PRESERVATION (Romans 8:31-39)

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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." (Romans 8:38-39)

Joseph A. Fitzmeyer writes:

“The love of God poured out in the Christ-event is the basis of Christian life and hope. No created being or force can unsettle that foundation. In all of the uncertainty of human, earthly life there is something fixed and certain, Christ’s love and God’s election. These are unshakable; and Christians must learn to trust in them and take them for granted.” (The Anchor Bible Commentary: Romans, 536)

The doctrine of salvation, and particularly God’s preservation of his people, is at the heart of the Reformation, brothers and sisters. Must we make atonement for our own sins…must we satisfy the justice of God ourselves…or has Christ done that for us already? Can we have peace, confidence, and assurance or our eternal salvation or must we live always in anxious uncertainty? Are we saved by works of righteousness…by being good or moral person…or are we saved by grace? These are the questions upon which the Reformation was built, brothers and sisters, as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and other reformers came to truly believe what Paul writes in Ephesians, chapter two:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

The reformers also understood the truth that if our eternal salvation were, in fact, in our hands, we would have good reason to be anxious because we would most certainly lose it. We can never be good enough…never do enough to earn our eternal salvation or to keep it. We would mess it up somehow. We would always find a way to screw it up, because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We screw up. Pretty frequently, too, I’d say. We are sinful creatures, brothers and sisters, bent on satisfying selfish desires, and I guarantee you, if my eternal salvation was left in my hands, I would lose it…every time in a million tries.

But as the apostle Paul assures me, as Calvin comments, and as Luther came to believe through his study of Paul’s letter, perhaps ironically, to the church in Rome, my eternal salvation is not in my hands. There is no one in earth or heaven who can bring any accusation against me except Jesus Christ, and he’s the one who saves me. There is no thing in earth or heaven that can stand between me and Jesus Christ. There is no length of time or unforeseen event in earth or heaven that can separate me from God’s love for me in Jesus Christ.

I am saved because God has chosen to save me. My eternal salvation is in his hands, not mine. It’s his choice, not mine. It’s his job to keep my salvation, not mine. There is nothing I can do to earn my salvation because I can’t do anything good enough to earn that. There is nothing I can do to lose my salvation because I can’t do anything bad enough to separate me from Jesus Christ. If rulers, angels, life or death can’t do it…if things present or things to come can’t do it…if distress, persecution, famine, peril, or the sword can’t separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, how arrogant…how prideful…how sinful is it to assume that I can?

Nothing will be able to separate us…nothing has the power to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord…not rulers, not persecution, not angels, not an unknown future, not height, not depth, not anything else in all creation…not you…not me…nothing and no one has the power to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is the assurance of the gospel, brothers and sisters…that those who God has chosen to save, he will keep until the last day. The eternal salvation of the elect is secure because it is God who holds…God who keeps us…God who preserves us...God who saves us.