Why It Matters //
This is the final week of our study of Life by The Spirit. In the previous verses Paul laid out the truth that those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God and co-heirs with Christ. If we are the children of God, is there anyone who can condemn us? No, because we have been justified by Christ, not because of our own righteousness or good deeds. Through Jesus, we can approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph. 3:12), because he has cleansed us from our sin, which separated us from the Father. When God looks at us he sees his beloved children, not our transgressions, and there’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God.
What It's Talking About //
The book of Romans was written by Paul the Apostle around AD 57 a few years after Nero had become emperor of Rome. The christians were still living in relative peace, but not many years later, Nero began to persecute them after the Roman fire in AD 64. Paul begins the book of Romans by laying out the spiritual condition of all people - that all are sinners and are in need of salvation. The primary theme throughout this letter is the revelation of God’s righteousness in His plan for salvation.
Rom 8:31-39 NIV
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.
34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.