Chapter # 8 Paragraph # 5 Study # 3
August 6, 2017
Humble, Texas
(106)
1769 Translation:
33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? [
It is] God that justifieth.
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.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? [
shall] tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
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.
1901 ASV Translation:
33 Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth;
34 who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 Even as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
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.
- I. The First Step in Paul's Development of His "Who Against Us?" Thesis.
- A. As God is "for us" so there are others who are "against us".
- 1. The focus of the "us" issue is sharpened: the "us" are "the elect of God".
- 2. This moves every consideration of the "us", which has to do with our own failures, faults, character, etc., out of the picture.
- 3. It is not "us" who are in the target area; it is God's election of those whom he has "known", "justified" and "glorified". In other words, this is an attack upon God Himself as a claim that He is, somehow, flawed in His own character and under the examination of His own Law. It is something like, "He elected him/her? But that person is demonstrably a slime ball and we have the proof of it".
- B. Paul's question is designed to pit the Creator against those of His creatures who oppose Him.
- C. The nature of the opposition's tactics.
- 1. Paul assumes the use of "Law" in the form of a "laying of a charge".
- a. The verb translated "lay anything to the charge of..." is only used this one time by Paul, but it is used by his sidekick, Luke, in 6 texts/contexts in Acts.
- b. The first use by Luke is Acts 19:38 where the riot in Ephesus is quelled by the town clerk with the words, "If...the craftsmen...have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies: let them implead one another". The word translated "implead" by the Authorized Version is this verb. The context makes its meaning clear: bring grievances into a legal setting to be settled by courts. Two verses later (Acts 19:40) this same clerk uses this same verb to warn that the inhabitants of Ephesus are liable to Roman courts for the riot and, therefore, need to settle the issues "under law" so that they do not become the accused.
- c. In Acts 23:28-29 Luke quotes a letter from Claudius Lysias to Felix in which Lysias says that Paul had been "accused" of violations of Roman Law and claimed that the charges were spurious under Roman Law. Clearly the meaning remains: Paul was "legally" accused in a form of a Roman court.
- d. In Acts 26:2 and 7 Luke quotes Paul as saying to King Agrippa, in a court setting, that he was pleased to "answer for myself...touching...the things whereof I am accused of the Jews". Same verb, same user, same meaning.
- 2. Paul's assumption in our text is not of Roman Law, but of divine Law.
- a. The straightforward implication is that those who are "against" God's elect are attempting to get God, in His own court, to find them death-worthy. On the face of it, this is a foolhardy effort.
- b. Paul does not assume that no one can be "against" God's elect in a human court.
- C. Paul's response: It is God Who justifies.
- A. The use of "justifies" presses our understanding that the issue involved is "legal" accountability.
- B. The verb translated "justifies" is widely used in the New Testament and 14 times in Romans. Our current text is the final use in Romans.
- a. In 13 of Paul's 14 texts in Romans, the Authorized Version translates the verb "justify". The one time that it is not so translated is highly instructive to Paul's current argument. That one time is 6:7. In that text the translators "wobbled" because they did not see the point at hand. They translated: "For he that is dead is freed from sin". On the face of it, this is a translation that indicates the outcome of death, but that outcome is missed because the point Paul is making there is that those dead in Christ have been justified and, thus, are out from under the jurisdiction of "Law". The context makes the point that it is not physical death under consideration but, rather, the "death" of the "old man" who has been crucified together with Christ as the atoning sacrifice. The actual point is that "justification" frees a man from the jurisdiction of "Law", not "death" per se.
- b. In this current (and last in Romans) text considering "justification", Paul is making that point: no one can "accuse" one of God's "elect" in His own court since He has already judged Christ for their sins and He was subjected to "death". No one "justified" by that means will ever stand in a divine court under divine "Law".
- C. If a creature of God "accuses" one of the elect of God in God's court, his case will be cast out and he will become liable for denying the efficacy of Christ's solution to "Law". That is not a happy place to be in God's court.
- D. Additionally, the fact of the possibility of opposition through accusation indicates that the opponents think that they actually have a case and Paul does not claim that the accused is not guilty; he simply claims that the "guilt" has already been assigned to Christ and handled by His atoning sacrifice.