Nothing can separate
Paul, at the height of Romans
At the summit of his greatest letter, Paul does something like a victory chant. He has spent eight chapters laying out the gospel — sin and grace, condemnation and no-condemnation, the groaning of creation and the help of the Spirit — and now he gathers it all up and asks the only question that finally matters: who or what can separate us from the love of God?
Then he hunts for a candidate and finds none. He runs through the whole catalog of human terror — death and life, angels and rulers, things present and things to come, powers, height, depth — and after each one he shakes his head. Not that. Not that either. Nothing in the entire range of existence has the power to cut you off from the love God has for you in Christ.
This is the bedrock under everything. The love that adopted you, that drew you with everlasting kindness, that engraved you on his palms, is not fragile or conditional or at risk. It is the one thing in the universe that absolutely cannot be taken from you.
“For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
— Paul, to the church at Rome — Romans 8:38-39 (WEB)
Settle into the one love in the universe that absolutely cannot be taken from you — nothing can separate you from it.
“I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.”
Underneath much of our anxiety is the fear that something could finally separate us from God — a great enough sin, a long enough wandering. The interior work is to let Paul's exhaustive list reassure you that no such thing exists, and to move from a love you fear you might lose to a love held shut from God's side, since only secure love is soil in which real holiness can grow.
Name the thing you secretly fear could separate you from God's love — a sin, a failure, a loss. This week, hold it up against Paul's list and preach the verdict to yourself: not even this can separate me from the love of God in Christ.
The accuser specializes in separation anxiety, suggesting that this sin, this wandering, has finally frayed the cord between you and God. But a love no created thing can sever is not waiting to be undone by a whisper — what the Father and the Son hold shut, the accuser cannot pry open.
Most of our spiritual anxiety, underneath, is separation anxiety — the fear that something could finally come between us and God. A grave enough sin, a long enough wandering, a hard enough loss, and surely the connection could snap. Paul went looking for whatever could do it and came back empty-handed. There is no such thing.
This does not make us careless; it makes us secure, and secure love is the only soil in which real holiness grows. You cannot rest in a love you think you might lose. Paul wants you to know, with settled certainty, that the love holding you is held shut from God's side, in two hands you can trust — the Son's and the Father's — and nothing in all creation can pry them open.
- What do I secretly fear could separate me from God's love?
- Am I resting in a love I think I might lose?
- How would settled security change the way I pursue holiness?
Father, nothing in all creation can separate me from your love in Christ. Settle me in that certainty, and let me grow in the soil of secure love. Amen.