Reflection on Romans 8:35-36
Rom 8:35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”
Who is God? What is God’s love? We can perceive it by our reason too. God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible. He created me as well. He knows me; He gave me the Spirit of life and earthly life through natural parents. He wants me to be perfectly happy for all eternity. He delivered up His only begotten Son to shameful death for my sake. He wants me to receive His love. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. There is also human love, which has its strongest expression in the relationship between a mother and child. God’s love is eternal. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isa 49:15) God keeps you in His mind. He loves you more than you love yourself. When will God’s love for you end? After a year? After twenty years, fifty years? Never! God’s love for you is eternal. Before God created the universe, He kept you in His mind and loved you. His love never ceases. Unfortunately, to those who reject God it causes eternal torment.
The Apostle Paul asks: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And he adds immediately: Distress or persecution? Famine or nakedness? Danger or death? The answer is in verses 38-39: “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities … nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Apostle himself suffered persecution and distress since he preached Christ and His Gospel. Finally, he was beheaded with the sword in Rome for the sake of Christ. He had the experience of God’s love and so did the other Apostles and hundreds of thousands of martyrs who endured suffering and even sacrificed their lives out of love for Christ and out of pure love for themselves. They are an example to us and a testimony to the love of God which is in Christ Jesus and which is also in all those who sincerely received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Rom 8:36 “For Your sake we are killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
The world and demons hate Christ and all who received Him and are faithful to Him. This is expressed in verse 36: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” When we are persecuted for the sake of Christ, God’s love gives us the victory. Helpless and afflicted though, we are the conquerors if we are united to Christ. In the hour of death, after the short test of time, eternity is in store for us, eternity in glory and happiness which cannot be expressed in words or compared to any temporal happiness.
Download: Reflection on Romans 8:35-36
