Romans 8:34

“ Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is also, at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. ”

The form τίς ὁ κατακρίνων, literally, who will be the condemning one? supposes only one judge possible, while the form of the previous question, Who will accuse? admitted a plurality of accusers. Why this difference? When accusing is the matter in question, all creatures may raise their voice. But as to judging? One only is appointed for that office, He who is called (Acts 10:42) by St. Peter “the judge of quick and dead;” comp. also Acts 17:31 and Romans 14:10; so that the question put amounts to this: Will Christ, at the day of judgment, condemn us? The verb understood must be will be, not is; comp. Romans 8:33; Romans 8:35. The negative answer arises from the following enumeration of the acts done by Christ in our behalf. There would be a contradiction between this series of merciful interpositions and a final condemnation. It has excited surprise that when saying Christ died, Paul did not add for us. But he is not speaking here of the death of Christ from the viewpoint of expiation; in this respect it was already implied in the answer to the previous question, “It is God that justifieth.” The death of Christ is mentioned here from the same standpoint as in chap. 6, implying, for the man who appropriates it, death to sin. The article ὁ, literally, the (one who died), reminds us that one only could condemn us, but that it is that very one who died that we might not be obliged to do it. The resurrection is likewise mentioned from the same point of view as in chap. 6, as the principle whereby a new life is communicated to believers, even the life of Christ Himself, of which, when once justified, we are made partakers (Ephesians 2:5-6).

His sitting at the right hand of God naturally follows, first as the principle of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and then as having put into the hands of Christ the government of the world and the direction of all the events of our life.

Finally, by His intercession we are assured of His precious interposition at such moments of spiritual weakness, as that in reference to which He declared to Peter: “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” How, with such support, should the Christian not become the conqueror of the sin which still cleaves to him, and how should he not succeed in presenting himself before the judgment-seat in a state which will not dishonor his Lord? This is what the apostle had called (Romans 8:10), “being saved by His life,” in contrast to “being reconciled by His death” (same verse).

After the example of Erasmus, Meyer divides the questions and answers contained in this passage quite differently. According to him, the words: Who will be the condemner? still form part of the answer to the question: Who will accuse? (Romans 8:33), as if it were: “Since God justifieth, who then will condemn?” Then follows a second interrogation introduced by the affirmations: Christ died, etc., affirmations terminating in the conclusion expressed anew, Romans 8:35, in the interrogative form: Who will separate? that is to say: “who then will separate us?” But this grouping of questions and answers seems to me inadmissible, for the following reasons: 1. The question: Who will condemn? cannot be the reproduction (negatively) of the previous question: Who will accuse? For accusing and condemning are two entirely different functions; the one belongs to everybody, the other to one only. 2. Λ then would be indispensable in the two questions: who shall condemn (Romans 8:34)? and who shall separate (Romans 8:35)? intended, according to Meyer, to express the two conclusions. 3. The question: Who shall separate (Romans 8:35)? is so far from being intended to express the conclusion from what precedes, that it finds its answer in all that follows, and particularly in the words of Romans 8:39, which close the whole passage: Nothing shall separate us. 4. This same question: Who shall separate? is followed by a long enumeration of the sufferings calculated to separate the believer from his Saviour, which absolutely prevents us from taking this question as expressing a conclusion.

A more seducing proposition is that of the expositors who, after taking the words Θεὸς ὁ δικαιῶν interrogatively: God who justifieth? give the same turn to Romans 8:34: “Who is he that shall condemn? Will it be Christ, He who died, who”...? This form has something lively and piquant; and if it applied only to a single question, one might be tempted to hold by it. But the series of questions which would then succeed one another in the same interrogative, and almost ironical sense, does not seem to us to be compatible with the profound feeling of this whole passage.

The numerous variants (Romans 8:34) which we have indicated in the note have no importance. The name Jesus, added to the title Christ, by several Mjj., is in thorough keeping with the context; for in what follows there are summed up the phases of His existence as a historical person. It is the same with the καί, also, in the second and third proposition. It may even be said that the καί of the third does not admit of any doubt.

The apostle has defied accusers; their voice is silenced by the sentence of justification which covers believers. He has asked if at the last day the judge will not condemn, and he has seen sin, the object of condemnation, disappear from the believer's life before the work of the crucified and glorified Christ. It remains to be known whether some hostile power will not succeed in violently breaking the bond which unites us to the Lord, and on which both our justification and sanctification rest. By this third question he reaches the subject treated in the last place, in this very chapter, from Romans 8:18: τὰ παθήματα, the sufferings of this present time; and thus it is that in the three questions of this passage the entire Epistle is really summed up. It is clearly seen how the logical form does not for an instant slip from the mind of Paul, even at the time when the most overflowing feeling charges his pen.