“If God Be for Us…”

Page 800 in the church Bibles, you will find Romans chapter 8, and we’re going to read from verse 31 to the end of the chapter.

Romans 8:31:

“What, then, shall we say in response to this? 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? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died―more than that, who was raised to life―is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Thanks be to God for his Word. We pray before we turn to the Scriptures together:

We thank you, Lord, for the privilege of gathering in freedom, for being able to open our Bibles. And we pray now that you will grant to us the grace needed to think aright, to understand, to believe, to obey, to apply your Word as we look out on the prospect of the week that is before us. Hear us, O God, as we come to you in your Son’s name and for his sake. Amen.

I don’t watch very much television at all, because I don’t like most of it, and I don’t like commercials—and also because many of the programs have such a lack of resolution to them that I don’t know where I am. I am a simple soul. And I confess this morning to a certain nostalgia when I think, for example, of Perry Mason. Now there was a program―the longest-running TV detective series in the 1950s and ’60s―concerning this fictional character who was successful every single week in defending his client. I don’t ever remember watching a program when his client was not set free. The individual had usually been put on trial for murder. And if you ever watched those programs, you will recall that they led always to the closing argument, which inevitably brought resolution and brought freedom. And you could go to your bed quite contentedly after that, because, after all, right had triumphed over wrong, light had shone into the darkness, and so on―unlike so many of the perplexing things that are offered up to us today, whereby confusion reigns.

I begin in that way because in some senses, these concluding verses of Paul in Romans 8 represent his closing argument. In a masterful way, unlike Perry Mason, Paul isn’t establishing the innocence of the believer, but rather, he’s demonstrating that the believer is set free because another has borne the punishment that we deserve. That is a vital distinction. In Perry Mason, the attorney was able to secure a verdict of not guilty. In the case of the Christian, the verdict is guilty. How then may the guilty go free? Answer: because another has borne the punishment that we, the guilty, deserve.

And Paul, with an impressive logic that is akin to his legal background, establishes this truth for us as he draws things to a close. He has pointed out that in Christ we have a new identity. Verse 1 of the chapter: “There is [therefore] now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” He is not writing or suggesting that we are set free from condemnation willy-nilly, that everybody has now been set free―because Jesus existed and died on the cross, everybody is automatically forgiven. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying that the identity of the believer is in Christ. That new identity reveals itself in a new mentality. And back in verse 5, for example, he points out that “those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” In other words, that’s their mentality. Prior to that, before becoming a Christian, our minds were set on what our nature desires. New identity, new mentality. New mentality, new destiny. And that is why this chapter is framed on the outset by “no condemnation” and in the conclusion with “no separation.” And the glory of it is in this: that God purposes to complete the work which his grace begins.

When a person becomes a Christian, a new Christian will almost inevitably ask, sooner rather than later, “I understand what Jesus has accomplished for me on the cross, and I realize that I have begun, if you like, the race of the Christian life. But I’m not sure that I’m ever going to be able to run this marathon all the way through to the finishing tape.” And it is then that we want to turn that young believer, he or she, to the Bible, and perhaps even to Romans chapter 8, or maybe to Philippians 1:6, where Paul affirms the same truth in writing to the Christians in Philippi. You remember that verse? “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”[1]

And so, what he’s doing here is encouraging his readers to think. By the time he gets to chapter 12, he is encouraging them to “be transformed by the renewing” of their “mind[s].”[2] In other words, this whole new way of thinking about things must characterize the life of the Christian. And contrary to the suggestion that is fairly routine that a Christian is somebody who has lost their mind, or a Christian is someone who can only embrace these truths if they’re prepared to sacrifice their mind, the New Testament is saying no, the Christian is the one who is making use of their mind.

God purposes to complete the work which his grace begins.

And so, he is arguing on the strength of what he’s already said. Verse 31: “What, then, shall we say in response to this?” In response to what? In response to all that has preceded him. He has just gone through this glorious section that we saw last time concerning the electing love of God, the call of God, the foreknowledge of God, the work of predestination, justifying his people and glorifying them in Christ. And so it is that he says, “Because all of this is the case, I want to now bring my closing argument to you by asking a number of basic questions and by making some bold declarations.” We won’t get to the bold declarations―indeed, we’ll only get to a couple of the questions this morning. But I want to say again to you how important it is for us to think, how vitally important it is for us to realize that our minds matter. That our minds matter.

From the psalmist we had read for us this morning that the gods, who are no gods at all, they “cannot see,” they “cannot hear,” they “cannot speak,” and those who worship those gods become “like them.”[3] And I don’t want to anticipate tonight very much, but I stood on Monday with a friend in this amazing Hindu temple towering over the landscape of Delhi and watched as person after person came and laid hold in little shrines of the monkey god or of the elephant god or of Krishna―gods that the Bible says “cannot see,” “cannot hear,” “cannot speak.” And that very mindlessness is in direct contrast to what we find when we read the Bible. Don’t let anybody tell you that the key to the Christian life is somehow in disengaging your mind. It is faith seeking understanding. And we may come to the Scriptures rigorously and continuously and with our questions, and we may discover that God answers them according to his purposes.

So, look then at the second half of verse 31. Here’s his first great question: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” “If God is for us, who can be against us?” If the God who calls us and justifies us is on our side, then what can come against us to unsettle us? The psalmist put it in this way: “If the Lord had not been on our side, then our enemies would’ve prevailed against us.”[4] And all the way through the Old Testament, as I’m going to show you in a moment, you have this recurring theme: if God is for us, then the opposition which inevitably comes against us is ultimately of no account. It is not irrelevant. It is not unreal. But what Paul is arguing for here is a kind of thinking that will give to us―as we seek to follow Jesus and believe the Bible―it will give to us a sense of proportion or a sense of perspective.

We’ve sung again this morning about the fact that “the name of the Lord is a strong tower” and “the righteous run [in]to it and are safe.”[5] Yesterday morning at our elders’ meeting―not because we are here this morning in terms of our study, but somewhat arbitrarily―we read together yesterday morning as a group from Psalm 144. And Psalm 144 begins as follows:

Praise be to the Lord my Rock,
 who trains my hands for war,
 [and] my fingers for battle.
He is my loving God and my fortress,
 my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
 who subdues peoples under me.

You got all those nouns of strength and of might and of victory and of power. Then he says,

O Lord, what is man that you care for him,
 the son of man that you think of him?
Man is like a breath;
 his days are like a fleeting shadow.

You see what he’s doing?

[Spurgeon] said we cannot understand ourselves, it is impossible to understand humanity, without first we have engaged in a “devout musing … of the Godhead.”[6] That’s how he put it. And after a devout musing upon the Godhead, we may then descend to a consideration of ourselves. You see how counterintuitive that is to twenty-first-century Western culture? Twenty-first-century culture says, “No, we must first consider ourselves, and if we have any time left over, then we can give some consideration to God or whatever that might mean.” No: “You are; therefore, I am. You are eternal; I am transient. You are the Creator; I am the created one. You are King; I am your subject. You are Lord; I bow before you.”

You see how important it is that we understand that when the Bible speaks in terms of God, it’s not speaking of a cosmic principle. It’s not speaking of a notion of spirituality that is inside of us―that we have our own god or that we are somehow god. That is the Hindu greeting to one another―not the one I gave to you, but namaste. Namaste. They greet one another as we come and go, and they’re saying, “I worship the god in you.” “I worship the god in you.” They’re not saying, “I worship Yahweh, the creator of the ends of the earth.” “You have your own little god. He’s in you. I worship that.” Well, if you’ve only got your own little god in you, and you read this verse and you try and make sense of it, you are up a veritable gum tree. “If God [be] for us, who can be against us?” No, we’re talking about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run [in]to it and are safe.”

Let me illustrate this in the Old Testament just for a moment or two—and I hope I won’t tax your patience in doing so. This is the way my mind works. As soon as I was thinking about this, it took me back to lots of Sunday school stories. And I’m so grateful for Sunday school. I’m a big fan of Sunday school teachers. I’m so thankful for all the work they’re doing right now with our children, even as I speak, because I am the beneficiary of the work of others who did things and bore my wriggling nonsense Sunday by Sunday in order to teach me the Bible. So, let me just take you a couple of places.

Numbers chapter 13. Numbers 13, the story of the exploration of Canaan on the part of the spies that were sent up by Moses. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, if you’re using a church Bible and you’re wondering. You get to Numbers, you go to chapter 13. It’s pretty easy. And when you get there, you discover that God has told Moses that the Israelites are going to possess the land of Canaan. And because they’re going to possess the land of Canaan, he would like some people to go up and do a reconnaissance mission. The people go up and do the reconnaissance mission, and in verse 26, they come back and give their report. They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran, and essentially, this is what they said. The majority report was this: “Um, it’s a very nice place. It has… There’s no question that it has some nice stuff. It’s a nice place. But there’s a real big problem. And the real big problem is that the people who are there are really big. They are giants, and their cities are fortified, and frankly, while we were there, we felt like grasshoppers—and indeed, in comparison to them, we looked like grasshoppers.” So the majority report of the reconnaissance committee is: “Nice place, nice idea, we don’t think we ought to go.”

In the midst of that you’ve got two characters. One is called Caleb, and the other is called Joshua. What’s wrong with these characters? “Then Caleb,” verse 30, “silenced the people before Moses and [he] said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’” Now, why did he say that? Because of Romans 8:31. “But he didn’t know Romans 8:31.” Well, he knew the principle; he just didn’t know the verse, because the verse didn’t exist.

But Caleb understood: “If God said he has this place for the Israelites, then he has this place for the Israelites. Therefore, although these people are as the majority group has reported, we should certainly go up, because we can certainly possess it, because if God be for us, who can be against us?” You see? He gets perspective! He’s not saying they’re not giants. He’s not saying it’s not fortified. He says, “Yes, it is.”

And eventually, our Sunday school teachers gave it to us in a song. And some of you are of my vintage, and you know this song. And you should be thankful that you do! The rest of you should be disappointed that you never had the benefit of it. It went like this:

Twelve men went to spy in Canaan,
(Ten were bad, and two were good.)

That’s how I had to do it.

What did they…

Then we had the binoculars that came out:

What did they see to spy in Canaan?
(Ten were bad, and two were good.)
Some saw the giants, big and tall!
Some saw the grapes in clusters fall.

We used to do that. We liked that as boys. It reminded us of girls. “Some saw the grapes… Some saw the grapes…” The Sunday school teacher would go, “Cut that out, Begg! That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

Some saw the grapes in clusters fall,
And two saw that God was in it all.

Two said, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” They’re not denying the existence of the trouble. They’re not denying the reality of the fortification. They’re simply saying, “One plus God is a majority.” And that runs the whole way through the Old Testament.

Let’s go from Numbers into Joshua. We’ll do just another one. Joshua chapter 11, and you’ve got the same kind of idea. We’ll ignore Gideon and the walls of Jericho coming down and all the other ones that we love. And in Joshua and in chapter 11… I just turned to Judges; that’s reason for the pause. Joshua chapter 11. You’ll have to do this on your own, because we don’t have the time to do this, but Joshua 11 begins with the story of all these people―all the Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Hivites. When you read the Old Testament like that, and you’re reading through the Bible, you say, “Why do we have to keep reading about all this? What is the purpose of this?” It is to show the insurmountable challenge that faced the people of God. The writer is not just loading up his essay, as it were. He is bringing to bear upon the mind of the reader the fact that, verse 5, “all these kings joined forces”; verse 4: “They came out with all their troops and a large number of horses and chariots―[and] a huge army, as numerous as the sand on the seashore.” In other words, we got a big problem here. A huge problem, you might say.

Verse 6: “The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Do not be afraid of them, because by this time tomorrow I will hand all of them over to Israel, slain. You are to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots.’” Now, this is just a passing gaze, so we needn’t camp here; we can’t camp here. But you will notice the juxtaposition between the sovereignty of God and the fulfillment of his purpose and the activity of man in the fulfillment of his purpose: “I will hand them all over to Israel, slain.” It does not then say that Joshua told the people, “Okay, we’re all going to have a siesta and lie down in the grass and wait for this to happen.” No: “I will hand them over slain, and you will hamstring their horses.” God accomplishing his sovereign purpose and using his people in the accomplishment of that.

When you read the Old Testament and follow it through, you find that this comes again and again. The psalmist makes it clear in the psalm that I just read from Psalm 144, in the kind of catechetical approach that is there in the Twenty-Fourth Psalm—which, in the metrical psalms, when you sing the Psalms from verse 7 through to the end—as a boy, I used to love to hear the congregation sing, “Ye gates, lift up your heads on high.” I didn’t know what it was about, but it sounded great. “Ye doors that last for aye”—a-y-e, forever—“be lifted up, that so the King of glory enter may.” And then it was sung antiphonally. One group sang, “But who is he that is the King?” And the rest of the congregation sang, “The King of Glory, it is he.” And then together they sang, “The Lord of Hosts and strong in might and great in victory.” Oh! As a boy I said, “If this is the God that is on my side, this is wonderful!” This is the God who arms himself for battle. This is the God who secures victory.

When you read all of this in the Old Testament, don’t go wrong. Because remember, the Bible is a book about Jesus. And what the psalmist describes there was part of the songs that Jesus sang. Jesus sang in church. Jesus sang the Psalms. Jesus sang, “You’re the one who arms me for battle. You’re the one who secures my fingers for victory.”[7] And when he hung upon the cross, his fingers had been secured for victory. When he rose triumphant from death, he was the victorious warrior King. Lift up the gates! Open up the doors! The King’s coming in. Who is this King? He’s the Lord, mighty in battle.

What a shame that contemporary Christianity―it’s really in my lifetime―has turned Jesus into some kind of milquetoast character. The pressure of political correctness has prevented us from saying, “Jesus is a warrior King. Jesus is a mighty triumphant one.” No, we have a Jesus who’s sort of, you know—if you meet him, he’s probably trying to bring your carriage, your trolley, back to Giant Eagle, you know? It’s “Oh, let me help you with that.” He’s a sort of nice Jesus, a tender Jesus. In the words of Dale Ralph Davis, he’s a Jesus who “comes to us reeking of hand cream.”[8] In other words, he’s a sort of effeminate Jesus. The people look at him and say, “Look at this guy!” Do you think for a moment that he worked in a carpenter’s workshop, that he hammered and chiseled and worked his way, and somehow or another said, “Could I have some of the hand cream please?” No! He’s not that! He’s a victorious warrior King!

But we’re afraid to sing,

Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.[9]

If we don’t know it’s a war here, come with me to Delhi. I will show you the war! All hell is let loose against the believers there, and in Nepal, and in Afghanistan. And there is no reason for these young men to whom I will introduce you this evening to give up their lives and their home for a Jesus that uses hand cream. But they may give their lives up for a Christ who is a warrior King.

And that is the one who is for us. He is the one who has taken on the Evil One and defeated him. He is the one who has taken on death and triumphed over it. He is the one who has taken on sin in all of its ugliness and borne it in himself. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” He’s not saying there’s nobody against us. He’s saying that ultimately, everything that is against us pales before the significance of the fact that God is on our side.

Now, back to Paul and out of the Old Testament. He is wonderful in his logic. He says, “Let me prove it to you. If God be for us, who can be against us? Let me give you the evidence,” he says, “of God’s grace to us. First of all, he did not spare his own Son.” “His own Son.” It’s the same phrase as he used in verse 3 of the chapter. It is the Pauline equivalent of the Johannine “only begotten Son.”[10] Paul is distinguishing between those who are sons by adoption, of whom we read in verse 15, and this eternal and incomparable Christ.

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son…” In other words, when Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, “Lord, remove this cup from me,”[11] the Father said no. He didn’t spare his own Son. And Jesus drank the cup of suffering and the cup of pain and the cup of bitterness in order that we might drink the cup of blessing―so that when we gather around the Lord’s Table, Christ has drunk that bitter cup in order that we might take this cup as a cup of blessing.

He advances his argument: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all…” “Gave him up for us all.” We love to sing the hymn, don’t we?

How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That he should give his only Son
To make a wretch his treasure.[12]

Now, of course, that’s where some of you have got off the trolley bus, isn’t it? Because you don’t like that. And if you know any wretches, you know it surely isn’t you! And so you’ve concluded that whatever he’s doing for wretches seems like a nice idea, but it’s entirely irrelevant in your case.

See, the work of God is to show us our wretchedness so that we might then understand the wonder of somebody dying in the place of a wretch. Oh, someone might die for a good man―might be prepared to die for a good man. But here is the wonder: that even when we were sinners, Christ died for us.[13] That’s what Paul is driving home here. He “gave him up for us all.”

Jesus drank the cup of suffering, and the cup of pain, and the cup of bitterness in order that we might drink the cup of blessing.

Now, to think for even a moment of Jesus as an unwilling participant in the plan of the Father is nothing less than heresy. And I mention that because some of you are up to date with current theological trends, some of you read journals, and you pay attention to things, and you’re aware of the fact that there is a whole reemphasis of the notion that somehow or another the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is a bad and a dark and an unbiblical concept. And the idea is that it is a horrendous thing to think that somehow or another the Father would punish his Son. Well, of course, it is a great misunderstanding of the role of the Son in being given up for us all.

John Stott, who is very close to the end of his life now by all reports―most recently from London―has done a great service to the church in all of his teaching and writing. And in his book The Cross of Christ, he gets to this in just a wonderfully purple passage. And I’ll read it for you, and you can go find it for yourself when you choose to buy the book. This is what he says:

When we talk of the Father’s plan and the Son’s sacrifice, we should not think of the Father laying on the Son an ordeal he was unwilling to bear nor of the Son extracting from the Father a salvation he was unwilling to bestow. It is true that the Father gave the Son. It is equally true that the Son gave himself. We mustn’t speak of God punishing Jesus or of Jesus persuading the Father. We must never make Christ the object of God’s punishment or God the object of Christ’s persuasion, for the Father and Son are subjects, not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners.[14]

That’s why I say to you all the time that it’s helpful just to keep in mind that what God the Father planned, Christ the Son procured, and what Christ as Son procured, the Holy Spirit applies to the lives of those who trust in him. And that is at the heart of Paul’s letter to Rome.

Well, we’ll go one step further, and then we will stop. “What, then, shall we say in response to all that I’ve just written? First of all, if God is for us, who can be against us? After all, he didn’t spare his own Son, but he gave him up for us all. Here’s another question,” he says: “How will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

Now, the logic is unassailable. If God has given us the greatest and the best in Jesus, he will not withhold all of the blessings of grace that will complete his work in the lives of his children. He’s not going to give to us his very best in the Lord Jesus and then withhold all that is necessary for us. That’s why sometimes, when we sing the hymn “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!” we then sing, “O what a foretaste of glory divine!”[15] Because in Christ, we have everything! People will come around and tell you, “Well, you get started in Jesus, but we can add all these things. And if you come to us and listen to us, we can help you there.” Tell them just to go and fly a kite! Tell them that God has not given up his Son for us and then would deprive us of all these other things.

Also, don’t go wrong with the phrase “all things” and start silly stuff about naming and claiming the things that you want—you know, “He gives us all things, and if it says, he gives us all things, then that must mean he gives us all things. So I would like a large house in the Bahamas, and I would like this, and I would like… Because, it’s all things.” That’s just silliness, isn’t it?

If God has given us the greatest and the best in Jesus, he will not withhold all of the blessings of grace that will complete his work in the lives of his children.

John Murray helps us when he gives us this wonderful sentence: “‘All things’ is an obvious example of an expression in universal terms used in a restrictive sense.”[16] “An expression in universal terms used in a restrictive sense.” In other words, what Paul is talking about is the benefits and the blessings of grace that are part and parcel of the great package that God gives to us in Jesus. There’s nothing missing from the box! If you are in Christ, you have all you need. You have all you need! That’s why the hymn writer, again, gets it when he says, “Thou, O Christ, art all I want; more than all in thee I find.”[17] “You’re all I want! I’ve got everything I need.”

Christmas Day will be upon us soon, filled with all kinds of opportunities and many, many memories. Some of my most disappointing Christmas Days―and there weren’t many―were those occasions when, in pulling back the wrapping paper, I discovered that I had received one of the gifts for which I was desperately hoping―often a car that had a measure of mobility to it, at least potentially so. Because the dark shadow fell over the proceedings when I noticed the small print at the bottom of the box. And you remember what it said: “Batteries not included.” It was like a curse! Everything is closed, at least for twenty-four hours, and here I’ve got this fantastic thing, but I can’t do a thing with it, ’cause it’s absent the necessary components to enjoy it.

Every so often I meet people, and that’s what they think Christianity is―that somehow or another, they got started, but there’s no batteries included with it. You just got to go out and try and find batteries. You’ve got to try and do it yourself. You’ve got to try and keep going yourself. You just got to struggle on and finally make it. Listen: in Jesus, you get the whole package! “There is [therefore] now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” Set “free from the law of sin and death,”[18] set free to righteousness. Not set free to sinlessness.

“Well, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it to the end.” Yes, you will! Why? Because,

The work [that] his goodness began,
The arm of his strength will complete;
His promise is [Yes] and amen,
And [it] never was forfeited yet.[19]

I hope this is helpful to you. And I hope that anyone who’s listening for whom this is alien territory might come and meet with us in the prayer room so that we could talk more concerning it, or give you a little booklet that speaks in a way that you could read easily in the afternoon about this great story—and also that no one will misunderstand this vital point. To quote Calvin in conclusion: all that Christ has done for us is of no value to us so long as we remain outside of Christ.[20] These are the benefits and blessings of those who are in Christ Jesus.

Question: Does that phrase describe and include you? And if not, would you not lay hold upon the promise of God, even today and in these dying moments, and say, “Lord Jesus Christ, I actually believe this. Help me with the bits I find hard to believe.” And God will honor the promises of his Word.

Let us pray:

Gracious God and Father, look upon us, we pray, in your mercy and grace, and affirm for us the truths that we’ve been considering. Because when we think about the challenges that face us and all that life throws at us, when we think about the accusations of the Evil One himself, the only way we’re going to be able to stand is to think properly and to realize all that is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to believe and to live in the light of these things. For your Son’s sake. Amen.

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[1] Philippians 1:6 (paraphrased).

[2] Romans 12:2 (NIV 1984).

[3] Psalm 115:5–6, 8; Psalm 135:16–18 (NIV 1984).

[4] Psalm 124:2−3 (paraphrased).

[5] Proverbs 18:10 (NIV 1984).

[6] Charles Spurgeon, “The Immutability of God,” New Park Street Pulpit no. 1, 1.

[7] Psalm 144:1 (paraphrased).

[8] Dale Ralph Davis, Joshua: No Falling Words (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2000), 88.

[9] Sabine Baring-Gould, “Onward, Christian Soldiers” (1864).

[10] John 3:16 (KJV).

[11] See Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42.

[12] Stuart Townend, “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” (1995).

[13] See Romans 5:7–8.

[14] John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2012), 151–52. Paraphrased.

[15] Fanny Crosby, “Blessed Assurance” (1873).

[16] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (1965; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 1:326.

[17] Charles Wesley, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” (1740).

[18] Romans 8:2 (NIV 1984).

[19] Augustus M. Toplady, “A Debtor to Mercy Alone” (1771).

[20] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.1.1.