ROMANS ROAD
to RIGHTEOUSNESS |
Romans
1:18-3:20
|
Romans
3:21-5:21 |
Romans
6:1-8:39 |
Romans
9:1-11:36 |
Romans
12:1-16:27 |
|
SIN
|
SALVATION
|
SANCTIFICATION |
SOVEREIGNTY |
SERVICE |
NEED
FOR
SALVATION |
WAY
OF
SALVATION |
LIFE
OF
SALVATION |
SCOPE
OF
SALVATION |
SERVICE
OF
SALVATION |
God's Holiness
In
Condemning
Sin |
God's Grace
In
Justifying
Sinners |
God's Power
In
Sanctifying
Believers |
God's Sovereignty
In
Saving
Jew and Gentile |
Gods Glory
The
Object of
Service |
Deadliness
of Sin |
Design
of Grace |
Demonstration of
Salvation |
|
Power Given
|
Promises Fulfilled |
Paths Pursued |
Righteousness
Needed |
Righteousness
Credited |
Righteousness
Demonstrated |
Righteousness
Restored to Israel |
Righteousness
Applied |
God's Righteousness
IN LAW |
God's Righteousness
IMPUTED |
God's Righteousness
OBEYED |
God's Righteousness
IN ELECTION |
God's Righteousness
DISPLAYED |
|
Slaves to Sin |
Slaves to God |
Slaves Serving God |
|
Doctrine |
Duty |
|
Life by Faith |
Service by Faith |
|
Modified from Irving
L. Jensen's excellent work "Jensen's
Survey of the NT" |
WHAT THEN
SHALL WE SAY TO THESE THINGS: Ti oun eroumen (1PFAI) pros tauta:
(Ro
4:1)
If we are interested in a life crowned with confidence, this could be
our foundational text.
Romans 8:31 was John Calvin’s life verse.
The logic of our text, seriously applied, pushes us to the heights of
confidence. This verse means more than the fact that God is graciously
disposed toward believers but that He is for us in all that He does.
Beloved, as you read this note, you may feel "defeated", but Paul's
encouraging truth is that evil will never prevail. Believers will always
be led to victory in Christ because God is for us. Write your name in
the verse and believe it is true..
"God is for
__________________"
William Newell explains that
Our weak hearts, prone to legalism
and unbelief, receive these words with great difficulty: God is for us .
. .They have failed Him; but He is for them. They are ignorant; but He
is for them. They have not yet brought forth much fruit; but He is for
them. (Romans
8: Expository Notes Verse by Verse)
Ray Stedman commenting on this
section Romans 8:31-39 writes...
"Now, that is a wonderful statement,
and, in times of doubt, I suggest that you try to answer these
questions...Now, what is the effect of this realization? It is clear
from this passage that it is the removal of fear. If God is for us, who
can be against us? All fear of successful opposition is removed. It is
not that there is no opposition. The Law is still there, the
Sin nature
is still there, the
flesh
nature is still there -- there is still going to be opposition (1
Peter 2:11
Galatians 5:16;
Galatians 5:17;
Galatians 5:18). But Paul is saying, "If God is for
us, what difference does it make?" A few weeks ago at our elders'
meeting, Barney Brogan was telling us about his grandson. His daughter
has moved to Missouri with the boys. As some of you know, their father
is Chicano, and the children look like their dad. Their 13-year-old ran
into a tremendous nest of White Supremacy at school. Because of the
prejudice against blacks and Chicanos, that little innocent lad began to
suffer very unjust torment and persecution. He didn't understand it; he
came home weeping, beaten up because of his looks. His mother didn't
know what to do, and so she wrote and asked us to pray for this
situation, and we did. A week or so later a letter came back and
described how one night the biggest kid in school appeared at their door
and said that he was a Christian, that he knew they were Christians, and
that he had come to tell them that he had gone to every kid in school
who had beat up on the boy and told them that if they ever did anything
like that again, they would answer to him. I don't know what that boy's
name was, but let's call him Mike. I can imagine this little boy going
back to school, walking in the shadow of Mike, with all his tormentors
looking at him. He probably would be saying to himself, "If Mike is for
me, who can be against me?" That is what God is saying here."
(If
God be For Us)
In regard to these things Denney says
The idea underlying all that precedes
is that of the suffering to be endured by those who would share Christ’s
glory (see note
Romans 8:17). The apostle has disparaged the suffering in comparison with
the glory (see note
Romans 8:18); he has interpreted it (see
notes
Romans 8:19ff
thru
8:27) as in a manner prophetic
of the glory; he has in these last verses asserted the presence through
all the Christian’s life of an eternal victorious purpose of love: all
this is included in ‘these things.’ (Nicoll, W Robertson, Editor:
Expositors Greek Testament: 5 Volumes. Out of print. Search Google)
Concerning these things
Nelson Study Bible says
The words these
things refer to God’s purpose (v28-30). If God has done everything from
foreknowledge to glorification for us, all adversaries are powerless. (Radmacher,
E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. The Nelson Study Bible: NKJV.
Nashville: Thomas Nelson)
IF
(Because)
GOD...FOR US, WHO...AGAINST US:
ei o theos huper hemon, tis kath hemon:
(Ge 15:1;
Nu 14:9;
Dt 33:29;
Josh 10:42;
1 Sa 14:6;
17:45-47;
Ps 27:1-3;
Ps 46:1-3,7,11;
56:4,11;
84:11,12;
118:6;
Isa 50:7-9;
54:17;
Jer 1:19;
20:11;
Jn 10:28-30;
1Jn 4:4)
Literally If God for us, who against us?
The word if translates the Greek first class conditional particle
ei, signifying a fulfilled condition, not a mere possibility. The meaning
of the first clause then is not really a question but an unchanging
maxim we can live on --
In view of the fact that or because God is for us nothing can be against
us.
The obvious implication is that if anyone were able to rob us of
salvation they would have to be greater than God Himself, because He is
both the Giver and the Sustainer of salvation. To Christians Paul is
asking, in effect, “Who could conceivably take away our no-condemnation
status?” (see note
Romans 8:1). Is there anyone stronger than God, the Creator of
everything and everyone who exists?
That is, "What difference does it make who is against us?" If God is for
us, is there anything that can be against us that is greater than he?
The thought of Paul is not in the form of a hypothetical condition, as
if it were a question whether God was for us or not. His thought is, “In
view of the fact that God is for us, who is or could be against us, so
as to do us harm? That is, since God is for the saints, on their side,
who can harm them?”
Spurgeon comments that...
If God is that great working One who
does all this, who can be against us? “Why, a great many,” says one.
But they are nothing, nor are all put together anything at all, as
compared with him who is on our side.
Two great men stood side by side in the early Reformation movement. One
was, of course, Martin Luther, the activist. The other was Philip
Melanchthon, the scholar. Luther once said of their relationship:
I am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike, fighting against
innumerable monsters and devils. I am born for the removing of stumps
and stones, cutting away thistles and thorns, and clearing the wild
forests; but master Philippus comes along softly and gently, sowing and
watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has abundantly
bestowed upon him.
Where did Melanchthon get his strength? What made this gentle, retiring
man stand with Luther against the world? The heart of the text, Romans
8:31, gives the answer:
If God is for us, who can be against us?
In his lectures and correspondence that verse is quoted more than any
other Scripture. It still hangs on his study wall in Wittenberg where
visitors can see it. As the record has it, when Melanchthon sensed he
was dying he asked to be placed on the traveling bed in his study
because that is where he was happiest. When the pastor read Ro 8:31,
Melanchthon exclaimed,
“Read those words again!”
The pastor read,
“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Melanchthon murmured in a kind of ecstasy,
“That’s it! That’s it!”
This text had always been the greatest comfort to him. In the darkest
hours of his life when death's cold stare threatened, he comforted
himself again by reciting, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
In Ro 8:31-39 Paul developed the fact that God will not lose one whom He
has foreknown in this climactic section, and he gloried in this great
truth.
Mounce writes that
"Nowhere in the annals of sacred literature do we find anything to match
the power and beauty of this remarkable paean of praise."
Jameison & Fausset write
"This whole passage strikes all thoughtful interpreters and readers, as
transcending almost everything in language"
When Chrysostom was brought before the Roman Emperor, the Emperor
threatened him with banishment if he remained a Christian. Chrysostom
replied,
"Thou canst not banish me for this world is my father’s house.”
“But I will slay thee,” said the Emperor.
“Nay, thou canst not,” said the noble champion of the faith, “for my
life is hid with Christ in God.”
“I will take away thy treasures.”
“Nay, but thou canst not for my treasure is in heaven and my heart is
there.”
“But I will drive thee away from man and thou shalt have no friend
left.”
“Nay, thou canst not, for I have a friend in heaven from whom thou canst
not separate me. I defy thee; for there is nothing that thou canst do to
hurt me.”
C H Spurgeon
writes the following thoughts on Romans 8:31
And so it was, for, as he could not
travel quickly, the journey was prolonged, and he arrived at London some
days later than had been expected. When they reached Highgate, they
heard the bells ringing merrily in the city down below. They asked the
meaning and were told, "Queen Mary is dead, and there will be no more
burning of Protestants!"
"Ah," said Gilpin, "you see, it is
all for the best." It is a blessing to break a leg if thereby a life is
saved. How often our calamities are our preservatives!
><> ><> ><>
There is an opposite to this, and it
belongs to some who are here: If God be against you, who can be for you?
If you are an enemy to God, your very blessings are curses to you. Your
pleasures are only the prelude to your pains. Whether you have adversity
or prosperity, so long as God is against you, you can never truly
prosper. Take half an hour this afternoon to think this over: If God be
against me, what then? What will become of me in time and eternity? How
shall I die? How shall I face him in the day of judgment? It is not an
impossible "if" but an "if" which amounts to a certainty, I fear, in
the case of many who are sitting in this house today.
><> ><> ><>
You may assume that those of us who
are always before the public speaking of the blessed promises of God are
never downcast or heartbroken. You are mistaken. We have been there, and
perhaps we know how to say a word in season to any who are now going
through similar experiences. With many enterprises on my hands, far too
great for my own unaided strength, I am often driven to fall flat on
this promise of my God, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”
(see note
Hebrews 13:5).
If I feel that any plan has been of
my devising, or that I sought my own honor, then I know that the plan
must rightly fail. But when I can prove that God has thrust it on me,
that I am moved by a divine impulse and not my own feelings and wishes,
then how can my God forsake me? How can He lie, however weak I may be?
How is it possible for Him to send His servant to battle and not comfort
him with reinforcements when the battle goes hard? God is not David when
he put Uriah in the front lines and left him to die (2 Sa 11:15).
God will never desert any of His servants.
Dear brothers and sisters, if the
Lord calls you to things you cannot do, He will give you the strength to
do them. If He should push you still further, until your difficulties
increase and your burdens become heavy, “as your days, so shall your
strength be” (Deut. 33:25). You shall march with the indomitable
spirit of those who have tried and trusted the naked arm of the Eternal
God.
“I will never leave you nor forsake
you.” Then what is the trouble? Though all the world were against you,
you could shake all the world as Samson shook the lion (see
notes
Judges 14:6).
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Though earth, hell, and all
their crew come against you, if the God of Jacob stands at your back,
you will thresh them as though they were wheat and drive them as though
they were chaff. Roll this promise under your tongue. It is a sweet
food.
