Nothing can separate us from the love of God
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39
The rest of Chapter eight is just one illustration after another admonishing Christians to need not fear. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:35). The kind of love that drove the Son of God to die and live for those responsible for His death is not going to let anybody or anything come between the lover and the beloved. Not even “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword” can separate us from that love. The quotation of Psalm 44:22 in verse 36 is an Old Testament description of how Paul sees the Christian life, “sheep to be slaughtered.” 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. 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? “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Paul has already established the fact that human powers can’t ultimately triumph over God’s beloved. Now he takes in all the powers by principalities, real or imaginary, which caused fear among his generation. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life [over which we have no ultimate control even with all the discoveries of modern science], neither angels nor demons [which are obviously out of our control], neither the present nor the future [since time is the context in which we live and not of our own device], nor any powers [those spiritual powers that (see 1 Corinthians 15:24–26) will finally be destroyed in the end-time], neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39). It is hard to imagine how Paul could have listed any more terms that would have struck such fear into the hearts of people of his day. Each age of history seems to develop its own phobias, as has ours; but we can live in the assurance that the love of God is unbeatable. There is nothing we or anybody else can do to make God stop loving us. In fact, because of that love, we can be assured that all things, even the bad things, are ultimately working together for good (Romans 8:28). Praise God!
Blessings,
