Romans 8
Salvation and Security through The Son And The Spirit
Romans 7 cannot be understood apart from its relationship with Romans 8. The two chapters belong together. Romans 7 gives the problem—the Law’s inability to deliver one from sin (frustratingly felt by Paul as a pre-converted Jew)—and Romans 8 gives the solution: Divine deliverance through Christ and the Spirit. - Preston Sprinkle
There is “therefore now no condemnation” because the plight which has been described in chapter 7 has received an exact answer in the death and resurrection of the Messiah and the gift of the Spirit. God has done what He had always planned to do. - NT Wright
No Condemnation in Christ
Vs. 1 - Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
No condemnation means that God will never condemn us to an eternity separate from Himself for our sins. The reason is that the believer is in Christ Jesus. The Savior has suffered the consequences of our sins as our substitute. He will experience no condemnation, and we, as those He represents, will not either. - Thomas Constable
Paul has just asked the question, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Who will deliver me from this inability to perfectly obey the laws of God? Now he answers his own question: God has provided rescue through His Son and His Spirit.
The Gift of the Son
Vs. 2-3 - For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering
The Messiah came to completely obey the law of God in the way that humanity never could. Jesus obeyed perfectly and yielded His life completely as a “sin offering” for our forgiveness.
This was not God’s plan B. This was always the way God would redeem His people. He was not waiting to see if we could merit His mercy. The lamb “slain before the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) was the only worthy sacrifice.
The Gift of the Spirit
Vs. 8 - Those who are in the flesh cannot please God
Humans cannot completely obey God. They cannot earn His favor by the power of their own will. Paul illustrated this in the previous chapter. He found a war within himself, a battle of opposing desires.
Vs. 9 - You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.
So Paul says, that’s why the gospel is good news. Because of Jesus’ perfect life and sacrificial death in our place, we are no longer “in the flesh.” We are now “in the Spirit.” God has come to His people. He is building His temple.
Vs. 10-11 - Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.
Rather than giving us life, the law declared us guilty, deserving of death. Only through God’s grace in giving the gifts of His Son and His Spirit can we participate in righteous life.
Vs. 13 - if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
There is no life in the law for us. If we attempt to find life through keeping it (living according to the flesh), we will only find death. Only the Spirit of God brings life. This is the gospel Paul has been unpacking. We do not have to stumble and fumble our way to God. He has come to us. We do not fear condemnation because He has made a way for us to live.
Coming Glorification in Christ
Groaning in Anticipation
Vs. 18-19 - For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.
Vs. 23 - we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
In the experience of the Holy Spirit, men had a foretaste, a first installment, of the glory that shall be; now they long with all their hearts for the full realization of what adoption into the family of God means. - William Barclay
Paul used suffering here to bridge the gap between subjects of salvation and glorification. Believers who have received the Holy Spirit have tasted only a little of the “glory” that God will later reveal. In the meantime, Christians must wait in faith and suffer at times while they look for the great good that God is accomplishing for those who love Him (28).
Paul describes the groaning of creation, the groaning of believers, and the groaning of the Holy Spirit. Travail gives birth to a new creation. - Edwin A. Blum
Vs. 24-25 - Now in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? Now if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with patience.
Our salvation is secure, but it is as yet unseen and thus a matter of hope. We wait in faith and patience. - Edwin A. Blum
Spirit-Led Lament
Vs. 26 - In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness
Vs. 27 - And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit
Vs. 28 - We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
God knows that the present creation is “groaning together,” like a woman going into labor. These labor pains are the birth-pangs of God’s new creation. And people who have been grasped by the gospel, people who are led by the Spirit, are called to share in that “groaning”, in prayers of lament.
When that Spirit-led lament is happening, as Paul explains in verses 26 and 27, God himself, who searches the hearts, will hear that groaning from the dark places of creation’s pain. And those who pray that way, even when—precisely when!—they don’t even know what to pray for, will thereby be formed, shaped, into the Jesus-pattern, the pattern of the cross, sharing the pain of the world so that the world may be redeemed. Paul says exactly that in verse 29. And they will thereby be co-operating, not indeed in the work of their own salvation, but in the larger purposes of God for his battered and bleeding creation.
So what we might have met in Sunday School, as an apparently comforting proverb about how everything is going to pan out all right somehow, is in fact a challenging—but still also comforting —statement about Christian vocation. At the very moment when we are caught up in the unspeakable groaning of all creation, the Spirit is working in our hearts to bring us in tune with God’s loving and healing purposes. God made humans to share in his work. We are to be people of prayer at the places where the world is in pain. And in the present time this kind of lament is what prayer looks like. When we take up that calling, we are caught up in the love of God; and God is working all things together for good with those who love him. - NT Wright
The Good Work of God
Vs. 29-30 - For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.
This is the good that God is always working out for those who love Him, those who suffer and wait for the end of their salvation. He will call them, conform them, and keep His promise to glorify them with all of creation.
No Separation from Christ
Paul concludes this section of his letter with a logical argument and triumphant exclamation. With some of the most beautiful language of any of his epistles, He celebrates the assurance that every Christian will not only avoid condemnation but will also attain glorification through Christ.
Paul’s Rhetorical Questions
vs. 21 - Who is against us?
vs. 32 - Will he not also with him grant us everything?
vs. 33 - Who can bring an accusation?
vs. 34 - Who is the one who condemns?
vs. 35 - Who can separate us from the love of Christ?
Paul’s Definitive Answers
vs. 31 - God is for us
Vs. 37 - in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Vs. 39 - nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Familiar Language
Vs. 32 - He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.
Barclay notes that those familiar with the Genesis account of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah may have recognized familiar language here about not sparing an only son. What Abraham was willing but not required to do, God did for us.
Common Suffering
Vs. 36-37 - As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Paul quoted Psalm 44 to show that God’s people have always suffered, but it has never separated them from the love of God.
Confidence in Christ
Vs. 34 - Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.
The only one who can condemn us has chosen to save us instead. In all our groaning and suffering and waiting, we can be confident that He is “for us,” committed to our salvation and the restoration of all things.
The key to the believer’s security is that, "God is for us." What He has done for us through His Son in the past and what He is doing for us through the Spirit in the present should give us confidence. He will certainly complete His work of salvation by glorifying us in the future. Nobody and nothing can stand in His way. - Thomas Constable
