NOTES for Rom 8:31-33
This text does not mean at all that the end justifies the means and that whatever we do in the name of God will be credited to us as a good deed. Good intentions, as is known, are not credited. The apostle Paul is speaking about something somewhat different. In what we do according to God's will, there is a difference between our actions for Him and actions according to His will. "If God is for us, who is against us?" This principle works only when God is truly for us, when we are truly doing His work. The apostle Paul encourages believers in persecutions, reminding them that no sufferings can compare with the glory of God. But the issue is precisely the situation in which believers are persecuted, and not at all one in which they themselves become persecutors.