John Calvin Commentary 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?" — Romans 8:35 (ASV)

Who shall separate us, etc. The conviction of safety is now more widely extended, even to lesser things; for the one who is persuaded of God’s kindness toward him is able to stand firm in the heaviest afflictions. These usually harass people greatly, and for various reasons—because they interpret them as tokens of God’s wrath, or think they are forsaken by God, or see no end to them, or neglect to meditate on a better life, or for other similar reasons. But when the mind is purged from such mistakes, it becomes calm and rests quietly.

But the meaning of the words is this: that whatever happens, we ought to stand firm in this faith—that God, who once embraced us in His love, never ceases to care for us. For He does not simply say that there is nothing that can tear God away from His love for us; but He means that the knowledge and living sense of the love He testifies to us is so strong in our hearts that it always shines in the darkness of afflictions. For just as clouds, though they obscure the clear brightness of the sun, do not entirely deprive us of its light, so God, in adversities, sends forth the rays of His favor through the darkness, lest temptations overwhelm us with despair. Indeed, our faith, supported by God’s promises as if by wings, makes its way upward to heaven through all intervening obstacles.

It is indeed true that adversities are tokens of God’s wrath when considered in themselves; but when pardon and reconciliation precede, we ought to be assured that God, though He chastises us, never forgets His mercy. He indeed thus reminds us of what we have deserved, but He no less testifies that our salvation is an object of His care while He leads us to repentance.

But He calls it the love of Christ, and for this reason—because the Father has, in a way, opened His compassions to us in Him. Since, then, the love of God is not to be sought outside of Christ, Paul rightly directs our attention to Him, so that our faith may behold, in the rays of Christ’s favor, the serene countenance of the Father.

The meaning is this: that in no adversities ought our confidence to be shaken regarding this truth—that when God is propitious, nothing can be adverse to us.

Some take this love in a passive sense, as the love by which He is loved by us, as though Paul would have us be armed with invincible courage. But this interpretation can be easily disproved by the whole tenor of Paul’s reasoning, and Paul himself will soon remove all doubt by defining more clearly what this love is.

Tribulation, or distress, or persecution? etc. The masculine pronoun that He used at the beginning of the verse contains a hidden power. For when He might have adopted the neuter gender and said—What shall separate us? etc., He preferred ascribing personality to inanimate things, and for this purpose—that He might send forth with us into the contest as many champions as there are temptations to test our faith.

But these three things have this distinction: tribulation includes every kind of trouble or evil; distress is an inward feeling when difficulties reduce us to such an extreme that we do not know what course to pursue. Such was the anxiety of Abraham and Lot, when one was compelled to expose his wife to the danger of prostitution, and the other, his daughters; for being brought to straits and perplexed, they found no way of escape. Persecution properly denotes the tyrannical violence by which the children of God were undeservedly harassed by the ungodly.

Now, although Paul denies in 2 Corinthians 4:8 that the children of God are reduced to straits (στενοχωρεῖσθαι), He does not disagree with himself. For He does not simply make them exempt from anxious concern, but He means that they are delivered from it, as the examples of Abraham and Lot also testify.