Tag: Book of Romans

The believer has the assurance that since God is with him, he will be kept safe under God’s protection. He expresses it by a conditional sentence stating that if God is for us, the outcome will surely be that none can overpower the will of God for our lives. The Apostle Paul has just described God’s salvific work in the believer’s life from election to calling, from calling to justification and from justification to glorification. He stills our heart by stating a truthful supposition.

The believer has yet to see the glory of God’s salvation in his life. The Apostle Paul is showing us the infinite preciousness accorded to every believer from beginning to end. He is special and unique in God’s sight. And there is a unique purpose for his existence upon earth.

God choose beforehand, determine in advance in eternity past, whom He will save to bear the name of His Son upon the earth in his lifetime. To be chosen by the Father, purchased by the Son and sealed by the Spirit. What a great privilege it is to be called into faith and to live the life of faith.

This verse provides encouragement to the believer, “the called”, throughout the ages as he comes to understand the excellent care of God in his life. God orders the events, encounters and experiences in the believer’s life for his good. Although he may not understand why he has to go through the various stages of his life, he can trust God to order all things for his well-being. It is the overall thought for our meditation. There are no accidentals or incidentals in the believer’s life. Everything is under the full control and purview of our great God.

The Apostle Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit aids the believer to the will of God. The mysterious working of the Holy Spirit within us is not seen but can be understood as a comforting truth and a life-bearing compass. Indeed, as the godly man’s reminder goes “the believer’s heart is the Holy Spirit’s home. Have you God nudging you lately? The Holy Spirit can do more in a minute than we can do ourselves in a lifetime”!

The Holy Spirit sustains us by His divine presence helping us overcome our sin, the flesh and the world. As the old saying goes, “If you have the Holy Spirit on the inside, you can stand any kind of battle on the outside…The human spirit fails unless the Holy Spirit fills.”

When Noah is building the ark, he has not seen rain. But he knows that God will be sending rain in the fullness of time and the ark that he builds will provide security and safety from the coming calamity. The Bible tells us that Noah feared God. He took God at His Word and proved Him faithful! Hebrews 11:6 testifies “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” May God grant us faith in His Word so that we will continue to hope in Him as we await His soon return! Amen.

Believers are the “firstfruits of the Spirit” in that the Holy Spirit indwells all who adopted into the family of God giving them the power to overcome sin. The believer can choose to yield to temptation and thus sin against God. The groaning that the Apostle Paul speaks of is the weariness that comes with that constant struggle. Satan and the world will continue to seduce the believer to their fallen ways. Each time the believer falls, he pays a price for the consequence of sin.

Since the fall of man, sin, sorrow and death has plagued humankind with untold misery. The curse came upon all the created world. And there seemed no relief since then. The Apostle Paul acknowledges that this sad predicament for the created world is a known truth to all. Here, he emphasizes the entire creation is groaning or signing in pain together like that of a woman in labour during childbirth. It is excruciating and unbearable.

The ravages of sin plague not only humankind but also all animate and inanimate living creatures. Thorns and thistles grew from the ground and animals become carnivorous predators. This will continue until the time when Christ returns to restore order in His creation to the pre-fall Edenic state. There will be no more spiritual blindness, apostasy, crime and rebellion, debts, bankruptcies, greed or repossession of properties.