Romans 8:31–39: “Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free”

Read the Bible in 2011* ◊ Week 4: Sunday

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

Romans 8:31

–

Paul closes Romans 8 with words that given comfort and hope to Christians throughout the ages.

Ask God to give you what you need in assurance, consolation, and understanding of His immeasurable love for you as you read Romans 8:31–39. As I mentioned in an earlier post, hope, glory, and perseverance, are not the only words found in both Romans 5:1–5 and the last section of Romans 8; the other word found in both passages on suffering is love.

…and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 5:5

–

May the reality of God’s love be poured out within your heart as you read His Word.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 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, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,

–

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

–

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:31–39

–

…I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:14b-21

–

Isaiah 42 Photograph: ChristianPhotos.net – Free High Resolution Photos for Christian Publications. (Site has been deleted since posting).
Featured image: Breaking wave looped.gif, Frank Vincentz and Jahobr. GFDL-1.2-or-later. (CC BY-SA 3.0).
O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus is one of my favorite hymns with wonderful memories for me. I sang it for the first time as a new Christian. After I decided to use this hymn, I found that many others have also thought of it when reading the last section of Romans 8. The lyrics were written by Samuel Trevor Francis. In the above video the lyrics are a mix of the three stanzas. There are many, many versions of this hymn on YouTube. This video features the Wellspring Virtual Choir singing the three stanzas a capella in lovely four-part harmony.

*In 2011 I started a year-long series of posts, “Read the Bible in 2011.” On the directory pages if a day didn’t link to a post, it was simply a brief reminder about the reading. I’m filling in some of those gaps with new posts with “Read the Bible in 2011 Redux” as a category.