Jesus once said to His disciples, “He that is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40). And when it comes to how God relates to us, God is either for us or against us. In the case of the believer, God is definitely for us. However, it is one thing to say that, and another to truly believe it.

Consider the effects of believing someone is against you. In an employee-employer relationship, when you believe that your manager is against you, how does that affect your work? How much creativity, freedom, and productivity do you produce if you feel that your boss harbours resentment against you, doesn’t like you, or does not trust you?

Or consider the child-parent illustration. If a child has a father who is moody, sulky and unpredictable, one who continually sends out messages of displeasure and discontent to that child, how will the child relate to his father? The feeling that ‘Dad is against me’ prevents real intimacy and open communication. It squelches even the desire to please, and replaces it with a mere desire to avoid upsetting Dad.

Take it further into the husband-wife relationship. If a spouse thinks that their partner is against them, that they are angry at them, that they have not forgiven them, then what happens to the relationship? There is tenseness, a lack of communication, a lack of joy, a lack of partnership. In all of life, when we believe someone is against us, it can cause real fractures in that relationship.

In essence, we’re talking about the kind of security that the assurance of love brings. When we doubt someone’s commitment to our good, we adopt a defensive, self-protective posture. 1 John 4:18 puts it this way: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

There is no anxiety in perfect love, because perfect love lacks the possibility of good turning into bad. How true in the spiritual realm. When we believe God is against us, we can never make progress in our spiritual lives.

Certainly, God is against us if we are not saved: “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11) and “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). But in Romans 8, Paul is addressing the Christian:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.
Romans 8:28-30

Here, Paul builds an airtight case for the ultimate glorification of believers. It is all working together for good if you are a believer. On this basis, Paul writes, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). If you are a believer, God is for you.

Now why is it important to know this? The answer is that a confident belief that God is for me as a believer is the foundation of a victorious, enjoyable, Christian life. Romans 8 is about the Spirit-filled victorious life. Paul lays one glorious brick upon another to build the structure called ‘A believer’s wonderful confidence’. The kind of Spirit-filled life that Romans talks about is built largely by believing the wonderful promises in Romans 8.

Many Christians might pay lip-service to believing God is for them, but their lack of real joy and power show that their faith in this truth is really a dead faith. A faith that God is for me produces the works of joy and confidence in Him.

Conversely, you see Christians who very much parallel the human illustrations we used earlier. Like an employee whose boss is against them, they serve God only in fear, believing He will certainly punish them if they do not. Their service is not marked by creativity and zeal, but by doing just what they think is enough to appease the One they see as an Impossible Master, One who is never pleased.

Like a child whose father is against them, they lack intimacy, joy and trust in their personal walk with God. Their communication shrivels up to the bare minimum of functional exchanges – mealtimes, church, etc. Like that child, they are not trying to please their Father, they are just hoping to not upset Him anymore, and try stay out of His way.

You see Christians riddled with fears, despair, anxiety, guilt – and you cannot help but ask, “Do you really believe God is for you? Do you believe He is really working things out in your life for your good?” Just think of the magnitude of that statement by reversing it: if God is against you, who can be for you? But if God is for you, the entire universe ultimately runs in your direction.

Most often, we’d reply, I’d like to, but I find it hard to believe. I’ve given God far more reasons to be against me than to be for me. Besides, there are many things in my life which do not seem like they are working for my good. God’s Word anticipates these objections and answers them one by one.

1. God’s reluctance

The first and most important obstacle to believing God is for us, is simply the difficulty in imagining that God should want to be for us. After all, we have done so much to give Him reason to be against us. And even if God were for us, what is the guarantee that He won’t turn against us? Or that we won’t so annoy Him as to change His stance towards us? Paul’s answer is in verse 32, which is perhaps one of the most important verses in all the Bible for a Christian:

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Romans 8:32

What Paul is doing here is arguing from a greater to a lesser. Say there are two things possible. One is improbable because the cost is so high, one is more likely because the cost is less. The logic is: if somehow, I manage to achieve the more costly one, it is virtually assured that I will perform the lesser one as well. He is saying, “What was harder – for God to give up His Son to shame and mocking – or for God to give all things to His children?”

Paul presents you with the thing that was far more improbable – God not sparing His Son, and works us to the thing less improbable – God giving us all things. The rationale is, if God did that which was hardest, it is certain He will do that which is easier. If God did the most improbable thing in the universe, then there is no doubt He will do anything more probable than that.

God desired two things – to not hand over His Son to spitting, shame and torture, and He desired the eternal joy of His people. Surely, He would have chosen to spare His Son, and consequently withhold joy from us, seeing He loves His Son more than anything else. But no, He chose to not spare His Son, and therefore we can have rock-solid assurance that there is no unspoken reluctance on God’s part to be good to His people.

If there was ever to be reluctance, it would have been to keep back His Beloved Son, in whom He was well-pleased. But having done the greatest, hardest, most unlikely thing on behalf of His people, giving us all things is easy in comparison. And now Psalm 84:11 rings true: “For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

Notice the contrasts: God did not spare or withhold His Son, and now freely gives us all things.

But what does it mean to “freely give us all things”? God, being for you, gives you all things necessary for your ultimate joy in Him. Now we might argue that there are many things in our lives which do not seem joyous.

We’ll look at that in a bit more detail in the next few verses, but for now verse 28 is the key: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). The common phrase is ‘all things’. God will not allow anything in your life which does not transform into final good for His children. He now gives you all things for a life of satisfaction in Him for His glory.

But we might raise another objection: God Himself might not be reluctant to bless us and be for us; but surely our sin is enough to put Him off. Our own sense of guilt accuses us, and tells us that there is no way a holy God could be for us. So our second objection is based on God’s righteousness.

2. God’s righteousness

Paul answers this in the next verses: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth” (Romans 8:33). There is sin and guilt piling up before our eyes. The Devil and our own conscience accuse us. They say, ‘God cannot be for you. God sees your sin and is against you.’ To that, Paul says, ‘God is the one who makes the final decision.’

You might be accusing yourself, the Devil may be accusing you, but it is God the Father who hears the accusations, and makes the final decision. He is the judge. And instead of charging us, the Bible says, God justifies us. He is the One who decides if the charge sticks or not, and He instead declares believers innocent. Romans 3:26 tells us He is “the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

God the Father is not against us. Hebrews 12 tells us He deals with sin in our lives as a father does one of his children, not as judge with a criminal. Paul then goes on in Romans 8:34: “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Paul asks, who makes the final decision as to whether or not we are condemned?

If a man is condemned, God is definitely not for him. Condemnation literally means God is against him. But Paul says, Jesus Christ is responsible for this. And Jesus Himself said this in John 5:22: “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” Jesus Christ is the final Judge of men.

When our sin seems to loom so large that we cannot imagine God being for us, Paul says, ‘The one who will judge sin, died and rose for your sin, and even now prays for you. Your judgement on yourself means very little in comparison to Christ’s. And yet Paul tells us that the Judge Himself died and rose to rescue His people from sin, and now intercedes for us.

You cannot find a more overwhelming statement to flatten the thought that God is against me because of my sin. Many people who struggle with ongoing guilt really have an issue with pride. They have a God-complex, where they think that their own self-condemnation carries more weight than Christ’s acquittal of them.

They overrule Christ’s death, resurrection and intercession on their behalf in favour of their own judgement that they are dirty, miserable and condemned. That’s actually pride. If the Bible declares that God has justified us, and Christ the Judge is Our Saviour and High Priest, then to reject those truths in favour of misplaced guilt is simply unbelief.

The Father is for us. The Son is for us. In fact, the Spirit is also for us. We read in verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). That’s not some private prayer language – that’s the prayer of the Holy Spirit on our behalf.

So God is not reluctant to give us all things necessary for life and godliness. He is for us – not reluctantly for us, nor passively for us. Not sparing His Son shows how committed He is to the good of His people. His righteousness is not compromised in being for us, because all His righteous demands have been met in the cross of Christ.

3. Life’s negatives

Now we might raise one more objection, which Paul answers in verses 35-39.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39

Here, Paul asks, what can separate us from the love of Christ? The word ‘separate’ means to divorce, a complete parting. The train of thought is, ‘Fine, God is not reluctant, God’s righteous demands have been met, nothing internal in God will mean He is against us. But what about external things?’

Can there not be some things externally which can have the same effect? Some things that so strain the relationship that we would doubt that God is for us. We either assume that God allowing them means He is not for us, or the things themselves so overwhelm us that we would lose faith in God. Can things outside of God threaten our belief that Christ loves us and is for us?

But Paul asks, ‘What can sever this God-is-for-us relationship?’ The question is rhetorical, because he means nothing can. He then lists things which might encapsulate all our fears as Christians. They really cover all angles of things we regard as negative in life:

• Tribulation – this literally refers to pressures. When life seems to have boxed you in, and narrowed your path. The difficulties and pains that God allows to prove us. But trials cannot separate us from Christ.
• Distress – this refers to troubles. The endless problems and concerns that face us each day. No matter how many, distress should not cause us to believe Christ is not for us.
• Persecution – being persecuted for the name of Christ. Being hurt or attacked in some way for our faith. This also should not change our firm assurance that Christ is for us.
• Famine and nakedness – this speaks of lacking the basic necessities of food and clothing. Even if our financial or circumstantial situation brings us to starving hunger or a lack of basic clothing – this too won’t mean Christ is not for us.
• Danger – all the combined perils that face us each day. Their presence should not cause us to retreat to where we doubt that Christ is for us.
• Sword – death itself cannot cause us to doubt God is for us.

In between, Paul quotes Psalm 44:22 – ‘Yea, for Thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.’ This is an interesting verse that explains how he is going to answer for the existence of these negatives in our lives when trying to prove God is for us.

What he means is, for a believer, these things are not coming into our lives merely by accident or by chance. They happen for ‘Thy name’s sake’ – that is, for God’s glory. God allows these things in our lives to mould and shape us into a people that glorify Him in the face of such things. How do we glorify Him in these things? Because we overwhelmingly conquer them: “in all these things we are more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37).

God gets the glory because as we go through these things, we are not separated from the love of Christ. He gives the grace and wisdom to come through these things and still say, ‘God is for me! God is working this for my good.’ As we do that, we conquer them. They do not separate us from the love of Christ.

Paul could certainly testify to this fact. He had personally faced all of these things. But his experience was that through them, believers overwhelmingly conquer.

But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings…
2 Corinthians 6:4-5

Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
2 Corinthians 11:23-27

Why could Paul say that we overwhelmingly conquer? “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:20-21).

Christ would be magnified. Magnification is not when you make something big, it is when you see it big. Christ would be seen to be big in His life, by the grace God gave Him through hunger and nakedness and danger, in pressures in persecution. Paul realised that such things gave him the opportunity to see that God’s grace is sufficient for him. He could say, “The more negative things I face in life, the more sure I become that Christ is sweeter than this life!”

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.
Philippians 3:8

And He said unto me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10

It is not that we as Christians will not face hard things. Indeed, Jesus promised us, “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He says, you are going to have pain. But be glad, I have triumphed over pain.

This is what it means in Romans 8:32 when Paul says, “How shall He not, with Him, also freely give us all things?” God now uses all things, good and bad – for our good. It is as if the entire universe changes course to work in the ultimate favour of the child of God. “Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours” (1 Corinthians 3:21-22).

Distresses cause us to rely on God, who gives us peace. Persecution becomes a love offering to Christ. When we lack, God fills us with inner contentment. Danger becomes another means of fleeing to the arms of God, and magnifying His Strength. And death itself has had its sting removed – it simply becomes our departure gate. Isn’t it incredible?

For the unsaved, the terrible reality is this: even good things will turn out to be bad things without Christ. They will turn out to have been pleasant distractions from the coming judgement of hell. Negative things in their lives have no hope of turning out to be good things.

For the believer, God’s love means that good things are gifts from God, and bad things are controlled by God to turn out for God. You see this in the book of Peter. We can love life and see good days as we pursue righteousness, and if we endure negative suffering because of righteousness – we are to rejoice, for it is also working for our good.

God often allows these things to make sure we are not in love with this life, but truly in love with Him. If nothing went wrong in our lives, we might assume that we loved God, when really, we loved His gifts. God actually wants us to find that “Your love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). He wants us to know a far sweeter joy than any of God’s gifts – that is God Himself.

Paul now moves on from anything negative in life to every possible external cause outside of God, and says – none of them can do cause Christ to abandon us, nor us to abandon Him. Negative events can’t do it. Death can’t do it. Life itself – and nothing in life – can separate us from Him. Nor angels, principalities or powers. Satan and his demons cannot sever the relationship. They cannot cause God to be against you, or you to go against Him.

Nothing in the present, and nothing in the future, can cause God to change His mind and go against you. Nothing else in creation can do it. Paul has deliberately covered any possible angle – from God Himself, to our sin, to negative events, to anything in existence, and concludes: nothing can separate us from God’s love.

That’s another way of saying, ‘If God is for us, who or what can be against us?’ If the omnipotent God sovereignly chooses to love you in His Son, absolutely nothing can stand in His way of doing you good for all eternity. So, why should we give this our attention?

Firstly, God has gone to great lengths to reassure us of His love. If He takes the time to speak about it, and remind us, it must be important. God does so because the ground of mature love is security. No one can thrive in a relationship of any kind that lacks security. No one can grow in a relationship with a person who is antagonistic towards you.

God wants mature love from us, because it will glorify Him. The kind of love that magnifies Him to the world is the kind filled with satisfied assurance that “the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away – blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). It’s the kind of love which keeps conquering the things that conquer the unsaved, and declares, ‘God is sweeter and better and more wonderful than any of His gifts.’

When we meditate and are sure that God is for us, we can live satisfied, God-glorifying lives.