Christ Life In Us Romans 8:33-34 What Shall We Say

Good morning. So the verses that I had them read for some of the verses that Miles covered, this whole section right here from about 28 to the end of the chapter is so, what's the word, comforting because there's some things that the Lord tells us that And on first bless, you kind of think, well, I'm not really sort of experiencing that in my life. And so I got enamored with the question. And the question that he's used, what shall we say to these things? It's a great question.

You can go all the way back to Romans 3, 5. Get this going. You can always go three, five, but if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what can we say about that? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is he? Speaking in human terms.

Or in chapter four, he said, what shall we say? That Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh has found, what did he find? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. So when he says, well, what can we say about that? He says, Abraham has something to boast about, but not before God.

So, as we start through and start looking at, well, what shall we say? Because sometimes, you know, you read God's word and you think to yourself, what can I say about that? What am I thinking about that? And these verses that are before him, they're words that we're looking at that we're, you know, written by Paul the Apostle, but were put in place and breathed in by the Holy Spirit of God. So what are we getting? We're getting information, we talked about this in Sunday school, we're getting information directly from God to Paul to put down on a piece of paper so we could see it. We could see the words. So the question occurs in a lot of places as we go through this, these verses all the way down to the end of the chapter, there's a methodology here.

And the methodology is pretty simple. He's gonna ask a question, he's gonna answer it, and sometimes ask another question. Because I think our minds think that way. Well, God said this. Well, I wonder what it means. And he sort of anticipates what you're gonna think. So, These lend themselves, these verses lend themselves more for us to meditate on rather than just explain. They're the kind of verses that you can sit down with them quietly and read one at a time and just meditate. What is it saying? So. In verse 31 and 32, which Myles covered last week, which he did a great job, what then shall we say of these things? Say of what? Well, if God is for us, who's against us? Or since God is for us, who's against us? That's a great question. If he is, who could possibly be against us? He who did not spare his own son. but he delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

That's pretty good news. That's really good news. So he begins this process by asking questions and then asking another question that really is informational. How can God do this, or would he do this? So it goes to the character of God himself. So I put a little thing together that maybe helps explain a lot of these verses. The premise of all of these verses is God is with us, or God is for us. That's the premise, you start with that. And then he draws a bunch of conclusions from that premise, and that premise, draws a conclusion in 31 if God is for us. If true, we don't have any enemies, if that's true. And then he says in verse 32, we don't have any lack.

And what I'm gonna do, and I know we don't do this very often, but get out your Bibles, Turn to Romans 8.31, and let's read them. Let's just read them. And we'll kind of go through these things as we do. So I'll give you 15 seconds. Get out your Bible. If you've got it on your phone, you can do it in less time than that. So, 31, verse 31, 8.31 says, what shall we say then is, since God is for us, who's against us?

And like I put up here, God doesn't have any enemies. Effective enemies, we got a lot of foes, but no enemies, none that are effective. I don't have any, you don't have any enemies because of this. 32, he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also freely with him give us all things? No lack.

What can you say, can you go over in your mind and think of one blessing that God has not blessed you with, just one, then the whole New Testament can throw it away. He's blessed us with all, Ephesians says we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing and the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Now, you may say to me, well, I don't have a Maserati in my garage. Well, Maserati isn't a heavenly item. So.

Every spiritual blessing you already have, there's no lack. 33, who will bring a charge against God's elect? It's God who is the one who justifies. So there's no guilt. If you're a believer, you're not guilty. Not guilty. 34, Who is it he that, one, two, three, no, 35, 34.

Who is the one who condemns? Good question. Who's the one that's gonna stand there and condemn me? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather is raised, who is the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. So what happened? I don't have a judge. There's nobody there to judge me. You see that?

35 says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? There is no catastrophe that can separate us from the love of God ever. And then verse 38 says, For I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, or any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

So there is no separation. So if you turn all those around, stated them as facts, they eliminate doubt and fear in a believer's life. So, it's interesting that the way Paul does things and the way he helps us to understand that the premise is that God is in giving and justifying and all the difficulties and dangers that might seem to edge into our life. or in our way, none of those things can separate us from God, not a single thing.

So, the next thought that hit my mind, well, what if I walk up to a non-believer and tell him, God is for you, God is for us, how does he react to that? As I thought about that, I thought, fallen man instinctively thinks that God is against him. He's convinced that God is against him because his life isn't working out too good, even if he's wealthy and healthy. He's struggling, he has no rest. So God's heart is towards man, and he is actively and eternally for all who believe in him.

So the efficacy silences every foe. can have anything to say against God effectively unless they say it from the position of the old man, from the position of the opposition. It can be screamed to the top of the mountain, but it isn't gonna be effective. So. He that spared not his own son. Notice that I wanted to look at one phrase here.

How shall he not freely, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? The premise is really simple in this verse. If God gave you the best thing, won't he give you the lesser things? If he gave you salvation and a position in Christ and eternal security, and he's gonna glorify you, isn't he gonna do the things that aren't that big a deal?

Answer, yeah, he will. Yeah, he will. Your mindset, though, your sin mind is gonna say to you, well, I'm not so sure he'll go that far. Yeah, he did. He already went that far. He already did it. When God deals with grace, it's always unlimited. There's never a time that he will say, well, I can't give you, I was gonna give you 100% grace here, but you kinda didn't live up to, and so I'm ratcheting it back to 76. So if he didn't spare his own son, is he going to spare something with you? No, he won't. So notice that the Holy Spirit always, in Scripture, reasons from what God is and who He is and what He's done to subsequent blessing to us. He never reasons from us to God. He never does that.

It's always from God to us. Why is that important to us? Because if we understand God wrote this book all about blessing, and it's God's word to us, then we're the receivers. We can't judge back at God because he's so gracious there's nothing to criticize him about, nothing. So today's verses are 33 and 34.

Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. So I don't have any guilt. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died. Yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, and who intercedes for us. If God were to judge us, it would be inconsistent with who he is.

When you look at this verse, and it starts, and I noticed that when Jim read it, he changed the word to from who. To what? But really, this word is one of those Greek words that can mean both, who and what, because when we get down to verse 35, and he's gonna say, who can separate me from the love of God?

And then he gives you a whole bunch of what's. Tribulation. Well, there's always a who behind the tribulation. There's always a who. behind the charge, there's always a who behind the one who condemns. And I don't have to tell you who that is. It's always there. So I'll tell you a little story.

A friend of mine was going to AA meetings, just started. And we had a conversation and they said to me, I'm really working on forgiving myself for all the stuff I did when I was an alcoholic. And I said, why are you doing that? They said, well, that's part of the program.

I said, well, do you know that God has already taken care of all of those things? Do you know that you have blanket forgiveness for everything you've ever done? And if he forgave you, It's kind of arrogant to say, well, you can't forgive me yourself. To me it is anyway. Can you? Well, if the God of the universe says you're okay, I guess I'm okay.

I don't know if they heard me, but guilt is such a strong tool that people use to get people to behave in a certain manner. You know there's a stronger tool than guilt? You know what it is? It's grace. When you start to figure out how gracious God is to you, you respond. Not legally, but because it's like, why do I love God? Because he first loved me. I wouldn't know that unless he loved me. I wouldn't love him back. I wouldn't even know. So.

The other part of this verse is who are God's elect? Myles talked about this a little bit last week. How do I know, how do I know I'm one of the elect? You know, if I look down my neighborhood, up and down the block, I wonder if, well, maybe this guy's elect, the one that, no, that they couldn't be. How do I know that I'm one elect? As a non-believer, I don't know that I am one of the elect. I don't know that until I've already received, through the Spirit's work and testimony, the teaching regarding salvation provided in Christ. Salvation is preached to me, not as one of the elect, but one of the lost.

See that? I'm lost, I'm guilty, I'm undone, and when I've received salvation, there's conclusive evidence that I'm one of the elect. But that's the only way I know. That's the only way I know. Election is not my guarantee for acceptance of salvation, but redemption of salvation is the proof of election. Does that make sense? Okay.

So, How do you qualify for salvation? You gotta be one of those rats that are lost. You have to be a sinner. You have to be poor and guilty and hell deserving. That's the qualification for salvation. It's not goodness, it's you need salvation in order to come to an understanding, oh, I need it. I need to be saved. I can't save myself. So I could say this, there's nothing but salvation for any sinner. That's it. That's what's available to him.

But the moment he takes his true place as a sinner, Romans 5.8 says God commended his love for us that while we were yet sinners, what happened? Christ died for us. He took care of the problem, okay?

So Paul's argument here is who shall choose to bring any effective charge against the chosen ones of God? So here you can put yourself as one of God's elect, one of the chosen ones of God, and the challenge is who can bring a charge against me? Who can bring a charge against me?

There isn't anybody. Now, that doesn't mean they can't verbalize it. The charge may come, but who can bring a legitimate charge that you should cower away from it? Oh, maybe they got something there. No, no. No guilt, no judge. Now, the answer is, If you're gonna picture in your mind a courtroom, you have a judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, jury, defendant, witnesses, and the question is, who is the one that's gonna bring a charge against you? Well, it isn't God. You know, God condemns a sinner, but you're not a sinner anymore, you're in Christ. So, is it God who's the one who brings the charge against you?

No, it can't be him. And the reason is real simple. He's the one that justified you. Even he can't, Courtney loves to tell me, well, God can do anything he want. Well, I found something that God can't do. You know what it is? He can't do both. He can't accuse and justify at the same time. He can't do that. Why? Because he's determined that in his righteousness, it's impossible for him to do that with a believer.

So God can't be at fault for choosing to bless you. Nobody can criticize God for his showering blessings on you because he's the one who justified you. He's the one who did it. So a sinner, or I'm sorry, and since justification resides in a person, God, the Lord Jesus is our righteousness in whom we stand, we're uncondemned, and we're unchargeable, just as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself stands before God, unchargeable, uncondemned, oh, and righteous.

So next as to the accusation, if you're God's elect, who can legitimately bring a charge against you? Now I know in our society, what's the lawyer saying? You can indict a ham sandwich. A charge can be brought, people can accuse you before the throne, where these charges usually go on is inside of your mind, where you say, oh, you're pretty, that thing you just did, I mean, God was okay up until that point. You ever have one of those thoughts in your mind?

And then you'd look back and you'd say, wait a minute, that thought didn't come from the Lord because He's the justifier. So, He Himself that justifies, justifies us in His sight. We just sang a hymn about being in the sight of God. and before him, he's the one who does the justifying. Now, I already talked about that. When you go to, I think you have to look at this from a trial standpoint.

God's a justifier, not man. So if, after you've been justified, It's impossible that we again could be successfully accused or brought under condemnation. You know, so that's a real easy thing to say, because I know a lot of people, well, I did so and so, I need to go ask for forgiveness. Okay, that's fine. But standing before a justified God, you may have lost fellowship with him, but you haven't lost your standing. You haven't lost the fact that he's the justifier. The presence, how do I, maybe put it this way. Charges can be brought against us and you may be self-accusing. The problem that you have is that they can't stick. And the reason they can't stick is because God is the one who justified you.

Even among men, once there's a judgment and a person has been cleared, It's slanderous to recharge him. I mean, we have this thing called double jeopardy. If you get accused of a crime and you go to trial and you're acquitted, you can't be tried for the same thing twice. Well, with God's environment, with what Christ did, You know, we are, as sinners before we're saved, deserving of condemnation in hell. There's no question about that. But once he saves us and justifies us, the trial is over. You might as well shut down the courthouse, because we're not going back there.

I'm pushing the wrong button, sorry. So verse 34 says, who is the one who condemns? So you have an accuser and now we've moved on to a condemner. Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather who was raised and who is at the right hand of God who also intercedes for us, so. No charge can be brought against us. Who is the one that condemns?

Well, The question's open. In other words, it's a challenge, all comers. Not only you can't charge, but if you can't charge, how are you gonna possibly condemn? It doesn't matter if anybody does. I can remember when I was first a Christian, I had a friend of mine condemn me for being a Christian. They said, I'm not gonna talk to anybody, talk to you ever again in your life because you're one of those Jesus people. Well, okay. I don't have a judge. I don't have a judge in this sense, so no charge can be brought. Therefore, there can't be any fewer condemnation.

If you talk to believers, though, that think there is condemnation, there is fear of this condemnation, that they will do something in their lifetime where God will change His mind about them. But this verse says, well, let's see. Christ Jesus died to pay the penalty for your sins and the guilt, and He now stands at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. Is he ever gonna change his mind about you or me? It's pretty cool that he isn't. If I don't think he will change his mind and I'm not really sure, then I might entertain condemnation. But if you understand the verses, there's no way it could possibly be.

So notice two. You have two intercessors for you as a believer. The first one is the Lord Jesus who's at the right hand of God. The second one is in verse 26 and 34. It's the Spirit in the saints here. So you have Christ there interceding for you and the Spirit of God in you who is also interceding for you, teaching you how to pray, showing you what God's will is. I mean, The only way that you could be charged and condemned is if the person charging you and condemning you is more powerful than God. Well, I'm waiting for that person to walk in a room. He doesn't exist. He's not there.

The assurance that God loves me in spite of my behavior and my difficulties and the dangers in my life and my earthly life are all met by the witness of the fact that God loves me and God so loved the world that he gave his son for me and for you. It is Christ who died. or rather was raised again. We've talked a lot around here about death and resurrection. The only reason there was a resurrection is because the death of Christ was satisfying God the Father about the sins of the world and about the offense that they put on humanity or put on mankind.

But God didn't have to defend his son. He didn't have to do any of that, but he's a lover. So he sends his son, who is the one righteous man, who takes on sin himself, he dies, and then because he has an agreement, which we call the eternal covenant with the father, he raises him from the dead.

No resurrection if he's not satisfied. No resurrection if he still can sort of sneak a condemnation in there. on the ones that he died for and rose for. So, if you look at Colossians 3, one through three, since then you have been risen with Christ. Since means this is already done. You were raised with Christ. Here's what you should do. Keep on seeking those things above. And what are the things? They are Christ himself.

The definition of faith in Hebrews 11.1 is the substance of things hoped for. Well, what are the things? They're the things of God. So keep on seeking the things of God.

Where? Where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. If he was having to stand up and defend us, he wouldn't be seated. Set your mind on things above. Put your eyes on Jesus. not on things of the earth, and why? Because it's bad policy? Because I would be better off? No, it's simple.

You have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Well, I say, well, I'm still the same old, I look in the mirror and I'm older, but I'm the same old guy. But the word of God says die, well what do you mean by I died? I died to sin and the condemnation and the judgment, all of that's gone. That's not part of who I am anymore.

So if you're a heavenly minded believer, this is where you are. This is what you think about. The Lord Jesus enters always into all the circumstances here on the earth and intercedes for us in every single one of them. He doesn't plead with God for mercy. You understand that? He isn't down on his knees saying, oh, Father, don't hammer Mike. He did a bad thing, but he sinned. He didn't do that. He just stands there, the righteous man before God, and he sees every one of us in him and he sees us righteous because of the work that Christ did.

And notice the word, my life is hidden, hidden in Christ, with Christ in God. So if God put me in Christ and hid me there, who can touch me there? I can't, nobody. Okay, so who is the one who condemns? Who is at the right hand of God also interceding for us?

I wanted to talk a little bit about, with this verse, a little bit about positional truth because Christ is the one who died and rather was raised, who is at the right hand. The starting point of Christianity is the cross of Christ. It starts when He dies. I'm connected with Him when He's risen from the dead.

Now, the term that we read a lot is the term in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. What does it mean? I'm in the same neighborhood, we're riding in the same car together, No, I'm united to him spiritually. I'm in him and he's in me. And that's a positional truth. In other words, that's a truth that's true of me right now that can never be changed.

I may not act conditionally like that's true of me, but that's a pronouncement from God is that that's where I am. And oh, by the way, he uses the word hidden, why? Evil can't find you there. You're safe there because you're hidden in Christ. So in Christ is one of those incredible things that if Christ is at the right hand of the throne of God interceding for us, where are you? I'm right there in him, positionally.

That's why positional truth is so important. And we talk a lot about it here because the doctrine of position lays out for you not only, well, I'll put it this way, what God has already done, already done, already done. And there's no question that when you read positional truth, you think, well, I don't measure up to that. Well, you aren't supposed to measure up to it. He measures you up to it.

He's the one who does it, okay? So everyone who believes God as to the value and the work that the Lord Jesus did is placed in Christ on high, every one of you. Doesn't matter how old or how young, how bad a sinner you were, doesn't matter. By the work of Jesus Christ, man, who won the title of righteousness, being and set every believer in his place, where's your place? In Christ, positional truth. And he's righteous and he's perfectly accepted before God. Perfect.

Your mind, that's why I said earlier that the Holy Spirit always reasons from God down to us, not the other way around. Because if we're reasoning back, We're not buying this positional truth. We wouldn't, for a minute, we wouldn't think of it. So Paul asks, can a Christian who always makes intercession on behalf of us at the same time condemn us? We've already answered that question. No, he can't do both. So even he cannot do both while interceding on our behalf, there's no way he can condemn us.

Second Corinthians 5.21 says, he who knew no sin, the Lord Jesus, became sin for us, what's the purpose? Why did he do that?

Answer. I can put in there, what shall we say to this thing? That we might become God's righteousness in him. God's righteousness in him. So, it's not any different with our acceptance. When you think about it, Ephesians 1, 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace, he has made us acceptable in the beloved. And the one all-inclusive statement, Colossians 2, 9 and 10, for in him dwells the fullness of deity, in bodily form. In other words, here's a man, in him dwells deity in bodily form.

And then what does it say? And in him you have been made complete. Not gonna be made, you have been made complete. Positional truth. And he is the head over all rule and all authority. So we're in him, we're complete in him, who also is the exalted man on high. He's the one in the throne room of God making intercession for us. Well, I don't think he's very busy because we're in Christ. I mean, how busy could he be? All of you are in Christ. He doesn't need to, every time you sin, he doesn't need to plead before God.

He just says, here's the work, and here's the person, and I'm righteous, and all those that are in me, they are too. So, importance of position, starting point, I'm through all of that. The starting point of Christianity, I got ahead of myself with my slides, that's all right.

In Christ is found a new character of the Christian life as possessed in him, and in Christ shows where this place is. Where is that place? It's the throne room of grace. It's not inside the building in Holly Hills, it's in Christ in the throne room of grace where he is. There are two ways in which this new and wonderful position of the Christian is presented in the Bible.

The first way, as we have been looking at it this morning, it's objective, objective truth. And as revealed to the opened eyes of faith in all the perfection of it in Christ risen and glorified. That's one way, and that's what Bible study does, that's what your personal Bible study does. You start to find out Objective truth. It just says it.

But God isn't satisfied with that. In the ways of God with us, in order that we may enter into the position subjectively. You know, we're studying in 2 Timothy that Paul talks about that he was persuaded without a doubt that everything that he had committed to God would be true of him in that day. He not only is objective about it, he's also very subjective about it. So that we can be consciously in our own souls and all the blessedness of a position that we have before, in Christ before God all the time. It doesn't change. It doesn't change by your behavior.

And if you think about it, all three persons of the Trinity are engaged in this process. 822 says the Spirit is making intercession for the saints. 831 says God is for us. 34 says Jesus is making intercession for us at the throne of grace. Newell said what a wonderful salvation this is in which all three persons of the Trinity are constantly occupied on our behalf. You would think that God had better things to do than be occupied on your betterment.

No, he doesn't. He's assigned that position to himself. So if there's no accuser, this is a close with this. This I found from an old brother in reading some things from him the other day. He says this, if there's no accuser, if there's an accuser, a judge, an executioner still standing out, he asks that question. He says this, first, the accuser may go away rebuked by this, that God has justified us. Second, the judge may go away rebuked by this, that Christ has died. has already suffered the judgment and his work has been accepted to the full in heaven itself. And third, the executioner may go away rebuked by this, that all the malice of earth and hell together shall never drag us away from the encumbrance, the firm embrace of our God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I really like that. The last thing I was gonna talk about, but I think I'm probably running over time here a little bit, was the fact that I was gonna talk about the hungry heart from a couple of days ago, but I think I'll put that on hold until next week, so let's close. Father, how we thank you for your grace. It's hard sometimes for us to sit down and just receive how gracious you really are and what you've really done because we can't get away from the fact that we ought to be doing something other than just receiving your grace. We recognize more and more that you love us. And we respond to that love the more we know of it, of you, and that that love from you to us is to be subjective, that it influences everything we do. And we're thankful for that, Father. We pray in your Son's name, amen.