Question: Can anything separate us from the love of God?
Answer: No, nothing can change God’s love for us.
We have tendencies to be fickle, and we are surrounded by people with the same failing. Promises made today are often broken tomorrow. Popular songs are bestsellers for only a few weeks. Fashions keep changing. A sports figure may be a hero one day and a loser the next. Only God can be trusted to forever remain what He is now. Paul gloried in that and expressed his unbounded confidence that we never need to be afraid that His love may sometime end. First he pointed to the fact that God loves us so much that He didn’t spare the life of His own Son on our behalf. Then he declared that absolutely nothing in this universe is greater than God’s love for us.
Nothing is greater than the sacrifice of God’s Son. Paul was exuberant as he thought of all God has done for us—especially the sacrifice of His one and only Son on our behalf:
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us (8:31-34).
God is for us! Moreover, His supreme demonstration of love in the past is proof of what He will do in the future. He who has bestowed on us His “unspeakable gift“ will certainly not withhold lesser gifts. If God has acquitted us, how can any lesser being condemn us? If the Son of God, the Second Person of the eternal Trinity, died for us, broke death’s power by resurrection, and is now at God’s right hand making intercession for us, will God pay any attention to the charges brought by any other being—angel or devil? Impossible!
Nothing is greater than God’s love for us. Having shown the impossibility of anything changing God’s plans for us, the apostle Paul pulled out all the stops and made a series of exulting declarations:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors 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 (8:35-39).
These words say it all. They need no comment. Troubles from natural and supernatural opposing forces may assail us. But nothing in all the universe can defeat us! This was true in the first century. It is true now.
SUMMARY:
Question: If we keep failing, will God keep forgiving us?
Answer: Yes, because He doesn’t see us as we see ourselves.
Question: Can we stop doing what we don’t want to do?
Answer: Yes, if we learn to rely on the Spirit.
Question: Can we be sure God won’t give up on us?
Answer: Yes, because He loves us as His children.
Question: Is there a way out of this awful struggle?
Answer: Yes, if we find ultimate hope in the life to come.
Question: Will God help us overcome the failures we experience every day?
Answer: Yes, He has promised to help and intervene in our daily lives.
Question: Can anything separate us from the love of God?
Answer: No, nothing can change God’s love for us.
Living Free in the Spirit.
Pastor Bill Crowder relates this account of living in the light of Romans 8:
In 1995, on a trip to Moscow to train pastors, my teaching partner went to the classroom to begin a particular class session. When he got there, he discovered an unscheduled meeting taking place. The translator told him that the students had just learned that there was a bill before the Russian parliament that, if approved and signed, would outlaw the evangelical Baptist church. This was as it had been under Communism. When I arrived, we suspended teaching for a while, and talked about the threat of this proposal with our students. We expressed our deep concern for their safety.
We had gone to Russia with the thought that we were helping to train the next generation of Russian pastors, only to wonder whether we were training some of those who would become the next generation of Christian martyrs in Russia.
We spent more than 2 hours talking, weeping, and praying together, in which we shared our love and concern both for the church in Russia and the church in the West. At the end of the session, one of the students, Peter Zhirenkov, said this to me: “Thank you for caring for us, and thank you for loving us. But do not worry for us or our safety. You see, it is not enough for us to believe the gospel, and it is not enough for us to preach the gospel. It is necessary that we suffer for the gospel!”
What devotion! It is a devotion rooted in the confidence that none of the struggles, battles, or adversities of life can in any way hinder or diminish the love of Christ for us. This confidence makes God’s people “more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” That is living free in the Spirit!
