Secure in God’s Love

MEMORY SELECTION: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” —Romans 8:28

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Romans 8:28-39

IT IS God’s purpose during the Gospel Age to call out from fallen mankind some (the church) who would willingly endeavor to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. This course involves sacrifice and suffering, which is gladly endured by those called, as an outward manifestation of their love for the Creator and his plans and purposes. But God loved us before we loved him. The prophecies indicate that this class, as a group, was predestinated from the beginning.

One of the beautiful prophecies concerning Christ and his church is recorded in Psalm 45. In the first verse the Heavenly Father prophetically says, “My heart is inciting a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” Here the Heavenly Father pictures himself looking down the stream of time to when our Lord, as King, and his church are glorified and exalted to the divine nature. He pictures himself when telling about it as being like a scribe who, because of enthusiasm and anticipation, can hardly make his pen keep up with his thoughts.

In the next few verses the Heavenly Father speaks glowingly of the prophetic King Jesus, but starting with the 10th verse he speaks of the church. “Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him. … With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the King’s palace.”—vss. 10,11,15

The Apostle Paul, in Ephesians 1:16-18, emphasizes that it is the privilege of the church, through the Holy Spirit, to realize how highly the Heavenly Father prizes the church as an anticipated possession. “[I] cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.”

God, through the prophets and apostles, attested to his love for the church in many places. But he demonstrated his love for us in a positive way, in that he “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.” (Rom. 8:32) The Apostle Paul explains further in Romans 5:6-9, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And Jesus added, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”—John 15:13

With the merit of Christ’s sacrificed life (the ransom price) the Heavenly Father justified us (Rom. 8:1); that is, he cleansed us from all sin, which enabled us to stand before him, reckoned as perfect. Being considered perfect, by God’s grace, we are invited to share in Christ’s sacrificial death (Rom. 12:1), with the prospect of sharing with him the glories of the kingdom if faithful.—Rev. 3:21

And so, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. 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 we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 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.”—Rom. 8:33-39

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