Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? This does not mean 'our love to Christ;' as if one should say, Who shall hinder us from loving Christ?-but 'Christ's love to us,' as is clear from the closing words of the chapter, which refer to the same subject. Nor would the other sense harmonize with the scope of the chapter, which is to exhibit the ample ground that there is for the believer's confidence in Christ. 'It is no ground of confidence (as Hodge observes) to assert, or even to feel, that we will never forsake Christ; but it is the strongest ground of assurance to be convinced that his love will never change.'
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? - q.d., 'None of these, nor all of them together, how terrible soever to the flesh, are tokens of God's wrath, or the least ground for doubt of His love.' And from whom could such a question come better than from one who had himself for Christ's sake endured so much? (See 2 Corinthians 11:21-33; 1 Corinthians 4:10-13). Calvin (says Tholuck) makes the noble reflection, that the apostle says not 'What,' but "Who" - just as if all creatures, and all afflictions, were so many gladiators taking arms against the Christians.