From the Mountaintop

We come now to one of the most comforting, most uplifting, and most praised passages in all of Scripture. “Commentators have called these verses a ‘hymn of assurance,’ ‘a triumph song,’ and ‘the highest plateau in the whole of divine revelation,’ ” Dr. James M. Boice writes in his Romans commentary. And yet, “these accolades are surely all too weak. This is a mountaintop paragraph. It is the Everest of the letter and thus the highest peak in the highest Himalayan range of Scripture.” By a series of hypothetical questions and bold assertions, Paul affirms that complete and utter assurance of justification and ultimate redemption can and should be the experience of every man, woman, boy, and girl who claims the name of Christ.

Paul himself treats these verses like a mountaintop, a vantage point from which to survey all the doctrinal slopes he has ascended thus far in this great epistle. “What then shall we say to these things?” he asks in reference to everything he has posited from 1:16 to 8:30. Taking all into consideration, what conclusion should be drawn? For Paul, it comes down to this: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” If we were to forget all he has said to this point, we might foolishly reply to Paul’s question by listing some of our enemies, such as the world, the flesh, and the devil. But everything Paul has taught the Romans attests that God is for us, that we are His beloved children, and that He will not let anything snatch us away from His embrace. He is the Lord God, and nothing can oppose Him.

But if we need evidence or reassurance that God is for us, we need not cover the first half of the epistle again. We need remember just one truth: The Father sent His beloved Son Jesus to the cross for us. In other words, God already has given us the greatest thing He had to give. Therefore, will He not give us the other things He has promised, things that are inexpressibly wonderful and yet less significant than His Son? In the midst of our spiritual death, our willful rebellion against His rule, He calls us, delivers us from bondage to sin, brings us into union with Christ, and adopts us as His own sons and daughters. Then He begins to make us like Christ until He completes the process by glorifying us. At that time, we will receive the fullness of our inheritance—the glories of heaven and the Father Himself.