Rom 8.31-39

Psg: Rom 8.31-39 (http://biblia.com/bible/gs-netbible/Ro8.31-39)
Date: 6/16/12

Read

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.”* 8:37No, 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.

Record

In all these things (trouble, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword) we have complete victory through him who loved us (37).

Reflect

• “complete victory”
• NET 40 tn BDAG 1034 s.v. ὑπερνικάω states, “as a heightened form ofνικᾶν prevail completely ὑπερνικῶμεν we are winning a most glorious victory Ro 8:37.”
• NASB: “overwhelmingly conquer”
• It doesn’t say, “in spite of all these things” but “in (ἐν) all these things.”
• None of these things can separate us from his love (38-39).
• More than that, we have overwhelming victory in them.
• How is this true?
• v. 36 suggests that these sufferings (which are specifically on account of the Gospel) are the means for Kingdom victory.
• If true, then it’s not just suffering and trouble, but what we suffer living for Christ, because it is only by this suffering that the Kingdom agenda is advanced through us.
• None of these things will separate us from God’s love and his purpose of completely conforming us to the image of Christ (29).

Respond

• Lord, I sometimes complain to you for the suffering that comes my way because I’m serving you. When I do so, I am completely self-contradicting. You have given me the privilege of suffering for your sake. Let me count it as all joy, but also to see it as complete victory.