No Separation

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eight
NO SEPARATION

Scripture Reading: verses 35-39

WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? SHALL TRIBULATION, OR DISTRESS, OR PERSECUTION, OR FAMINE, OR NAKEDNESS, OR PERIL, OR SWORD? AS IT IS WRITTEN, FOR THY SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL THE DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER. NAY, IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM THAT LOVED US. FOR I AM PERSUADED, THAT NEITHER DEATH, NOR LIFE, NOR ANGELS, NOR PRINCIPALITIES, NOR POWERS, NOR THINGS PRESENT, NOR THINGS TO COME, NOR HEIGHT, NOR DEPTH, NOR ANY OTHER CREATURE, SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.

We now come to divine truths so stupendously great it is difficult to make any comment about them. The very reading of the passage is an unspeakable elevation to the soul.

As we read their excellent detail, let us keep in mind they are the conclusion to a long and intricate legal document which has brought to light all the hideous facts of sin and rebellion against God. In relief against that black background, Paul has painted the golden excellence of divine grace. Sin reigned unto death, grace reigned unto righteousness; sin brought condemnation, grace brought justification; sin brought shame, misery, and separation from God, grace brought reconciliation, joy, and hope. Therefore, all the legal groundwork has been laid and the pardoned criminal now stands before the One who once was his judge – whom he may now address as “Abba, Father” – to realize he is the object of God’s unfathomable love, declared in the Person of His beloved Son who died to bear the penalty of sin. Now the great question before the court is, “How long can such love last?”

Is it only a temporary dispensation of the goodness of God’s heart to forgive the sinner for past trespasses – to be saved today and lost again tomorrow? That is the great question now before the court, and it is a question before the minds of many Christians in this age of many imperfect doctrines, religious creeds and dogmas of men. If God has brought us into His presence and handed us a pardon, legally signed under the authority of the court of heaven, are we pardoned sinners who are set free from past offences to walk into a world of sin, liable to be dragged before the court tomorrow because we have failed to keep ourselves holy and therefore unworthy of this forgiveness? Such is a question before too many Christian hearts today.

How does the Spirit answer such a question through Paul? “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Two realms of forces might endanger our security. The first realm is described in verse 35. These are natural forces. The second realm is presented in verses 38 and 39 – the supernatural forces. First, Paul looks at the natural world and the challenge is thrown out regarding whether there is any person or power in the natural realm able to separate the pardoned criminal from his Lord. In other words, is there any force in this world that can imperil a true believer’s eternal salvation? That is the great question.

One by one, Paul ranges the forces before our vision: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword; almost by way of interpolation he says, “For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

It is not difficult to envision the tremendous power of these elements in our present evil world.¹ A few dozen years ago they might not have had as much meaning as today, but now much of the world is under the awful scourge of some of these natural forces of privation. Many of the Lord’s people both here and across the seas are in the deep valley of despondency because of tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword. These are the elements that have laid waste much of the world. Can these separate from the love of Christ? The answer is an unequivocal negative: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.”

It is a sterling fact and brilliant testimony to the reality of Christianity that, as a general rule, the deeper we go into human distress the more brightly beams the lamp of God’s goodness in our hearts. No religion manufactured by man will supply such a testimony. It is a reality that the Christian’s spirit in adversity is refined and not destroyed. Our souls may be over whelmed with spiritual lethargy and indifference when circumstances are easy and we face no adverse powers; but when the going is hard and the mind is oppressed with cares and anxieties, it is then our hearts are drawn near to Christ, and we sense the impelling fulness of His all-sufficient love. Thus the natural elements are impotent to destroy the faith. It is not simply that a Christian triumphs over them, but his triumph is so supreme that Paul says, “We are more than conquerors.” More than conquerors? Is this a grammatical error? To be a conqueror. Is that not enough? No. The glorious life of the Christian in privation is so supremely abundant that grammatical construction is broken down, and Paul kicks over the traces of all human language when he says, "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."

Then he ranges all the supernatural powers across the horizon of our view, declaring they are also impotent to separate us from this great love:

Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The arch foe is brought up first – death. He may be the king of terrors, but he cannot separate a Christian from the love of God. Indeed he becomes a servant to conduct us into the presence of the One who loves us. Then angels, principalities, powers, and – speaking of the unseen created beings, many of whom are playing havoc in the religious world at this very hour – demons. We have wicked as well as good forces of law and order. Neither can these separate the Christian from his Lord. Then we have the time element, “things present nor things to come.” God’s love is changeless; the Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever; ours is an eternal salvation. Then we have “height and depth” – very important elements. Sometimes we feel God is so high and we are so low that He may get tired of us. It is not so. Then Paul says, “or any other creature.” No created being or force shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There we see Paul, the attorney for the defense, rest his case in a brilliant crescendo of triumph.

This salvation which has come to the true believer through Christ is not one which we have today and may lose tomorrow. It is an eternal salvation. Paul was persuaded of this. Are we?

Footnotes:
¹ “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers nor height, nor depth nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” All of the calamities mentioned here were suffered by Paul himself, as a glance at 2 Corthians 11 will show; and, despite the fact of all things working together for good for Christians, the hardships and sufferings they endure prove that no exemption from life’s sorrows has been provided for them. On the contrary, it was doubtless a fact that the Christians of that age suffered far more than other groups of mankind; and, due to the natural discouragement arising from such extraordinary sufferings, there was a constant temptation for the Christians to fall into doubt and discouragement, or grow cold in their love to the Lord, or to acquire deep feelings of guilt arising from a view of their hardships as being caused by their sins. It has ever been the tendency of troubled individuals to become depressed and doubtful, as was the case with John the Baptist when thrown into prison (Matt. 11:2). In this marvelous peroration, Paul emphasized the fact that all guilt had been removed through the death of Christ, that condemnation of God’s children is impossible. God himself is “for them.” What a shout of victory is this passage. “Height ... depth ...” John Locke understood these to mean “the height of prosperity” or the “depth of misery.” “Life” … In this context, we interprete the meaning as the hard life they were called upon to live in the flesh, life with its burdens, toils and persecutions. “Angels” ... if taken as a reference to good angels they would only be a conceptual hindrance to the Christian, meaning that even if an angel were to try to hinder them, such would be impossible; but if we understand the word to be Satan’s angels (Matt. 25:41), the meaning is the same. Not even Satan’s angels may finally hinder the child of God. In his book, A New Commentary on the Epistle of Paul to Saints in Rome, p. 193, Robertson L. Whiteside pointed out that the impossibility of apostasy is not what Paul was teaching here. He wrote: “All the things mentioned are things without. Nothing is here said of what corrupting influences may do to the heart. No powers of persecutions can compel one to stop loving God; if he quits, he does it of his own accord. Love cannot be destroyed by force of imperial command, but it may wax cold. Some even depart from their first love (Rev. 2:4). Paul recognized that people depart from the faith, but he was persuaded that no evils coming on us from without could destroy the love of God.” Whiteside’s point is well taken; but it is God’s love for man, not the other way around, that Paul primarily had in view here. “In Christ Jesus our Lord” ... Here is the final word of this flourishing burst of eloquence; and it brings the mind back to the major proposition underlying all that Paul wrote, i.e., that salvation is “in Christ” alone, and that the totality of the Christian’s hope derives from the fact that he has been baptized into Christ (the only Scriptural baptism being that of a contrite, penitent believer in Jesus Christ), and from the presumption of his continuance therein (in Christ) “unto death.” Paul wrote many things, but the expression “in Christ” or its equivalent is the theme of all that he wrote, being mentioned no less than 169 times; and any “system” that omits this is like a symphony from which both the tonic and dominant chords have been deleted. Paul never left it out. To this point his mind always cames to rest. One is reluctant to go on from the magnificent teachings of this wonderful chapter, even for the purpose of further studying Paul’s epic letter; and, by way of a final salute to the inspiring thoughts of this chapter, the following words of H.C.G. Moule are appended: “Some years ago, we remember reading this close of the eighth chapter, under moving circumstances. On a cloudless January night, late arrived in Rome, we stood in the Coliseum, a party of friends from England. Orion, the giant with the sword, glimmered like a specter of persecution over the huge precinct; for the full moon, high in the heavens, overpowered the stars. By its light, we read from a little Testament these words written so long ago to be read in that same city – written by the man whose dust now sleeps at Tre Fontane, where the executioner dismissed him to be with Christ; written to men and women, some of whom, in all human likelihood at least, suffered in that very amphitheater, raised only twenty-two years after Paul wrote Romans, and soon made the scene of countless martyrdoms. ... We read the words of the Epistle, and gave thanks to him who had there triumphed in his saints over life and death, over beasts and men and demons. Then we thought of ourselves, in our circumstances so totally different on the surface, yet carrying the same needs in their depths. Are we too to overcome, in ‘the things present’ of our modern world, and in the face of ‘the things to come’ yet upon our earth? Are we too to be ‘more than conquerors,’ winning blessing out of all things, and really living in our generation as the bondmen of Christ and the sons of God?” (The Epistle to the Romans, pp. 242-243).