The final paragraph of Romans eight is a robust and moving proclamation of the gospel. These are words of assurance that God’s love for his people is unbreakable and that their future in an eternal new creation is sure. As Paul develops the paragraph, he recalls what he has already written about God’s merciful response to humanity’s plight and that of all creation. In referring to God not sparing his Son but offering him up for us (8:32) he is referring back to what he previously affirmed concerning the sacrifice of Christ (3:21-26, 4:25, 5:6-11, 8:3). Also, Paul’s reference to God giving his people “all things” points back to the theme of the new creation developed in the previous section (vv. 18-30). Paul’s words about charges brought against God’s elect and that God is both just and the justifier of sinners, remind us of his argument in 1:18-3:20. When he writes of God’s justification of the ungodly through the dying of Christ we recall 3:21-26 and 5:6-10.

Paul begins this final section of chapter eight with a question. He asks, “What then shall we say to these things?” The “things” Paul is referring to here trace back to the entire body of truth he has been building since the beginning of chapter eight concerning God’s comprehensive salvation of the elect through Christ Jesus. Indeed, it would be appropriate to include all that he has written since 1:18 in the “these things.” In light of all this truth, “What is there left to say?” he seems to ask. What can possibly be added to all these precious promises? To which Paul asks five rhetorical questions meant to banish forever any doubt in God’s saving grace. John Stott writes, “He challenges anybody and everybody, in heaven, earth or hell, to answer them and to deny the truth which they contain…No one and nothing can harm the people whom God has foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified” (p. 254).