I’ve had opportunity to think about Romans 8 this week as I was preparing for a talk at Camp Manatawny. Romans wasn’t my main focus, but who can help but get drawn into how in Christ nothing can separate us from God’s love? That’s verses 37-39. So I found myself exploring more about the extent of that bond we have and focusing on life and death; angels and demons; present and future; powers; height and depth; and, well, everything in all creation – but mostly death.
I think as long as we’re breathing, we kind of have this attitude that we’ve got enough fight in us to withstand a lot of what life throws at us. Our sense of self-preservation kicks in and we tend to avoid a lot we believe could undo us. Even the penultimate demonic fear really pales in comparison to the ultimate; after all, I can resist the devil and he’ll flee from me (James 4:7). It’s the death thing that gets us. We don’t get out of this life alive.
But I think we misunderstand on several fronts because if I’m not recognizing the dangers presented in that list I may live my life a bit too cavalierly, not recognizing the true power of being in Christ – and as Christians, we are in Christ. But death calls us to attention. So let’s break it down.
When we’re baptized into Christ, we are in Christ. He is our actual life according to Colossians 3:4. We enter into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (Romans 6). So how accurate is it for us to buy into the idea that ultimately, we all die alone? Do we really? Because we have so many passages like John 5:24 that talk about having passed from death into life, present tense. Present tense – not as some future reality, but now. Or how Jesus is now our life (Colossians 3:4). So, when Romans 8 talks about how death cannot separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus, it makes me think….
…And this is what I think – When Jesus hung on that cross and cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried out those words so that no one would ever have to cry out those words again. In Christ, we have already been united with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, and since death no longer has mastery over him (Romans 6:9), it really has no mastery over those in Him.
I don’t know how all of this will play out when I finally lay my body down – but I have God’s word, faithful and true – nothing can separate us from His love in Christ – not even death….