Nothing Can Separate Us…

We now reach the finale of this extraordinary chapter, and Paul closes with a rhetorical flourish. Four times he poses a question; four times he answers.

Who can be against us? God himself offered up his Son, a phrase echoing Abraham’s offering of Isaac, when he staked his future on faithfulness and trust (Gen. 22:1-14). Who can accuse us? God, the only one with the authority to do this, has declared us in the right. Paul talks less than we might expect about spiritual forces of opposition, but perhaps he has in mind here the work of Satan, the accuser, who has been decisively defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus. And he echoes the cry of one of the Servant passages in Isaiah, showing complete trust in God’s deliverance. Who can condemn us? The only one who might is the one who has faced everything we have, yet without sin, and he not only died for us, but continues to plead our case before God. This is the only place Paul talks of Jesus interceding for us, though the idea is found elsewhere (Isa. 50:8, 9; Heb. 7:25; 9:24; 1 John 2:1).

What shall separate us from the “love of Christ” (35), repeated as the “love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (39), which has been poured into our hearts by the Spirit (5:5)? In v. 36 Paul quotes Psalm 44:22, a psalm of complaint in the face of suffering. Significantly, this suffering arises not because Israel has been unfaithful, but because of their faithfulness, which again echoes the faithfulness of Jesus, the Servant (Isa. 53:7; 1 Pet. 2:23-25). This cry of victory (37) in the face of suffering, is the assurance of the beloved held tight in the arms of the divine lover.

How deep is your assurance that God holds you? Do you need to explore further God’s amazing declaration that you are put right with him by Jesus’ dying and rising?