Do you see that here he shows very clearly that he is speaking to those who are suffering? His speech is almost as follows: if we were deemed worthy of such blessings at the time when we were enemies, then how much greater blessings shall we be deemed worthy of after our justification and glorification? And if God is for us, who is against us? Even if the whole world were to rise against us, the wisdom of God will turn this uprising into our salvation and glory.
Rom. 8:32. He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
I leave aside, he reasons, the rest of what I mentioned before, that is, that God justified, that He glorified us. Consider that He did not spare "His own Son," that is, the Only-begotten, the beloved, Who is of His essence (for there are sons of God adopted through baptism), but delivered Him up for us, delivered Him up for all, that is, the noble, the ignoble, the glorious, the insignificant, delivered Him up not simply, but to death. How then will He not also give us all things? He who gave the Master, would He not give the remaining gifts? Therefore, if He does not give something, it does not follow that He does not give at all. So do not desire deliverance too eagerly when you are afflicted for Christ, for you will receive what you desire when He gives it.
Rom. 8:33. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
Since believers encountered from the Jews, among other trials, also the reproach that they had easily changed and instantly converted to Christianity, he says: God has chosen you, so who shall bring a charge against God's chosen ones? If a human craftsman selects something, no one will find fault with him. So who will find fault with God's choice?
Rom. 8:33. God justifies them.
Rom. 8:34. Who condemns? Christ Jesus died, but also rose again.
He did not say: God forgives sins, but what is far more important, God justifies. Therefore, let us fear neither those who tempt us nor those who revile us. God has chosen and justified us, and Christ, who died for us and even rose again, intercedes for us. Who then shall condemn us, who have been deemed worthy of such glory?
Rom. 8:34. He is also at the right hand of God, and He also intercedes for us.
He said "intercedes for us" to show Christ's love for us, that is, that although Christ fulfilled the dispensation in the flesh, He did not cease His love for mankind toward us, but advocates on our behalf. This is what "intercedes" means. Such an expression in no way diminishes the glory of the Only-Begotten. He first said: "He is at the right hand of God" (this is a sign of His majesty), which is why he added: "intercedes," showing by this nothing other than, as has been said, His love for us. And of the Father it is said: "as though God Himself were exhorting through us" (2 Cor. 5:20). Is God's glory diminished because He entreats? On the contrary, this serves as a sign of His ineffable care for us. Some understood the words "intercedes for us" in this way: since He bore a body and did not lay it aside, as the Manichaeans babble, this very thing is the advocacy and intercession before the Father; for, looking upon this, the Father remembers His love for mankind, by which His Son took on a body, and is thus inclined toward mercy and compassion. Paul says this because, as I have remarked many times, he wants to encourage those who are suffering and show them that the Spirit also intercedes for us, and the Father did not spare His own Son for our sake, but justified and glorified us, and the Son advocates on our behalf. Therefore you must neither despair nor lose heart.
Rom. 8:35. Who shall separate us from the love of God: tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Having shown the ineffable love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit toward us, he exclaims as if by divine inspiration: "Who shall separate us from the love of God?" He who is so loved and has been deemed worthy of such providence, nothing can separate him from this love. By the names of tribulation and distress he encompassed everything that can cause afflictions, even though he did not enumerate them one by one.
Rom. 8:36. For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Lest they should consider afflictions and tribulations a cessation of God's love, he brings forward the words of the prophet who foretold about them and showed that endurance or dying every day for the glory of God constitutes the greatest consolation, which endurance or consolation comes by free will, because for nature it is impossible. And to be put to death means to be offered as a sacrifice to God. This is precisely what he indicates when he says: "as sheep destined for slaughter." Just as sheep do not resist when they are slaughtered, so also do we.
Rom. 8:37. But in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us.
Having said before that we are being put to death, the apostle, lest anyone grow faint thinking in human terms, offers encouragement, and does not say: we conquer, but: "we more than conquer," that is, with ease, without toils and sweat, and moreover through the very means by which they plot against us. For the most perfect victory consists in prevailing at the very time when we are driven out and persecuted. Therefore, do not lose faith, because God assists us, and not only does He assist, but He has also loved us. Therefore there is nothing surprising in the fact that we easily prevail in the midst of afflictions themselves.
Rom. 8:38. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom. 8:39. neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
He first said that God loved us, and then speaks of his own love for God, so that no one would think that he is exalting himself. We, he reasons, are so bound to the love of God that not only can the calamities inseparable from this life not tear us away from it, but even if some tyrant were to threaten with future death consisting in execution, or promise an unending life in order to thus divert us from God, he would not succeed in the least. And what do you tell me about kings and tyrants? Neither angels, nor all the heavenly powers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, that is, what is in heaven, nor depth, that is, what is in the earth, nor glory, nor dishonor can turn us away from that love.
By height some understand the Kingdom of Heaven, and by depth — the loss of it. Even if there were some other creature, whether visible or apprehended by the mind, even that would not draw me away from that love. He expressed himself this way not because angels draw people away from Christ, but by way of supposition and out of a strong desire to show the highest degree of love for God — not the love of which the Jews boast, but the love that Christians have; for although the Jews also say that they love God, they do not love Him in Christ Jesus, because they do not believe in Christ.