Romans 8 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

The New Man in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1. Therefore now sin's captive escapes! No condemnation: Romans 1:18 to Romans 3:20; Romans 7:14-24 was all condemnation! Those in Christ Jesus; see Romans 6:3-11.

Romans 8:2. The law of the Spirit (cf. law of faith, Romans 3:27 *). emancipated me (cf. Romans 6:18) from the law of sin and death (Romans 5:12-14 *, Romans 7:5; Romans 7:22; Romans 7:24).

Romans 8:3 f. Through the mission of Christ God has inflicted on sin the condemnation which the law, disabled by the flesh, endeavoured vainly, and did it in that very flesh which was sin's stronghold (Romans 6:6; Romans 7:18, etc.).Likeness of sinful flesh signifies a life incarnate but sinless; the elliptical (sacrifice) for sin (see Lev., passim) adds the Atonement to the Incarnation (see Romans 4:25; Romans 5:6-11; also Hebrews 5:3; Hebrews 10:6, where the phrase reappears): together they wrought God's judgment upon sin, in such a way that the righteous demand of the law might be fulfilled in us, etc. God's holy law, after all, gets its own (cf. Romans 3:31); while our sin is condemned, we pass through justification into a new life of righteousness under the Spirit's rule.The (Holy) Spirit appeared incidentally in Romans 5:5; Romans 8 is the chapter of the Holy Ghost.

Romans 8:5-8 contrasts the spiritual with the carnal walk in their respective temper (mind), and their issue, death, in contrast with life and peace (cf. Romans 6:23, Romans 5:1). Death results from the fleshly mind, because it is enmity toward God, insubordination to His law, and consequent incapacity to please Him (Romans 8:7 f.; Psalms 90:7-9; Psalms 92:9, etc.).

Romans 8:9. Those in whom the Spirit of God dwells (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16) the vital element common to Head and members (cf. Romans 9:6 with 1 Corinthians 6:17; 1 Corinthians 12:12 f., Ephesians 4:3-6) have escaped this fatal condition. In ch. 6 faith, here the Spirit, identifies men with Christ.

Romans 8:10 f. The body too will share in this redemption. For the present, the living spirit (cf. Romans 6:10 f.) inhabits a moribund body; righteousness characterises the one, while sin dooms the other. But the resurrection of Jesus promises, the indwelling Spirit guarantees, life even to the mortal body (cf. Romans 8:23; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13 f.). Read, in Romans 8:11, because of His Spirit (mg.).

Romans 8:12 f. On the above grounds, you recognise no obligation to the flesh, but only to the Spirit, by whose aid you must put to death those doings of the body (cf. Romans 6:6, Romans 7:18-24; Colossians 3:5) the practice of which meant death for you (cf. Romans 2:6, Ephesians 2:1). See pp. 811 f.

So Christian men stand toward life and death (Romans 8:1-13); how toward God?

Romans 8:14. Justified (Romans 8:3-5) and sanctified (Romans 8:6), they are Sons and Heirs of God, while they are led by God's Spirit.

Romans 8:15 f. Christ's spirit of sonship replaces the old spirit of servitude engendering fear (cf. Romans 2:8 f., also Hebrews 2:15; Hebrews 10:28; Hebrews 10:31, and 1 John 4:18). Adoption (sonships with a different application in Romans 9:4) is borrowed from Roman and Greek law, denoting affiliation from another family or statusno longer a bondman but a son (Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5). The cry of the adoptedAbba = Father! in the mother-speech of Jesus (Mark 14:36), caught, like Amen, from the lips of Palestinian believers sounds as the voice of Another within as (cf. Romans 8:9; Romans 8:26 f.). The Spirit Himself sustains the testimony of consciousness (cf. Romans 2:15, Romans 9:1) to the effect that we are children of God. The witness of our spirit lies in the knowledge of our spiritual transformation (see Romans 8:1-9, also Romans 5:1-11, and Romans 6). Sons in rank and dignity, children in affinity and endearment (cf. 1 John 3:1 f.).

Romans 8:17. And consequently heirs, sharing the inheritance of Christ, the Son of Godprovided that we share His sufferings (see Galatians 4:5-7; Ephesians 1:14; also John 15:18-21; 1 Peter 4:12 f.). Cf. p. 811.

The Birth-Pangs of Immortality.

Romans 8:18. These present sufferings are light beyond comparison, in view of the glory awaiting us at the coming revelation. The destined glory is hidden under a fleshly veil (see Romans 8:10, Php_3:21, Colossians 3:3 f.; also 1 John 3:2).

Romans 8:19; Romans 8:22. With this mystery all creation is pregnant, in strained expectancy awaiting the revelation of the sons of God, sighing and groaning in travail-pains.

Romans 8:23. Though sons of God, having the Spirit as a first-fruit of our estate, we await a further adoption, viz. the redemption of our body (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 4:30).

Romans 8:20 f. From no will of its own, the creation has been blighted and baulked with hope, however, that it will be delivered from its bondage to decay, to share the liberty and shine in the glory of God's children. This apocalypse brings the world of Nature, as Romans 5:12-21 brought the world of History, into the scope of Christ's redemption.

Romans 8:24 f. We are far from seeing this emancipation (cf. Hebrews 2:8); but hope forecasts the not-seen and sustains endurance.

Romans 8:26 f. Meanwhile our weakness is helped through prayer prompted by the indwelling Spirit.In like fashion moreover: for the Spirit's speechless sighings are in concert with the sighings of our hearts and of creation around us (Romans 8:22 f.). Paul and his readers discern a Mind beneath their own consciousness (cf. Romans 8:16), prompting inexpressible heavenward longings. God interprets the Spirit's pleadings on the saints-' behalf, for He is their source. True prayer is the mystic utterance, Divinely prompted, of the soul of man and nature.

The Christian Assurance.

Romans 8:28. One thing we do know, that all goes well for those that love God including their worst sufferings (Romans 8:18; cf. Romans 5:3-5).

Romans 8:29 f. This assurance rests on God's manifest purpose toward them a purpose disclosed in five successive steps: foreknowledge, pre-ordination, call, justification, glorification. The foreknowledge covers everything about the persons concerned; God never acts by guess (cf. Romans 3:3, Romans 11:29). The predestination aimed at the conforming of the chosen to the image of God's Son, so that the Firstborn may be surrounded with many brothers; God designed that all those marked out for salvation should share His Son's likeness and be of His family. With this object He called them into His Son's fellowship (1 Corinthians 1:9); on their obeying that call, He cleared them of past sin, and shed His glory on them. Glorified is past in tense (future in Romans 8:18): despite humiliation, it is glorious to be sons of God (see Romans 8:14-17; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18; John 17:22, etc.): the father's kiss was justification for the Prodigal Son, the robe and ring were glorification.

Romans 8:31-34. The believer's justification, the corner-stone of his security, supports the challenge of these verses. All goes to show that God is for us it matters nothing who is against us; cf. Psalms 118:6. That God is for us He showed by the sacrifice of His own Son having given Him, He can withhold nothing! (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:21). Who is going to impeach God's elect? when God justifies, will anyone dare to condemn? If any should, there stands Christ Jesus to speak for us, He that died but, more than that, was raised from the dead and is now at God's right hand.

Romans 8:35-37. From his present security the Christian looks on to the eternal future: the Love that bled for him on the Cross, and pleads for him on the throne, is his in deathless union (Romans 8:35; Romans 8:39; cf. Romans 5:5; cf. Romans 5:8; also Galatians 2:20; John 10:28 f.).Affliction, distress, etc., resembling the cruel martyrdom of OT saints, tend to separate Christians now (cf. Romans 8:18) from Christ's love, suggesting doubts of His sympathy or power to aid. Nay, but in all these things we gain a surpassing victory, etc.; God's assured love silences the contradictions of life.

Romans 8:38 f. Paul defies all conceivable separators: death and life, things present and future, height and depth, represent the opposites of condition, time, and space. Angels are supernatural potencies, principalities the highest angels, powers being elsewhere coupled with these (Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16 *) so here in AV; the exacter order of RV associates powers with time and place; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:8; Ephesians 6:12. The passage has the lilt of Hebrew poetry; it was penned in a rapture, like Romans 11:33-36.