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Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.
What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
Romans 8:30-32 sits inside this longer paragraph.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.
What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.
What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
Morover which he apoynted before them he also called. And which he called them also he iustified which he iustified them he also glorified.
What shall we then saye vnto these thinges? yf god be on oure syde: who can be agaynst vs?
which spared not his awne sonne but gave him for vs all: how shall he not with him geve vs all thinges also?
Moreouer whom he predestinate, them also he called, and whom he called, them also he iustified, and whom he iustified, them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these thinges? If God be on our side, who can be against vs?
Who spared not his owne Sonne, but gaue him for vs all to death, how shall he not with him giue vs all things also?
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv30–32 30. And whom he has foredetermined, (præfinivit,) them has…
30. And whom he has foredetermined, (præfinivit,) them has he also called, etc. That he might now by a clearer proof show how true it is that a conformity with the humiliating state of Christ is for our good, he adopts a graduating process, by which he teaches us, that a participation of the cross is so connected with our vocation, justification, and, in short, with our future glory, that they can by no means be separated.
But that readers may better understand the Apostle’s meaning, it may be well to repeat what I have already said, — that the word foredetermine does not refer to election, but to that purpose or decree of God by which he has ordained that the cross is to be borne by his people; and by declaring that they are now called, he intimates, that God had not kept concealed what he had determined respecting them, but had made it known, that they might resignedly and humbly submit to the condition allotted to them; for calling here is to be distinguished from secret election, as being posterior to it. That none then may make this objection — that it appears to no one what lot God has appointed for him, the Apostle says, that God by his calling bears an evident testimony respecting his hidden purpose. But this testimony is not only found in the outward preaching of the gospel, but it has also the power of the Spirit connected with it; for the elect are there spoken of, whom God not only addresses by the outward word, but whom he also inwardly draws.
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Justification may fitly be extended to the unremitted continuance of God’s favor, from the time of our calling to the hour of death; but as Paul uses this word throughout the Epistle, for gratuitous imputation of righteousness, there is no necessity for us to deviate from this meaning. What Paul indeed had in view was to show that a more precious compensation is offered to us, than what ought to allow us to shun afflictions; for what is more desirable than to be reconciled to God, so that our miseries may no longer be tokens of a curse, nor lead us to ruin?
He then immediately adds, that those who are now pressed down by the cross shall be glorified; so that their sorrows and reproaches shall bring them no loss. Though glorification is not yet exhibited except in our Head, yet as we in a manner behold in him our inheritance of eternal life, his glory brings to us such assurance respecting our own glory, that our hope may be justly compared to a present possession.
We may add, that Paul, imitating the style of the Hebrew language, adopts in these verbs the past instead of the present tense. A continued act is no doubt what is meant, according to this import, “Those whom God now, consistently with his purpose, exercises under the cross, are called and justified, that they may have a hope of salvation, so that nothing of their glory decays during their humiliation; for though their present miseries deform it before the world, yet before God and angels it always shines forth as perfect.” What Paul then means by this gradation is, That the afflictions of the faithful, by which they are now humbled, are intended for this end — that the faithful, having obtained the glory of the celestial kingdom, may reach the glory of Christ’s resurrection, with whom they are now crucified.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv30–32 He useth the time past, for the time present,…
He useth the time past, for the time present, as the Hebrews use, who sometimes set down the thing that is to come, by the time that is past, to signify the certainty of it: and he hath also regard to God’s continual working.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv30–32 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also…
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.
Ver. 30. Them also he called, &c.] If ye feel not faith (said that holy martyr), then know that predestination is too high a matter for you to be disputers of, until you have been better scholars in the school house of repentance and justification, which is the grammar school wherein we must be conversant and learned, before we go to the university of God’s most holy predestination and providence.
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Them he also justified] Vocation precedeth justification. Deus iustificat fide iam donatos, sicut damnat prius indurates. (Cameron.)
Them he also glorified] That is, he keepeth them glorious by his glorious Spirit, even in this life, from impenitent sin, and maketh them stable and constant in godliness.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv30–32 He hath already given them the beginning and pledge…
He hath already given them the beginning and pledge thereof in grace; and will in due time bring them to the possession of eternal life and glory. Some, under this term of glorification would have sanctification included; because, otherwise, they think there is a great defect in this chain of salvation, here set down by the apostle, of which sanctification is one special link; but this is rather to be couched and included in effectual calling, which is the third link, and already spoken of.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv31–32 What shall we say to these things? that is,…
What shall we say to these things? that is, to the forenamed truths and doctrines, to the forementioned privileges and benefits, what comfort doth arise from them? How shall we live up answerable unto them? Neither the tongues of men or angels is sufficient to declare the comprehensive fulness of the foregoing favour of vocation and justification here, and glorification in heaven.
Such love and goodness are beyond expression; it is as much as if the apostle had just said, "What boundless love did our God move?
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No tongue can it express: No angel can this mystery scan, nor tell our happiness."
What shall we say to these things? It follows, If God be for us, who can be against us? That is, seeing God is for us, who can, safely and successfully, be against us?
Learn hence, 1. That at all times, but especially in the time of affliction and distress, danger and difficulty, God ever has been, and will be, on his people’s side.
2. That those whom God is for, and on whose side he is of, need not fear, either how many or how mighty they be that are against them. God is for his people; that is, he approves and owns them, he assists and helps them, he will succeed and bless them, reward and crown them.
Who then can be against them rationally, against them successfully, against them safely? How dangerous is it to be against those whom God is for? If God be for us, who can be against us? And if God be against us, who can be for us?
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v31 The apostle closes this excellent discourse upon the privileges…
The apostle closes this excellent discourse upon the privileges of believers with a holy triumph, in the name of all the saints. Having largely set forth the mystery of God's love to us in Christ, and the exceedingly great and precious privileges we enjoy by him, he concludes like an orator: What shall we then say to these things? What use shall we make of all that has been said? He speaks as one amazed and swallowed up with the contemplation and admiration of it, wondering at the height and depth, and length and breadth, of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. The more we know of other things the less we wonder at them; but the further we are led into an acquaintance with gospel mysteries the more we are affected with the admiration of them. If Paul was at a loss what to say to these things, no marvel if we be. And what does he say? Why, if ever Paul rode in a triumphant chariot on this side of heaven, here it was: with such a holy height and bravery of spirit, with such a fluency and copiousness of expression, does he here comfort himself and all the people of God, upon the consideration of these privileges. In general, he here makes a challenge, throws down the gauntlet, as it were, dares all the enemies of the saints to do their worst: If God be for us, who can be against us? The ground of the challenge is God's being for us; in this he sums up all our privileges. This includes all, that God is for us; not only reconciled to us, and so not against us, but in covenant with us, and so engaged for us - all his attributes for us, his promises for us. All that he is, and has, and does, is for his people. He performs all things for them. He is for them, even when he seems to act against them. And, if so, who can be against us, so as to prevail against us, so as to hinder our happiness? Be they ever so great and strong, ever so many, ever so might, ever so malicious, what can they do? While God is for us, and we keep in his love, we may with a holy boldness defy all the powers of darkness. Let Satan do his worst, he is chained; let the world do its worst, it is conquered: principalities and powers are spoiled and disarmed, and triumphed over, in the cross of Christ. Who then dares fight against us, while God himself is fighting for us? And this we say to these things, this is the inference we draw from these premises. More particularly.
I. We have supplies ready in all our wants (Rom 8:32): He that spared, etc. Who can be against us, to strip us, to deprive us of our comforts? Who can cut off our streams, while we have a fountain to go to? 1. Observe what God has done for us, on which our hopes are built: He spared not his own Son. When he was to undertake our salvation, the Father was willing to part with him, did not think him too precious a gift to bestow for the salvation of poor souls; now we may know that he loves us, in that he hath not withheld his Son, his own Son, his only Son, from us, as he said of Abraham, Gen 22:12. If nothing less will save man, rather than man shall perish let him go, though it were out of his bosom. Thus did he deliver him up for us all, that is, for all the elect; for us all, not only for our good, but in our stead, as a sacrifice of atonement to be a propitiation for sin. When he had undertaken it, he did not spare him. Though he was his own Son, yet, being made sin for us, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Ouk epheisato - he did not abate him a farthing of that great debt, but charged it home. Awake, O sword. He did not spare his own Son that served him, that he might spare us, though we have done him so much disservice. 2. What we may therefore expect he will do: He will with him freely give us all things. (1.) It is implied that he will give us Christ, for other things are bestowed with him: not only with him given for us, but with him given to us. He that put himself to so much charge to make the purchase for us surely will not hesitate at making the application to us. (2.) He will with him freely give us all things, all things that he sees to be needful and necessary for us, all good things, and more we should not desire, Psa 34:10. And Infinite Wisdom shall be the judge whether it be good for us and needful for us or no. Freely give - freely, without reluctancy; he is ready to give, meets us with his favours; - and freely, without recompence, without money, and without price. How shall he not? Can it be imagined that he should do the greater and not do the less? that he should give so great a gift for us when we were enemies, and should deny us any good thing, now that through him we are friends and children? Thus may we by faith argue against our fears of want. he that hath prepared a crown and kingdom for us will be sure to give us enough to bear our charges in the way to it. He that hath designed us for the inheritance of sons when we come to age will not let us want necessaries in the mean time.
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II. We have an answer ready to all accusations and a security against all condemnations (Rom 8:33, Rom 8:34): Who shall lay any thing? Doth the law accuse them? Do their own consciences accuse them? Is the devil, the accuser of the brethren, accusing them before our God day and night? This is enough to answer all those accusations, It is God that justifieth. Men may justify themselves, as the Pharisees did, and yet the accusations may be in full force against them; but, if God justifies, this answers all. He is the judge, the king, the party offended, and his judgment is according to truth, and sooner or later all the world will be brought to be of his mind; so that we may challenge all our accusers to come and put in their charge. This overthrows them all; it is God, the righteous faithful God, that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? Though they cannot make good the charge yet they will be ready to condemn; but we have a plea ready to move in arrest of judgment, a plea which cannot be overruled. It is Christ that died, etc. It is by virtue of our interest in Christ, our relation to him, and our union with him, that we are thus secured. 1. His death: It is Christ that died. By the merit of his death he paid our debt; and the surety's payment is a good plea to an action of debt. It is Christ, an able all-sufficient Saviour. 2. His resurrection: Yea, rather, that has risen again. This is a much greater encouragement, for it is a convincing evidence that divine justice was satisfied by the merit of his death. His resurrection was his acquittance, it was a legal discharge. Therefore the apostle mentions it with a yea, rather. If he had died, and not risen again, we had been where we were. 3. His sitting at the right hand of God: He is even at the right hand of God - a further evidence that he has done his work, and a mighty encouragement to us in reference to all accusations, that we have a friend, such a friend, in court. At the right hand of God, which denotes that he is ready there - always at hand; and that he is ruling there - all power is given to him. Our friend is himself the judge. 4. The intercession which he makes there. He is there, not unconcerned about us, not forgetful of us, but making intercession. He is agent for us there, an advocate for us, to answer all accusations, to put in our plea, and to prosecute it with effect, to appear for us and to present our petitions. And is not this abundant matter for comfort? What shall we say to these things? Is this the manner of men, O Lord God? What room is left for doubting and disquietment? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Some understand the accusation and condemnation here spoken of of that which the suffering saints met with from men. The primitive Christians had many black crimes laid to their charge - heresy, sedition, rebellion, and what not? For these the ruling powers condemned them: "But no matter for that" (says the apostle); "while we stand right at God's bar it is of no great moment how we stand at men's. To all the hard censures, the malicious calumnies, and the unjust and unrighteous sentences of men, we may with comfort oppose our justification before God through Christ Jesus as that which doth abundantly countervail," Co1 4:3, Co1 4:4.
III. We have good assurance of our preservation and continuance in this blessed state, Rom 8:35, to the end. The fears of the saints lest they should lose their hold of Christ are often very discouraging and disquieting, and create them a great deal of disturbance; but here is that which may silence their fears, and still such storms, that nothing can separate them. We have here from the apostle,
1. A daring challenge to all the enemies of the saints to separate them, if they could, from the love of Christ. Who shall? None shall, Rom 8:35-37. God having manifested his love in giving his own Son for us, and not hesitating at that, can we imagine that any thing else should divert or dissolve that love? Observe here,
(1.) The present calamities of Christ's beloved ones supposed - that they meet with tribulation on all hands, are in distress, know not which way to look for any succour and relief in this world, are followed with persecution from an angry malicious world that always hated those whom Christ loved, pinched with famine, and starved with nakedness, when stripped of all creature-comforts, exposed to the greatest perils, the sword of the magistrate drawn against them, ready to be sheathed in their bowels, bathed in their blood. Can a case be supposed more black and dismal? It is illustrated (Rom 8:36) by a passage quoted from Psa 44:22, For thy sake we are killed all the day long, which intimates that we are not to think strange, no not concerning the fiery bloody trial. We see the Old Testament saints had the same lot; so persecuted they the prophets that were before us. Killed all the day long, that is, continually exposed to and expecting the fatal stroke. There is still every day, and all the day long, one or other of the people of God bleeding and dying under the rage of persecuting enemies. Accounted as sheep for the slaughter; they make no more of killing a Christian than of butchering a sheep. Sheep are killed, not because they are hurtful while they live, but because they are useful when they are dead. They kill the Christians to please themselves, to be food to their malice. They eat up my people as they eat bread, Psa 14:4.
(2.) The inability of all these things to separate us from the love of Christ. Shall they, can they, do it? No, by no means. All this will not cut the bond of love and friendship that is between Christ and true believers. [1.] Christ doth not, will not, love us the less for all this. All these troubles are very consistent with the strong and constant love of the Lord Jesus. They are neither a cause nor an evidence of the abatement of his love. When Paul was whipped, and beaten, and imprisoned, and stoned, did Christ love him ever the less? Were his favours intermitted? his smiles any whit suspended? his visits more shy? By no means, but the contrary. These things separate us from the love of other friends. When Paul was brought before Nero all men forsook him, but then the Lord stood by him, Ti2 4:16, Ti2 4:17. Whatever persecuting enemies may rob us of, they cannot rob us of the love of Christ, they cannot intercept his love-tokens, they cannot interrupt nor exclude his visits: and therefore, let them do their worst, they cannot make a true believer miserable. [2.] We do not, will not, love him the less for this; and that for this reason, because we do not think that he loves us the less. Charity thinks no evil, entertains no misgiving thoughts, makes no hard conclusions, no unkind constructions, takes all in good part that comes from love. A true Christian loves Christ never the less though he suffer for him, thinks never the worse of Christ through he lose all for him.
(3.) The triumph of believers in this (Rom 8:37): Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors.
[1.] We are conquerors: though killed all the day long, yet conquerors. A strange way of conquering, but it was Christ's way; thus he triumphed over principalities and powers in his cross. It is a surer and a nobler way of conquest by faith and patience than by fire and sword. The enemies have sometimes confessed themselves baffled and overcome by the invincible courage and constancy of the martyrs, who thus overcame the most victorious princes by not loving their lives to the death, Rev 12:11.
[2.] We are more than conquerors. In our patiently bearing these trials we are not only conquerors, but more than conquerors, that is, triumphers. Those are more than conquerors that conquer, First, With little loss. Many conquests are dearly bought; but what do the suffering saints lose? Why, they lose that which the gold loses in the furnace, nothing but the dross. It is no great loss to lose things which are not - a body that is of the earth, earthy. Secondly, With great gain. The spoils are exceedingly rich; glory, honour, and peace, a crown of righteousness that fades not away. In this the suffering saints have triumphed; not only have not been separated from the love of Christ, but have been taken into the most sensible endearments and embraces of it. As afflictions abound, consolations much more abound, Co2 1:5. There is one more than a conqueror, when pressed above measure. He that embraced the stake, and said, "Welcome the cross of Christ, welcome everlasting life," - he that dated his letter from the delectable orchard of the Leonine prison, - he that said, "In these flames I feel no more pain than if I were upon a bed of down," - she who, a little before her martyrdom, being asked how she did, said, "Well and merry, and going to heaven," - those that have gone smiling to the stake, and stood singing in the flames - these were more than conquerors.
[3.] It is only through Christ that loved us, the merit of his death taking the sting out of all these troubles, the Spirit of his grace strengthening us, and enabling us to bear them with holy courage and constancy, and coming in with special comforts and supports. Thus we are conquerors, not in our own strength, but in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. We are conquerors by virtue of our interest in Christ's victory. He hath overcome the world for us (Joh 16:33), both the good things and the evil things of it; so that we have nothing to do but to pursue the victory, and to divide the spoil, and so are more than conquerors.
2. A direct and positive conclusion of the whole matter: For I am persuaded, Rom 8:38, Rom 8:39. It denotes a full, and strong, and affectionate persuasion, arising from the experience of the strength and sweetness of the divine love. And here he enumerates all those things which might be supposed likely to separate between Christ and believers, and concludes that it could not be done. (1.) Neither death nor life - neither the terrors of death on the one hand nor the comforts and pleasures of life on the other, neither the fear of death nor the hope of life. Or, We shall not be separated from that love either in death or in life. (2.) Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. Both the good angels and the bad are called principalities and powers: the good, Eph 1:21; Col 1:16; the bad, Eph 6:12; Col 2:15. And neither shall do it. The good angels will not, the bad shall not; and neither can. The good angels are engaged friends, the bad are restrained enemies. (3.) Nor things present, nor things to come - neither the sense of troubles present nor the fear of troubles to come. Time shall not separate us, eternity shall not. Things present separate us from things to come, and things to come separate and cut us off from things present; but neither from the love of Christ, whose favour is twisted in with both present things and things to come. (4.) Nor height, nor depth - neither the height of prosperity and preferment, nor the depth of adversity and disgrace; nothing from heaven above, no storms, no tempests; nothing on earth below, no rocks, no seas, no dungeons. (5.) Nor any other creature - any thing that can be named or thought of. It will not, it cannot, separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It cannot cut off or impair our love to God, or God's to us; nothing does it, can do it, but sin. Observe, The love that exists between God and true believers is through Christ. He is the Mediator of our love: it is in and through him that God can love us and that we dare love God. This is the ground of the stedfastness of the love; therefore God rests in his love (Zep 3:17), because Jesus Christ, in whom he loves us, is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.
Mr. Hugh Kennedy, an eminent Christian of Ayr, in Scotland, when he was dying, called for a Bible; but, finding his sight gone, he said, "Turn me to the eighty of the Romans, and set my finger at these words, I am persuaded that neither death nor life," etc. "Now," said he, "is my finger upon them?" And, when they told him it was, without speaking any more, he said, "Now, God be with you, my children; I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus Christ this night;" and so departed.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv30–32 Moreover, whom he did predestinate,.... Not to sufferings, which…
Moreover, whom he did predestinate,.... Not to sufferings, which are not expressed nor designed, but to grace and glory after mentioned. This predestination is of particular persons, who, in consequence of it, are called, justified, and glorified; it is the effect of divine grace, and entirely owing to it; it is the source of all the other blessings of grace, and is therefore placed at the head of them, and secures them all:
them he also called; not to afflictions: many may be called to afflictions, and endure them, who are neither justified nor glorified; besides, the people of God, though they meet with many afflictions, between their call to eternal glory, and their enjoyment of it, yet they are not so much called to afflictions, as to patience under them: their call is of grace, by special grace, to peculiar blessings of grace, and to a kingdom and glory; and this their calling is secured by predestination, and connected with glorification: and whom he called,
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them he also justified; the meaning of which is, not that he approved of them as sincere and faithful, on account of their faith and patience in sufferings; for neither of their sufferings, nor of their faith and patience in them, is there the least mention in the passage; nor can any instance be produced of the use of the word "justified" in this epistle, or elsewhere in this sense: but the meaning is, that such persons whom God predestinates and calls, he makes them righteous by the imputation of the righteousness of his Son unto them; which is unto all, and upon all them that believe; by which they are justified before God, and in their own consciences, from all sin, and so secured from all wrath and condemnation; wherefore glorification stands inseparably connected with it:
and whom he justified, them he also glorified; which is not meant of being made glorious under sufferings; nor of being made glorious by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; for the word is never used in this sense, nor is God ever said to glorify his people in this way; and the apostle is speaking of the saints in general, and not of particular ones: if this was the sense, none would be predestinated, called, and justified, but such who have the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; and none would have the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, but such persons; whereas many have had these, and yet no interest in the grace of God, and everlasting happiness: but eternal glory is here meant, which is what the apostle had been speaking of in the context; is what the elect are predestinated and called unto; and which their justification gives them a right and title to; and will consist in a likeness to Christ, in communion with him, in an everlasting vision of him, and in a freedom from all that is evil, and in an enjoyment of all that is good; and so the great end of predestinating grace will be answered in them mentioned in the foregoing verse: now this glorification may be said to be already done, with respect to that part of God's elect, who are in heaven, inheriting the promises; and is in some sense true also of that part of them which is on earth, who are called and justified; being made glorious within by the grace of Christ, and arrayed and adorned with the glorious robe of his righteousness; by the one they have a meetness, and by the other a right to eternal glory; of which this grace they have received is the beginning, pledge, and earnest: besides, they are already glorified in Christ, their head and representative, and in the view of God, and with respect to the certainty of it, it being prepared and made ready for them, is in the hands of Christ for them, and is insured to their faith and hope. It is an observation of a Jewish writer (n),
"that a thing , "which is decreed to be", is spoken of in the past tense:''
this is the Scripture style concerning things decreed, and such is the glorification of all God's elect.
(n) Aben Ezra, in Jon. ii. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv30–32 Them he - In due time. Called - By…
Them he - In due time. Called - By his gospel and his Spirit. And whom he called - When obedient to the heavenly calling, Acts xxvi, 19. He also justified - Forgave and accepted. And whom he justified - Provided they "continued in his goodness," chap. xi, 22, he in the end glorified - St. Paul does not affirm, either here or in any other part of his writings, that precisely the same number of men are called, justified, and glorified. He does not deny that a believer may fall away and be cut off between his special calling and his glorification, chap. xi, 22. Neither does he deny that many are called who never are justified. He only affirms that this is the method whereby God leads us step by step toward heaven. He glorified - He speaks as one looking back from the goal, upon the race of faith. Indeed grace, as it is glory begun, is both an earnest and a foretaste of eternal glory.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv30–32 Verse 30. Whom he did predestinate, c.] The Gentiles,…
Verse 30. Whom he did predestinate, c.] The Gentiles, whom He determined to call into his Church with the Jewish people, He called-He invited by the preaching of the Gospel, to believe on his Son Jesus Christ. It is worthy of note, that all that is spoken here refers to what had already taken place for the calling, justifying, and glorifying are here represented as having already taken place, as well as the foreknowing and the predestinating. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the apostle refers to what God had already done among the Jews and Gentiles: though he may also speak of the things that were not as though they were.
He also justified] Pardoned the sins of all those who with hearty repentance and true faith turned unto him.
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He also glorified.] He has honoured and dignified the Gentiles with the highest privileges, and he has already taken many of them to the kingdom of glory, and many more are on their way thither; and all who love him, and continue faithful unto death, shall inherit that glory eternally. Hence it is added, them he also glorified; for all the honours which he confers on them have respect to and are intended to promote their endless felicity; and though the terms are here used in a more general sense, yet, if we take them more restrictedly, we must consider that in the work of justification sanctification is implied; justification being the foundation and beginning of that work. From all this we learn that none will be glorified who have not been sanctified and justified; that the justified are those who have been called or invited by the Gospel of Christ; that those who have had this calling are they to whom God determined to grant this privilege-they did not choose this salvation first, but God sent it to them when they knew him not-and therefore the salvation of the Gentile world, as well as that of the Jews, comes through the gratuitous mercy of God himself, was the result of infinite designs, and stands on the same ground as the calling, c., of the Jewish people. The word δοξα, which we render glory, and δοξαζω, to glorify, both mean to render illustrious, eminent, c., &c., in various parts of the New Testament and in this sense the verb is used Joh 11:4; Joh 12:23, Joh 12:28; Joh 13:31, Joh 13:32; Joh 14:13; Joh 15:8; Joh 21:19; Ac 3:13; Ac 11:13; in none of which places eternal beatification can be intended. Here it seems to mean that those whom God had called into a state of justification he had rendered illustrious by innumerable gifts, graces, and privileges, in the same manner as he had done to the Israelites of old.
The whole of the preceding discourse will show that every thing here is conditional, as far as it relates to the ultimate salvation of any person professing the Gospel of Christ; for the promises are made to character, and not to persons, as some have most injudiciously affirmed. The apostle insists upon a character all along from the beginning of the chapter. Ro 8:1: There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Ro 8:13: If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, c. The absolute necessity of holiness to salvation is the very subject of his discourse this necessity he positively affirms, and establishes by the most solid arguments. At the very entrance of his argument here, he takes care to settle the connection between our calling and our love and obedience to God, on purpose to prevent that mistake into which so many have fallen, through their great inattention to the scope of his reasoning. Ro 8:28: All things work together for good - To whom? To THEM that LOVE GOD: to them that are the called according to his purpose. To them that love God, because they are called according to his purpose; for those only who love God can reap any benefit by this predestination, vocation, or any other instance of God's favour. See the observations at the end of this chapter, (Ro 8:39 (note)).
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv30–31 Rom 8:30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate — Or…
Rom 8:30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate — Or describe beforehand by his holy prophets, as persons who should resemble the Messiah; them, in due time, he also called — By his word and Spirit; and whom he called — When obedient to the heavenly calling, Act 26:19; he also justified — Accounted righteous, pardoned, and accepted; and whom he justified, provided they continued in his goodness, Rom 11:2; he, in the end, glorified — The apostle does not affirm, either here or in any other part of his writings, that precisely the same number of persons are called, justified, and glorified. He does not deny that a believer may fall away and be cut off, between his special calling and his glorification, Rom 11:22. Neither does he deny that many are called who are never justified. He only affirms that this is the method whereby God leads us, step by step, toward heaven. He glorifies none whom he does not first justify, and indeed also sanctify: and he justifies none who are not first called, and obedient to the call. He glorified — The apostle speaks as one looking back from the goal, upon the race of faith, love, and obedience. Indeed grace, as it is glory begun, is both an earnest and a foretaste of eternal glory.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv30–32 Moreover ... - In this verse, in order to…
Moreover ... - In this verse, in order to show to Christians the true consolation to be derived from the fact that they are predestinated, the apostle states the connection between that predestination and their certain salvation. The one implied the other.
Whom he did predestinate - All whom he did predestinate.
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Them he also called - Called by his Spirit to become Christians. He called, not merely by an external invitation, but in such a way as that they in fact were justified. This cannot refer simply to an external call of the gospel, since those who are here said to be called are said also to be justified and glorified. The meaning is, that there is a certain connection between the predestination and the call, which will be manifested in due time. The connection is so certain that the one infallibly secures the other.
He justified - See the note at Rom 3:24. Not that he justified them from eternity, for this was not true; and if it were, it would also follow that he glorified them from eternity, which would be an absurdity. It means that there is a regular sequence of events - the predestination precedes and secures the calling; and the calling precedes and secures the justification. The one is connected in the purpose of God with the other; and the one, in fact, does not take place without the other. The purpose was in eternity. The calling and justifying in time.
Them he also glorified - This refers probably to heaven. It means that there is a connection between justification and glory. The one does not exist without the other in its own proper time; as the calling does not subsist without the act of justification. This proves, therefore, the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. There is a connection infallible and ever existing between the predestination and the final salvation. They who are subjects of the one are partakers of the other. That this is the sense is clear,
Because it is the natural and obvious meaning of the passage.
(2)Because this only would meet the design of the argument of the apostle. For how would it be a source of consolation to say to them that whom God foreknew he predestinated, and whom he predestinated he called, and whom he called he justified, and whom he justified “might fall away and be lost forever?”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv30–32 And whom he predestinated, them he also called to…
And whom he predestinated, them he also called to the true faith and to his service, without any deserts in them, nay, when all mankind were guilty of eternal death, by original sin. --- And whom he called, them he also justified, by faith, by hope, by a love of him, and a true penance. --- And whom he justified, them he also glorified. That is, hath decreed to glory. Yet not all who have been justified, but only his elect, who are under his special protection, and to whom he grants a perseverance in his grace to the end: so that the call to faith, their sanctification, their final perseverance, and glorification in heaven, are the effects of their free election and predestination. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv30–32 Moreover--"And," or "Now"; explanatory of Rom 8:29 --In "predestinating…
Moreover--"And," or "Now"; explanatory of Rom 8:29 --In "predestinating us to be conformed to the image of His Son" in final glory, He settled all the successive steps of it. Thus
whom he did predestinate, them he also called--The word "called" (as HODGE and others truly observe) is never in the Epistles of the New Testament applied to those who have only the outward invitation of the Gospel (as in Mat 20:16; Mat 22:14). It always means "internally, effectually, savingly called." It denotes the first great step in personal salvation and answers to "conversion." Only the word conversion expresses the change of character which then takes place, whereas this "calling" expresses the divine authorship of the change, and the sovereign power by which we are summoned, Matthew-like, Zaccheus-like, out of our old, wretched, perishing condition, into a new, safe, blessed life.
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and whom he called--thus.
them he also justified--brought into the definite state of reconciliation already so fully described.
and whom he justified, them he also glorified--brought to final glory (Rom 8:17-18). Noble climax, and so rhythmically expressed! And all this is viewed as past; because, starting from the past decree of "predestination to be conformed to the image of God's Son" of which the other steps are but the successive unfoldings--all is beheld as one entire, eternally completed salvation.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv30–32 30. Called—The apostle does not imply that others were…
30. Called—The apostle does not imply that others were not called; for he knew that “many are called but few chosen.” The disobedient to the call are here left out of the account. They exclude or withdraw themselves, voluntarily and freely, from the favourably foreknown and the predestinated.
Mr. Barnes says, “The predestination secures the calling, and the calling secures the justification.” If the apostle himself had so said, it would have been decisive; but that is precisely what he does not say. All Paul says is, that the calling is the requisite condition before the justification, and the justification before the glorification. He asserts that the latter cannot be without the former. It is the called (or some part of them, for “many are called and few chosen”) alone that are justified; it is the justified alone that are glorified.
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Whom he called—They being foreknown as complying.
Whom he justified—Upon their faith.
Them he also glorified—Provided they were justified at the moment when the stage of glorification came. If, though once justified, their justification has ceased, they are then not justified, and so cannot be glorified.
It is not the purpose of the apostle, be it specially noted, to show or declare the surety of any particular individual’s infallibly passing through the stages of this scheme, but to show the indestructible and absolute surety of the scheme itself. (See notes on Rom_8:17; Rom_8:28.) It is the fixedness and unfailing surety of the plan of salvation, in order that each one may avail himself of it, that is affirmed; not the surety for the special individual that God’s power is pledged to fasten him into the plan, and to carry him infallibly through. The ark is unconditionally predestined to outride the deluge; but it depends upon our entering and remaining within the ark whether we individually outride the deluge too. All the aids above described are furnished from the Divine side; but man has a selfhood from which he must act, and upon that action it depends whether he finally is included in the saving result.
Mr. Barnes asks, “How would it be a source of consolation to say to them that those whom he predestinated, etc., might fall away and be lost forever?” But, 1. What consolation to tell them that the justified are to be glorified, so long as they are taught never to be sure of their being justified? Preachers of secured perseverance are obliged, in order to prevent in their followers the great presumption of being too sure of final salvation, to cultivate the perpetual doubt of their being Christians at all, and so destroy the full assurance of faith, and upset all the boasted “consolation” of their own doctrine. What consolation to know that Christians will persevere, if I must never know that I am a Christian? 2. To tell the Christian that he may fall away is not of itself consolation, but warning; and warning the Christian needs in the proper place as truly as consolation. And the true place of consolation and of warning is this: fully to know my present acceptance, and equally to fear my future rejection by unfaithfulness. 3. The true consolation from the present passage is its glorious assurance that the plan of salvation is absolutely sure to those who, by persistent faith, intrust themselves to it. We have a sure stronghold to which we can turn. And such is the doctrine of the entire Epistle; sure salvation by faith. But nowhere is it taught that that faith itself is fixed or fastened upon us, or in us. The exercise and continuance of our faith under God’s gracious aids, is our own duty, and our part, as free-agents, in the work of our salvation.
While a large share of the verbs of these two verses express a future as well as a past fact they are uniformly in the past tense, the Greek aorist. (Note on Rom_5:12.) Alford, in his usual ultra-fatalistic style of interpretation, tells us that this is because the whole is completed in the predetermination of God. But why does not Alford explicitly apply the same exegesis to sinned in Rom_5:12, (where see note,) and thus attribute the authorship of sin to God?—a blasphemy which rash thinkers like him are perpetually committing, yet denying. The true view, we think, is, that the apostle’s standpoint in all these uses of the Greek aorist is at the grand consummation of the whole scheme, contemplating it as a series past. (Note on Rom_5:13.)
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv30–32 30. them he also called] See above, on Rom_8:28,…
30. them he also called] See above, on Rom_8:28, last note but one. In this chain of past tenses, the whole process is viewed as in its eternal completeness. We look back, as it were, from the view-point of glory.
justified] See on Rom_2:13. The links in this golden chain are strictly consecutive. The “call” was to obedient faith; therefore justification, by the Divine order, followed. See cch. 3, 4, 5.
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glorified] A past tense used, with wonderful power, of a thing future. (See ch. Rom_5:2, where we have the “hope of the glory of God.”) So indissoluble is the chain that the last link is here viewed as an accomplished fact because the first links are so. See, for a remarkable illustration, Eph_2:4-6. There the saints are already “seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus:”—such is their union with Him that, just as they are viewed as having gone through penal death, because He died, so they are viewed as having entered heaven, (as regards right of entrance), because He ascended.
It seems difficult, without violence to both the letter and spirit of this passage, to deny that it represents the salvation of “the children of God” as a line drawn from eternity to eternity: first, a sovereign Choice of souls; then the Call of the chosen, resulting in their Faith and their Acceptance; then the final entrance on heavenly Bliss of these same called ones; and also their Note and characteristic now,—Love to God. The “scheme” thus indicated, called by whatever name, has always met with earnest criticism and opposition; but it is the only one which naturally fits St Paul’s language here and in ch. 9. It is really alien from Scripture only when it is stated as if it were a plan of which we saw the whole: assuredly in these things “we know in part”. But this does not mean that we are not to accept what is revealed, just so far as it is revealed, with sincere submission, and with that encouragement and joyful assurance which certainly this passage, on any view of it, was meant to excite.—See, on the whole subject, the equally careful and decided language of the 17th English Church Article; especially noting that the doctrine here stated is there viewed (in the spirit of this passage) as “full of unspeakable comfort[39].”—It must also be remembered that in the scheme in question the sanctification of the saved is viewed as quite as much fore ordained, and quite as necessary a part of the process, as any other; and that the only evidence to the conscience that the person is “foreknown” lies, not in any intuition of a Divine decree, but in the presence of faith and love, and their fruits, in heart and life. These will be always attributed, and justly, to Divine grace alone: but the presence of that grace will be traced in them alone.
[39] See further, Appendix F.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv30–31 (30) Predestinate.—This is the term which seems most to…
(30) Predestinate.—This is the term which seems most to interfere with human free-will. Foreknowledge does not interfere with free-will, because the foreknowledge, though prior in point of time, is posterior in the order of causation to the act of choice. A man does not choose a certain action because it is foreknown, but it is foreknown because he will choose it. Predestination (the word is not inadequately translated) appears to involve a more rigorous necessity. All we can say is that it must not be interpreted in any sense that excludes free-will. Free-will is a postulate on which all the superstructure of morals and religion must rest. The religious mind, looking back over the course by which it has been brought, sees in it predominating the hand of God; but however large the divine element in salvation may be, it must in the end be apprehended by faith, which is an act of free-will. And the subsequent actions of which faith is the moving cause, though done under a co-operating divine influence, yet belong to the sphere of human freedom. (See Note on Rom_2:6.) It should be remembered that St. Paul is not now writing in the calm temper of philosophical analysis, but in an intense access of religious emotion, and therefore he does not stay to put in all the qualifying clauses that philosophy might require. It is well for mankind that he has done so. In all great and creative religious minds the consciousness of free-will has retired into the background.
Called.—By presenting to them the gospel, directly or indirectly, through the preaching of Christ and His Apostles.
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Justified.—In the Pauline sense, as in Rom_3:24, et al.
Glorified.—Strictly, the glorifying of the Christian awaits him in the future, but the Apostle regards all these different acts as focused together as it were on a single point in the past. Glorification is involved in justification.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On v31 Vers. 31-34. What shall we then say to these…
Vers. 31-34. What shall we then say to these things? (pro tauta , meaning "with respect to," not "against"). If God be for us, who can be against us? (tiv , not ti , in opposition to o Yeov : who what adverse power can there possibly be, stronger than God?). He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, (evidently not for the elect only, but for all mankind; cf. on Rom_5:18) how shall he not with him also freely give us (i.e. grant us of his free grace) all things? (panta , corresponding to upentwn). Who shall lay anything to the charge of God"s elect! (Not, of course, meaning that the elect, in virtue of God"s choice of them, cannot, though sinful, be charged with sin; but that no possible adversary again tiv can be conceived as arraigning those whom God himself accepts as justified. Observe that the word here is eklektwn , not klhtwn as in ver. 28. Cf. Mat_20:16 Mat_22:14; Polloi gar eisi klhtoi, oligoi de eklektoi . Many may be called to a state of salvation, but not all of them chosen finally, as fulfilling the purpose of their calling) It is God that justifieth. 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. A different punctuation of these two verses is preferred by some, and seems more natural and more forcible; thus: Who shall charge God"s elect? God who justifieth? Who is he that condemneth? Christ who died? etc. A similar answering a question by asking another is found below in ver. 35.
The further thought is thus implied that, if neither God charges, nor Christ, the Judge, condemns, who can do either? The apostle next goes on to say that, there being none to charge and condemn us at last, so also there is none that can remove us from our state of acceptance now. For who or what can possibly prove stronger than Christ"s love, which has called us to it? The enumeration that follows of things that might possibly be supposed to remove us shows again that it is not our own sins, but external circumstances of trial, that are being viewed all along as powerless to hinder our salvation.
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Vers. 31-34. If God be thus for us, who can be against us? He who has already given up his own Son for us all will surely grant us all. And, if God has chosen us, who shall arraign us? God himself, who already justifies us? No. Christ, who died, rose again, ascended to the right hand of God, and now intercedes for us? No. And against them what other power can possibly prevail?
The Gift which implies all gifts.
One very desirable habit of Christian experience is the habit of connecting all spiritual privileges and all providential favours with the supreme Gift which God has conferred upon us in the bestowal of his own Son. It is this habit which the apostle encourages by the appeal of the text.
I THE ONE GIFT GOD ONCE GAVE.
1. The Person given was his own Son the Only Begotten, the Well-beloved.
2. The sacrifice on the part of the Giver involved in the Gift. The use of the word "spared" implies "withheld" not, which suggests that the Divine heart felt the sacrifice and surrender, yet that its pity devised it and consented to it as the greatest revelation of the nature of Deity.
3. The Gift was more than a gift; it was a delivering up, i.e. to earth, to the society of sinners, with the knowledge that he who was thus surrendered would meet with misunderstanding and misrepresentation, would be maligned and insulted, rejected and persecuted, cruelly abused, and unjustly slain.
4. The Gift was intended for all; not for a select few, but for Jews and Gentiles alike, for sinners of every grade, of every nation.
II THE MANY GIFTS GOD IS ALWAYS GIVING.
1. Every possession and privilege is, in fact, the gift of God; all "come down from above." However we may forget that we are needy and dependent recipients, the truth is that we have nothing which we have not received.
2. Spiritual gifts are chiefly intended, such as are so fully enumerated and characterized in this chapter; spiritual life in all its stages, from deliverance from condemnation, on to eternal, inseparable fellowship with Christ.
3. Yet, without question, temporal gifts are included. Of these we sometimes say they come through natural law; and this is so. Yet we, in so speaking of them, only describe the process, whilst the origin is in God alone.
4. These gifts are bountifully and generously bestowed. God bestows munificently as a King, tenderly as a Father; and we receive without any possibility of rendering repayment or recompense.
III THE INCLUSION OF THE MANY GIFTS IN THE ONE.
1. A doctrinal explanation of the inclusion here affirmed. The greater includes the less; and, as Christ is the unspeakable Gift, his bestowal involves all other evidences of Divine generosity. The power which can give one, can give all; the disposition which could plan the one, can bestow all; and the mediation and advocacy of Christ are such that they are to be regarded as the channels by which the bounty of the Eternal flows copiously into human hearts and lives.
2. A practical explanation. Dwell upon the wonderful, significant, and precious phrase here employed by the apostle, "with him!" "With him" God gives his people pardon for their sins, a perfect model of goodness, a higher conception of human virtue, a powerful motive of obedience, a holy bond of brotherhood, a bright hope of everlasting life. As a matter of practical experience, this is so in the history alike of individual Christians and of the world.
Vers. 31-39. The uncertainties and certainties of a new year: a new year"s sermon.
St. Paul was no narrow dogmatist. He was a man of profound sympathy and charity even for those from whom he differed. Yet there are some strong assertions in his writings. Nowadays it is almost considered a virtue to be in doubt, and a rash presumption to be sure of anything. In the revolt from superstition, men have gone into an unbelief that almost amounts to a superstition in itself. There was no superstition about St. Paul. He was a man of thoughtful mind, of wise judgment. But he did not think it either presumption or dogmatism to be firmly persuaded and convinced of certain things. It is no dogmatism to assert that the sun is shining, when its warm bright rays are flashing down upon us and around us. It is no dogmatism to assert the existence of frost, when the earth grows hard beneath its grasp, and we feel its icy breath upon our faces and in our throats. With all the uncertainties and unrealities of life, there is such a thing as certainty and truth. To St. Paul the love of Christ was such a certainty. He had felt it, not as the frost, but as the warm sunshine in his heart. He had yielded himself to its influence, till it became to him what the steam is to the steam-engine, till he could say, "The love of Christ constraineth me;" or again, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." There are few finer or more complete pictures of that love and its power than this eighth chapter of Romans presents to us. Here St. Paul shows us the Christian, under the influence of that love, gaining the victory over sin and temptation, glorying in tribulation, receiving the Spirit of adoption, standing fearlessly before the judgment-seat in the irresistible conviction that he is a child of God, shielded and strengthened by the love of Christ; and, as he gazes from point to point, from time to eternity, and sees the Christian secure and safe at every point, his conviction, his rapture, increase in intensity till they carry him away in that grand outburst, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?... For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 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." Here are the uncertainties and the certainties of life contrasted.
I THE UNCERTAINTIES OF A NEW YEAR.
1. The new year may be a time of prosperity. If it is God"s will to give us worldly prosperity and wealth, let us pray for grace and wisdom to use them aright. Prosperity has its dangers. It comes in as a separating barrier between the soul and God. Our Saviour, in one of his parables, speaks of the deceitfulness of riches, and tells us that, along with the cares of this world, it is like thorns that choke the good seed of Divine truth, so that it becomes unfruitful. Let not riches "separate us from the love of Christ.
2. The new year may be a time of trial. St. Paul felt convinced that no trials could separate him from that wondrous love. "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (vers. 35, 37). No trial, or the prospect of it, brings dismay or terror to the apostle"s heart. "Come one, come all! this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I Conquerors! Yes, and more than conquerors of our trials! We do more than vanquish them. We turn them, or rather the love of Christ turns them for us, into our friends. So Paul found it in his experience. So did many a child of God. Martin Luther was sent to prison in the Wartburg, apparently a heavy blow to himself and his friends, and the cause of the Reformation. But the love of Christ was stronger than the castle walls. They could not keep Christ out. Luther was more than conqueror. He not only endured his imprisonment, but while he was a prisoner he translated the Scriptures into that great German version of his, and wrote besides some of his great commentaries. The walls of Bedford Jail could not separate John Bunyan from the love of Christ, and during his imprisonment for conscience" sake he wrote that matchless allegory, "The Pilgrim"s Progress." Samuel Rutherford, a prisoner in Aberdeen Castle, wrote his beautiful "Letters," of which Richard Baxter said that, after the Bible, such a book the world never saw. All of these were more than conquerors through him that loved them. Whatever trials we may meet with, there is the great certainty of the love of Christ. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? If God be for us, who can be against us?" (ver. 31). We may lose our earthly friends, but Jesus remains the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
3. The new year may be to some of us a year of death. Philip Henry, father of Matthew Henry the commentator, used frequently to pray this prayer, "Fit us to leave or to be left." Whatever uncertainty we may feel about the earthly lot that is in store for us, whether our days may be many or few, let us make sure that we are clinging to the cross of Jesus, and then we have a safety and a security which no trials can ever shake.
II THE CERTAINTIES OF A NEW YEAR. While there is much that is uncertain about each new year, there is much also that we may with confidence expect.
1. The new year will be a time of opportunities. This is as certain as that the sun will shine, and the seasons come, and the ocean ebb and flow. Every day will bring to each of us its opportunities. Opportunities save souls. John Williams, a careless young man, was persuaded by a friend to go one sabbath evening to a place of worship, and there he heard a sermon on the words, "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" That opportunity, availed of, saved his soul and led him to decide for Christ, and he became the famous missionary and martyr of Erromanga. Had he refused that invitation, rejected that opportunity, a similar opportunity might never have returned. Opportunities test character. Some one has said that "opportunities are importunities." Every opportunity appeals to us. It appeals to us to avail ourselves of it, to show what side we are on, to make our choice for time and eternity. Abraham had his opportunity when the call came to him to leave his father"s house, and he used it well. It showed him to be a man of faith, a man who would do God"s bidding at any cost. Joseph, Joshua, Daniel each of these had his opportunity, and well he used it. Herod had his opportunity, and seemed to be impressed by the preaching of John the Baptist, for "he did many things, and heard him gladly;" but when the critical and testing opportunity came of making his choice, of choosing good rather than evil, he lost it. So it was with Felix and Agrippa. But let our life be dominated by the constraining influence of the love of Christ, and then the opportunities which the passing hours are sure to bring will only show more and more clearly that we are on the Lord"s side.
2. The new year will be a time of duties. It is well to begin the year with a high sense of our obligations and responsibilities. Duties are a certainty which every day brings with it. There are the duties of daffy prayer and daily thanksgiving to God; the duties of parents to their children, of employers to their servants, of all Christians to those who are around them. Here, again, let every duty be discharged in the spirit of love to Christ, and there will be no uncertainty about our faithfulness. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? C.H.I
Vers. 31, 32. Supplying all our need.
The argument of vers. 28-30, and, indeed, of the entire chapter, is now summed up in a triumphant hymn the victorious battle-cry with which the conqueror surveys the vacated field (Godet). Vers. 31 and 32 refer to God"s call according to purpose; vers. 33 and 34 to the solemn justification of believers by God; and vers. 35-39 to their final glorifying as involved in the justification. Here the reference is to God"s great purpose in Christ, and the apostle challenges an answer to his question, "If God is for us, who is against us?" Nay, God"s purpose is irrefragable. And what a pledge has he given of his intent to carry out that purpose to the uttermost! "He spared not his own Son." Surely, therefore, in him all things are ours. Let us consider, then, what are the "all things" that we need, and what is our assurance that God will give them.
I OUR NEED. Ours is a triple need of guidance, grace, and glory.
1. Guidance. A venture has been made upon a new career. Is it a venture? and may we possibly find ourselves in endless mazes lost? Or are we not sure, rather, of the leading of an unseen hand? "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel.
(1) Belief. As an essential requisite of advancement in salvation, God will give knowledge of his truth. How immense is the potency of ideas! A false idea will sway a world to its destruction; a true idea will impel men with mighty progress in the way of life. So is it in the way of the Christian life: zeal may hasten men to all vigorous endeavour, but zeal without knowledge may make their endeavours futile, or even ruinous. A prejudice, an error, may dwarf, or even vitiate, our Christian character and work; a true belief, a real knowledge, will be our strength and conquest. But how liable we are to prejudice and error! How insufficient is our intellect for grasping truth! We may so easily follow false lights. No; "Thou shall guide me." The God who calls will lead, and he will lead our thought, our knowledge, our belief, if we rightly seek his help. Use of all available means presupposed self-training, experience, God"s Word. A right spirit also humble, teachable, true. Then not far astray.
(2) Growth. The truth is as food, and our appropriation of it must be followed by true growth of Christian character. But the growth needs to be watched and tended; the application of the truth to our own hearts needs care. Illustrate food and bodily health; but how much more the spiritual! God gives wisdom to use knowledge, and above all he himself guides the upward growth.
(3) Life. As with the character, the hidden man of the heart, so with the life, the outer man. Principles may be formed; but the application of principles in practice yet remains. And how multifarious the applications! how complex! how sometimes conflicting! We need to seek all help that right knowledge affords, a well-informed conscience. But also we need the intuitive perception, the pure intent, which itself is often the surest guide; the right spiritual instinct. In either way the life shall have guidance of the God that leads us.
2. Grace. If we need direction, do we not also need active help? for we are not only fallible, but frail.
(1) The grace of life shall be given. All the power of love which constitutes our spiritual life shall be supplied by him. His Spirit is within us; we are led by himself to himself.
(2) The grace of conquest also. All power, as well negatively towards evil as positively towards good. Whatever oppositions there may be to our spiritual well-being, we shall conquer through his love.
(a) Actively: as pressing our way through temptation;
(b) passively: we learn to suffer and be strong.
3. Glory. While guidance and grace are given to conduct us to the glory, the glory itself is sure.
(1) Perfect purity: all possibility of sin then done away; all fulness of good.
(2) Perfect manhood: our outward and inward nature harmonized.
(3) A perfect world: our habitation and our nature then at one.
II OUR PLEDGE. But how know we that these things shall be given? The pledge is twofold: God"s purpose is for us;" God"s gift spared not his own Son.
1. God initiates salvation. Not begged of him by us; not procured by a third. "Of his own will." If he begins to work, he will finish.
2. God gives the supreme Gift. The very life: his Son; himself. Hence all subordinate gifts will be given. "Is not the life more than meat?
3. God loves with such a love. Beyond our thought. But more than all which the analogue suggests: "his own Son.
"How then shall he not," etc.? Argue the matter to yourselves. He gave his Son for me! And then"All, all he hath for mine I claim; I dare believe in Jesu"s Name! T.F.L.
A consolatory argument.
This is one of the most wonderful chapters in all Scripture, for the height to which it soars and the breadth of its conceptions. It is rich in doctrine, in promise, and in consolation. Having climbed, as it were, the mount of God, the apostle reaches the summit, stands bathed in the very light of God.
I A GLORIOUS AND SOLEMN TRUTH COMMEMORATED. "God spared not his own Son." God has known what it is to be bereaved by the departure and death of his best-beloved. No need now to dwell upon those sufferings of Christ at the crucifixion the baptism of horror, darkness, and blood in which the Sun of Righteousness set for two days. The God who in his tender mercy steps in and spares offenders taken in arms against him, then seemed deaf to the cries of his only begotten Son. He must drink the bitter cup to its dregs. Hagar in the wilderness turned away that she might not see her child die. She prayed, and Ishmael lived. Yet God beheld his Son prostrate in the garden, and yet yielded him up for us all. What can give such views of the enormity of sin as the sacrifice of Christ! When hard iron laws tempt us to disbelieve the compassion of our Maker, we are reassured by the spectacle of the suffering Christ. There is no lack of wisdom, power, or love, however stern the necessity which compels our anguish. "A man spareth his own son that serveth him" all needless toil, but the grandest service may entail the severest labour. "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the Author of eternal salvation.
II THE ARGUMENT WHICH THIS TRUTH IS USED TO ENFORCE. If God bestows such a gift, what will he withhold?
1. When we were enemies he surrendered his Son on our behalf; how much will he not do for us now we are friends? The mediation of Christ hath restored us to a covenant position.
2. Jesus Christ is the sum of all good gifts, inestimable, unspeakable. Nothing more precious in the eyes of God than his dear Son! It is absurd to suppose that he will refuse us a lesser gift. All good is embodied in Christ; other blessings are fruits of his tree of life. He is the Sun; other brightness is but beams from that Sun.
3. The gift of Christ was for the express purpose of opening a door through which all other good things might pass to us. He is the great Charter of Christian privilege, the Preacher of peace, the Ambassador of reconciliation, the Channel of Divine grace. "All things are yours.
4. As we did nothing to deserve the gift of Christ, so the lesser blessings to enrich our lives are bestowed not according to our deserts, but according to God"s free bounty. He gives abundantly "without money and without price.
5. The one condition is to receive Christ. These gifts are to be had "with Christ," or not at all. What is to be said for him who can treat lightly this stupendous boon? If God spared not his own Son, what must the impenitent expect who refuse to obey the will of God, and harden themselves in unbelief? Turn to him in prayer, and employ the persuasive petition, "for Christ"s sake. S.R.A.
Vers. 31-39. Faith rising into assurance.
We have appreciated the paradise of pardon, of acceptance, of sanctification, into which, in spite of this life"s sufferings, believers in Jesus come. And now we are to study that hymn of courageous assurance, into which the apostle rises at the close of the chapter. Nowhere does St. Paul rise into nobler eloquence than here.
I THE BELIEVER"S SOLILOQUY. (Vers. 31, 32) In this soliloquy the apostle reviews the whole previous argument. Ch. 1-5 is God for us justification by faith; ch. 6-8, is God in us sanctification through the Spirit of Christ. What can be said to these things? If God be for us, then we ask naturally and logically:
1. Who can be against us? With God as our Ally, we may safely face the world in arms. Assurance is thus traced to its Divine Source. It is not boastfulness, but humble dependence upon the almighty strength of God. The One is more than a match for all his and our foes.
2. In sparing not his own Son, he has given us the greatest pledge of his good will. In delivering up his Son to the death for us all, God was giving to man his very greatest Gift. It implies that the lesser gifts of the Spirit and of providence shall not be wanting. "He who his Son, most dear and loved, Gave up for us to die, Shall he not all things freely give That goodness can supply?
It was a similar argument through which Abraham passed, tie journeyed to Mount Moriah to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. He found there that God had provided a substitute in the ram caught in the thicket, and that, therefore, Isaac could go free. He accordingly called the place "Jehovahjireh the Lord will look after everything, and I shall not want any really good thing from his hands. (Ge 22) Christ crucified is thus the foundation of the believer"s assurance.
II THE BELIEVER"S CHALLENGE. (Vers. 33-36) And here we have a challenge:
1. To all who may dispute his right to salvation. (Vers. 33, 34) For:
(1) Justification is from God. And he has taken every possible charge into account.
(2) The ground of the justification is the death of Jesus Christ.
(3) The guarantee of it is the resurrection, reign, and intercession of Jesus. With a risen Saviour on the throne, making intercession for us, who will dare to dispute, and who will succeed in preventing, our pardon and acceptance? It is thus that the apostle works the great facts of our Saviour"s history into the experience of the believer.
2. We have a challenge to all adverse circumstances. (Vers. 35-37) The believer can defy his environment, as it is now called, as well as his enemies. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, one and all shall be found to be powerless in separating him from the love of Christ. Jesus, with his loving and almighty arm, can hold his people safe in every trial and difficulty. What have these adverse circumstances been but opportunities for the exercise of preserving power? They are golden opportunities which Christ embraces for exhibiting his power to save. And so here we have the true Christian evidence, that Jesus can preserve his people in spite of all apparently adverse things.
III THE BELIEVER"S SUPREME PERSUASION. (Vers. 38, 39) In these verses the apostle exhausts the category and declares his persuasion that not one of the things or persons embraced shall be able to separate the believer from the Divine love. Let us glance at them in order.
1. Death shall be no separating power. So far from this, the believer is enabled to rejoice in the fact that to die shall be gain; absent from the body, present with the Lord. The king of terrors will only usher the emancipated spirit into the near presence of his Lord.
2. Life shall prove no separating power. Even when it is flowing full and free, with all its garish and distracting shows, it will not be allowed to separate us from the love of Christ. Of the two dangers to our union with Christ, life is greater than death, but not so great as to defeat the loving power of Jesus.
3. Angels, principalities, powers, shall prove no separating power. This must refer to the evil angels, to Satan and his hosts; for the good angels are our helpers. (Heb_1:14) A risen Saviour is more than sufficient to meet and overthrow them all.
4. Things present, appealing to sense, shall also be unable to separate us from Christ"s love. They are subtle and powerful foes, yet Christ can vanquish them. He can conquer the inclination to be over-occupied with such things.
5. Things to come, appealing to fear, shall be unable to separate us from Christ. No possible combination of circumstances can perplex him. He is more than a match for all.
6. Height, depth, or any other creature, shall likewise be unable to separate us from the Lord"s love. Neither space nor time, things physical or things metaphysical, shall be able to endanger our union with Christ. R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv30–32 Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called.
Rom_8:30
Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called.
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The golden chain
This consists of several links. The middle portion of it hangs down to earth, and comes into the view of men; but the ends of it are fastened to the two eternities and are both hidden. Note:--
I. The unbroken succession of steps in the accomplishment of the original purpose of God. Calling and justification are the principal links, but not all the links; they are sufficient, however, to show that between the eternity of purpose and the eternity of glorification there is no flaw or fracture. We gather from this view of the subject that to get possession of any one link is to get all the links--the unseen as well as the seen--and consequently the whole chain. Calling carries with it justification and glorification on the one hand, and predestination on the other.
II. The co-extensive uniformity of its successive realisations. Every link of the chain is equally comprehensive in the space it covers. The same subjects are handed over at every stage of the progress to the stage that follows. There is no reduction of the number as the process goes on; and if we leave out all intermediate steps, we may say, Whom He did foreknow, them He also glorified. Any two terms of the series may be brought into an equation, and if we wish to satisfy ourselves of our predestination, or of our salvation hereafter, then we have only to be clear about our interest in the calling, or in the justification. The unknown quantity may thus be determined by the known, because they are equivalents. Observe that glorified, like all the other expressions, is in the past tense. And this is used to express the certain and inseparable connection between the different progressive steps in the enumeration, or because what God has determined to do may be said to be done already. There is no tense to express the activity of God, with whom past, present, and future are an eternal now. But besides this, in Christ our salvation is always complete (Eph_2:5-6).
III. How entirely from beginning to end the whole work is attributed to God! Man acts no part. He is merely the subject. If we turn, however, to Rom_10:14, we have another chain which also begins with God and ends in glory; but there the aspect is human. Both are important. God works by instruments, but the success of the instruments are in His hands. Both these passages require to be taken together, in order to furnish a complete account of the process of salvation. Conclusion: Do not permit yourselves to be bewildered by the deep things of Gods eternal purpose and decrees. Rather seek to strike into the line of salvation at the calling of God. God calls you to believe on Christ, and if you call upon the name of the Lord you shall be saved, and only as you make your calling sure do you make your election sure. (P. Strutt.)
Predestination and calling
The book of Gods decrees is closed against the curiosity of man. The lion of the tribe of Judah only hath prevailed to open the book and break the seven seals thereof. How then am I to know whether I am predestinated or no? Until this question be answered my heart cannot rest. The answer is that God has published that page of the sacred decree whereon the character of the predestinated is recorded in His Word: Whom He did predestinate, them He also called. And if thou be called, it follows as a natural inference thou art predestinated. There are two kinds of callings. The first is the general call, which is given to every one that heareth the Word (Matthew; Isa_55:1; Pro_8:4); but the call of the text is personal. It is one that is heard and obeyed. Note:--
I. Illustrations of the call.
1. It is precisely similar to the case of Lazarus. The sinner is dead in sin. Sovereign mercy comes and cries, Come forth! and that man lives. Well, cries one, but what are the words which Christ uses when He calls a sinner from death? Why, any words. There came unto this hall a man to whom the simple reading of the hymn, Jesus, lover of my soul, was the means of his quickening. He said within himself, Does Jesus love me? then I must love Him.
2. While the sinner is dead in sin, he is alive enough to oppose God, as we see in the case of Saul of Tarsus. Let Peter say, Saul, why dost thou oppose Christ? The time shall come when thou shalt yet be His disciple, and Saul would laugh him to scorn. But when Christ dealt with him, he fell to the ground, and in a few days the persecutor becomes the preacher.
3. The effectual call may be illustrated in its sovereignty by the case of Zaccheus. There were many better men in the city than he. Why call him? Simply because the call of God comes to unworthy sinners.
4. To illustrate this call in its effects, take the case of Abraham. What a trial to Abrahams faith when he had to leave all that was so dear to him, and go he knew not whither! And yet God had a goodly land for him, and intended greatly to bless him.
5. When effectual calling comes to a man, at first he may not know it. You remember the case of Samuel, who mistook Gods voice for Elis.
II. And now as a matter of examination let each man judge himself by certain characteristics of the calling. It is--
1. A holy Calling (2Ti_1:9). If you are living in sin, you are not called.
2. A high calling (Php_3:13-14). Has then your calling lifted up your heart and set it upon things above?
3. A heavenly calling (Heb_3:1). Is thy calling a call to heaven as well as from heaven?
4. A call, not to the righteous, but to sinners.
5. A call out of darkness into Gods marvellous light (1Pe_2:9).
6. A call to liberty (Gal_5:15).
7. A call to the fellowship of Christ (1Co_1:9).
III. Consolation.
1. If I am called, then I am predestinated, there is no doubt about it. The scheme of salvation is like the chain which we see at horse-ferries, fixed into one staple on this side of the river, and into another at the other side, but the greater part of the Chain is under water. You only see it as the boat moves on, and as the chain is drawn out of the water by the force that propels the boat. I can see that part of the chain, which is named calling, but blessed be God, that is joined to the side that is called election, and to the side called glorification.
2. If a man be called, he will certainly be saved at last (Rom_11:29). (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Called of God
I. The nature of this calling. There are two calls of God.
1. The outward call of the gospel. Many are called, but few are chosen. To know how ineffectual this often is, I need only look around me. How many sat here ten, twenty, forty years ago, and here they still sit, quite unaffected (Eze_33:31-32).
2. An inward and effectual call. By this call the sinners heart becomes softened, his mind enlightened, his will subdued. While others play about the net of the gospel, he enters into it, and is saved thereby. The outward call often brings men into the profession of Christ; the inward call always brings men into the possession of Christ. It is a call--
(1) From sin to holiness.
(2) From the world to Christ.
(3) From danger to glory.
II. The means by which this is effected.
1. The operations of Gods providence.
(1) Everything in nature God makes to speak; the heavens declare His glory, the firmament showeth forth His handiwork.
(2) Then there is the voice of conscience, and God makes this a means of effectual calling, by making it speak so loud that the man cannot resist.
(3) Sometimes He employs the voice of affliction. Hear ye the rod, and Him that hath appointed it.
2. The preaching of the gospel.
3. The influences of the Holy Spirit. Ministers knock at the door of mens hearts, but the Spirit keeps the key; and He unlocks the door and enters in.
III. The properties of this calling.
1. It is a powerful call. The Turkish ambassador wished to see Mahomet the seconds scimitar, by which it was said he had accomplished such wonderful exploits; when he showed it to him, he said, I dont see anything different in it from others. And he immediately replied, The virtue of the weapon depends upon the strength of my arm, and the wisdom and the power with which I have used it. It is precisely so with the gospel. In this call nothing less than the arm of the Lord will do. Must not that be mighty which conquers the proud heart, subdues the stubborn will, and enlightens the dark understanding?
2. A heavenly call (Heb_3:1).
3. A high calling (Php_3:14).
4. An immutable calling (Rom_11:29).
Conclusion: Admire and magnify--
1. The exceeding grace of God towards you in--
(1) The freeness of this call.
(2) The honour of this call.
2. Take pains clearly to ascertain your calling. Two things certify it. He who is called of God--
(1) Responds to Gods call.
(2) Is deaf to other calls. And further, shall I not say, pity such as are uncalled?
3. Those who feel you are still uncalled, see the misery of your condition. It is said that the cure is half effected when the physician or the patient knows what causes the disease.
(1) Put yourselves in the way to be called. The same feet that carry you to the theatre, and to places of wretchedness, can bring you to the house of God.
(2) Beg of God to call you effectually. (J. Sherman.)
The folly of exclusively regarding predestination
Did you ever hear of a certain Ludovic, an Italian philosopher, who had imbibed the idea of predestination to the exclusion of every other truth? He could see nothing but fate, and thought religious activity useless. A physician who attended him during his sickness, a godly man, desiring to convince him of his error, said to him as he stood by his bedside, I shall not send you any medicine, I shall not attend to you; in fact, I shall not call any more, because if you are to live you will live, and if you are to die you will die; and therefore it is of no use my attending to you He went his way, but in the watches of the night, Ludovic, who had been the slave of a notion, turned it over and saw the folly of it: he saw that there were other truths besides predestination, and he acted like a sane man. As God accomplishes the healing of the sick by the use of medicines, He usually accomplishes also the saving of souls by the means of grace; and as I, not knowing whether I am elected to be healed or not, yet go to the physician, so I, not knowing whether I am elect to be saved or not, yet will go to Jesus as He bids me go, and put my trust in Him, and I hope I shall be accepted in Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Seeking and election go together
There was wit and wisdom, and a whole volume of thought in the old negros reply to Governor Vance, who asked him, Well, now, Joe, do you really believe in this election of God that you speak of? Indeed I do, Massa Vance, was the serious reply. Well, do you think I am elected to be saved? Scasly know, Massa; but I never heard of any one being lected who wasnt a candidate. And there is the point--humble seeking and election to grace go together.
Whom He called, them He also justified.
Of the benefits of effectual calling
I. In this life.
1. There are three leading benefits which Christians partake of here.
(1) They are all justified (Rom_8:1).
(2) They are all adopted children of God (Eph_1:5). They are brought out of the devils family, and made members of the blood-royal of heaven (Eph_3:15).
(3) They are all sanctified (1Co_1:30; 1Th_4:7).
2. There are other benefits which accompany or flow from these. For these come not alone, but each of them is the opening of a treasure to the called, the striking up of a fountain, that runs out in many streams (Eph_1:3).
(1) Reconciliation with God (Rom_5:1).
(2) Access to God, as children to a Father (Eph_3:12). The war being ended, and peace concluded, the communication betwixt heaven and earth is opened.
(3) Freedom from the slavery of sin and Satan (Joh_8:32).
(4) A right to eternal life (Rom_8:17; Act_20:32; 2Co_5:1).
II. In the life to come. These are comprehended in one word, glorification. At death the converted soul is received into heaven; at the last day his body will be gloriously raised, and both soul and body made perfectly happy for ever (2Th_2:14).
III. Uses.
1. Of information. This doctrine lets us see--
(1) That the gospel is the best news that ever was heard in the world, and the most excellent offer that ever was made to poor sinners (Eph_3:8).
(2) That God deals very liberally and kindly with His people that answer His call. They get much in hand, and yet far more in hope (Psa_84:11), and they can never be shaken out of their privileges (Rom_11:29; Heb_12:28).
(3) Whatever men lose by complying with and following the gospel-call, they are gainers (Php_3:8). He was a wise merchant that sold all to buy the pearl of great price.
2. Of exhortation.
(1) To unconverted sinners. Comply with the gospel-call.
(a) While ye do not, ye have no part or lot in these benefits. Ye are not justified; the sentence of condemnation is standing in force against you (Gal_3:10; Joh_3:1-36.). Ye are none of Gods children, but of the devils (Joh_8:44). Ye are not sanctified. A form of godliness ye may have, but the power of it ye are strangers to.
(b) If ye will come to Christ on His call, ye shall partake of all these benefits. If your sins were never so great and many, they shall be pardoned (Isa_55:7), Ye shall be the children of God through Jesus Christ (Joh_1:12). Ye shall be made holy (1Co_6:11).
(2) To converted sinners that have answered the call. Labour to know your great privileges for time and eternity (2Pe_1:10).
2. Be thankful for these privileges (1Jn_3:1).
3. Walk worthy of the vocation, that is, humbly, holily, heavenly, contentedly, patiently, and cheerfully, in hopes of the glory that is to be revealed. (T. Boston, D.D.)
Whom He justified, them He also glorified.--
Justification and glory
I. Justification is--
1. An act of God passed upon a person needing it, consequently upon a person who could not justify himself. The guiltless need no justification; they have it already. He justifies.
2. The result of sovereign grace. By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified. I cannot earn justification.
3. Has for its matter and means the righteousness of Jesus Christ, set forth in His vicarious obedience, both in life and death. Obedience alone can justify, and where can we have it but in Jesus our substitute?
4. The practical way of its application is by faith. It is not by repenting that we are justified, but by believing.
5. An instantaneous act. Sanctification needs a whole life, justification needs no appreciable time. The sinner looks to Christ, his sin is gone in a moment. Sanctification, moreover, progresses or declines; but justification is complete.
6. An infallible act. It is God that justifieth; where, then, can there be a mistake?
7. An irreversible act. Once justified you shall never be condemned.
8. It is generally attended with such a flood of joy, that I think you must know it, Bunyans pilgrim did not lose the burden off his back and not know it; but as soon as it was gone, he gave three great leaps for joy, and went on his way singing.
II. Glory. How that golden word has been debased in the coinage of human speech. It has come to mean the glitter of wars helmet, and the noise of the crowds hurrahs. Whom He justified, them He also glorified. They follow close together. A little stream divides them, but the apostle says nothing about it, so we will not say anything. Death is not worth thinking of, it is swallowed up in victory. There is--
1. The glory which disembodied spirits are enjoying now. The moment that the soul leaves the body, the justified soul is in glory. Romanism holds that some of the best saints go to heaven when they die; but that the great mass of inferior saints must undergo purgation. But the dying thief was no eminent saint. The only good deed that we ever read of his doing was when he claimed Christ as Lord, and rebuked his fellow-thief for slandering the Saviour. Yet, hear the words, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise. Nor is this the only instance. We find, when Lazarus died, that he was carried by angels into Abrahams bosom. Stephen expected the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit, and the apostle Paul was in a strait betwixt two, being willing to depart and to be with Christ. In Eph_3:15, the apostle mentions the whole family as being in heaven and earth, but he speaks of none of the Lords people being in limbo. Those whom we are bidden to follow, in Heb_6:12, are now inheriting the promises. Let the voice of God decide the case for ever (Rev_14:13). The glory of paradise was that God walked there in the cool of the evening with His creatures; and the glory of heaven is, that they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and the days of their mourning shall be ended.
2. The resurrection glory which they will enjoy when soul and body shall be reunited. This will be a joyful meeting. Soul and body often quarrel here; but they are always loath to part, which proves how true is the wedlock between them; but what a happy meeting it will be when there will be no more jars between this husband and wife, when the soul and body shall be merged together in the perfection of union. Then, whatever may be the splendour of Christ will be the splendour of His people.
III. The connection between justification and glory.
1. A justified person has in him the bud of glory. What is glory?
(1) It is a state of perfect peace. Therefore, being justified, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(2) It is a state of rest. We, which have believed, do enter into rest.
(3) It is a state of safety. When sin is pardoned, I am secure.
(4) It is a state of nearness to God; He hath made us nigh by the blood of His Son.
(5) It is communion with Christ. But we have already boldness and access through Jesus. Inside the acorn there is the whole oak, and within justification there is heaven, with all its light, life, love, joy, and security. Glory is begun below.
2. Justification is a claim to glorification. He that is right in the eye of the law, has a claim to the protection and smile of the law.
3. Justification would be but a very sorry gift of God, if it did not involve glory. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv30–32 30. Whom he predestinated. He now shows how this…
30. Whom he predestinated. He now shows how this is accomplished for those thus foreknown as the lovers of God. He also called. They are “called” by the preaching of the gospel, as in 2 Thess. 2:14: “Whereunto he called you by our gospel.” It is not stated that these alone are called. We know that many others are called. Justified. The called, accepting the call, are justified. Their sins are blotted out. Glorified. These are made heirs of eternal glory. As stated by Godet, the purpose of the whole passage may be expressed as follows: “I see thou dost love God; art a believer; I therefore decree of thee that thou shalt become like my Son and be glorified with him.” The steps by which this is accomplished are calling, justification, and final glorification.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v32 MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_8:32
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rom_8:32
Love resolving, performing, and revealing.—The argument employed by St. Paul in this verse is one from the greater to the less. It is a self-evident principle that the greater implies and includes the less. The greater gift is that of the well-beloved Son; the less is the “all things” which are included. If all things are given into the Saviour’s hands, then it must be true that believers are in possession of those things which are placed in the Saviour’s hands for their spiritual well-being. Christians have many fears and doubts by the way, but they are groundless, for Jesus Christ is surely the pledge of a Father’s love and watchful care. Jesus Christ is the gift which proclaims that every other needful blessing will be bestowed. Yes, Jesus is the name fraught with joy and comfort to every child of God. Let us, then, no longer doubt that infinite Goodness which gave the unspeakable gift. Let us no more dream that there can be poverty in the divine bestowals, for God “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”
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I. Love resolving.—When did divine Love resolve not to spare the Well-beloved? Before the mighty rocks, which count their formative processes not by years but by centuries, began their solidifying methods—before time commenced its solemn march—in the vast æon of the eternal past did divine Love consider man’s ruined condition, and resolve not to spare the greatest gift which either time could know or eternity could produce. Here it may not be improper to contemplate divine Love pausing between love for the Son and pity for the fallen sons of men. What a momentous pause! What a solemn hiatus! What an important crisis! When the owner of the vineyard sent servant after servant to the husbandmen, and they slighted the opportunities of regaining a forfeited position, and boat the servants, and sent them away empty, it would have been natural for the lord of the vineyard to have said to himself, What shall I do? Shall I at once destroy those wicked husbandmen, or shall I venture among them my son and heir? God saw the people in ruin and in rebellion—saw with forevision. The interests of His moral government required the sacrifice of the well-beloved Son if a way of escape were to be devised for the rebellious. God loves the race, and yet He loves the Son. Between these conflicting loves, which shall prove victorious? Will God spare the Son, and not spare the race? Will God spare the race, and not spare the Son? What a solemn pause in the considerations of infinite Love! What will divine Love resolve? The pause, if there were a pause, was not of long continuance. What marvellous love to mankind is here revealed!—a love stretching, not only over the long centuries of time, but through the æons of eternity—a love anticipating the vast need before it had arisen! Infinite Love resolves to give up the dearest object of love to promote the welfare of guilty creatures. God has many sons both on earth and in heaven. Some are God’s sons by creation, and some in a higher sense by obedience to the divine commands, by submission to the righteous will of the Eternal, by the possession and manifestation of God-like qualities. The patriarchs are God’s eldest sons in time, who with giant-like mien walked the green carpet of the newly made earth—holy men of old who “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Patriarchs, seers, prophets, kings, priests, apostles, reformers, and martyrs are God’s noble sons; but none of the noblest born and most highly gifted of earth would be adequate to the requirements of eternal righteousness. Angels and archangels are the sons of God. We cannot tell the period of their birth. They came forth in a manner inexplicable to our finite understandings. But they reflect the glory of the Eternal, partake in the highest degree of the divine nature, are clothed in light, are all good and pure. Here surely may be found a messenger who could become incarnate and conduct the race out of sin’s darkness into the dazzling light of eternal righteousness. No. All are willing, but not one is fully qualified. God resolves to give neither the noblest of earth’s great sons nor the brightest seraph who dwells with unshrinking spirit and calm delight near the eternal light, but His own well-beloved Son.
II. Love performing.—Divine resolution is coincident with divine performance. There may be an interval, but no hesitation. There is neither time nor space to the Infinite, so that the word “coincident” has a wider and different meaning in the divine vocabulary from what it has in the human. There is cause and effect in human affairs; but can the same be predicated of divine affairs? What are the words “antecedent” and “consequent” to Him unto whom all things, past, present, and future, are present as in one group! Oh, how inadequate is human language when we discuss divine movements! We must content ourselves with the remark that with God to resolve is with Him to perform. God delivered up His Son to become incarnate. Divinity enshrined itself in the temple of our humanity. How great an act of love to the human race was that when God gave up His Son to become a man amongst men!—not merely a man amongst the richest, wisest, and noblest of mankind, though He was noblest of all—not a man to be fondled on the lap of luxury, to be crowned with the laurels of fame, to wield the sceptre of power, to revel in the light region of fancy where glowing visions entrance the soul, to glide sweetly down the pearly waters amid enchanting landscapes and gentle gales that waft to the senses richest music—but a man despised and rejected, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” God delivered up His Son so completely that He seemed to leave Him in solitude and sickness of heart, in weariness, thirstings, and hungerings. God is the father of the clouds, and yet He permitted Him to thirst who came to remove the moral thirst of mankind; God clothes the valleys with corn and feeds the young ravens when they cry, and yet He left Him to hunger who came to be bread from heaven for starving men. How complete the deliverance we gather from that mournful scene on Calvary when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” How mysterious a revelation of divine love to the race have we in the crucifixion of the Son of God! This is indeed a profound mystery that God should seem to love His people so well as to forsake His only begotten Son. There is in the mediatorial scheme a combination of loves. We see both the love of God and the love of Jesus working and uniting in the great scheme of redemption. God “spared not His Son,” and how the words impress themselves on the mind! God “delivered Him up for us all,” and what a deliverance we had in that solemn hour—the world’s one hour amid the almost countless hours of time—when the heavens gathered blackness and the stable earth reeled in sympathy with the divine Sufferer! These words do not set before us the act of an unfeeling father, but the deed of One whose name and whose nature is love. God “spared not.” What do the words import? The word “spare” in this connection acquires new and untold significance. God did not refuse to deliver up His Son. What an appalling deliverance! Is a God capable of sacrifice in our sense of the word? If so, what a sacrifice when He delivered up His Son! Is a God capable of grief? If so, a burst of grief must have disturbed the divine repose when the Saviour’s cry on the cross pierced the heavens and reached the heart of infinite Love. If ever the music of heaven were hushed, if ever a cloud were brought over and darkened the joy of the celestials, if ever there were an oppressive silence around the throne of the Infinite, it was when Jesus trod alone the winepress of His last earthly suffering.
III. Love revealing.—It may seem strange that God, who is sovereign Lord of all, should have a feeling to spare and yet should overcome the emotion. If in this mysterious work of human redemption it may be declared that even Christ pleased not Himself, so we say with becoming reverence that God pleased not Himself in delivering up His Son, except in so far as He desired to show His great love unto rebellious men, and thus win them back from sin and uphold the interests of His moral government. Here in the passage we have the unlimited nature of divine love revealed. The gift of Jesus Christ Himself is a clear demonstration of the vastness of divine love; but we may understand it more perfectly and feel it more vividly by expanding the apostle’s thought that God’s great gift of Jesus implies the gift of all things. How boundless are those words! Imagine, if we can, a limit to all things, and then may we hope to comprehend the overpowering vastness of divine love. Grasp, if we can, the mighty range expressed in the simple words “all things”; let us travel, if we can, where all things terminate—let us soar on eagles’ wings and scale the heights, fathom the depths, and get below their influence; and then may we trust to be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height of that love which passeth knowledge. Science has not yet found out all the things which are even in the visible creation, and which are waiting the time of their discovery; and of those things which have been already revealed it is scarcely too much to say that one human mind cannot tell them all by name; and as yet they are not all arranged in satisfactory scientific order. All the things of science, philosophy, politics, religion, nature, revelation, the past, the present, and the future—all the things in this world of ours, and all the things, if need be, of those myriad worlds which are but guessed at by the imagination of man—are for our spiritual welfare. There can be no greater charter than this. It surpasses every other charter of blessings. We can stand nowhere out of the reach of God’s blessed “all things.” The atmosphere appears to be an all-pervading force, and almost everywhere are we surrounded by its beneficial agency; but God’s “all things” go even further, and are more enduring. Friends may depart, relatives may become indifferent, even my father and my mother may forsake, riches may take to themselves wings and fly away, a good name may be blighted, earthly prospects may be withered and dead, health may decline, sickness may shatter and death destroy, but God’s “all things” abide to the Christian amid every change and in the midst of every disaster. We may fancy that sickness and trouble take us out of the sphere of God’s “all things,” but they are a more blessed part than we now believe of God’s “all things.” We may suppose that, when struggling alone in the valley of temptation, we are far from God’s “all things,” but let us be assured that even the feeling of desolateness which has overwhelmed and chilled may be God’s way of blessing. We may imagine, when on the bed of death and the devil tries and we experience divine hidings, that God has forsaken us; but God is there in the darkness though we see Him not. God giveth all things with the gift of His Son. What shall we more say? “For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” What more could we have? Who would not be a Christian, if he be a man of such large possessions as those indicated by St. Paul? “All things are yours.” We are rich beyond the power of human estimation. There are no title-deeds in this world which map out such extensive possessions.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom_8:32
“How shall He not,” etc.—Looking back at the cross, Paul triumphantly asks, If God has already bestowed the one gift, compared with which all other gifts are nothing, how can we conceive Him to withhold any other gift? The words “all things” are limited only by God’s wisdom and love. Whatever God withholds He withholds for our good. And the reasons which now prompt Him to withhold some pleasant things will soon pass away. The time is coming when these words will be fulfilled in their widest sense. “Also with Him.” The gift of all things is pledged by the gift of His Son; and therefore the other gifts are inseparably linked with the one gift. “Give by His grace”: as in Rom_1:11, Rom_5:15. “All things”. recalls the same words in Rom_8:28. When we sec God giving up to shame and death His Son, that we may surround that Son in everlasting glory, we are sure that God will keep back from us no good thing, and that the ills of life, which result from the withholding of things commonly supposed to be good, are really blessings in disguise.—Beet.
The best being given, the least will not be denied.—It was a greater act to be in Christ reconciling the world than to be in Christ giving out the mercies He hath purchased. If He hath overcome the greatest bank that stopped the tide of mercy, shall little ones hinder the current of it? Justice and the honour of the law were the great mountains which stood in the way. Since those are removed by a miraculous wisdom and grace, what pebbles can stop the flood to believing souls? If God be the author of the greatest blessings, will He not be of the least? If He hath not spared His best treasure, shall the less be denied? It is the apostle’s arguing, “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?” He cannot but be as free in the least as He was in the greatest; there were more arguments to dissuade Him from that than there can be to stop His hands in other things. If anything you desire be refused by God, know it is your Saviour’s mind you shall not have it; for God would deny Him nothing of His purchase. Oh, how little do we live in the sense of those truths! how doth our impatience give God the lie, and tell Him He is a deadly enemy, notwithstanding His reconciling grace!—Charnock.
God given His best.—“What shall we then say to these things?” Having spoken of the love of God, such a sea of love came upon Him as overcame Him. And what follows? “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?” Do but consider the words a little. “He spared not His Son”; the word implies that God was sensible enough what it was to give such a Son, it implies the greatest tenderness; He felt every blow, yet He gave the blows Himself. Even as when of loving parents it is said they do not spare their children, when out of the greatest tenderness they do correct them. And He is said not to “spare His own Son,” who is more His own Son than our sons can be, which are differing from ourselves, but Christ of the same substance with Himself. And the truth is, none knows how to value the gift but God Himself that gave Him, and Christ Himself that was given. And He did do it freely too: the word that is used, χαρίσεται, imports it; with Him He shall graciously give us; He gives Christ, and all things else freely with Him; therefore it implies that He gave Him up freely also. Abraham gave his son, but he was commanded to do it; but God gave His Son freely, and it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. And to show that this was the greatest gift that God could give, or had to give, what follows? Now He had given us His Son, Take all things else, saith He. I do not value heaven now I have given My Son for you; therefore take that. I do not value grace, nor comfort, nor creatures: take all freely, even as you had My Son. “If He spared not His Son,” saith He, “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” He hath given the greatest pawn of His love, in giving us His Son, that ever was.—Goodwin.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv30–31 30. “But whom he did predestinate, them he also…
30. “But whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Why does not sanctification appear in this specification of graces? Neither regeneration nor sanctification are mentioned, but only the call of the gospel through the Spirit, followed by justification and glorification. Regeneration is implied in justification, and sanctification in glorification. Again, you must remember that in this chapter, e. g., Rom 8:1, as well as elsewhere, justification has the broad signification of complete deliverance from all the penal consequences of sin, both actual and original, in which sense it can only follow entire sanctification, expurgatory of inbred sin. You must remember that foreknowledge stands at the head of this entire catalogue, culminating in glorification. Hence we see the impertinency of recognizing here an unconditional election and absolute predestination, from the simple fact that knowledge of character precedes all these appointments. Now, you must remember that all knowledge with God, whether appertaining to the past or the future, is in the present tense. Omnipotence is certainly absolutely and unconditionally illimitable. Yet you must remember that knowledge does not determine anything, from the simple fact that it is not influence. Therefore we must not identify things which are utterly dissimilar. From the fact that human knowledge is limited and imperfect, it is difficult to illustrate this problem. All of our knowledge of the future does only proximate; e. g., an old pilot, who knows every track through the Atlantic Ocean and every submarine rock, stands on the wharf of this city (New York); seeing a ship sail, he knows by her bearings that she will be wrecked on those formidable and impassable rocks. Yet his knowledge of the fact does not cause the wreckage. You see your own son daily wallowing in debauchery and sensuality, and know to your sorrow that he is going to the dogs and the devil; yet your knowledge does not expedite him on his hellward-bound career. Hence you see in all this election and predestination there is not the slightest interference with the freedom of the will. Why? These pre-appointments simply follow as a logical sequence from the moral and spiritual character of the parties appointed, God, from the beginning, having a perfect knowledge of those characters. Yet it is a fact of universal recognition that we freely choose good or evil, and in this way determine our own characters. Now, is it possible for human destiny to turn out differently from the prediction? We have clear light on that question in 1Sa 23:1-13. During David’s memorable flight from Saul he takes his refuge in Keilah, the men all fawning on him with flattering attestations of conservatism, assuring him that they will be true and stand by him on the battlefield. David, very happily enjoying that gift of the Holy Spirit denominated “discernment of spirits” (1Co 12:10), suspecting their fidelity, goes aside and turns the problem over to God in prayer (Rom 8:11). “Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hands? Will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee tell thy servant And the Lord said, He will comedown” (Rom 8:12). “Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hands of Saul? And the Lord said, They will deliver thee up” (Rom 8:13). “Then David and his men, about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped out of Keilah. And he forbear to go forth.” Here we have a positive answer from God to David, “Saul will come down to Keilah and the men of Keilah will deliver thee up.” Now you see that neither of these predicted events transpired, because David immediately rallied his men and fled away from the traitors who were lying to him that they might purchase royal favor with his head, Saul being close on his track, and, hearing that he was gone, did not come to Keilah at all. Hence you see that even these pre-announced events are entirely changed by human action. David understood God’s method with man better than the cavilers of the present day, who apologize for their own obliquity by crying out, “What is to be will be, and I can not change my destiny.” When God told him that Saul would come to Keilah and the inhabitants of the city would betray him into his hands, David well understood that Saul would come and the Keilites would deliver him up if he stayed. Consequently, blowing his war bugle, he immediately rallies his men and skedaddles at double quick. The Bible is a commonsense book, adapted to the common, uneducated people, who are honest enough to receive its plain and candid truth and govern themselves accordingly.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v32
Romans
THE GIFT THAT BRINGS ALL GIFTS
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Rom 8:32.
We have here an allusion to, if not a distinct quotation from, the narrative in Genesis, of Abraham’s offering up of Isaac. The same word which is employed in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, to translate the Hebrew word rendered in our Bible as ‘withheld,’ is employed here by the Apostle. And there is evidently floating before his mind the thought that, in some profound and real sense, there is an analogy between that wondrous and faithful act of giving up and the transcendent and stupendous gift to the world, from God, of His Son.
If we take that point of view, the language of my text rises into singular force, and suggests many very deep thoughts, about which, perhaps, silence is best. But led by that analogy, let us deal with these words.
I. Consider this mysterious act of divine surrender.
The analogy seems to suggest to us, strange as it may be, and remote from the cold and abstract ideas of the divine nature which it is thought to be philosophical to cherish, that something corresponding to the pain and loss that shadowed the patriarch’s heart flitted across the divine mind when the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Not merely to give, but to give up, is the highest crown and glory of love, as we know it. And who shall venture to say that we so fully apprehend the divine nature as to be warranted in declaring that some analogy to that is impossible for Him? Our language is, ‘I will not offer unto God that which doth cost me nothing.’ Let us bow in silence before the dim intimation that seems to flicker out of the words of my text, that so He says to us, ‘I will not offer unto you that which doth cost Me nothing.’ ‘He spared not His own Son’; withheld Him not from us.
But passing from that which, I dare say, many of you may suppose to be fanciful and unwarranted, let us come upon the surer ground of the other words of my text. And notice how the reality of the surrender is emphasised by the closeness of the bond which, in the mysterious eternity, knits together the Father and the Son. As with Abraham, so in this lofty example, of which Abraham and Isaac were but as dim, wavering reflections in water, the Son is His own Son. It seems to me impossible, upon any fair interpretation of the words before us, to refrain from giving to that epithet here its very highest and most mysterious sense. It cannot be any mere equivalent for Messiah, it cannot merely mean a man who was like God in purity of nature and in closeness of communion. For the force of the analogy and the emphasis of that word which is even more emphatic in the Greek than in the English ‘His own Son,’ point to a community of nature, to a uniqueness and singleness of relation, to a closeness of intimacy, to which no other is a parallel. And so we have to estimate the measure of the surrender by the tenderness and awfulness of the bond. ‘Having one Son, His well-beloved, He sent Him.’
Notice, again, how the greatness of the surrender is made more emphatic by the contemplation of it in its double negative and positive aspect, in the two successive clauses. ‘He spared not His Son, but delivered Him up,’ an absolute, positive giving of Him over to the humiliation of the life and to the mystery of the death.
And notice how the tenderness and the beneficence that were the sole motive of the surrender are lifted into light in the last words, ‘for us all.’ The single, sole reason that bowed, if I may so say, the divine purpose, and determined the mysterious act, was a pure desire for our blessing. No definition is given as to the manner in which that surrender wrought for our good. The Apostle does not need to dwell upon that. His purpose is to emphasise the entire unselfishness, the utter simplicity of the motive which moved the divine will. One great throb of love to the whole of humanity led to that transcendent surrender, before which we can only bow and say, ‘Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.’
And now, notice how this mysterious act is grasped by the Apostle here as what I may call the illuminating fact as to the whole divine nature. From it, and from it alone, there falls a blaze of light on the deepest things in God. We are accustomed to speak of Christ’s perfect life of unselfishness, and His death of pure beneficence, as being the great manifestation to us all that in His heart there is an infinite fountain of love to us. We are, further, accustomed to speak of Christ’s mission and death as being the revelation to us of the love of God as well as of the Man Christ Jesus, because we believe that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world,’ and that He has so manifested and revealed the very nature of divinity to us, in His life and in His person, that, as He Himself says, ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ And every conclusion that we draw as to the love of Christ is, ipso facto, a conclusion as to the love of God. But my text looks at the matter from rather a different point of view, and bids us see, in Christ’s mission and sacrifice, the great demonstration of the love of God, not only because ‘God was in Christ,’ but because the Father’s will, conceived of as distinct from, and yet harmonious with, the will of the Son, gives Him up for us. And we have to say, not only that we see the love of God in the love of Christ, but ‘God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son’ that we might have life through Him.
These various phases of the love of Christ as manifesting the divine love, may not be capable of perfect harmonising in our thoughts, but they do blend into one, and by reason of them all, ‘God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ We have to think not only of Abraham who gave up, but of the unresisting, innocent Isaac, bearing on his shoulders the wood for the burnt offering, as the Christ bore the Cross on His, and suffering himself to be bound upon the pile, not only by the cords that tied his limbs, but by the cords of obedience and submission, and in both we have to bow before the Apocalypse of divine love.
II. So, secondly, look at the power of this divine surrender to bring with it all other gifts.
‘How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?’ The Apostle’s triumphant question requires for its affirmative answer only the belief in the unchangeableness of the Divine heart, and the uniformity of the Divine purpose. And if these be recognised, their conclusion inevitably follows. ‘With Him He will freely give us all things.’
It is so, because the greater gift implies the less. We do not expect that a man who hands over a million of pounds to another, to help him, will stick at a farthing afterwards. If you give a diamond you may well give a box to keep it in. In God’s gift the lesser will follow the lead of the greater; and whatsoever a man can want, it is a smaller thing for Him to bestow, than was the gift of His Son.
There is a beautiful contrast between the manners of giving the two sets of gifts implied in words of the original, perhaps scarcely capable of being reproduced in any translation. The expression that is rendered ‘freely give,’ implies that there is a grace and a pleasantness in the act of bestowal. God gave in Christ, what we may reverently say it was something like pain to give. Will He not give the lesser, whatever they may be, which it is the joy of His heart to communicate? The greater implies the less.
Farther, this one great gift draws all other gifts after it, because the purpose of the greater gift cannot be attained without the bestowment of the lesser. He does not begin to build being unable to finish; He does not miscalculate His resources, nor stultify Himself by commencing upon a large scale, and having to stop short before the purpose with which He began is accomplished. Men build great palaces, and are bankrupt before the roof is put on. God lays His plans with the knowledge of His powers, and having first of all bestowed this large gift, is not going to have it bestowed in vain for want of some smaller ones to follow it up. Christ puts the same argument to us, beginning only at the other end of the process. Paul says, ‘God has laid the foundation in Christ.’ Do you think He will stop before the headstone is put on? Christ said, ‘It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.’ Do you think He will not give you bread and water on the road to it? Will He send out His soldiers half-equipped; will it be found when they are on their march that they have been started with a defective commissariat, and with insufficient trenching tools? Shall the children of the King, on the road to their thrones, be left to scramble along anyhow, in want of what they need to get there? That is not God’s way of doing. He that hath begun a good work will also perfect the same, and when He gave to you and me His Son, He bound Himself to give us every subsidiary and secondary blessing which was needed to make that Son’s work complete in each of us.
Again, this great blessing draws after it, by necessary consequence, all other lesser and secondary gifts, inasmuch as, in every real sense, everything is included and possessed in the Christ when we receive Him. ‘With Him,’ says Paul, as if that gift once laid in a man’s heart actually enclosed within it, and had for its indispensable accompaniment the possession of every smaller thing that a man can need, Jesus Christ is, as it were, a great Cornucopia, a horn of abundance, out of which will pour, with magic affluence, all manner of supplies according as we require. This fountain flows with milk, wine, and water, as men need. Everything is given us when Christ is given to us, because Christ is the Heir of all things, and we possess all things in Him; as some poor village maiden married to a prince in disguise, who, on the morrow of her wedding finds that she is lady of broad lands, and mistress of a kingdom. ‘He that spared not His own Son,’ not only ‘with Him will give,’ but in Him has ‘given us all things.’
And so, brethren, just as that great gift is the illuminating fact in reference to the divine heart, so is it the interpreting fact in reference to the divine dealings. Only when we keep firm hold of Christ as the gift of God, and the Explainer of all that God does, can we face the darkness, the perplexities, the torturing questions that from the beginning have harassed men’s minds as they looked upon the mysteries of human misery. If we recognise that God has given us His Son, then all things become, if not plain, at least lighted with some gleam from that great gift; and we feel that the surrender of Christ is the constraining fact which shapes after its own likeness, and for its own purpose, all the rest of God’s dealings with men. That gift makes anything believable, reasonable, possible, rather than that He should spare not His own Son, and then should counterwork His own act by sending the world anything but good.
III. And now, lastly, take one or two practical issues from these thoughts, in reference to our own belief and conduct.
First, I would say, Let us correct our estimates of the relative importance of the two sets of gifts. On the one side stands the solitary Christ; on the other side are massed all delights of sense, all blessings of time, all the things that the vulgar estimation of men unanimously recognises to be good. These are only makeweights. They are all lumped together into an ‘also.’ They are but the golden dust that may be filed off from the great ingot and solid block. They are but the outward tokens of His far deeper and true preciousness. They are secondary; He is the primary. What an inversion of our notions of good! Do you degrade all the world’s wealth, pleasantness, ease, prosperity, into an ‘also?’ Are you content to put it in the secondary place, as a result, if it please Him, of Christ? Do you live as if you did? Which do you hunger for most? Which do you labour for hardest? ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom and the King, and all ‘these things shall be added unto you.’
Let these thoughts teach us that sorrow too is one of the gifts of the Christ. The words of my text, at first sight, might seem to be simply a promise of abundant earthly good. But look what lies close beside them, and is even part of the same triumphant burst. ‘Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’ These are some of the ‘all things’ which Paul expected that God would give him and his brethren. And looking upon all, he says, ‘They all work together for good’; and in them all we may be more than conquerors. It would be a poor, shabby issue of such a great gift as that of which we have been speaking, if it were only to be followed by the sweetnesses and prosperity and wealth of this world. But here is the point that we have to keep hold of-inasmuch as He gives us all things, let us take all the things that come to us as being as distinctly the gifts of His love, as is the gift of Christ Himself. A wise physician, to an ignorant onlooker, might seem to be acting in contradictory fashions when in the one moment he slashes into a limb, with a sharp, gleaming knife, and in the next sedulously binds the wounds, and closes the arteries, but the purpose of both acts is one.
The diurnal revolution of the earth brings the joyful sunrise and the pathetic sunset. The same annual revolution whirls us through the balmy summer days and the biting winter ones. God’s purpose is one. His methods vary. The road goes straight to its goal; but it sometimes runs in tunnels dank and dark and stifling, and sometimes by sunny glades and through green pastures. God’s purpose is always love, brother. His withdrawals are gifts, and sorrow is not the least of the benefits which come to us through the Man of Sorrows.
So again, let these thoughts teach us to live by a very quiet and peaceful faith. We find it a great deal easier to trust God for Heaven than for earth-for the distant blessings than for the near ones. Many a man will venture his soul into God’s hands, who would hesitate to venture to-morrow’s food there. Why? Is it not because we do not really trust Him for the greater that we find it so hard to trust Him for the less? Is it not because we want the less more really than we want the greater, that we can put ourselves off with faith for the one, and want something more solid to grasp for the other? Live in the calm confidence that God gives all things; and gives us for to-morrow as for eternity; for earth as for heaven.
And, last of all, make you quite sure that you have taken the great gift of God. He gives it to all the world, but they only have it who accept it by faith. Have you, my brother? I look out upon the lives of the mass of professing Christians; and this question weighs on my heart, judging by conduct-have they really got Christ for their own? ‘Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?’ Look how you are all fighting and scrambling, and sweating and fretting, to get hold of the goods of this present life, and here is a gift gleaming before you all the while that you will not condescend to take. Like a man standing in a market-place offering sovereigns for nothing, which nobody accepts because they think the offer is too good to be true, so God complains and wails: I have stretched out My hands all the day, laden with gifts, and no man regarded.
‘It is only heaven may be had for the asking;
It is only God that is given away.’
He gives His Son. Take Him by humble faith in His sacrifice and Spirit; take Him, and with Him He freely gives you all things.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv30–32 and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and…
and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified . [The keyword which opens the hidden meaning of these two verses is the word purpose, found in verse 28. Before man was created God foresaw his fall, and designed the gospel for his redemption; this fact is well attested by Scripture ( Rom_16:25-26 ; 1Co_2:7 ; Eph_1:8 ; Eph_3:9 ; Col_1:25-26 ). In those times eternal, man, the gospel, justification, etc., existed only in the purpose of God; and it is of these times and conditions that the apostle speaks, showing how God foreknew that a certain class yet to be born would accept of a salvation yet to be provided through the terms of a gospel yet to be made actual. As to this class he foreordained, or fore-decreed, that they should, after the resurrection, bear the image or likeness of his Son, that the Son might have the pre-eminence of being the firstborn (from the dead) among many brethren. And this class, whom in his purpose he thus foreordained, them likewise in his purpose he also called justified and glorified by successive steps, not actually, but in his purpose. Thus the apostle is speaking not of actual decrees, calls, justifications, etc., on the part of God, but of such as existing only in divine contemplation and purpose. So, also, he is not speaking of actual, called, etc., persons, but imaginary, ideal persons, who existed as yet only as a class in the councils or purposes of the Almighty; and Paul's design is not to show the foreordination of any individuals, but to substantiate the assurance of verse 28, by emphasizing the far-reaching purposes of God, which will not suffer afflictions, hardships, or any of the trivialities of time, to frustrate him in working out his eternal plans. That he is not speaking of actualities is shown by the last term in his sequence, viz.: "glorified." Since the apostle is speaking of what transpired in the councils of the Almighty prior to the creation of man, he properly uses the past tense: "glorified;" but if he were speaking of actuality, he would be compelled to use the future tense, to accord with conditions as stated in verse 18, where he clearly recognizes the glorification of man as a future event for which he waits. Thus it is apparent that the foreordination set forth in these two verses is purely hypothetical.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v31 The assurance of God’s unchangeable love in Christ Jesus:
The assurance of God’s unchangeable love in Christ Jesus:
v. 31. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
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v. 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?
v. 33. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
v. 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.
v. 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
v. 36. As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
v. 37. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
v. 38. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
v. 39. nor 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.
In all the letters of Paul there are few passages that equal, and none that exceed, this paean of triumph, of victorious faith, in lofty and sustained power. Addressed to Christians as it is, it should never fail of rousing them to the greatest pitch of faith’s enthusiasm and to the utmost confidence and trust in the mercy of God and their Savior Jesus Christ. "What shall we then say?" What inference shall we draw from the entire presentation? "The apostle has disparaged the suffering to be endured by those who would share Christ’s glory in comparison with that glory, v. 18; he has interpreted it, vv. 19-27, as in a manner prophetic of the glory which shall follow; he has in these last verses asserted the presence through all the Christian’s life of an eternal victorious purpose of love. " (Denney.) What conclusion must he now draw and with him every believer? If God for us, who against us? The first conclusion is that God is on our side; that God who has destined us for glory and is carrying out His decree in our case is on our side, and therefore no enemy can really harm us; all their attempts must come to naught. It is not a challenging cry, but one of assured victory, in the assurance that all the power of the enemy is rendered futile in advance.
The ground of this confidence and security is the love of God: He that did not spare even His very own Son, but gave Him as a sacrifice into death for us all,—how is it possible that He would not with Him, out of free grace, give us all things? Paul here includes himself with all the believing, elect children of God. Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. But the purpose of His sacrifice is realized only in the believers; they only actually apply the love of God to themselves and become partakers of His redemption, the Son of God Himself being the greatest gift of grace and including all other blessings of God, especially the future salvation and glory. These blessings are inseparably connected with Christ, and he that receives the Redeemer thereby becomes partaker of the full wealth of God’s treasures of mercy. Who will bring any accusation against the elect of God? It is God that justifieth. If anyone wants to summon the chosen of God, the believers spoken of in v. 28. before God’s bar of justice, he will find himself sadly disappointed. For instead of proving his point as to their being under God’s sentence of condemnation, he will find that God has declared them to be just. Who would speak the sentence of condemnation upon them? There are four conclusive reasons adduced why such a sentence is out of the question: the death of Christ, His resurrection, His exaltation, and His intercession. Christ died, but not for Himself, only as our Substitute, paying the price of all our guilt with His death; He arose from the dead, thus receiving the seal and assurance of God’s acceptance of the sacrifice; He ascended to the right hand of God, He assumed the full use of His divine power and glory, also according to His human nature; and His constant work at the present time is His intercession for us, His acting as our Advocate with God, 1Jn 2:1.
And now comes the very last step in the climax of the apostle’s argument, "the very summit of the mount of confidence, whence he looks down upon his enemies as powerless, and forward and upward with full assurance of a final and abundant triumph. " Accusation has no effect, condemnation cannot harm us, and even every attempt at violence must fail from the very start. Who shall separate us, take us away, from the love of Christ? With Christ we are inseparably connected on account of His love toward us, by faith. Can anyone or anything sever the bond of our communion with Christ and take faith out of our hearts? The apostle names a few of the factors most likely to harm us in this respect, hostile powers and influences as they are employed by Satan and by the children of the world: Tribulation; distress, emergencies of all kinds; persecution on the part of our enemies; hunger, nakedness, peril, sword, in which persecution under certain circumstances will find its climax. Parenthetically Paul shows that the endurance of all such difficulties and afflictions is prophesied in Scriptures, by referring to Psa 44:22, where the Church of the Old Testament laments that many of its members must suffer martyrdom for the sake of their firm stand on the side of God, that they are reckoned and treated as sheep for the slaughter. But all these things Paul brushes aside with an abruptness approaching impatience: Rather in all these things, in all these afflictions and difficulties, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Our enemies are not only not able to do us real harm, but they are actually conquered before they have had an opportunity for working evil. The Christian is assured of victory in advance, not in His own strength and power, but through his Redeemer Jesus Christ and His love. And so Paul closes in a burst of triumphant eloquence: For I have the full persuasion—as have all true Christians with him—that neither death, martyrdom, nor life, with its various vicissitudes and trials; neither angels nor principalities, the mighty spirits of every grade; neither things present, now incumbent upon us, nor things to come, no matter how threatening their aspect; nor powers, no matter of what kind; neither height nor depth, all hostile attacks, whether from above or from beneath, having their origin in forces inimical to God; nor any other creature, an all-comprehending specification, shall be able to separate us from, to sever our intimate communion with, the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Thus the song of faith reaches its climax in a victorious burst of melody, bringing out the certainty of the Christian, his confidence of faith in the love of God and of Christ. It is a subject which is well worthy of being celebrated in such a hymn of faith.
Summary
The apostle reminds the Christians that they are under obligations to follow the guidance of the Spirit that lives in them and gives them the guarantee of their adoption, also that the present time, a period of tribulations, is designed to set forth, by an all the more glorious contrast, the greatness and the certainty of the final redemption, of which no one can rob us.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v31 What then shall we say about these things? If…
What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
Paul uses questions to emphasize the main point of what he said previously. AT: "This is what we should know from all of this: since God is helping us, no one can defeat us" (See: Rhetorical Question)
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He who did not spare his own Son
God the Father sent the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to the cross as the holy, infinite sacrifice necessary to satisfy God's infinite, holy nature against the sin of humanity. Here "Son" is an important title for Jesus, the Son of God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
but delivered him up
"but put him under the control of his enemies"
how will he not also with him freely give us all things?
Paul is using a question for emphasis. AT: "he will certainly and freely give us all things!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
freely give us all things
"kindly give us all things"
translationWords
God
Son of God
deliver
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv30–32 8:30 gave them his glory: Elsewhere in this passage,…
8:30 gave them his glory: Elsewhere in this passage, the glory Christians will experience is consistently in the future (8:18, 21, 23). The past tense here refers to God’s past decision to glorify us in the future. We have not yet entered into our inheritance, but the Father has irrevocably determined to give us his glory.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.