Rom 8:35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,

or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

Who is God? What is God’s love? We can perceive it by our reason too. God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible. He created me as well. He knows me; He gave me the Spirit of life and earthly life through natural parents. He wants me to be perfectly happy for all eternity. He delivered up His only begotten Son to shameful death for my sake. He wants me to receive His love. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. There is also human love, which has its strongest expression in the relationship between a mother and child. God’s love is eternal. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isa 49:15) God keeps you in His mind. He loves you more than you love yourself. When will God’s love for you end? After a year? After twenty years, fifty years? Never! God’s love for you is eternal. Before God created the universe, He kept you in His mind and loved you. His love never ceases. Unfortunately, to those who reject God it causes eternal torment.

Rom 8:33: “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”

(29 Sept-13 Oct 2013)

Rom 8:34: “Who will condemn? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.”

(13 Oct-27 Oct 2013)

The question is who will accuse God’s elect. We can be accused by demons, by people, by our conscience or by God. Everyone who commits an offence is liable to a just punishment. “The wages of sin is death.” (Rom 6:23) “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) But it is God who justifies.

Rom 8:31: “If God is for us…” – the consequence is: “…who can be against us?”

I can personally realize this truth if I use “me” instead of “us”.

What to do if I want God to be “for me” and not against me? I need to repent. It means to come out of darkness into the light. Christ is the Light. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.” (1Jn 1:7)

Through Christ the way is open for us to the Heavenly Father. However, this way is not open for liberal Christians who question Jesus’ redemptive death on the cross and speak misleadingly about the Christ of history and the Christ of faith.

The word of prophecy spoken to Ezekiel in the Babylonian captivity is relevant to the current situation in Ukraine: “And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned.” (36:23) “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. … I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. …you shall be My people, and I will be your God. … Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations. … Then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it.” (v. 25-36)

Rom 8:27   “Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

The power of God working through prayer is conditioned by the working of the Spirit of God. Therefore every Christian must not only receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit like the Apostles on the day of Pentecost but also allow His power to work in him and to make him a true witness of Christ. This is what Jesus Himself desires (cf. Acts 1:8).

In verses 22-27, the Apostle Paul speaks about three kinds of groaning. The groaning of the creation (v. 22), the groaning of believers (v. 23) and the groaning of the Spirit (v. 26). The creation, i.e. animate and inanimate nature, was subjected to suffering and disasters as a consequence of sin (v. 20). And so it is God’s plan that nature as such will likewise be redeemed and transformed. There will be a new heaven and a new earth, everything will be restored according to the will of God (cf. 2Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Rev 21:1-5) and the faithful children of God will receive their full inheritance.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared

with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Rom 8:18)

The sufferings of this present time (illness, pain, misery, disappointment, poverty, ill-treatment, grief, persecution or any other problems) must be considered not worthy to be compared with the blessing, privileges and glory which are prepared for the faithful in the age to come (cf. 2Cor 4:17).

Verse 14 reads: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” The first part is crucial: “All who are led by the Spirit of God…” It is not enough to receive the Spirit of God or to pray to Him. We need to be led by Him, or, in other words, to walk in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads our mind to the truth and He leads our will to overcome fear, laziness and sin. In verse 13 we read: “…if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” God’s Spirit strengthens our spirit and our will in resisting the process of self-destruction which started with the infection by original sin.

Chapter eight of the Epistle to the Romans leads us into the mystery of deliverance from spiritual and physical slavery which is the consequence of the infection of original sin in us. Verses 1 and 2 speak of deliverance from the law of sin and death which is only possible through the law of the Spirit who gives life in Christ Jesus. The law as such means that something is repeated, a certain regularity. If we have received the Spirit of God, listen to His voice and obey it, following our conscience, we are not carnal people but spiritual. Verse 11 says that if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, He will also give life to our mortal bodies.

What does it mean to “give life”? Original sin influences both our body and soul. It arouses lusts of the flesh which make man into a slave. Its manifestation in the soul is selfishness and pride which likewise enslave man. The human spirit created in God’s image is in the innermost depths of the soul.

“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

From the very beginning of chapter eight we can observe tension between the flesh and the Spirit. It points out a dividing line between carnal and spiritual man. The root of choosing between the flesh and the Spirit is deep in the human soul. One uses the powers of the soul – reason and will – to choose between the two. People who choose a selfish lifestyle, a life in the flesh, must remember that “he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption” (Gal 6:8). People who receive the Spirit of Christ change their life and are given the light and strength. This involves little self-denials, self-humiliation, walking in the truth and following of Christ every day. The fruit is peace and happiness even in hard situations, for these people have God as their helper.

The Scripture often speaks about the spirit, soul and flesh. The powers of the soul are intellect and will. As a result of original sin, reason can hardly know the essence of the truth and the will is weakened and hardly inclined to pure good. This infection of original sin wounded the heart of man and destroyed the inner harmony. The consequence is that the heart succumbs to disordered passions, selfishness and self-love. The Scripture refers to the heart as “deceitful above all things” (Jer 17:9) and as “the heart of stone” (Ez 36:26). God promised to give us a new heart (Ez 36:26).

What does it mean: “…what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh…”? When was the law not weak through the flesh? Before sin acquired domination over man. God’s law commanded Adam in Paradise: “You shall not eat … for you shall die!” When he disobeyed God’s law, the punishment of the law came upon him, and Adam died. From that time on, humanity has been ruled by the law of sin and death.

God’s law (the Ten Commandments) convicts us of sin, thus making a diagnosis, yet it can not save us. If it could, Christ would not have come. “God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh (i.e. the flesh of Christ).” The just requirement of the law is: “The wages of sin is death.” Jesus voluntarily took this death on Himself for our sake, and hence fulfilled the just requirement of the law on His body. The term “righteousness of God” means just condemnation of sin on the innocent Son of God for our sake.

Chapter seven of the Epistle to the Romans is quite difficult to understand though it contains the most fundamental truths concerning our salvation. It speaks about law – first about the Law of God which is holy, just and good and yet unable to ensure my salvation. It just convicts me of my sin and does not give me the power to overcome the law of sin and death. At the end of the chapter the Apostle calls on his behalf and on behalf of all sincere believers: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Deliverance is in Christ. Chapter 8, verse 2, speaks about the law of the Spirit which makes us free from the law of sin and death. This law of the Spirit gives life in Christ Jesus. And its fruit, at the same time, is freedom from the law of sin and death.

The whole chapter seven speaks of laws: the law of God, the law of sin and the law of the Spirit. Which of these laws works depends on whose territory we are. If we are in Adam, that means in our corrupt nature, our spirit is under the rule of the law of sin. Even if we observe God’s law outwardly, it leads to pride and pharisaism. One can be outwardly moral and decent and yet one is a slave of sin, pride and spiritual blindness. Pharisees were in the Church in the time of Christ but they are in the Church nowadays as well. The Apostle calls: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” The answer is that we have been delivered, I have been delivered, by God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so thanks be to Him! However, if I am not in Christ, not conformed to God’s will, but I am in myself, it is true about me that “I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin”. But if I am in Christ, the law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death (see Rom 8:1-2).

The Apostle Paul shows by his own example the reality of the law of sin. It’s a kind of mental pressure which forces him as well as every one of us to practise evil which we will not to do. The Apostle points out that the cause is sin that dwells in me, but the good that I will to do does not dwell in me. This is, as it were, a little unfair.

Verses 13-19 speak of sin which took occasion by what was good to produce death in me. Through God’s commandment sin becomes exceedingly sinful. God’s commandment as such does not give the strength to overcome sin. Since our birth we have been in bondage to sin. Who sold us? The first parents did so because they were disobedient to God’s Word and believed the spirit of lies and death. Jesus delivered us from this bondage. By His death on the cross He defeated sin and the devil. Victory over sin is only in Christ. If we are in active communion with Christ through faith and devotion, we can not sin (1Jn 3:6). Unfortunately, when we get out of the presence of God and communion with Jesus, we are exposed to various forms of sin again, such as self-will, laziness, different passions, pride, self-pity, envy, impurity, vanity, avarice.