J. Albrecht…August 16th, 2026…Trinity 11…Romans 8:33-39…The Certainty of the Christian’s Salvation is Jesus!
33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen.
INJ whose love for you never fails, but is the very certainty of your salvation, DFR:
The Bill of Rights is the heart and soul of American freedom as it guarantees certain freedoms to every single citizen. One of those guarantees is the double-jeopardy clause from the 5th Amendment. Double Jeopardy simply states that someone cannot be tried twice for the same crime. If a defendant is tried for a capital crime and the jury finds them “not guilty,” that verdict is absolute and final.
Even if the prosector were to find irrefutable evidence of guilt the very next day, they cannot be retried by the same court. There are exceptions to double jeopardy, but every citizen is protected from being tried twice by the same governing entity for the same crime.
God makes an even greater guarantee for you, the Christian. In our spiritual lives, sin hangs over our heads much like criminal offenses would in our physical lives in that both carry severe punishment. The spiritual punishment for sin is straightforward. Paul writes, the wages of sin is death. God has made His decree that you permanently stand not guilty.
This morning, Paul takes us directly into the courtroom of God. The terms he uses throughout Romans 8 are legal terms, and we ought to view them as decrees coming from the Him who has the sole authority to judge all things in heaven and on earth. There we see we are justified and set free. Then, closing the courtroom scene, he sets on our heart the full certainty of our salvation in the love of God through Christ.
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer, Amen.
33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
In criminal court, it is the State that brings the charge since they represent the society who was offended against. In God’s court, who is the prosecutor? Who is the one who has the authority to bring a charge against sinners? You might think that it is Satan, as the name means accuser. But there is a difference between accuser and the one who brings the charge.
There is no doubt that Satan spends his time accusing. He has no problem drudging up any sin with which he can accuse you before God as being a law-breaker. The truth is, we have no defense. Satan is right. He brings our sin before God and accuses us of breaking God’s Law and we deserve God’s punishment of hell. Satan doesn’t put his eggs all in one basket. Satan doesn’t just accuse you before God. He doesn’t need to convince God that you are guilty, he just needs to convince you that you don’t deserve God’s forgiveness.
How many times has a sin from your past come back to haunt you? Or you sinned against someone else and they forgive you, but the guilt lingers? Satan holds you down. He chains your heart and soul to your sin saying, “You are not worthy of forgiveness. This time you simply went too far and did something too horrible.” It makes you feel like you’ve already been charged and condemned – and that is what Satan wants. It’s a lie because he knows any sin he drudges up is nothing but an accusation. It is not a charge against you or your record. Why?
It is God who justifies. Satan is not the one who brings a charge against God’s elect – that is those whom He has chosen to be His own from eternity and brought to faith in His Son Jesus. God is the one who charges. He is God over all – whether people believe in Him or not. As such, all people will be called to give an account to God and according to His Law. He is the one who reserves the right to bring charges against any sinners who break His Law. Psalm 130 tells us plainly what the verdict should be, If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
Yet, Paul gives us the certainty our souls desperately need to hear. It is God who justifies. Justify means to declare not guilty. God does not declare you not guilty you have no guilt, but because Jesus stepped into your place and paid the punishment.
There is a legend told about Czar Nicolas I of Russia. A young Russian officer was in charge of the military funds, mismanaged his ledger and was in an insurmountable debt to the imperial crown. The night before the audit he wrote out, line by line his enormous debt. Realizing that he was completely bankrupt, he despairingly wrote at the bottom of the ledger, “Who can pay this debt?” Exhausted, he fell asleep at his desk. Later that night, Czar Nicolas was wandering the halls and found the man sleeping. He read the ledger and immediately wrote one word, “Nicolas.” The next morning the treasury paid the man’s debt in full.
Jesus wrote His name on the ledger of your debt before God. He took your sin upon Himself so that there is nothing left to you. Satan may accuse and accuse, but even he cannot bring any charge against you because everything is taken care of. Any accusation he makes whether before God or in your heart, has been paid for in full by Jesus. Every sin or ounce of guilt is gone. No charges can be found.
Paul continues: 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Back in God’s courtroom, who is the one that condemns? We might think the heart. The heart knows our sinfulness. It sees the secret sins that no one else knows about. But then, it isn’t our heart that truly condemns us, it is our sinful flesh. When we speak of the sinful flesh, it is the desire for fleshly passions, the hatred for God and His Law, and it dwells in each one of us. This sinful flesh is what wants to condemn us.
It seeks no relationship with God. Our flesh actively seeks our condemnation because it is fallen under the same deception that Adam and Eve were under in the Garden – that what I want is more important than God. But is the flesh the one who condemns? For the Christian? Absolutely not. Jesus says in Matthew 10:28, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” God has the right and power to condemn.
Who does God condemn? His own beloved Son, Jesus. It is the heart of the Gospel. Just a verse before our text in Romans 8, Paul explains how God did not spare His own Son, but freely gave Him up for us all. The full condemnation of God’s anger and justice for our sin, against our sinful flesh, was taken out on the innocent Son of God. On Calvary’s cross, Jesus wasn’t wrongfully executed by the Romans. He was charged as the Sinner of sinners by the Almighty God, suffering hell, being separated from God’s goodness and gracious presence, because that is what your sinful flesh and mine deserves. God’s wrath was exhausted on Jesus so that, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
Jesus’ work doesn’t stop there. He rose from the dead, assuring you that your sins truly are forgiven and even death has been conquered. And now, Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding for you. This is one of the greatest comforts for the Christian to live with. No matter how convincing your flesh may be in trying to condemn you, it cannot. For every sinful desire or action that Satan or your flesh comes up with, Jesus is your attorney in God’s courtroom. But He doesn’t excuse your sin or tries to argue you didn’t do it. Instead, He says, “I have taken this child’s place. I carried this sin to the cross and My blood has taken its punishment away. Set this child free, they are mine.” Every sin of every day, this is what Jesus does for you.
Satan cannot accuse, your flesh cannot condemn…what remains against us? The world. This Paul addresses with his final question. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
The world likes to point to such afflictions as evidence that God does not love us, much like the Jews said of Christ under the cross, “He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.” But can these things really separate us from God’s love? Is His arm too short; does his heart ever grow cold? When these things come upon us, they the hardly look like the caresses of love, they look like the blows of wrath; but none of them, nor all of them together, separate us from the love of Christ.
Though Paul could have spoken from his own experiences of these things, he quotes Psalm 44, “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter,” to show the fate is the same for all Christians in all ages. The enemies of God and His people go on from age to age, challenging and even killing. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors on account of Him who loved us. We are conquerors because Christ has conquered already.
And now, Paul does speak personally:38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul does not merely declare or teach, he goes beyond both and testifies; he lets his heart speak. He is persuaded of this: the worst possible outcome is to be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This love is itself mighty and efficacious to hold us and keep us in its blessed embrace, mightier than all the forces which the apostle names.
It’s not death – which Jesus has overcome. Nor life – this life pales compared to the new life Jesus gives us eternally. Principalities or powers cannot, our Jesus is stronger than they. Nor is it present troubles or future worries – We may often be disturbed by perils of today or tomorrow, but God’s love is mightier than all of them and lifts us up where we can confidently face matter what comes now or in the future. So mighty is God’s love, so firmly attached to us, so constant in all its operation, so triumphant in all its purposes that no person or thing in all of creation can take away your hope for eternal life through Jesus Christ. The Christian’s Certainty of Salvation is and forever will be Jesus. Amen.
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