The Closing Arguments of All Closing Arguments
Read: Romans 8:31-39
31 What then shall we say 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 with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 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. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded 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 sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.
Confession…my wife and I love crime dramas. She has always had a detective’s intuition. We love sitting together, being couch potato sleuths and solving the crime before the plot has been revealed. Seeing justice prevail is satisfying. As the old Christmas song declares: “The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth good-will toward men!”
However, I have also never been on trial. I wonder if those who have sat on the bench accused of crimes look forward to episodes of 48 Hours or Dateline? How must it feel to know that you are actually guilty of the crime, experiencing the remorse of your actions, yet hoping a lawyer might convince a jury that there’s not enough evidence to convict? For some, the remorse is too heavy to live with, so they confess their guilt and choose to receive justice’s sentence rather than living a lie. What if it were you? Would the guilt be too much for you to live with?
Our study of the book of Romans has put every one of us on trial. The apostle Paul has acted as both the prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney. In the opening arguments of chapters 1-3, he prosecutes all of humanity, showing how every human is guilty of sin and deserving of death. Then in chapters 4-7, he jumps to our defense, arguing that in our weak and condemned state, Christ paid the penalty for our sin by being executed in our place. It’s not that our guilt and sin were simply forgiven. The punishment for our sin was given to Jesus. Those who follow Christ by faith are now clothed in His righteousness and declared innocent.
The eighth chapter is like Paul’s closing arguments and the verses in which we find ourselves this week act as an exclamation mark on Paul’s irrefutable conclusion. “Who is there to condemn?” “Who can separate us from the love of God?” “Will the God who did not spare his own Son, but willingly gave him up for us, not graciously give us all things?” And what makes this argument so ironclad is that Paul is not trying to convince a jury that faith in Christ is all that is needed to exonerate us; the Judge sitting on the bench is the God who justifies us through His Son! There is no one who can bring a charge against God’s elect!
Take some time to read back through the entirety of chapter 8 and imagine Paul delivering it as the closing arguments of your own capital punishment trial. See if it doesn’t make you want to shout for joy and thankfulness!
