Romans 8
AEKRomans 8:11-36
Conciliation-Individual 11 Mortal bodies are such as are dying, in a physical sense. Their vivification cannot refer to the future resurrection, but to the present power of God’s Spirit to use an utterly unresponsive, hostile instrument, as our bodies, and constrain its members to do the bidding of our spirits.
12 We owe the flesh nothing, and it promises us nothing but death. But we do owe it to the spirit to put the practices of the body to death and thus enjoy the life which the spirit makes ours in Christ Jesus.
14 To be a son of God implies more than belonging to Him. As the Son of God manifests Him so we are sons only insomuch as we display His character in our words and ways.
15 The law led to slavery, not sonship. Fear is not for us. Justification and reconciliation lead us unafraid into the Father’s presence. Just as the little Hebrew child would lisp its “Abba” in the familiar Aramaic household speech, or, as our children say trustingly, “Papa,” so we are without constraint in the august presence of the Divine Majesty.
16 God’s Spirit says we are His children. Our spirits claim Him as our Father. If this be the case, then, even as our children have the enjoyment of all that is ours, so all that is God’s is for us. Indeed, even the great glories in store for Christ are ours if we, too, tread the path of suffering which led Him to them.
16 The creation has been involved in the treadmill of corruption through the sin of man. We are associated with the creation on the physical side. When our bodies are delivered from their present slavery and death at our Lord’s descent from heaven, He will transfigure them to conform them to His body glorious (Philippians 3:21). Later, when we are unveiled, the creation will be set at liberty from the bondage which now enthralls it. How it ought to comfort us to know that the patient, suffering creatures, who had no hand in their own degradation, will yet find a real release from the pain and sorrow from which they have no escape now! Its physical aspect waits until our Lord’s return.
26 Here is the true “form” for acceptable prayer in this economy. It is not definite persistence, like the importunate widow. It is acknowledged weakness and ignorance casting itself on God, urged on by His Spirit, knowing only the need and the One Who can meet it in His own way.
28 Though we know not what to pray for, this is not at all necessary, for we do know that God is making everything cooperate for our welfare. No matter how things appear, they can work no ill to us who love God, for He first loved us, and has included us in His vast purpose, of which we form a vital part.
29 Our destiny was fixed by God from the beginning, long before we could have any part in it. It is higher than our highest dreams, for it is nothing less than conformity to the image of His Son. And, better still, our exaltation is the means of putting Him in the place supreme. He cannot be firstborn without brethren. Thus we are essential to His glory! GOD’S
30 Here we have the golden chain of God’s sovereignty forged for our blessing. Its four links cannot be separated. He has designated us and called us and justified us. Three links are forged. The next is glory!
31 Nothing can compare with the sublime consciousness of a place in God’s heart. If He is for us, even those who would be against us work our weal. No one can be against us.
32 God has given His best gift when He spared not His Son. Nothing else can compare with Him. He will withhold no good thing from those who have received His Beloved.
33 We can challenge the universe to find a single thing against us! Whatever we maybe in ourselves, in Christ God has justified us. And not only that, but all judgment has been committed to the Son, the very Christ Who died for us and lives to plead for us at God’s right hand! God, the Judge of all, Who alone can acquit, has become our Vindicator! Christ, Who alone has the right to condemn, is our Saviour!
Romans 8:37-9
God’s Sovereignty-Individual 37 God’s love never lets us go. The trials and tribulations we endure are not tokens of His displeasure. They are all tempered by His loving heart. A sense of His love hovering over us in the midst of our distresses is the most blessed of all balms and will enable us not only to endure them but to enjoy them.
38 Here all the great forces of the universe are arrayed, and none of them, no, nor all of them together, can come between us and the unconquerable love of our God as displayed in Christ Jesus. Death will be swallowed up by life. Life may lead us far from Him, but not beyond the reach of His love. The present perplexes us, the future fills us with fear, but only when we lose the sense of His love. Powers, celestial or terrestrial, are subject to His sway. Nothing above or beneath nothing at all has the power to break the bond that binds the humblest and most unworthy saint to the throbbing breast of our great and glorious God. This is more than salvation from sin! This is reconciliation!
GOD’S
1 Paul was in acute sympathy with his brethren according to the flesh for he himself had been the most rabid of all in opposing the Christ he now adored. This is a most apt confession as he is about to introduce the great doctrine of the divine Sovereignty, for he is the star example of God’s sovereign grace.
4 Physically, Israel has the monopoly of the eight blessings here recorded. In flesh, Christ belongs exclusively to them; no other nation can lay claim to the fathers. The covenants, the law the priestly worship, and the promises do not belong to the church, but to Israel according to the flesh. The sonship and the glory are ours only in spirit, not in flesh.
5 Christ, in flesh, is the God of the eons. All eonian blessing is through Him and for Him.
6 Ishmael was Abraham’s son as well as Isaac, but he was born of the flesh, not of the promise. This shows that mere physical descent is not enough to give a title to the blessing of Abraham (Genesis 17:18-20; Genesis 21:12).
11 The futility of fleshly precedence is next shown in the case of Jacob and Esau. This is full of comfort for those of us today who feel like classing ourselves with crooked Jacob, who dId all he could to buy God’s blessing, and stupidly hindered it. Yet, being the object of God’s elective purpose and love, all his perverse ways could not set aside God’s predetermined outcome. Esau was Jacob’s senior and superior, yet he became his slave. This ought to appeal powerfully to the sons of Israel (for whom this section is especially intended), for they are his descendants.
14 The usual deduction from this is that God is not just. In a man this would not be right, but it is God’s sovereign privilege to display Himself through any of His creatures, in any way best suited to the purpose. Love needed a Jacob for its display. Power needed a Pharaoh for its foil. Man cannot turn the tide of God’s affections in his favor nor can he stem the torrent of His wrath. In God’s great purpose to eventually bless all mankind it is His prerogative to form and use suitable vessels to convey His mercy. Of such was Jacob. Esau was needed to emphasize Jacob’s unworthiness. Pharoah was elevated by God, not that his name might be great, but that God’s name might be made known through all the earth. A great man was needed for this or God could not have made His power known.
19 The questioner persists in looking at God’s sovereignty from the human standpoint of the individual, when it should be viewed from the divine national vantage. God has a large purpose which will eventuate in the blessing of all. But in the process of its fulfillment it demands the temporary use of some as foils to set forth His indignation and power, that He may make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy. This chapter does not deal with the destiny of the individual. That has been settled. All mankind will be justified eventually (Romans 5:18). It is not difficult to see how God can justify Pharaoh, whom He hardened, lest his heart should soften and he should fail to oppose Him further.