What Can Separate Us From God's Love?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? For I am persuaded,
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35,38-39
I have always looked at Romans chapter 8 from a mostly individual point
of view. That is how I had heard it taught and it just seems natural to read
it that way. In other words to look at it as applying mainly to the life
of the believer, and giving us hope that the work of the Holy Spirit is leading
us toward God's final fulfillment of the plan of salvation, which also includes
the redemption of the whole of the created order. That is not a wrong way
to look at it, and that is certainly contained in Paul's writing.
But while away, I had the good fortune of coming across a series of lectures
on Romans 8 by Tom Wright, Anglican bishop of Durham and professor of New
Testament at Oxford among other places. I have to say he has opened my eyes
not to a radically different way of reading Romans, but significantly broadening
my view of this work. Romans is his specialty.
What he is saying is that the main focus of Romans 8 is really caught up
in vs 19-21...
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing
of the sons of God;
for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but
by the will of him who subjected it in hope;
because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay
and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.
He is saying that yes, absolutely, this gives hope to individual believers,
but it is much more far-reaching than just an individual thing.
Something we know from Genesis is that in the fall, even creation itself
fell, and as Paul writes, is subjected to a kind of bondage.
I think we have become so used to thinking that what we see and experience
is normal, the way it should be, that we do not comprehend the extent to
which even the natural world is also subject to the same bondage that plagues
humanity. And therefore, it is hard for us to imagine what a creation set
free would even look like.
That is certainly understandable. How can we possibly know?
Isaiah gives us a glimpse, but the fulfillment will be a much greater thing
than anything we can imagine.
We see a bit of what this means in Isaiah's great prophesy that in the
full restoration, the lion will lay down with the lamb and no creature will
hurt or harm another. The child will play with a cobra, the lion will eat
straw. Nations will not learn the art of war, swords will be beaten into
ploughshares and so on.
In other words, THAT is to be the creation's default status, not what
we see now.
And the climactic moment of salvation history will be when not just you
and I, but all creation is set free from bondage.
Think if you will that our whole universe is a living system, and more
and more we are discovering that it is.
Think of the life at the heart of that system. Imagine the life at the
heart of the system has lost touch in some fundamental way with its source.
It still goes on doing what it can do, within the limits of the one who
created it.
Scripture says this, that God allows the natural world to exist in alienation
from its creator, but only within limits. That is, neither we nor the creation
as a whole are totally cut loose from the providence of God.
But in the meantime, creation IS subject to bondage, including humanity.
And creation groans in its bondage and so do we.
But the Spirit intercedes with us in the great deep down groaning of pain
at the heart of all creation.
It is implied that part of our task as humanity is to groan alongside the
Spirit for all of creation.
And in our in-between status of holding onto God's redemption in Christ
on the one hand, and our being smack in the middle of a world and a creation
that is at war with itself, we experience both. But we become the agents
and the harbingers of hope.
Hope that points to what God has done in Jesus, and hope for what lies
ahead.
And to bring us to the point here today, hope that, in this not-yet world
of holding on to what is promised but not yet revealed, God has not abandoned
us.
"What can separate us from the love of God?", asks Paul.
He gives a sample listing of all the things a world, seemingly out of control
can throw at us:
For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
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.
So the obvious answer is nothing can separate us from God's love.
But it sure doesn't feel that way when you are facing life or death, when
you feel beset by principalities and powers, when you feel you are in the
depths and your adversaries own the heights. It sure doesn't always feel
that way, you might say.
No it doesn't.
A casual reading of the news or most of the secular literature of our day
sure doesn't remind us that we are safely in the love of God.
But that is the whole point.
At a moment when we feel our life is completely out of view of a sovereign
loving God, the Spirit with great groanings intercedes with us.
And we are reminded that no matter how far away from God we may feel, God
has not lost His eternal grasp on us.
None of those things can pull us out of God powerful orbit.
Not even our own failure, for at the heart of redemption is the promise
that Jesus atonement has reconnected us to God with an unbreakable bond.
Sure it feels like its all a mess at times. Sometimes it is a mess.
But none of it is out of the loving and sovereign gravity of God.
So when you feel at your wits end with it all, stop and let God's Spirit
intercede with you as you pray in frustration.
God is holding you firmly, your world firmly, the whole of creation firmly
and has a plan to bring it all round right in the end.
It may not seem it when you look at it.
It sure doesn't feel like it at times.
But that is the promise of God at the heart of the universe and it will
happen.
It will happen and nothing can stop it.
Amen
Preached July 27, 2008
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian
Church
Victoria, British Columbia
Resources Consulted
N.T. Wright The Spirit's Great Groaning, part of a
lecture series on Romans delivered at Wycliff College, Toronto
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