Romans 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [The thought of Romans 8:28; which has not been out of the apostle's mind since he introduced it, here comes once more squarely to the front. Shall any of the hardships of our present life so work evil as to cause Christ to change his present feeling toward us, or his future purpose to justify us? Can we who know his love ask such a question? Can anything in the whole catalogue of hardships work such results? Though in our day the sufferings may vary somewhat from the items given by the apostle, yet they raise the same doubts--produce in us the same effects. It is natural to man to look upon the sufferings of the Christian life as a contradiction to the scheme of grace. According to our earthly conceptions, a journey which is to end in glorification should continually rise toward it, so that pleasures, joys, honors, etc., should increase daily. When, instead of such a program, we meet with tribulation, anguish, nakedness, etc., it looks to us as if God were leading us the wrong way--the way that would end in degradation and death, rather than glorification and life. The answer to such thoughts is found in this argument of the apostle. God makes any road lead to good and glorification, and especially those roads which seem to run in the opposite direction; so that we may regard those things which appear to argue his hatred and neglect as, on the contrary, the strongest evidences of his love and care. And this, adds the apostle, is no new truth, for it has been the experience of God's people in the past, as the Scripture testifies.]