Romans 8:31-39 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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.
If Paul was writing verse 35 today, I wonder if he might ask:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall riots, or Covid, or loss of income, or famine, or isolation from friends and family, or loss of free speech, or politicians, or socialistic trends, or unfair laws, or shutdown of churches?
It is tempting to think times have never been this bad. The believers during Nero’s time might disagree. Imagine being coved with tar and burned alive as torches, or dressed as sheep and put in the arena with lions, or being sawed in half. And still not denying Jesus. Even today in India and the middle East the churches are routinely destroyed and the Christians are killed. Those believers continue to demonstrate that we can be more than conquerors…through Christ Jesus.