What shall we say to these things?
Answered from the commentary of James Boyd, F. B. Hole, Arno Clemens Gaebelein and 9 others
To Romans 8:31 the answer is that God is for us, and the fitting reply is a boast in God, a challenge flung out to the whole universe that nobody takes up. "These things" are the grace unfolded from Romans 3:21 to Romans 8:30, from the free gift of righteousness to the glorifying of the justified, and in all of it God is seen to be for us. So there is no room for any reply except praise, worship and the exultation of a triumphant heart. The Spirit draws from every Christian an unequivocal, wholehearted confession of confidence in God's faithfulness. God's being for us is set out in three ways: in giving, in justifying, and in a love from which nothing can separate. The proof does not lie in circumstances, which unbelief looks at and then asks whether God can be for it after all; it lies in the gift of the Son. The reasoning therefore runs downward from what God is and has done, never upward from what we are. Since He has not spared His Son, it is a simple thing for Him to give everything else. He gives all things freely, but always "with Him" and never apart from Christ. Those things include sorrow as well as joy, and pinch as well as plenty. Because it is God who justifies, no charge can stand and no one can condemn. And nothing in the creature, seen or unseen, can separate the believer from God's love, because that love rests on him in Christ.
Enemies are real. The world, the flesh, the devil and the powers of darkness are against us, but God is above them all and He is for us, so none can be against us to any real effect. Difficulties therefore become the occasion for His love to be displayed, and the tried believer is more than conqueror. Trouble even shows what pains God is taking with him. The warnings these authors draw are against unbelief and legality. To doubt this assurance dishonours God's word. To think that anything depends on ourselves is a mark of hearts not established in grace. A soul may also lose the sense of this love in trial, grow downcast, and give Satan an advantage. This confidence does not breed presumption: the greatness of the gift keeps the heart humble, and the knowledge that God is for us stays real as we keep company with Christ. On the way itself there is a call to constant dependence, yet that dependence rests on a faithfulness that cannot fail. The authors speak with one voice on the substance. Grant adds that the question is put as "we," the united language of the elect, while Paul's later "I am persuaded" is a personal persuasion that reaches out to include every other saint.
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
The passage
v.ch.8THE WORK OF THE INDWELLING SPIRIT
v.ch.8Now the operation of the Spirit of God in the individual saint, as in the Church of God, is a matter of utmost importance in the present day. His presence is as real as was the presence of the Lord Jesus for His few years walking the earth in flesh. This chapter has been a special joy for countless saints, and rightly so, but its significance is even then but little laid hold of as the distinct manifestation of the work of the Spirit of God personally present on earth to accomplish the will of God. The secret of the blessedness of the chapter lies simply in this, that it is the Spirit's work, with man fully put in the shade.
v.ch.8But it is well known that the latter part of the chapter is that which engages the delight of the greater number of souls, whose attention is little drawn to the earlier part. Can their delight then be as full as God intended it? Or are they not rather satisfied with a certain measure of comfort and joy, while not really entering into the fullness that God's wisdom has provided?Can He have made a mistake in what He has put first?No, the first part is of vital necessity, too often ignored.
v.ch.8If we are to understand the Spirit's work, we must thoroughly understand this, that there can be no mixture of flesh with it. And lest in this we make a mistake or are deceived by the fair appearances of the flesh, which ever seeks to stimulate the Spirit, there is a blessed safeguard for the soul in the ministry of the first part of the chapter, and the rubbish of man's work and self-importance is cleared away for the distinct display of the work of the Spirit. It is wisdom to consider this well.
v.ch.8Our chapter, then, which began with, "No condemnation", ends with, "No separation." And in between we discover ourselves to be taken up according to the purpose of God, in which there can be no violation.
v.ch.8I will say a few words on Romans 8, which we did not quite finish last week. We considered the three subjects it contains. First, The living work wrought in us connected with no condemnation. Second, Not merely the work that is wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, but the presence of the Holy Ghost Himself in us, as distinguishing between that which is born of the Spirit, and the personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Third, Not only what God has wrought, or is in me, but what God is for me in His outward operations.
v.ch.8Romans 5:1-11 gives what God is for sinners in grace and its fruit; chapter 8, the state of the delivered soul before Him. What leads up to the former being our sins met in grace, in Christ's propitiation - to the latter, our sin from which we are delivered by our having died with Christ, and so being freed from it, and alive in Him. In the former case the sins are forgiven, in the latter the sin has been condemned, but in a sacrifice for sin, and we, having died with Christ, are delivered. This finishes the doctrine of the epistle - the way in which God in grace has met the sins, and the sinful nature of man, his whole condition in Adam, through Christ.
v.31
What shall we then say to these things? If God for us, who against us?
He says, “What shall we then say to these things?” The things are the grace and mercy which he has been unfolding from chapter 3:21, up till the end of chapter 8:30; beginning with the free gift of righteousness, held out to all, until the justified are glorified; and in all God is seen 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. What are we to say to these things? Well, he says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” He will boast in God. And five times he, as it were, blows the trumpet, and flings out the challenge; but there is no one to answer the boasting of the apostle, or contest the victory of God.
“WHO CAN BE AGAINST US?” No one in the universe with the least hope of success. “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?” It is not, how shall He? It is, “how shall He not?” But every voice is dumb. “WHO SHALL LAY ANYTHING TO THE CHARGE OF GOD’S ELECT?” Silence throughout the universe. No voice replies. It is God that justifieth, “WHO IS HE THAT CONDEMNETH?” But the accuser hides himself, and there is no response to the challenge.
" What shall we then say to these things?" Shall we question them, or shall we affirm them? Shall we deny them, or shall we joyfully confess their truth? And if so, what room is there for human utterance in the presence of this glory, save in ceaseless and full-hearted praise of the God of all grace? Can any part of the believer's full title of blessing be now impeached or called in question? But God is for us. It is God who has wrought for us. He has wrought for us great things, and therefore we are glad. But "if God be for us, who is against us?" The world, the flesh and the devil are against us. Principalities and powers are against us. The rulers of the darkness of this world, the power of spiritual wickedness in heavenly places (Eph. 6:12), are against us. There is nothing that is capable of exciting or influencing the natural man, which is not hostile to the spiritual man. The food of one is the bane of the other. 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. This is the faithful clue placed by the Spirit in the hands of the believing pilgrim, whereby he may safely thread his way through the labyrinth of all present experiences. He is girt for his journey by the hand of God. The strength of his way is truth, and that truth is Christ.
Verse 32 contains the unfailing talisman of perpetual re-assurance to the drooping spirit of the tried believer. In truth, it is an evil and a sad thing that the thought of deficiency should ever arise in the heart of one who sets out on his course as a saved sinner under the consciousness of being, in Christ, the object of God's unutterable love. Yet so it is. And because we, in our own weakness, are ever more ready to think of what we have not than of what we have, the Spirit of God, in order to still all restless self-communings in our hearts, and to quiet the cravings of ignorance with the satisfying knowledge of truth, leads forth our souls here again to view the palpable evidences, not only of the reality of our interest in the love of God, but also of the completeness, in point of measure, of the blessing with which we are blessed. "He that spared not His own Son … how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Can there be a question in the heart of faith as to this? The gift which God gave to the ruined creature, ruined by sin, was Christ. Are then lesser gifts to be withheld? Having delivered His own Son to redeem sinners, is the Father going to deal out grudgingly the present supply of His children's need? Having reconciled His enemies by the death of His Son, is He likely to shut up His bowels of compassion from His friends? Or rather, is there any true blessing to be enjoyed which is not comprised in that which has already been bestowed?
The result of all for the soul is, that God is for us. Sweet and glorious conclusion, which gives the heart a peace that is ineffable, and rest that depends on the power and stability of God — a rest that shuts out all anxiety as to anything that could trouble it; for if God be for us who can be against us? And the way of it shuts out all thought as to any limit to the liberality of God. He who had given His Son, how should He not with Him give us all things? Moreover, with regard to our righteousness before God, or to charges which might be brought against the saints, as well as with regard to all the difficulties of the way, God Himself has justified: who shall condemn? Christ has died, He has risen, and is at the right hand of God, and intercedes for us: who shall separate us from His love? The enemies? He has already conquered them. Height? He is there for us. Depth? He has been there; it is the proof of His love. Difficulties? We are more than conquerors: they are the immediate occasion of the display of His love and faithfulness, making us feel where our portion is, what our strength is. Trial does but assure the heart, which knows His love, that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus. Everything else is the creature, and cannot separate us from the love of God — a love of God, which has entered also into this misery of the creature, and gained the victory for us over all. Thus the deliverance, and liberty, and security of the saints by grace and power are fully brought out.
Calling presumes God's foreknowledge. None can deny such foreknowledge to God; but if He foreknows it is equally easy for God to predestinate our future. Predestination would always appear to have in view some special and distinguishing blessing to which we are called. Moreover, in view of the predestined blessing, we have been justified. Justification has in view the glory. We are not justified in order to be exalted in this world, but to be glorified with Christ in the world to come. Nevertheless, though we wait for the glory, it is, like justification, referred to as if already accomplished. Is not this because all is here presented as from God's side; and God can call that which is not as if it were. We have the flesh in us; we have a body subject to infirmity and weakness; we are surrounded by a groaning creation; we have to meet trials and difficulties, sorrow and suffering; but faith realises that God is for us. Before the groaning creation God was for us; in, and through, it all God is for us; above it all God is for us, and beyond it all God is for us. In this great passage it is not what we may be for God, but what God is for us, and the marvellous fact that the very sin by which we have ruined ourselves has become the occasion for God shewing Himself to be for us.
(Vv. 31, 32). The conclusion is that "if God be for us who can be against us?" Unbelief may look at the trials, and sorrows, and difficulties of the way, and the question may arise in the soul, "Can God be for me after all?" Faith knows that the everlasting witness that God is for us is not found in the circumstances that we pass through, but in the gift of the Son. If God "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all", He must indeed be "for us". If He has already given the greatest gift we need have no question as to the blessings He has given and purposed for us. Having spared not His Son at the Cross, but delivered Him up for us all, He can now righteously and freely give us "all things".
(V. 33). Arising out of the great truth that God is for us, there is a threefold challenge. First, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" The simple and blessed answer that meets every charge is, "It is God that justifies".
We are apt to over-estimate the forces against us, because we under-estimate the forces that are with us. We must not think lightly of the enemy’s power, but we want rather to grow in the sense of God’s, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Pile up the list of opposing forces, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword! They form only the background for the display of God’s power. “More than conquerors” is the response to that!