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Reading Romans 8:33 where the Spirit of God reminds us, "Who is to bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies." Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Who can bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Can you turn back the work of God? No! Nor can anyone else. And that's good news when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in Romans chapter 8, and as with yesterday, I'm going to begin with verse 31 and go through verse 39. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised? Who is at the right hand of God? Who indeed is interceding for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I hope you'll bear with me a little bit today. My head's a little foggy. I've been having some bad allergies since the start of the weekend, and so I'm on some allergy meds right now, even as I'm doing this lesson.
But I am determined to return to this, because what we are reading here, and I talked about this yesterday, we have one of the best sections of Scripture on assurance of salvation. You want to have certainty that you're saved?
Read Romans chapter 8. How do you know that you are in Christ and that He is going to keep you close to Himself to the very end? That the promises that are written in Scripture for His elect are for you?
How can you know that? Read Romans 8, all the way through Romans 8, but this one is, this part that we're looking at this week kind of brings it all to a crescendo. I don't even think it really settles back down.
It just elevates to the end of the song and ends on the strongest note. In terms of Romans chapter 8, anyway, we have much more of Romans to go. You know what comes after Romans 8, Romans 9. Very good.
You know your numbers. So as we read yesterday, verses 31 and 32, what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? God is for us in Christ. Christ has died for us. We who believe in Him have been adopted into the family of God.
We've talked about adoption previously. We have talked about being elect, being predestined, being foreknown by God that He placed His affections on us before we were even born. We have talked about how this was done for the exaltation of Christ, even our election, this working of our sanctification all the way to our glorification.
All of this is for the glory of Christ that He might be the firstborn among many brothers as we read back in 29. Those whom He predestined, He also called. Those whom He called, He also justified. Those whom He justified, He also glorified.
As Paul says to the Philippians in a much more abbreviated way, in Philippians chapter one, I am confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.
God started this work before we were born. He predestined us for salvation. Those whom He would call out from sinful man to Himself to be redeemed, to be purified, to be made holy, that we might be given to the Son so Christ would be glorified.
I mentioned this yesterday, but we are the inheritance. The saints are the inheritance that the Father gives to the Son because of the Son's faithful submission to the will of the Father. You read about this, I mean, one of the most prominent places is in the Gospel of John in chapter six, verses 39 through 40, Jesus says, this is the will of the Father who sent me that of all He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
And this is the will of Him who sent me that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life. And I will raise Him up at the last day. Earlier, he says, all that the Father gives to me will come to me and the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out.
And we read later on in John chapter 10, I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.
That was verses 28 and 29 of John chapter 10. So the Father has predestined us for salvation and Christ gave His life to pay for our salvation and all whom the Father has given to the Son, Jesus gives eternal life and all of us.
He will raise it the last day on the day of Christ, as I had mentioned to you before from Philippians chapter one. And it's understanding all of these things that gives us assurance of our salvation. I'm not sitting here trying to defend a particular theological viewpoint on the doctrine of God's sovereign election.
I'm telling you what the scripture says. And it's not to say I'm right and somebody that holds a different view is wrong. It's so you may know salvation in Christ. As John wrote to the churches in first John, he says, I've written these things to you that you may know that you are saved.
And as you understand predestination, election, adoption, justification, sanctification, glorification, as you understand these concepts, you understand your salvation. You see the sovereignty of God that He may be glorified and this grows your worship.
You become a more mature worshiper of God. When you see and honor and glorify Him for the work that He alone has done, we had no part in it. It is all the glory to God and His alone. If you believe in some kind of synergism, synergism is the idea that we cooperate with God for our salvation.
It's God's will working with the free agency of man to bring us to salvation. So it's like God has reached down his hand to us and has said, you can be saved if you just reach up and take my hand. And so then we reach up and take the hand of God.
And so there we did something. God had offered this, but we had to take it in order for it to be legitimate. So therefore we were never really saved by God. He just did something and made it available to us, but we had to do some kind of act or work in order to put it into effect.
That's synergism. It doesn't matter if you give 99 of the credit to God and we only did 1 of the work. There's still something we had to do for our salvation, which would give us cause for boasting.
And as it says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. None of our works have resulted in our salvation, not even a willful decision to reach up and take the hand of God.
Because ultimately when we read the scriptures, we find that we didn't do any of the work at all. God did. God is the one who has done all of this work. And that's what's laid out here in Romans 8, 30, talking about those whom he predestined, he also called, he justified.
Those whom he justified, he also glorified. So salvation is from beginning to end the gracious work of God. He has done it all. Now, as far as you're concerned, living in time, did you do something that made you a Christian?
As far as you're concerned, yes. You repented of your sin. You believed in Jesus. And so you're saved. But when you read God's word, when you look into the spiritual aspects of this, according to what is revealed to us by his Holy Spirit, you come to find that you did not do anything at all.
You only did this because of the power of God working in you to do it. You did not have a will that was seeking after or longing for God. As we read in Romans 3, no one seeks for God. No one does anything good.
No one does anything righteous. Is choosing to follow Jesus a good thing? Yes, of course it is. But you had no ability to choose that because in your sin nature, you couldn't do it. It was impossible for you to do it.
In your sin nature, all you knew was how to rebel against God. And that's all that you did. That turning around from rebellion against God, going to your destruction, that turning around was done by an act of God.
It was done by God's will and not yours. John 1, 12, to all who did receive him, to all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
It was God's will for you that you would repent of your sin and believe in Jesus. When you heard the gospel of Christ, he predestined you for this before time even came into existence. He placed his affections on you before you were born.
He arranged things by his providence so that an evangelist or a teacher of the gospel, it could have even been your own parents, came to you, sharing the word of God, convicting you of your sin, turning you from it to the righteousness of Christ, putting faith and trust in him.
And all of this is the work of God, the Holy Spirit regenerating your heart so that you wouldn't have that heart that is hardened against God, but soften to see your sin and your need for a savior. And it was through that presentation of the gospel that you came to know the savior and you believe in him because of the power of God working in you.
Again, Ephesians 2, 8 says, it is by grace. You are saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Even faith itself is not your work. It is God's work. Repentance itself is not something you do, but it is something that God has given to you.
Now, again, as you live in time, did you repent? Yes. Did you make a decision to repent? Absolutely. You might even need to make a decision to repent today. Maybe you've already sinned and you need to go to God and ask for his forgiveness of that sin.
Our repentance, though, when you're talking about the conversion of our souls, turning from our destruction to our destiny in Christ, to glory in heaven with him. When we turned around from our sin to righteousness, that was repentance.
And even that was given to us by God. Acts 531, God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Acts 1118, when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified God, saying then to the Gentiles also, God has granted repentance that leads to life.
God is the one who has given repentance. It is not our work. It is God's. When you are given the gospel and you are told to repent of your sin, turn to Jesus Christ and believe. You obeyed that instruction, but you were only able to obey that instruction because the Holy Spirit transformed your heart to be able to do so.
You were dead in your sins and your transgressions in which you once walked. Ephesians 2 .1, what can dead people do? Can they turn around? No, a dead person cannot turn around. We joke about like so and so turned over in his grave.
OK, that's a saying, but a corpse can't actually do that. You can't actually turn yourself over. It is God who has turned you around. It is God who has brought the dead man that you were in your sins and transgressions to life in Christ that you may walk in his righteousness.
All of this is the gracious work of God. He gets all of the glory. We get none of it. As Jonathan Edwards has said, you did nothing to contribute to your salvation except provide the sin that made your salvation necessary.
We have sinned against God. We've rebelled against him. Destruction was what we deserved. We had a sin nature and our ability to do anything was only according to the nature that we had. Having received this nature from Adam, you could do nothing but rebel against God.
And it is by his gracious goodness and mercy that he intervened in your course. When you were heading toward destruction, God turned you around, convicting you of sin, regenerating your heart, giving you faith in Christ that you may be saved.
This is all the gracious work of God. And it's our understanding this that gives us assurance of that salvation. So I mentioned a moment ago about synergism, and I never really completed the thought. Like I said, my head is foggy today.
I'm on allergy meds. Bear with me. So synergism is that idea that God's will and the free agency of man working together to bring about a person's salvation. Even if you give a tiny little teensy bit of credit to a man and all the rest of the credit to God, that's still synergism.
Monergism, which is what we believe, I'm hoping I'm speaking on your behalf as well, right? You're a monergist, not a synergist. Monergism is the idea that God has done it all. It is all by his gracious working.
That's what Paul is saying here. But he's giving this to these Roman Christians that they may know with certainty their salvation by faith in Christ, that they have assurance of their salvation. And if we go through difficult trials and circumstances, it doesn't mean that God has forgotten us or that he has forsaken us.
And even when we are punished or we are chastised, if God has to give us correction for something, if we are being disciplined by God, this is not because we've lost our salvation and then God is trying to bring us back to that place.
But rather, it's because he loves us that he does these things for us that we may mature, that we may grow up to be strong men and women of God. Why do you discipline your kids? That they would know this is wrong and this is right.
You discipline them because you love them. You want to raise them up to be godly men and women. Right now, your children are little brats, right? They are constantly betraying mom and dad, sinning, hitting brother or sister, not listening to what it is that you have to say, doing the opposite of what it is that you say.
Even when they're off alone by themselves, they find ways to do things that you probably have never even told them not to do. But they're doing it anyway because we're sinners at heart. From the moment that we are born, that's the way that we are.
But you discipline your kids that they would know the difference between right and wrong. And God does the same thing for us. And it's loving that he does this for us. It doesn't mean that God is acting against us in some way.
He is actually acting for us on our behalf. Even when we go through difficult trials, these things are to make us rely more upon Christ who raises the dead. Second Corinthians 1 .9. As we read in Romans 8 .28, we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.
So once again, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? No one can bring anything against us that is going to separate us from the love of God, which is ultimately where Paul is taking this. But remember Jesus saying also in John chapter 10, no one can snatch them out of my father's hand, my father, who's predestined for salvation, those whom he would give to the son.
He has given them to the son and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand. Jesus says, I and the father are one. No one can snatch us. Not even the spiritual forces of darkness can snatch us from the hand of God.
And we know this and we understand this because of the doctrine of predestination, because of God's sovereign election. We have assurance of our salvation because God has done this and not even you can thwart the plan of God.
So when we read, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. If God has justified you, not even you can bring a charge against yourself that would undo what God has done for you in Christ Jesus.
Amen. Because as John MacArthur has said, if you could lose your salvation, you would. The moment you thought that you had secured it, you would lose it because we have no ability or power to keep hold of our salvation.
It is God who works this in us and keeps us in this as well. Let me conclude with this doxology as we bring this to a close. This is the same way I closed the service on Sunday in my church as well. This is from the book of Jude verse 24.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. Let me read that again. That's just one verse. To him, God, to Christ, who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.
To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. Again, no one can accuse you of anything that would cause you to lose your salvation.
You can't even do anything to cause you to lose your salvation. It is secure in Christ. How do you know if you're elect? Acts 1031, believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. That's how you know you're elect.
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness and your kindness that you show to us every day. You are a good God. There are so many people in the world that want to condemn God, that want to accuse you or blame you from some wrongdoing.
Adam tried to do that. The woman that you put here with me gave me some of the fruit and I ate it. And ever since then, mankind has been shaking a fist at God. But you have been loving and patient and merciful with us.
And even though we fall into sin, you do not disown us, but you discipline us that we would be made mature sons and daughters of God. And all of this in your love you have done for us, beginning with the death of Christ on the cross for our sins, so that all who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
Of those who believe in Jesus, who can bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Amen.
Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.
Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.