Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
This means: “Who will turn us away from the love of Christ, who has given us such great and innumerable gifts?” No torments will overcome the love of a mature Christian. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Good Christians are not separated from Christ even by torture. Tepid and careless ones however, are sometimes separated from him by idle tales; if they suffer even a slight loss they are immediately scandalized, dare to murmur against God and return to their impious, detestable omens.
Let us bear about a deep love for the Creator, let us cleave to him with our whole heart, let us not wickedly waste the substance of reason like the prodigal. Let us obtain the joy laid up, in which Paul, exulting, exclaimed: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Fragments
None of these can separate believers; nothing can snatch away those clinging to Christ’s body and blood. This persecution is for the examination and evaluation of our heart. God wanted us to be tried and proved, as he has always tried his own, and yet, in his trials, never at any time has his help failed believers.
The Father corrects and protects us, if we still stand fast in the faith both in afflictions and perplexities, that is to say, cling closely to His Christ; as it is written, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.
Moreover the apostle: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (As it is written, For thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors for Him who hath loved us.".
Moreover, the Apostle Paul says: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, Because for Thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we overcome on ac...
Who then, or what shall separate us from the love of Christ? Neither devils, nor men, nor any thing in nature, unless it be by our own fault, and unless we wilfully and sinfully leave God.
I am sure. In the Greek, I am fully persuaded, that nothing can separate us In fine, another argument to prove we ought to have a firm hope in God, is that Christ Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, also intercedeth for us. Christ, as man, intercedeth, prayeth for us, is our advocate and chief mediator See Hebrews vii. Christ is truly said to pray for us in heaven, though it is not he custom of the Church to call upon him in this manner, "Christ pray for us "because being God, as well as man, he has all things under his command. (Witham)
Even though it is easy to make a list like this one, each word contains thousands of lines of temptation. “Tribulation,” for instance, includes prisons and bonds, calumnies and banishments, and all other such hardships. A single word covers oceans of dangers and reveals to us all the evils which people encounter in life.
For we are persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
