Romans 8:33

f. The punctuation here is a very difficult problem: see the text and margin of R.V. The reminiscence of Isaiah 50:8 f. in Romans 8:33 makes it more difficult; for it suggests that the normal structure is that of an affirmation followed by a question, whereas Paul begins with a question to which the affirmation (with at least a trace of Isaiah's language in it) is an answer. It is even possible to read every clause interrogatively, though that is less effective. τίς ἐγκαλέσει κατὰ ἐκλεκτῶν θεοῦ; who shall bring a charge against persons who are God's chosen? The absence of the article (cf. ὑπὲρ ἁγίων, Romans 8:27) brings out the character in which the persons in question figure, not their individual personality. For the word see Colossians 3:12; 2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1; for the thing cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:4; Ephesians 1:4; John 15:16. It describes Christians as persons who owe their standing as such to the act of God's grace. All Christians are conscious that this is the truth about their position: they belong to God, because He has taken them for His own. To say that the word designates “not those who are destined for final salvation, but those who are ‘summoned' or ‘selected' for the privilege of serving God and carrying out His will” (S. and H.), is to leave the rails of the Apostle's thought altogether. There is nothing here (Romans 8:28-30) about the privilege of serving God and carrying out His will; the one thing Paul is concerned with is the security given by the eternal love of God that the work of salvation will be carried through, in spite of all impediments, from foreknowledge to final glory. The ἐκλεκτοὶ θεοῦ are those who ought to have such security: they should have a faith and an assurance proportioned to the love of God. Paul is one of them, and because he is, he is sure, not that he is called to serve God, but that nothing can ever separate him from God's love in Christ. The question τίς ἐγκαλέσει is best answered by taking both the following clauses together: “It is God that justifieth: who is he that shall condemn?” (cf. Isaiah 50:8 f.). But many make τίς ὁ κατακρινῶν a new question, and find the answer in Romans 8:34 : Χριστὸς [Ἰησοῦς] ὁ ἀποθανών = the only person who can condemn is the Judge, viz., Christ, but He is so far from condemning that He has done everything to deliver us from condemnation. What Christian, Paul seems to ask, can speak of κατάκριμα with his eye on Christ, who died for our sins? μᾶλλον δὲ ἐγερθεὶς [ἐκ νεκρῶν]: cf. Galatians 4:9; and chap. Romans 4:25. The correction in μᾶλλον is formal (Weiss): Paul does not mean that the resurrection is more important than the cross; he improves upon an expression which has not conveyed all that was in his mind. Our position depends upon Jesus Christ who died, nay rather, over whom death no more has dominion (Romans 6:9), who is at God's right hand (this phrase, which describes Christ's exaltation as a sharing in the universal sovereignty of God, is borrowed from Psalms 110:1, and is oftener used in the N.T. than any other words of the Old), who also makes intercession on our behalf. ὂς καὶ ἐντυγχάνει : a solemn climax is marked by the repetition of ὃς, and by the καὶ which deliberately adds the intercession to all that has gone before. The Christian consciousness, even in an apostle, cannot transcend this. This is Paul's final security the last ground of his triumphant assurance: Jesus Christ, at God's right hand, with the virtue of His atoning death in Him, pleads His people's cause. cf. Hebrews 9:24; Hebrews 7:25; 1 John 2:1 f.