“life cannot separate us from the love of God” - Robert Murray M’Cheyne

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?...For I am sure that neither death nor life…nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - (Romans 8:35,38-39)

“The age in which this epistle (to the Romans) was penned, was fruitful of suffering to the church of God. And if any period, or any circumstances of her history threatened a severance of the bond which united her to Christ, that was the period, & those were the circumstances. But, with a confidence based upon the glorious truth on which he has been descanting, the security of the church of God in Christ, & with a persuasion inspired be the closer realization of the glory about to burst upon her view, and with the most dauntless courage, he exclaims, ‘For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:38-39). Let us briefly glance at each of these things which may threaten, but which cannot succeed in separating us from the love of God, & from our union with Christ…

Life cannot. I remember reading of one of Brainerd’s converts, who, when brought to a full sense of the love of God, cried out, ‘Oh, blessed Lord, take me away; do let me die, & go to Jesus Christ. I am afraid if I live I shall sin again.’ She feared that life would separate her from the love of God. But no, life cannot, ‘neither death nor life’. The hope of life is meant. The apostle wrote, as we have remarked, in a peculiarly suffering era of the church, an age of fiery persecution for the gospel’s sake. Under these circumstances, life was not infrequently offered on condition of renouncing the gospel & denying the Saviour. This was a strong temptation to apostasy.

When, in suffering times, in full view of the rack, the cross or the stake, life, precious life, with all its sweet attraction & fond ties, was offered, & when a simple renunciation of the cross, & a single embrace of the crucifix, would purchase it back – to some who were weak in faith, such a temptation might be well-nigh irresistible. But it shall not succeed in separating the suffering Christian from the love of Christ.

Nor shall anything connected with life, its trials, its vicissitudes, or its temptations, sever us from God’s affection. Thus both life & death shall but confirm us in the assurance of our inalienable interest in the love of God, ‘For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s’ (Romans 14:8). Are you in Christ? Do not fear to live. The love of God will still be poured into your heart, & the Spirit of God will be given to you. ‘I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one’ (John 17:15). Neither death, nor life, can separate us from the love of God.”

- Robert Murray M’Cheyne, New Testament Sermons

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