John Calvin Commentary Romans 8:36

"Even as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter." — Romans 8:36 (ASV)

As it is written, etc. This testimony adds considerable weight to the subject, for he intimates that the dread of death is so far from being a reason for us to fall away, that it has almost always been the lot of God’s servants to have death, as it were, present before their eyes.

It is indeed probable that in that Psalm the miserable oppression of the people under the tyranny of Antiochus is described, for it is expressly said that the worshippers of God were cruelly treated for no other reason than hatred for true religion. A remarkable protestation is also added: that they had not departed from the covenant of God, which Paul, I think, had especially in view.

It is no objection that the saints there complain of a calamity that then unusually burdened them. For since they show they were oppressed with so many evils, having previously testified their innocence, an argument is appropriately drawn from this: that it is nothing new for the Lord to permit His saints to be undeservedly exposed to the cruelty of the ungodly.

But this is done only for their good, for Scripture teaches us that it is foreign to the righteousness of God to destroy the just with the wicked (Genesis 18:23); on the contrary, it is fitting for Him to requite affliction to those who afflict, and rest to those who are afflicted (2 Thessalonians 1:6, 9).

And then they affirm that they suffer for the Lord; and Christ pronounces them blessed who suffer for the sake of righteousness (Matthew 5:10). By saying that they died daily, they intimated that death was so suspended over them that their life differed very little from death.