Who is there to separate us from the love of the Christ? Will trouble, or difficulty, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?... For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor archangels, nor the present, nor the future, nor any powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord!
Romans 8:35, 38-39 (OEB)
So, nothing can separate us from the Love of God. The end. Have a nice week!
You are Love.
...
...
...
If only it was that simple. If only I could just leave it at that. If only there weren't decades, maybe centuries, of bad theology in the way.
Picturing Lies
I'm sure at some point you've seen a picture, poster, or painting like this:
This illustration shows the cross bridging the gap of the chasm caused by sin that separates God and Man.
I find this illustration to be bullshit.
Sorry, there aren't any better words to describe a harmful misrepresentation of truth.
The Truth is much better than these posters and paintings. The Truth is, nothing can separate us from the Love of God.
“But, Evan, what about Isaiah?”
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Isaiah 59:2 (NHEB)
That's fair. It does say pretty clearly that sin separated us from God.
Except, that's past tense. I can concede that sin may have separated God from His people in the past. However, that doesn't describe our present reality.
The chasm of sin illustration makes sense in that Christ has helped mankind cross the gap. But, what the illustration fails to make clear is that because of Christ, we are on the other side already.
Now, nothing, not even sin, can separate us from the Love of God.
Who will bring a charge against any of God’s people? He who pronounces them righteous is God!
Romans 8:33 (OEB)
God has pronounced us righteous. Sin no longer separates us. We are declared righteous.
That illustration was old and outdated the moment it was created.
A Better Picture
“Alright, but there are still times when I've done terrible things and feel quite separate from God.”
Yes, those moments are bound to come. They come, in large part, from bad theology that presents humanity as separated. They also come just from living in a world where the light of Truth doesn't shine completely.
The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is unclouded, your whole body will be lit up; but, if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be darkened. And, if the inner light is darkness, how intense must that darkness be!
Matthew 6:22-23 (OEB)
We feel separated when our eyes are clouded and can not see clearly the Truth of God's Love.
One way to see more clearly is to have better pictures.
Instead of art made from bad theology, we simply look to the words of Jesus to find a much better picture of God's love.
Then Jesus continued, “A man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father ‘Father, give me my share of the inheritance.’
So the father divided the property between them. A few days later the younger son got together all that he had, and went away into a distant land; and there he squandered his inheritance by leading a dissolute life. After he has spent all that he had, there was a severe famine through all that country, and he began to be in actual want. So he went and engaged himself to one of the people of that country, who sent him into his fields to tend pigs. He even longed to satisfy his hunger with the bean-pods on which the pigs were feeding; and no one gave him anything.
But, when he came to himself, he said ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more bread than they can eat, while here am I starving to death! I will get up and go to my father, and say to him “Father, I sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son; make me one of your hired servants.”’
And he got up and went to his father. But, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was deeply moved; he ran and threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. ‘Father,’ the son said, ‘I sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son; make me one of your hired servants.’
But the father turned to his servants and said ‘Be quick and fetch a robe – the very best – and put it on him; give him a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet; and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for here is my son who was dead, and is alive again, was lost, and is found.’ So they began making merry.
Meanwhile the elder son was out in the fields; but, on coming home, when he got near the house, he heard music and dancing, and he called one of the servants and asked what it all meant. ‘Your brother has come back,’ the servant told him, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has him back safe and sound.’
This made him angry, and he would not go in. But his father came out and begged him to do so. ‘No,’ he said to his father, ‘look at all the years I have been serving you, without ever once disobeying you, and yet you have never given me even a young goat, so that I might have a party with my friends. But, no sooner has this son of yours come, who has eaten up your property in the company of prostitutes, than you have killed the fattened calf for him.’
‘Child,’ the father answered, ‘you are always with me, and everything that I have is yours. We could but make merry and rejoice, for here is your brother who was dead, and is alive; who was lost, and is found.’”
Luke 15:11-32 (OEB)
That is a much better picture of God's Love. Nothing you go off and do on your own can make Him love you any less. Though you feel separated, He is waiting with open arms to welcome you home.
While this picture is much, much better, I think even it is a little inaccurate. Though we may wander off and squander our inheritance, the Father is right with us every step of the way. When we wander down a wrong path, God is walking behind us the whole time waiting for, and occasionally nudging, you to turn around into His embrace.
What are we to say, then, in the light of all this?
If God is on our side, who can there be against us?
God did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up on behalf of us all; will he not, then, with him, freely give us all things?
Who will bring a charge against any of God’s people? He who pronounces them righteous is God!
Who is there to condemn them? He who died for us is Christ Jesus! – or, rather, it was he who was raised from the dead, and who is now at God’s right hand and is even pleading on our behalf!
Who is there to separate us from the love of the Christ? Will trouble, or difficulty, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?Scripture says – ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long, We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ Yet amid all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us! For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor archangels, nor the present, nor the future, nor any powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord!
Romans 8:31-39
Nothing can separate you from the Love of God.
You are Love