Romans 8:18-39

18-25 26-30 31-39

18-25

18

Saying that the glory and majesty of heaven, along with our new sinless perfected bodies, and being where there is no sin, no disease or death, saying all that is not worth comparing with our time suffering here on earth is a huge understatement. Our time here on this earth is just a vapor, were here for a short time and then we will be either in heaven or hell for eternity. But our time here does matter, while we are still here on earth and joined with this sinful flesh is our only opportunity to come to Christ and be saved from the deserved fate of eternity in hell where the fire is not quenched or the worm does not die. In this brief stay here we will have pain, suffering, disease, war, crime, and death. And for the saved we can expect no better while we are her, in fact we should expect worse. It is only by the grace of God that we are not under full persecution and open torture at our present time here, some brothers and sisters in other parts of the world are already being arrested, tortured and killed for the faith, and it is only going to get worse as God lifts his restraining hand from the world. But even if every Christian everywhere were hunted, persecuted, and martyred for faith in Jesus Christ every day it still would not be worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us.

19

And its not only us that waits with the certain hope of the return of Jesus, all of creation is waiting. At the end of days at Jesus’ second coming is when all of the faithful will be rejoined with our resurrected sinless bodies and the adopted sons and daughters of God will be revealed.

20

Let us not forget that all of creation was cursed along with Adam and Eve. Death entered into the world but not for just humans even though creation was not at fault and didn’t sin, and could not have sinned as only man was created in God’s image and had the breath of life blown into him.

21

But in the same curse God laid down for humans and all of creation he also laid the foundations of the hope as He told of the coming of the one that in Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”” God in the middle of the curse promised that there would be a son of man that would come and be bruised on the heel which is non-fatal, be injured but live as Christ died but rose again, but Satan would be bruised, or struck on the head, a fatal wound that Christ accomplished by defeating what sin brought, death.

22

All of creation is groaning, suffering and dying while waiting for the end of days and Jesus’ triumphant return to make all anew, sinless, spotless and perfect.

23

All of creation is groaning and waiting, and we, the saved, the firstfruits of the Spirit, we who have been saved and received Christ in faith who are producing the fruits of our salvation as we are sanctified, we were justified and adopted when we recieved the Holy Spirit and we are eagerly waiting the redemption of our bodies, no longer having sinful flesh and being at war with ourselves, eagerly waiting for our inheritance and privileges of being adopted heirs of God.

24

Our hope in our salvation is that we and all of creation will be resurrected and will be able to be at peace with God and dwell with him forever. We call it hope but it is not wishing, it is known but not seen yet, God has revealed the truth to us through his word but we have not been shown firsthand the end of days and the new Jerusalem. If we have seen the revelation of he renewal of all of creation we would not call it our hope.

25

But we have not personally seen the redemption of all of creation and we hope, patiently awaiting God’s sovereign time, when He says now, and not being impatient and thinking that we know better than God. Yes we cry please Lord Jesus come, but we do not cry out why hasn’t he come already, or God forbid saying “If he truly loved us he would not have let us suffer and would have come for us by now”. God is sovereign and in control of everything, we must remember that this life is not our hope and we are in a world that hates God and all of those that cast light on the darkness. We wait eagerly, but patiently wait with certain, true, and real hope as we fight our sinful bodies and do our work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations and peoples, every tongue and tribe all over the globe.

26-30

26

We need to thank God for so many things, but the gift of the Holy Spirit should be at the top of the list. Jesus called Him the helper, and without the helper we would be truly lost. It is God’s Spirit in us that not only enables us to want God in the first place but also just as Jesus called Him helps us in our weakness and our battle with our own sinful flesh, also in the battle with the fallen world that our sinful flesh wars against us to cling to. We should do just as 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says and pray without ceasing, but we do not pray as often as we should nor in the manner we should, but the Spirit of God in us, as our helper, intercedes for us and knows our groanings and thoughts, our deep longing and feelings to deep for us to even gather them into coherent words. The Spirit understand and helps us pray to the Father what we can’t even form into words.

27

God is triune but one, there is no disagreement or things known by one that the other does not know, the three persons of the Godhead in one. The Spirit is in us and knows of our mind, therefor the Father and the Son knows our groanings. This interceding of the Spirit in us mirroring the high priestly interceding of Christ for us at the right hand of the Father, all known and done according to the will of God.

28

God is good all the time, and we as called believers and lovers of God know that God’s sovereign plan for us, and his purpose for all of creation, will be for his glory, for his good and holy glory.

29

God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, he knows all, is all powerful, and is everywhere. He knew us before the foundations of the world, before creation. But he did not just know who in time would choose to come to Christ and be saved and called them the elect, because no man of his own will would choose God, our will is to be at war with God, to fight against what is holy and to deny our creator and to think that we are good at heart and deny that we need a savior at all. God predestined or elected us to receive His grace and mercy, to be saved and to be continually sanctified into the image of Jesus Christ. Jesus was the firstborn, the first to defeat death in his resurrection, the first among many more that God has elected to be adopted and will be called brothers and sisters of Christ.

30

Those that God predestined or elected to be saved, he called with power, unconditionally and irresistibly called with power through grace. There was nothing special that we have or would have done that God omnisciently saw in us that caused Him or made Him elect us to be saved, there are no conditions we had to meet for God to elect us, it is a work of grace that we are saved. Also God’s grace, His sovereign will that we are elected to be saved cannot be denied or refused, our will is not greater than God’s will. And if he chose us, and enabled us to be saved, He will see us through to the end and keep us. There was nothing we did to cause our salvation and there is nothing we can do to lose our salvation, it is all a work of God’s grace. Those of whom God elected and called He justified, declared us to be not guilty as the punishment of our guilt was taken by Christ on the cross. God elected us without merit, caused us to want to be saved, to know we needed a savior, and provided the savior to us. And after he declares us to be justified and not guilty he glorifies us, continually conforming us to the image of His Son during our remaining time here and resurrecting us with perfect sinless bodies at the end of days and adopting us as sons and daughters to be brothers and sisters of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

31-39

31

What shall we say to these things if not hallelujah and Amen? We praise God and give him all the glory because it is his work and his will that is done, there was, is and never will be anything that we can do to save us or keep us saved. We are God’s children now and if he is for us, if he loves us as children, who can be against us? No one.

32

What was the cost of our redemption? God the son taking on flesh and being offered up as a holy and worthy sacrificial atonement for our sins, God did not spare his own son and laid on Him all of our sins and punishment. God did all that to redeem us, do you not believe that He will also keep His promise to us to raise us up on the last day, to give us a place at His table, in His home? To give us all things?

33

Just like verse 31 says, if God is for us, who can be against us? Who can say that anyone that God has elected for salvation has any guilt left to be paid for? God was the one who justified us, He declared us not guilty and God is the creator, ruler, and Holy judge over all of His creation. God is Holy and will not, and can not, ignore sin, and sins punishment which is eternal death the due wages of sin.

34

If God has justified us, called us not guilty, who is greater than God to condemn us, or say we are guilty? No one. God sent his own son Jesus the Christ, the God man, who paid the punishment due for our sin, who died on the cross, giving up his life willingly after receiving the full wrath of God for us, but even more glorious than that was raised from the dead, showing that death did not win but was defeated. Now having been raised up from the dead Jesus ascended to heaven and is at the right hand of God, ever interceding for us, answering every charge brought against us saying with all power and authority, he is mine, she is mine, see the wounds of grace that were suffered for them.

35

If Christ loves us that much, to condescend so low, to pay that punishment for us, who can break that love He has for us? All that the world can do to us; tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword. All of that the world can do to us, to our flesh which is passing away anyway, nothing that man or this world under the power and control of Satan can do to us would cause the love of God through Jesus Christ to shrink one little bit.

36

The quote Paul uses in verse 36 is from Psalm 44:22, for the glory of God we are being persecuted and killed every day as sheep to the slaughter. Everything is for the glory of God, whether we can understand it or not right now, God is sovereign and in control and everything works for the glory of God. The world and Satan will do everything that they can to test our faith, to shake it, to make us deny Christ. But God is using this for our sanctification and his glory.

37

In all our trials and tribulations we will not be conquered but be conquerors, we will be tested, sifted as chaff in the wind. But with our assured salvation through the love of Christ, nothing that the world can do to us will change our standing with God.

38 -39

Verses 38 and 39 are as a complete list as you will get that nothing that the world or ourselves can do that would cause God to change his mind about our salvation. Romans 8:38–39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing in all of creation, and everything except the triune God is a created thing or being, nothing in creation will remove us, remove our salvation that God has given us as a free gift through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. John 10:28 “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”