If God Is for Us, Who Can Be Against Us?

28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. 29For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified. 31What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? 33Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the course of life we all meet both good people and evil ones. Words and deeds that others throw at us without meaning to can wound us; at times they stop us in our tracks, and at times they draw out a strength that overcomes by faith. The life of a believer is not so very different from the lives of the people of the world. The one difference is our faith: we know, and give thanks, that God predestined us to be conformed to the image of his Son. What sets us apart is that we know he predestined, called, justified, and glorified us out of so many, and this knowledge shapes a life of perseverance. That is why those who know the grace of God do not count suffering as suffering, and by faith can be more than conquerors. They know the grace of God, which works more mightily than any suffering, and their hope is set on the eternal kingdom; because of this, suffering has already ceased to be suffering.

David was commended by God himself as a man after his own heart, and yet the suffering he endured can become a severe trial for those who believe in God. Because people believe that those who believe in God receive blessing, David’s suffering makes them doubt God’s love. Young David, who tended his father’s sheep, saw that no one would step forward against Goliath, who was threatening Israel, and at the risk of his life he faced the giant with nothing but five stones for his sling. Meeting the strong and towering Goliath was certainly a hardship for so young a boy. But because he had slung stones before to save the lives of his sheep, he faced Goliath as he would a wild beast. Such resolve was possible because he believed that God would surely help him.

David told Goliath that he came against David with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but that David came in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom Goliath had defied. To Goliath he was a boy far too small to be worth fighting, yet David was already the victor, because he was sure that God would protect him. Israel’s soldiers lost heart at the sight of Goliath’s size, but David held an unshakable faith: if God is for us, who can be against us? The giant stood right before his eyes, and David was not afraid. The grace of God and the help of the Holy Spirit were with him; that is why he did not fear Goliath and was certain of his victory.

Romans 8:39

39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The world cannot make us stumble, we who have received the love of God in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is helping us to accomplish good, and because of this, no scheme Satan devises can separate us from that love.

Ephesians 1:4

4even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without defect before him in love;

Those chosen before the foundation of the world must not judge things with themselves at the center. A hardship we could not bear, seen again after time has passed, turns out to have been the grace of God, stepping in quickly to keep us from danger. When a son is about to fall and his father snatches him up, the father acts out of love, afraid his boy will be hurt; yet the son, gripped suddenly by the wrist, thinks only that his father hurt him. The tight grip on our wrist may feel like suffering to us, but it may be the love of God keeping his children from harm and from failure. So in every circumstance we must trust that God will protect us, and give thanks.

Romans 8:30

30Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.

God promises to glorify the righteous, and by this he means that he will bless all who have believed in Christ, down to the last day of the world. Only God can predestine and call a person, and only God can glorify those he has justified. As those he predestined and called go on holding fast to the faith, they come to see that their being made righteous is wholly the grace of God. Once they see this, they are humbled in spirit, and so, whatever suffering they meet, they can remain faithful until the day they put off this body.

To see such a miracle, we need a faithfulness that keeps us always ready. Take a sporting contest: the rules are not set by the players. The players simply bring out the skill they have trained until now. Anyone can enter a contest, but to win, a player must sharpen their skill through steady training day after day. In the same way, to become the righteous people God predestined and called, we must live out our faith according to the word. It is God who predestines and calls, but to become righteous and glorified, his people certainly need to make an effort.

When the apostle Paul says that God predestined us, he does not mean that everything that happens in your life was decided in advance. Calling us, justifying us, and glorifying us are certainly God’s unconditional grace, but a good relationship with God depends on our everyday actions and choices. Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ disciples, was certainly called by Christ. Yet when we look at how Judas ended, we cannot say that he was saved. People want to know whether they are among the predestined, but if they persevere and hold fast to the faith to the end, they will certainly become the predestined. In this light we can say that the predestined are those who believe in Christ and arrive in heaven on the last day.

Only one thing can cut us off from the love of God: my own self. Persecution and famine, however hard to bear, cannot make a saint who is filled to the full stumble; but the proud and unthankful self, the self that gazes at the world, can break off the relationship with God. To put God to shame, Satan set David before Goliath and threatened him with Saul’s sword, yet he could not stop David’s love for God. But when David chose Bathsheba, choosing pleasure over God, he drew away from God by his own doing. Nothing in the world could break the bond between God and us, yet when we love the world more than God, that bond is easily broken.

Romans 8:31

31What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Those who are in Jesus, who atoned for all our sins, are not condemned. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness down to the smallest detail, so no matter how fiercely Satan attacks, he cannot bring God’s people down. Satan prowls like a roaring lion, hunting for the children of God, yet neither he nor those under his power can stand against the people God protects, so we have nothing to fear. Who can stop those who, in the love of Christ, work together for good? The Father who gave up his own Son has freely given us all things with him, and Christ, who knew the will of God, died for us on the cross. Because of this, his love is an everlasting love. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, is helping us even now, so if we stand firm in the faith, nothing can separate us from the love of God.

In verse 32, the word “spare” in “didn’t spare his own Son” is the same word used in Genesis 22:12, when God said to Abraham, “you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Just as Abraham offered Isaac at God’s command without hesitation, God held nothing back and gave his Son Jesus Christ to be nailed to the cross for us. Once we know that God has already freely given us all things, we do not waver; we stand as if on solid rock. The apostle Paul could proclaim the love of God with such confidence because he had experienced how great God is, and because he was certain of the Kingdom of God. You are a special people, chosen by God. If you believe this, you must come to know what it is to drive back Satan’s attacks with boldness, and you must proclaim the word with the assurance of faith.

Hebrews 4:14-16

14Having then a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold tightly to our confession. 15For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace for help in time of need.

We believe that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God’s throne, so we must hold the conviction that nothing in this world can shake us. Jesus Christ took on the same human nature we have and was tempted as we are; he therefore knows how weak we are. The sinless Christ was tempted by Satan and shed his blood on the cross, and from that experience he understands how frail people are. He has compassion on those who struggle to stay faithful in an evil world; he prays for them, and he also steps in and works on their behalf. Yet even after receiving such love, people live for the world and for themselves rather than for God. Worse still, they show the arrogance of fixing the time when their wishes must be answered. If no answer comes by the time they set, they complain against almighty God and do not hesitate to turn back to the world. Their reason is that God does not give them as much as they want; but this happens because they have forgotten their first love, and forgotten to give thanks for how precious grace is. Forgetting to be thankful is that fearful a sin.

God is the all-knowing and almighty One, whom no creature can stand against or even look upon. This God cast even his own Son into death to give us life, and I hope you will ask yourself whether it is right to resent him because he does not hand you the world you want. Of course, since we live in the world in the flesh, we may have desires. Even so, as people of faith we must rise above all these things with wisdom, faith, and patience, and think first of God’s will. When we have such wisdom, we can offer God the fruit of the Spirit. It is right for believers to live their faith wholeheartedly, but to do so they also need material means and health to sustain them. God knows everything we need, so what matters is that we entrust our worldly needs to him and hold on to our faith.

Romans 8:37

37No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

How astonishing is the faith of the apostle Paul, who confesses that in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us! He could make this confession because he had lived it: Christ’s sacrifice had rescued him from darkness and carried him from death into life. I would like to ask you whether you, like Paul, have known what it is to be loved by God.

2 Corinthians 11:22-25

22Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the offspring of Abraham? So am I. 23Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I am more so; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. 24Five times from the Jews I received forty stripes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep.

People say they cannot live by the word because of their circumstances. They were born into a poor family; they tried hard but had no luck; no one helped them, which is why they lost out to others — such are their excuses. Had they had everything, they say, they could have done far more for God. The apostle Paul, however, had every advantage people long for, and still he gave it all up for Christ. He was a Hebrew, an Israelite, and of the offspring of Abraham, yet he left those privileges behind so that he could labor all the more as a servant of Christ. He had every worldly advantage, but after he met Christ he took suffering upon himself in order to keep that love faithfully. He held Roman citizenship, which even Romans could not lightly disregard, yet for the sake of the gospel he gave up even that right.

He renounced the world to live the life of a disciple who follows in Christ’s footsteps.

2 Corinthians 11:28-30

28Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies. 29Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I don’t burn with indignation? 30If I must boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness.

Paul bore pain almost too great to endure for the gospel, yet what grieved him most was seeing the church collapse under persecution. He feared that the churches would not withstand it, that the saints would quarrel and fall away. When the apostle saw believers fail to stand firm in the faith and leave, he grieved and blamed himself for not having built up their faith rightly. Watching people stumble, he felt as though his heart were burning within him, and he blamed his own weakness for failing to set them on their feet. He knew that he, too, could not have kept his faith whole had God not helped him, and that is why he confessed that he was weak. He was confessing that a weak man like himself had planted churches wherever he went not by his own ability but by a miracle God had brought about. Paul knew that he could be more than a conqueror because almighty God had been at work. Through Paul we can see how strong such assurance of faith makes a person.

Romans 8:35-36

35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

It is simply astonishing how firm his trust in Christ and his love for him must have been for him to hold such faith. The apostle Paul is saying that whenever his life was threatened by oppression, anguish, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword, he remembered the sacrifice of Christ and could overcome it all by faith. The word for oppression here refers to the tribulum, a sledge used in Roman times for threshing grain. In Korea we would compare it to a flail: bring the flail down hard on grain spread across the floor, and the well-dried kernels burst out. Oppression is like the lash of suffering brought down hard on a person’s life, as a flail separates wheat from chaff, so that their faith is brought to light. Anguish means distress of mind. When we meet a situation with no one to help and no way out, that strain can wear a person down; yet for those who believe, it can also become a chance to grow in faith. Persecution is hostility out in the open, famine is hunger, and nakedness means having nothing to wear. At that time those who believed in Christ were stripped of their livelihoods and driven out into the wilderness, so that some died of hunger and exposure. Because they believed in Christ, they endured oppression and suffering that were hard to bear in body, mind, and spirit. Had they not known the Kingdom of God, had they not known how much they owed in thanks for the grace they received from Christ, they would have betrayed God in order to survive. They faced oppression ready to die because they were certain they were God’s people, who would share in glory with Christ in the eternal kingdom. Those who persevered in faith were conformed to the image of God and made righteous; this is how they came to enjoy that glory. However strong the world and the evil spirits may be, they are not strong enough to cut off the faithful from God’s love. Like Paul, who was sure that God would keep him, we may trust that though we are imperfect, we are safe, because we are in Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul gave up the self that had lived immersed in the world, so that he might make known the wonderful love of God. And though he met hardship and persecution that were hard to bear, he never grew slack in preaching the gospel. He comforted weak believers with these words: who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Those who believe in Jesus Christ — Jesus Christ our high priest, Jesus Christ at the right hand of God, Jesus Christ the King of kings, Jesus Christ the Judge — will not be shaken by any trial. Just as Jesus’ death was his love toward you, you must prove that your faith is your love toward God. Even if it costs you your life, you must be more than a conqueror.

The apostle Paul cast off the comforts and the power of the world, which stand in the way of the gospel. Such a decision is never easy, but he considered it the way to repay the love of Jesus Christ, who died for his salvation. He gave the rest of his life to preaching the gospel. He was cruelly beaten, went hungry, and was shipwrecked, yet because he knew there is an eternal kingdom, he did not fear principalities, nor things present, nor things to come.

I hope that his confession, that no created thing can separate us who are in Christ Jesus from the love of God, will become your confession. Christ, who even now is at the right hand of God interceding for us, surrounds us with his love like a hedge; so may you not complain over small hardships. Love answers love, and so if you give thanks for the love of God, who gave his life without condition, God will hold you all the more firmly. Let us believe that neither Satan nor the evil one is stronger than the love of God, and be people who triumph by faith.