Romans 8:31-39

More Than Conquerors
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." [l]

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, [m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


Dig Deeper
A few years ago a movie was made called “Troy.” The movie is based fairly loosely on Homer’s classic work “The Iliad.” It has quickly, though, taken its rightful place among the legendary “guy” movies that men love to watch and quote from. I know one Christian brother who is so devoted in his love for the movie that allegations have been made that he has watched that movie during his quiet times with God. Although I don’t think he’s quite gone that far, there are some inspiring scenes in the movie. In one scene early in the movie, the hero Achilles is summoned to battle by his King Agamemnon, a king that he despises. Agamemnon has issued a challenge that his greatest warrior, Achilles would take on and defeat any warrior of his enemies’ choosing, fighting the battle through these two representatives rather than having the entire armies fight. A mountain of a man steps out to face Achilles and Achilles shocks everyone with the speed and ease with which he dispatches this great warrior. After having defeated this great foe, he turns an icy glare to the remainder of the enemy army and with great passion shouts, “Is there no one else? Is there no one else?” He stands for a moment waiting to see if there will be another attacker, another combatant, another accuser, but no one steps forward. There is no one else and the victory is his.

This is something of what I think Paul is feeling as he writes this celebratory final note summing up and bringing to a close the narrative that he has been recounting since chapter 5. God, in his actions through the Messiah, has defeated all of our enemies. He has stepped out onto the battlefield as our representative and defeated the very best enemy that could be conjured up, that of death. Now Paul picks up that victorious banner and stands defiantly on the battle field shouting, “Is there no one else? Is there no one else?” The long journey of the new exodus of God’s people has reached a culminating point, not the end but the point where the end is certainly guaranteed by what we have in the present, but still a culminating point. The people of God have gone through the water, we have wrestled with the wilderness, and have now come to the promised land says Paul. Who now can stand up and separate God from his people? Paul’s clear and decisive answer is that there is no one else and the victory is ours.

Paul is now ready to sum up all that he has said in chapters 5-8 before advancing his argument. He has done a masterful job of explaining who the true people of God are and the assurance that we have in our status in Christ due to the transforming work of the Spirit. Christians really have shared in Christ’s defeat of death and sin and stand in the promised land of walking in the Spirit no longer enslaved to our former master. Paul has talked in terms of Christians being formerly entrapped by sin, death, and even the realm of Adam. One-by-one he has paraded out the foes of human beings and shown how Christ has defeated them. What more can be said? When one has entrusted their life to Christ and thrown their lot in with him, we quickly realize that, as Paul says, “God is for us.” Christ has laid out any enemy that we might have; he has overcome any obstacle that might keep us in the realm of sin. “Who can be against us,” then, declares Paul boldly. Is there no one else? Is there anything else that could condemn those in Christ?

Again in this passage, though, we must keep firmly in mind that Paul is thinking in terms of people as a group rather than individuals which is the way most people of our day tend to read it. Paul here, then, is not talking about the individual salvation status of individual Christians but rather has in mind a much larger view. One of the major themes throughout the letter of Romans is who are the real people of God? Paul has been working out the answer to that question since chapter 5and is now ready to sum up his conclusions with an incredibly triumphant declaration. Those in Christ are the people of God and nothing is going to change that. Can individual Christians exercise their free will and walk away from their status in Christ? The answer to that is obviously yes as the writer of Hebrews warns, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace” (Heb. 6:4-7). None of that is in Paul’s sight right now though. This is a triumphant celebration of the victory that Christ has won for his people who can rest assured that there will never be another covenant or another people. God has fulfilled his promises and his purposes for humanity by finally having a covenant family in Christ and they will be his people for all eternity.

Paul actually asks a series of four rhetorical questions in this section, and the implicit answer to each question is “no.” The first question he asks is “who can be against us?” The answer is no one. How could any foe stand up against God “who did not spare his own Son?” Abraham, the father of faith, was held in high esteem because he was so faithful to God’s promises that he was willing to sacrifice his own son in obedience to God, believing that God could simply raise his son from the dead if need be (Heb. 11:17-19), demonstrating, once again, a resurrection faith. But God went one step beyond that by not just giving his son up, but by actually not sparing his own Son. Just as he pointed out in chapter 5, if God did not spare his unique Son for us and has done the difficult thing, why would we question that he is willing to complete the easy part? This is a God who graciously gives all things to his people. Who can bring a charge against God’s people, asks Paul, using courtroom language. No one because God is the justifier. He has has already passed his verdict and justified those in Christ by declaring them in the covenant family. Who can can condemn those in Christ? No one because Christ has defeated death and intercedes for us. In his death he condemned sin and in his resurrection he dealt with death. He has completed his work and now sits at the right hand of the Father (see Heb. 7:25; 9:24; 1 Jn. 2:1; Acts 7:55).

But if there is no one to be against us, and no one to bring a charge, and no one to condemn those in Christ then is there anyone or anything that will separate God’s people from the ultimate love that has been made manifest in the love of Christ? Paul is convinced that he answer is “no” but the road is not easy. Christians who will face a life of sharing in the sufferings of Christ will likely face hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword. In verse 36, Paul quotes from Psalm 44:22, a complaint to God while suffering as his people despite the fact that they were faithful at the moment. This is the course that God has laid out for his children. It’s not that God will save people despite the fact that we suffer, nor will he strictly save his people from all suffering, but instead the truth is that God will save his people through suffering. The path that God has laid out for those in Christ to be fully transformed into his image goes right through the heart of suffering. It is the role of God’s people to embody the sufferings of Christ for the benefit of others and carry that to the world.

The people of God are not just conquerors because of Christ, God has used all of these things to work for our good. That makes us more than just conquerors. It is one thing to gain victory but quite another thing when we realize that everything the enemy can throw at us actually enhances our victory and is used by God to bring about his purposes in restoring his people to their full humanity. It would be like a boxer that actually grew stronger every time his opponent landed a blow. God’s love for us has guaranteed the status of the renewed humanity in Christ and nothing can separate God’s love from his people ever again. In verses 38-39, Paul uses a series of Hebrew merisms (a contrast of opposites to demonstrate a totality of all possible options). Paul’s point is that there is simply nothing that separate God’s people from his love. This is something of which Paul has taken stock, added up the facts and been absolutely convinced and persuaded of the fact that God’s love has the last word with his people.

The faithful servant has been found and God’s victory can now be found in his servant, the Messiah. In Christ, the fallen Adamic humanity has been restored, death has been defeated, sin has been condemned, God’s entire creation has been set free from it’s bondage. The final judgment has come forward into the present age in the Messiah and guarantees that God’s people can be absolutely assured that nothing will separate them as a people from God’s love. What could be more worthy of jubilant celebration than that? Yet, it raises a question which is, in many ways, one of the primary themes of the letter, a them to which Paul has alluded but will now return to for a definitive answer. If those in the Messiah are the true-never-to-be-separated-from-his-love people of God, then what of ethnic Israel? What is their role? This is the focus of the next three chapters. But as we end, our minds should go back to 5:1-11 where Paul told us that God demonstrated his love for us through the death of Christ. Paul has showed us how that all works out and has now returned to where he started with this line of thinking. For us, everything we are and has returns to the love of God.


Devotional Thought
Do you truly see the struggles in life as signs of God’s love? How does it change your understanding to realize that we are more than conquerors; that God uses trials and struggles to work towards his good purposes to restore us the image of his Son.