Romans 8:29–39

Notice something important. The apostle does not speak of a passive or bare foreknowledge (v. 29), as if God only saw in advance what some people would be, or do, or believe. His foreknowledge is of persons, not of their state or conduct; it is not what, but "whom" He foreknew.

In eternal love He foreknew each of the individual people in His purpose... And those whom He foreknew in this way, by an absolute and sovereign purpose, He also predestined to the blessing appointed for them. Being conformed to the image of His own Son is the destination of those He foreknew. It is not glory in general, but the exact likeness of Christ, that is the destiny — and, in a sense, the definition — of each individual saint.

Next is predestination to be conformed to the image of His Son. Mark it well. This is not merely predestination to be saved. It is predestination to future glory, conformed to the image of Christ, who is Himself "the image of God." The moral side of the truth is surely the prominent one here. The purity, holiness, and every other blessed virtue of our Lord will have its bright reflection in His saints... Elsewhere we also learn that even our bodies will be made like His body of glory (Philippians 3:21).

It is possible to walk as He walked. In that sense we can be like Christ in character even now. But for conformity to His image we must wait for the coming glory. We are still in these lowly bodies. We are subject to sickness and need, and exposed to danger and death.

His title here — "the firstborn among many brothers" — is clearly about priority in His Person, not about being born first. Colossians 1:15-16 confirms this principle about the "firstborn." Christ is "the firstborn of all creation." Why? "For by Him all things were created."... The title is an official rank, far above any question of time... Yet we may thank God that in grace He has "many" whom He is not ashamed to call brothers (Hebrews 2:11).

We were called according to purpose, and as foreknown of God. He has predestinated us to be like His Son — but note, it is that HE might be pre-eminent, the Firstborn in that happy circle in heavenly glory.

From God's foreknowledge of us in eternity past to the finished glory of the future, the chain of blessing is perfectly linked. No link in it can ever be broken. God's purpose is that Christ His Son should be a Firstborn among many brothers... Here He is seen as man, a "Firstborn," and that word implies others... God's purpose therefore includes, of necessity, these. If it failed as to the brothers, it would fail as to the Son of His love. They are bound up together in His thoughts.

After predestination came the effectual call that reached us in the gospel. Here we come down to time, to the moments in our different lives when we believed. The next step came at almost the same moment, for when we believed we were justified, not just called. Last of all: "those whom He justified He also glorified." Here our golden chain, having dipped down from eternity into time, loses itself in eternity again.

Notice here that "those who are called according to purpose" are only "those who love God." This is not the same call as in Matthew 22:14 — the call of grace to everyone, which many refuse. Here it is the call of God's purpose, a call no one can refuse — in fact, one that "the called" would never think of refusing.

The Christian is called by God — called with an effectual calling, spoken to by a voice that makes the dead alive. The believer is called in a double sense. As a sinner made alive, he is called from darkness to light, from death into life. And as the one God foreknew for His own pleasure, he is called out of the secret of God's purpose into the open light of His glory as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

The calling of the gospel is to believe in Jesus. The soul made alive hears and obeys. But the effect of faith is justification, as we have seen. Now justification is an act of the One who justifies, not of the one justified.

Justification has the glory in view. God does not justify us so that we can be lifted high in this world, but so that we can be glorified with Christ in the world to come.

Then notice that "glorified" appears in the past tense, just as much as "justified." This is the style of the prophets. Everything is viewed from God's side, so although the glory is still to be accomplished, it is seen as if it were already done. If God calls what does not yet exist as though it did, that pledges its existence beyond all doubt.

This is why this beautiful and precious climax leaves out sanctification and the life in us. The Spirit had already taught our souls about these things at the start of the chapter… Here we have certainty and security, resting on what God is and on His purposes. He has foreknown His children. He has predestinated them to a certain glory, a certain marvellous blessing: to be conformed to the image of His Son. He has called them, He has justified them, He has glorified them. God has done all this.

Here there is no uncertainty. God Himself has secured the sure salvation of all believers. No power of man or Satan can break any one of those four links… This divine statement of eternal security takes no account at all of our imperfect state and our weakness. "God for us" brushes aside every difficulty. It is the weakest believer's triumphant answer to every doubt of unbelief.

The "things" are the grace and mercy he has been unfolding from chapter 3:21 to the end of chapter 8:30. It starts with the free gift of righteousness, held out to all. It runs on until God glorifies those He has justified. In all of it, God shows Himself to be for us. So the apostle asks, what is to be the reply of our hearts to this revelation of the grace of God.

But "if God is for us, who can be against us?" The world, the flesh and the devil are against us. Rulers and authorities are against us. The cosmic powers over this present darkness, and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12), are against us... All these things, then, can be and are against us. But God is above these things, and He is for us. This is the immovable rest of faith.

We tend to overrate the forces against us, because we underrate the forces that are with us. We must not make light of the enemy's power. Instead we need to grow in our sense of God's power: "If God is for us, who can be against us?"

The result of all this for the soul is that God is for us. It is a sweet and glorious conclusion. It gives the heart a peace beyond words. It gives a rest that depends on the power and stability of God. That rest shuts out all anxiety about anything that could trouble it. For if God is for us, who can be against us?

Unbelief looks at the trials, sorrows and difficulties of the way. Then the question rises in the soul: "Can God be for me after all?" Faith knows where the everlasting witness lies that God is for us. It is not in the circumstances we pass through. It is in the gift of the Son. If God "did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all", He must indeed be "for us".

God is for us in giving. He is for us in justifying. He is for us in caring for us in everything. It was the same with the people of Israel: He took care of even their clothes on their journey through the desert... I learn in these very things the perfectness of the love of God. It comes out in the smallest circumstances, in every little detail... If it is difficulties and trials, I say, Well, it just shows what pains God is taking with me.

How much is wrapped up in these few words, "God for us"! ... We have "God" linked to "us" by that precious little word "for". This secures everything, for time and eternity... If God is for us, then one blessed thing must follow. Nothing can stand in the way of our present peace and our everlasting happiness and glory. Not our sins, not our wrongdoing, not our guilt, not our ruined nature, not Satan, not the world, not any other creature.

"Who can be against us?" No one in the universe with the least hope of success... But every voice is silent. "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?" Silence throughout the universe. No voice replies. It is God who justifies. "Who is to condemn?" But the accuser hides himself, and there is no response to the challenge.

See how again, as noted elsewhere, the Spirit reasons from what God is and has done to the blessing that follows for us. He does not reason from us to God. That is true in judgment; but in grace it flows from God in all its fruits down to us. That He did not spare His Son, and then gives everything else, is after that a simple thing.

God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. What, then, will He withhold that is fitting for us to receive? Chapters 1 to 3 of this letter have shown what believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, once were. No one could question for a moment what they deserved. Yet God gave up His Son for them. Now, are we to think of this merely as a record of the past? Far from it. This record of the past is to give us unbounded confidence in our God in the present and in the future.

The word to Abraham is "take your son," telling us that God "did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all" (Rom. 8:32). Then Abraham is told that he is to take his "only son." Three times in the chapter it is stressed that Isaac is his "only" son (vv. 2, 12, 16). … Further, Abraham is reminded that the son he is to offer up is one "whom you love."

We are spared because He "did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all" (Rom. 8:32). For all eternity we will thank God for His wonderful love. That love made Him give His own Son, and not spare Him, so that we might be blessed.

Some claim that He only became Son when He was born of a woman. That claim violates the language used. Worse, it robs these passages of their clear and obvious purpose. That purpose is to stress the immensity of the love and grace of God the Father in sending His own Son. From all eternity that Son was the object of His deepest affection and delight, one with Him in nature and being. The Father sent Him to bear the judgment of sin in our place.

The love that did not spare Him, but delivered Him to judgment and death for us, triumphs in His glorious resurrection. That triumph proclaims that nothing can be charged against God's chosen ones.

The gift of the Son carries with it every lesser gift that we can hold along with Him. Notice, in verse 32, the word "freely," and also "with Him." Do we want anything that we cannot have with Him? In our folly or haste we may sometimes want such things. But when we think it over, we would not take for one moment anything that separates us from Him.

"All things … with Christ" — in fellowship with Him. Health or sickness, poverty or riches, I am in each state with Him, and I have Him in each state. According to the apostle's reasoning, the greater includes the lesser. We have and enjoy the lesser along with the greater.

Are we not ashamed of our unbelief, of the doubt that trembles under circumstances? Is work scarce at the moment? Do things press on us and look very dark in this wintry weather? Do we feel we do not know how we will have food for our little ones next week? Has the living God given His Son, or has He not? And "how will He not also with Him" — blessed association! — "graciously give us all things?" Who has ever answered that question? Who can answer it?

"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? Shall God, who justifies?" These three verses give us three steps. First, God for us. Second, God blessing us. Third, God justifying us — clearing us from every charge. For who has the right to bring a charge against us? God alone has such a right. But will He do it — when He is the One who has justified us instead?

Notice how the passage attributes everything to God. It does not say that we are justified before God. It says, "It is God who justifies." So the apostle may well exclaim, "Who is to condemn?" — whoever that person may be.

God Himself is not only the Source of our justification but the One who justifies us. "It is God who justifies" (Rom. 8:33). From His lips came the sentence against us as sinners. Equally from His lips comes the declaration of our clearance as believers in Jesus. Our justification is therefore complete and authoritative. No one can condemn us.

"It is God who justifies" (Rom. 8:33). Justification is an act of the Judge. He passes a sentence of declared righteousness in favour of the one He justifies. Justification is not something that happens in the heart of a sinner, but a change in his standing before the Judge. The sinner once stood guilty, waiting to be banished forever from the face of the Judge. Now he is justified — declared not guilty — and received into God's eternal favour. This is what God does for the repentant sinner who puts his trust in the work of Christ on the cross.

God Himself raises this question, and then at once goes on to say, "It is God who justifies." He has cleared us of every charge our guilt could bring against us. And He has done it righteously. He sets us in His presence completely clear of all charge, just as though we had never sinned at all. No accusation can be brought against us. God has justified us. Election is with God — that is His side. Our side is that we came to Him in our need as poor sinners and obtained salvation.

God brings no charge against His elect. Instead He justifies them — people who loathe themselves before Him, admitting not only their sins but that their nature is vile and corrupt.

"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?" Paul here issues a challenge, just as we see the Lord issuing one to Satan on behalf of Joshua (Zech. 3). "Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" The answer lies in the question: who will dare accuse these people before God? It is God who justifies — God who has chosen them.

Satan — the enemy — may still accuse. He can list sins no one could number. But if God has justified the man, Satan protests in vain. No court will hear his charges, for God has decided the case, and there is none higher than God.

The apostle Paul cites this passage in Rom. 8:33, and applies to the Christian what the Spirit here says of Christ... it is a precious hint that the same Spirit now applies to us what He said then in God's vindication of the rejected Christ.

Secondly, "Who is he that condemns?" If God justifies, who can condemn? To answer this question the Apostle brings together in one verse, the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. The letter has already shown that God justifies the believer through the death of Christ. It also shows how perfect this justification is in the resurrection of Christ. Now in the glory He intercedes on behalf of those whom He has justified. If there is an active enemy ever ready to accuse the saints, there is a living Person who intercedes on their behalf.

Notice how the words build: "rather," then "even," then "also." The apostle boldly challenges the right of any to condemn... Christ has died for him and borne the condemnation of sin in his place. How then can that condemnation fall on the believer? But more; He has risen again out of it, above it, and above the place it brought Him into. So where is the accusation of sin now, or the condemnation?... He goes on: "who is even at the right hand of God." There He must be out of reach of every accusation. On top of that He "makes intercession" about the sin whose judgment He bore, and out of which He has risen... The One who took that sin on Himself and became answerable for it is now not only risen, but at the right hand of God. His place there, and His title to be there — which God Himself has owned — would have to be overthrown before anything could be charged to the believer now.

The answer is "It is Christ that died." By His death He made full expiation for all our offences. But how do we know that? "Yea, rather, that is risen again." His resurrection is God's seal upon the value of His death; the proof that the price paid in it was enough... "Who is even at the right hand of God." His exaltation is the declaration of God's entire satisfaction and delight in His work which He accomplished for us. The believer's Substitute and Representative is at the right hand of God. Could He have been there if one sin had remained on Him? Impossible!

Some say this means He appears for us on the question of sin. It is nothing of the kind. Intercession means going to someone, on behalf of another, to get what you want for that one. It is the same word in Romans 8:26 and 34; the Spirit works in our hearts, but He does not appear anywhere for us. But Christ is standing in the presence of God, and He is the One actively engaged in obtaining for us all that we need. It is not that we go to Him, but that He goes to God for us. He is our righteousness there, He has made propitiation, and therefore He can use the grace that is in God... He ever lives to carry on this constant service on our behalf.

Now the enemy who deceived Eve would step in here and say: All that is true if you never sin after your conversion. But if a Christian does sin, surely that sin will separate him from the love of Christ. Dear young believer, make sure your shield is not down when the devil gives you this thrust. Precious answer: "Who also makes intercession for us."... From how many sins does that intercession preserve us!

There is however one mention of Christ in heaven... How wonderful to think of this. Men rejected Him. Now, in His place at God's right hand, He is occupied with intercession for those who have trusted Him. On the cross He interceded for sinners; on the throne He intercedes for those who have believed on Him.

Hostile powers surround us. Enemies hate us. We battle with circumstances, we may face death, we endure hardships. In the middle of all this a third triumphant challenge rings out — and like the other two, it finds no one to take it up... What answer is there to this? We should listen to the one man able to answer — he had gone far in the school of suffering. "No," he says, "in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him who loved us."

This leads to the third challenge, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The Apostle lists seven forms of trial. Every kind of evil we meet as we pass through this world fits under one or another of these trials. In varied measures and at different times we may have to face some of these trials, but not one of these things can separate us from the love of Christ.

Christ is set before us in the full extent of His work: His death on the cross, His resurrection, and His place now at God's right hand, where He intercedes for us. That is the ground of the challenge: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? But there is more. The difficulties and dangers and sufferings along the road are also lined up in full strength, to prove how faithful that love is and how deep beyond measure... Which of our afflictions was He a stranger to? He felt them far more deeply than we ever could, for His person could measure and bear what we cannot. So they became simply the proof of His perfect love to us.

He went down to the depth for us, into sorrow and into the ruin of man. He has risen in power and victory over it, and He is now the exalted Man. He is interested in us and intercedes for us, so that we find the help and mercy we need. What then shall separate us from His love? Here it is the love of Christ, so that we may know Him and His love — a Man who went down to the depth and has gone up on high, still interested in us and caring for us. In verse 39 it is the love of God in Christ, so that we may know this love to be divine, supreme and unchangeable.

None of these physical sufferings can separate us from His love, though often our souls may lose the sense of it. Then we get downcast and prone to complain in the middle of trial: and so Satan gains an advantage. But if our hearts are right, and we are dependent on the Lord, our great Intercessor, the tribulation only drives us closer to Him, and makes us prove again how blessed that love is — a love greater than the greatest trial.

What about all those things that try our faith and test our heart? To the natural eye they can look like a contradiction of God's constant, unfailing care for souls... Are they not rather the very occasions that throw us more upon that love?

They were "killed all the day long" for Christ's sake, dying a slow death, so to speak, because of Him. Danger and the sword chased them and they lost everything here. Yet the love of Christ remained to them. It was their security, their sun, their shield, their everlasting arm, their unfading treasure when everything failed.

They are cast off and scattered. The enemy and avenger is among them; they are scattered among the nations, sold by God for no price (v. 17-22). Yet they have in no way swerved from their integrity. On the contrary, it is for His sake they are killed all the day long, and counted as sheep for the slaughter. (Note, the moment the Messiah was rejected, this began in principle: compare Rom. 8:36.)

It was necessary to point out our distinctive position before quoting a psalm (v. 36) that pictures us in circumstances like theirs. Both are true. We share much with all saints until Christ comes. But we and they each have what is our own and distinctive.

On turning to Romans 8, we find a quotation from Psalm 44 — "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered" — and there the apostle stops. Turning to the psalm, the next words are ones a child of God could not now speak, for the Father loves him as He loved His Son. They could be the words of a Jewish remnant, who do not know the Father, nor the blessedness of the redemption the Son has accomplished.

Believers were "killed all the day long" for Christ's sake — living a chronic death, so to speak, on His account. Danger and sword pursued them. They lost everything here. Yet the love of Christ remained theirs. It was their security, their sun, their shield, their everlasting arm, their unfading treasure when everything else failed.

It is for Christ's sake that these afflictions are allowed to come to the believer. They come to prove more deeply the reality of His love, and the power of that love. When that love is known in the soul, it is far more than a match for the worst ordeals anyone can face. We know this has been proven in practice in the cases of countless martyrs.

Paul quotes it as evidence of the portion of the remnant (v. 22 with Rom. 8:36), and since the Holy Spirit recognises it as the portion of the accepted remnant... it was evidence of anything but their rejection. And so the testimony of evil becomes the evidence of acceptance, to secure the faith of those on whom the evil falls when it comes...

The conquerors whose names stand high in the world's temple of fame won their great place by killing. They strode through seas of blood to the goal of their ambition. God's children become more than conquerors by being killed, and killed all the day long... Those who killed them did so for their own pleasure — "to make a holiday for Romans," or to stamp a hated Name out of the world. Yet they did not know that they were crowning their victims with imperishable crowns.

To suffer reproach, to be misunderstood, to be pushed aside, not to be wanted — in all these things we may be more than conquerors, if it is all for Christ's sake... His love is the great compensation, and no suffering can separate us from His love. On the contrary, suffering gives Him the opportunity to make His love a living, bright reality.

Paul, in closing this unfolding of the Christian condition, names the strongest things that could dare to rise up against the saints, and sees in them only powerless obstacles in the presence of the love that God has shown us in Jesus Christ. This eighth chapter, as it has been expressed, sets out by saying "no condemnation," and ends by adding "no separation."

The answer is that none of these will separate us from the love of God for a single moment. That love rests on us in Christ Jesus our Lord. He is the worthy and all-glorious Object of that love, and we are in it because we are connected with Him. The love reached us in Him, and we, now in Him, stand permanently in that love. If Christ can be removed from the embrace of that love, we can be. If He cannot be, neither can we.

The love of God finds its anchorage, not in the feeble faith of His people, but "in Christ Jesus our Lord." No storm can drag the anchor from there. It is assured for evermore.

Here we have still deeper difficulties: not the visible but the invisible, the spiritual. But sum them all up as the apostle does in his climax — they are only the creature. They stand lined up at their strongest only to be wiped out as nothing in the presence of the all-conquering love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Can death? That was the very thing in which it was expressed in all its greatness. Can life? Love is the very thing that has made me alive, and I have found that all life is in the love of God… Can angels? They are only the servants of that love, sent out to minister to those who are its objects… Can things present? These all work together for good to those who love God… Can height? It is in the height of heaven that we know it best. Can depth? Nothing can be deeper than the judgment we lay under, and love reached us there and removed the judgment from us. Can any other creature? No, because it is only a creature, and the love we boast in is the love of the Creator Himself.

Here, as the fitting close, note that it is the love of God, rather than of Christ as in verse 35. Each is exactly in place. The love of Christ showed itself in suffering to the utmost for us here, and He carries that same love into His intercession in heaven for us who still suffer where He suffered. The love of God is no less real if less in sight. This is His immense and unchanging love, whose grace planned all, gave all, forgave all, justified all, sustains all, and will bring all to that fulness of love and joy and glory that can satisfy such a God and the redemption of such a Saviour.

Now the apostle says, "I am persuaded." He does not say the Romans were persuaded. It is our privilege to be persuaded as he was, but he does not say we are… He was personally persuaded, but he was as fully persuaded about the Romans as about himself.

The apostle Paul puts the stamp of absolute finality on this… If Paul speaks so confidently, without any doubts, what about each of us? Should we not honour God with the same simplicity of faith? To doubt this would be to dishonour His own word.