Discovery BoxRomans 8:31-35 
Context8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who 1 did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? 2 It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ 3 is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 4
1 tn Grk “[he] who.” The relative clause continues the question of v. 31 in a way that is awkward in English. The force of v. 32 is thus: “who indeed did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – How will he not also with him give us all things?”
2 sn An allusion to Isa 50:8 where the reference is singular; Paul applies this to all believers (“God’s elect” is plural here).
3 tc ‡ A number of significant and early witnesses, along with several others (Ì46vid א A C F G L Ψ 6 33 81 104 365 1505 al lat bo), read ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsous, “Jesus”) after Χριστός (Cristos, “Christ”) in v. 34. But the shorter reading is not unrepresented (B D 0289 1739 1881 Ï sa). Once ᾿Ιησοῦς got into the text, what scribe would omit it? Although the external evidence is on the side of the longer reading, internally such an expansion seems suspect. The shorter reading is thus preferred. NA27 has the word in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.
tn Grk “who also.”
4 tn Here “sword” is a metonymy that includes both threats of violence and acts of violence, even including death (although death is not necessarily the only thing in view here).
