ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ
The Greek, τοῦ is “of”, so the following applies: a reference to an entity, event, or state, clearly identified by the linguistic or non-linguistic context of the utterance—‘the, he, she, it.
Therefore Paul is speaking of Christ’s love for us, rather than our love for Christ.
Peace!
Actually, Tou, THn, Tos, Ton, and any other noun ending tacked on to the letter ‘t’ (tau), is generally a definite article. See here:
biblehub.com/interlinear/romans/8-35.htm
The definite article means “the” when it has a nominative or a accusative ending (subject or predicate part of sentence), and generally means either “of-the” or “to-the”, when followed by a genitive or dative ending, respectively.
There is no need to put an extra “the” in a sentence to merely say “of”. A word that has a genitive ending (genitive means belonging to, possession, etc. ) automatically means “of something” as in belonging to something.
In this particular sentence, there are TWO definite articles in the question:
τῆς – of-the (Feminine).
τοῦ – of the (Masculine).
We should always be able to read them as “of-the” or just “the” and still have the sentence make sense in English.
τίς ἡμᾶς χωρίσει ἀπὸ
τῆς ἀγάπ
ης τοῦ Χριστοῦ
" What shall-separate us away-from the love of-the Annointed ? "
When I look at this sentence;
I am not so sure that it can not be read in both directions; Paul might mean a love belonging to Christ, and a love for Christ. I question the assertion that Paul means only the love for us by Christ. I wonder because Paul didn’t make the genders of the nouns or definite articles agree.
I’m not going to say you’re wrong, as I would need to look at other examples to be absolutely sure of what is going on; but I have a strong reservation.
When masculine and feminine nouns are placed next to each other, it tends to indicate a marriage or unitive relationship. For example, idea of the “wife of XXX” might be written out in Greek as “the wife (Gyne-eg: feminine) of-XXX (genitive)”, but sometimes the idea is expressed in abbreviated form as “The (feminine definite article alone) XXX (Name with masculine genitive ending).”
So, the idea of marriage or familial relationship can be expressed as the mismatch in genders of two nouns which are next to each other. eg: The female version of a male.
I agree with David Bj, that mortal sin is the death of love in man for God. So, there is strong evidence that God’s love is meant in Romans.
However, since God is love, (Agape love, cf: 1John 4:8) then it is impossible for God not to have love for us in some sense of the word.
On the other hand, I don’t think it’s entirely correct to say that God must create/recreate/save us, because he loves us. (An incarnational aspect of love). Yet, there is a strong tendency of Christians to want to do that.
I think an important counter-point to keep in mind is that God did not even have to create us. He was love (internal to the trinity) even before we existed / even if we never had existed. Love does not require us. We are not a necessary manifestation of love that
must be responded to by God. Rather we are a free choice in God’s love.
So, I do think that the “love” Paul is speaking of can be mutual and can be poured out in larger or reduced measure by God. God could, theoretically, divorce us. cf: Jeremiah 3:8.
