DO YOU KNOW YOUR GOD-4?
We have been studying the Biblical passage in Romans 8:28-39, which brings into sharp focus the nature of God. In this final post, we see two more aspects of this amazing God we know and serve.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
This section speaks of the enablement of God as in him we go on become ‘more than conquerors’. The best way to understand this phrase is to look at the example of a family where the father, through his abilities and hard work over the years has become a very wealthy man. He owns several estates and has many bank accounts. Even though his wife and child have not contributed to earning any of his wealth, the father has included their names as co-owners for all his estates and his bank accounts. So everything that the father has, also belongs to them even though they have not worked for it. The father is the conqueror in this example; his wife and child are ‘more than conquerors’.
And so it follows that in Christ we have access to the untold eternal blessings that flow from God, victory over circumstances and authority over negative spiritual forces that battle against man. We can rest not because we have overcome or worked for these but because Christ has accomplished all these for us- we are more than conquerors through Christ.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 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.
Finally we see the commitment of God. This flows out of his love- a love that cannot be shaken and that will not be withdrawn. No opposition to that love will succeed. Such is the nature of God’s love. It is incomprehensible for man to even imagine such a love. Who would love that which is inherently unlovable? Only God can do that. For any relationship, at least one party needs to be stable. In the love relationship a pilgrim shares with God, we receive the absolute, unmovable love of God that will not be taken away, no matter what. Despite our many sins and failures, our inadequacies and incompetence, God continues to love us and welcome us, approving us and encouraging us. That is the commitment on which the pilgrim rests assured as he stumbles along to his eternal destination.
