God defines love by the things that He does, and what He does for His people spans the entire arc of history—from His predestinating love, in eternity past, to His ultimate glorification of the believer (Rom. 8:28-30). Nothing can separate God’s elect from His everlasting love: not tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword—nor the threats or accusations of any enemy (vs. 31-39). Thus, as His redeemed, God’s unfailing love for us should stir our hearts to love Him more! 

 

In Romans 8, 31-39, the concluding words of this soaring text, Romans 8, what you find is the language of the love of God. And, you know, what does it mean when you say that God loves you? You know, what is love? Well, there are maybe two dozen words that really describe God's love. And the first part of this section has been called the golden chain of salvation.

And every link in the chain is something that God has done in his love. And what you find in this passage is this entire arc of history. It's really a complete historical narrative of the life of the believer from beginning to end. Beginning in eternity past, the predestinating love of God. And then that art completes with glorification.

So it begins in eternity past and encompasses everything in between until final glorification. So he uses these, he uses six words, foreknew, predestined, conformed, called, justified, and glorified. These are all things that God has done. This is the language of God's love. It's very interesting.

When you think about love, you know, God defines love by the things that He does, And that's what love is defined by. There's really not much of God's feelings here. There's a little bit implied, but it's what God does that demonstrates His love for us. And It's something that God has done. Salvation is a free gift of the grace of God from beginning to end, from eternity past, all the way to glorification.

Here's an illustration. Spurgeon was preaching his last sermon and there was an eyewitness who reported that he was talking about the insufficiency of works to merit salvation and he he cried out he says works works a man get to heaven by works, I would as soon as think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand." Because this language of the love of God is the language of what God has done. And then right after that, the apostle asks six questions, and I won't go over all of them. But the first one is, the first question really is, if God is for us, who can be against us? And what you have here is this comparison.

You have God and you have who. And the apostle Paul wants us to compare God with who ever is against us. And the idea is which of your enemies is greater than God? Which accusations are greater than God's forgiveness? And that's really the character of these questions and and many of them walk in pairs like that, God and who.

And then at the very end of Romans 8 verses 37 through 39, the apostle Paul tells us that he is persuaded of the love of God and that he's 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 God which is in Christ Jesus. He lists about ten things and if you're a believer You should be convinced that God loves you. And these words will really help you to see the depth of God's love. But if you are a believer, you also want to love God more. In Jude 20 and 21, Jude says, keep yourselves in the love of God.

But he says at the same time, what does that look like? Build yourself up in the holy faith. And beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, and then he says keep yourselves in the love of God. And so yet while we know that God loves us with an everlasting love, we want to love him more. And we do that by stirring up our affections by the Word of God.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. Scripture Applied is a production of Church and Family Life. Visit churchandfamilylife.com for more resources.