry. The Gentiles, now converted, were apt to brag of the learning of their great philosophers, and that sciences had flourished among them: they reproached the Jews with the disobedience of their forefathers to God, and the laws he had given them; that they had frequently returned to idolatry; that they had persecuted and put to death the prophets, and even their Messias, the true Son of God. St. Paul shews that neither the Jew nor the Gentile had reason to boast, but to humble themselves under the hand of God, the author of their salvation. He puts the Jews in mind, that they could not expect to be justified and saved merely by the ceremonies and works of their law, thought good in themselves; that the Gentiles, as well as they, were now called by the pure mercy of God: that they were all to be saved by believing in Christ, and complying with his doctrine; that sanctification and salvation can only be had by the Christian faith. He does not mean by faith only, as it is one particular virtue, different from charity, hope, and other Christian virtues; but he means by faith, the Christian religion, and worship, taken in opposition to the law of Moses and to the moral virtues of heathens. The design of the Epistle to the Galatians is much the same. From the 12th chapter he exhorts them to the practice of Christian virtues. (Witham)

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Gill: Romans (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO ROMANS

Though this epistle is in order placed the first of the epistles, yet it was not first written: there were several epistles written before it, as the two epistles to the Thessalonians, the two to the Corinthians, the first epistle to Timothy, and that to Titus: the reason why this epistle stands first, is either the excellency of it, of which Chrysostom had so great an esteem that he caused it to be read over to him twice a week; or else the dignity of the place, where the persons lived to whom it is written, being Rome, the imperial city: so the books of the prophets are not placed in the same order in which they were written: Hosea prophesied as early as Isaiah, if not earlier; and before Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and yet stands after them. This epistle was written from Corinth, as the subscription of it testifies; and which may be confirmed from the apostle's commendation of Phoebe, by whom he sent it, who was of Cenchrea, a place near Corinth; by his calling Erastus, the chamberlain of the city, who abode at Corinth, 2Ti 4:20, and Gaius his host, who was a Corinthian, Rom 16:23, 1Co 1:14, though at what time it was written from hence, is not so evident: some think it was written in the time of his three months' travel through Greece, Act 20:2, a little before the death of the Emperor Claudius, in the year of Christ 55; others, that it was written by him in the short stay he made at Corinth, when he came thither, as is supposed, from Philippi, in his way to Troas, where some of his company went before, and had been there five days before him: and this is placed in the second year of Nero, and in the year of Christ 56; however, it was not written by him during his long stay at Corinth, when he was first there, but afterwards, even after he had preached from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum: and when he was about to go to Jerusalem, with the contributions of the churches of Macedonia and Achaia, to the poor saints there, Rom 15:19. The persons to whom this epistle was sent were Roman saints, both Jews and Gentiles, inhabiting the city of Rome; of which city and church; See Gill on Act 28:14; Act 28:15; by whom the Gospel was first preached at Rome, and who were the means of forming the church there, is not very evident Irenaeus, an ancient writer, says ^a, that Peter and Paul preached the Gospel at Rome, and founded the church; and Gaius, an ecclesiastical man, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, asserts the same; and Dionysius; bishop of the Corinthians, calls the Romans the plantation of Peter and Paul ^b: whether Peter was ever at Rome is not a clear point with many; and certain it is, that the Apostle Paul had not been at Rome when he wrote this epistle, at least it seems very probable he had not, by several expressions in Rom 1:10; and yet here was a church to which he writes, and had been a considerable time; for their faith was spoken of throughout the world, Rom 1:8; and when the apostle was on the road to this city, the brethren in it met him, Act 28:15. The chief design of this epistle is to set in a clear light the doctrine of justification: showing against the Gentiles, that it is not by the light of nature, and works done in obedience to that, and against the Jews, that it was not by the law of Moses, and the deeds of that; which he clearly evinces, by observing the sinful and wretched estate both of Jews and Gentiles: but that it is by the righteousness of Christ imputed through the grace of God, and received by faith; the effects of which are peace and joy in the soul, and holiness in the life and conversation: he gives an account of the justified ones, as that they are not without sin, which he illustrates by his own experience and case; and yet are possessed of various privileges, as freedom from condemnation, the blessing of adoption, and a right to the heavenly inheritance; he treats in it concerning predestination, the calling of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews; and exhorts to the various duties incumbent on the saints, with respect to one another, and to the world, to duties of a moral and civil nature, and the use of things indifferent; and closes it with the salutations of divers persons.

Gill: Romans 8 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO ROMANS 8

As the former chapter shows that sanctified ones are not free from the being of sin in them, which is a ground of general complaint and uneasiness; this chapter shows, that justified ones are freed from the guilt of sin, and secure from punishment for it; and have the utmost reason to rejoice and be glad, and even to triumph in a plerophory and full assurance of faith, on account of the various privileges they enjoy, through the grace of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit; and which are distinctly, largely, and severally mentioned: it begins, Rom 8:1, with taking notice of a particular privilege saints have in Christ, and, by virtue of union to him, security from all condemnation; and which is inferred from their sure and certain deliverance from sin by Christ, Rom 8:25, the persons sharing in this privilege are described by their being in Christ, and by their walking after the Spirit of Christ, in consequence of it: a reason confirming this privilege is given, Rom 8:2, taken either from the Gospel, declaring the saints' freedom from the law; or from the power and efficacy of the Spirit, delivering them from the tyranny and dominion of sin; or rather from the holiness of Christ's human nature, as a branch of their justification: this privilege is made more fully to appear, and the saints' interest in it by the mission of Christ, to bring in everlasting righteousness for them, which is the foundation of it, Rom 8:3, the occasion of which was the weakness of the law, or rather the impotency of man, through the corruption of nature, to fulfil the law: the sender, or the efficient cause of this mission, is God the Father; the person sent, his own Son; the manner in which he was sent, in human nature, which had the appearance of being sinful; what God did in it, he condemned sin in it; which is a reason, why there is no condemnation to them, that are in him; and the end of all this, Rom 8:4, was, that the law of righteousness might be perfectly fulfilled by Christ for them, or by them in him; who are described in part, as in Rom 8:1, upon the repetition of which part of the description, the apostle proceeds to show the difference between unregenerate and regenerate persons, Rom 8:5, partly by their characters; the one being carnal, or after the flesh, the other being spiritual, or after the Spirit; and by their different affections, the one minding the things of the flesh, the other the things of the Spirit; the different issue and effect of which, namely, a carnal and a spiritual mind are observed, Rom 8:6, death following upon the one, life and peace upon the other; the reasons of which, with respect to the former, are given, Rom 8:7, taken from the enmity of the carnal mind to God, and the non-subjection of it to the law of God, and the impossibility of its being subject to it; and therefore nothing but death can be expected; from whence this conclusion is made, Rom 8:8, that unregenerate men are not in a state, nor in a capacity to please God, or do what is acceptable to him, the above being the disposition and temper of their minds: and then in Rom 8:9, the apostle returns to the argument from whence be had digressed, and suggests, that though he had said the above things of unregenerate men, he had other thoughts of those to whom he writes; they were not in the flesh, nor minded the things of the flesh, and so were not liable to condemnation and death; and which he proves by the inhabitation of the Spirit of God in them; for such who have him not, have no proof nor evidence of their being Christ's, and so consequently have no proof of their security from condemnation; and partly by Christ's being in them, and which is the evidence of their being in Christ, and so of the above privilege, Rom 8:10, the consequence of which is, that though by reason of sin the body is mortal, and does die, yet the soul lives not only naturally, but spiritually, by faith in Christ now, and in glory hereafter, by virtue of Christ's righteousness imputed to it, and so is free from condemnation and death; besides, by virtue of the Spirit's dwelling in them, their mortal bodies will be quickened in the general resurrection, Rom 8:11, and from all these blessings of divine goodness, both in soul and body, the apostle infers, that the saints are under obligation, not to live in a carnal, but in a spiritual manner, Rom 8:12, and to which he exhorts, Rom 8:13, and presses by motives, taken from the different consequences of those things; death following by living after the flesh, and life through the mortification of sin, by the Spirit of God: and whereas the walking after the Spirit, by which he had described those that are safe from condemnation, is owing to their being led by him; and their being led by him, being an evidence of their divine sonship, Rom 8:14, from hence he passes to consider the privilege of adoption: and that these saints were interested in this privilege, he proves Rom 8:15, partly by their not having the spirit of bondage which belongs to servants; and partly by their having the spirit of adoption, who had made known this grace unto them, and their interest in it: and that they had received him as a spirit of adoption, was evident by their calling God their Father under his influence; and also by the witness he bore to their spirits, that they were the children of God, Rom 8:16, of which they were conscious: and from this privilege of adoption, the apostle concludes heirship, Rom 8:17, and which is of such a nature, that there is none like it; both with respect to the subject of it, God himself; with respect to him with whom they are heirs, Christ Jesus; and the way in which they come to share the glorious inheritance with him, is through suffering with him, and for him; and this they need not grudge to do, since there is no comparison between their sufferings, and the glory they shall enjoy, Rom 8:18, which both Jews and Gentiles were in the expectation of; the latter of which are described in Rom 8:19, by their name, the creature, the whole creation; and by their present condition, the Gospel being come among them to the conversion of many, which raised an expectation of many sons and daughters being born to God among them, Rom 8:19, and by their former state and condition, Rom 8:20, which is mentioned, to illustrate the grace of God in the present blessing bestowed upon them, in sending the Gospel to them; which state was a subjection to vanity, through the god of this world, who led them captive at his will, Rom 8:21, and then by the deliverance of them, they were in hope and expectation of, from bondage to liberty, Rom 8:21, and this groaning and travailing: in birth in a spiritual sense, for the bringing forth of many sons to God among the Gentiles, the apostle, and other ministers of the word, who had preached the Gospel among them, were witnesses of, Rom 8:22, yea, not only the Gentiles, but the Jews also, who are described as having the first fruits of the Spirit, Rom 8:23, were waiting for the manifestation of the children of God among the Gentiles, with them to complete at last the mystical body, who shall share together the glory before spoken of, which their sonship and heirship entitle them to; and for which there is encouragement to wait with patience and in hope, from the connection of salvation with the grace of hope; and from, the nature of the thing hoped for, which is unseen, but certain, Rom 8:24. From hence the apostle proceeds to consider another privilege which the saints have, who are in the Spirit, and walk after the Spirit, the Spirit helps their infirmities; particularly in prayer, the matter of which, in some cases, they are at a loss about, Rom 8:26, and this he does, by making intercession for them; the manner in which this is done in them, is with unutterable groans; and the rule according to which it is made, is the will of God, the mind of the Spirit being known by the searcher of hearts, Rom 8:27, in a word, such are the privileges of believers in Christ, that every thing in the whole world, in heaven, and in earth, in themselves and others, whether good or bad, prosperous or adverse, work together for their good, so that nothing can go wrong with them in the issue, Rom 8:28, who are described by their love to God, and by their effectual calling, according to his purpose; which being mentioned, leads the apostle to the source and spring of all these and other privileges, the everlasting love of God; signified by his foreknowledge of his people, Rom 8:29, which is the cause of their predestination to a conformity to the image of Christ, the firstborn among many brethren; with which predestination, calling, justification, and glorification, are inseparably connected, Rom 8:30, from all which blessings of grace it may be concluded, that God is on the side of such persons, who are interested in these favours; and nothing is to be feared, but every good thing is to be expected by them, Rom 8:31, which is confirmed by an argument from the greater to the lesser, that if God has given his Son for them, he will freely give all things to them, Rom 8:32, in a view of which, the apostle rises up in a triumph of faith, and challenges all the enemies of the saints, and denies that any charge can be brought against them of any avail, since God is the justifier of them, Rom 8:33, or that they shall ever enter into condemnation, being secured from it by the death of Christ; and which security is yet more strengthened by his resurrection, session at the right hand of God, and intercession for them, Rom 8:34, and then asks, since Christ has shown such love to them, by these instances of it, what can separate from it, Rom 8:35, and enumerates several things which befall the saints in this life, which, however mean and abject they may render them in the esteem of men, do not at all abate the love of Christ to them: that such is their case, that they are exposed to afflictions and sufferings, and even death itself, for the sake of Christ, is proved Rom 8:36, by a testimony out of Psa 44:22, and then an answer is returned to the above question in the negative, that none of the things mentioned could separate them from the love of Christ; so far from it, that by virtue of Christ who had loved them, they were conquerors, and more than conquerors in all these things, and over all their enemies, Rom 8:37, and the chapter is concluded in Rom 8:38, with the full and firm persuasion of the apostle, that nothing in the whole universe, in the whole compass of created beings, be they what they will, good or bad, or which are or shall be, an enumeration of many of which is made, should ever separate him, or any of the people of God from his love, which is in Christ Jesus: so that upon the whole, notwithstanding indwelling sin, notwithstanding the various afflictions which attend them in this world, yet in consideration of the many privileges they enjoy, and the glory they are heirs of, they have great reason to rejoice, and look upon themselves to be in the most safe and happy condition.

College: Romans (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION

I. ROMANS: ITS INFLUENCE AND IMPORTANCE

God's Word is a lamp to our feet and a light for our path (Ps 119:105), and no part of it shines more brilliantly than the book of Romans. The truth of God's Word sets us free (John 8:32), and Romans teaches us the most liberating of all truths. God's Word is sharp and piercing like a sword (Heb 4:12), and no blade penetrates more deeply into our hearts than Romans. Overall the book of Romans may be the most read and most influential book of the Bible, but sometimes it is the most neglected and most misunderstood book. The Restoration Movement has tended to concentrate especially on the book of Acts, which is truly foundational and indispensable. But Romans is to Acts what meat is to milk. We need to mature; we need to graduate from Acts to Romans.

In 1 Cor 15:3-4 Paul sums up the gospel as these three truths: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised up again on the third day. The reality of the historical facts of the Savior's death and resurrection is stressed over and over in the book of Acts. Romans, however, is an exposition of the meaning of these facts. In the language of 1 Cor 15:3, Romans focuses not on "Christ died," but on the next three words: " for our sins ." Acts explains what salvation consists of and how we may receive it. Romans does the same, but carries the explanation to heights and depths that thrill and satisfy the soul, providing it with an experience that is at the same time intellectual, spiritual, and esthetic.

The unparalleled ability of Romans to convict sinners and to motivate Christians is well attested. The comment of Sanday and Headlam (v) has often been noted: "If it is a historical fact that the spiritual revivals of Christendom have been usually associated with closer study of the Bible, this would be true in an eminent degree of the Epistle to the Romans." Leon Morris (1) concurs: "It is commonly agreed that the Epistle to the Romans is one of the greatest Christian writings. Its power has been demonstrated again and again at critical points in the history of the Christian church."

The role of Romans in Augustine's conversion is well known. In his Confessions he tells how a discussion of Christian commitment with two of his friends brought him under strong conviction, filling him with remorse for his sins of sexual immorality and a sense of helplessness to overcome them. Later he and his friend Alypius went into the garden, taking along a copy of Paul's writings. Augustine went off by himself to weep over his sins. While doing so, he reports, "I heard the voice as of a boy or girl, I know not which, coming from a neighbouring house, chanting, and oft repeating, 'Take up and read; take up and read.'" He took this as a sign from God to open the book of Paul's writings and read the first passage that met his eyes. He quickly returned to where Alypius was sitting and the book was lying. When he opened it, the first words he saw were these from Rom 13:13-14: "Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." This experience and these words gave him what he needed to turn completely to Christ. He says, "No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended, - by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart, - all the gloom of doubt vanished away."

Godet (1) declares that "the Reformation was undoubtedly the work of the Epistle to the Romans." Morris (1) agrees: "The Reformation may be regarded as the unleashing of new spiritual life as a result of a renewed understanding of the teaching of Romans."

Insofar as the Reformation depends on the work of Martin Luther, this is surely the case. Luther confesses how in 1519 he had an ardent desire to understand the epistle to the Romans. His problem was the way he had been taught to understand the expression "the righteousness of God" in Rom 1:17. To him it meant the divine justice and wrath by which God punishes sin, which did not sound very much like gospel . "Nevertheless," he says, "I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted." Finally, by the mercy of God, he began to understand this expression in a totally different way, i.e., as the righteousness of Christ that God bestows upon the sinner and on the basis of which the sinner is justified. The effect on Luther was electrifying: "I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates." This new understanding of this one verse - Rom 1:17 - changed everything; it became in a real sense the doorway to the Reformation. "Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise," says Luther ("Latin Writings," 336-337).

Luther's regard for Romans is clearly seen in this well-known paragraph from his famous preface to this epistle:

This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament, and is truly the purest gospel. It is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but also that he should occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. We can never read it or ponder over it too much; for the more we deal with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes ("Preface," 365).

These words, first published in 1522, were echoed almost verbatim by the English reformer William Tyndale, in his prologue to his 1534 English translation of the New Testament. He says, "This epistle is the principal and most excellent part of the New Testament, and most pure . . . gospel, and also a light and a way in unto the whole Scripture." He also recommends learning it by heart and studying it daily, because "so great treasure of spiritual things lieth hid therein."

The Swiss reformer John Calvin echoes some of Tyndale's thoughts in his own commentary on Romans (xxix): "When any one gains a knowledge of this Epistle, he has an entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture."

Working indirectly through Luther's preface, the book of Romans had an effect on John Wesley similar to the way it influenced Augustine and Luther. In his journal Wesley recounts his own search for personal victory over sin and assurance of salvation based on trust in the blood of Christ alone. He tells what happened to him on May 24, 1738:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurace was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine , and saved me from the law of sin and death ( Works , I:103).

Modern scholars and expositors seem unable to praise the letter to the Romans highly enough. Philip Schaff has said, "The Epistle to the Romans is the Epistle of the Epistles, as the Gospel of John is the Gospel of the Gospels" ("Preface," v). "This is in every sense the greatest of the Epistles of Paul, if not the greatest book in the New Testament," declares Thiessen ( Introduction , 219). Newell (375) says Romans is "probably the greatest book in the Bible." "If the apostle Paul had written nothing else, he would still be recognized as one of the outstanding Christian thinkers of all time on the basis of this letter alone," say Newman and Nida (1). This familiar praise comes from Godet (x):

The pious Sailer used to say, "O Christianity, had thy one work been to produce a St. Paul, that alone would have rendered thee dear to the coldest reason." May we not be permitted to add: And thou, O St. Paul, had thy one work been to compose an Epistle to the Romans, that alone would have rendered thee dear to every sound reason.

Godet adds, "The Epistle to the Romans is the cathedral of the Christian faith" (1).

Others add even higher praise. Batey (7) says, "Paul's epistle to the Romans stands among the most important pieces of literature in the intellectual history of Western man." "It is safe to say that Romans is probably the most powerful human document ever written," declares Stedman. Some might think this honor should go to the U.S. Constitution or to the Declaration of Independence. "But even they cannot hold a candle to the impact the Epistle to the Romans has had upon human history" (I:1-2). Boice avows: "Christianity has been the most powerful, transforming force in human history - and the book of Romans is the most basic, most comprehensive statement of true Christianity" (I:13).

Commentators often quote this statement from Coleridge: "I think St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans the most profound work in existence" ( Table Talk , 245). Many will certainly agree, but to Coleridge such profundity was not altogether a virtue. For him it meant that Romans "undoubtedly . . . is, and must be, very obscure to ordinary readers" (ibid., 245-246). Indeed, some think that the Apostle Peter may have been referring to Romans in 2 Pet 3:16. But at the same time, perhaps paradoxically, Newell is correct when he says (vii), "There is no more simple book in the Bible than Romans, when one comes to know the book, its contents, its message, its power."

Scholars praise Romans as the clearest statement of the gospel of salvation. As noted above, Luther called it "the purest gospel." Nygren agrees (3): "What the gospel is, what the content of the Christian faith is, one learns to know in the Epistle to the Romans as in no other place in the New Testament." Cranfield says Romans is "the most systematic and complete exposition of the gospel that the NT contains" (I:31). The Restoration scholar Moses Lard (xx) concurs: "It is the whole gospel compressed into the short space of a single letter - a generalization of Christianity up to the hight [sic] of the marvelous, and a detail down to exhaustion." In Stott's words (19), Romans is "the fullest, plainest and grandest statement of the gospel in the New Testament."

Scholars also praise Romans for its unparalleled presentation of the essence of Christian doctrine . In his preface to Romans (380) Luther says that in Romans we "find most abundantly the things that a Christian ought to know, namely, what is law, gospel, sin, punishment, grace, faith, righteousness, Christ, God, good works, love, hope, and the cross; and also how we are to conduct ourselves toward everyone." Thus it seems that Paul "wanted in this one epistle to sum up briefly the whole Christian and evangelical doctrine." Schaff declares it to be "the heart of the doctrinal portion of the New Testament. It presents in systematic order the fundamental truths of Christianity in their primitive purity, inexhaustible depth, all-conquering force, and never-failing comfort. It is the bulwark of the evangelical doctrines of sin and grace" ("Preface," v).

Modern writers agree. "The truth laid down in Romans forms the Gibraltar basis of doctrine, teaching, and confession in the true evangelical church," says Lenski (8). Moo says the Puritan writer Thomas Draxe described Romans as "the quintessence and perfection of saving doctrine." Moo agrees: "When we think of Romans, we think of doctrine" (I:1). Lard (xx) calls Romans Paul's "great doctrinal chart for the future." Newman and Nida (1) declare that "above all else, the appeal of Romans is its theology ."

Concerning its doctrinal content, MacArthur lists 49 significant questions about God and man that are answered by Romans, e.g., How can a person who has never heard the gospel be held spiritually responsible? How can a sinner be forgiven and justified by God? How are God's grace and God's law related? Why is there suffering? MacArthur points out that these key words are used repeatedly in the epistle: God (154 times), law (77), Christ (66), sin (45), Lord (44), and faith (40).

Which of these assessments is correct? Is Romans the crowning presentation of the Christian gospel ? Or is it the grandest statement of Christian doctrine ? Actually, it is both. Romans is the theology of the New Testament; it is also the definitive statement of the gospel. In this epistle doctrine and gospel merge, and the result is a spiritual feast for Christians.

Boice (I:10) advises that "it is time to rediscover Romans." Actually, it is always time to "rediscover" Romans, and down through the history of Christianity individuals have been doing just this. The results have been earth-shaking. It can and does happen over and over, in the lives of individuals, in congregations, in the Church at large. F.F. Bruce (60) has well said, "There is no telling what may happen when people begin to study the Epistle to the Romans."

II. THE AUTHOR OF ROMANS

The epistle to the Romans was written by the Apostle Paul (1:1). In the past a few critics challenged this, but without any real basis in fact. Today, as Cranfield says, "no responsible criticism disputes its Pauline origin" (I:2). Romans was quoted by the earliest Christian writers (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin), and was attributed to Paul by name by Marcion in the mid-second century. Since the time of Irenaeus (late second century) writers have explicitly and regularly viewed it as Pauline.

Though composed and dictated by Paul, the letter was actually written down by a Christian scribe named Tertius, who inserted his own greeting in 16:22.

A. PAUL'S JEWISH BACKGROUND

It is not necessary to go into the details of Paul's life, except for a few facts that are important in view of the content of the epistle, which relates especially to the distinction between law and grace. One relevant fact is Paul's Jewish background, which he proudly avowed: "I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin," a "Hebrew of Hebrews" (11:1; Phil 3:5; 2 Cor 11:22). Though born in Tarsus, he was reared in Jerusalem (Acts 22:3), the capital of Judaism.

Paul's education included strict and thorough religious training in the contents of the Old Testament - especially the Law (Torah) - at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Gamaliel was one of the most famous and most revered of all rabbis. His knowledge of the Law was so great that he was practically identified with it, being given the title "the Beauty of the Law." A saying recorded in the Talmud declares, "Since Rabban Gamaliel died the glory of the Law has ceased." "Under Gamaliel," says Paul, "I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers" (Acts 22:3). "Thoroughly" translates kataÉ ajkrivbeian ( kata akribeian ), "according to exactness, strictness, precision."

Paul's zeal for God and commitment to his Law was total (Acts 22:3; Gal 1:14). He was a Pharisee (Acts 23:6; Phil 3:5), which he properly identified as "the strictest sect of our religion" (Acts 26:5). The glory of the Pharisees was the Law; they were devoted to akribeia in its interpretation and observance (Dunn, I:xl). Thus Paul not only knew the Law but also devoted himself to scrupulous obedience to its commandments (Acts 26:4-5; Phil 3:6).

This probably means that he was a legalist in the proper sense of that word, i.e., one who sought acceptance by God on the basis of his obedience to the Law. This is implied in the way he contrasted his pre-Christian life (Phil 3:6) and his Christian life (Phil 3:9). This is also the way Pharisees are generally pictured in the Gospels.

Paul's zeal for the Law was expressed perhaps most vehemently in his fanatical persecution of the earliest Christians, all converted Jews whom he no doubt regarded as traitors to God and his Law (Phil 3:6). See Acts 7:58; 8:3; 9:1-2; 22:4-5; 26:9-11; Gal 1:13; 1 Tim 1:13.

B. PAUL'S CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

The second relevant fact about the Apostle Paul is his conversion. The details need not be recounted here. What is important is that the one who converted him to Christianity was no human preacher, but was Jesus himself (Gal 1:15-16). Also, the gospel he preached was not taught to him by a human teacher; he received it by direct revelation from Jesus (Gal 1:11-12). The result was that Paul's conversion, his change, his turnaround, was complete. Whereas before he was totally committed to the Mosaic Law as a way of life and salvation, once converted he was just as totally committed to the gospel of grace.

As a Christian Paul set himself in complete opposition to everything he had stood for as a Pharisee. He now understood the way of law to be futile (10:3). He saw that his former legalistic approach to salvation was, as Murray says, "the antithesis of grace and of justification by faith" (I:xiii). Thus when Paul presents the classic contrast between law and grace in Romans, he speaks as one who knew both sides of the issue from personal experience and from the best teachers available. As Murray says, he is describing "the contrast between the two periods in his own life history, periods divided by the experience of the Damascus road" (I:xiv).

It is no surprise that Paul's preaching of the gospel and his condemnation of law-righteousness turned the Jews completely against him, even to the point that they tried to kill him (Acts 9:29; 13:45; 14:2, 19; 17:5-8; 18:12; 2 Cor 11:24-26). His opponents included "false brothers" (2 Cor 11:26), the Judaizers, or Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah but still clung to the Law of Moses.

In spite of all of this upheaval, Paul did not turn against the Jews as such. He still regarded them as his beloved brothers according to the flesh (9:1-3; 10:1), and as blessed by God in an incomparable way (3:1-2; 9:4-5). In fact, a major aspect of the teaching in Romans is an explanation and a defense of God's purpose for his Old Covenant people, the Jews (see especially chs. 9-11).

C. PAUL'S COMMISSION AS

THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES

The last detail about Paul's life that is relevant here is his call and commission to be the Apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 26:17). His appointment as an apostle (1:1) invested him with the full authority of Jesus Christ and with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that his teachings are truly the Word of God (1 Cor 2:6-13; 1 Thess 2:13). When we read the book of Romans, we must understand it to be nothing less than this.

Also, Paul's appointment as the apostle to the Gentiles (1:5) completely governed his thoughts and deeds from that point on. As a Jew and a Pharisee, he had no doubt shared the typical Hebrew aversion to anything Gentile; and he had no doubt gloried in the Jews' exclusive position as God's chosen people. Thus when God revealed to him the mystery of the Gentiles - that it had been his plan all along to include Gentiles in the people of the Messiah (Eph 3:1-10), Paul was overwhelmed with awe and joy. He unhesitatingly opened his heart to the very people he had once despised. This was another complete turnaround in his life, and he devoted himself totally to his new mission.

Paul's role as apostle to the Gentiles had a direct bearing on his relationship with the Roman church and his letter to them. Paul tells us that he had often desired to visit Rome, in order to preach the gospel and have some converts there, "just as I have had among the other Gentiles" (1:13). But since there was already a church in Rome, God's Spirit directed him into other Gentile areas in Asia Minor and the Greek peninsula first (15:17-22). But now he has covered this territory with three lengthy tours of missionary service (15:19). Thus he is ready to launch out into a totally new area, namely, Spain; and his journey there will take him through Rome, as he announces in this epistle (15:23-24).

Throughout the epistle to the Romans, Paul writes with the full conciousness of his mission to the Gentiles and of the Gentiles in his audience. One point that he clarifies in the letter is the relation of the Gentiles to the Jews with respect to salvation.

III. TIME AND PLACE OF WRITING

Immediately after his baptism Paul began to preach Christ in Damascus (Acts 9:19-20), but soon went away into Arabia (Gal 1:17), which may have been the time he received his revelation from Jesus Christ (Gal 1:12). He went from there back to Damascus, then to Jerusalem (Gal 1:17-18) and elsewhere, and ultimately to Antioch (Acts 11:25-26).

From Antioch Paul launched his first missionary trip among the Gentiles (Acts 13:1-3), which was followed by two more. While in Ephesus on his third journey, "Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. 'After I have been there,' he said, 'I must visit Rome also'" (Acts 19:21). He shortly departed for Achaia (Greece) and arrived in Corinth, where he stayed for three months (Acts 20:1-3). This was approximately twenty years after his conversion, and ten years after the beginning of his first journey.

Corinth was the farthest point of his third trip, whence he retraced his steps back toward Ephesus. He stopped at Miletus instead, and traveled from there on to Jerusalem, with the goal of arriving by Pentecost (Acts 20:16-17). One main reason for the trip to Jerusalem was to deliver the money he had collected from the (mostly Gentile) churches in Galatia, Macedonia, and Greece, to help the poor (mostly Jewish) saints in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1-4; Rom 15:25-26). Though "compelled by the Spirit" to go to Jerusalem, he was apprehensive about what might happen to him there (Acts 20:22-23).

It was in the midst of this final journey, during the three months Paul spent at Corinth, that he most likely wrote the letter to the Romans. He was apparently staying at the house of Gaius (16:23), one of his converts at Corinth (1 Cor 1:14). The letter was carried to Rome by Phoebe, a Christian from the church in nearby Cenchrea (16:1).

The exact date of the writing of Romans is calculated in relation to the overall chronology of Paul's life and work. There is no unanimity on this chronology, though the differences of opinion are minor. Everyone agrees that the Apostle's stay in Corinth must have been in late winter and/or early spring, since he planned to set out from there and arrive in Jerusalem by Pentecost. Most agree also that this would have been in the middle or late 50s. Thus Romans was probably written early in A.D. 56, 57, or 58.

IV. RECIPIENTS OF ROMANS:

THE CHURCH IN ROME

Rome was the largest and most important city in the Roman Empire in Paul's day. Its population was probably over one million. Of this number, it is estimated that forty to fifty thousand were Jews, with as many as fifteen identifiable synagogues (Dunn, I:xlvi; Edwards, 9).

How the church in Rome originated is not known. There is no real evidence that Peter founded it, contrary to a common tradition. Some say that Rom 15:20 shows this could not have been the case. Here Paul says that he does not intend to "be building on someone else's foundation." The fact that he did plan to visit Rome and work there implies that no apostle had been there yet (MacArthur, I:xviii; Moo, I:4).

One very common speculation is that the Roman church was probably started by Jews and proselytes from Rome who were in the audience that heard Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:10), and who were among the converts baptized that day. Upon returning to Rome, they would have established the church there. If so, and this seems very likely, then the first Christians in Rome were converts from Judaism.

Another likely speculation is that Christians from other churches, perhaps some of Paul's own converts from his earlier work in Tarsus and Antioch and Asia Minor, were among those who started the Roman church and helped it to grow. Perhaps some of Paul's acquaintances named in Romans 16 were among this group. Such a scenario is highly probable, given the importance of Rome and the constant travel to and from that city.

Thus the church in Rome would have begun not as the result of some formal missionary effort, but by residents converted while traveling (e.g., Acts 2:10) and by Christians moving there from other places. Their own evangelistic efforts would certainly have focused on the synagogues of Rome, following the pattern of evangelism reflected in the book of Acts. This would have resulted in converts not only from Judaism but also from among Gentile "God-fearers" who were commonly attached to the synagogues (Dunn, I:xlvii-xlviii).

The epistle to the Romans is addressed "to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints" (1:7). The main question about these saints is the relative number of Jews and Gentiles among them. In answering this question, scholars usually begin with one solid historical fact, and then draw conclusions based on inferences and a bit of speculation. This has led to the following scenario, for which there is considerable consensus among commentators today.

The one fact is that the Roman emperor Claudius issued a decree that expelled all Jews from Rome. This is recorded in Acts 18:2, and is also mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius. The exact date of the decree is somewhat unclear, but the best calculation is A.D. 49. The reason for the decree is stated thus by Suetonius: "Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, (Emperor Claudius) expelled them from the city" (cited in Fiensy, Introduction , 224). Though we cannot be certain about this, most scholars agree that "Chrestus" is just a mistaken spelling of "Christus," and that the decree had to do with Jesus Christ.

In what way would Christ be instigating disturbances among the Jews in Rome? It is inferred that this refers to conflicts among the Jews stemming from Christian evangelism in the various synagogues. Because there was a wide diversity among the Jews and synagogues in Rome, it is concluded that some were more receptive to Christianity than others, and that this must have led to disputes among them. The resulting unrest was apparently unpleasant enough for Claudius to order all Jews to leave the city. It is also assumed that his decree did not make a distinction between unbelieving and believing Jews; thus even the Jewish Christians had to leave, e.g., Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2). After the decree the Roman church thus would be composed almost entirely of Gentiles. (See Donfried, "Presuppositions," 104-105.)

When Claudius died around A.D. 54, the decree was no longer enforced, and Jews and Jewish Christians were free to return to Rome. Some think, however, that they were still forbidden to assemble publicly (Wiefel, "Community," 92-94). The results for the church would have been twofold. First, the problem with public assembly may have forced the Christians to set up a number of "house churches," a possibility that seems to be confirmed in Rom 16:5, 14, 15. Second, the returning Jewish Christians would find the Roman church dominated by the Gentile Christians, if not in number then certainly in power and influence (Wiefel, "Community," 94-96).

Thus the saints in Rome, to whom the letter is addressed, were almost certainly a mixture of Jewish and Gentile Christians, though there is no way to tell which group had the larger number. If the circumstances outlined in the above scenario are correct, however, it is safe to assume that there was tension if not conflict among the two groups. Wiefel refers to "quarrels about status" ("Community," 96). Bruce says, "It is implied in Romans 11:13-24 that the Gentile Christians tended to look down on their Jewish brethren as poor relations" ("Debate," 180). Dunn speaks of "at least some friction between Gentile and Jew" within the house churches, with the Jews being in a minority and feeling themselves vulnerable (I:liii).

What is obvious is that in the epistle Paul addresses both groups, with some passages being specifically directed toward the Jewish Christians and some toward the Gentile Christians (see Moo, I:10-11; Murray, I:xviii-xix). Some say the letter as a whole is directed mainly to the Jewish saints; others say it was mainly intended for the Gentiles.

Hendriksen is surely right, though, when he says that regarding the main point of Romans this whole question is really irrelevant, since it applies equally to both groups (I:23). All are sinners (3:9, 23), no one will be saved by law (3:19-20), and all are equal recipients of the grace that is in Christ Jesus (3:24; 4:11-12). Hendriksen stresses Rom 10:12-13, "For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile - the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'"

V. THE OCCASION OF THE WRITING

What were the circumstances that prompted Paul to write his epistle to the Romans? We have already noted that he wrote the letter during his three-month stay in Corinth on his final mission trip. What sorts of things were going through his mind that led him to write it at that particular time?

We are fortunate that Paul reveals his mind to us in certain statements of his desires and plans in chapters 1 and 15. These statements show us what occasioned the writing of Romans.

One main consideration was Paul's immediate travel plans, as they related to his all-determining calling as apostle to the Gentiles (15:15-24). He refers to his "priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God" (15:16). For twenty years he had been preaching in the eastern and northeastern sections of the Mediterranean area, and had covered it well. "So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum," he says, "I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ"; so now "there is no more place for me to work in these regions" (15:19, 23). Thus he decided to change his focus to the northwestern section, Spain in particular (15:24, 28). In his mind he was already planning his trip to Spain.

But first he had to go to Jerusalem (15:25-31). His purpose for doing this was to deliver the funds he had been collecting from the Gentile churches "for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem" (15:26). He wanted to do this personally, to make sure that the funds were properly received (15:28). To this end he asked the Roman Christians to offer two specific prayers for him (15:30-31).

First, he knew that he still had many enemies in Jerusalem among the Jews especially. He knew that some of these enemies had already tried to kill him. Thus he really was not sure what dangers he might be facing in Jerusalem. Nevertheless he was determined to go (Acts 20:22-23), so he requested that the Roman Christians "pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea" (15:31). He was not afraid of losing his life; he just did not want his newly-formed missionary plans to be aborted (Acts 20:24; Rom 15:32).

Second, Paul was not really sure how the offering from the Gentile churches would be received by the Jewish saints in Jerusalem. There were still a lot of suspicions and misunderstandings between the two groups, mostly about the relation between the Old and New Covenants and the role of the Mosaic Law in the life of the Christian. Thus the money he was bringing to the poor in Jerusalem was not just an act of charity, but was also a symbol of unity between the two main factions in the church. Thus Paul was anxious that it might be received in the proper spirit, so he asked the Romans to pray "that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there" (15:31).

Thus Paul was ultimately bound for Spain, after an initial trip to Jerusalem. But there was a third item in his itinerary: an intermediate stop in Rome itself (Acts 19:21; 23:11), a place he had never been. So he announced to the Christians in Rome that on his way to Spain he would stop and visit them (15:23, 24, 28). This was something he had longed to do for many years and had even made plans to do (1:11, 13; 15:23), but had "often been hindered from coming to you" (15:22; cf. 1:13).

Paul had many reasons for wanting to visit the church in Rome. For one thing, he wanted to enlist their help for his mission to Spain. "I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there," he says (15:24). But he had other reasons that predated his plans for Spain. For example, he seems simply to have desired to visit with the Christians there: to have fellowship with them, to enjoy their company, to be spiritually refreshed by them (15:24, 32), and to be encouraged by them (1:12). After all, he knew quite a few of them personally (16:3-15).

Paul's principal longstanding reason for wanting to visit Rome, though, was his desire to preach the gospel there. "I am obligated," he says, "both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome" (1:14-15). By this means or by some accompanying means he would be able to "impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong" (1:11). This would also enable him to "have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles" (1:13).

No wonder that Paul says he was praying "that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you" (1:10).

These are the immediate circumstances that prompted Paul to write the epistle to the Romans. But a simple presentation of these facts does not in itself answer the question of exactly why he wrote the letter. What was his purpose for writing? What did he hope to accomplish by writing this particular letter? This is the subject of the next section.

VI. THE PURPOSE OF ROMANS

The question of Paul's purpose for writing the epistle to the Romans is very controversial; there is much disagreement about it. Everyone agrees on the facts described above relating to the occasion for the writing. The problem is that these facts have to be assessed in view of the contents of the main body of the letter, 1:18-15:13. The question is not just why he wrote a letter to the Roman church, but why he wrote this specific letter with this particular content. Why does he write "such a lengthy and involved discussion to a largely unknown congregation"? (Dunn, I:lv).

There are two basic approaches to this question. The older and more traditional approach is that the historical circumstances as described in the previous section were not particularly relevant with regard to Paul's decision to write the letter. Neither Paul's own plans nor the state of the Roman church presented him with a pressing need or occasion that required him to write. Thus unlike his other letters, Romans is more or less non-occasional. It is regarded rather as a kind of timeless theological essay on the essence of Christianity. As Sanday and Headlam describe this view, "the main object of the Epistle is doctrinal; it is rather a theological treatise than a letter; its purpose is to instruct the Roman Church in central principles of the faith, and has but little reference to the circumstances of the moment" (xl).

The more recent approaches to the purpose of Romans take the opposite view, that it is "a situational letter rather than a doctrinal treatise" (Jewett, "Argument," 265). Paul was not simply writing an essay detached from his circumstances, but was specifically addressing a particular situation that needed his attention at that time. Thus Romans is just as much an occasional letter as 1 Corinthians or Galatians.

Those who take the latter approach usually go in one of two directions. Some emphasize that Paul wrote the letter to fulfill certain needs of his own, relating to his trip either to Jerusalem or to Spain. Others say that Paul wrote mainly to meet the needs of the Roman church at that particular time.

It is possible, of course, that Paul had more than one purpose for writing Romans, as Cranfield says: "It is surely quite clear that Paul did not have just one single purpose in mind but rather a complex of purposes and hopes" (II:815). Dunn (I:lx) and Moo (I:20) agree.

A. ROMANS IS A DOCTRINAL ESSAY

Now we shall go into a bit more detail concerning the possibilities outlined above. The first view is that Paul was not addressing a specific situation but was writing a timeless doctrinal essay. In its most extreme form this view says that Romans is a complete systematic theology, a compendium of Christian doctrine. Shedd (viii) calls it " an inspired system of theology , . . . a complete statement of religious truth." Romans is so "encyclopædic in its structure" that one "need not go outside of this Epistle, in order to know all religious truth."

More recently Bornkamm has taken a similar view, describing Romans as Paul's "last will and testament" - "a summary of his theology in light of the impending danger in Jerusalem" (Donfried, "Presuppositions," 103). Bornkamm says ("Letter," 27-28), "This great document . . . summarizes and develops the most important themes and thoughts of the Pauline message and theology and . . . elevates his theology above the moment of definite situations and conflicts into the sphere of the eternally and universally valid."

Many writers agree that Romans was not occasioned by some immediate need or crisis but was a kind of doctrinal essay. Nygren says (4), "The characteristic and peculiar thing about Romans, differentiating it from the rest of Paul's epistles, is just the fact that it was not, or was only in slight degree aimed at circumstances within a certain congregation." Lenski (10-12) agrees.

Most who take this non-occasional view, however, say that it is an exaggeration to call Romans a full-blown systematic theology. "If Romans is a compendium of theology," says Morris (8), "there are some curious gaps." (See also Moo, I:1; Hendriksen, I:25; W. Williams, 19-20.) It is a doctrinal essay, to be sure, but one that is more focused and limited in its scope.

Just what is the focus of this doctrinal essay? The most common view is that it has to do with the doctrines of salvation, i.e., that Romans is a summary or synopsis of Paul's gospel . Morris says that Paul probably thought his three-month, pressure-free sojourn in Corinth was a good time to bring together the timeless teachings that had crystallized in his thinking during his twenty years as a preacher. Thus he sets forth "a summary of the gospel and its consequences as he understood them" (pp. 18-19). Cranfield likewise says it is likely that Paul "was conscious of having reached a certain maturity of experience, reflection and understanding, which made the time ripe for him to attempt, with God's help, such an orderly presentation of the gospel" (II:817).

Vincent summarizes this whole approach quite well when he says that Romans "is distinguished among the epistles by its systematic character. Its object is to present a comprehensive statement of the doctrine of salvation through Christ, not a complete system of christian doctrine" ( Word Studies , III:x). As Hendriksen says (I:25), "Romans is not really 'a complete compendium of Christian Doctrine.' If it had been Paul's intention to draw up such a document, he would surely have included far more material." The specific doctrine he deals with is one needed not just in Rome but by all people in all times: " the manner in which sinners are saved ." (See Edwards, 3.)

The idea that Romans is a kind of doctrinal essay focusing on the general doctrine of salvation is correct, in my opinion. However, I do not think it is wise to separate it too sharply from the occasion or circumstances discussed in the last section. I question W. Williams' approach, for example, when he says (19), "The Epistle to the Romans is a discussion of the relation of the Gentile world to God's plan of salvation," and in the next sentence says, "This discussion was incidental to the apostle's circumstances." In my opinion this is a false choice. It is an essay on salvation, but its purpose was definitely related to the circumstances at that time, as we shall see below.

B. ROMANS WAS OCCASIONED

BY PAUL'S IMMEDIATE NEEDS

The second major approach to the purpose of Romans is that it was occasioned by the various circumstances relating to Paul's immediate plans in relation to his mission. In other words, it was designed to meet needs that Paul felt in his own life at the time. As Jervell says, "Its raison d'être does not stem from the situation of the Roman congregation, but is to be found in Paul himself at the time of writing" ("Letter," 54).

The main idea here resembles the modern practice of churches requesting that prospective ministers send a tape recording of one of their sermons. In this case Paul takes the initiative and sets forth in writing a "sermon" or a lengthy presentation of his gospel. He does this because he needs to introduce himself to people who are not familiar with him or with what he preaches. Or, he does this because his enemies are spreading false rumors about what he preaches, and are misrepresenting his gospel especially as to what he says about Jew-Gentile relations. Thus Romans is not just a presentation but also a defense of Paul's gospel.

This is how Moo explains the purpose of Romans. The various circumstances that he faced "forced Paul to write a letter in which he carefully rehearsed his understanding of the gospel, especially as it related to the salvation-historical questions of Jew and Gentile and the continuity of the plan of salvation" (I:20). Bruce agrees that it was "expedient that Paul should communicate to the Roman Christians an outline of the message which he proclaimed. Misrepresentations of his preaching and his apostolic procedure were current and must have found their way to Rome" ("Debate," 182). (See Stuhlmacher, "Purpose," 236.)

Why was it crucial for Paul at this particular time to write such a presentation and defense of his gospel? The answer is that it was necessary in order to facilitate his immediate plans. For one thing, he was on his way to Jerusalem with the offering for the poor saints, and was apprehensive about how this would turn out. Thus some contend that in this letter Paul was rehearsing what he was going to say in Jerusalem in defense of himself and in an effort to seal Jew-Gentile unity. He sent the product to the Roman church in a letter, asking them to pray for him and the upcoming Jerusalem episode (15:30-32). Thus, says Jervell, Romans is Paul's "'collection speech,' or more precisely, the defense which Paul plans to give before the church in Jerusalem." He sends it to Rome "to ask the Roman congregation for solidarity, support, and intercession on his behalf" ("Letter," 56). Dunn calls this Paul's "apologetic purpose" (I:lvi; see I:xlii-xliii).

Though this is a fairly common view today, some object to it or at least doubt that it could be the only purpose for Romans (Moo, I:18). Thus other aspects of Paul's immediate plans must have elicited the letter. One of the most obvious is Paul's plan to visit Rome itself. Though he knew some of the Roman Christians, he had never been in Rome and would not know most of the people there. It must have seemed expedient, then, for him to write a kind of "letter of introduction" to himself, especially in view of the false rumors that were probably afoot.

This is how Morris understands it (16-17). Paul used his three-month interlude in Corinth "to write to the Roman Christians to let them know of his plan to visit them and to set down in order something of what the gospel meant." He wanted to give them "a clear but profound statement of the essential message of Christianity as he proclaimed it. This will show the Romans where he stands." MacArthur's view is similar: "Paul's letter to the church at Rome was, among other things, an introduction to himself as an apostle. He clearly set forth the gospel he preached and taught, so that believers in Rome would have complete confidence in his authority" (I:xix). (See also Stott, 34.)

Those who hold this view usually take it a step further, and say that Paul laid out and defended his gospel to the Romans as a means of enlisting their support for his Spanish mission. In a real sense Rome was just a means to an end, both in Paul's itinerary and in his missionary strategy. He needed them as a kind of "base of operations" for what he hoped to accomplish in Spain (Stott, 33). Thus "if Rome was to be his base, the Romans would need to be assured of his message and theological position" (Morris, 17). This is what Dunn calls Paul's "missionary purpose" for Romans (I:lv). This is a fairly common view. (See Cranfield, II:817-818; Jewett, "Argument," 266, 277.)

C. ROMANS WAS OCCASIONED BY NEEDS AT ROME ITSELF

As we have just seen, those who believe the writing of Romans was motivated by the immediate circumstances sometimes locate those circumstances in Paul's own personal needs. Others who take the occasional approach, however, believe that the situation in Rome itself is what Paul is specifically addressing in this epistle. Though he had not been there, he still would have been acquainted with the state of the Roman church. It was, after all, a famous church (1:8). Besides, Paul's Roman friends, such as Aquila and Priscilla (16:3), would probably have kept him informed especially of any problems that existed there (Sanday and Headlam, xl-xli).

Whatever the nature of those problems or needs, Paul wrote to resolve them. Since all of Paul's other letters were "addressed to the specific situations of the churches or persons involved," says Donfried, we must begin with the assumption that Romans "was written by Paul to deal with a concrete situation in Rome" ("Presuppositions," 103). This is what Dunn calls Paul's "pastoral purpose" (I:lvi-lviii).

1. The Need for Jew-Gentile Unity

What sorts of needs existed at Rome that would call forth from Paul's pen the most magnificent gospel tract ever written? Several possibilities are suggested, but the one most commonly held begins with the assumption that there was considerable tension in the Roman church between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians. Thus the purpose of Paul's letter was to resolve this tension.

This view usually grows out of the speculations (discussed above) concerning the development of the Roman church following Claudius' decree expelling the Jews from Rome. With Jewish Christians being forced to leave Rome, the Gentile Christians became the dominant force; and this situation prevailed even after the former returned to Rome. This led to conflict between the two factions. This scenario is supported by the various references to Jews and Gentiles (Greeks) in Romans, by the discussion of the weak (Jews?) and the strong (Gentiles?) in 14:1-15:13, and by several references to unity and division within the church (12:16; 15:5; 16:17-18). Such texts seem to be evidence of a "basic division existing between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians at Rome" (P. Williams, "Purpose," 64).

This view has been argued by Marxsen and more recently by Wiefel, who concludes that Romans "was written to assist the Gentile Christian majority, who are the primary addressees of the letter, to live together with the Jewish Christians in one congregation, thereby putting an end to their quarrels about status" ("Community," 96). Here is Edwards' summary (15-16):

Romans is addressed to the problems which inevitably resulted when Jewish Christians began returning to Rome following the edict of Claudius. We can imagine their trials of readjusting to churches which had become increasingly Gentile in their absence. Would Gentile believers who had established their supremacy during the Jewish absence, and for whom the law was now largely irrelevant, continue to find a place within their fellowship for a Jewish Christian minority which still embraced the law? Paul cannot have been unaware of such concerns.

In Dunn's words, "Paul wrote to counter (potential) divisions within Rome among the Christian house churches, particularly the danger of gentile believers despising less liberated Jewish believers" (I:lvii). (See also Stott, 34-36.)

2. The Need for an Apostolic Foundation

Another possible need being addressed by Paul is related to the circumstances of the origin of the church in Rome. It is inferred from 15:20 that no apostle was involved in its founding, nor as yet had even visited Rome. Thus Paul was concerned that the church did not have a solid apostolic foundation (see Eph 2:20), and he writes this epistle in order to provide that foundation. This is the view of Günter Klein ("Purpose," 39, 42), but Morris (11-12) gives reasons for doubting it.

3. The Need for Paul's Gospel

Another possibility (to which I subscribe) is that Paul did indeed recognize the need of the Roman church to hear his apostolic preaching and teaching, but not necessarily in a foundational sense. This view begins with Paul's sense of duty, based upon his special calling, to preach the gospel to everyone in the Gentile world (1:14), including those in Rome: "That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome" (1:15).

But these people are already Christians. Why would Paul want to "preach the gospel" to believers ? Here is a point that is often missed: the gospel is more than just the initial evangelistic witness given to unbelievers with a view to their conversion. It also includes the deeper meaning and implications of the basic facts of salvation, which are things about which even mature believers can never hear enough. That Paul wanted to preach the gospel to the Christians in Rome means that he wanted to go deeper into the meaning of Christ's saving work "for our sins," unfolding for them the full power of the gospel in the Christian life and at the same time clearing up common misunderstandings that may arise through incomplete knowledge.

Paul's desire, of course, was to do this in person, and he had often planned to travel to Rome for this very reason. Up to this point, however, God's providence had prevented it (1:13; 15:22). Now he is once again planning to go to Rome, after his trip to Jerusalem with the offering. But based on his past experience and the uncertainty about what would happen to him in Jerusalem (Acts 20:22-24), at this point he could not be certain that he would ever reach Rome in person.

This led Paul to the conclusion that if he was ever going to preach the gospel in Rome, perhaps the only way he would be able to do so was in writing . Thus he takes the time, while staying in Corinth just before traveling to Jerusalem, to prepare a well-thought-out essay on the gospel as every Christian needs to hear it; and he sends it on to Rome in advance of his intended trip there. Thus it seems likely, says Campbell, that "the letter is the written equivalent of the oral presentation which Paul would have delivered to the congregation had he himself been present" ("Key," 258).

According to this view, then, Romans is not just a basic presentation of the gospel, written in order to provide the Roman Christians with a missing apostolic foundation. And as Nygren (7) rightly notes, "it is a misunderstanding of Romans to see in it a typical example of Paul's missionary preaching." This is contrary to those who think Paul was just introducing himself to the Roman church, hoping to win their support for his mission to Spain by rehearsing the gospel as he usually preached it. Stuhlmacher rightly notes that how Paul "preached and taught as a missionary cannot be simply inferred from the outline of Romans" ("Purpose," 242).

According to this view, then, the primary purpose for Romans is not related to some need within Paul himself (e.g., his concern for defending himself; his missionary plans); nor is it related to some negative situation in the Roman church (e.g., Jew-Gentile disunity). It is motivated rather by Paul's loving concern for his fellow-Christians at Rome, and his desire to bless their hearts and lives with this written version of the deeper aspects of the gospel of grace. This point is brought out very well by Hendriksen (I:24):

Paul, being an intensely warm and loving person, desires to go to Rome in order to be a blessing to his friends (Rom. 1:10, 11) and to be refreshed by them (15:32). Moreover, it is for this same reason that he, now that it is impossible for him to go to Rome immediately , communicates with the Roman church by means of this letter. He writes to the Romans because he loves them. They are his friends "in Christ," and by means of this letter he imparts his love to them . . . .

It is strange that this deeply personal reason . . . , a reason clearly brought out by the apostle himself, is often overlooked. At times the emphasis is placed entirely on theological motivation or on mission incentive: Paul wants to correct errors of the antinomians and/or wants to make Rome the headquarters for the evangelization of Spain. To be sure, these matters are important, but we should begin with the reason first stated by Paul himself in this very epistle.

D. CONCLUSION

We have surveyed the main reasons why Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans. It should be obvious that some of these reasons may overlap or be combined; so we need not focus narrowly upon just one of them. Jewett, for example, says the immediate reason was to resolve the Jew-Gentile tensions, but this was sought in order to gain a strong and unified backing for the mission to Spain ("Argument," 266). After summarizing the missionary, apologetic, and pastoral purposes, Dunn concludes that "all three of these main emphases and purposes hang together and indeed reinforce each other when taken as a whole" (I:lviii).

In my opinion, though, the dominant reason is the last one discussed above: Paul's desire to preach the gospel to the Romans, and his decision to do so in the form of an epistle. This is the factor that Paul stresses in the introductory section of the letter, where we would expect him to say what is closest to his heart. It seems inappropriate to give priority to ch. 15 on this matter, and to pass over what Paul himself chooses to mention first of all. Just because he tells the Romans about his plans in ch. 15 is no reason to assume that his purpose for writing to Rome is specifically or directly related to these plans.

We may conclude, then, that Romans is indeed an occasional letter, that it was occasioned by the need of the Roman Christians to hear Paul's gospel and by the circumstances that made it expedient for him to send it to them in written form at this particular time. Thus Romans is by design a clear presentation of the deeper implications of the gospel, written not for Paul's sake but for the sake of the church at Rome. The references to Paul's own plans and needs in ch. 15 are secondary.

At the same time, just because of the nature of the situation that caused Paul to write this epistle, the purpose for Romans includes the first view discussed above, namely, that it was intended to be a kind of doctrinal essay focusing on the meaning of salvation through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. As noted above, it is a systematic presentation of the gospel : not necessarily the gospel as proclaimed in an evangelistic situation, but the gospel as unfolded to mature Christians.

When this point is understood, we can see that the epistle to the Romans is intended not just for the saints in Rome in the middle of the first century A.D., but for all Christians in all ages. It is relevant for all since it deals with salvation from sin through God's grace. As Moo rightly says (I:21),

That Paul was dealing in Romans with immediate concerns in the early church we do not doubt. But, especially in Romans, these issues are ultimately the issues of the church - and the world - of all ages: the continuity of God's plan of salvation, the sin and need of human beings, God's provision for our sin problem in Christ, the means to a life of holiness, security in the face of suffering and death.

The circumstances contributing to the writing of this letter were far broader than the immediate situation in Rome and Paul's own immediate travel plans. They included Paul's own pre-Christian life as a Jew who sought acceptance with God on the basis of his own righteousness. They included Paul's twenty years of preaching to sinners of all types, Jews and Gentiles. They included his dealings with new Christians and new churches with all their weaknesses and problems. His experience and knowledge of human nature and human need were personal and comprehensive; thus the gospel of Romans is generic and timeless.

In most of the discussions of the purpose of Romans, a forgotten factor is the role of the Holy Spirit in the inspiration of Scripture. It is Paul himself who tells us that "all Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim 3:16). Whatever circumstances led Paul to compose his letter to the Romans, the choice to write and the message he wrote were not his alone. The Holy Spirit worked through Paul to produce this letter (see 2 Pet 1:20-21), and the Holy Spirit knows more than any man what is needed by every sinner and by every Christian seeking peace and power. In the final analysis it is the Spirit of God, and not just the Apostle Paul, who speaks to our hearts in the epistle to the Romans.

VII. THE THEME OF ROMANS

Almost everyone today rejects the idea that Romans is a compendium or summary of Christian theology as such. It is nevertheless generally recognized that the content of the epistle is doctrinal in nature. Its main body is an essay or treatise with a strong doctrinal emphasis and seems to be built around a particular theme. The question now is, exactly what is the theme of Romans? Several answers have been proposed.

A. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

The Reformation established a way of looking at Romans that still has considerable support among Protestants, namely, that the main theme of the epistle is stated in 1:16-17. It can be summed up in the familiar phrase, "justification by faith," i.e., justification or righteousness before God comes through faith alone. John Calvin (xxix) states succinctly that "the main subject of the whole Epistle" is "justification by faith."

Boers says this is the theme that "currently almost universally controls the interpretation of the letter" ( Justification , 77). This is surely an exaggeration, but the justification view is still very popular. Concerning the principal content of Romans, Nygren says (16), "From the beginning evangelical Christianity has spoken clearly on that point: justification by faith. That answer is correct." Defining "theme" as "central topic" rather than as exclusive topic, Hendriksen agrees that justification by faith, "spread out into 'justification by grace through faith'. . . , is clearly the theme of Romans" (I:29). Edwards (3) says that "the driving concern throughout is salvation - that righteousness comes as a free gift of God and is received by faith alone." Stott (35) says two themes are woven together in the epistle. "The first is the justification of guilty sinners by God's grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone, irrespective of either status or works."

Many scholars today have rejected this traditional approach. Though justification by faith is a main topic in Romans, says Boers (88), it "never becomes thematic." Too much of its subject matter simply does not relate to this subject, he says (78). Moo agrees (I:26-27). (See Stott, 24-31.)

B. THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

Those who are not satisfied with justification by faith as the theme for Romans sometimes opt for one that is very similar, namely, the righteousness of God (1:17). Beker says this is "the key term for the letter as a whole" ("Faithfulness," 331). Jewett says the thesis of Romans is that the gospel is "the 'power of God' to achieve the triumph of divine righteousness (Rom. 1:16-17)" ("Argument," 266).

Since the righteousness of God is integrally related to justification by faith, the two themes are sometimes confused. This is because one aspect of the theme of divine righteousness is that the righteousness of God is the basis for the personal justification of individual sinners. This is the sense in which Nygren says that the righteousness of God - in the sense of righteousness from God - is "the fundamental concept" and "the very foundation thought" of the epistle (9, 14-15), even though he says the "principal content" of the letter is justification by faith (16).

But most of those today who say that the righteousness of God is the theme of Romans are using the expression in a broader, more comprehensive sense. For them it includes the idea of the divine righteousness as the basis for individual justification, to be sure. For example, Stuhlmacher says the theme of Romans is "the gospel of the divine righteousness in Christ for those who believe from among the Jews and Gentiles" ("Theme," 334, 337). But in Romans, they say, the theme is more inclusive than this. It includes God's righteousness as the basis not only of his dealings with individual believers, but also of his dealings with mankind in general and especially with the Jewish nation in the context of redemptive history.

The question raised by the indiscriminate offer of justification by faith to both Jews and Gentiles is whether God is being fair with the Jews, in view of all the special treatment he has already bestowed upon them and the special promises he has given them. Does the gospel's "no partiality" principle bring God's justice or righteousness into question? "What is at stake is nothing less than the faithfulness of God," says Beker ("Faithfulness," 330); and this is what Paul is dealing with especially in Rom 9-11. Stuhlmacher explains that the "righteousness of God" refers to "the entire redemptive activity of God in Christ from creation to redemption" ("Theme," 341).

Thus according to this view the theme of Romans is not just the salvation of man but the defense of God, with perhaps the greater emphasis falling on the latter. As Fiensy says (227), "Romans is then a theodicy or defense of God in light of the Jewish-Gentile problem in the church." Gaertner says that the kinds of questions Paul raises in Romans (e.g., 3:3; 3:5; 3:29; 9:14) inquire into the nature of God's dealings with sinners, especially with his fairness and faithfulness. Thus Gaertner labels Romans "the gospel of God's fairness" ("Fairness," 1:14).

C. THE EQUALITY OF JEWS AND GENTILES

A third view is that the theme of Romans is the equality of Jews and Gentiles in God's plan of salvation. This is currently a popular view. It stems mainly from the reconstruction of the origin and development of the Roman church as described earlier in this introduction. It goes hand in hand with the idea that the letter is intended to deal with certain specific circumstances existing in Rome, especially the apparent disunity between Jewish and Gentile Christians. It recognizes that "the entire letter to the Romans is . . . permeated with Jew-Gentile issues" (Fiensy, Introduction , 230).

In its most general form this view says that the main emphasis of Romans is the universality of the gospel: there is just one way of salvation for Jews and Gentiles alike. The transcendent gospel goes beyond the Jew-Gentile distinction. God's salvation is given to both groups equally, favoring neither and offering favor to both.

Boers is an example of this view. He says the consistent theme of the main body of Romans is "salvation of Jews and gentiles, and the relationship between them" ( Justification , 80). This theme is stated in Rom 1:16, "that the gospel is the power of God for all who believe, to the Jews first, and to the Hellenes" (80). That salvation is offered to the Jews first is important, but so is the idea that "there is no difference between Jews and gentiles" (81-82).

Dunn says, "It is precisely the tension between 'Jew first but also Greek' (1:16), which . . . provides an integrating motif for the whole letter." Paul's "repeated emphasis on 'all'" underscores the theme of universality. Even the emphasis on the righteousness of God "is primarily an exposition of the same Jew/Gentile theme," i.e., it is Paul's way of arguing that Gentiles are full recipients of the saving grace of God as much as Jews are (I:lxii-lxiii).

As noted earlier, Stott says two themes are woven together in Romans, the first being justification by faith. But since this applies equally to all people, it is the "fundamental basis of Christian unity." This provides the second theme of Romans, that "'there is no difference' now between Jews and Gentiles. . . . Indeed, 'the single most important theme of Romans is the equality of Jews and Gentiles'" (35-36).

Interpreters differ as to the nature of the circumstances that led Paul to emphasize the theme of equality. Some say the Gentile Christians at Rome did not want to fully accept the Jewish Christians, so Romans is basically defending the right of the latter to full status in the Kingdom of God. This is how Boers understands the "Jews first" theme, as noted above. Jewett says, "Nowhere else in Paul's writings are the concerns of Jewish Christians taken up in so systematic and friendly a manner, thus counterbalancing the prejudices of the Gentile majority of Roman Christians" ("Argument," 276). The development of this theme in Rom 9-11 "is relevant to the situation in Rome," says Bruce. Here Paul "warns the Gentiles among his readers not to despise the Jews, . . . because God has not written them off" ("Debate," 183-184).

On the other hand, some say the problem in Rome was the status of the Gentile Christians. W. Williams says (19-20), "The Epistle to the Romans is a discussion of the relation of the Gentile world to God's plan of salvation." More specifically, Romans is Paul's "defense of the rights of the Gentiles against the Jewish assumption that excluded them from the Church, and from the chance of salvation." Thus "the sole intent of the apostle was to maintain the equality of the Gentiles against the assumption of the Jews." Stendahl agrees that Paul's concern is the salvation of the Gentiles. Even the subject of justification serves the purpose of "defending the rights of Gentile converts to be full and genuine heirs to the promises of God to Israel" ( Paul , 2-4).

Either way the subject is approached, the main point is the same: the principal theme of Romans is to demonstrate the equality of Jews and Gentiles with regard to the saving grace of God.

D. SINNERS ARE SAVED BY GRACE, NOT LAW

All of the themes discussed above are certainly present in Romans, and all are important. All of them contribute significantly to the main theme. But I believe none of them as such is the main point Paul is communicating to us in the epistle. Rather than seeing 1:16-17 as the thesis statement for Paul's treatise, I see it more or less as the starting point leading up to the thesis, which is 3:28: "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law."

In the most general sense Paul's thesis relates to the gospel , since his desire to preach the gospel in Rome (1:15) is what led him to compose the epistle as a written version of his gospel. In this sense Moo is correct: "What, then, is the theme of the letter? If we have to choose one - and perhaps it would be better not to - we would choose 'the gospel.'" Romans is simply "Paul's statement of 'his' gospel" (I:28).

But since the gospel is the good news about salvation, also in a general sense the theme of Romans is salvation . As Harrison says (7), "Salvation is the basic theme of Romans (cf. 1:16) - a salvation presented in terms of the righteousness of God, which, when received by faith, issues in life (1:17)." Or as Hendriksen says, the basic doctrine at stake (especially in 1:16-8:39) is " the manner in which sinners are saved" (I:25). And the manner in which sinners are saved, whether Jews or Gentiles, is the same: justification by faith.

But the theme of Romans is more precise than this. Yes, sinners are justified by faith, but this means they are not justified by works of law, which is the only alternative. It is just as important to include the negative statement in the theme as the positive one.

In actuality, then, the basic theme of Romans is the contrast between law and grace as ways of salvation. This contrast is seen especially in 3:28, which (literally translated) says, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law." The contrast is stated succinctly in 6:14, "You are not under law, but under grace." This is the gospel, the good news of salvation. Certainly it is good news to know that God justifies us by faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ. But in a real sense it is also good news to know that we are not justified by law-keeping: a way of salvation which is not only futile but which sinners in their hearts know is futile, and which thus leads only to self-deception or to despair.

Commenting on Romans, Grubbs says, "The Gospel versus the Law is the one theme of which he [Paul] never loses sight in the elaboration of the details of this wonderful production" (9). Though this is a very common way of speaking - "gospel versus law" - it is not altogether accurate. The real contrast is grace versus law, and this message as a whole is the gospel.

Thus Paul's theme is indeed that we are saved by grace, not by law. Law is not a viable option as a means of salvation; the only way for sinners to be counted righteous before God is by grace. Yes, we are justified by faith, but not by works of law. Yes, the righteousness of God figures prominently in our justification, but in contrast to the righteousness of man. Yes, Romans does emphasize full equality regarding this way of salvation; Jews and Gentiles are saved the same way. Both are saved by grace and justified by faith as provided by the righteousness of God, but in contrast with every false way.

This contrast between law and grace as competing ways of salvation is not a matter of OT versus NT nor Old Covenant versus New Covenant, as if law were the way to be saved prior to Christ and grace is the way to be saved now that Christ has come. Also, the contrast between law and grace - THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - is not simply the Law of Moses versus the grace of Jesus Christ. No sinner has ever been saved nor can be saved by the law that applies to him, whether it be the Law of Moses for Jews under the Old Covenant, or some other comparable set of God's commandments for anyone else in any other time. Every sinner who has been saved since the time of Adam has been saved by grace and not by law, and this will always be the case.

The problem that Paul addresses in the book of Romans is not one that confronts Jews only, nor Gentiles only. It is not a problem faced only by those who are under the Mosaic Law, nor only by those to whom the Mosaic Law does not apply. The problem being addressed is this: As a sinner, how can I be saved? It is a problem faced by Jews and Gentiles alike, and the solution is the same for both.

Perhaps even more significantly, the problem addressed in Romans is not one confronted only by unbelieving sinners. It is a problem that believers often wrestle with as well (e.g., the Judaizers). When we state the problem thus - "As a sinner, how can I be saved?" - we can break it down into two separate problems. First is the unbeliever's problem: "How can I become saved?" The answer is: by grace through faith, not by works of law. Second is the believer's continuing problem: "How can I stay saved?" And the answer is: by grace through faith, not by works of law.

This is why the epistle to the Romans has always been and always will be in a class by itself with regard to its impact on individuals and upon the church as a whole. Its basic theme is one that is always needed and always applicable, and one that will result in the highest praise to God the Redeemer once it is understood.

PREFACE TO VOLUME 2

The introductory issues regarding the book of Romans have been discussed in Vol. 1 of this work (pp. 21-55). Also, the outline for chs. 1-8 of Romans is included in that volume (pp. 55-58).

References to passages in the book of Romans itself are usually limited to chapter and verse data only. For my policy regarding quotations from other sources, see the note at the beginning of the bibliography.

I wish to express my thanks to my wife, Barbara, for her patience in accepting my writing schedule while this work has been in production. My thanks go also to College Press for inaugurating this project, and especially to College Press editor John Hunter for adjusting to a writer who suffers from incurable prolixity. Another special word of thanks is due to my employers at the Cincinnati Bible College and Seminary who encourage my writing in many ways, especially through their regular sabbatical policy.

Above all, thanks be to God for his saving grace, for his Holy Word, and especially for the letter to the Romans with its incomparable beauty and power.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following bibliography includes commentaries, books, and articles cited in the text and footnotes of this work. Citations include a minimum of information; the reader must use this list for full titles and bibliographical data.

When commentaries are cited, only the author's name and page number are given. When other sources are cited, usually just the author's name and an abbreviated title (in bold print below) are given.

I. COMMENTARIES

Barclay, William. The Letter to the Romans , 2 ed. The Daily Study Bible. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1957.

Barrett, C.K. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Harper's New Testament Commentaries. New York: Harper & Row, 1957; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987.

Bartlett, C. Norman. Right in Romans: Studies in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Chicago: Moody Press, 1953.

Batey, Richard A. The Letter of Paul to the Romans . Austin: R.B. Sweet, 1969.

Black, Matthew. Romans , 2 ed. New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.

Boice, James Montgomery. Romans , 4 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991ff.

Brokke, Harold J. Saved by His Life . Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1964.

Bruce, F.F. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . Tr. by John Owen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947 reprint.

Cranfield, C.E.B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. The International Critical Commentary, new series. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975 (1990 corrected printing).

DeWelt, Don. Romans Realized . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1959.

Dodd, C.H. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

Dunn, James D.G. Romans. 2 vols. Volume 38 in Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word Books, 1988.

Edwards, James R. Romans . New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992.

Erdman, Charles R. The Epistle to the Romans: An Exposition . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1925.

Godet, Frederic L. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Tr. by A. Cusin. Ed. by Talbot W. Chambers. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956 reprint of 1883 ed.

Greathouse, William M. Romans . Vol. 6 of Beacon Bible Expositions. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1975.

Grubbs, Isaiah Boone. An Exegetical and Analytical Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Ed. by George A. Kingman. 6th ed. Nashville: Gospel Advocate, n.d.

Harrison, Everett F. "Romans." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary . Volume 10. Ed. by Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976. Pp. 1-171.

Hendriksen, William. Exposition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980-1981.

Käsemann, Ernst. Commentary on Romans . Tr. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

Lard, Moses E. Commentary on Paul's Letter to Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

Lenski, R.C.H. The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press, 1945.

Lipscomb, David. Romans . Vol. I in A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles. 2nd ed. Ed. by J. W. Shepherd. Nashville: Gospel Advocate, 1965.

Lloyd-Jones, D.M. Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 3.20-4.25-Atonement and Justification . London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1970.

. Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 6-The New Man . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973.

. Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 7.1-8.4-The Law: Its Functions and Limits . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973.

Luther, Martin. Luther: Lectures on Romans . Ed. & tr. by Wilhelm Pauck. The Library of Christian Classics. Vol. XV. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961.

MacArthur, John, Jr. Romans . 2 vols. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody, 1991, 1994.

McGarvey, J.W., and Philip Y. Pendleton. Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

McClain, Alva J. Romans: The Gospel of God's Grace . Ed. by Herman A. Hoyt. Chicago: Moody Press, 1973.

Mitchell, John G., with Dick Bohrer. Right with God: A Devotional Study of the Epistle to the Romans . Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1990.

Moo, Douglas. Romans . 2 vols. The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary. Chicago: Moody, 1991.

Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.

Moser, K.C. The Gist of Romans , revised ed. Delight, AR: Gospel Light Publishing Company, 1958.

Moule, H.C.G. The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: The University Press, 1918.

Mounce, Robert H. Romans . Vol. 27 in The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995.

Murray, John. The Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. New International Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 1965.

Newell, William R. Lessons on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans . No publisher given, 1925.

Newman, Barclay M., and Eugene A. Nida. A Translator's Handbook on Paul's Letter to the Romans . London: United Bible Societies, 1973.

Nygren, Anders. Commentary on Romans . Tr. by Carl C. Rasmussen. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1949.

Reese, Gareth L. New Testament Epistles: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Moberly, MO: Scripture Exposition Press, 1987.

Robertson, A.T. The Epistles of Paul . Vol. IV in Word Pictures in the New Testament. Nashville: Broadman, 1931.

Sanday, William, and Arthur C. Headlam. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2nd ed. The International Critical Commentary, old series. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, n.d.

Schlatter, Adolf. Romans: The Righteousness of God . Tr. by Siegfried Schatzmann. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.

Shedd, William G.T. A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967 reprint of 1879 edition.

Shields, Bruce. Romans . Standard Bible Studies. Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1988.

Smith, Sherwood. Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 1 (1979); and Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 2 (1981). Joplin, MO: College Press.

Stedman, Ray C. From Guilt to Glory, Volume I: Romans 1-8 . Waco: Word Books, 1978.

Stott, John. Romans: God's Good News for the World . Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1994.

Williams, William G. An Exposition of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Cincinnati: Jennings and Pye, 1902.

Wuest, Kenneth S. Romans in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955.

II. MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Arndt, William F., and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature . 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.

Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine . Vol. XIV in The Works of Aurelius Augustine. Ed. by Marcus Dods. Tr. by J.G. Pilkington. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1876.

Balz, Horst. "ajpokaradokiva." Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament . Ed. by Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. I:132-133.

Bartchy, S. Scott. MALLON CHRESAI: First Century Slavery and the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:21 . Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, #11. Missoula: Scholars Press, 1973.

Beker, J.C. "The Faithfulness of God and the Priority of Israel in Paul's Letter to the Romans." RomDeb , 327-332.

Boers, Hendrikus. The Justification of the Gentiles: Paul's Letters to the Galatians and Romans . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.

Bornkamm, Günther. "The Letter to the Romans as Paul's Last Will and Testament." RomDeb , 16-28.

Boswell, John. Christianity , Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Bruce, F.F. "The Romans Debate -Continued." RomDeb , 177-194.

Campbell, William S. "Romans III as a Key to the Structure and Thought of the Letter." RomDeb , 251-264.

Carson, D.A. Exegetical Fallacies . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge . London: Oxford University Press, 1917.

Cooper, John W. Body , Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989.

Corson, John. " Faith Alone Involves Obedience, Too!" Christian Standard . (10/2/77), pp. 5-6.

Cottrell, Jack. Baptism : A Biblical Study . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1989.

. "Baptism According to the Reformed Tradition ." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins . Ed. by David W. Fletcher. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990. Pp. 39-81.

. "The Biblical Consensus : Historical Backgrounds to Reformed Theology." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins . Ed. by David W. Fletcher. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990. Pp. 17-38.

. " Covenant and Baptism in the Theology of Huldreich Zwingli." Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1971.

. " Faith , History, and the Resurrection Body of Jesus," The Seminary Review (Dec. 1982): 28:143-160.

. Faith's Fundamentals : Seven Essentials of Christian Belief . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1995.

. Gender Roles and the Bible: Creation, the Fall, and Redemption . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1994.

. His Truth . 2nd ed. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1989.

. Thirteen Lessons on Grace . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1988.

. What the Bible Says about God the Creator . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1984.

. What the Bible Says about God the Redeemer . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1987.

. What the Bible Says about God the Ruler . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1984.

Delling, G. "lambavnw, etc." TDNT, IV:5-15.

DeYoung, James B. "The Meaning of 'Nature' in Romans 1." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society , 31 (December 1988): 429-441.

Donfried, Karl P. "False Presuppositions in the Study of Romans." RomDeb , 102-125.

, ed. The Romans Debate . Revised & expanded edition. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991.

. "A Short Note on Romans 16." RomDeb , 44-52.

Erickson, Millard J. The Evangelical Mind and Heart . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.

Fiensy, David A. New Testament Introduction . The College Press NIV Commentary. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1994.

Foerster, Werner. "swvzw, etc." TDNT, VII:965-1024.

Friedrich, Gerhard. "eujaggelivzomai, etc." TDNT, II:707-737.

Fuller, Daniel P. The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God's Plan for Humanity . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

Gaertner, Dennis. "Romans: Gospel of God's Fairness ." Christian Standard , part 1 (12/20/87), pp. 14-16; and part 2 (12/27/87), pp. 4-6.

Graber, Friedrich. "All, Many." The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology . Ed. by Colin Brown. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975. I:94-97.

Gromacki, Robert. The Virgin Birth : Doctrine of Deity . Nashville: Nelson, 1974.

Gundry, Robert H. Sôma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.

Harris, M.J. " Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament." Appendix. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology . Ed. by Colin Brown. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978. III:1171-1213.

Hobbs, A. I. " Conversion : What Is It, and How Produced?" In The Old Faith Restated . Ed. by J.H. Garrison. St. Louis: Christian Publishing Company, 1891. Pp. 254-274.

Hodges, Zane C. Absolutely Free . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.

Jervell, Jacob. "The Letter to Jerusalem." RomDeb , 53-64.

Jeremias, Joachim. The Central Message of the New Testament . London: SCM Press, 1965.

Jewett, Robert. "Following the Argument of Romans." RomDeb , 265-277.

Kittel, Gerhard, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament . Tr. & ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapid: Eerdmans, 1964-1976.

Klein, Günter. "Paul's Purpose in Writing the Epistle to the Romans." RomDeb , 29-43.

Lamar, J.S. "The Ground of Man's Need of Salvation." In The Old Faith Restated . Ed. by J.H. Garrison. St. Louis: Christian Publishing Company, 1891. Pp. 98-119.

Lewis, C.S. The Abolition of Man . New York: Macmillan, 1947.

Luther, Martin. "Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Writings ." In Vol. 34: Career of the Reformer IV . Luther's Works (American Edition). Ed. by Lewis W. Spitz and Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960. Pp. 327-338.

. " Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans." In Vol. 35: Word and Sacrament I . Luther's Works (American Edition). Ed. by E. Theodore Bachmann and Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960. Pp. 365-380.

MacArthur, John F., Jr. The Gospel According to Jesus: What Does Jesus Mean When He Says, "Follow Me"? Revised ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.

Maurer, Christian. " ." TDNT, VIII:557-558.

. "pravssw, etc." TDNT, VI:632-644.

Milligan, Robert. Exposition and Defense of the Scheme of Redemption . St. Louis: Bethany Press, n.d.

Moreland, J.P., and David Ciocchi, eds. Christian Perspectives on Being Human: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Integration . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.

Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross . 3 ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.

Murray, John. The Imputation of Adam's Sin . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959.

Nash, Donald A. "A Critique of the New International Version of the New Testament." Cincinnati: Christian Restoration Association, n.d.

Oepke, Albrecht. "kaqivsthmi, etc." TDNT, III:444-447.

Reese, Gareth L. New Testament History: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Acts . 2nd ed. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1976.

Rengstorf, Karl Heinrich. "dou'lo", etc." TDNT, II:261-280.

Ridderbos, Herman. Paul : An Outline of His Theology . Tr. by John R. de Witt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

Rueda, Enrique. The Homosexual Network : Private Lives and Public Policy . Old Greenwich, CT: Devin Adair, 1982.

Ryrie, Charles C. So Great Salvation : What It Means to Believe in Jesus Christ . Wheaton: Scripture Press/Victor Books, 1989.

Sanders, E.P. Paul and Palestinian Judaism . London: SCM, 1977.

Schaff, Philip. " Preface ." In John Peter Lange, Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Romans . Tr. by Philip Schaff. Grand Rapids: Zondervan reprint, n.d.

Schneider, Johannes. "parabaivnw, paravbasi", etc." TDNT, V:736-744.

Schrenk, Gottlob. "iJerov", etc." TDNT, III:221-283.

Spicq, Ceslas. Theological Lexicon of the New Testament . Tr. by James D. Ernest. 3 volumes. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.

Stendahl, Krister. Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays . Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

Stuhlmacher, Peter. "The Purpose of Romans." RomDeb , 231-242.

. "The Theme of Romans." RomDeb , 333-345.

Thielman, Frank. Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach . Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994.

Thiessen, Henry. Introduction to the New Testament . 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1944.

Trench, Richard Chenevix. Synonyms of the New Testament . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958.

Tyndale, William. "A Prologe to the Epistle of Paule to the Romayns." In The New Testament, Translated by William Tyndale, 1534 . Ed. by N. Hardy Wallis. Cambridge: University Press, 1938. Pp. 293-318.

Unger, Merrill F. Unger's Bible Dictionary . 3rd ed. Chicago: Moody Press, 1966.

Vincent, Marvin R. The Epistles of Paul . Vol. III in Word Studies in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973 reprint of 1887 edition.

Watson, Francis. "The Two Roman Congregations : Romans 14:1-15:13." RomDeb , 203-215.

Wesley, John. Journal from October 14, 1735, to November 29, 1745 . Vol. I in The Works of John Wesley. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, reprint of 1872 ed.

Wedderburn, A.J.M. "The Purpose and Occasion of Romans Again," RomDeb , 195-202.

Wiefel, Wolfgang. "The Jewish Community in Ancient Rome and the Origins of Roman Christianity." RomDeb , 85-101.

Wiens, Delbert. "An Exegesis of Romans 5:12-21." Journal of Church and Society (Fall 1969): 5:42-54.

Williams, Philip R. "Paul's Purpose in Writing Romans." Bibliotheca Sacra (January-March 1971): 128:62-67.

Young, Richard. Intermediate N.T. Greek : A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach . Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY TO VOLUME 2

The following bibliography includes commentaries, books, and articles cited in the text and footnotes of this work. Citations include a minimum of information; the reader must use this list for full titles and bibliographical data.

When commentaries are cited, only the author's name and page number are given. When other sources are cited, usually just the author's name and an abbreviated title (in bold print below) are given. Some sources are cited with an even more abbreviated reference (see list of abbreviations).

I. COMMENTARIES

Achtemeier, Paul J. Romans . Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985.

Barrett, C.K. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Harper's New Testament Commentaries. New York: Harper & Row, 1957; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987.

Black, Matthew. Romans . 2nd ed. New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.

Bruce, F.F. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963.

Brunner, Emil. The Letter to the Romans: A Commentary . Trans. H.A. Kennedy. London: Lutterworth Press, 1959.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . Trans. John Owen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947 reprint.

Cottrell, Jack. Romans , Vol. 1. The College Press NIV Commentary. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996.

Cranfield, C.E.B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. The International Critical Commentary, n.s. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975 (1990 corrected printing).

Denney, James. "St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans." In The Expositor's Greek Testament , ed. W. Robertson Nicoll, II:555-725. New York: George H. Doran, n.d.

DeWelt, Don. Romans Realized . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1959.

Dodd, C.H. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans . New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

Dunn, James D.G. Romans . 2 vols. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word Books, 1988.

Earle, Ralph. Romans . Vol. 3 of Word Meanings in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974.

Edwards, James R. Romans . New International Biblical Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary . The Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

Godet, Frederic L. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . Trans. A. Cusin. Ed. Talbot W. Chambers. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956 reprint of 1883 ed.

Griffith Thomas, W.H. Romans: A Devotional Commentary . 3 vols. London: Religious Tract Society, n.d.

Haldane, Robert. An Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans . MacDill AFB: MacDonald Publishing, 1958.

Harrison, Everett F. "Romans." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , Volume 10, pp. 1-171. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.

Hendriksen, William. New Testament Commentary: Exposition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980-1981.

Hughes, R. Kent. Romans: Righteousness from Heaven . Preaching the Word. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991.

Käsemann, Ernst. Commentary on Romans . Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

Lard, Moses E. Commentary on Paul's Letter to Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

Lenski, R.C.H. The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans . Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press, 1945.

Lloyd-Jones, D.M. Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 9 - God's Sovereign Purpose . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.

Luther, Martin. Luther: Lectures on Romans . Ed. & Trans. Wilhelm Pauck. Vol. XV of The Library of Christian Classics. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961.

MacArthur, John, Jr. Romans . 2 vols. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody, 1991, 1994.

McGarvey, J.W., and Philip Y. Pendleton. Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, n.d.

McGuiggan, Jim. The Book of Romans . Lubbock, TX: Montex Publishing Company, 1982.

Moo, Douglas. The Epistle to the Romans . The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.

Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.

Moule, H.C.G. The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans . The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: The University Press, 1918.

Mounce, Robert H. Romans . Vol. 27 of The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995.

Murray, John. The Epistle to the Romans . 2 vols. New International Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, 1965.

Newman, Barclay M., and Eugene A. Nida. A Translator's Handbook on Paul's Letter to the Romans . London: United Bible Societies, 1973.

Nygren, Anders. Commentary on Romans . Trans. Carl C. Rasmussen. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1949.

Sanday, William, and Arthur C. Headlam. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans . 2nd ed. The International Critical Commentary, o.s. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, n.d.

Shedd, William G.T. A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967 reprint of 1879 edition.

Smith, Sherwood. Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 1 (1979). Thirteen Lessons on Romans . Vol. 2 (1981). Joplin, MO: College Press.

Stott, John. Romans: God's Good News for the World . Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994.

Vanderlip, George. Paul and Romans . Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1967.

Wuest, Kenneth S. Romans in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955.

II. MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Arndt, William F., and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature . 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.

Bilezikian, Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles . 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990.

Büchsel, Friedrich. "krivnw [etc.]." TDNT . III:921-954.

Cottrell, Jack. Baptism : A Biblical Study . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1989.

. "Baptism According to the Reformed Tradition ." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins , ed. David W. Fletcher, pp. 39-81. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990.

. "The Biblical Consensus : Historical Backgrounds to Reformed Theology." In Baptism and the Remission of Sins , ed. David W. Fletcher, pp. 17-38. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990.

. Faith's Fundamentals : Seven Essentials of Christian Belief . Cincinnati: Standard Publishing, 1995.

. Feminism and the Bible: An Introduction to Feminism for Christians . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1992.

. " 1 Timothy 2:12 and the Role of Women." Four parts. Christian Standard , January 10, 1993, pp. 4-6; January 17, 1993, pp. 4-6; January 24, 1993, pp. 4-6; January 31, 1993, pp. 4-6.

. " Priscilla , Phoebe, and Company." Christian Standard , December 12, 1993, pp. 4-5.

. " Response to My Critics." Three parts. Christian Standard , November 21, 1993, pp. 5-6; November 28, 1993, pp. 4-6; December 5, 1993, pp. 4-6.

. Tough Questions , Biblical Answers. Part Two. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1986.

. What the Bible Says about God the Creator . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1983.

. What the Bible Says about God the Redeemer . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1987.

. What the Bible Says about God the Ruler . Joplin, MO: College Press, 1984.

Delling, Gerhard. " , ." TDNT . VIII:523-524.

. "tavssw [etc.]." TDNT . VIII:27-32.

Donfried, Karl P., ed. The Romans Debate , revised & expanded edition. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991.

. "A Short Note on Romans 16." RomDeb , 44-52.

Forster, Roger T., and V. Paul Marston. God's Strategy in Human History . Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1974.

Fürst, Dieter. " Confess ." In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology , ed. Colin Brown, I:344-348. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975.

Gaertner, Dennis. Acts . The College Press NIV Commentary. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993.

Hoekema, Anthony A. The Bible and the Future . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.

Hübner, Hans. "a[timo"." In Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testamen t, ed. Horst Balz & Gerhard Schneider, I:177. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.

Keil, C.F. and F. Delitzsch. The Pentateuch . Trans. by James Martin. Vol. 1 of Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981.

Kittel, Gerhard, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament . Trans. & ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-1976.

Köster, Helmut. "tevmnw [etc.]." TDNT . VIII:106-112.

Lampe, Peter. "The Roman Christians of Romans 16 ." RomDeb , 216-230.

Lewis, C.S. The Four Loves . London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960.

Michaelis, W. "mavcaira." TDNT . IV:524-527.

Nash, Donald A. "A Critique of the New International Version of the New Testament." Cincinnati: Christian Restoration Association, n.d.

Oepke, Albrecht. "zevw, zestov"." TDNT . II:875-877.

Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things To Come . Findlay, OH: Dunham, 1958.

Pinnock, Clark H. "From Augustine to Arminius: A Pilgrimage in Theology." In The Grace of God, the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism , ed. Clark H. Pinnock, pp. 15-30. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.

Piper, John. The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23 . 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993.

Reicke, Bo. "proi?sthmi." TDNT . VI:700-703.

Schreiner, Thomas R. "Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election unto Salvation?" In vol. 1 of The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will , ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware, pp. 89-106. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins . New York: Crossroad, 1987.

Shank, Robert. Elect in the Son: A Study of the Doctrine of Election . Springfield, MO: Westcott Publishers, 1970.

Sherlock, William. A Discourse Concerning the Divine Providence . Pittsburgh: J.L. Read, 1848.

Spencer, Aida B. Beyond the Curse : Women Called to Ministry . Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985.

Spicq, Ceslas. Theological Lexicon of the New Testament . 3 vol. Trans. James D. Ernest. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.

Stählin, Gustav. " [etc.]." TDNT . IX:113-171.

. "skavndalon, skandalivzw." TDNT . VII:339-358.

Stendahl, Krister. Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays . Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

Trench, Richard Chenevix. Synonyms of the New Testament . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958.

Walters, James. "' Phoebe ' and 'Junia(s)' - Rom. 16:1-2, 7." In Vol. 1 of Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity , ed. Carroll D. Osburn, pp. 167-190. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993.

Weiss, K. "fevrw [etc.]." TDNT . IX:56-87.

Wright, N.T. The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology . Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.

. "The Messiah and the People of God." Oxford University: D.Phil. dissertation, 1980.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

AG Arndt and Gingrich, Greek lexicon

ASV American Standard Version

GC God the Creator, by Jack Cottrell

GRe God the Redeemer, by Jack Cottrell

GRu God the Ruler, by Jack Cottrell

KJV King James Version

LB Living Bible

LXX Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT)

MP McGarvey-Pendleton Romans commentary

NAB New American Bible

NASB New American Standard Bible

NEB New English Bible

NIV New International Version

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NT New Testament

OT Old Testament

RomDeb The Romans Debate, by Karl Donfried

RSV Revised Standard Version

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the NT, ed. Kittel

TEV Today's English Version

For fuller titles and publishing information on books, see the Bibliography.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: Romans (Outline)

VIII. OUTLINE

PROLOGUE - 1:1-17

I. EPISTOLARY GREETING - 1:1-7

A. The Author Introduces Himself - 1:1

1. A Slave of Christ Jesus

2. Called to Be an Apostle

3. Set Apart for the Gospel of God

B. The Gospel and the Old Testament - 1:2

C. The Subject of the Gospel Is Jesus - 1:3-4

1. The Two Natures of Jesus

2. The Incarnation

3. Messiahship

4. The Two States of Jesus

5. The Resurrection of Jesus

6. The Son's Full Identity

D. Paul's Apostleship - 1:5

1. The Origin of Paul's Apostleship

2. The Character of Paul's Apostleship

3. The Focus of Paul's Apostleship

4. The Purpose of Paul's Apostleship

5. The Goal of Paul's Apostleship

E. The Recipients of Paul's Letter - 1:6-7a

F. The Blessing - 1:7b

II. PERSONAL REMARKS - 1:8-15

A. Paul's Prayers for the Romans - 1:8-10

B. Paul's Desires Regarding Rome - 1:11-13

C. Paul's Debt to the Romans - 1:14-15

III. TRANSITIONAL STATEMENT - 1:16-17

A. The Glory of the Gospel - 1:16a

B. The Power of the Gospel - 1:16b

C. The Scope of the Gospel - 1:16c

D. Faith and the Gospel - 1:16c

1. Faith Is a Condition for Salvation

2. Faith Is Not the Only Condition

E. The Heart of the Gospel - 1:17a

F. The Golden Text of the Gospel - 1:17b

PART ONE:

THE IMPOTENCE OF LAW AS A WAY OF SALVATION - 1:18-3:20

I. THE SINFULNESS OF THE GENTILES - 1:18-32

A. Universal Knowledge of God and His Law - 1:18-20

B. Universal Rejection of the True God - 1:21-25

C. The Utter Depths of Gentile Depravity - 1:26-32

II. THE SINFULNESS OF THE JEWS - 2:1-3:8

A. Jews Are Under the Wrath of God, No Less Than the Gentiles - 2:1-5

B. God Will Be Partial to No One in the Judgment - 2:6-11

C. Under Law, the Criterion of Judgment Is Obedience Alone- 2:12-16

D. Jews Who Look to the Law for Salvation Are Condemned by Their Own Disobedience - 2:17-24

E. True Jewishness Is Identified Not by Circumcision but by the Inward State of the Heart - 2:25-29

F. Such Equal Treatment of Jews and Gentiles Does Not Nullify But Rather Magnifies God's Righteousness - 3:1-8

III. UNIVERSAL SINFULNESS AND HOPELESSNESS UNDER LAW - 3:9-20

PART TWO:

THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE AS A WAY OF SALVATION - 3:21-5:21

I. GRACE AS JUSTIFICATION BY CHRIST'S BLOOD THROUGH FAITH - 3:21-31

A. Righteousness Through Faith Is Now Fully Revealed - 3:21-23

B. Sinners Are Justified by the Blood of Christ - 3:24-26

C. Sinners Are Justified by Faith Apart from Works of Law - 3:27-28

D. The Way of Grace Is Available to All - 3:29-30

E. Grace Lets Law Do Its Proper Work - 3:31

II. ABRAHAM: PARADIGM OF GRACE - 4:1-25

A. Abraham Was Justified by Faith Apart from Works - 4:1-5

B. David Explains and Confirms Justification by Faith Apart from Works - 4:6-8

C. Membership in Abraham's Family Is by Faith, Not by Circumcision - 4:9-12

D. The Inheritance Promised to Abraham Comes by Faith, Not by Law - 4:13-17a

E. Faith Means Giving Glory to God and Believing His Promises - 4:17b-22

F. Those Who Believe Like Abraham Are Justified Like Abraham - 4:23-25

III. GRACE AND ASSURANCE - 5:1-21

A. Assurance of Personal Salvation - 5:1-11

1. Justification by Faith Is the Key to Assurance - 5:1-2

2. Tribulations of Believers Do Not Nullify Assurance - 5:3-5

3. Christ Died for Us While We Were Still Sinners - 5:6-8

4. Our Hope Is Even More Secure Now That We Are His Friends - 5:9-11

B. The All-Sufficiency of the Death of Christ - 5:12-21

1. One Sin of One Man (Adam) Brought Sin and Death to All - 5:12-14

2. Christ and His Sacrifice Are Greater Than Adam and His Sin - 5:15-17

3. Christ's Cross Completely Cancels the Results of Adam's Sin - 5:18-19

4. Grace Triumphs over Sin and Death - 5:20-21

PART THREE:

THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF GRACE GIVES VICTORY OVER SIN - 6:1-8:39

I. OBJECTIONS TO GRACE BASED ON A FEAR OF ANTINOMIANISM - 6:1-7:13

A. Does Grace Make Sin Irrelevant? NO! - 6:1-14

B. Does Freedom from Law Mean We Are Free to Sin? NO!- 6:15-7:6

1. We Are Slaves to God - 6:15-23

2. We Obey God from Our Hearts - 7:1-6

C. Does Grace Mean That Law Is Bad? NO! - 7:7-13

II. GRACE GIVES VICTORY OVER SIN - 7:14-8:13

A. The Christian Continues to Struggle Against Sin - 7:14-25

1. The Nature of the Struggle - 7:14-20

2. The Source of the Struggle - 7:21-25

B. Victory over Sin Comes Through the Holy Spirit - 8:1-13

1. God Frees Us from Sin's Penalty and Power - 8:1-4

2. Sin and Death Are Defeated in Us Through the Holy Spirit - 8:5-13

III. THE ASSURANCE OF FINAL AND TOTAL VICTORY OVER THE FALLEN WORLD - 8:14-39

A. The Holy Spirit Marks Us as Sons and Heirs - 8:14-17

B. The Redeemed Cosmos Is Our Inheritance - 8:18-25

C. God Promises to Bring His Family Through Earthly Trials - 8:26-30

D. God's Gracious Love Gives Us Unshakable Assurance - 8:31-39

PART FOUR:

THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

IN HIS DEALINGS WITH THE JEWS - 9:1-11:36

I. THE PROBLEM OF ISRAEL: THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF THE JEWISH NATION - 9:1-5

A. Israel's Agony: They Are Accursed - 9:1-3

B. Israel's Ecstasy: They Are Recipients of Unspeakably Glorious Privileges - 9:4-5

II. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ETHNIC AND SPIRITUAL ISRAEL - 9:6-29

A. Israel's Situation and God's Faithfulness - 9:6-13

1. God's Word Concerning Israel Has Not Failed - 9:6a

2. The Key to the Puzzle: the Existence of Two Israels - 9:6b

3. Ethnic Israel Exists by God's Sovereign Choice - 9:7-13

a. The Choice of Isaac - 9:7-9

b. The Choice of Jacob - 9:10-13

B. God's Right to Choose and Use People without Saving Them - 9:14-18

1. God's Righteousness Is Challenged - 9:14

2. God's Sovereignty in Election for Service - 9:15-16

3. God's Purposes Can Be Served by the Unsaved - 9:17-18

C. God Used Ethnic Israel to Produce Spiritual Israel - 9:19-29

1. The Objection - 9:19

2. Paul's Initial Rebuke of the Objector's Attitude - 9:20-21

3. Beyond Ethnic Israel to Spiritual Israel - 9:22-24

a. The Calvinist View

b. Seeing Paul Through Non-Calvinist Eyes

4. Prophetic Confirmation of God's Purpose - 9:25-29

III. ISRAEL'S CHOICE OF LAW RATHER THAN GRACE 9:30-10:21

A. Personal Righteousness Versus the Righteousness of God- 9:30-10:3

1. The Reason for the Gentiles' Acceptance - 9:30

2. The Reason for the Jews' Lostness - 9:31-33

3. The Jews' Rejection of God's Righteousness - 10:1-3

B. Christ Alone Is the Source of Saving Righteousness - 10:4-13

1. An Either-Or Choice: Works-Righteousness, or Faith in Christ - 10:4

2. The Futility of Law-Righteousness - 10:5

3. Saving Righteousness Comes through Trusting Christ's Works, Not Our Own - 10:6-10

4. God's Righteousness Is Available Equally to Jews and Gentiles - 10:11-13

C. The Jews Have Not Believed in Christ, and Their Unbelief Is Inexcusable - 10:14-21

1. The Necessary Prerequisites to Saving Faith - 10:14-15

2. Most Jews Have Not Believed the Gospel Message - 10:16

3. The Jews' Problem Is Not Ignorance but Stubbornness of Will - 10:17-21

IV. THE SALVATION OF GOD'S TRUE ISRAEL - 11:1-32

A. God's True Israel Is the Remnant Chosen by Grace - 11:1-6

1. God Has Not Rejected His People - 11:1-2a

2. God Had a Remnant of Believers in the OT - 11:2b-4

3. Those under Grace Are God's New Covenant Israel - 11:5-6

B. Unbelieving Israel Has Been Hardened - 11:7-10

C. The Hardening of Unbelieving Israel Becomes a Blessing

for Both the Gentiles and the Jews - 11:11-16

D. The Olive Tree: A Metaphor of Judgment and Hope - 11:17-24

1. Words of Warning to Gentile Christians - 11:17-22

2. Words of Hope for Hardened Jews - 11:23-24

E. God's Plan for Israel's Salvation - 11:25-32

1. The Mystery of Israel's Salvation - 11:25-27

2. God's Continuing Love for Israel - 11:28-29

3. God's Ultimate Purpose Is Mercy - 11:30-32

V. DOXOLOGY: GOD'S WAY IS RIGHT - 11:33-36

PART FIVE:

LIVING THE SANCTIFIED LIFE - 12:1-15:13

I. A CATALOGUE OF VIRTUES - 12:1-13:14

A. Grace Demands a Transformed Life - 12:1-2

B. Using the Gifts of Grace for Unselfish Service - 12:3-8

C. Miscellaneous Moral Teaching - 12:9-16

D. Personal Vengeance Is Forbidden - 12:17-21

E. The Relation between Citizens and Government - 13:1-7

F. The Relation between Love and Law - 13:8-10

G. Walking in the Light - 13:11-14

II. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY IN MATTERS OF OPINION - 14:1-15:13

A. Do Not Judge Others in Matters of Opinion - 14:1-12

1. We Should Accept All Whom God Has Accepted - 14:1-3

2. We Answer to Our Lord and Not to Each Other - 14:4-9

3. Each of Us Will Be Judged by God - 14:10-12

B. The Stewardship of Christian Liberty 14:13-23

1. We Must Sacrifice Our Liberty for the Sake of the Weak - 14:13-15

2. Do Not Allow What You Consider Good to Be Spoken of as Evil - 14:16-18

3. We Must Do Only Those Things Which Build Others Up - 14:19-21

4. Each Christian Must Be True to His Own Convictions - 14:22-23

C. Living in Unity and Hope - 15:1-13

1. Selfless Service Produces a Unified Witness - 15:1-6

2. Through Christ's Selfless Service, Jews and Gentiles Glorify God Together - 15:7-12

3. A Prayer That All Believers May Abound in Hope - 15:13

PART SIX:

PERSONAL MESSAGES FROM PAUL - 15:14-16:27

I. PAUL'S MINISTRY AS THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES - 15:14-33

A. Reflections on His Past Service - 15:14-22

B. His Plans for the Future - 15:23-29

C. His Request for Prayer - 15:30-33

II. PAUL AND HIS FELLOW WORKERS - 16:1-24

A. Commendation of Phoebe - 16:1-2

B. Greetings to Individual Acquaintances - 16:3-16

C. Warnings against False Teachers - 16:17-20

D. Greetings from Paul's Companions - 16:21-24

III. CONCLUDING DOXOLOGY - 16:25-27

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV