Nothing can ever separate us from the love of Christ
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. Romans 8:35-37 NLT
Paul from the text adds the capstone why Christians need not fear. “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?” (Romans 8:35). The kind of love that drove the Son of God to die on the cross, rise from the dead and forgive those responsible for His death is not going to let anybody or anything come between Him and those that loved Him back. Not even “trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death” can separate us from that love. It should be obvious that we can choose to live a life contrary to that love, but we can never make Him stop loving us. The quotation of Psalm 44:22, “But for your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep” in verse 36 is an Old Testament description of how Paul sees the Christian life: daily slaughter. We can read about the slaughter of Christians in the first few centuries of the church’s history and marvel at the confidence with which those believers faced pain and death. “Others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword” (Hebrews 11:35-37). Paul claims simply that none of that is enough to convince him that God doesn’t love him; and if God loves him, who or what can ultimately hurt him? In the face of them all, we can celebrate as true believers that “overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:37). The fact that God loved us, His love will carry us against all things. His love guarantees us that we will not be separated with Him until eternity. “For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4-5).
Blessings,
