God for Us ~ Romans 8:31-39...Continued from page 4

No Separation
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 created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (vv. 38-39). We may feel at times that God has departed from us, but that is when we have to believe His Word rather than our feelings. The Word of God promises and guarantees that death cannot separate us from Christ's love, nor can life or earthly governments. Men could throw Joseph in prison for years, but they could not separate Joseph from the love of his God. Principalities in the demonic world or Satan and his angels cannot separate us from the love of Christ, nor can anything that happens today or tomorrow. What about height? What about depth? Paul is giving us selective examples of what might separate us from the love of Christ. His point is that nothing—height, depth, life, death, powers, principalities, or any creature—can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. 

Is it safe? That has been the theme of our study of Romans 8. If we have been saved, we are safe from anything this world can put against us because God from all eternity has loved and redeemed us. We are His elect. We have been chosen by God to be conformed to the image of Christ and to be Christ's possession—not for a day or a week  but for eternity. If we do not like the idea of God's sovereign grace, if we are still kicking against it, why? It is our guarantee that nothing can separate us from the great love wherewith He loves us.

The above was an excerpt from Romans: The Righteous Shall Live by Faith, (chapter 32) by R.C. Sproul, published by Crossway Books © 2009. R. C. Sproul delivered nearly sixty sermons on Romans from October 2005 to April 2007 at St. Andrew's Chapel, where he has pastored for more than a decade.

Dr. R.C. Sproul is founder and president of Ligonier Ministries, and the author of The Truth of the Cross. For more than thirty years, Dr. R.C. Sproul has thoroughly and concisely analyzed weighty theological, philosophical, and biblical topics in books, seminars and "Right Now Counts Forever," his monthly column in Ligonier Ministries' Table Talk magazine.

For more of Dr. Sproul's teaching on his daily broadcast, visit Renewing Your Mind at OnePlace.com.