Romans 8:38

“What shall we then say to these things?” looks back over the whole chapter. It opened with “no condemnation” for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). It went on to the Spirit who dwells in us (Romans 8:9–11), the Spirit of adoption who bears witness that we are the children of God (Romans 8:15–16), and our sharing in Christ’s sufferings now and in his glory later (Romans 8:17–18). It spoke of the groaning of creation and of our waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body (Romans 8:18–30, 8:23), and of the Spirit who intercedes for us (Romans 8:26–27). Then came the promise that all things work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28), and the “golden chain” of salvation, in which those God foreknew he also predestinated, called, justified and glorified (Romans 8:29–30). “These things” are all of that, and verse 31 is the conclusion they lead to.

“If God be for us” uses the small Greek word ei, “if”, to set down a premise Paul has already proved, so it carries the sense “since” or “given that”. The word for “for” is hypér, a preposition whose root meaning is “over”, used here in the sense “on behalf of” or “for the sake of”. God is on our side. He works for our good, takes up our cause and defends us, and he is committed to bringing us to glory. The one who stands for us is theós, God himself, the almighty Creator and Sustainer of all things, so his support outweighs every force that could be set against it.

The word for “against”, katá, has the root sense of “down”, and here it describes the hostile stance of an opponent. Enemies are real, and Paul is about to list them. His question declares that whatever opposes us, whether people, evil spirits, hard circumstances or our own weakness, will fail to overturn God’s purpose for us. The strength of this lies wholly in God’s power and his commitment to us.

The church in Rome knew what it was to have the world against them. It was a mixed church of Jewish and Gentile believers in a pagan city that was often hostile to faith in one God and to the claims of Christ. They faced social exclusion, ridicule and the steady pull to compromise, though the state had yet to turn on them in widespread persecution. Some opposed their freedom in Christ from the side of the law, the society around them demanded idolatry, and behind both stood the spiritual forces of darkness.

Scripture says the same thing many times. The psalmist sings, “The LORD is on my side” (Psalm 118:6). Isaiah promises God’s servants that “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17), and Paul tells the Philippians that he who has begun a good work in them will complete it (Philippians 1:6). God has shown in history that he is for us, because “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). By his death and resurrection Christ has won the victory over sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54–57), and verse 34 will say that he now intercedes for us at God’s right hand. The cross and the empty tomb are the final answer to the question of this verse.

Verse 32 gives the proof that God is for us, and it argues from the greatest gift to every lesser one. “Spared”, pheídomai, means to be sparing with something, to hold it back or to treat it leniently. With the strong negative ou before it, it says that the Father held nothing back and showed his Son no leniency as he went to the cross. “His own Son” joins ídios, “one’s own”, to huiós, “son”, and lays stress on how near and how precious this Son is to the Father. God gave up what was dearest to him, which shows both the depth of his love and the seriousness of our sin, that it called for so costly an atonement.

The words recall Abraham, who was told, “thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me” (Genesis 22:12). In that account God tested Abraham’s devotion and then provided the ram himself, and readers who knew the Scriptures would have heard the offering of Isaac behind Paul’s words.

“But delivered him up for us all.” Allá, “but”, sets the handing over against any holding back. Paradídōmi means to surrender, yield up, entrust or hand on. It is used of judicial surrender and of Judas handing Jesus to the authorities, and here it describes the Father’s own deliberate act in giving his Son over to suffering and death. This was the redemptive purpose Isaiah foretold: “the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “For us all” is hypér again, with pâs, “all”, so the Son was given on behalf of all who believe, for their redemption and their reconciliation with God. This is the love of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son”.

Then comes the question. Arguing from the greater to the lesser was a common and persuasive way of reasoning in the ancient world, and Paul uses it here. God has already given the greatest gift there is, so it is unthinkable that he would hold back any lesser gift that is truly good for those he gave his Son to save. “With him”, sýn, ties every later gift to Christ, because they all come with him and from him. “Freely give” is charízomai, from charis, “grace”. God’s gifts are unearned kindness, and they flow from the same love that gave the Son.

With verse 33 Paul steps into a courtroom. “Lay any thing to the charge” translates enkaléō, from en, “in”, and kaléō, “to call”. It means to call in a debt or a demand, to bring someone to account, and so to accuse formally or to prosecute. In Scripture the accuser is often Satan, as when he stands to accuse Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1–5), and the charge may also come from the law, from sin or from our own conscience. Paul asks who could bring a charge that would hold.

The people he defends are “God’s elect”. Eklektós comes from eklégomai, to select, and means chosen, and by implication a favourite. God’s elect are those he has chosen for salvation in Christ before the foundation of the world, by his grace and his own purpose, apart from any merit he foresaw in them. Calling them God’s elect says that they belong to him, so an attack on them is an attack on his own people.

“It is God that justifieth.” Dikaióō, from díkaios, “just”, means to render, show or regard as just or innocent. In this courtroom it is the judge’s verdict: to declare righteous, to acquit, to pronounce innocent. Israel’s judges were told to “justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked” (Deuteronomy 25:1), and Paul uses that legal language for what God does for us. He changes our standing from guilty to righteous on the ground of Christ’s righteousness credited to us through faith, apart from the works of the law, as Paul has already shown (Romans 3:21–26). This verdict concerns our standing before God, and sanctification, the making of us holy, is a distinct work. Being justified by faith, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

The weight of the verse falls on the word “God”. The supreme Judge and Lawgiver has declared his chosen people righteous, so his verdict is final and every lesser authority must yield to it. The words echo Isaiah: “He is near that justifieth me; who will contend with me?” (Isaiah 50:8). Christ was “raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25), he is our “advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1), and he has disarmed the powers that would condemn us (Colossians 2:13–15).

“Condemneth” is katakrínō, from katá, “against”, and krínō, “to judge”. It means to judge against someone and pass sentence, pronouncing the guilty verdict that leads to punishment. Paul’s challenge goes out to every human or demonic accuser and to our own conscience, and it takes us back to the chapter’s opening words, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus”. The answer is Christ, in four steps that build on one another.

• Christ died. His death on the cross was the atoning sacrifice that satisfied God’s justice and bore the penalty of sin, so every lawful ground for condemning us has been taken away. In it he fulfilled the Old Testament sacrifices as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
• He is risen again. “Yea rather” puts still more weight on the resurrection. Egeírō means to waken, rouse or raise up, and Christ was raised to new and indestructible life. His rising confirms that his death did its work, proves his victory over sin and death, and gives us new life. He is the firstfruits of the dead, the pledge that all who are in him shall be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:20–22). Paul has already argued that since we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more shall we be saved by his life (Romans 5:9–10).
• He is at the right hand of God. This draws on Psalm 110:1, “Sit thou at my right hand”. In Israel the seat at a king’s right hand was the place of highest honour, authority and power. Christ has finished his work on earth, ascended and now reigns, with all power in heaven and in earth given to him (Matthew 28:18) and every rule and authority set beneath him (Ephesians 1:20–23). From there he protects and governs his people.
• He maketh intercession for us. Entynchánō means to chance upon or meet with someone, to confer with him, and so to entreat, either in a person’s favour or against him. Here Christ pleads our case before the Father as our great High Priest, presenting his finished work as the ground of our acceptance. “He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25), and in this he fulfils all that the Levitical priesthood pointed to.

Our standing before God rests on this unchanging work of Christ, and our own uneven performance has no part in it. Every accusation is answered by what he has done and is still doing.

Verse 35 turns from the courtroom to the troubles of life. Chōrízō, “separate”, means to place room between, to part, and in its reflexive use to go away. Agápē means love, affection or benevolence, here the self-giving love Christ has shown us and still holds for us. Paul asks whether anything could open a gap between us and that love, and he names seven candidates, each joined by “or”, ḗ, so that each one is weighed on its own.

• Tribulation, thlîpsis, is pressure of every kind, literal or figurative: affliction, anguish, burden and trouble.
• Distress, stenochōría, is extreme anguish, the narrowness of hemmed-in circumstances.
• Persecution, diōgmós, is active oppression and harassment.
• Famine, limós, and nakedness, gymnótēs, are material want, hunger and the exposed, vulnerable state of those without clothing.
• Peril, kíndynos, is danger and exposure to harm.
• Sword, máchaira, is violent death, including the state’s power to execute, the last threat the body can face.

Paul wrote this from experience. He had known these things himself, “in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:27), with all the other sufferings he lists in the same passage (2 Corinthians 11:23–27). For the church in Rome these were real dangers as well, and persecution grew far worse in the decades after he wrote, until believers faced martyrdom.

The love that holds through all of this is Christ’s own, shown at the cross. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Our life is hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), and God, who is rich in mercy, has loved us with great love (Ephesians 2:4–5). Jesus says of his sheep, “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28–29). Peter says that we are kept by the power of God (1 Peter 1:3–5), and Jude praises him “that is able to keep you from falling” (Jude 1:24). Our security rests on the love of Christ and the faithfulness of God, and both hold firm.

Verse 36 shows that this suffering is as old as God’s people. “As it is written”, kathōs gegraptai in Greek, from gráphō, “to grave” or “to write”, is the usual way the New Testament brings in a quotation from Scripture with its full authority. Paul quotes Psalm 44:22 in the words of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Psalm 44 is a lament of Israel, suffering while still faithful, who could say, “yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant” (Psalm 44:17). Paul sets the suffering of the church beside the suffering of God’s people of old, so that those who bear God’s name stand in one long line.

“For thy sake” gives the reason. They suffer because they belong to God, and in Paul’s use of the psalm that means because they belong to Christ. Thanatóō, from thanatos, “death”, means to kill or put to death, literally or figuratively, and it can also mean to mortify. Here it speaks of real martyrdom and of the constant threat of it. “All the day long” (holēn tēn hēmeran) is a deliberate overstatement for danger that is always present, a life lived ready to die. “Accounted” is logízomai, to take an inventory, to estimate, to reckon or impute. The persecutors reckon believers as sheep to be slaughtered, defenceless and innocent, and they treat them that way.

“Nay” is allá, the same word as the “but” of verse 32, used here as a strong “on the contrary”. Paul has just quoted a lament, and he answers it at once. “In all these things” means the very hardships of verse 35, every kind of suffering and opposition, and the victory is won in the middle of them as well as after them.

“More than conquerors” is a single Greek verb, hypernikáō, made from hyper, “over, beyond, exceedingly”, and nikáō, “to conquer, to gain the victory”. It means an overwhelming and decisive victory, far more than surviving or getting through. The triumph is so complete that the trials themselves become means of spiritual gain, of deeper reliance on God and of his glory. The word is found only here in the New Testament.

The victory comes “through him that loved us”. Agapáō is the verb that goes with agápē, and here it points back to a love already shown, as when Paul speaks of “the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Our triumph comes wholly from Christ’s love, and our own strength, wisdom and resilience add nothing to it. Paul knew this from his own life. He describes himself as persecuted and yet unforsaken (2 Corinthians 4:8–9), and the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). He could say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13), and “thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). Our victory is a share in Christ’s, who spoiled principalities and powers and made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them (Colossians 2:15). Because he conquered, we are more than conquerors.

Paul’s readers would soon need this. Rome became the centre of severe persecution under emperors such as Nero, from A.D. 64. Believers were misunderstood, accused of atheism because they refused the Roman gods, and blamed for the troubles of society. Paul’s words were written for people who would face exactly that.

“For I am persuaded” is peíthō in the perfect passive, pepeismai, “I have been persuaded and remain so”. It describes a settled conviction that was formed in Paul and still holds, resting on sure evidence and on what God has revealed. Paul speaks from his own certainty, with theology and experience behind it, and he wants his readers to share it.

The list in verses 38 and 39 comes largely in pairs of opposites, which together stand for everything between them. The repeated “nor”, oúte, brings in each item and piles them up until every possibility is covered.

• “Neither death, nor life” marks the outer bounds of human experience. Death is the last and most feared enemy, with all the fear and parting it brings. Life is everything we meet while we live: trials, temptations, persecutions, sufferings and daily pressures. Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).
• “Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers” covers the unseen world. Angels may mean the holy angels or the fallen ones. Archḗ, “principality”, means a beginning, or a chief in order, time, place or rank, and in Paul’s letters it often names spiritual rulers. Dýnamis, “power”, from the root “to be able”, means force, might or ability, and is often used of miraculous power or of a miracle itself. Together, principalities and powers name spiritual authorities of every rank and the might they wield, including the hostile forces we stand against in the whole armour of God (Ephesians 6:11), “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). Christ has already triumphed over them.
• “Nor things present, nor things to come” covers all of time, from every present difficulty, anxiety and persecution to every future event and unknown trial, including all that is still to come at the end.

The Roman world honoured many gods and the emperor, and many there believed that spiritual powers shaped human destiny. To believers living in it, Paul’s list said that the might of Rome, the spirits the pagans feared and the threats of life and death were all powerless to undo their standing with God.

Hýpsōma, “height”, and báthos, “depth”, are usually taken figuratively. They may stand for the extremes of human experience, the heights of success, prosperity or pride and the depths of suffering, despair or sin. They may stand for powers above and below, in the heavens and the underworld. In some Greek thought of the time these words may have named astrological forces believed to rule human destiny from the sky or from beneath the earth, and if so, Paul’s words met the fears of Gentile readers head on. On any reading the pair reaches from the highest place to the lowest.

Paul closes the list with “nor any other creature”. Ktísis means original formation, the act of creation, or the thing created, and here it takes in everything God has brought into being, visible or invisible, material or spiritual, known or unknown. Anything left off the list is covered by this phrase, because everything other than God is a creature, and no creature “shall be able”, dýnamai, to have the power to separate us.

The love Paul called “the love of Christ” in verse 35 he calls “the love of God” here, and it is one love. Agápē is God’s steadfast, self-giving love, which seeks the highest good of those he loves and which he gave us freely while we were still sinners. This love is “in Christ Jesus our Lord”. The preposition en, “in”, speaks of a fixed position and a close union. God’s love reaches us, is known by us and is kept secure for us in our union with Christ, the union Paul described when he wrote of our being baptized into his death and made alive with him (Romans 6:3–11). The Holy Spirit, given to us in Christ, is the earnest of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13–14). Christ, who died and rose, intercedes for us now, as verse 34 says, and he will return.

Jesus’ sheep are safe in his hand (John 10:28), we are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5), and God is able to keep us from falling (Jude 1:24). Believers differ on how far these verses settle whether one who truly believes can finally fall away. Many hold that they teach the perseverance of the saints, often called eternal security: those whom God has called and justified will be kept by his power until they are glorified, because their salvation rests on his faithfulness and his steadfast love. Others, who trust these verses just as fully, hold that the list names every power that could come against us from outside, and they warn that a person may still turn from Christ in unbelief. Both agree that this assurance is a source of peace and a reason for faithful obedience, and that it gives no licence for careless living. All of us can say with Paul that nothing in all creation is strong enough to take God’s love from us.

Every question in this passage turns us from ourselves to God. When you are accused, by others or by your own conscience, the answer is that God has justified you and that Christ pleads for you at his right hand. When you wonder whether God will provide, look at the cross, because the Father who gave his Son for you will also, with him, give you all that is truly good. When hardship comes, as Paul expected it would, it comes to someone Christ loves, and it may take a great deal from you while his love stays exactly where it was.

That love is also our strength. Paul’s confidence rested on God’s power and on a love already proved at the cross, and with it he could face the sword. You can serve boldly and give yourself freely for others, because your standing with God is secure in Christ. The God who has done all this is for you, and in all these things you are more than conquerors through him that loved you.