SCRIPTURE Romans 8:38–39 “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 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.”
COMMENTARY Teaches that no one else or any other created thing can separate believers (“us”) from the love of Christ. It does not say that a believer cannot abandon his faith and thereby lose his salvation (1 Corinthians 15:1–2), or that a believer cannot lose his salvation by sinning willfully and habitually after receiving Christ (Galatians 5:21 and Hebrews 10:26). Unbelief and sin are not listed as conditions even though these are specifically addressed in other passages. Furthermore, we have shown earlier using Scripture, that even when explicit conditions on a promise are not specified, it does not mean that the conditions don’t exist. It must also be noted that this passage does not directly refer to salvation, but to the love of God. To apply this passage to salvation, one must first equate “the love of God” with salvation. However, many passages tell us that God’s love extends to the whole world (John 3:16), yet we know that the whole world will not be saved (Matthew 7:13–14). Applying this verse to salvation is tenuous at best. Even if we do consider it as applying to salvation, this interpretation of Romans 8:38–39 ignores the possibility that we can exercise our free will to separate ourselves from Christ or that God can separate us from Christ, which is documented in Scripture (John 15:1–2).
A close examination of the passage supports this interpretation. Romans 8:38–39 is clearly talking about things and beings other than ourselves. Furthermore, much of Romans 8 addresses brothers and sisters (believers) who walk in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:1, 4–5), with many warnings and condemnations for those who don’t walk in the Holy Spirit. If Romans 8:35–39 is a promise of salvation, the context of Romans 8 indicates the promise is made to those believers who are walking faithfully with the Holy Spirit and who are doing the Father’s will.
The passage intentionally does not deal with sin or unbelief which can both be causes of the loss of salvation and we are warned about both of these elsewhere in Scripture. For example in Hebrews we are warned about drifting away and hardening our hearts. Some interpreters would claim that this list is designed to represent exhaustiveness, which is also an error in interpretation. The only potentially exhaustive list provided is of other beings and even God is not included in that list. God loved Israel and yet time after time, God destroyed His people, His elect, for engaging in sin and unbelief driving their actions even though they believed in God.
It is scripturally inconsistent with the nature of God (who hated sin enough to send His son to pay a horrific price for our sin) that He will welcome into His kingdom those who, after coming to Christ, are committed to disobedience or later reject Jesus Christ. God does not have unlimited tolerance for sin, as demonstrated in the Old Testament. Many Christians are committed to disobedience, and some lukewarm Christians do not share the hatred of sin that they would have if they were being led by the Holy Spirit. Scripture teaches that Jesus became the author of salvation for those who obey Him (Romans 8:3–4), not those who rebel against Him. For a more comprehensive view of this passage and the issues with modern interpretation, see the Section on Key Scriptures later in this chapter.