These four things will help you understand the amazing love of Christ
Human love is hard to understand. Divine love is impossible to understand without a revelation.
Ephesians says, “That you may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:21). How’s that for a mystery!
I have been on a quest to understand the love of Christ better. I want to get better at loving people the way He loved them. ALL of them.
I fall short in that. I also want to understand how HUGE His love is toward me and every other Christian.
These are four things (from Romans 8) that helped me to understand His amazing love better:
His love means “no condemnation.”
“There, now, there is not even one bit of condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (v. 1)
Condemnation means “judgment.” It refers to a judge rendering his verdict in a case: “guilty or not guilty.”
Satan is the prosecutor. He is bringing up all our past sins and failures. Jesus is our Defense attorney, reminding God the Judge that He already paid the price on the cross for our judgment.
The Father agrees with Jesus and renders His verdict for us: “NOT GUILTY,” or “justified.”
Don’t accept “one bit of condemnation.” That’s Christ’s love in action. He died for your judgment so that you can never be judged!
2. His love means “legal adoption.”
“You have received the SPIRIT OF ADOPTION as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8: 15)
A legal adoption in Rome was to take an unrelated child (son or daughter) and give them the status of a natural child. He or she, in the courtroom, received full inheritance rights and property rights.
They also received the right to call their new adoptive father, “Abba” (Papa or Daddy).
This is the love of Christ.
Jesus not only forgave your sins, He made you a family member in God’s family. We became “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”
3. His love means “perfect intercession.”
“Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the SPIRIT HIMSELF INTERCEDES FOR US with groanings too deep for words…”
The ‘Intercessor” in a Roman court was the attorney who drew up the plea, the request in perfect legal language. Then, he presented it to the Judge.
Jesus, in His great love, sent the Spirit to live in our hearts. He prays a perfect petition through us when we pray in the Spirit.
4. His love means “no separation.”
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8: 35).
Paul used another legal term to describe Christ’s love. The word “separate” is a legal term that means that “nothing whatsoever can ever change the judgment the Judge has ruled about this case. Ever.”
He then lists many of the things that try to “break apart” our relationship to Christ: tribulation, distress, lack, danger, death, life, demons, and many other pressures on our relationship.
“In all these things, we are more than conquerors through HIM WHO LOVED US.” (Romans 8: 37)
He never leaves us, through it all. Anything. Everything. Now. Forever.
He still loves us.
“No separation.”
The chapter starts with “no condemnation” and ends with “no separation.”
Now do you understand better?