“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who has loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:34-39

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PAUL has been laying out the Christians eternal security in Christ in a series of pithy and powerful statements concerning the great work of Christ for us. He has told us that no charge can be brought against us before God, because God is the one who justifies us and declares us righteous in his sight. He has told us that we can’t be condemned, because Christ has died and been condemned in our place. He has told us Christ was raised from that condemning death proving all condemnation had ceased for those who are Christ’s people, and because he now reigns at the right hand of God, his intercession for us before God secures God’s favour for ever. Now all this is more than sufficient to assure us that we are safe in the arms of Jesus, and that we have nothing to fear. It is enough to assure us that heaven is our home and Jesus will bring us there. But all this is truth in the mind which we hold on to by faith, and here is the problem. As we live our day to day lives here on earth, and as we face the dangers and difficulties of being a Christian in this world, it is not always easy to hold on to our assurance. So Paul, as a faithful and loving pastor, looks at Christian living in this world, faces it square on, and shows that whatever our circumstance or experiences, we have no need to be afraid.

THE DANGERS WE FACE.

When facing difficulties it always right and good to face them fairly and squarely. By doing this we see exactly what we are up against, and we are not phased by wild dreams and fancies. Paul, as a faithful pastor, first of all makes us face them all.

There is trouble. Here is the first difficulty we have to face peculiar to Christians. Living in a world opposed to Christ and the Gospel we are bound to experience trouble. All the time we have to face what we have to do when the world brings its pressure upon us. There is the trouble of seduction. There is the trouble of enmity. There is trouble as we face and deal with social values. There is the trouble of worldly opinion, and worldly aspirations. There is the trouble caused by worldly opinions. So the catalogue of various areas of trouble goes on. Because we are Christians and love Christ and seek to please him, these trouble come upon us.

This may bring hardship as we have to go against the tide of worldly opinion and values. It may mean we have to face being poor and marginalized and discriminated against.

From this may come persecution. The world, not being satisfied with negative action, then positively attacks the Christian with open and direct persecution. We are fortunate in Britain that this is not very common today in a direct sense, but it can be very real when Christian children face abuse and segregation, violence and loneliness at school, and adults face the action of others in an adverse way in the work place.

This persecution can mean deprivation of temporal comforts and need.

But there is a spiritual dimension. We can face famine in a spiritual sense, when the love of God is not very real, when our reading of the Bible becomes barren and unfruitful, when there is no or little blessing in ministry and service. The corruption of the flesh brings us down into spiritual famine, because it causes us to sin in so many ways, so that we cry with Paul ’how wretched I am’. In these circumstance of spiritual famine, assurance seems far away.

We are constantly in danger from attack from the world, the flesh and the devil, and we feel we have no defence. We are naked and in danger. This may also be true in the physical realm, where Christians face the attack of the world, and we have no way of escape.

In all these circumstances, and many more that could be named, to be sure we are safe in Jesus seems to fly away from us, and our faith falters. Down history Christians have face persecution as described in the quotation from Psalm 44 that Paul uses, and death has been real.

MORE THAN CONQUERORS

Facing all these assaults on our assurance, and our feeling of security in Christ, Paul does not again go over all the doctrine that assures that we may be sure we are saved eternally; instead he says we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Let us notice what Paul is saying. Firstly, he is pointing out that our security is not in what we do or are, but in Christ the conqueror. We are more than conquerors through him. This points to the fact that it is not only Christ’s victory that assures us of eternal life in glory, but also the power of Christ the conqueror who, having won the victory for us in his work on earth and in heaven, will never allow this work to be lost, but engages his power to make sure that all he as done for us will be effective, and though we are assaulted and harried by the world, the flesh and the devil, he will never let these overcome us.

Then secondly, and this is most important, Paul points us to the heart of God and Jesus. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. God set his love upon us before the foundation of the world. This love was exercised in that he foreknew us in eternity and determined to love us, and set us apart in his love. It is this love that planned and sent Jesus into this world to be our Saviour, who in his life and death completed perfectly all that God in love planned in order that his love may be effective, and he may cause us to remain in his love for ever.

It is the love of God, and the love of Christ, for us that assures us that we will persevere in this love for ever, and so will be brought at last to God’s eternal glory. It is because God has loved us that he will keep us in his love for ever, and never allow Satan or anyone or anything else, cause him to lose his beloved.

The amazing thing is this that God set his love on us in a Sovereign determination of his will. We are loved by God because he wills to love us, and not because we are lovable. Indeed there is nothing in us that is very lovable, for we are sinners and rebels. God sent Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners, so he loved us before there was anything in us worth loving. Having set his love upon us, he has done everything needed in Christ for his love to be known and experienced by us, and he will never allow himself to lose the one he has loved, or allow all that Christ has done for us at such great cost to go to waste. Toplady in verses of one of his hymns expresses this -

Things future, nor things that are now,
Not all things below or above,
Can make him his promise forego,
Or sever my soul from his love.

My name from the palms of his hands
Eternity will not erase:
Impressed on his heart it remains,
In marks of indelible grace.

And I to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is given;
More happy, but not more secure,
When glorified with Him in heaven.

So what Paul is saying is that we will conquer because God and Christ has loved us, and this love secures for us the certainty of eternal life. After all it is this love that convicted us of our sins. It was this love that showed us Christ as the Saviour from sin. It is this love that gave us the gift of faith to trust the Saviour. It is this love that is working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. It is this love that is working in every situation and experience of our life to make us holy and fit for heaven. It is this love that makes all things work together for our good. It is this love that has not only justified us but has also already glorified us.

CONCLUSION.

It is from this love and because of this love that Paul declares his triumphant end to chapter 8 of his letter to the Romans.

Paul is convinced that nothing in all the world, or in hell, or in heaven, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Death can’t do it, because Christ has conquered death and has finished with this dread punishment for sin for all his people. Life can’t separate us, because there is nothing in our future here on earth that can in anyway overcome the work of Christ for us or the power of Christ that keeps us. Neither angels not demons can harm us because we are under the protection of the lover of our souls. There is nothing in our present to harm us because Christ is by our side. There is nothing in our past that can accuse us because Christ’s obedience to death has hidden all our transgressions from view. There is nothing in our future that can separate us from Christ’s love, because Christ has died for our future sins and cancelled them, just as he has done with our sins of the past. In fact there is nothing that we may imagine or think up, or others throw at us that has any validity or power to sever our souls from Christ’s love.

God has loved us in Christ Jesus. That love was so great that it cost the death of the Son of God, and the severing of the Son from the Father for a time. It can not be conceived that such cost is not enough to secure our salvation or that God would allow such love to cease in the future.