THE closing verses of the chapter (Rom. 8:28-3928And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 31What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? 32He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? 33Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. 34Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:28‑39)) bring before us the blessed theme that God is for us. No matter what the circumstances of our pathway may be, we are on our road to glory. Glory with Christ is the Christian’s eternal portion. For the obtaining of this glory God called us by the gospel (2 Thess. 2:1313But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: (2 Thessalonians 2:13)). We are not in it yet, but we are saved in the hope of it (Rom. 8:24, 2524For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? 25But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. (Romans 8:24‑25)).
Meanwhile we are walking through an undelivered creation; it groans and travails in pain, and every groan that rises up from it to God tells of the sin of the first Adam which brought about the ruin. God sees it, and “we know” it (vs. 22).
As we have seen, believers are already delivered from sin’s guilt (ch. 5) and power (ch. 8), they are not yet delivered from its presence, nor will they be until the bright morning of Christ’s coming, when the new creation will be ushered in in power and glory. Of that new creation, Christ risen from the dead is the beginning (Rev. 3:1414And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14)), and believers now quickened and risen with Christ are a kind of first fruits (Eph. 2; James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18)). With the old and fallen creation they are still linked through their bodies of humiliation, but with the new creation they are already linked by the Spirit. They have the first fruits of the Spirit now, the earnest of what is theirs in hope, for the Spirit will yet be poured forth on all flesh in the day of millennial blessing. Linked in their bodies with the groaning creation, and feeling all according to the mind of the Spirit that dwells within them, they groan in sympathy with the mind and thoughts of God.
When Christ was here He groaned in spirit at the sight of all the misery and wretchedness that filled the scene as the result of man’s sin. With Him all was in perfection; we, too, in our measure groan in sympathy with His heart. Ofttimes we know not what to pray for as we ought. It may even be that no remedy may be possible; but then the Spirit within us makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Creation groans, believers groan, and the Spirit produces groans that cannot even be expressed in words. What a blessed circle of divine sympathies have we here!
And God searches the hearts of His people; and what to find? The mind of the Spirit. How often, alas! may He not find other things, and for this we need to judge ourselves; but in the connection in which the truth here stands, God searches the heart to find there the thoughts and feelings and desires produced by the mind of the Spirit. How entirely the saints are here looked upon as linked in God’s mind with the Spirit already given, and who makes intercession for them according to God!
But if sometimes we know not what to pray for as we ought, this we may always know, that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (vs. 28).
In God’s love we may have perfect confidence. He may not change the circumstances, but He will bless them, and His people passing through them. He did not quench the flames of the fiery furnace, nor diminish their intensity in the smallest degree, but He walked with His people through them. He did not prevent the stripes falling upon His beloved servants Paul and Silas, nor deliver them at once from the dungeon and their chains, but He enabled them to sing songs of triumph and praise in the midst of their trials.
And so we may be always sure that all things will work out God’s purpose for those whom He has called. For it was in fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose that He called us by the gospel. His foreknowledge of all that we should prove ourselves to be did not hinder His predestinating us according to His sovereign and electing mercy. But He predestinated us for a special object, not merely that we should be happy and safe in heaven for eternity, but that we should be conformed to the image of His Son. Nothing short of this would satisfy His heart. He might have given us an angel’s place, but He has been pleased to destine us to share the glory of His Son, to be like Him, conformed to His image. We shall surround Him in that glory as His brethren; He, blessed be His name! being the First-born, the chief and center of that glorified throng.
Called, justified, and glorified—what can we say to such things? Did we deserve them? No. Had we done ought to merit them? No. But “God is for us,” and who can be against us? It was God’s purpose that guilty sinners should be in glory with His Son; and to carry out this purpose, He did not spare His Son, His own Son. Such was the measure of His love, if we can speak of measure in a love which is infinite.
Believers, then, are the objects of God’s choice; they are “God’s elect” (vs. 33). Shall any charge be brought against them? “Guilty before God” had been the verdict, and “every mouth stopped” was as true of God’s elect as of all others; but God Himself has justified them. Who then is he that would condemn them? What has become of their many sins? They are gone forever from before a holy God, for Christ was charged with them all at Calvary, and Christ has died under the judgment that those sins deserved—sins not His own but ours. And where is Christ now? He is risen again; and not only this, He is at the right hand of God, and faith can turn the eye upward and see Him there crowned with glory and honor.
Not only so; but that risen, living and loving Saviour intercedes for those for whom He died, and nothing will ever separate them from His love. Should tribulations rise or sore distress for Christ’s sake; should fiery persecutions seek to overwhelm the saints of God; should famine or nakedness, peril or sword beset their pathway here below; even should they be killed all the day long “for Thy sake,” or counted as sheep for the slaughter; yet in all these things more than conquerors they shall be “through Him that loved us.” The whole army of martyrs from Stephen onwards stand boldly out in the page of history as more than conquerors through that love of Christ, from which no power of earth or hell, of men or devils, could separate them.
If we compare the use made by the Spirit of God in this chapter with the Old Testament Scripture from which the words are quoted, a flood of light is thrown upon the subject. In Isaiah 1:7-117Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 10Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. (Isaiah 1:7‑11), the prophet is speaking of Christ Himself: “He is near that justifieth Me (i.e. Christ); who will contend with Me?” Again, “The Lord God will help Me; who is he that shall condemn Me (i.e. Christ)?” But what is said of Christ in Isaiah is applied to the saint of the present dispensation in Romans. This is a point of great importance, for in the Old Testament times the Church was hidden, a mystery not yet revealed; nevertheless Christ and the Church are one—what is true of the Head is true of the members; hence it is that the Spirit of God applies to the members of Christ in Romans what that same Spirit applies to Christ Himself in Isaiah.
Bearing this in mind, we may learn by referring to Isa. 50 the contrast between the portion of the saint of this present dispensation and that of the remnant of Israel in the time that follows the removal of the Church at the coming of the Lord. In vs. 8 and 9 we see what is true of Christ and the Church in Him, the conscious assurance that there can be no condemnation. But what will characterize the spiritual relations of the saints in the period that will come after the Church is removed is found in verse To. They will fear the Lord, they will obey His voice, but they will be walking in darkness, and have no light. Their experiences are depicted in the Psalms. Passing through their time of great tribulation, fears and troubles of every kind surrounding them, their enemies ready to swallow them up, and God apparently leaving them alone, darkness and no light will indeed be their portion. We walk in the light, they will be walking in the darkness, but nevertheless they are exhorted to trust in the name of Jehovah, and to stay themselves upon God. Dark though their path may seem, it is better far than that of the ungodly nation of Israel described in verse 11. Space will not admit of further enlarging upon this deeply interesting scripture, but we would briefly recapitulate the three divisions:
1. Christ and the Church (vers. 8, 9).
2. The remnant of Israel in the last days (ver. 10).
3. The ungodly nation of Israel at the same period (ver. 11).
And here we close this section of the epistle. What a marvelous unfolding of man’s lost and ruined condition through sin, but of God’s rich provision in grace, and the way His love can reach to the lowest depths, and bring the guilty thence, justifying them now, and setting them at peace before Him, and presently to complete the story by putting them in glory. All had sinned, whether Jew or Gentile, and had come short of God’s glory, but the gospel was God’s power unto salvation to every one that believed, “to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” “No condemnation” to those who are in Christ Jesus, pond no separation “from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”