1. Romans 8:17. Is suffering with Christ a must for the true believer?

Heirs with Christ. If. Not that we earn an inheritance by suffering, but we prove that we are truly His when persecution comes to us. How shallow would “glorification” or reward, be, if there had been no suffering before it! How embarrassing a “well done” if nothing has been done, or if what was done was done shabbily or for the wrong motive.

2. Romans 8:19 ff. When will the “sons of God” be manifest?

Let no man deceive you on this one. And numerous groups have come forward through the years to declare that they were these “manifested sons” or that we should start expecting to see some of them very soon!

Read the context. When these sons are manifested, “the entire creation will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God!”

Has that happened yet? I think not. Jesus will come and set the creation free one day. When he comes he brings His own with Him from heaven and picks up the others from Earth. The entire world will see this event, and the subsequent take-over of the Planet by all the Sons of God, especially that first Son!

I do not doubt that there are glimmers now and then as we wait. God has a people even now. And where they are walking in Him, wonderful things have been known to happen. Little reminders of what the entire earth will look like one day.

But that “one day” is not now. When it comes, you’ll know!

3. Romans 8:26-27. How does the Spirit intercede for us?

I believe that He intercedes for us, in us. Whether in us as a body or as individual saints, the Spirit seems to be committed to the Church in this very special way. He seems to do all of His work when God’s people kneel to pray. You may feel this intercession within yourself at times. A person will be on your heart, a holy burden. And you will begin to pray, and the words will not always be your own. You will understand that somehow God is in you doing the interceding. I believe that is what Paul is referencing here.

4. Romans 8:29. Are the foreknown the same group as the glorified?

Yes, the ones He saw at the beginning are the very same ones who got there at the end. We all pretty much agree on that. The agreement breaks down after that. People do not want to go ahead and concede that the way these foreknown folks got to be in that final glorified state, is through God’s devising of a plan for these [same] people, then calling them [by the Gospel], then saving them. One group was in mind all along. How could it have been otherwise? If He saw them, how else could He choose people except the ones He saw?

5. Romans 8:29. What does “firstborn” mean?

Chief. Foremost. Number one. Not necessarily talking about a natural family with “first” in chronological order. God had sons by faith in the Old Testament days. But Jesus was before them. So many of the last-born sons in Scripture are actually “firstborn.” Consider Cain and Abel. Abraham and Nahor. Isaac and Ishmael. Jacob and Esau. David and his seven older brothers.

Firstborn is a position of honor, and that honor is to Jesus only.

6. Romans 8:38-39. If nothing can separate us, how can people fall away?

We shall cover “falling away” passages in Hebrews later, but the question is, were these people ever sealed by God’s Spirit, truly born again, to begin with? God cannot lie. He says nothing can separate us, here and in places like John 10:28-29. If you are one of the “us”, you are secure!

7. Romans 9:2. How reconcile this with Paul’s own admonition to “rejoice in the Lord always”?

Paul always has grief in his heart, but always rejoices in the Lord? Consider His Lord, Jesus, a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” yet for the “joy that was set before Him He endured the cross.”

Something significant here. Jesus is telling us that the joy and grief of the Lord are a part of the same recipe, placed in a cup of which He wants us to take a deep draught. We will in this way be able to step back a little, and see the world as God sees it, lost in sin, but with a way out of that lostness for those who will hear our Word.

Walking in the Spirit of God, whose fruit is joy, will bring us, as we are able to bear it, in touch with great griefs. Balanced properly, these two will not seem as opposites any longer, but two contrasting tastes of the same liquid.

8. Romans 9:12-18. Salvation is dependent on ______?

God. His choices. His plan. His purposes. His glory. Not about our ideas or reasoning or efforts.

9. Romans 10:5-11. What is the difference between Mosaic and Christian righteousness?

With Moses, the Word is on a page. You read the page, try real hard… And if you are perfect, you are righteous.

With Jesus, the Word is in your heart, planted there by God. He guarantees perfection by forgiveness and the indwelling Spirit.

10. Romans 10:18. Has everyone “heard”?

Paul quotes the Psalmist as he declares that God’s Voice through nature has gone out throughout the world.

11. Romans 11:11. How was the door opened to the Gentiles?

By the stumbling of the Jews. When they rejected their Messiah, God, through this very Paul and others, opened the door wide to all the nations of Earth.

12. Romans 11:19-23. Does this passage negate the security of the believer? Can people come in and out of Israel?

True believers will heed the warning from Paul. They will not be conceited. They will fear. They will continue in his kindness. It might seem from the outside that there is a revolving door here, people coming in and out. But we have to go back to chapter 8 and see what God sees: a group picture of end-time glorified saints that He knew from the very beginning.

13. Romans 12:9. How can love be hypocritical?