By James Riley Strange, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Religion, Samford University
Victory over Fear
Romans 8:31–39
Today’s passage continues the argument from Chapters 5–7. There Paul talked about how all should now live a new life of faithful obedience to Christ because all (both Jews and Gentiles who turned to God through Christ) were justified by Christ’s death on the cross. In Chapter 8 he begins laying out how the Spirit of God makes this possible even though all live with the limitations of their current bodies. Paul says we are not free from the contingencies of life in the current age, including suffering and death, but we can begin living now according to the values of the next existence confident of Christ’s victory not only for ourselves but for all of God’s creation.
God is greater than anything that tries to come against us. (31–34)
The words “these things” refer both to the persecutions that Christians were enduring in Paul’s day and to the claim Paul made in verses 28–30: Glorification is assured for those whom Christ justified through His death and resurrection. Paul does not express our modern understanding of predestination. After all, Paul knows that those whom God calls and those for whom He has chosen a destiny can reject their callings and stray from their destinies.
The question of verse 31 is really twofold. “If God is for us” implies “Is God for us?” The answer to that question is “yes.” The answer to the second question (“Who is against us?”) is “no one of any consequence.” The questions of verses 33–34 expect the same answer. People may indeed oppose God’s faithful, bring charges and condemn (i.e. to death; see verse 36), but who are they in comparison to Christ Jesus who died, was raised, is seated at God’s right hand and intercedes with God for us? The Christians of Paul’s day knew that when they turned from their former lives to follow Christ, real suffering was a possibility. But their hope in Christ and the help of the Spirit, rather than suffering, guided their choices.
God is greater than anything that tries to separate us from His love. (35–39)
The questions of verse 35 expect a stronger answer: “Nothing at all can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In verse 36, Paul says that Psalm 44:22, which originally was about Israel suffering for the sake of God, now means that followers of Christ suffer for the sake of Christ.
Paul knows the things he mentions, which cover all earthly and spiritual powers, really do threaten the lives of believers in his day. Some of the people to whom he writes might die in persecutions or of natural causes, but neither the realities of life nor death itself has any power over God’s love. We cling to these verses as bodies fail, jobs terminate, marriages end and other hardships beset us. Our brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq can cling to them in the face of oppression and flight for safety.
Here in America we can stand unashamed for Christ because absolutely nothing can keep us from Him and His love for us.
The New Testament Church drew its ideas about God from its Scripture, what we now call the Old Testament. God’s “lovingkindness” didn’t translate into Greek any better than it does into English, so they used two words for it. One was “grace,” God’s favor. The other was “love.” When it seems like nothing is right and even our own love fails, Paul tells us God’s love for us never will. Thanks be to God.
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