CONTEXT:
In the previous section we learned that we are God’s children just as Christ is God’s child; we are God’s heirs just as Christ is God’s heir; and that these are true because we suffer just as Christ suffered in order to be glorified like Him.

We also learned that that God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us when we’re weak in this suffering – to intercede in our prayers when we are suffering so badly that we don’t know how to pray or what to pray for (v.26).

• God searches our hearts, finds his Spirit there, and listens to the Spirit as He brings our deep, unutterable praise and concerns to God (v.27).
• We can rest assured, because when the Spirit intercedes, He always does so in accordance with God’s will (v. 27).
• We also rest assured because God will take everything we experience – including all of our suffering – and use it as a means to accomplish good for us (v.28).
• Suffering conforms us into the likeness of Christ.
  

These promises were made to “those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (v .28).

That context is important as we enter into these next verses.

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29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

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V. 29, God knew in advance that you would be one of those people – one who loves Him and is therefore called according to His purpose.

Because He knew you would be one of those people, He predestined you to be changed.

What He predestined for you was for Him to conform you into Christ's image. That is why you suffer – it is making you like Christ, Who suffered tremendously.

When that process is complete, you will be a child of God just as Christ is. Then He will not be an only child. He will be the “first born among many brothers.”

Suffering, then, is a necessary part of identifying with Christ and becoming His sibling.

V.30, After God looked ahead and saw that you would love Him, after He called you to His purpose, after He predestined you to be conformed to Christ’s image through suffering, then He made plans to make you righteous (justify you) and give you dignity (glorify you).

Verse 30 appears to be a chronological list, showing the order in which things happen after we love Him:
 

1. He predestines us
2. He calls us to a purpose
3. He makes us righteous (justifies us)
4. He gives us dignity (glorifies us)
   

But we can’t omit the step that came before predestination. It is mentioned in V.29 – foreknowledge.

Foreknowledge of what? Of our loving Him. He predestined those that He knew ahead of time would love Him.

This process is spelled out in Philippians chapters 2 and 3 as well. If we have the mind of Christ (cf. Php. 2:5-8)…

1. We will share in Christ’s sufferings (cf. Php. 3:10)
2. We are made into His likeness (cf. Php 3:21)
3. This is how we become like Him. Ultimately it's through complete transformation.
4. This is how we can be “content whatever the circumstances” (Php. 4:11).
   

Though these verses are pretty spread out in Philippians, it's difficult to miss that these form a continuous thought.

This is also why “we, who with unveiled faces… [which means, those of us who stand face-to-face with God without shame] and reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Cor 3:18).

Isn’t it amazing how thoroughly God planned for our salvation? He planned out an entire process for your life that would result in you being like Christ! God became like us so that we could become like Him. God orchestrates everything in our lives with the single goal of making us like Christ.

How can I adequately respond to this great love from God?

8:31-39

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31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Now Paul reflects with his readers on the consequences of God planning this out for us. He does this through five pointed questions:

1. What, then, shall we say in response to this (v.31)?
   
2. If God is for us, who can be against us? (v.31)
3. If God was willing to give up His own son for us, how could He hold anything else back from us? (v.32)
4. Who can pronounce us guilty when God has pronounced us innocent? (v.33-34, cp. 8:1)
5. Who can separate us from the Christ’s love? Will we be separated from Him through suffering? (v.35-36)
   

The answer is that nothing will separate us from the Father’s love. He will love us completely, regardless of our circumstances.

We must balance this truth with Jude 21, which says "Keep yourselves in the God's love, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."

I believe the contexts of each show that Paul and Jude are referring to God's love a little differently. Jude is referring to God's favor or acceptance. Paul is referring to God's desire for us.

God gave up His own Son for us. How could anyone think that He’s eager to condemn us - as if our God is some iron-fisted tyrant that looks for opportunities to cut us off? No! God’s love for us is far deeper than we can imagine. He does everything possible within the bounds of both love and justice to see to it that that we are saved.

When we sin, God looks at as with pity, not anger. A God who justifies so freely is slow to condemn us. And if He doesn’t condemn us, who can?

Now, someone invariably will bring up Romans 8:38-39 in a discussion about whether Christians can fall from grace or "lose their salvation." As the reasoning goes, if nothing can separate us from God's love it must be impossible to accept God's grace through Christ and not be saved in the end.

My response: "Are you telling God didn't love me before I became a Christian?"

Of course He did, and everyone knows He did. For instance, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ" (Ephesians 2:4-5)

In fact, I can only love because He first loved me, as John wrote in 1 John 4:19: "We love because he first loved us."

So He loved me when I was unsaved. And if I turn my back on His grace, He will still love me.

This verse has nothing whatsoever to do with once saved, always saved.

TRANSITIONAL RECAP
We’re coming up on a transitional section in Romans, and we need to reflect on where we’ve been so far. It’s been filled with ups and downs, hope and despair – but it ends in this wonderful hope!


The result of the greatest mystery of all – Jesus Christ, both God and man – is that those who are in Him can now bear that Image of God that was intended for Adam in the beginning.