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Nothing can separate us from the love of God

Bryan Schneider

February 22, 2021

Romans 8:31-39

Explore Romans 8:31-39 in this sermon: Romans 1-8 exposes the guilt of Gentile and Jew alike and announces free justification through the redemption and…

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Nothing can separate us from the love of God

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Summary

Romans 1-8 exposes the guilt of Gentile and Jew alike and announces free justification through the redemption and propitiation accomplished by Christ.
If God gave his own Son for his people, no opponent or circumstance can overturn his saving purpose or withhold their final good.
No charge can stand against God's elect because God justifies them through Christ's perfect obedience and satisfaction, received by faith.
No condemnation remains because Christ died, rose, ascended, sits at the Father's right hand, and intercedes for his people.
Tribulation, persecution, deprivation, danger, death, spiritual powers, time, space, and every created thing are unable to separate believers from God's love in Christ.
The funeral setting presses hearers to receive Christ personally and persevere in faith, while comforting them that death begins (not ends) the believer's life in God's presence.

Bible Study

Romans 8:31-39 gathers the argument of Romans into four triumphant questions. Humanity is guilty and unable to justify itself, but God has provided redemption through Christ's blood and counts righteousness to those who believe. Therefore, if God is for his people, no opponent can defeat his purpose. No accusation can reverse the verdict of the God who justifies. No condemnation remains because Christ died, rose, ascended, and intercedes. No suffering or created power can sever the love of Christ. Preached at a funeral, the text offers both comfort and summons: the deceased believer's hope rested not in personal merit but in Jesus, and every hearer must embrace that same Christ personally. Death is certain, yet for those in Christ it cannot undo salvation or end communion with God.

Biblical Themes

Universal guilt and free justification
Christ's propitiatory death
Resurrection, ascension, and intercession
Assurance and perseverance
God's inseparable love
Christian hope in death

Scripture Connections

Romans 1:16-17; 3:9-26: The gospel reveals God's saving righteousness for guilty Jews and Gentiles through faith in Christ's blood.
Romans 4:1-8: Abraham's faith is counted as righteousness, showing that justification is received rather than earned.
Romans 5:1-11: Those justified by faith have peace with God through Christ's death and saving life.
Romans 7:21-8:4: The believer's continuing struggle with sin is answered by deliverance in Christ and the declaration of no condemnation.
Hebrews 7:23-25: The risen Christ always lives to intercede and therefore saves completely those who draw near through him.
John 10:27-30: Christ gives his sheep eternal life, and no one can snatch them from his or the Father's hand.

Practical Applications

Answer accusations of conscience by confessing sin and resting in God's verdict through Christ, not by minimizing guilt.
Trace each fear of condemnation through Christ's death, resurrection, reign, and intercession.
Name a present trial and recite the specific promise that it cannot separate you from God's love.
Do not rely on a parent's or pastor's faith; confess Jesus as your own Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead.
Comfort mourners with Christ-centered promises while allowing honest grief.
Let the certainty of death move you to glorify and enjoy God now rather than treating Christ as a distant safeguard.

Historical Context

This is a funeral sermon preached from Romans 8:31-39. It follows Paul's argument from universal guilt through justification, struggle with remaining sin, and the assurance of God's preserving love. In that setting, the passage both honors the deceased believer's stated desire that attention remain on Christ and addresses family members who must not depend on inherited faith but personally confess Jesus as Lord.

Westminster Standards

Westminster Confession of Faith 17.1
They, whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally, nor finally, fall away from the state of Grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.
Connection to the sermon: The sermon’s repeated answer: nothing can separate believers from God's love, rests on God's preservation of those accepted in Christ to eternal salvation.
Westminster Larger Catechism 80
Such as truly beleeve in Christ, and endeavour to walk in all good conscience before him, may, without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded upon the truth of Gods promises, and by the spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, and bearing witnesse with their spirits that they are the children of God, be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and shall persevere therein unto salvation.
Connection to the sermon: Romans 8 grounds assurance not in speculation or family reputation but in God's promises, the Spirit's witness, and persevering personal faith in Christ.
Westminster Shorter Catechism 37
The souls of Beleevers are at their death made perfect in holinesse, and do immediatly passe into glory: and their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the Resurrection.
Connection to the sermon: The funeral's comfort is that death cannot separate a believer from Christ: the soul enters glory while the body remains united to him awaiting resurrection.

Questions

When conscience accuses me, do I answer with my performance or with God's justifying verdict in Christ?
How do Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession each answer the fear of condemnation?
Which suffering or loss most tempts me to believe that God has abandoned me?
Have I personally received Christ by faith, or am I relying on the faith and reputation of my family?
Is Jesus the center of my life and hope, or merely protection from judgment?
How does the promise of inseparable love change the way I face death and grief?

Key Terms

Justification: God's free act of pardoning sinners and accepting them as righteous solely for Christ's righteousness received by faith.
Propitiation: Christ's blood satisfying divine justice and turning away the wrath deserved by sin.
Intercession: The risen and ascended Christ's continuing advocacy for his people at the Father's right hand.
Perseverance: God's preservation of true believers in faith so that they continue to salvation despite suffering and weakness.
Inseparable love: God's covenant love in Christ that no creature, circumstance, spiritual power, or death can sever.

This transcript is provided to make the message easier to revisit. Minor transcription errors may remain.

Prayer for Illumination

Grace to you, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Our Father, we need your voice now. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would comfort our souls, that you would put the balm of the gospel upon us, that your Holy Spirit would be with us. that our hearts might rejoice in Him, that we might be those who agree with hope. Let us hear your commandment in Jesus' name. Amen.

Sermon

We have a lot of ground to cover. We're going to turn in our Bibles to the book of Romans, chapter 8, the book of Romans, chapter 8, and This morning we'll be looking at verses 31 through the end of the chapter. This is what God says. What shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son would deliver him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God and who makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 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 separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans chapter 8 is a summary of what's been going on. He starts off this passage in verse 31 with, what shall we say about these things? What are these things he's talking about? Well, we have a journey to walk and not much time to get there, so I need you to fasten your seatbelts. I need you to hold on, because we're gonna fly through the book of Romans real fast.

Paul starts off the book of Romans chapter 1, verse 16, where I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes. the Jew first, also to the Greek. And then in chapter 1, he goes on and he shows the depth of man's taking the created and making it their God. Worshipping the created rather than the created.

But it's not just the Gentiles out there who are condemned. When he goes to chapter 2 and he says, just because you have the law, hold on, you're also guilty of that same law because you're filled with your own pride. You think that somehow you're able to keep this law, but you can't. And you Jews are condemned to the law. And that's where we find ourselves in chapter 3 when he gets there and he says in verse 11 and 12, no one is righteous. No, not one. Not one can seek after the Lord. All of us, every single one of us, has fallen short of the glory of God.

But I'm always amazed, we love Romans 3.23, thank you for all that's said, we've fallen short of the glory of God, but the context of that verse is remarkable. for all who have sinned, all short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance, God has passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness. that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ.

Did you hear it? Paul's only in chapter 3 in the Gospel. It's there, the good news that Jesus Christ came in the flesh and got his people with the blood of his very own Son. So I'm going to say something that might be afar, but this is something that your father said to me when he was talking about his own healing. My dad didn't deserve to go to heaven. Brothers and sisters, our father didn't deserve to go to heaven. Not by his own will. but by faith in Jesus Christ.

And that's where Paul takes us in Romans chapter 4 when he says that it was Abraham who believed in God and God credited unto him as righteousness. It is by faith that God declares us righteous. It is by faith that we are made as if we have never sinned. It is only through the blood of Jesus Christ that we have And it is Jesus Christ who earned that righteousness of His perfect act of impassive obedience. Every single day of His life, He kept the covenant of works. Every single day of His life, He kept every jot and tittle of the law, fulfilling every righteous requirement of God.

But yet in chapter 5, not only is Jesus said to be the second man of God, Brethren and sisters, we are not under the yoke of the guilt of the weight of the slavery of the law, the law that was brought through Moses, that gave you death. No, that curse has been paid for in Jesus Christ.

But yeah, we still struggle, don't we? If you've been a Christian for more than about maybe 10 seconds, You read chapter 6 and you get really excited that I am no longer a slave to sin. This is great, but then you find yourself crying out with Paul, the things that I do not want to do yet I do, and the things that I don't want to do yet, those things I still do. O wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of this bondage of death? And he ends chapter 7 with, Thanks be to God.

To Jesus Christ. What shall we say about these things? for us, who could be against us? If God sent His very own Son to save you, to justify you, to redeem you, to buy you back, to cleanse you of all your unrighteousness and to make you pure and glorified. Who could possibly be against you? The master of the universe who created all things, seen and unseen, has poured out his love through the person of Jesus Christ. Who could possibly be against you?

It is God who is for us. The second question in verse 33, who can bring a charge against God's elect? Don't look to your own soul and say, oh hold on, I have too much sin, oh hold on, I'm not perfect enough, oh no, I'm not good enough. No, it's not about who you are or what you have done, it's about what Christ has done for you. It is God who justifies. If you are in Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation for you. Who can bring a charge that it's God who justifies and answers no one?

Who is He who condemns? There's a third question in verse 34. Who is He who condemns? And God gives us four clear things here. It's Christ who died. It's Christ who died. How can you be condemned? Christ was already condemned. Christ. There's no more second condemnation.

More than that, God rose Him up from the dead. Pastor Joel, at this opening, man, I thought, just keep giving us the resurrection. Just keep going, just keep going, because it is Jesus Christ who was put to death for our sins, but raised for our justification. And more than just being raised, the perfect Savior, Jesus Christ, ascended up into heaven and sits down at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and makes intercession. The perfect Son is sitting in His Father's right hand, praying for you. Who can condemn? No one. The last question Paul asks is verse 35. If all these things are true, who shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus?

Ammon, nativeness, or peril, or sword? Christians throughout the centuries have faced these things with confidence in their frailty. have faced trouble. We have brothers and sisters in China who are ripped out of their homes now and pastors who are beaten across their heads and yet will still profess that they believe in Jesus Christ. Can the communist government take the love of Christ away?

We don't have a chance. So persecution, we have a brother in Canada right now who's in jail because he refused to stop preaching the gospel on a Sunday morning, and yet he will not forsake Jesus Christ because Christ has not forsaken him. No. No, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Nakedness can't, danger can't, sword can't. Because nothing is greater than Christ.

So there's a hard call here. There's a hard reality here that I need to talk to you who have heard this man preach the Gospel for week in and week out, maybe your entire life he has been proclaiming this Gospel to you, and now he proclaims it in his casket here before you.

Your days are numbered. Do not hold far off. Do not hold the love of Christ at a distance. Children, heed the voice of Jesus Christ. Today is the day of salvation. Cling to Him yourself. Do not ride on your parents' coattails, thinking that somehow you can just go on their reputation, go on their faith. They are raising you in the faith, and praise God for that. But you need to take hold of the covenant for yourself.

You need to say that Jesus is my Savior, my Lord, and for some of you, you have possibly forgotten your first love, had your heart become lukewarm. Brothers and sisters, this is the reality. Unless the Lord shall return, every one of us will sleep in one of these boxes.

Will you live your life To the glory of God? Enjoying Him in this life and forever? Or will Jesus just be your get out of hell free card? Are your eyes consumed with the glory of Jesus Christ? Is your identity in Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ your only hope? Do you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead? When you confess with your mouth, you are sentenced and be washed clean in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, it was really clear. This was not to be about him. It was about to be about Jesus. His entire life was meant to be about Jesus, especially in his death. As he waited, longing to see that celestial city, he's now crossed over that river. He's left a legacy at the Boston. Will you follow him there? Will you follow Jesus Christ?

The last two verses of Romans 8 say, 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 knowledge that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. As you do trust in Jesus Christ, to raise you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord, not in death itself.

As Pastor Coggins and I recently heard in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and the greatest of these is love. Why? Because hope ends. Hope is an eager expectation of things that we cannot see in Mr. Spencer. Our Father sees God face to face. Love, isn't there? Love Christ. Love God. C.S. Lewis and his final book, The Chronicle of Narnia, The Last Battle, read this.

As Aslan spoke, he no longer looked like a lion. But the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for this, the end of all stories. And we can most truthfully say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world, and all their adventures in Narnia, had only been the cover and the title page. Now at last, they were beginning chapter one of the great story which no one on earth has ever read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Closing Prayer

Dad has just started chapter one. And it never ends. It just gets better. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would apply these words to our hearts and we would have faith in Jesus Christ. Not just an initial faith of clinging to him, but a faith that clings to him until our dying breath. We thank you for the gift that Dad was. We thank you for the legacy that he has left. But most of all, we thank you for Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you would have softened our hearts, that we would love you with all of them. I see.