Photo by Jaime Spaniol
(Grace Member Matt Churnock wrote an encouraging devotional for our church. He reflections on Romans 8. Enjoy, and take heart in these days.)
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18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? 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 then is the one who condemns? No one. 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.
Romans 8:18-39
My wife loves college football more than many wives I know. Saturdays in the fall revolve around the tv guide (for those of you that don’t know, the tv guide was like a magazine that printed the weekly time slots for tv shows and then you could use that to program your VCR (for those of you that don’t know a VCR stand for videocassette recorder)). However, there was particularity to her viewing habits. She would only watch the game if she knew the outcome beforehand. According to her she could only relax and enjoy the game if she knew the outcome. The stress and the emotional roller coaster took all of the fun out of the viewing.
It’s hard for me to understand why she must strip the excitement of the live event. How can you enjoy something that you know the outcome to? The answer is easy, if you know the outcome, the fumble on the goal-line isn’t tragic and the big interception is a moment to look forward to.
In short, the outcome removes doubt and fear.
Paul, the author of Romans had every reason to be fearful, even more reason to doubt. Beaten, jailed, shipwrecked, isolated, sick, had a target on his back from one of the most overbearing governments the world has known.
But just look at Paul’s greetings across his letters:
“Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Paul, sick, tormented, imprisoned, opens his letters to his beloved churches with grace and peace. How? How can Paul, in the midst of all of this trouble offer tiding of grace and peace?
It’s easy, he already watched the game, he knows how it ends. And His team won. And it wasn’t even close.
Paul outlines in this passage a pretty dire environment, the whole creation is groaning, as if in childbirth, and not just the environment but us too. “But not only that, we, who have the firstfruit (or the saving knowledge of Christ) also suffer under the subjugation as we wait on the LORD.” Paul knows that much of our anguish comes from waiting on the hope, the saving hope of Christ. The root source of the pain is not the situation but rather the waiting. We are all like Inigo Montoya, we hate waiting.
But Paul pivots here and begins his exposition of our hope. The Spirit helps us in our weakness, the Spirit intercedes (through wordless groans, like the sound you make when the wind gets knocked out of you), the Spirit searches our hearts all because the Spirit knows the will of the Father. Paul’s assurance culminates in this: “God works for good for those who love him and that those are they who God knew before the creation of the world, before he created everything from nothing. Those he predestined, he called, those he called, he justified, those he justified he glorified.”
Notice these are all past tense actions? These are all things that have been completed. Done, next.
We could stop there and be certain of the Hope we have in Christ.
But Paul didn’t. He turned it up to 11. What do we do with this knowledge?
Paul drops the mic here: If God is for us, Who can be against us? This sounds rhetorical but I’m sure the writing-on-the-wall of the coming 200 years of persecution of the church in Rome was in the minds of the church members and I am sure they all had answers for who could be against them. Paul evokes Psalm 44 here where the Psalmist is asking the Lord where he went. The Lord used to give them victory over their enemies but now the Lord is silent. They are like sheep waiting to be slaughtered. The lamentation of Psalm 44 must have been resonating in the Roman church.
But Paul has none of it: “No, in all of these things (worldly troubles) we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
This word for ‘more than conquerors’, Hupernikaó, is actually ‘super-conquerors’. The root of the word, nikaó, is one who is victorious and prevails and the prefix huper means ‘super’ or ‘uber’. It’s the same language Christ used in Luke 11 when the stronger man overcomes the strong man or in John 16:33 when Jesus tells his disciples that in this world they will have troubles, but take Heart!!!, I have overcome the world. He has super-conquered the world. This is not an action to come, no, it has already happened.
In this passage, Paul isn’t saying Christ is the conqueror (although that is most certainly true), Paul is saying that we (God’s children v. 19) are the super-conqueror, through him who loved us. We’ve been given Christ conquering power to dismantle the evil in the world. We are not like sheep to the slaughter; we are the butcher.
Paul then binds this to the notion that the victory has already been achieved: There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Easy for Paul to say all of this, right? After all, I’m not Paul. It all seems easier said than done, especially when we are facing down the 400-pound tag-team wrestlers ‘El Temor’ and ‘Duda’ (Fear and Doubt for those of us who don’t speak Spanish) on a steamy Saturday night in Oaxaca. What are we to do when Fear and Doubt seem unstoppable? When they loom large in our hearts and minds?
When it comes to fear: Take Heart! Cling to the work that Christ did on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb. Fear festers in the unknown, but we know the outcome: Christ won, the curtain was torn in two, death lost. The word Christ used here for ‘take heart’ means to be bolstered within which supports unflinching courage or to radiate warm confidence. We are being supported by the cross and the empty tomb, let that ooze out of our pores for the world to see.
When it comes to doubt: cling to the sacraments. Baptism has set you apart, it has sealed you for Christ. Remember your baptism in the same way a trophy symbolizes the victory over the foe. Celebrate in the Lord’s supper as the ticker tape parade of the championship.
May we all have faith to super-conquer fear and doubt like Paul (and Nacho).
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About Matt Churnock: Matt Churnock hails from Birmingham, Alabama where he muses on profundities and woodworks. He believes the two-seam fastball is the most underrated pitch in baseball and is a certified raptor handler. His wife Alice is much cooler than he is and they are the proud parents of two boys.