Eternity Daily Bible Study: No. 543 Romans 1-8 - A Righteousness That Is By Faith Verses: Romans 8:31-34 Topic: God Is On Our Side Date: 18th November 2005 Romans 8:31-34 MKJV What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (32) Truly He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (33) Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies. (34) Who is he condemning? It is Christ who has died, but rather also who is raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. "God is for us!" - what wonderful news! God is on the side of the Christian and wants the very, very best for us. All pictures of a scolding deity vanish with this one thought! God is for us! In these few verses Paul bombards us with good news: 1.God is for us - so who can be against us? 2.He did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all. 3.He will freely give us all things. 4.God has chosen as we are "God's elect". 5.No one can accuse us because God has justified us. 6.No one can condemn us because Christ intercedes on our side in every such dispute and He is at God's right hand. Now is God is on our side then His Creation, which obeys His will, the Universe, is also on our side. The elect angels, the planets, the stars, the trees and even the weather is on the side of God's saints! We can expect things to work out for us, and to work together for our good (Romans 8:28). Here is the ground for optimism and the cure for cynicism. Here is the cure for all our paranoia in a world that seems to have gone crazy. God is for us and has no interest in harming us whatsoever, and will work all things, in this world, and the world to come, together for our good. We have all the "luck" we need in the goodwill of the Almighty. God has given Christ for you and I - and if He will give us His own Son, how much more will He give us other things - the Holy Spirit, grace, redemption and glory? And He will give us also "our daily bread" - all the ordinary material needs of a saint. This is good ground for confident prayer! God loves us, has chosen us, and is willing to give us "all things" but these things are given "with Christ" and not apart from Christ: how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? God can give you anything that can come "with Christ" - joy, peace, hope, love, sanctification, glory, immortality and eternal life. But God will not give you things that do not come "with Christ" - such as wild living, carnality, fleshly indulgence, wrath, dissension, ego and vanity! When we pray for the things that come 'with Christ" God cheerfully gives them to us - because God is the most cheerful giver of them all! God gives to us exuberantly because God loves us and is for us. We do not have to earn them from a grudging and reluctant God - indeed He freely gives us all these things! Much of these verses seems to be concerned about living the Christian life in the midst of hostile opposition - that the Roman Christians were then dealing with. The very next verses are: Romans 8:35-37 MKJV Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (36) As it is written, "For Your sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep of slaughter." (37) But in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us. Paul talks about "if God is for us, who then can be against us?" and then goes on to talk about being "charged" and "condemned". Romans was written probably just before the savage Neronian persecution in AD 64 when Christians were later fed to lions and even covered in tar and used as human torches. But even in AD 57-60 when Romans is thought to have been written, Christians were considered "odious". The whole Roman imperial power was against them, and was charging them and condemning them! Physical victory was impossible but a victory of the spirit, the ability to pray and rejoice even in persecution and even in martyrdom was theirs. Though the whole empire charge them God would justify them! Though the Emperor would condemn them - Christ would intercede for them. And Christ is higher than the Emperor, for Jesus stands at the very right hand of God! So we have two opposing thoughts here. God, His angels and His Creation is for us, but the world and its arrogant demonic empires are against us. God will give us all things, but our persecutors may try to remove them from us. There is a tussle, but God will win in the end, for this world and its empires and persecutors are simply passing away. Now this can be confusing for us. How can God be "for" the Romans and yet allow them to be "slaughtered like sheep all day long"? Is God so powerless? Can He not protect us from persecution and disaster? Sometimes God does protect us and place a hedge around us. At other times He gives us the glory of suffering for His name's sake. This is His choice, not ours, for I think that every sane person prefers to be protected! God only allows the suffering in our life that will glorify both us and Him. The suffering of a lonely missionary on a remote outstation can be intense and prolonged. But Christ is forged in that heart, and the saint is made glorious and the gospel is preached to those who most need to hear it. With the suffering is given the means to spiritual victory over it, and the way to pass through the fire and the flood unharmed in our inmost being. The key to victory for the Roman Christians as they saw family members abused and cruelly treated by imperial guards was to know that God was with them even in this. Indeed that this trial was not because of their sins, nor was it for something they had done wrong. God deals with our sin by declaring us to be OK. God justifies us, and Christ Himself intercedes for us! This trial was not punishment from God, it was from the Devil who would soon be crushed under their feet (Romans 16:20)! God was on their side and the reward that was to come would far outweigh the sufferings of the present time. Romans 8:17-18 MKJV And if we are children, then we are heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; so that if we suffer with Him, we may also be glorified together. (18) For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed in us. 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