Romans 8:31–39
God’s Everlasting Love
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 gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(ESV)
Inseparable
As Paul penned the words of Romans 8, his heart was overflowing with the profound truth of the gospel. He knew the immeasurable cost of God's love—a love that took on flesh, entered the world as a baby in Bethlehem, and walked the path to the cross. This is the essence of Christmas: God’s unstoppable love reaching down to rescue us.
Paul is reflecting on the gift of Christmas, God himself coming to be with his people as a small child. And Paul’s conclusion in these verses is that there is absolutely nothing that can stop that from happening. More than that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Every possible barrier has been taken away. Our sin no longer separates us from a relationship with our heavenly Father. And like a Father who loves his children God spared no expense to rescue us. He gave everything even his own son so that we could become sons and daughters! This is the message of Christmas that there’s no distance too great that God will not cross to be with us.
Paul declares with unshakable confidence that nothing—absolutely nothing—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Why? Because every barrier has been removed. Our sin no longer stands in the way. Our fears, our failures, our weaknesses do not distance us from God's presence. The love of Christmas is a love that travels every distance and breaks every chain.
At Christmas, we see the love of God in the most intimate and vulnerable form: God Himself becoming a child. The Creator becoming the creation, the King of Kings confined to a manger. Why would He do such a thing? Because, he is the God who will spare no expense to redeem his creation.
Paul asks the question in verse 32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Christmas is the definitive answer to that question. God has already given us His greatest gift—Himself. If He has done that, then we can know that there is no need too great, no situation too hopeless, no distance too far for His love to reach us.
Josh Wellinghoff