Paul’s question, ‘Who is going to condemn?’ is answered implicitly, No-one – because there is Jesus, standing at the father’s right hand, saying ‘Father, have mercy on this, my younger sister, my younger brother.’ (In Psalm 110 and Daniel 7, and elsewhere in the New Testament, he is sitting at God’s right hand. But, as in Stephen’s vision in Acts 7.55–6, he is here standing to intercede.) This picture of father and son is the reality that shows up the caricature in those mediaeval paintings where, tragically, you have a stern and angry father and a rather wet and feeble-looking son. No: as in
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