Romans 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul writes that there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, and contrasts living according to the flesh with living according to the Spirit, who lives in believers and testifies that they are God's children. He says the sufferings of the present time do not compare with the glory to come, that creation and believers alike groan as they wait, and that the Spirit pleads for believers when they do not know how to pray. He then traces God's foreknowing, predestining, calling, justifying and glorifying, and closes by asking who can bring a charge against God's chosen, who can condemn, and what could separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
   • Those who are in Christ Jesus do not walk according to the flesh.
   • Those who are in Christ Jesus walk according to the Spirit.
2. 8:2
   • The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free.
   • It set me free from the law of sin and death.
3. 8:3
   • The law was unable to do something.
   • The law was weak because of the flesh.
   • God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
   • God sent his own Son on account of sin.
   • God condemned sin in the flesh.
4. 8:4
   • The purpose was that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.
   • We do not walk according to the flesh.
   • We walk according to the Spirit.
5. 8:5
   • Those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
   • Those who are according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6. 8:6
   • The mind set on the flesh is death.
   • The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.
7. 8:7
   • The mind set on the flesh is enmity against God.
   • The mind set on the flesh does not submit to the law of God.
   • The mind set on the flesh is not able to submit to the law of God.
8. 8:8
   • Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9. 8:9
   • You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.
   • This holds if the Spirit of God dwells in you.
   • If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to him.
10. 8:10
    • If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin.
    • The spirit is life because of righteousness.
    • It is not specified whether this spirit is the human spirit or the Spirit of God.
11. 8:11
    • God raised Jesus from the dead.
    • If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then the one who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.
    • He will do this by his Spirit that dwells in you.
12. 8:12
    • Paul addresses his hearers as brothers.
    • We are debtors.
    • We are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13. 8:13
    • If you live according to the flesh, you will die.
    • If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14. 8:14
    • All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
15. 8:15
    • You did not receive a spirit of bondage leading again to fear.
    • You received the Spirit of adoption.
    • By that Spirit we cry, Abba, Father.
16. 8:16
    • The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit.
    • The witness is that we are children of God.
17. 8:17
    • If we are children, then we are heirs.
    • We are heirs of God.
    • We are joint-heirs with Christ.
    • This holds if we suffer with him.
    • The purpose is that we may also be glorified with him.
18. 8:18
    • Paul reckons that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory.
    • That glory is to be revealed in us.
19. 8:19
    • The creation waits with earnest expectation.
    • It waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
20. 8:20
    • The creation was subjected to futility.
    • The creation was not subjected willingly.
    • The creation was subjected because of the one who subjected it.
    • The subjection was in hope.
21. 8:21
    • The creation itself will be set free from the bondage of corruption.
    • The creation will be brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
22. 8:22
    • We know that the whole creation groans together.
    • The whole creation travails in pain together.
    • This has continued until now.
23. 8:23
    • Not only the creation groans.
    • We ourselves have the firstfruits of the Spirit.
    • We ourselves groan within ourselves.
    • We wait for the adoption.
    • The adoption is the redemption of our body.
24. 8:24
    • We were saved by hope.
    • Hope that is seen is not hope.
    • What a person sees, he does not hope for.
25. 8:25
    • If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26. 8:26
    • The Spirit likewise helps our weakness.
    • We do not know what we should pray for as we ought.
    • The Spirit itself makes intercession for us.
    • The Spirit intercedes with groanings that cannot be uttered.
27. 8:27
    • The one who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is.
    • The Spirit makes intercession for the saints.
    • The Spirit intercedes according to God.
28. 8:28
    • We know that all things work together for good to those who love God.
    • Those who love God are the called according to his purpose.
29. 8:29
    • Those whom God foreknew, he also predestined.
    • He predestined them to be conformed to the image of his Son.
    • The purpose was that the Son might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30. 8:30
    • Those whom God predestined, he also called.
    • Those whom he called, he also justified.
    • Those whom he justified, he also glorified.
31. 8:31
    • Paul asks what we shall say to these things.
    • If God is for us, no one can be against us.
32. 8:32
    • God did not spare his own Son.
    • God delivered him up for us all.
    • God will therefore also freely give us all things with him.
33. 8:33
    • Paul asks who shall bring a charge against God's elect.
    • It is God who justifies.
34. 8:34
    • Paul asks who is the one that condemns.
    • Christ died.
    • Christ is risen.
    • Christ is at the right hand of God.
    • Christ makes intercession for us.
35. 8:35
    • Paul asks who shall separate us from the love of Christ.
    • He asks whether tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword shall separate us.
36. 8:36
    • It is written that for your sake we are killed all the day long.
    • It is written that we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37. 8:37
    • In all these things we are more than conquerors.
    • We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38. 8:38
    • Paul is persuaded of what follows.
    • Neither death nor life can separate us.
    • Neither angels nor principalities nor powers can separate us.
    • Neither things present nor things to come can separate us.
39. 8:39
    • Neither height nor depth can separate us.
    • No other created thing can separate us.
    • None of these will be able to separate us from the love of God.
    • The love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

8:1

"Flesh" is Paul's shorthand all through this chapter, and it does not mean the body or skin. It means human life as it is actually lived, weak, mortal and bent on running itself, as opposed to life shaped by God's Spirit. So "walk not after the flesh" is about which of the two sets the direction, not about avoiding physical things. Note also that the earliest manuscripts end the verse at "Christ Jesus"; the clause about walking appears to have been copied in later from verse 4.

8:2

"Law" shifts meaning here. It is not the law of Moses but a governing principle or controlling power, the way we speak of the law of gravity. Two such powers are being contrasted. The manuscripts also differ over the pronoun: some read "made me free," others "set you free," others "us."

8:3

"For sin" translates a Greek phrase that is the standard Old Testament Greek term for a sin offering, the sacrifice brought to deal with a specific wrong. It can also mean simply "concerning sin." Both senses are live, and translations split between them.

8:6

"Carnal" comes from the Latin word for flesh, and in 1611 it meant simply "of the flesh," with none of the narrowly sexual sense it carries today. "Carnally minded" means having the mind set on the flesh in the sense described at verse 1.

8:7

"Enmity" is stronger than dislike. It means being an active enemy, in a settled state of hostility, the word you would use of two nations at war.

8:9

"If so be that" renders a Greek word that can mean either "if in fact" or "since, as is indeed the case." The Greek does not settle which, so the sentence can be read as a test or as a given.

8:10

Greek was written without capital letters, so "the Spirit is life" can mean either God's Spirit or the reader's own human spirit, now alive. Translators have to choose; the original does not.

8:11

"Quicken" is ordinary 1611 English for "make alive." It has nothing to do with speed. The same root survives in the old phrase "the quick and the dead," meaning the living and the dead.

8:12

"Debtors" is the language of an obligation you are legally bound to pay. Paul starts to name two parties, says we owe nothing to the flesh, and then never finishes the other half of the sentence. Readers are left to supply "but to the Spirit" from the next verse.

8:13

"Mortify" is from the Latin for "put to death," and that is all it meant in 1611. The modern sense of "embarrass" did not exist yet.

8:14

"Sons" is not a statement about gender. In this culture the son was the one who inherited, so "sons of God" is legal and financial language about who receives the estate, which is exactly where verse 17 goes. Paul switches to "children" two verses later with no change of meaning.

8:15

"Bondage" means slavery, not a lesser kind of restriction. Adoption in the Roman world was a formal legal act, often performed on an adult rather than a child, which transferred a person permanently into a new family with full standing and full inheritance rights; the old debts and obligations were canceled. "Abba" is Aramaic, the everyday household word a child or a grown son would use for his own father. Paul leaves it untranslated and then translates it, which suggests it was a familiar phrase in the churches.

8:16

The King James says "the Spirit itself" because the Greek word for spirit is grammatically neuter, and the pronoun simply agrees with it. It is a fact of Greek grammar, not a statement that the Spirit is a thing rather than a person.

8:17

Under Roman inheritance law, co-heirs each held the estate jointly rather than each taking a separate slice, so "joint-heirs" means sharing in the whole of it, not dividing it up.

8:18

"I reckon" is an accounting word: to add up and arrive at a figure. "Not worthy to be compared" continues the image, of setting two things on a balance and finding one side does not register against the other.

8:19

"The creature" in 1611 English means the whole created order, everything that has been made, not an animal. "Earnest expectation" translates a vivid Greek word for craning the head forward to watch for something coming.

8:20

"Vanity" here means emptiness or futility, the state of not arriving at what something was made for. It does not mean conceit. The text does not say who "him who hath subjected the same" is, and readers have taken it as God, as Adam, or as the one who tempted Adam; the Greek leaves it open.

8:21

"Corruption" means decay, the process by which living things break down and perish. "Bondage" again means slavery.

8:22

"Travaileth in pain" is standard 1611 English for going through the labor of childbirth. Both Greek verbs in this line carry the prefix "with," so the whole created order is groaning and laboring together, in one body.

8:23

"Firstfruits" is a farming and temple term: the first part of a harvest, brought to God as proof that the rest of the crop is real and on its way. The word functions here as a down payment. "To wit" is old English for "that is to say." "Redemption" is commercial language, the paying of a price to buy a slave out of slavery or to ransom a prisoner.

8:24

The Greek phrase can mean "we were saved by hope" or "in hope we were saved," that is, saved into a situation where something is still pending. The King James takes the first, most modern versions the second.

8:26

"Infirmities" means weakness, of any kind, not specifically illness. "Maketh intercession" is what a friend at court does: steps in and speaks on your behalf before someone who can act. The phrase "which cannot be uttered" can mean either that the groans are wordless or that they are beyond putting into speech; the Greek word allows both.

8:27

"He that searcheth the hearts" was a common Jewish way of naming God. In this idiom the heart is where a person thinks and decides, not where they feel, so searching hearts means knowing what someone truly intends. "Saints" in the King James is not a special class of exceptional Christians; it simply renders a word meaning those set apart for God, and Paul uses it for all the believers in a city, whatever their character.

8:28

The Greek here is genuinely ambiguous and some manuscripts differ. It can read "all things work together for good," with the things themselves as the actors, or "God works all things together for good," with God as the subject. Ancient copies support both. "The called" is Paul's regular term for those summoned by God, not a comment on their vocation.

8:29

"Foreknow" is literally "know beforehand," but in the Hebrew idiom behind it, to know a person often means to single them out and commit to them rather than merely to have information about them. "Predestinate" translates a verb meaning to mark out a boundary in advance, to set the limits of something before it happens. "Firstborn" is a rank as much as a birth order: the firstborn son held first place in the family and a double share of the inheritance.

8:30

"Justified" is courtroom language. It means declared to be in the right by a judge, a verdict announced about a person, rather than a description of their improvement.

8:33

"Lay any thing to the charge" is the formal act of bringing an accusation in court. "Elect" simply means chosen ones. Verses 31 to 34 are staged as a trial scene, with an accuser, a judge and a defense.

8:34

The right hand of a king was the place occupied by the second in command, the one who acted with the king's authority. "Maketh intercession" again means pleading on someone's behalf, here the role of the defense counsel in the trial scene Paul has set up.

8:35

"Tribulation" translates a word meaning pressure or crushing weight. "Nakedness" means lacking clothing you need, a standard ancient shorthand for destitution rather than a reference to shame. "Sword" here means execution or violent death at official hands; the sword was the Roman instrument of capital punishment.

8:36

The quotation is Psalm 44:22. That psalm is the complaint of people who insist they have kept faith with God and are being slaughtered anyway, so Paul is quoting suffering that the sufferers themselves could not explain. "Accounted as" means reckoned or valued at, as on a ledger.

8:37

"More than conquerors" is one compound Greek verb, built by putting "over and above" in front of "we conquer." It is rare enough that Paul may have coined it, and it means winning by an overwhelming margin.

8:38

"Principalities" and "powers" are terms for ranks of authority. In Paul's letters they usually refer to unseen spiritual powers rather than to human governments, though the words can cover both. The manuscripts vary in where "powers" falls in the list.

8:39

"Height" and "depth" were technical terms in ancient astronomy for the highest and lowest points of a star's course, and astrologers used them for the moments when a heavenly body exerted most influence over a person's fate. Paul may be naming those powers here, or may simply mean the extremes of space. "Any other creature" means any other created thing, not any other animal.