Five Unanswerable Questions Series

Why, many people and many things can be against us! And not only can they be against us, they are against us!

The Bible says that every Christian has three great enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The world is against us because Christianity is an offense to it and is opposed to its God-rebelling ways. The world will get us to conform to it if it can; and failing that, it will try to overcome us.

Our flesh is also an enemy because it contains the seeds of sin within it; we are unable to escape its malevolent influence during our entire lives.

And, as if that were not enough, we have a powerful enemy in the devil, who is described by the apostle Peter as “a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Yes, there are plenty of enemies against us.

But what are these when combined with the verse’s first half, “If God is for us. . .”? There’s the good news of God!

In Greek there are four kinds of conditional clauses which use the word “if.” The word “if” in this sentence does not imply doubt. Paul has just banished doubt in the previous verses. He has shown us how God has foreknown us by setting his love upon us, and predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of his own beloved Son. Then, he has called us, justified us, and glorified us.

In verse 31 the word “if” really means “since.” “Since God is for us”—and that makes all the difference in the world!

It is as if Paul is challenging us to place all possible enemies on one side of an old-fashioned balance scale, as if we were weighing feathers. Then, when we have all the feathers assembled on the scale, he drops a brick onto the other side of the scale. That side comes crashing down, and the feathers scatter in the wind.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Who can stand against God? The answer of course is, “No one”! Nothing and no one can defeat us if Almighty God is on our side.

II. “How Will He Not also. . . Give Us All Things?” (8:32)

“But,” says someone, “that assumes that God does not change towards us. It is true that no one can stand against God. But what if God should grow tired of us, forget about us, or move on to something else?”

Paul deals with this speculation in verse 32, which is the second unanswerable question, asking, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Each of these five questions is unanswerable because each is grounded upon some undeniable truth, and the undeniable truth in this verse is that God has given us his Son.

If Paul had merely asked, “Will God give us all things?” we might hesitate, for how could we be confident he will give us all things? He has given us much, to be sure. But all things? Wouldn’t we be right to think that even God has limits to his grace and generosity?

That might be reasonable to think were it not for the fact that God has already given us his Son. Jesus is the greatest thing God had to give. Yet he gave him—and not merely to be with us in some mystical way. He gave him over to death so that we might be rescued from the judgment due to us for our sins.