31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor 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.
via Romans 8 ESV – Life in the Spirit – There is therefore – Bible Gateway.
COMMENT
This text was read aloud in Church today and I noticed something that sent me scurrying to find it in print and double check. Perhaps all the commentators have mentioned this and I have forgotten about it…
But this text starts by talking about God’s love and then switches to the Love of the Son.
First, most obviously, the love of the Father:
31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn?
But mentioning the question of who might condemn reminds us that God Himself has already condemned sin in the flesh of Christ (Romans 8.3). So this provides a segue from the love of God to the love of Christ because Christ is the one who has willingly received the condemnation:
Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
So not only does the Father love us by sending His Son, but the Son loves us by voluntarily submitting to death and interceding for us. This leads to a list of possible separators and then a quotation from Palm 44.22.
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Psalm 44 is about immense suffering and seems (to me!) obviously prophetic of Jesus’ own crucifixion. If so, the idea seems to be that Jesus has taken jurisdiction over all the things he suffered so that those things are part of his realm now. When we are moved to these places we are not moved to some place where he is not Lord. Compare Romans 14.7-9:
For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
So then, Paul continues, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Whose love? The Father’s or the Son’s? Both perhaps: Nothing will be “able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”