35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This passage wraps up perhaps the greatest chapter in the New Testament. And Romans 8 is the high point of a book that has been called the pièce de résistance of Paul’s writings.
The theme of these verses is the love of Christ. And his point is that NOTHING can separate those who are “in Christ” from enjoying and experiencing the love of Christ. Here are a few things that he points out…
1) Verses 35-36 – He reminds his readers that hardship has always been the experience of God’s faithful followers and not to be surprised when difficult times arise. As believers we are not promised that life will be easy – rather we are promised that “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Count on it. Hard times are not an indication that God has withdrawn His love. He promises to hold us close when the hard times come and to walk with us through “the valley of the shadow of death.”
2) Verse 37 – He calls us “more than conquerors.” The love of Christ will not only enable us to gain victory over and through the tough times that life brings but will also enable us to point people to Jesus through the tough times. In other words, the Lord will use even the bad stuff that happens in our lives to bring glory and victory to the cause of Christ.
3) Verses 38-39 – Paul’s confidence in the unfailing love of Christ is rooted much deeper than “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” It is a confidence that has been tested in and triumphed through harder things than most of us will ever deal with. As he writes in Ephesians 3:19, he has come to know the love of Christ in a way “that surpasses knowledge.” It is a confidence that is grounded in the gospel and what Jesus did for him at the cross. This is where we will find the same kind of confidence and come to experience the deep deep love of Christ in a similar way. This in essence is what the book of Romans is all about.
May this brick fill you with a confidence in the love of Christ that will enable you to be a “more than conqueror” whenever the hard times of life come your way – which they will.