(35)WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? SHALLTRIBULATION, OR DISTRESS, OR PERSECUTION, OR FAMINE, OR NAKEDNESS, OR PERIL, OR SWORD?  (37)YET IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US.  (38) FOR I AM PERSUADED THAT NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE, NOR ANGELS NOR PRINCIPALITIES NOR POWERS, NOR THINGS PRESENT NOR THINGS TO COME, (39) NOR HEIGHT NOR DEPTH, NOR ANY OTHER CREATED THING, SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.

We have been studying Romans, Chapter 8, where the Apostle Paul has dealt with sinful man and physical death, spiritual death and eternal death.  In Romans, Chapter 8, Paul addresses the issue of sin and says that sin has been atoned for through the death and resurrection of Christ.  The called die to their old sinful nature and the law and live in the new, which is in Christ and the Spirit, by the free grace of God.

Sunday’s reading is Paul’s ecstatic declaration of the final triumph through Christ and the Spirit.  The Apostle Paul speaks with amazement at the depth and breadth of the love of Christ for man.  Paul says ALL THINGS  are not so great a display of God’s love as the gift of His Son to be the atonement for the sin of man.  With that manifestation of God’s love, how can we think that anything can turn aside or do away with that love?

ROMANS 8:31-32

(31) WHAT 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 DELIVERED HIM UP FOR US ALL, HOW SHALL HE NOT WITH HIM ALSO FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS?