The Blessing Of Love Series

(29) The Blessing of Love

Romans 8:31-39

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

32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,

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

Introduction

The Spirit of God makes the love of God real to us. The Father is for us (vv. 31–32), the Son is for us (v. 34), and the Spirit is for us (vv. 26–27). Nothing can separate us from His love. Is there any reason why we should not be “more than conquerors”?

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

What then shall we say to these things?—Paul now asks a series of four rhetorical questions concerning the eternal purposes of God. In essence, this verse is the conclusion Paul draws to the first eight chapters of Romans. What will our response be to what has been said in those verses?

If God be for us, who can be against us?—This is not one of the four rhetorical questions but rather the answer to the first question. Paul’s only response is that he has complete assurance that the eternal purposes of God will come to fruition because God is God. “Who can be against us?” does not mean that we have no adversaries. Verses 35 and 36 lists a great number of adversaries. However, the strength of the adversaries sinks into insignificance in comparison with the strength of God. By this, Paul means that there is no adversary too great to thwart the eternal purposes of God. If Omnipotence is working on our behalf, no lesser power can defeat His program. Moreover, the efforts of our adversaries, since they are under His absolute control, serve only to fulfill His all-wise purposes for us.

32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

Paul says in effect: “God is for us," therefore, He did not spare His own Son. Surely, that’s the final guarantee that He loves us enough to supply all our needs.”

He who did not spare His own Son,—What marvelous words! We must never allow our familiarity with them to dull their luster or lessen their power to inspire worship. When a world of lost mankind needed to be saved by a sinless Substitute, the great God of the universe did not hold back His heart’s best Treasure, but was pleased to give Him over to a death of shame and loss on our behalf—“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief…” (Isa. 53:10). This is evidence of the fact that God will bring His eternal purposes to their proper conclusion. He loved us so much that He did not spare His own Son in providing atonement for us. This presents the chief point in the proof that God is for us, and it is the greatest exhibition of God’s love for us.

but delivered Him up for us all,—This states the delivering up as being the act of God the Father. In Galatians 2:20, the act is mentioned as the act of the Son Himself: I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. The two statements are a clear indication of the oneness of the Son with the Father. The “delivering up” was to “the death of the Cross.” For us all, does not infer limited atonement (the view that Christ died only for the elect), for Christ died for all the sins of all the world—“that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19). His death was enough to make salvation possible, however, only for those who call upon the name of the Lord.