Look at the Book: The Greatest Chapter - Episode 27
Official link: https://www.desiringgod.org/labs/who-can-be-against-us

Principle for Bible Reading:
God is for you, and therefore no one can defeat you. God gave his Son, so he will most definitely give you all things. This lab looks at a couple powerful rhetorical questions. John Piper searches the truths behind Paul’s questions to find massive rocks under the Christian’s life.


Outline:
Prayer (00:00–00:36)

Introduction (00:36–03:07)
Paul reinforces the glorious promises of Romans 8 with two questions: 1. Who can be against us? 2. How will he not give us all things?

God Is for Us (03:07–07:08)
1. Who is the “us” in Romans 8:31? It is those who are foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified (Romans 8:28–30).
2. God is for us — the elect — in a way that he is not for everyone (John 3:16). God loved the world by sending his Son to die for sins, but God goes beyond the offer to predestine and call us (Romans 8:30).
3. If God is for us, no one can succeed against us (Romans 8:31). If you cut my head off, you dispatch me to glory.

God Did Not Spare His Son (07:08–10:50)
1. God, who gave even his own Son, will most definitely also give us all things. (Romans 8:32)
2. This is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If God can sacrifice his infinitely precious Son, of course he would give us anything and everything else. All things are small compared to the value of God’s Son.
3. This is not the prosperity gospel, because we know Christians will experience all kinds of suffering and even death. (Romans 8:35–39)
4. ”All things” (Romans 8:32) means everything we need to be conformed to Christ, to persevere to glory, and to enjoy God forever.


Study Questions:
1. Describe the way Paul is arguing here in Romans 8:31 and Romans 8:32. How is this different than the ways he has been arguing so far in Romans 8?
2. If Christians face all kinds of opposition and persecution, how could Paul suggest that no one can be against us (Romans 8:31)?
3. What does “all things” mean in Romans 8:32? What can it not mean?


Piper: “If God did not spare his infinitely precious Son, he will most definitely give us all things.”


‘The Greatest Chapter’ Series:
This lab is part of a series through Romans 8. Taking a verse or two at a time, John Piper unfolds the other-worldly realities in these thirty-nine verses, all along pointing out general, practical principles for understanding and applying the Bible’s meaning. Visit ‘The Greatest Chapter’ series page to see all the labs in this series.