Saturday

Related Verses
Rom. 8:35,37-39
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
37 But in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers
39 Nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom. 5:5
5 And hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Jer. 31:3
3 Jehovah appeared to me from afar, saying, Indeed I have loved you with an eternal love, Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.

Hos. 11:4
4 I drew them with cords of a man, With bands of love; And I was to them like those Who lift off the yoke on their jaws; And I gently caused them to eat.

Psa. 23:5-6
5 You spread a table before me In the presence of my adversaries; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me All the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of Jehovah For the length of my days.

Related Reading
In Romans 8:37 Paul tells us that in all the sufferings we more than conquer through Christ who loved us. Because of God’s unchanging love for us and the fact that Christ has accomplished everything on our behalf, neither tribulation nor persecution can suppress or defeat us; rather, in all these things we more than overcome and conquer through Him who loved us. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3083-3084) 

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The love of God is the source of His eternal salvation. This love is in Christ and has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). Nothing can separate us from this love of God. In God’s salvation this love to us has become the love of Christ, which does many marvelous things for us through the grace of Christ until God’s complete salvation is accomplished in us. These marvelous things provoke God’s enemy to attack us with all kinds of sufferings and calamities (8:35-36). However, because of our response to the love of God in Christ, these attacks have become benefits to us (v. 28). Hence, we more than conquer in all our afflictions and calamities (v. 37). 

We are God’s beloved ones, and nothing can separate us from His love. Once God loves us, He loves us forever with an eternal, inseparable love. Therefore, God’s salvation is secured by His love. This means that our eternal security is the love of God. We may be assured that nothing will separate us from the love of God, because this love does not derive from us or depend on us but is derived from God and depends on Him. This love was initiated by God in eternity. 

In Romans 8:39 Paul points out that the inseparable love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. If the love of God were shown apart from Christ, there would be problems, for apart from Christ, even a sin such as losing our temper would separate us from the love of God. However, the love of God is not only the love of God itself but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Because the love of God is in Christ Jesus, we may be assured that nothing can separate us from it. 

God’s salvation in Christ has saved us to the extent that, on the one hand, we are in God’s acceptance enjoying the source of this salvation, which is God’s love in Christ, from which we cannot be separated by any person, matter, or thing; and, on the other hand, we are in God’s life being conformed by the Lord Spirit to reach the ultimate goal of this salvation, that is, to enter into the incomparable divine glory and be glorified together with God (vv. 18, 30). 

The first eight chapters of Romans reveal that Christ has divinity and eternal deity and that the divine person of Christ is in the Godhead. These chapters also show that this Christ who has the Godhead became a man as the seed of David, that He passed through the processes of human living, death, and resurrection, thereby accomplishing God’s redemption and entering into God’s glory, and that through these processes He was eventually consummated to become the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of life, and the reality, the essence, of this wonderful Christ. It is as the Spirit of Christ that He can, and does, enter into His believers to be their life, their life supply, and their everything. In summary, Christ as God was incarnated to be a man, and Christ in His humanity with flesh passed through the processes of death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit in order to be one spirit with us that we might be a part of His being as members of His wonderful Body. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 3084-3085) 

Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 302 

Further Reading:
Life-study of Romans, msg 67
Life-Study of Jeremiah, msg 26

Hymn: #540
1 What release the Savior gave me!
Christ indeed has set me free!
All the pow’r of sin is broken,
All death’s sting is passed from me!

Christ has made me more than conqu’ror,
By His mighty victory,
Now His resurrection power
From my spirit strengthens me!

2 From the law Christ has delivered,
To its claims I’m ever dead;
Nevermore the law shall bind me,
But by grace I’ll live instead.

3 Christ has sin condemned at Calv’ry
And its power done away;
Now it has no ground within me,
I am freed from all its sway.

4 Death by Him has been abolished,
Incorrupted life is shown;
Death’s enthralling bonds are broken,
Resurrection life is known.

5 Christ through death has crushed the devil,
World and demons by His might,
From the pow’r of darkness brought me
To the realm of life and light.

6 All-sufficient grace He giveth,
With His pow’r He covers me,
Makes me glory in my weakness
And in weakness strengthens me.