Pray
Well, we are back to these verses again this evening. And this morning, we especially focused on the first three I read. Let me just read them again, and we will summarize what we spoke about already:
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For 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.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
This is something amazing. God has ordained that we be glorified and made like Jesus. And it is a certainty, and that makes salvation a certainty, in the sense of what we would call eternal security.
Salvation is forever. Salvation lasts forever. Salvation is not temporary. If salvation is temporary, then it’s not really salvation, is it? If salvation does not last forever, then you are not really saved, are you? Eternal life that can run out is not really eternal life. Eternal life that can be taken away from you is not eternal life. It’s a very simple analysis. Eternal life lasts for eternity… or it’s not eternal life. And that is what salvation is. We are being saved from the penalty of sin, which is death. And if we are saved from sin, we are saved from death.
Salvation either saves you forever… or it’s not really salvation.
And so, Paul here has made a pretty emphatic statement that God is going to glorify everyone who has been justified. But there are people in this world who don’t believe that. There are people who would love to convince you that is not true. And Paul realizes that, so he asks a question in verse 31. It is the most obvious question you could ask about this topic:
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
Who can take away our salvation? Who can take away our justification? Who can stop us from being saved from wrath? Who can stop us from being glorified?
And as we think about Paul’s question here, it should provoke us to think about the question. It should provoke us to consider the possibilities. If someone could lose salvation, if someone could lose eternal life, what are the ways, perhaps, we could theorize that would be possible?
If it is possible to lose salvation, then there would have to be someone or something that could take it away from us. And what would those someones or somethings be?
If God is in favor of our glorification, if God has ordained it to be so, who can withstand that?
And perhaps we could think of some possibilities why someone could lose their salvation.
And one very obvious option would be God. Perhaps God would change His mind. Perhaps there is something that could make God stop loving us, and then He would take away our salvation. Perhaps we could make a mistake so bad that He takes away our eternal life. Or perhaps we could do something that would make Him stop loving us. That is a reasonable thing we might ask.
And that is the question Paul answers in verse 32. Let’s look at it:
32 He 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?
My, that is quite an answer. And let’s think it through. God in heaven sacrificed His own Son, His most beloved Son, something of infinite value to Him. God delivered Him up to save us.
And Jesus died as a demonstration of the love of God. We realize Jesus was the image of the invisible God. Everything He showed us in the life He lived was like His Father. He was so much like His Father that He could say, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” He showed us every attribute of the Father perfectly, including His death on the cross. And Jesus showed us that God loved us so much, that God Himself was willing to die for sins.
That is how much God loved us.
That is how much God was willing to give and to do, to save us.
And Paul says, if God was willing to do that to save us, if He was willing to deliver up His own to die for us, how will He not also freely give us all things?
If God gave His only begotten Son to save us, would He do less to keep us?
If He would sacrifice the life of His Son to reconcile us, would He do less to keep us reconciled?
So this is a consideration of God’s love to us. Will God’s love for us decrease? Can God love us less now that we are saved than before we were saved at all? And if He would go to the most extreme of measures to save us, would He do any less to keep us?
Paul has made this assertion before. Go back to chapter 5 again; I will read one verse.
Romans 5:8 (King James Version):
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
If God has already done the most amazing act of love, in saving us while we were still sinners, then how could that decrease? How could His love diminish?
God saved Paul when he was out hunting Christians down to be executed. It doesn’t get much worse than that. And God saved Paul when he was that bad of a guy. Could God change His mind and love him less after he was saved? The answer is obvious. Of course, God would not love him less.
If He loved us enough to deliver up Christ to die for us even when we were sinners, surely He would not do less than that for us now that we have been saved. And notice the language of this verse, back in chapter 8.
This goes to justification. Jesus died to pay for all our sins, past, present, and future. Jesus has already paid for every sin for your entire life, cradle to the grave. And His payment was total and complete. There is no sin He did not pay for.
And of course, as Paul has already told us, we realize that is not a license for us to live in sin. But it is a statement that, as a born-again believer, even our shortcomings cannot keep us from being glorified. He will forgive all of those and keep us in spite of them too. God is not going to change His mind about us and start loving us less after we have been saved.
And I also want to point out to you one word there in verse 32, and that word is “freely.” He will freely give all this to us. It’s not predicated on our performance. It’s not dependent on doing or obtaining. Yes, as Christians, we do grow and obtain, but our final glorification is not dependent on the growing and obtaining. Rather, the growing and obtaining are steps God is working in us to move us along the way.
So, that is verse 32. God’s love for us will not decrease after we are saved. God will not change His mind about us after we are saved. That is not a possibility. So, losing our salvation that way is not going to happen.
Now, if God is not going to change His mind about us, then is there another way we could lose our salvation? Perhaps there is someone besides God who can take away our salvation, and that is the question Paul answers in verse 33. Let’s read it.
33 Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
So again, it is a very simple, straightforward statement. You and I are the elect of God. “Elect” and “chosen” mean the same thing. We are His chosen people, or His elect people. The same ones He talked about in verse 28—the called according to His purpose.
And being His people, His elect, who can charge us with anything? And that is a charge like charging us with a crime, charging us with an offense. Who can charge the ones chosen by God with an offense? Who has legal standing to bring something against us?
When God is the one who justifies, when He is the one who says you can go free, who can override that?
Maybe think of the court system. If you get in trouble and have a trial, and the prosecutor charges you with a crime, and say the trial goes a bad way, well, then you appeal the decision to the appeals court. Well, if the appeals court gives you a bad decision, then you can appeal to the state supreme court. And if the state supreme court gives you a bad decision, you can appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. And then, the Supreme Court gets the final say. They get to make a decision, and whatever they say is final; there is no higher court you can appeal to. Their judgment stands.
Now, apply that to what Paul says here. There is no higher authority than God. There is no one higher than Him to appeal to. So who is a prosecutor going to appeal the decision to? It is God who justifies. Who can charge us with anything when the Supreme Court has said we are innocent? Who can lay anything against us when God says we can go free?
This is how Paul answers this question. In verse 32, he explained that God is not going to change His mind; we can’t lose our salvation that way. And here in verse 33, he explains that there is nowhere to appeal the decision and nobody else who can bring a charge against us successfully.
Not the devil. Not man. Nobody.
And in verse 34, Paul tackles another question. Well, what about Jesus? Could Jesus condemn us? Could Jesus change His mind? And again, this is reasonable to wonder. The Bible tells us that the Father has committed judgment to the Son, so perhaps, through some way, Jesus could condemn us. And let’s read how he looks at that.
34 Who 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.
And here, we see, he rules out any possibility that Jesus could condemn us. It’s really just out of the question. As Jesus said in John chapter 3, He came into the world not to condemn the world, but to save it. He is the one who died for us. He is the one making intercession for us. It is preposterous to think He would condemn us.
Amen.
Now, as we bring this short message to a close, let me point out there is one more possibility, and we will look at this next time. God won’t change His mind about us. Jesus won’t condemn us. And no one else has standing to even charge us with anything.
So, is there any other possibility? Well, perhaps we might look at ourselves. Perhaps we would say our own stupidity, or our own shortcomings, or our own failings. Perhaps those things could make us lose our salvation. Perhaps we could do it to ourselves.
And this next set of verses will prove to us that we cannot stop ourselves. If we are truly born again and are a child of God, though we may go through many, many hard trials, even ones of our own making, we cannot cause ourselves to be separated from the love of God.
Let me end this sermon by reminding you one more time of the context of Paul’s overall point as we come to the end of chapter 8. Paul is driving home to us the assurance and certainty of our full salvation when we are in Christ, and that nothing can stop us from having it. There is nothing that can interfere. There is nothing that can hinder or frustrate it. It is absolute; it is ironclad. And Paul wants the Romans to get and understand that because he knows there are people who are going to torture themselves over this subject. There are people who are going to fret about it. And there are going to be false teachers who are going to abuse the Bible and try to get people to believe otherwise. And Paul wants the Romans to have rock-solid assurance that they are standing in something firm, rock-solid, and secure.
Let me close in prayer.