Read
28We know that God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose, 29and he has always known who his chosen ones would be. He had decided to let them become like his own Son, so his Son would be the first of many children. 30God then accepted the people he had already decided to choose, and he has shared his glory with them.
God's Love
31What can we say about all this? If God is on our side, can anyone be against us? 32God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. If God did this, won't he freely give us everything else? 33If God says his chosen ones are acceptable to him, can anyone bring charges against them? 34Or can anyone condemn them? No indeed! Christ died and was raised to life, and now he is at God's right side, speaking to him for us. 35Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble, suffering, and hard times, or hunger and nakedness, or danger and death? 36 It is exactly as the Scriptures say,
“For you we face death
all day long.
We are like sheep
on their way
to be butchered.”
37In everything we have won more than a victory because of Christ who loves us. 38I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love—not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, 39and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Reflect
Many things can separate us from experiencing the affection of our closest friends and family. There is distance. Geographical separation can keep us from having close, intimate contact with our loved ones. While technology has helped to narrow this gap, in the end, it’s still hard to hug a computer screen. Severe mental illness: when a loved one loses his/her mental faculties, they are no longer capable of consciously knowing the loving care of their family, nor can the family experience their love being returned. And of course, death still reigns as the champion relationship breaker-upper.
Today’s text remains one of the most comforting passages in the entire Bible. God shares his glory with his chosen ones (v. 30)! The fact that God did not spare his own son Jesus for us shows the enormous lengths that he will go to save us from those powers that oppose us.
The historical fact of Jesus’ crucifixion (and resurrection) proves once and for all times that “Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (v. 35, 39b). Distance can never separate us from God’s love. We might feel all alone, but God by his Spirit lives inside of us (8:14-16): so he’s always with us. Even when we sleep we know that “[the Lord] who watches over you . . . will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps 121:3b-4 NIV).
Not even death has the power to break up our relationship to the Father, for Jesus’ resurrection has destroyed the power of death, and guarantees our own resurrection in the future (see Hebrews 2:14-15).
Satan lies to us and tries to make us think that we’re beyond God’s love. He wants us to feel that God has stopped loving us. Lies! Absolutely nothing can ever separate, divide, disconnect, detach, remove or sever you from the love of God! The cross proves it; and the resurrection seals the deal!
Respond
Heavenly Father, Thank you that you sent Jesus to pay for my sins, and that his work on the cross forever proves how much you love me. Thank you that you love me with an everlasting love, in which there is never any distance between us. Help me to grow in my experience of your love for me, so that others might sense your love for them through me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Wayne Baxter
Wayne Baxter is Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek at Heritage College & Seminary in Cambridge. He earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies (specializing in Early Christianity) at McMaster University and his Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He is the author of three books as well as numerous scholarly articles. Wayne is ordained with the Christian & Missionary Alliance and has pastored churches in Windsor, Ottawa, and Toronto. Books: Road to Renewal: Seven Prayers That Will Change You (Eugene: Resource Publications, 2017 forthcoming) Growing Up to Get Along: Conflict and Unity in Philippians (Castle Rock: CrossLinks, 2016) We’ve Lost. What Now? Practical Counsel from the Book of Daniel (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2015) Israel’s Only Shepherd: Matthew’s Shepherd Motif and His Social Setting, Library of New Testament Studies 457 (London: T & T Clark, 2012)