Romans 8.31–39
A sermon preached at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral 12th September 2021
We have come for our last look at the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome. Let’s remind ourselves of some of the big truths we have met!
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8.1
God has cleared away our guilt and given us a new standing. We are no longer barred from his kingdom.
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Romans 8.4-10
God has given us his Holy Spirit. We do not live in the way of the flesh, but in the way of the Spirit. Our bodies may be dying but our spirits are alive.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8.10-11
The Holy Spirit will one day bring even our bodies back to life, as he did Jesus.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
Romans 8.14-16
Having cleared away our debts and filled us with his Spirit God has adopted us as his sons and daughters.
… and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8.17
God has not only made us his children, he has made us his heirs. He intends to shower on us indescribable gifts. We must be prepared to suffer with Jesus, however, if we are to inherit with him.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Romans 8.18-25
The universe itself is to be liberated from death to share in the resurrection of the children of God.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8.28-30
God is at work in every circumstance of our lives for our ultimate good and final happiness. This is where we got to last week.
All this may seem impossible to some. When I came back from Africa after twenty years, things had changed. It was as though the country had lost God. Things that once were believed or not believed, but debated, had disappeared altogether from people’s consciousness. I became aware that Christian truths are now strange to people. You may not say, as you once would have, “I don’t believe that.” You would rather think, “This is weird; I don’t know how anyone could believe such things.” I have even known people who say, “You would have to be evil to think that.” This is why I want you to see for yourself that this is the teaching of Christianity, not some unusual interpretation of mine.
Let your mind range over the teaching of Romans 8 and ask yourself what it all adds up to. That is Paul’s question. His answer is that God is for us.
If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8.31
God is for us. That may not sound controversial. Surely, if God is real, we would be for us. But is that what people really think?
You may think it is too obvious a point to need to spend time on. But I want to, because the truth is, we are far from believing it. In my experience very few people—Christians included—are convinced that God is for them. Think first about those who don’t believe. They are afraid of what God might ask of them, or force upon them. They don’t want him to come too close. “If you want to be happy, you’d best stay away from God,” is what they think.
And what about believers? We do the things he tells us not to do, and we don’t do the things he tells us to do. Why? Because a big part of us doesn’t believe he is really for us. Our actions betray our true beliefs. We think that we must perform well, and when we don’t, we feel God is against us. I have found in counselling that Christians miss out on a great deal of happiness because they haven’t grasped how much God loves us.
It is a serious business when people think that God is against them. Just as it is when trust breaks down in any community. One of the novels written during the Cold War illustrates the terrible cost of mistrust. I came back to me thinking about the breakdown with China. Eugene Burdick’s, Fail Safe was written at the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. There is a failure in the American fail-safe system. An attack order is given accidentally to one of the flights of Vindicator bombers, ever waiting in the sky. They request confirmation from Omaha, but the Russians are jamming their signals. They conclude it must mean nuclear war, and the planes set out on their predetermined courses. By the time the error is detected it is impossible to recall them. Even a direct command to return from the President is ineffective, because they have been warned that, in the event of war, the Russians might invade their radio frequency and imitate his voice. The only option for the US President is to order their destruction. But the jets sent out to chase them cannot cover the gap and crash into the sea. Desperate, the President gets on a hot line to the Russian Premier and explains the situation. He offers to help the Russians locate the bombers and destroy them before they drop their nuclear loads. But the Russians are suspicious: are the Americans launching a pre-emptive attack and trying to deceive them, so they won’t launch a counter attack until it is too late? The information the Americans are offering may be intended to decoy the Soviets away from the bombers. And back in the US advisors are suggesting to the President that the fail-safe malfunction may have been engineered by the Soviets anyway as a pretext for war; some are urging the President to make the best of a bad situation and turn the accident into a full-scale attack.
The result is that though some of the bombers are destroyed, one gets through to Moscow, and is about to drop its bombs. How at that moment, when trust on both sides has broken down, can the outbreak of world war be averted? How, when the Russian capital is about to be destroyed, can the American President convince a suspicious Russian Premier that it is a genuine accident,? As the last surviving airplane reaches the outskirts of Moscow, and it is certain it will succeed in its mission, the President orders a bomber into the air over New York City and gives orders that when they hear the tell-tale radio screech, caused by atomic bombs exploding in Moscow, they are to drop their load on New York City.
This is what is called “atonement”: an act of reparation to restore trust and re-establish a broken relationship. Atonement can be costly. God did it by becoming a human being and allowing all the hatred of mankind to descend on himself, refusing to retaliate, holding out hands of friendship to an incurably suspicious human race. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,” says St Paul, “not counting our trespasses against us.”
For anyone who considers the meaning of the cross, the conclusion is plain: God is for us.
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Sadly, Satan still blinds people to think that even Christ’s death was some sort of divine trick to bring them into slavery. “Stay away from all that Jesus stuff – you will end up losing your freedom!” I am afraid if the cross does not convince you that God loves you, nothing will. Could God do more? He could easily enslave us if that were his purpose. No, the cross is our ultimate proof that God is for us; turn away from that and you will be lost forever.
Also, don’t miss that God wants to give us everything. “If he did not spare his own Son, will he not with him give us all things. This could be translated, “Will he not give us the universe? This has always been his intention. God’s love is that big.
So now Paul asks us to think how this could all be taken away from us. His first thought as a Jew is that some accusation might disqualify us. After all, it will be the judgement on the last day that decides who is in God’s kingdom and who is out. So, suppose someone gets up and accuses you of something that has long been covered up—maybe forgotten. We have seen how easily the Attorney General was removed from his position. But no; Paul says no accusation will ever stick, not because we are without guilt, but because our guilt has been dealt with.
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?
Romans 8.33-34
God has justified you. That means that ahead of the judgement, he has put you in the right, and declared you to be in the right. If God has declared you not guilty, no other accusation will stand. It sounds impossible, but this is the miracle of salvation.
However, there is another possibility that comes to Paul’s mind. What if the judge disqualifies you. The judge then will be Jesus. God has put the whole business of judgement in the hands of a human being. Even Muslims believe Jesus will be the judge. So, what if the judge disqualifies you? He is the only one who can. Paul raises the possibility, but only to dismiss it.
Christ Jesus? — this is a question—the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us?
Romans 8.34
Jesus died so he would not need to condemn us; he is even now with God pleading for us. He will not condemn us.
But what if we should be separated from the love of Christ? Did Jesus himself not warn us against denying him, lest he should have to deny us? So, Paul asks that very question:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Romans 8.35-36
I do not know any true Christian who is not fearfully aware of the fragility of their own faith. The things Paul lists are frightening enough in their own right. Which of us doesn’t have a secret fear? It may be drowning, or falling from a great height, or poverty, or rats, or exposure—there are so many things that people secretly fear, and you worry that your strength would not hold. The greater fear is that they may lead you to denying Christ. Our greatest fear is our own weakness.
But notice that Paul does not say, “What can separate us from the love of Christ?” but “Who?”— though he mentions a lot of things. This is significant because there is one who would like to separate us from the love of Christ. One who is called “the Accuser of our brothers”. He used to hold us under judgement by his accusations. That power has been removed for all who are in the safety zone. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” His only recourse now is to get us out of the safety zone, and he uses all the means in his power to do that. As far as he is concerned human beings are no different to a lot of sheep in an abattoir waiting for slaughter, though his real aim is to break us away from the Saviour, and destroy our faith. But will he succeed? With many, of course, he will, but what about those whom God set his love on before the world was made?
Humanly speaking we do not have a chance. But Paul affirms, against all human calculations not just that we will survive, but that we will be conquerors—”super-conquerors” he says.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8.37
Those whom he foreknew he also calls, justifies, and glorifies. How can this be except that God guards the faith of his people? Here’s where we see the power of God at work standing by his people—not cocooning them from the rough and tumble of this evil-invaded world, not sparing them from Satan’s attacks, but in St Peter’s words, “guarding (garrisoning) them by faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1)
An old, old woman grieves because she can no longer get to church. She sits at home, and maybe the church forgets her; she endures loneliness day after day. But she knows God has not forgotten her and continues to pray. Only God knows what she achieves through her prayers; perhaps more than you and me with all our activity. But that is not the point. She goes on trusting. She dies and there are few at her funeral, because all her friends died before her. Yet Paul calls her a “super-conqueror” because she endured in faith though everything that was thrown against her. “What is the victory that overcomes the world?” asks St John. “Even our faith!” (1 John 5) And Paul says the same:
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8.38–39
Not death, with all its pain and loneliness. Not life, be it beset with trouble and failure, or mined with affluence and triviality. Not angels nor rulers: spiritual powers that impinge on us more than we realize through temptations, heresies, false philosophies, and cultural pressures. Not things in the present nor things in the future; some of you may be in trouble now; for others the future may hold difficult trials—none of us knows what lies around the next corner. Not height nor depth. What is Paul thinking of here: the lowest or highest things of creation, or perhaps the highest and lowest of human emotions and experience? Could insanity separate us from the love of Christ, or suicidal depression, or dementure or brain damage? No, says, Paul. “I am persuaded that nothing in all creation will separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”
I used to worry that the one thing that Paul overlooks is willful disobedience. What I overlooked is that the things he lists are the things most calculated to make us willfully disobedient. But they will not succeed—not because we are strong—we are weak—but because God is at work within us, overcoming things that by rights should lead us to unbelief.
Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8.39
So, let us not fear what lies ahead. Let us recommit our cause to God and trust the tremendous holding power of the love of Christ. Have we not seen it among our own people in these days? Say to yourself: “God is for me; nothing will ever separate me from Christ’s love.”