Romans 8 Study Notes

8:1-39 Romans 8 has been called the most wonderful chapter in the Bible. It begins with “no condemnation” (v. 1) and ends with no separation from God (v. 39). Whereas 7:14-25 describes the new self in relation to the law, chap. 8 describes the new self in relation to the Holy Spirit and his work in and through the new man.

8:1 There is no condemnation for believers because they are not under the law (6:14), and they have been released from the law (7:6). They can now serve God in the “newness of the Spirit” (7:6).

8:2-3 The believer’s freedom comes from Jesus’s incarnation and his work as the sin offering and by the Holy Spirit’s operation in providing life. The Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, took on humanity. He did not cease to be God but took on a real human nature (without sin) and became the perfect offering. He fulfilled the law’s demands in his life and in his death and broke sin’s power in a human body on the cross.

8:4 Christians can now live a new way of love. “Love . . . is the fulfillment of the law” (13:10). They can live freely in keeping with the Spirit.

8:5 Paul described the two kinds of people: two different kinds of existence or two “mind-sets.”

8:6 The outcome of the two ways of thinking are explained: death versus life and peace.

8:7-8 Unregenerate people (Gk en sarki ; lit “in the flesh”) are hostile to God and unable to submit to God’s law because they lack God’s Spirit, which makes submission possible.

8:9-11 Christians are in a new realm, for the Spirit indwells them. The Spirit’s presence is the mark of Christ’s ownership. The Christian’s physical body will still die because of sin’s effects (unless the Lord returns before death; 1Co 15:50-57). The pledge and promise of the Spirit is that he will raise us as he did Jesus. Now the Spirit provides life and righteousness.

8:12-13 Freedom brings an obligation. If a person lives to the fallen nature, death is his destiny. The Christian is empowered by the Holy Spirit to stop doing the sinful deeds of the body. He can mortify the flesh and its activities, and he lives.

8:14 The leading of God’s Spirit is his providential sanctification (Ps 23:3). It is common to all believers, it is constant, and it will bring the believer to glory (Rm 8:17). The leading of the Spirit is not mystical direction or ecstasy. It is the Spirit’s empowerment for mortification of fleshly desires (v. 13).

8:15-16 The Holy Spirit is not an agent of bondage but is instead the means of our adoption into God’s family. By the Spirit we have a consciousness that God is our Father. It is the mark of a Christian to cry out to his Father in prayer. The Spirit also gives us assurance of our status and therefore of our salvation. Abba is an Aramaic word meaning “father.” Jesus used it in prayer to God the Father (Mk 14:36).

8:17 All God’s children are his heirs and coheirs with Christ. We are joined to him in suffering but also in our future destiny. As he is in glory (1Tm 3:16; Heb 1:3; 2:7,9-10) so we will be glorified with him.

8:18 Paul stated the truth of this verse like this: “Our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory” (2Co 4:17).

8:19-21 The created order of this earth was cursed at the fall (Gn 3:17-19), and it will be restored in the regeneration. When we receive our freedom, the entire world will be changed (Is 2:2-4; 11:6-9; Rv 21-22).

8:22-23 Paul describes the groaning of creation, the groaning of believers, and the groaning of the Holy Spirit (v. 26). Travail gives birth to a new creation. Christians have only the firstfruits—the pledge of more to come in our salvation. We groan because of our fallen nature. Our new resurrection bodies will conform us to Jesus’s glorified body.

8:24-25 Our salvation is secure, but it is as yet unseen and thus a matter of hope. We wait in faith and patience.

8:26-27 In our weakness we have the help of the Spirit. Jesus is our intercessor in heaven (Heb 7:25), and the Spirit is our intercessor on earth within our hearts. We are limited and ignorant, but the Spirit uses unspoken groanings to communicate our needs. This is not “speaking in tongues or languages” (Gk glossolalia). It is instead wordless. Our heavenly Father knows what is happening in our lives and within the deep recesses of our personalities (1Sm 16:7; Pr 15:11; Jr 17:10). The Spirit’s requests are always according to the will of God and are always answered.

8:28 Who are those who love God? Paul defines them as those who are called according to his purpose. The “called” are all Christians (vv. 29-30). The promise of this verse is that God orders everything for believers so that all of life’s experiences work together for our ultimate good. Not everything is good in and of itself, but God uses everything for our good (vv. 35-37). Jesus taught us that God’s sovereign care for and guidance of creation covers even the death of a sparrow and the hairs of our head (Lk 12:6-7,22-34).

8:29-30 God has a plan that spans from eternity past to eternity future. Those he foreknew refers to those whom God set his electing love upon in eternity past. Predestined means that God planned from eternity that “those [whom] he foreknew” would become like Christ through spiritual rebirth. Called is the “effectual” call in which God opens our heart so we can hear his voice (cp. Ac 16:14). “Calling” in Paul’s writing never means just an invitation. It is a sovereign summons that draws the sinner from death to life. Justified is God’s act of declaration that we are “right” in his sight because Jesus paid our penalty and we received his righteousness (2Co 5:21). Glorified is the final stage of our salvation. Notice that our future glorification is so certain that it is spoken of in the past tense.

8:31 If God is for us expresses not a hypothetical scenario, but a sure reality: God really is for us. OT believers had the same assurance: “I fear no danger, for you are with me” (Ps 23:4; cp. Ps 27:1). “This I know: God is for me” (Ps 56:9). Who is against us? The opposition seems like a lot sometimes—the world, the flesh, Satan, secularists, false religions, our enemies—but God loves us and is sovereign. The Lord is our Shepherd, Maker of heaven and earth!

8:32 In contrast to Abraham who was permitted to spare Isaac (Gn 22:11-18), God did not spare his Son. If God did the greater (gave his Son), will he not do the lesser and give us all that is necessary for life and godliness? Of course he will.

8:33 Our accusers are numerous, but God the Judge has already pronounced the final verdict.

8:34 The understood answer to the opening question of this verse is “no one.” We can be sure that no one will be able to condemn us on the last day because of three facts listed here in increasing significance. First, Christ died for us. Second, and even more important, he was raised. And finally, he now intercedes for us. According to C. E. B. Cranfield, “the focus-point of faith is the present glory of the one who once was crucified.”

8:35-36 God’s people have always faced persecutions and hardships, as vividly portrayed in the complaints of Ps 44. Will such things separate us from the love of Christ?

8:37 We are more than conquerors not by our ability but because God loved us.

8:38-39 Paul’s “grand persuasion” (Gk pepeismai) is in the perfect tense, which indicates a past action that has ongoing impact. Having been persuaded (by God), he stood firm in the belief that nothing could separate him from the love of God. Jesus conquered death and Satan on the cross, ensuring that nothing can change God’s love or purpose for us. We “are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1Pt 1:5).