Two Legal Questions

Paul continues to assert the complete security of believers by flinging rhetorical questions at his readers. In today’s passage, he posits two questions having to do with the legal basis of our salvation.

“Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?” Paul asks in verse 33. Taking the question at face value, we can think of several possible answers. The devil loves to accuse us of wrongdoing, other people sometimes point out our faults, and our own consciences frequently display our shortcomings. But the phrasing of Paul’s question shows that he is thinking of a charge that would place us out of God’s favor, a damning charge. Such can never be. Why? Because “It is God who justifies.” We are His elect, those He has foreknown and predestined to conform to the image of Christ. And as we saw earlier in Romans 8, all whom God foreknows and predestines He also calls and justifies, declaring them just on the basis of Christ’s righteousness and His substitutionary death. As a result, there is no basis on which anyone can accuse us. “God has justified us,” Dr. James M. Boice writes. “No charge can be brought against those whom God has chosen if God, the supreme Judge of the entire universe, has acquitted them.” There is no misstep by the Judge that would form the basis of an appeal, no loophole in the law by which we might be accused, no higher court in which to seek redress. The Judge has ruled and no charges can stick.

“Who is he who condemns?” Paul asks next, upping the ante. Who can send one of God’s people to eternal punishment? Having already seen the previous question and its answer, the only possible response to this query is obvious—no one could overrule God’s judgment and cause one of His children to be separated from Him. But in explaining why, Paul turns from His emphasis on the things God has done for us to the things Christ has done for God on our behalf, the great works that constitute the ground of our justification. He died to propitiate the Father’s wrath and to atone for our sin. He rose again, demonstrating that His death was a true atonement. He ascended to the Father and was enthroned in power, demonstrating that He accomplished and completed His work. And He now intercedes for all our needs. God in Christ has saved us. No one, therefore, can condemn us.