Study Desk

But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God's wrath through him.

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.

Or don't you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection;

Don't you know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obedience, his servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?

For what the law couldn't do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh;

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

He who didn't spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?

You will say then to me, "Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?"

What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction,

and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,

I ask then, Did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

God didn't reject his people, which he foreknew. Or don't you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel:

See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!

"For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"