Romans 8:1 In the verses before us three points are touched on regarding the gospel as God's power to sanctify. These are: (1) The preliminary work which had to be done by the coming of Christ, or the basis laid in the life and death of our Lord with a view to our being sanctified. Next, (2) wherei... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:8 Man's Inability to Please God. I. How comes it to pass that man in his natural state cannot please God? We reply that the very fact of our being creatures of God, as we undoubtedly are, places us under an irreversible obligation to consecrate our every power and talent to God, whether o... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:11 The Beginning of the Redemption of the Body Here. I. The first point which it is needful to consider is the actual degeneracy of the body of man through his yielding it to the uses of sin. What might have been the condition of man's physical frame had Adam remained in a state of purity... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:12 St. Paul is telling us here that there are two masters, either of whom we may serve, but one or other of whom we must serve. Christ is one, sin is the other. Christ is the Lord of our spirits. If we claim Him for our Lord and serve Him, then we must live as if we were spiritual beings,... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:12 From Present Life to Future Glory. I. The leading of the Holy Spirit is no leading at all unless it be efficacious. If we are led by the Spirit, that means that to some extent we are day by day amending our ways, exerting ourselves successfully to do right, and making substantial progr... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:15 The Thought of God the Stay of the Soul. I. The thought of God is the happiness of man; for though there is much besides to serve as subject of knowledge, or motive for action, or means of excitement, yet the affections require a something more vast and more enduring than anything creat... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:16 The Evidence of Christian Sonship. I. The evidence of sonship its nature. In illustrating this there are two points to be considered the ground on which that evidence is founded; the manner in which it rises in the soul. In inquiring into the first of these let us carefully mark two thi... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:17 I. First, the text tells us, No inheritance without sonship. In general terms, spiritual blessings can only be given to those who are in a certain spiritual condition. Always and necessarily the capacity or organ of reception precedes and determines the bestowment of blessings. The ligh... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:18 The Groans of Creation. I. In trying to understand the several voices which make up this chorus of expectation, we must commence with the dumb companion of our hope, the physical creation. II. Deep in the constitution of our present earth, and continuous along its whole past history,... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:19 The Freedom of the Regenerate Will. The plain meaning of this text is, that the whole world, conscious of its disinheritance, is crying aloud for the Spirit of adoption, which is even now about to be shed abroad. The nations are teeming with gifts of secret grace which shall be gathered... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:19 I. The groaning creation. We are surrounded by the evidences of a conflicting existence, a state of being not all evil, certainly; certainly not all of God. All things about us show the wrestlings of two orders of things two orders of spirits, who find on our earth their battle-ground a... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:22 Groans of Unrenewed and Renewed Nature. I. All things bear about them strange tokens of good and evil. Each pictures to us some part of the glory of their Maker, each of our vanity. They minister to us, only by their corruption; they live, only to die. Seeds grow not, but by perishing;... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:23 The Aspirations of a Christian Soul. Consider: I. The nature of Christian aspirations. There are two points to be illustrated here. (1) The fact that the firstfruits of the Spirit are groaning for our full adoption. The Spirit reveals to us our adoption (_a_) by revealing the love of... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:23 Waiting in Hope. I. The unintelligent creatures wait, but not in hope. They travail as in pain with the burden of a future birth, of which they themselves are ignorant. We know what we wait for. The sons of God possess already an earnest of their coming inheritance. II. Sober this hop... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:24 Eternal Life. I. "We are saved by hope," says St. Paul: "but hope that is seen is not hope." This is the great contrast which runs through the New Testament. Indeed, scientific proof is just what, in the very nature of the case, religion does not admit of. What we mean by scientific pro... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:26 The Spirit the Help to Prayer. The highest gift of God is that which is for all alike. We need the Spirit for all the works we have to do. We can speak no true, honest, sound word unless we ask Him to teach us what we shall say and how we shall say it. I. What are we to do when we fee... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:26 The Intercession of the Spirit. I. We have here the reality of prayer confirmed. Paul was a man of truth and soberness, free from superstition and fanatical weakness. He knew of what he was speaking, and he was sure that the Romans would know it too. It was for no inner circle of enthu... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:28 I. St. Paul believes that there is a purpose, an end, towards which events are tending. It looks at first sight like a faith rather than the conclusion of an argument. Reason alone, it has been said, might arrive at an opposite conclusion. How can we see a providential guidance, a Divine... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:28 I. Five Divine acts, through each of which in regular succession the purpose of salvation advances to its accomplishment, are linked by St. Paul into one golden chain, of which one end is let down out of the unknown past, and the other returns to lose itself in the unknown future. II.... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:31 There are Three Stages in this Challenge of Faith. I. Who shall our accuser be? Nothing will stop the accuser's mouth, but the one mighty act of God's sovereign grace by which He acquits and justifies the sinner. II. The adversary may accuse; condemn, he dare not. For Jesus, the Judge... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:34 Mysteries in Religion The Ascension. I. Christ's Ascension to the right hand of God is marvellous, because it is a sure token that heaven is a certain fixed place, and not a mere state. That bodily presence of the Saviour which the apostles handled is not here; it is elsewhere it is in... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:37 The Gain of the Christian Conquerors. I. Its nature. "We are more than conquerors." As I have said, the phrase implies that in the conquest itself is something greater than mere conquest it is its own reward. To overcome temptation is better than to have had no temptation to grapple wit... [ Continue Reading ]
Romans 8:38 I. To live by the doctrine of Easter is to make that foresight of another world the standard by which we measure this world. Think of all pleasures, of all solicitations, of all pursuits as you will think of them then. A few years more, and how utterly indifferent you will be to the chie... [ Continue Reading ]