Have you asked this question: “Does it mean he [God] no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?” (Romans 8:35). How would you answer? Unloved, and alone are the accusatory lies that come to our minds with the build-up of fearfulness within our hearts. Apostle Paul was also hard-pressed on every side, perplexed, and struck down (2 Corinthians 4:8), but he was convinced beyond any doubt that nothing could, can or will ever separate him or us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39). Paul confidently says to us now: “No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:37 NLT). Let’s be persuaded also by this message of hope today as we pray together for the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and saturate our souls with His love and truth.
Today let’s look at a passage of Scripture that shows us how anxiety is scattered in the love found at Calvary:
“And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one - for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one - for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. 35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below - indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:30-39 NLT
Sometimes we may have the pleasure of seeing a parent walking with their baby wrapped to their chest in a baby carrier. Wherever the parent goes, the child is taken with them, with their small head resting against them in utter security. The child hears the comfort of the parent’s heart beat and feels the warmth of their love. From afar, the two seem joined together as one, melted into each other with not a glimmer of separation between them. The shadow of the parent’s safe and watchful presence is always over the child, ready to attend to their needs. There appears to be a tender and intimate communication from one to the other that no one else can comprehend as the parent tenderly strokes the rosy cheek of his child.
This may give a glimpse of our unity in Christ as believers, joined by a love so great and so enveloping that nothing can assault this unchangeable and unbreakable bond. Even our fears for today and our worries about tomorrow cannot part us from the love of Jesus, by whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7):
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below - indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 NLT [emphasis added]
We know that God is forever for us, and that nothing in all creation (Romans 8:39 NLT) can ever be against us!
Paul asks us in verse 31 to consider some “wonderful things” (Romans 8:31 NLT) of God’s marvelous saving and delivering deeds that are the foundation of our rock-solid security presently and forevermore. We cannot lose or misplace or ‘sin out of’ our salvation as we are saved by the grace of God (Ephesians 2:8-9). Nothing that Satan, the accuser of God’s people (Revelations 12:10), amplifies or exaggerates about anxiety in our minds can stand against us if we would only rely upon our God to overcome it. Nothing in our waves of fearfulness can undermine the sure foundation of being in Christ Jesus, and of having been so surely and thoroughly cherished and loved by Christ at Calvary.
God is so utterly and decidedly for us. It was He who chose, He who called and He who clothed us guilty sinners in the glorious righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21):
God was for us before the beginning of time when He predestined and chose us to be “a people for his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6)
God was for us when He called us to His heart, coming to Him through Christ’s atoning work on the cross
God was for us when we were justified and reconciled with Himself through the shed blood of Christ, and not through our merit or demerit.
God is always for us. Jesus’s body is saving and healing us now and purchasing a glorified body for us that will never die.
The gospel has transformed us from considering Jesus “a joke to people everywhere” (Psalm 109:25 NLT) as we shook our heads and fists in scorn in His face. A marred face from which His beard was pulled out and that was kicked, slapped, blindfolded and spat upon in both Jerusalem and at Golgotha.
“As many were astonished at you - his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind” Isaiah 52:14
Now as His children, we are joined in peace in Christ, looking to His beautiful face each day for our sustenance at the cross. He loved us to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25) despite our offensiveness and ugliness, gifting us with an eternity of God’s presence:
“The Lord your God is in your midst, A Warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with joy; He will be quiet in His love [making no mention of your past sins], He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” Zephaniah 3:17 AMP
Oh, to consider that our God, our saving Warrior, is quiet and rejoicing in His love for us as He has already applied His hand of anger for our sin and lack of worship fully on His own Son at Calvary (Romans 5:9)! Now He makes no mention of our sin because it was removed from God’s book, placed on Jesus and forgiven in its entirety: “a search will be made for the sins of Judah, but none will be found” by Him anymore (Jeremiah 50:20).
“Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?” Romans 8:32 NLT
Casting our mind back to the picture of the intimacy of the father and child at the start of this lesson, can we also picture the suffering of both if the parent had to give up the treasure of his heart and push his innocent child into extreme danger at the hands of wicked men, knowing the outcome was a definite long and terrible death? Then with even more heartbreak, the father disowns his child for a time, not answering their calls for help nor listening to their cries of pain, and seeing them now as the receptacle of all the sin and darkness of the world - something vile to be expelled, repudiated and punished by his own hand?
This was the cold and echoing isolation that Jesus faced, a gaping vacuum of love as deep as hell itself, as He voluntarily wrenched Himself from the embrace of His Father God and dragged our sin and guilt towards the crucifixion hill and a mandatory death sentence. There, no part of His scourged body was spared. His hands and feet were nailed through and stretched across the wooden cross. His head was crowned in thorns, and every cell in His body craved for food and water as the organs of His body slowly shut down one by one. Nothing in Jesus’ mind or body or heart was spared in order to bring our sin to death in Christ and crucify our old selves of sin and flesh. At the moment when He bowed His head and yielded His spirit to His Father, He filled up the vacuum of love that we carried. We were given a new heart, enabling us to rest our heads against our Father God in intimacy unto the end of time. Oh, seeing the enormity of this one act of submission and resurrecting power for us, can we not see that God will attend to our lesser needs now in the frightening times of our lives knowing we are held as firmly as can be in His arms? Look to the scarred hands of Jesus which are turned palms out in welcome for you to come and be loved by Him.
“Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one - for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one - for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.” Romans 8:33-34 NLT
What sighs of relief and comfort these verses bring! The guilt, power and punishment of sin has been taken away by Christ’s work of substitution for us. We are no longer lost sinners with God against us. We are God’s treasured and justified saints, with God always for us. We fall sometimes into sin and are subject to our Fatherly chastising and loving hand in sanctification but with eyes of faith we know that before, during and after our sin He has forgiven and loved us. We have been forgiven and declared “Not Guilty!” and “Not Condemned!” by God, the Judge with the highest authority over all creation (Romans 8:32-34). No further charges can be brought against us and no further accusers can step forward in the courtroom of God’s divine justice because God has given His final verdict about us 2000 years ago in Christ. God’s final decree is “It is finished!” (John 19:30).