Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20080203.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Romans: Charter Of Salvation Grace
Part IV: The Sanctification Of the Justified By Faith Through Grace, Romans 6:1-8:39
E. Utilizing The Believer's Relationship To The Indwelling Holy Spirit, Romans 8:1-39
4. Utilizing The Holy Spirit's Power To Live Joyfully Secure
(Romans 8:31-39)
  1. Introduction
    1. Insecurity is a worldwide problem: people fear economic ruin, political unrest, military foes, epidemics, famine, drought, global warming and a host of relationship threats to their marital and family ties.
    2. However, Romans 8:31-39 in its context reveals God has purposed for the believer to be more than a conquerer in all he faces providing he relies on the Holy Spirit to do the will of God in life (as follows):
  2. Utilizing The Holy Spirit's Power To Live Joyfully Secure, Romans 8:31-39.
    1. Having finished his extensive doctrinal instruction on the believer's justification by faith in Christ, and his experiential sanctification by relying on the indwelling Holy Spirit (Romans 1:16-8:30), Paul applied that instruction to life in Romans 8:31-39, cf. H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to the Romans, 2nd ed., p. 239.
    2. That application reveals a massive, interlocking series of truths on the believer's relation to God that leave him marvelously SECURE regarding everything in his experience, a fact that produces SECURITY:
      1. Since we believers have been pronounced righteous by God as a gift (Romans 3:24), and made to be joint-heirs with Christ in personal relationship with our personal "Abba" Father (Romans 8:16-17), God stands in support of our cause, so no opposing party can effectively counter our cause, Rom. 8:31!
      2. One might wonder if God Himself will change His mind on supporting us, but Paul counters this fear, recalling that if God delivered up His own Son for us all, now that we are positionally united with Christ in God's eyes, "how shall He not with him also freely give us all things?" to cite Romans 8:32b!
      3. The believer might wonder if some party such as Satan might effectively charge us of some spiritual condition that would undo God's justification of us (Romans 8:33a), but Paul anticipates this fear, noting that God Himself has pronounced the believer righteous, so the foe's charge must fail, 8:33b!
      4. Anticipating the fear in a believer that another party might effectively condemn him before God (Rom. 8:34a), Paul replied that it is the Son of God, Jesus Christ Himself, who has substitutionally died in the believer's place, and Who also has risen from the dead and ascended even to the right hand of God the Father to intercede for the believer relative to his sins and weaknesses, Rom, 8:34b,c ; Hebrews 7:25!
      5. A believer might then wonder if His Incercessor, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will cease to love him, and so cease to intercede effectively in his behalf (Romans 8:35a), so Paul answers this fear with a tremendous crescendo of assurances to the contrary in Romans 8:35b-39:
        1. Paul rhetorically asked if tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword would separate us from Christ, citing Psalm 44:22 that reports how God's people were being killed all day long for God's sake, being regarded as sheep to be slaughtered, cf. Romans 8:35-36 ESV.
        2. In answer to this question, Paul gave a strong adversative, using the Greek adversative particle, 'alla "indicating a difference with or contrast to what precedes," Arndt & Gingrich, A Greek-English Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 37. This means he meant to counter the ideas that all the negative states suggested in Romans 8:35-36 could separate the believer from Christ's love!
        3. Actually, the believer is more than a conqueror in these states through Christ Who loves him (Rom. 8:37): as Paul noted, he was persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angels (good or demonic), nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation would be able to separate the believer from the love of God in Christ Jesus his Lord, making Christ's intercessory work for him an impregnable fortress of security, Rom. 8:38-39 ESV.
Lesson: Regardless what the believer faces in life, ALL of it is INCORPORATED by ALMIGHTY God through Christ to ALLOW him to be MORE than a CONQUEROR in it all! Thus, the believer is fully SECURE relative to all he faces, and should RELY on the SPIRIT for VICTORY in ALL life presents!

Application: May we REALIZE our INFINITE SECURITY in God's LOVE and HELP, and so RELY on the Holy Spirit to be MORE than a CONQUEROR in EVERYTHING we face in this earthly life!