Israel's point of stumbling was comfort and complacency as the chosen people of God.

Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah to highlight God's saving based on God's desire to save his people and not their works. Likewise, it introduces notions of remnant theology, which he will develop later.

God is just in his choosing as true justice would be complete judgment with no options for grace or mercy. Rather salvation and God's choice is based on his merciful character.

God's choice is wrapped up in his grace evidenced in the person of Jesus and those who will respond in faith to him.

Paul goes to the Old Testament to highlight how God's choosing who will be is people is not based on a person's works, and is not ethnically tied.

Those chosen by God are those who have responded in faith to Jesus Christ.

Paul answers his rhetoric, that nothing can separate the believer from the love of God. The good life, is a secure life with great hope.

The good life is secure because the one who COULD bring a charge against us, has chosen instead to bear our penalty in love. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

The good life is secure as it is seen to its end by God who fulfills our hopes. The Holy Spirit ministers to as as we patiently practice our faith.

The good life, life in the Spirit, looks forward to a future glory made possible only because of the inheritance we have in Jesus.

The goodness of the good life, and the Christians status as a child of God is offered and secured by Jesus Christ.

The good life, lived in the Spirit due to faith in Jesus Christ, anticipates a future resurrection.

The good life, the life lived in the Spirit because of Jesus' saving work is one of freedom, peace, and hope.

Paul voices the internal struggle of the believer, set free by Jesus, who still struggles with sin's influence in their life.

The trouble with sin is it produces death. The trouble with the law, is it reveals sin does so, but it does not DEAL with the consequences or treat the cause.

The law, though good, gives sin teeth by revealing guilt and assigning consequence.

Being set free by Jesus, we no longer stand condemned under the law, but can live in freedom in the Spirit.

Paul uses the example of a marriage covenant in highlighting how, when we die we are released from the law binding as a way of highlighting how when we die with Christ, the law of sin and death's implications are made null and void.

There are implications for how a Christian uses the newfound freedom they have in Jesus.

The freedom we have in Christ should not be used for licentious living. Rather, the Christian is a slave to righteousness, compelled to do as God desires.