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Who Can Be Against Us?

             What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

                Who can be against us? That question has always baffled me. If God is for us, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the angels, and the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) are all for us. Those are obvious. So is the answer to the question. Who? Lucifer and all his buddies,  the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12), Add to those all the people who have been taught to hate us, and perhaps worst of all, us. Granted, none of those are as great as those who are for us, but that’s the answer to “who can be against us.” Paul’s question makes me say, “Huh?” Maybe it’s a set-up question that he’s going to answer. That makes sense. We’ll come back to that in the next few days.

                Today’s passage continues the theme of the good father. It smacks of “My papa’s stronger than your papa!” It doesn’t matter if anyone else is against us, because He’s standing behind us. Given what the second half of the passage reminds us about what He allowed Jesus to face, we know He’s not guaranteed to protect us from all difficulty, but at the same time, if He was willing to allow Jesus, who never did anything wrong, to face what He faced on our behalf, He’s also not likely to withhold anything else that will do us good. Doing so would be like refusing to give us a dime after spending $10B on us. 

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