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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 8:38

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For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

38. I am persuaded ] Same word as Rom 14:14, Rom 15:14 ; 2Ti 1:5; 2Ti 1:12; Heb 6:9. The word implies firm assurance on good grounds. Here, of course, this amounts (unless the passage is to end with an anticlimax) to the utmost certainty of expectation.

death ] Through which we “depart, and are with Christ.” Php 1:23. Cp. also, throughout this passage, 1Co 3:22-23.

life ] With its allurements or its sufferings.

angels, principalities, powers ] The last word is to be transferred, perhaps, to stand after things to come.” In that case it may include the widest meanings of the word “power.” As placed in E. V., it must specially refer to (evil) angelic powers, “ Principalities: ” cp. Eph 3:10; Eph 6:12; Col 1:16; Col 2:15; which assure us that the word here, standing close to “angels,” means not earthly but supernatural (and here evil) dominions. For suggestions how such powers might seem to tend to “separate” the saint from the love of God, see Eph 6:12.

things present things to come ] Phrases in themselves quite exhaustive, whether or no they refer (as they may) to the present world and the future world respectively. He who holds His saints in His hand “is, and is to come.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For I am persuaded – I have a strong and unwavering confidence. Latin Vulgate, I am certain. The expression here implies unwavering certainty.

Neither death – Neither the fear of death, nor all the pains and tortures of the dying scene, even in the most painful trials of persecution; death in no form.

Nor life – Nor the hope of life; the love of life; the offer of life made to us by our persecutors, on condition of abjuring our Christian faith. The words evidently refer to times of persecution; and it was not uncommon for persecutors to offer life to Christians, on condition of their renouncing attachment to the Saviour, and offering sacrifice to idols. All that was demanded in the times of persecution under the Roman emperors was, that they should throw a few grains of incense on the altar of a pagan god, as expressive of homage to the idol. But even this they would not do. The hope of life on so very easy terms would not, could not alienate them from the love of Christ.

Nor angels – It seems to be apparent that good angels cannot be intended here. The apostle was saying that nothing would separate Christians from the love of Christ. Of course, it would be implied that the things which he specifies might be supposed to have some power or tendency to do it. But it is not conceivable that good angels, who are sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Heb 1:14, should seek to alienate the minds of Christians from the Saviour, or that their influence should have any such tendency. It seems to be clear, therefore, that he refers to the designs and temptations of evil spirits. The word angels is applied to evil spirits in Mat 25:41; 1Co 6:3.

Nor principalities – ( archai). This word usually refers to magistrates and civil rulers. But it is also applied to evil angels, as having dominion over people; Eph 6:12, For we wrestle against …principalities; Col 2:15, And having spoiled principalities: 1Co 15:24, When he shall have put down all rule; Greek, archen. Some have supposed that it refers here to magistrates and those in authority who persecuted Christians; but the connection of the word with angels seems to require us to understand it of evil spirits.

Nor powers – This word dunameis is often applied to magistrates; but it is also applied to evil spirits that have dominion over men; 1Co 15:24. The ancient Rabbis also give the name powers to evil angels. (Schleusner.) There can be no doubt that the Jews were accustomed to divide the angels of heaven into various ranks and orders, traces of which custom we find often in the Scriptures. And there is also reason to suppose that they made such a division with reference to evil angels, regarding Satan as their leader, and other evil spirits, divided into various ranks, as subordinate to him; see Mat 25:41; Eph 6:12; Col 2:15. To such a division there is probably reference here; and the meaning is, that no order of evil angels, however powerful, artful, or numerous, would be able to alienate the hearts of Christians from their Redeemer.

Nor things present – Calamities and persecutions to which we are now subject.

Nor things to come – Trials to which we may be yet exposed. It evinced strong confidence to say that no possible trials should be sufficient to destroy their love for Christ.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rom 8:38-39

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

The best persuasion

A visitor said to a poor wounded soldier, who lay dying in the hospital, What Church are you of? Of the Church of Christ, he replied. I mean, what persuasion are you of? Persuasion! said the dying man, as he looked heavenward, beaming with love to the Saviour, I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

Loves triumph

These rapturous words are the climax of the apostles long demonstration that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. His argument started with sombre, sad words about mans sinfulness; like some stream rising among black and barren cliffs, or melancholy moorlands, and foaming through narrow rifts in gloomy ravines, it reaches at last fertile lands, and flows calm, the sunlight dancing on its broad surface, till it loses itself at last in the unfathomable ocean of the love of God. We are told that the biblical view of human nature is too dark. Well, the important question is not whether it be dark, but whether it be true. Certainly, a part of it is very dark. The picture of what men are, painted at the beginning of this Epistle, is black like a canvas of Rembrandts. But to get the whole doctrine, we have to see what men may become. Christianity begins indeed with, There is none that doeth good, no, not one, but it ends with this victorious paean, which tells us that the love of God is–

I. Unaffected by the extremest changes of our condition.

1. The apostle begins his catalogue of vanquished foes by a pair of opposites, neither death nor life, which cover the whole ground, and represent the extremes of change which can befall us. If these two stations, so far from each other, are equally near to Gods love, then no intermediate point can be far from it. Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. His love to us makes no account of that mightiest of changes. How should it be affected by slighter ones? The distance of a star is measured by the apparent change in its position, as seen from different points of the earths surface or orbit. But this great light stands steadfast in our heaven, nor moves a hairs breadth, nor pours a feebler ray on us, whether we look up to it from the midsummer of busy life, or from the midwinter of death.

2. Of course the confidence of immortality is implied in this thought. Death does not affect the essential vitality of the soul; so it does not affect the outflow of Gods love to that soul. It is a change of condition and circumstance, and no more.

3. How this thought contrasts with the saddest aspect of the power of death! Death unclasps our hands from the closest, dearest grasp, parts soul and body, loosens every bond of society; but there is one bond which his abhorred shears cannot cut. Their edge is turned on it. One Hand holds us in a grasp which the fleshless fingers of death in vain strive to loosen. The separator becomes the uniter; he rends us apart from the world that he may bring us to God. The love filtered by drops on us in life is poured upon us in a flood in death!

II. Undiverted from us by any other order of beings. Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. The supposition which is, indeed, an impossible one, that these ministering spirits should so forget their mission and contradict their nature as to seek to bar us out from the love which it is their chiefest joy to bring to us; and its very impossibility gives energy to his conclusion (see also Gal 1:8), preaching another gospel than that which he had preached to them. The general thought implies–

1. The utter powerlessness of any third party in regard to the relations between our souls and God. We have to do with Him alone. These two, God and the soul, have to transact, as if there were no other beings in the universe.

(1) Angels, principalities, etc., may behold with sympathetic joy, and minister blessing in many ways; but the decisive act of union between God and the soul they can neither effect nor prevent.

(2) And as for them, so for men around us; the limits of their power to harm us are soon set. They may shut us out from human love by calumnies, and annoy us in a thousand ways; they may build a wall around us, and imprison us from many a joy and fair prospect: but they cannot put a roof on it to keep out the sweet influences from above, or hinder us from looking up to the heavens. Nobody can come between us and God but ourselves.

2. These blessed spirits do not absorb and intercept His love. The planet nearest the sun is saturated with fiery brightness, but the rays pass on to each of the sister spheres in its turn, and travel away outwards to where the remotest of them all rolls in its far-off orbit. Like that poor woman who could lay her fingers on the hem of Christs garment, notwithstanding the thronging multitude, we can reach our hands through all the crowd, or rather He reaches His strong hand to us and heals and blesses us. All the guests are fed full at that great table. Ones gain is not anothers loss. The multitudes sit on the green grass, and the last man of the last fifty gets as much as the first; and more remains than fed them all. This healing fountain is not exhausted of its curative power by the early comers.

III. Raised above the power of time. Nor things present, nor things to come. We had first a pair of opposites, and then a triplet; now again a pair of opposites, again followed by a triplet. The effect of this is to divide the whole into two, and to throw the first and second classes more closely together, as also the third and fourth. Time and space, these two mysterious ideas, which work so fatally on all human love, are powerless here.

1. The great revelation of God, on which the whole of Judaism was built, was that made to Moses of the name I am that I am. And parallel was that symbol of the bush, which signified not the continuance of Israel, unharmed by the fiery furnace of persecution, but the eternity of Israels God. Both proclaimed the same great truth of self-derived, self-determined, timeless, undecaying being.

2. And this eternity of being is no mere metaphysical abstraction. It is eternity of love, for God is love. We know of earthly loves which cannot die, and we have to thank God for such instances of love stronger than death, which make it easier for us to believe in the unchanging duration of His. But we know, too, of love that can change, and we know that all love must part. How blessed then to know of a love which cannot change or die! The past, the present and the future are all the same to Him. The whole of what He has been to any past, He is to us to-day.

3. So we may bring the blessedness of all the past into the present, and calmly face the misty future, sure that it cannot rob us of His love. Looking on all the flow of ceaseless change of earthly affection, we can lift up with gladness, heightened by the contrast, the triumphant song of the ancient Church, Oh, give thanks unto the Lord: for He is good: because His mercy endureth for ever!

IV. Present everywhere. The apostle ends with, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, as if he had got impatient of the enumeration of impotencies, and having named the outside boundaries in space, flings, as it were, with one rapid toss, into that large room the whole that it can contain, and triumphs over it all. As the former clause proclaimed the powerlessness of time, so this proclaims the powerlessness of that other great mystery of creatural life which we call space. Height or depth, it matters not. That diffusive love diffuses itself equally in all directions. The distance from the centre is equal to Zenith or to Nadir. Here we have the same process applied to that idea of omnipresence as was applied in the former clause to the idea of eternity. That thought, so hard to grasp with vividness, and not altogether a glad one to a sinful soul, is all softened and glorified, as some solemn Alpine cliff of bare rock is when the tender morning light glows on it, when it is thought of as the omnipresence of love. Then, God, seest me, may be a stern word, if the God who sees be but a mighty Maker or a righteous Judge. But how different it all is when we can east over the marble whiteness of that solemn thought the warm hue of life. In that great ocean of the Divine love we live and move and have our being, floating in it like some sea flower which spreads its filmy beauty and waves its long tresses in the depths of mid-ocean. The sound of its waters is ever in our ears, and above, beneath, around us, its mighty currents run evermore. We need not fear the omnipresence of love, nor the omniscience which knows us altogether, and loves us even as it knows. Rather we shall be glad that we are ever in His presence.

Conclusion:

1. The recognition of this triumphant sovereignty of love over all these real and supposed antagonists makes us, too, lords over them, and delivers us from the temptations which some of them present us to separate ourselves from the love of God. They all become our servants and helpers, uniting us to that love. So we are set free from the dread of death and from the distractions incident to life. So we are delivered from superstitious dread of an unseen world, and from craven fear of men. So we are emancipated from absorption in the present and from careful thought for the future. So we are at home everywhere, and every corner of the universe is to us one of the many mansions of our Fathers house. All things are yours . and ye are Christs; and Christ is Gods.

2. But remember that this love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Love illimitable, all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but a love which has a channel and a course, love which has a method and a process by which it pours itself over the world. In Christ the love of God is all centred and embodied, that it may be imparted to all sinful and hungry hearts, even as burning coals are gathered on a hearth that they may give warmth to all that are in the house. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)

Persuaded of the constancy of the Divine love

We begin with the form of protestation, I am persuaded, where the apostle, while he speaks of the state of a true believer in reference to grace and salvation, speaks of it as a matter of certainty and full persuasion. There are two manner of ways especially, whereby we come to be assured of our salvation.

1. By the inward persuasion of the Holy Ghost in our own consciences.

2. We come to be assured of our condition, from the reflection of conscience itself, our rejoicing is this (2Co 1:12; 1Jn 3:21). The second is the matter of it, or thing itself protested; and that is much one with that which he had before harped upon, That nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ. Now this again is here laid down in these two verses together, two manner of ways. First, by an enumeration or induction of the several particulars; and secondly, by a winding-up of all together in one general conclusion. First, death shall not do it; death, it makes a great separation, it separates the soul from the body, two friends which have been a great while joined together, and it separates a man from the world. Oh! but for all this it does not separate a believer from Christ. First, for the souls of Gods children; these are not separated from Him by death. Not separated? Nay, they are so much the more conjoined. St. Paul desired to be dissolved, that he might be with Christ (Php 1:23; 2Co 5:6; 2Co 5:8). And so likewise for the bodies of Christians; these they are not separated from Christ neither, even when they lie in the grave, they are very accountable in the eyes of God, and He has a special care of them and regard unto them. The very dust of Gods people is precious, and their very bones are numbered by Him. No, nor secondly again by life; that is another part of this link. Life, it shall not prove hurtful or prejudicial to the people of God. First, not the good of life–I mean the outward good, and comfortableness of it. There is a great deal of hazard and danger in this. First, as it is an occasion to make men to be so much the more in love with the world. But Gods children are delivered from it, as having their affections weaned in them. A second evil of life in the prosperous part of it is, that it makes a man to defer his repentance and conversion to God. Thirdly, life is thus far dangerous, as it keeps a man from suffering for Christ; the more that any man has to lose, the less commonly is he willing to it. So again, as to the evils of life, ye may take it there also, that life in this sense is not prejudicial to Gods servants, but sanctified to them. First, as it is a time of sinning, for so this present life is, and therein irksome to Gods children. Secondly, as it is a time of misery. And thirdly, as the time of deferring of their reward; as long as Gods children live they are kept out of their inheritance. Thus we see how Gods children have an interest in life and death both, as making for their advantage, and it does belong unto them, as it is elsewhere expressed (Rom 14:8). The second is, Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. First, not the good angels. Why? Whoever suspected them? What need was there for the apostle to put in that? I answer upon a double account. First, by way of supposition. The apostle seems to argue here, as he does also in another place, Though we, or an angel from heaven, etc. (Gal 1:8). Not as if they were likely to endeavour it, but if they should do it, it would be to no purpose, for they should never effect it. The good angels may be conceived to be possibly prejudicial to the saints and servants of God ministerially, and in reference to their office; and that is, by the withdrawing of their help to us, or as being instruments of inflicting punishment and vengeance upon us; but thus now they are not to Gods elect, for they are still active for them to good upon all occasions. We may understand it of the devils. Thus (Rev 12:8) it is said that Michael and his angels fought, and the dragon and his angels. It is most certain that the devil, that is, the chief and principal of them, hath very great power for a while permitted unto him, as to the trouble of Gods servants. I will instance in one particular amongst the rest, and that is his casting of evil and troublesome fancies and conceits into the mind, and that sometimes with that force and violence, as that the mind shall not be able to resist them or keep them out. These are those kind of thoughts wherewith the devil does oftentimes disturb and perplex the minds of Christians; but that these are no way prejudicial to them in matter of guilt, or arguments for the questions of Gods love, or real ground of disquieting to them, will appear unto us upon these considerations. First, from their manner of acting and proceeding in the soul itself, wherein there is neither assent nor consent given unto them, but only a bare apprehension of them. Secondly, this may also appear from the suddenness and quickness of them; for they are commonly darted into the mind without any connection or dependence, whereas a mans own proper thoughts are with more leisure, and deliberation, and subordination of one thing to another. Thirdly, from the frequency and multiplicity of them, together with their unseasonableness; for they may be a thousand times in a day passing as lightning into an house from one end of it to another, and in continual motion. Fourthly, from the quality and condition of them, as being contrary to the very light of nature, and the habitual frame and disposition of the soul, which of itself is considerable in it. The main ground and foundation of this restrainedness of Satans power is intimated to us in the text, and that is in reference to Christ; it is the love of God in Him, and therefore Satan cannot separate us from it; and Christ is considerable of us under a double notion, of an head, and of an advocate. The third is neither things present nor things to come. These shall not be able neither to separate us from Gods love in Christ. First, not things present; they shall not be able to do it, whether we take it in good things or in evil. This is a point very satisfactory in the worst times that are. No, nor yet, secondly, Things to come, These shall not do it neither. Things to come–they are such things as are hid from mens discerning, and they know not what to make of them; yea, but thus far they are certain, as they shall make for the good of Gods people; and therefore in the place before cited (1Co 3:22), as things present are made a part of their portion, and said to be theirs; so are things to come likewise. And so indeed upon the point, all things in the full latitude and extent of being. If we speak of things to come, but as to this life, and as taken under the notion of uncertainty, Gods children are not at a loss here, but upon very good terms; but then if we speak of things to come as to the life following, and as under the notion of certainty, here they are infinitely and transcendently glorious. Things to come–these are the greatest interest and concernment of believers, and such as above all others they do most reckon and depend upon. It is the great disadvantage and prejudices of men of the world that their happiness it is confined to things present. (Thomas Horton, D. D.)

The triumphant hope of the Christian

Who can look upon the sun setting in the west and not be silent with wonder? One who sees Mont Blanc from the Lake of Geneva for the first time, lifting itself in awful splendour and glory, does not break forth into words, but gazes silently. So there are texts which, like the one before us, subdue us to silence.

I. This crowning love of God is made known to us in the Bible. The sea swelling with its tides, this great earth revolving on its axis, and rushing forward in its orbit the systems of worlds, all speak of the power of God. That He is a God of beauty we read in the leaf, the flower, the sea shell. But we do not find out from nature that God loves. When we understand this love of God, then are we ready to understand redemption.

II. This love fastens itself upon human beings. Compared with the mighty forces of nature, how weak we are; compared with eternity, how brief is life. What is man that God should observe him, and, much less, love him? Then we are so severed from God in capacity of mind, and so impure. We can readily believe that God loves the Church, or this and that eminent Christian, or the martyrs, but we doubt concerning ourselves. So many a Christian walks this world with timid apprehensions instead of the assurance of one who walks a world he knows his Father rules. If he realised that God loved him, then would he be joyous and triumphant–be strong for any service.

III. The eternity of this love. We feel at times that God loves us. But is this love eternal or fleeting? Is it fastened upon our personality, or upon our changing disposition? If we have been deceived in the character of one we love, or if that character has undergone a change, our love changes. Now if there is a radical change or degradation of character, Gods love may change; but aside from such change, it is not possible that anything can produce a change in the love of God. The assurance of this is the wine of life, poured from the chalice in Gods hand, into our fainting hearts.

1. Death cannot separate from the love of God. We go with a friend up to the last moment on earth. We see the mind still active, the memory clear, the noble impulses of the soul still predominant. Do you suppose that he who built the cathedral is ended while the work of his hand calls forth the admiration of mankind? We have the assurance in the resurrection of Christ, that death does not destroy the soul. Rather it sets the soul free from the lassitude and inactiveness of the body. The body hampers and manacles the soul. Now, can you conceive that death, which so adds to the spirit, can separate from the love of God? Death does not affect our love for our departed friends, save to augment it. How much more will it but augment the love of God.

2. But may not life? Life may reach its fourscore years and work many changes. The vigour is gone, and the beauty; decrepitude has come. But what is life to eternity? A dewdrop to the ocean; less than a single modest daisy to the innumerable worlds above. Shall the decrepitude of this brief life stand against an eternity without decrepitude? No changes wrought in the circumstances of life can affect the love of God. These are as nothing to the God of infinite resources. To Him, what matters it whether we dwell in a palace or a cottage? The favour is rather on the side of those who are in adverse circumstances. We love these who struggle more than those who enjoy; those who suffer patiently more than those who reign in royal splendour. Christ, when in the world, did not take His apostles from among the rulers; He made His abode with the poor rather than the rich. No; life cannot bring from the love of God, but rather brings us nearer because of its trials, temptations, and weaknesses.

3. But may not other powers? There are mighty ones above. May not these absorb the love of God? No; He takes care of the least as of the greatest. No star staggers in its course and halts to be caught in the grasp of God and held in its place. All the universe goes on evenly, quietly, surely. His love cannot be exhausted any more than His power. Weakness makes more certain this love. He sees us struggling against temptation which angels cannot experience, Nay, more, this love came to us through Jesus, His only Son.

4. May not time produce this separation? In the unrolling cycles, may not changes be wrought, powers developed, etc.? No; here come in the unchanging nature and the eternity of God. The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Yesterday just gone, to-day which is here, and for ever–oh, what a launch of thought!

5. May not space cause this separation? When we think of the vast distances in the universe; that the diameter of this system is seven hundred million miles; that astronomers, by an approximate parallax, show us that yonder star is so far away that it would take its light, travelling twelve millions of miles a minute, seventy-two years to reach us; that the unresolved nebula is so far away that its light would not reach us for seven hundred thousand years. When we think of these vast spaces, have we not reason to be fearful that there may be something in them that can separate us from Gods love? No, God is everywhere Master.

Conclusion:

1. What a terrific power is sin, since it can separate us from this love of God! More powerful than life or death, than all the universe.

2. What a privilege is this of the Christian to be safe in the love of God beyond all power of harm, to have a portion with God for ever. (R. S. Storrs, D.D.)

Things that cannot separate from the love of God

First, neither the height of worldly advancement nor the depth of worldly abasement. First, honour and advancement, dignity and height of place or preferment, that shall not do it. It is that which it sometimes does to some kind of persons, when they are not more watchful of themselves; high-standing it is apt to make men giddy, especially when they shall look down upon others which are far inferior to them. And there are great temptations which are now and then attending thereupon, of pride, and scornfulness, and security, and self-confidence, and the like. A child of God he shall not be afraid of that which is high, as we find the phrase used in another sense, and upon another occasion, in Ecc 12:5. And so for abasement and lowness of condition; he does not suffer from that neither, as St. Paul says of himself in another place: He knows how to abound, and he knows to be abased; to be full, and to be hungry; to abound, and to suffer need. There is a depth of affliction as well as an height of prosperity. And so for all other kinds and conditions of abasements of reproach, and contempt, and ignominy, which is cast upon them; these things they are digested by them. He that is low in his own eyes he can be content to be low in anothers. Secondly, not the height of spiritual enlargement, nor the depth of spiritual desertions. Spiritual enlargement, it is an height, and a very great one. Neither is the doctrine of assurance a doctrine of pride; neither is the state of assurance a state of pride. So again, as to spiritual desertions; the depth of that shall not hinder neither. This in Scripture is sometimes called a depth, as in Psa 130:1. Thirdly, take this height and depth here spoken of, as to the mysteries, whether of faith or providence, and ye shall find that neither these shall prove any disparagement to Gods servants. Lastly, neither height nor depth; that is, neither things above nor things below. It is a large and comprehensive expression which the Scripture uses in suchlike cases, when it will take in all, and so speak of anything, as to leave nothing out. Yet if we will take it more restrainedly and particularly, we may take it thus. First, take it as to the influences of Heaven. These are such as many people, especially now at this time, have a great regard unto, and that a great deal more than to other things which are more to be regarded. But those which are the servants of God are above all these heights. Those who are the children of God, and careful to walk in His fear, they shall not need to be dismayed at the signs of heaven (Jer 10:2). And so likewise we may take it as to the earth and the depths thereof. How many dangers are we here incident to, and yet graciously preserved from them? Now while the apostle is thus curious in this exact enumeration of particulars, and such as are so full and comprehensive, there are two things which we may gather from it: First, the weakness of our faith, especially in times of temptation, which the Spirit of God is fain to provide for, by such a complete dealing with us. Secondly, it shows the certainty of our own salvation. Seeing none of these things fore-mentioned are able to hinder us, we may from hence take notice of the sureness of the thing itself against all opposition. The second is, the general conclusion or main doctrine itself, and that is, that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Wherein again we have two branches more: First, the firmness or immovableness of Gods affection. That nothing whatsoever shall be able to separate us from it. This is agreeable to the whole current of Scripture (Psa 125:1; Heb 12:28). Now the firmness and stability of Gods people, in regard of their spiritual estate, may be thus surrendered: First, from the promise of God; it is a part of His gracious covenant with them. Secondly, the strength and power of Christ, that does likewise lay a ground for this truth; there His ability joined to Gods faithfulness, and the power of God joined to the truth of God (Heb 7:25). Thirdly, it may be further evinced from the nature of saving grace itself, and the work of regeneration, which is a constant and abiding principle, and so is signified to us to be in 1Jn 3:9. Take anything else in the world, besides true grace indeed, and ye shall find an uncertainty in it; let it be education, or custom, or natural conscience, or the credit of religion; none of these things are sure to hold or to continue long. But now for the power of godliness, and a true gracious heart in good earnest, it is such as is lasting and remaining. Fourthly, a Christians unmovableness is confirmed from the intercession of Christ. Whatever it is that Christ asks in the behalf of believers, it is most undoubtedly granted unto them. Fifthly, from the nature of election, which is a firm, and unchangeable decree; thus in verse 33 of this present chapter, Who shall lay anything to the charge of Gods elect? And so much may suffice to have spoken of the first particular in this second general, which is the firmness or immovableness of Gods affection considered in itself; that nothing is able to separate true Christians and believers from His love. The second is the ground or conveyance of this affection, and that is expressed in these words–Which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. First, He is the conveyance of His Fathers love unto us, by virtue of that near union and relation which we have to Him; forasmuch as we are very members incorporate into Him, and made one with Him. Secondly, Christ is also the conveyance of the Fathers love to us meritoriously, and by way of procurement; Christ has obtained of God the Father to love us together with Himself. (Thomas Horton, D.D.)

Faiths final paean

We seem to have been climbing up Jacobs ladder, all through this magnificent dissertation, and now we have reached its summit. The base was on earth, and there we found peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; the summit is the skies, and here the song which we sing is one of enraptured triumph. Christ is the first and the last in the scale of the Christians boasting and joy. It is through Him that we have no condemnation; and now it is in Him that we have confidence of happiness for ever. In the matter of our redemption He is all and in all, the Alpha, and the Omega, the author and the finisher of our faith.

I. The constancy of the love of God to them that are in Christ Jesus.

1. We are the objects of Gods love. Now, it is the very nature of love, in its truer and more noble forms, to be constant. Love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love, etc. Love is not mere transient sentiment; it is a passion which moves with innate energy; of all moral forces the strongest. You may torture and slay a man, but you cannot coerce his affections. Formidable difficulties may oppose his love in its course, but love will surmount them or perish in the attempt. There may be unworthiness on the part of its objects, but even then how often have we seen a mothers, a wifes, a daughters love burn as brightly as ever. Love can accomplish what no mechanical or physical force can. There is truth in the quaint old fable, which represents a traveller pursuing his way with a mantle round his shoulders. The sun and the wind contested as to which was strong enough to compel the wayfarer to abandon his cherished covering. First, Boreas blew his fiercest blast, but the harder he blew, the faster did the traveller bind and clasp his cloak. Then Sol began to pour upon his head his melting beams. In a little while our hero freely surrendered; the oppressive garment was unwrapped, and loosened, and thrown open, and finally flung away altogether. The wind represents physical force, and the sun the energy of love. Well, now, God loves us; and we may at least be sure of this, that Gods love is a nobler affection than any human love whatever (Isa 49:15; Jer 31:3).

2. This love is Gods love. If it were the love of a creature, mighty and good, we might fairly put confidence in its stability; but now we see it to be that of the Creator. If He loves us, who can separate us from His love? Look at–

(1) The power of the Almighty. There may be angels, men, heights, depths, things present and things to come; but all are equally powerless against the Omnipotent. None can injure whom He defends; none can impoverish whom He enriches.

(2) The sovereignty of His will (Mal 3:6). God knew everything about us before He set His love upon us. He has nothing further to learn concerning us. We cannot surprise Him by new revelations of character. He elected us as objects of His love while we were yet sinners. All being known to Him, and all being in His hands, surely it is impossible that if He once resolved to love us, He could ever be moved from that love.

3. Gods love is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In other words, it is a love whose outflow and development are based upon the redeeming work of Christ, and whose constancy, therefore, is guaranteed and assured by all the value and validity which attach to that work.

II. The creatures presumably hostile to the saints.

1. Death, whether natural or by violence, may sever us from many comforts and companions, but not from Jesus or His love. On the contrary, death brings us nearer to Christ than we were before. When we die, we go to be with Jesus, which is far better. Death, then, is an enemy converted into a friend.

2. Life. It is often a more perilous thing to live than to die. But let us not fear life. If for us to die would be gain, for us to live is Christ.

3. Angels, nor principalities, nor powers. We conceive of the angels as divided into ranks; some being higher and more powerful than the rest. But whether they are the ordinary angels, or whether they be the captains and chieftains, subordinate or supreme, of the angelic creation, all alike are powerless to intercept Gods love. But suppose it possible that all the angels, good and bad together, were to be in league against us; suppose that the malice of the one class were to be combined with the majesty of the other, we should still be secure, invulnerable, inviolable, and nothing they could do should separate us from the love of God.

4. Things present. Things visible are all our present surroundings of difficulty and circumstances of trial. These are enumerated, in some measure, in the former verses; but God loves us through them all. He will not suffer us to be tempted beyond our power of endurance, but does with every exigency open a door for our escape.

5. Things to come. We often forebode evil, and dread the future. But things to come are known to God; and whatever may betide, He will stand by us to the last. As our days, our strength shall be.

6. Height and depth. Whatever high thing there is, or whatever low thing, it need not alarm, as it cannot over power us. It may be worldly honour or abasement, but still we need not fear them. Neither the luxurious blandishments of affluence, nor the humiliating straitnesses of penury, shall separate us from God or destroy our interest in His love.

7. Any other creature. There, I have mentioned everything I could think of, and if I have omitted anything there is nothing to fear. (T. G. Horton.)

Assurance, not presumption

From this passage you see how safe and scriptural a full assurance is. By assurance I mean a firm, unfaltering trust in the declarations and promises of God. By personal assurance I mean a firm, unfaltering trust in the promises of God, as made to me from the moment that by believing in Jesus I make these promises my own. The apostle first of all believed in Jesus, and then as a believer in Jesus he was sure that he would go to heaven. He cast his helpless, guilty soul on Christ, and from that moment he was persuaded that he was the object of Gods love, and was persuaded that nothing could ever separate him from that love. And he was anxious to bring his Roman friends to the same persuasion. For the sake of their salvation he wished them to repose entirely on the finished work of Christ, but for the sake of their comfort and eminent sanctification, he wished them, having done this, to rejoice in hope of glory. Some tender-hearted Christians almost deprecate personal assurance, and probably the reason is that they have seen some profess assurance whose hope was evident presumption. But no two things can be more distinct. Presumption is Satans lie; assurance is the gift of the Holy Ghost. Presumption is hope without foundation; assurance is founded on the Word of God without, and the work of the Spirit within. Presumption makes a man proud and hard-hearted, censorious and flippant, reckless and undevout. Assurance makes a man stoop in humility lower and lower, the more be is persuaded of his heavenly Fathers love. And it gives him a panting after the living God. And it makes him tender-hearted–makes him like his Master, who does not despise the day of small things, who, when a bruised reed is put into His hand, does not snap it asunder and fling the fragments from Him; who, when a smoking flax is put upon His altar, does not sweep it off because it is flax, nor extinguish it because it is only smoking, but cherishes and fans that smouldering tow, till it burst in flames and fire the living sacrifice; and who shows His power and Divine compassion by taking the drooping shattered reed, and making it the rod of His might, a staff of strength in His hand. Even so real assurance is considerate and tender-hearted, does not scowl disdain on the smoky beginnings of grace in any heart, but finds a godlike pleasure in fostering it into a flame. Presumption is an intoxicating poison, and sends the self-deceiver reeling forward in a merry delusion, neglecting known duty and perpetrating known sin from day to day, and yet fancying that the Spirit of Christ is in him; assurance enlightens the eyes, and whether sedate or ecstatic, is always a cautious and circumspect thing, abhorring the garment spotted with the flesh. Presumption is impudent; assurance is filial and affectionate. Presumption talks about crosses; assurance carries them. Presumption is bustling and loquacious; assurance is full of zeal, but is often doing much when it says nothing. Presumption is heady and high-minded; assurance is sober, and vaunteth not itself. Presumption is self-indulgent; assurance is self-denied. Presumption, like an eastern nabob, would shut his eyes, and fold his hands, and nestle his cheek upon some balmy pillow, and then without any trouble to himself be walled to heaven in a silken palanquin; whilst assurance, like a primitive disciple, is content to strap on the pilgrims sandals, and shoulder the weighty cross, and foot it all the way to glory in the steps of the great Forerunner. Presumption is a vile fleshly counterfeit; assurance is a holy and sanctifying grace, because the gift of the holy and sanctifying Spirit. (J. Hamilton, D.D.)

Christian confidence

The account given of the death of Mr. Robert Bruce of Kinnaird is very beautiful in its simplicity: That morning before the Lord called him to his rest he came to breakfast at his table. After he had eaten, as his use was, a single egg, he said to his daughter, I think I am yet hungry; you may bring me another egg, and instantly fell silent; and, after having mused a little, he said, Hold, daughter, hold; my Master calleth me. With these words his sight failed him, and he called for the Bible; but finding he was not able to read, he said, Cast me up the eighth chapter to the Romans, verses twenty-eight to thirty-nine, much of which he repeated, particularly I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord, and caused his finger to be put upon them, which was done. Now, said he, is my finger upon them? They told him it was. Then he said, God be with you, my children; I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus Christ this night, and straightway gave up the ghost without one groan or shiver.

Security

A lady was riding in her carriage, when, spying a beautiful flower by the side of a large rock, she alighted to take it up, that she might remove it to her conservatory, but found that, delicate as it appeared, it resisted all her efforts, because the root ran under the rock. Ah, thought she, this is an illustration of the safety of the Christian, whose life of beauty is under the shelter of the Rock, and whose root of strength runs far beneath it.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 38. For I am persuaded] After the blessed experience we have had of support by the grace and Spirit of him that loved us, that neither fear of death, nor hope of life, nor evil angels, nor principalities, nor powers, persecuting us for Christ’s sake; nor the things we endure at present, nor the things to come, whatever tribulation we may be called to suffer in future;

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

For I am persuaded; or, I am fully assured, not by any special revelation, but by the same spirit of faith, which is common to all believers, 2Co 4:13.

Neither death, nor life; i.e. neither fear of death, nor hope of life.

Nor angels.

1. The evil angels; for the good angels would not attempt the separating us from the love of Christ.

2. There are some, that think the good angels to be also here intended; and they understand it by way of supposition: q.d.

If they should endeavour such a thing, they would never effect it: and thus they make the apostle here to argue, as he doth in another place, Gal 1:8.

Nor principalities, nor powers; some would have the evil angels to be here intended, and the good angels in what went before; in Col 2:15, they are thus termed: but others, by principalities and powers, do rather understand persecuting princes and potentates.

Nor things present, nor things to come; i.e. the evils and pressures that are upon us now, or that shall be upon us hereafter. He makes no mention of the things past, for they are overcome already.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

38, 39. For I am persuaded, thatneither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, norpowerswhether good or bad. But as the bad are not called”angels,” or “principalities,” or “powers,”save with some addition to show that such are meant (Mat 25:41;Col 2:15; Eph 6:12;2Pe 2:4 except perhaps 1Co6:3), probably the good are meant here, but merely as thesame apostle supposes an angel from heaven to preach a falsegospel. (So the best interpreters).

nor things present, northings to comeno condition of the present life and none of theunknown possibilities of the life to come.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For I am persuaded,…. These words with the following, express the strong persuasion, and full assurance of faith the apostle had, that nothing whatever could separate him and the rest of God’s people, from his love towards them in Christ Jesus. This persuasion not only regards himself, but others; and is not conjectural, but certain; and which did not arise from any special and extraordinary revelation, but is founded upon the nature of the love of God itself, the security of it in Christ, and of the persons of God’s elect in him; upon eternal predestination, and the unalterable purposes of God; upon the promise and oath of God; upon adoption, and the gracious witnessings, assistances, and inhabitation of the Spirit; and is greatly increased by the consideration of the death, resurrection, and intercession of Christ. The things enumerated, which are not able to separate from the love of God, are as follow:

death; death separates men from the world, their worldly habitations and substance; it separates the soul from the body, and one friend from another; and in process of time, may take off all thoughts and affections for departed friends, but it is not able to separate from the love of God; it is so far from it, that it lets the soul into the fullest enjoyment of it: and as corporeal death, so no other kind of death can do it; for if the death of the body cannot, the death of afflictions never can; and as for a moral or spiritual death, and an eternal one, these shall never befall the children of God:

nor life; this natural and temporal life, which is frail and mortal; the love of God is better than this life, and this itself is the effect of divine favour; wherefore this can never separate from the love of God, nor anything in it: the life of believers is indeed filled up with troubles and exercises, and attended with much imperfection and sin; but nothing does, or can alienate the affections of God from his children; for though he exercises them with the trials of life, and chastises them for their sins, yet his loving kindness be does not take away from them:

nor angels; by whom are meant evil angels, the devils; for as for good angels, they never attempt to separate God and his people; they rejoice at their good, minister to them, are their guardians whilst here, at death they carry their souls to heaven, and at the last day will gather all the elect together; but evil angels do endeavour it, by temptations to sin, and accusations for it; by stirring up heresies and persecutions, in order to destroy them, but cannot succeed; for the saints are upon God’s heart, are in Christ’s hands, and on him the rock; and the Spirit of God is in them, who is greater than he that is in the world:

nor principalities: civil magistrates; who though they may separate them from their company, and cast them out as evil; may separate them in prisons one from another; and separate soul and body, by killing the latter, which is all they can do; yet they cannot separate neither soul nor body from the love of God: the Jews often say, that if all the nations of the world were gathered together, they could not extinguish n or cause to cease o, or take away the love which is between God and his people Israel p:

nor powers; either the same with the former; or false teachers who had the power of working miracles in confirmation of their doctrines, by which they deceived many; and if it had been possible, would have deceived the elect of God, but that was impossible:

nor things present; present evils, the afflictions of the present life; God does not cease to love when he afflicts his people; yea, afflictions spring from his love, and in them he afresh manifests his love to them; they are overruled for their good, and issue in eternal glory. Present temptations also may be meant. The best of saints have been exposed unto them; Christ himself was not exempted from them; these do not, nor cannot separate from the love of God; which is manifest from the regard which God and Christ have to tempted ones, by sympathizing with them, supporting and succouring of them, rebuking the tempter, and delivering from them. Present desertions, or the hidings of God’s face, which often is the case of his dear children, can have no such effect; their relation to God still continues; they have great nearness unto him, are engraven on the palms of his hands, are set as a seal on his heart, and he bears a strong affection to them; though, for wise reasons, he is pleased for a moment to hide himself from them: yea, the present body of sin and death saints carry about with them in this life, cannot separate them; sin has separated the angels from God, who rebelled against him; it drove Adam out of the garden of Eden, and will exclude the wicked from the divine presence to all eternity; and it often separates between God and his own people, with respect to communion, but never with respect to union to him, or interest in him; for he knew what they would be when he set his love upon them; his love broke through all the corruptions of nature and sins of life in their conversion; and appears to continue the same from the strong expressions of his grace to them, notwithstanding all their backslidings; could sin separate in this sense, no one would remain the object of his love. Now this does not suppose that God loves sin, nor does it give any encouragement to it; for though it cannot separate from interest in God, yet it does from the enjoyment of him. Again, present good things may be designed, the good things of this life, temporal enjoyments; these are given in love; and though they may be but few, they are in mercy, and with a blessing; and the great mercy of all is, that these are not their all, nor do they take off their value and esteem for the love of God, which is better to them than all the things of life; and though “the prosperity of fools shall destroy them”, Pr 1:32, the prosperity of the saints shall never be their ruin:

nor things to come; whether good or bad, prosperous or adverse; more afflictions, fresh difficulties with the body of sin; an hour of temptation, and time of distress that is to come upon all the earth; or the evil days of old age; God will never leave, nor forsake his people, or cause his loving kindness to depart from them, in whatsoever state or condition they may come into: the Vulgate Latin version adds, “nor fortitude”; and the Ethiopic version, “nor powers”; and one copy adds it in the beginning of Ro 8:39, “nor power”.

n Targum in Cant. viii. 7. o Shemot Rabba, sect. 49. fol. 144. 1. p Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 2. fol. 179. 4.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

For I am persuaded ( ). Perfect passive participle of , “I stand convinced.” The items mentioned are those that people dread (life, death, supernatural powers, above, below, any creature to cover any omissions).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Powers [] . Angelic, higher than mere angels.

Things present [] . Only in Paul and Heb 9:9. The verb literally means to stand in sight. Hence to impend or threaten. So 2Th 2:2; 2Ti 3:1; 1Co 7:26. Used of something that has set in or begun. So some render here. 48 Bengel says : “Things past are not mentioned, not even sins, for they have passed away.” ===Rom9

CHAPTER IX

Luther says : “Who hath not known passion, cross, and travail of death, cannot treat of foreknowledge (election of grace) without injury and inward enmity toward God. Wherefore take heed that thou drink not wine while thou art yet a sucking babe. Each several doctrine hath its own reason and measure and age.”

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “For I am persuaded that,” (pepeismai gar hoti) “Because I have been persuaded, convinced that;- here Paul returns to “things” of life’s experiences that will not be able to sever (separate) the believer from his salvation and the faith, hope, and love of its three continuing possessions, 1Co 13:13.

a) “Neither death,” (oute thanatos) “not death at all, in any form, at anytime, can separate or sever, Php_1:21; 1Co 15:57.

b) “Nor life,” (oute zoe) “not life at all,” with all its joys and sorrows, good and bad experiences, can sever or separate from God and our attachment to Him in Christ, Joh 5:24; Joh 16:29.

c) “Nor angels,” (oute angeloi) “not angels at all” The good ones are our helpers, Heb 1:14; Psa 34:7. The bad ones cannot overcome us, to sever from God, Php_1:6.

d) “Nor principalities,” (oute archai) “not at all rulers,” they may imprison, persecute, and punish in this life only, not beyond, Mat 10:28.

e) “Nor powers,” (oute dunameis) “not even dynamic powers;” angels, principalities, and powers embody the realm of Satan’s princedom, but Paul was convinced neither, nor all together could sever one from the union of love of God in Christ, who died to redeem us from all iniquity, Tit 2:11; Tit 2:14.

f) “Nor things present,” (oute enosteta) “not present things at all,” not even any of the existing things.

g) “Nor things to come,” (oute mellonta) “not anything to come;” Future things and experiences, Paul was persuaded, would not be able to separate or sever any child of God, or his church, from his loving care and protection! What care! What protection! Mat 16:18; Mat 28:20.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

38. He is now carried away into hyperbolic expressions, that he might confirm us more fully in those things which are to be experienced. Whatever, he says, there is in life or in death, which seems capable of tearing us away from God, shall effect nothing; nay, the very angels, were they to attempt to overturn this foundation, shall do us no harm. It is no objection, that angels are ministering spirits, appointed for the salvation of the elect, (Heb 1:14 🙂 for Paul reasons here on what is impossible, as he does in Gal 1:8; and we may hence observe, that all things ought to be deemed of no worth, compared with the glory of God, since it is lawful to dishonor even angels in vindicating his truth. (279) Angels are also meant by principalities and powers, (280) and they are so called, because they are the primary instruments of the Divine power: and these two words were added, that if the word angels sounded too insignificant, something more might be expressed. But you would, perhaps, prefer this meaning, “Nor angels, and whatever powers there may be;” which is a mode of speaking that is used, when we refer to things unknown to us, and exceeding our capacities.

Nor present things, nor future things, etc. Though he speaks hyperbolically, yet he declares, that by no length of time can it be effected, that we should be separated from the Lord’s favor: and it was needful to add this; for we have not only to struggle with the sorrow which we feel from present evils, but also with the fear and the anxiety with which impending dangers may harass us. (281) The meaning then is, — that we ought not to fear, lest the continuance of evils, however long, should obliterate the faith of adoption.

This declaration is clearly against the schoolmen, who idly talk and say, that no one is certain of final perseverance, except through the gift of special revelation, which they make to be very rare. By such a dogma the whole faith is destroyed, which is certainly nothing, except it extends to death and beyond death. But we, on the contrary, ought to feel confident, that he who has begun in us a good work, will carry it on until the day of the Lord Jesus. (282)

(279) Some of the Fathers, [ Jerome ] , [ Chrysostom ], etc., have taken the same view, regarding the Apostle as speaking of good angels, as it were, hypothetically, as in Gal 1:8. But [ Grotius ], and many others, consider evil angels to be meant. Probably, angels, without any regard to what they are, are intended. — Ed.

(280) [ Grotius ] considers the words as being the abstract for the concrete, Princes and Potentates; being called ἀρχαὶ, as some think, as being the first, the chief in authority, and δυνάμεις, as having power. “By these words,” says [ Beza ], “Paul is wont to designate the character of spirits, — of the good in Eph 1:21; Col 1:16, — and of the bad in Eph 6:12.” Hence the probability is, that the words designate different ranks among angelic powers, without any reference to their character, whether good or evil. — Ed.

(281) “Neither the evils we now feel, nor those which may await us,” — [ Grotius ] ; rather, “Neither things which now exist, nor things which shall be.” — Ed.

(282) The words, “neither height nor depth,” are left unnoticed ὕψωμα. The first, says [ Mede ], means prosperity, and the latter, adversity. [ Grotius ] regards what is meant as the height of honor, and the depth of disgrace. “Neither heaven nor hell,” say others; “neither heaven nor earth,” according to [ Schleusner ]. “Things in heaven and things on earth,” is the explanation of [ Chrysostom ] The first, ὕψωμα, is only found here and in 2Co 10:5. Like מרום in Hebrew, it means what is high and elevated, and may, like that, sometimes signify heaven: and βάθος is not earth, but what is deeper; it means a deep soil, Mat 13:5, — the deep sea, Luk 5:4, — and in the plural, things deep and inscrutable, 1Co 2:10; it may therefore be very properly taken here for hell.

That the words are to be thus taken seems probable from the gradation evident in the passage. In the first catalogue in Rom 8:35, he mentions the evils arising from this world, its trials and its persecutions, and those ending in death. In the second, after repeating the utmost length to which worldly persecutors can go, “death or life,” he ascends the invisible world, and mentions angels, then their combined powers, then the powers which do and may exist, then both heaven and hell, and, that he might include everything, except the uncreated God himself, he finishes with the words, “nor any created thing.”

The whole passage is sublime in an extraordinary degree. The contrast is the grandest that can be conceived. Here is the Christian, all weakness in himself, despised and trampled under foot by the world, triumphing over all existing, and all possible, and even impossible evils and opposition, having only this as his stay and support — that the God who has loved him, will never cease to love, keep, and defend him; yea, were everything created, everything except God himself, leagued against him and attempting his ruin. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(38) Neither death, nor life . . .The enumeration that follows is intended to include (poetically rather than logically) every possible category of being, especially those unseen powers of evil against which the warfare of the Christian was more particularly directed.

Nor principalities.Comp. Eph. 6:12, We wrestle . . . against principalities, against powers; terms belonging to the Jewish enumeration of angels. The critical evidence is however absolutely decisive in separating powers from principalities in this instance and placing it after things present, nor things to come. It would be better therefore to take it in a wider sense: Agencies of every kind, personal or impersonal.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

38. Persuaded Such assurance does Christianity give me that I rest firmly upon it.

Neither death, nor life The two potencies of existence; namely, the two stages of human existence, life and death. These are both mighty powers over human destiny. Personified life is armed with terrible dangers; and death is the very king of terrors.

Nor angels, nor principalities Two potencies of living agents in the supersensible spiritual world.

Angels throughout Scripture are the messengers of God, armed often with divine authorities.

Principalities are the ranks and orders of beings in the background, never appearing to human view, and but dimly presupposed and rarely alluded to in Scripture. So Paul in Col 1:16, speaks very indefinitely of thrones, dominions, principalities, powers; and in Eph 1:21, principality, power, might, dominion, and every thing named in this world and that to come. All of which intimates that the New Testament, by a glimpse into the spiritual world, authorizes the belief of a great variety of classifications without giving us any distinct description of their nature. They come but very slightly within the range of the redemptive scheme; and so scarce within the limits of the purpose of Scripture revelation.

Nor powers Perhaps including the grand physical forces of universal nature, known to science, especially to astronomy, in the abstract, but sometimes personified in Scripture as living agencies, and even identified with angels. From the Greek word come our dynamics, dynamical. And then we have a sublime conclusion. Not all the forces, even, that move the astronomic worlds could separate the redeemed from Christ. This is a thought which was not fully taken in by the apostle’s mind, yet his words seem pregnant with it, and legitimately express it to us.

Nor things present, nor things to come Two potencies of time; embracing the vicissitudes of the present and the unknown revolutions of the future.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Paul closes this part of his letter with this final assurance of God’s love for His people revealed through Christ Jesus our LORD. He stresses that it is a love from which it is totally impossible to be separated, and he then lists and dismisses ten possibilities of things which might attempt to separate us from His love. Made in the light of the whole passage from Rom 8:38 onwards it is a guarantee of the security in Christ of the true believer. And it is a reminder that God’s purposes are not only determined by fiat but are undergirded by His love. Nothing can prevent their fulfilment.

The list is mainly made up of pairs, some contrasting, but in order to leave room for the cover-all ‘any other creature’ and still achieve the number ten (indicating completeness), it was necessary to have one other description not included in the pairs, and thus we find ‘powers’ in a place by itself. Too much must not be made of this. Paul is more concerned to cover every possible opponent rather than to be too choosy. ‘Death nor life’ covers every possibility of day to day occurrence. Death is the great enemy of man, an ever present grief, but for the true Christian it cannot separate us, or our Christian loved ones, from His love. ‘Life’ covers all things that can occur in life. He makes all things work together for good for those who love Him. ‘Angels nor principalities’ cover all possible spiritual adversaries. We need not fear the powers of darkness. ‘Things present nor things to come’ cover all events in the flow of history both now and in the future. ‘Powers’ covers all who have authority whether in the spiritual realm or on earth. Its not being linked with ‘principalities’ possibly puts the emphasis on earthly powers. ‘Height nor depth’ probably signifies ‘nothing in Heaven and earth’ (compare Eph 4:8; Isa 7:11). ‘Nor any other creature (thing in creation)’ covers all that we might think has not been included. The point being underlined is that NOTHING can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our LORD, the love which has been revealed in all that Paul has written from Rom 1:2 onwards. As Christians we are totally secure in His hands (compare Joh 10:27-29). God’s activity on our behalf is guaranteed.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rom 8:38-39 . Paul now confirms what he had said in Rom 8:37 by the enthusiastic declaration of his conviction that no power, in whatever shape it may exist or be conceived of, etc. For the singular there is as little necessity for seeking a special reason (Hofmann, e.g ., thinks that Paul wished to justify the confidence, with which he had expressed Rom 8:37 ) as in the case of in Rom 8:18 , especially as Rom 8:37 contains only the simple assertion of a state of fact, and not a how of that assertion.

The following expressions ( . . .) are to be left in the generality of their sense, which is, partly in itself and partly through the connection, beyond doubt; every arbitrary limitation is purely opposed to the purpose of declaring everything everything possible incapable of separating the believers from the love of God in Christ. Hence: : neither death nor life , as the two most general states, in which man can be. We may die or live: we remain in the love of God. The mention of death first was occasioned very naturally by Rom 8:36 . It is otherwise in 1Co 3:22 . Grotius (following Chrysostom and Jerome, ad Aglas . 9) imports the idea: “ metus mortis; spes vitae,” which Philippi also regards as a “correct paraphrase of the sense.”

] Neither angels (generally) nor (angelic) powers (in particular). . is, with Chrysostom, Theophylact, Beza, Tholuck, Philippi, Fritzsche, Hofmann, and others, to be understood of good angels, because the wicked are never termed without some defining adjunct (Mat 25:41 ; 2Co 12:7 ; 2Pe 2:4 ; comp. Jud 1:6 ). The objection repeated by Reiche (who, with Clemens Alexandrinus, Toletus, Grotius, Estius, and others, understands it of wicked angels), that an attempt on the part of the good angels to separate Christians from God is inconceivable, does not hold, since, according to Gal 1:8 , the case of such an attempt falling within the sphere of possibility could certainly be not believed , but conceived ex hypothesi by Paul. Theophylact already aptly says: , . Against the view that . denotes good and wicked angels (Wolf, Bengel, Koppe, and van Hengel), the linguistic usage is likewise decisive, since according to it the absolute . signifies nothing else than simply good angels. Comp. on 1Co 4:9 .

] obtains, through its connection with ., its definite reference to particular powers in the category of angels those invested with power in the angelic world. Paul recognises a diversity of rank and power in the angelic hierarchy (of the good and the wicked), and finds occasion, especially in his later epistles, to mention it (Col 1:16 ; Eph 1:21 ; 1Co 15:24 ; Eph 6:12 ; Col 2:15 ); without, however (comp. on Eph 1:21 ), betraying any participation in the fluctuating definitions of the later Jews. See, respecting these definitions, Bartolocci, Bibl. rabb . I. p. 267 ff.; Eisenmenger, entdecktes Judenthum , II. p. 370 ff. Olearius, Wetstein, Loesner, Morus, Rosenmller, Flatt, and Weiss, bibl. Theol . p. 460, refer . to human ruling powers ; van Hengel to “principatus quoslibet .” Against these its connection with . is decisive, because no contrast is suggested of non-angelic powers. Just as little, because without any trace in the text, are we to understand with Hofmann the , in contrast to the good God-serving , as spirits “ that in self-will exercise a dominion, with which they do not live to the service of God ,” i.e. as evil spirits.

] neither that which has set in nor that which is future . Comp. 1Co 3:22 . Quite general , and not to be limited to sufferings (Vatablus, Grotius, Flatt, and others). ., however, does not absolutely coincide with the idea things present (as it is usually taken), which is in itself linguistically possible, but is never the case in the N. T. (see on Gal 1:4 ); but it denotes rather what is in the act of having set in , has already begun (and . that, the emergence of which is still future). So, according to Gal 1:4 ; 1Co 3:22 ; 1Co 7:26 ; 2Th 2:2 . Aptly rendered by the Vulgate: “ instantia .” Comp. Lucretius, i. 461: “quae res instet , quid porro deinde sequatur.”

] nor powers ; to be left in its utmost generality, personal and impersonal (Hofmann arbitrarily limiting it to the latter). The common interpretation, angelic powers , would be correct, if its position after were right; but see the crit. remarks. The incongruity of the apparent isolation of this link vanishes on observing that Paul, in his enumeration, twice arranges the elements in pairs ( ), and then twice again in threes (viz. . . ., and ), and the latter indeed in such a way, that to the two that stand contrasted he adds a third of a general character.

] neither height nor depth; likewise without any alteration or limitation of the quite general sense of the words. No dimension of space can separate us, etc. Arbitrary definitions are given: heaven and hell or the nether world (Theodoret, Bengel, Wetstein, Michaelis, Klee, Baumgarten-Crusius, Ewald, and Hofmann); heaven and earth (Fritzsche; comp. Theophylact, Morus, and Flatt); the height of bliss and the depth of misery (Koppe); spes honorum and metus ignominiae (Grotius, Rosenmller); sapientia haereticorum and communes vulgi errores (Melancthon); neque altitudo, ex qua quis minaretur praecipitium , neque profundum, in quo aliquis minaretur demersionem (Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Estius).

] nor any other created thing whatever , covers all not yet embraced in the foregoing elements; and thus the idea of “ nothing in the world in the shape of a creature ” is fully exhausted. The attempt to bring the collective elements named in their consecutive order under definite logical categories leads to artificialities of exposition, which ought not to be applied to such enthusiastic outbursts of the moment.

Instead of . (Rom 8:35 ), Paul now says, . . ., not thereby expressing something different, but characterizing the love of Christ (toward us) as the love of God which is in Christ Jesus . The love of Christ, namely, is nothing else than the love of God Himself, which has its seat and place of operation in Christ . God is the original fountain, Christ the constant organ and mediating channel of one and the same love; so that in Christ is the love of God , and the love of Christ is the love of God in Christ . Comp. Rom 5:6 ; Rom 5:8 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1881
PAULS ASSURANCE OF PERSEVERING

Rom 8:38-39. 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.

AS there is a typical resemblance between that good land which was promised to the Jews, and that better country which is reserved for us in heaven, so is there a striking resemblance between those, whether Jews or Christians, who have looked forward to the accomplishment of the promises. We see Moses while he was yet on the other side of Jordan, and Joshua soon after he had arrived on the borders of Canaan, appointing the boundaries of the twelve tribes, settling every thing with respect to the distribution of the land, and ordering various things to be observed, just as if they were already in full possession of the whole country without one enemy to oppose them. This appears at first sight presumptuous; but they knew that God had given them the land; and therefore, notwithstanding the battles which were yet to be fought, they doubted not in the least but that they should obtain the promised inheritance. Thus also the Apostle, in the passage before us, speaks in the language of triumph on behalf of himself and of all the Christians at Rome, and that too even while they were surrounded with enemies, and conflicting on the field of battle.

It will be profitable to consider,

The point of which the Apostle was persuaded

[The love of God is that which God has manifested to us in Christ Jesus, not merely in sending his Son to die for us, but in forgiving our sins, and adopting us into his family for his sake.
From this love the Apostle says, Nothing shall ever separate us: and, to strengthen his assertion, he calls to mind the various things which might be supposed capable of effecting a separation; and declares concerning each, that it never shall.
He mentions four distinct couplets. First, neither death nor life shall be able. Death is that which is most of all dreaded [Note: Heb 2:15.], and life is that which is most of all desired [Note: Satan for once spake truth, Job 2:4.]: more especially, if the one be attended with bitter agonies, or the other with all the pleasures of sense, their influence over us is exceeding great. But neither the one with all its terrors, nor the other with all its comforts, shall ever dissolve the union that subsists between God and his believing people.

Next, neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers shall be able. By angels must certainly be meant the evil angels, since the good angels are employed in ministering to the heirs of salvation, and would rather confirm them in the love of God than separate them from it: whereas, the evil angels, like a roaring lion, are constantly seeking whom they may devour. Principalities and powers are civil magistrates, who hold dominion over the visible, as the devils do over the invisible, world: and who, alas! too often unite their influence with that of Satan to destroy the Church. But neither the one nor the other, nor both combined, shall ever separate a believer, how weak soever he may be, from the love of God.
Moreover things present or things to come will be found alike impotent in this respect. Present things may be so embarrassing as greatly to perplex us; and things future may appear so formidable as to make us think it almost impossible for us to maintain our ground against them; but they shall never prevail to destroy a child of God.
Lastly, neither height nor depth shall be able. To some the height of earthly prosperity is a dreadful snare; to others the depth of adversity and distress. But the believer may defy them both: for not only they shall not be able, but nothing in the whole creation shall be able, to separate him from the love of God.]

This confidence of the Apostle being so extraordinary, let us consider,

II.

The grounds of his persuasion

These were twofold; general, as relating to others; and particular, as relating to himself; the former creating in him an assurance of faith; the latter an assurance of hope. We notice,

The general grounds

[These are such as are revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and are common to all believers.

The stability of the covenant, which God has made with us in Christ Jesus, warrants an assurance, that all who are interested in it shall endure to the end. It secures to us not only a new heart, but a divine agency, causing us to walk in Gods statutes [Note: Eze 36:26-27.]. It engages that God shall never depart from us, nor we from him [Note: Jer 32:40.]. In short, it promises us grace and glory [Note: Psa 84:11.]. Now this covenant shall not be broken: if heaven and earth fail, this shall not [Note: Isa 54:10.]: there shall not be one jot or tittle of it ever violated: it is ordered in all things, and sure [Note: 2Sa 23:5.]. Consequently the believer shall never be deprived of any of its blessings.

The immutability of God is another ground of assured faith and hope. Wherefore did God originally set his love upon us? Was it for our own goodness, either seen or foreseen? Alas! we had no existence but in Gods purpose: and, from the moment we began to exist, we have never had one good thing in us which we did not first receive from God [Note: 1Co 4:7.]. If then God loved us simply because he would love us [Note: Deu 7:7-8.], and not for any inherent loveliness in us, will he cast us off again on account of those evil qualities which he well knew to be in us, and which he himself has undertaken to subdue? This would argue a change in his counsels: whereas we are told that, with him there is no variableness neither shadow of turning [Note: Jam 1:17.]; and that his gifts and calling are without repentance [Note: Rom 11:29.].

The offices of Christ may also be considered as justifying an assured hope of final perseverance. For our Lord did not assume the priestly, prophetic, and kingly offices merely to put us into a capacity to save ourselves; but that his work might be effectual for the salvation of all whom the Father had given to him: and at the last day he will be able to say, as he did in the days of his flesh, Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none. If he is ever living on purpose to make intercession for them, and is constituted Head over all things to the Church on purpose to save them, then he will keep them; none shall ever pluck them out of his hands [Note: 1Sa 2:9. 1Pe 1:5. Joh 10:38.], nor shall any thing ever separate them from the love of God.]

The particular grounds

[We need not resort to any express revelation made to Paul, in order to account for his confidence: for he could not but know that he had believed in Christ, and that he was as desirous of being sanctified by his grace as of being saved by his blood; and consequently, he could not doubt his interest in the promises. And wherever conscience testifies that this is the real experience of the soul, there a person may entertain the same assured hope as Paul himself did.
It would not indeed be expedient for young converts to indulge too strong a confidence; because their sincerity has been but little tried, and they are by no means sufficiently simple in their dependence on God: in proportion therefore as the evidences of their faith are defective, and the means of stability are overlooked, they must relax their confidence of persevering to the end. As for those who are already in a backslidden state, it would be a most horrible delusion in them to say, that nothing should separate them from the love of God: since they have reason to doubt at this moment whether they be at all interested in his love.

But a humble contrite person, that is living by faith on the Son of God, and maintaining a suitable conversation in all his spirit and conduct, he may conclude himself to be in the love of God, and be persuaded firmly that nothing shall be able to separate him from it. He then stands in the very situation of the Apostle, as far as respects his own personal experience, and therefore may indulge the same joyful hope and persuasion that he shall endure unto the end. Nor need he be at all discouraged on account of his own weakness, since the more weak he feels himself to be, the stronger he is in reality [Note: 2Co 12:10.], inasmuch as he is made more dependent on his God.

In a word, an assurance of faith respecting the accomplishment of Gods promises to believers, should be maintained by all, since his word can never fail: but an assurance of hope respecting our own personal interest in those promises, should rise or fall according to the evidences we have of our own sincerity.]

Address
1.

Those who know nothing of this joyful persuasion

[Do not condemn that of which you are not capable of judging aright: but seek an interest in the love of God; and believe in Christ, through whom the Fathers love shall be secured, and by whom it shall be revealed to your soul. When the love of God has been shed abroad in your own hearts, you will be better able to judge of the confidence which that love inspires.]

Those whose persuasion accords with that of the Apostle

[Nothing surely can be conceived more delightful than to possess an assured hope of eternal happiness and glory. But let it never be abused to the encouragement of sloth. If we profess that nothing shall separate us from the love of God, let us take care that nothing does separate us from it. Let not the temptations of Satan, or the persecutions of men, not the comforts of life, or the terrors of death, let nothing felt at present, or feared in future, let nothing in the whole creation draw us aside from the path of duty, or retard our progress in the divine life [Note: Jude, ver. 20, 21.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Ver. 38. For I am persuaded ] Or, I am sure by what I have heard out of God’s word. a He that hath this full assurance of faith goes gallantly to heaven. What (saith the world) should a rich man all? The Irish ask such, What they mean to die? But I wonder more at such as have the riches of full assurance, yea, that have but the assurance of adherence, though not of evidence, what they mean to walk heavily. Mr Latimer says that the assurance of heaven is the desert of the feast of a good conscience. There are other dainty dishes in this feast, but this is the banquet.

a , scil. Ex verbi praedicatione efficaci ut indicat tacite hoc verbo. Beza.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

38 .] For I am persuaded (a taking up and amplifying of the our victory is not only over these things, but Idare assert it over greater and more awful than these) that neither death, nor life (well explained by De W. as the two principal possible states of man, and not as = ‘any thing dead or living,’ as Calvin and Koppe), nor angels, nor principalities (whether good or bad; is used of good, Col 1:16 ; Col 2:15 (see note); of bad ( 1Co 15:24 ?), Eph 6:12 ; here, as Eph 1:21 , generally .

, absolutely, seems never to be used of bad angels: if it here means good angels, there is no objection, as Stuart alleges, to the rhetorical supposition that they might attempt this separation, any more than to that of an angel from heaven preaching another gospel , Gal 1:8 ), nor things present nor things to come (no vicissitudes of time ), nor powers (some confusion has evidently crept into the arrangement. Ephr [65] Syr. reads, . . . . . . . . ; Basil, . . . . . . . . . I follow, with Griesb., Lachm., Tischdf., the very strong consent of the ancient MSS.), nor height nor depth (no extremes of space ), nor any other created thing ( cannot here be the whole creation, as Chrys., , , , but any creature , such as are all the things named) shall be able to sever us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (here plainly enough God’s love to us in Christ , to us, as we are in Christ, to us, manifested in and by Christ).

[65] Ephrem Syrus, b. 299, d. 378

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 8:38 f. The Apostle’s personal conviction given in confirmation of all that has been said, especially of Rom 8:37 . cf. 2Ti 1:12 . : death is mentioned first, either with Rom 8:36 in mind, or as the most tremendous enemy the Apostle could conceive. If Christ’s love can hold us in and through death, what is left for us to fear? Much of the N.T. bears on this very point, cf. Joh 8:51 ; Joh 10:28 ; Joh 11:25 f., 1Th 4:13-18 , 1Co 15 , 2Co 4:16 to 2Co 5:5 , Rom 14:8 , Heb 2:14 f. The blank horror of dying is annihilated by the love of Christ. Neither death nor life is to be explained: explanations “only limit the flight of the Apostle’s thoughts just when they would soar above all limitation” (Gifford). : this, according to the best authorities, forms a second pair of forces conceivably hostile to the Christian. As in every pair there is a kind of contrast, some have sought one here also: either making good and evil powers, though both spiritual; or heavenly, and (as in Luk 12:11 , Tit 3:1 ) earthly powers, in which case either might be either good or bad. But this is arbitrary: and a comparison of 1Co 15:24 , Eph 1:21 favours a suggestion in S. and H. that possibly in a very early copy had been accidentally omitted after , and then added in the margin, but reinserted in a wrong place. The T.R. “neither angels nor principalities nor powers” brings together all the conceptions with which the Apostle peopled the invisible spiritual world, whatever their character, and declares their inability to come between us and the love of Christ. : cf. 1Co 3:22 . : no dimensions of space. Whether these words pictured something to Paul’s imagination we cannot tell; the patristic attempts to give them definiteness are not happy. : nor any created thing of different kind. All the things Paul has mentioned come under the head of ; if there is anything of a different kind which comes under the same head, he includes it too. The suggestions of “another world,” or of “aspects of reality out of relation to our faculties,” and therefore as yet unknown to us, are toys, remote from the seriousness and passion of the Apostle’s mind. Nothing that God has made, whatever be its nature, shall be able to separate us . . . , The love of Christ is God’s love. manifested to us in Him; and it is only in Him that a Divine love is manifested which can inspire the triumphant assurance of this verse.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Romans

LOVE’S TRIUMPH

Rom 8:38 – Rom 8:39 .

These rapturous words are the climax of the Apostle’s long demonstration that the Gospel is the revelation of ‘the righteousness of God from faith to faith,’ and is thereby ‘the power of God unto salvation.’ What a contrast there is between the beginning and the end of his argument! It started with sombre, sad words about man’s sinfulness and aversion from the knowledge of God. It closes with this sunny outburst of triumph; like some stream rising among black and barren cliffs, or melancholy moorlands, and foaming through narrow rifts in gloomy ravines, it reaches at last fertile lands, and flows calm, the sunlight dancing on its broad surface, till it loses itself at last in the unfathomable ocean of the love of God.

We are told that the Biblical view of human nature is too dark. Well, the important question is not whether it is dark, but whether it is true. But, apart from that, the doctrine of Scripture about man’s moral condition is not dark, if you will take the whole of it together. Certainly, a part of it is very dark. The picture, for instance, of what men are, painted at the beginning of this Epistle, is shadowed like a canvas of Rembrandt’s. The Bible is ‘Nature’s sternest painter but her best.’ But to get the whole doctrine of Scripture on the subject, we have to take its confidence as to what men may become, as well as its portrait of what they are-and then who will say that the anthropology of Scripture is gloomy? To me it seems that the unrelieved blackness of the view which, because it admits no fall, can imagine no rise, which sees in all man’s sins and sorrows no token of the dominion of an alien power, and has, therefore, no reason to believe that they can be separated from humanity, is the true ‘Gospel of despair,’ and that the system which looks steadily at all the misery and all the wickedness, and calmly proposes to cast it all out, is really the only doctrine of human nature which throws any gleam of light on the darkness. Christianity begins indeed with, ‘There is none that doeth good, no, not one,’ but it ends with this victorious pan of our text.

And what a majestic close it is to the great words that have gone before, fitly crowning even their lofty height! One might well shrink from presuming to take such words as a text, with any idea of exhausting or of enhancing them. My object is very much more humble. I simply wish to bring out the remarkable order, in which Paul here marshals, in his passionate, rhetorical amplification, all the enemies that can be supposed to seek to wrench us away from the love of God; and triumphs over them all. We shall best measure the fullness of the words by simply taking these clauses as they stand in the text.

I. The love of God is unaffected by the extremest changes of our condition.

The Apostle begins his fervid catalogue of vanquished foes by a pair of opposites which might seem to cover the whole ground-’neither death nor life.’ What more can be said? Surely, these two include everything. From one point of view they do. But yet, as we shall see, there is more to be said. And the special reason for beginning with this pair of possible enemies is probably to be found by remembering that they are a pair, that between them they do cover the whole ground and represent the extremes of change which can befall us. The one stands at the one pole, the other at the other. If these two stations, so far from each other, are equally near to God’s love, then no intermediate point can be far from it. If the most violent change which we can experience does not in the least matter to the grasp which the love of God has on us, or to the grasp which we may have on it, then no less violent a change can be of any consequence. It is the same thought in a somewhat modified form, as we find in another word of Paul’s, ‘Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord.’ Our subordination to Him is the same, and our consecration should be the same, in all varieties of condition, even in that greatest of all variations. His love to us makes no account of that mightiest of changes. How should it be affected by slighter ones?

The distance of a star is measured by the apparent change in its position, as seen from different points of the earth’s surface or orbit. But this great Light stands steadfast in our heaven, nor moves a hair’s-breadth, nor pours a feebler ray on us, whether we look up to it from the midsummer day of busy life, or from the midwinter of death. These opposites are parted by a distance to which the millions of miles of the world’s path among the stars are but a point, and yet the love of God streams down on them alike.

Of course, the confidence in immortality is implied in this thought. Death does not, in the slightest degree, affect the essential vitality of the soul; so it does not, in the slightest degree, affect the outflow of God’s love to that soul. It is a change of condition and circumstance, and no more. He does not lose us in the dust of death. The withered leaves on the pathway are trampled into mud, and indistinguishable to human eyes; but He sees them even as when they hung green and sunlit on the mystic tree of life.

How beautifully this thought contrasts with the saddest aspect of the power of death in our human experience! He is Death the Separator, who unclasps our hands from the closest, dearest grasp, and divides asunder joints and marrow, and parts soul and body, and withdraws us from all our habitude and associations and occupations, and loosens every bond of society and concord, and hales us away into a lonely land. But there is one bond which his ‘abhorred shears’ cannot cut. Their edge is turned on it . One Hand holds us in a grasp which the fleshless fingers of Death in vain strive to loosen. The separator becomes the uniter; he rends us apart from the world that He may ‘bring us to God.’ The love filtered by drops on us in life is poured upon us in a flood in death; ‘for I am persuaded, that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God.’

II. The love of God is undiverted from us by any other order of beings.

‘Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,’ says Paul. Here we pass from conditions affecting ourselves to living beings beyond ourselves. Now, it is important for understanding the precise thought of the Apostle to observe that this expression, when used without any qualifying adjective, seems uniformly to mean good angels, the hierarchy of blessed spirits before the throne. So that there is no reference to ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’ striving to draw men away from God. The supposition which the Apostle makes is, indeed, an impossible one, that these ministering spirits, who are sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation, should so forget their mission and contradict their nature as to seek to bar us out from the love which it is their chiefest joy to bring to us. He knows it to be an impossible supposition, and its very impossibility gives energy to his conclusion, just as when in the same fashion he makes the other equally impossible supposition about an angel from heaven preaching another gospel than that which he had preached to them.

So we may turn the general thought of this second category of impotent efforts in two different ways, and suggest, first, that it implies the utter powerlessness of any third party in regard to the relations between our souls and God.

We alone have to do with Him alone. The awful fact of individuality, that solemn mystery of our personal being, has its most blessed or its most dread manifestation in our relation to God. There no other Being has any power. Counsel and stimulus, suggestion or temptation, instruction or lies, which may tend to lead us nearer to Him or away from Him, they may indeed give us; but after they have done their best or their worst, all depends on the personal act of our own innermost being. Man or angel can affect that, but from without. The old mystics called prayer ‘the flight of the lonely soul to the only God.’ It is the name for all religion. These two, God and the soul, have to ‘transact,’ as our Puritan forefathers used to say, as if there were no other beings in the universe but only they two. Angels and principalities and powers may stand beholding with sympathetic joy; they may minister blessing and guardianship in many ways; but the decisive act of union between God and the soul they can neither effect nor prevent.

And as for them, so for men around us; the limits of their power to harm us are soon set. They may shut us out from human love by calumnies, and dig deep gulfs of alienation between us and dear ones; they may hurt and annoy us in a thousand ways with slanderous tongues, and arrows dipped in poisonous hatred, but one thing they cannot do. They may build a wall around us, and imprison us from many a joy and many a fair prospect, but they cannot put a roof on it to keep out the sweet influences from above, or hinder us from looking up to the heavens. Nobody can come between us and God but ourselves.

Or, we may turn this general thought in another direction, and say, These blessed spirits around the throne do not absorb and intercept His love. They gather about its steps in their ‘solemn troops and sweet societies’; but close as are their ranks, and innumerable as is their multitude, they do not prevent that love from passing beyond them to us on the outskirts of the crowd. The planet nearest the sun is drenched and saturated with fiery brightness, but the rays from the centre of life pass on to each of the sister spheres in its turn, and travel away outwards to where the remotest of them all rolls in its far-off orbit, unknown for millenniums to dwellers closer to the sun, but through all the ages visited by warmth and light according to its needs. Like that poor, sickly woman who could lay her wasted fingers on the hem of Christ’s garment, notwithstanding the thronging multitude, we can reach our hands through all the crowd, or rather He reaches His strong hand to us and heals and blesses us. All the guests are fed full at that great table. One’s gain is not another’s loss. The multitudes sit on the green grass, and the last man of the last fifty gets as much as the first. ‘They did all eat, and were filled’; and more remains than fed them all. So all beings are ‘nourished from the King’s country,’ and none jostle others out of their share. This healing fountain is not exhausted of its curative power by the early comers. ‘I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.’ ‘Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.’

III. The love of God is raised above the power of time.

‘Nor things present, nor things to come,’ is the Apostle’s next class of powers impotent to disunite us from the love of God. The rhythmical arrangement of the text deserves to be noticed, as bearing not only on its music and rhetorical flow, but as affecting its force. We had first a pair of opposites, and then a triplet; ‘death and life: angels, principalities, and powers.’ We have again a pair of opposites; ‘things present, things to come,’ again followed by a triplet, ‘height nor depth, nor any other creature.’ The effect of this is to divide the whole into two, and to throw the first and second classes more closely together, as also the third and fourth. Time and Space, these two mysterious ideas, which work so fatally on all human love, are powerless here.

The great revelation of God, on which the whole of Judaism was built, was that made to Moses of the name ‘I Am that I Am.’ And parallel to the verbal revelation was the symbol of the Bush, burning and unconsumed, which is so often misunderstood. It appears wholly contrary to the usage of Scriptural visions, which are ever wont to express in material form the same truth which accompanies them in words, that the meaning of that vision should be, as it is frequently taken as being, the continuance of Israel unharmed by the fiery furnace of persecution. Not the continuance of Israel, but the eternity of Israel’s God is the teaching of that flaming wonder. The burning Bush and the Name of the Lord proclaimed the same great truth of self-derived, self-determined, timeless, undecaying Being. And what better symbol than the bush burning, and yet not burning out, could be found of that God in whose life there is no tendency to death, whose work digs no pit of weariness into which it falls, who gives and is none the poorer, who fears no exhaustion in His spending, no extinction in His continual shining?

And this eternity of Being is no mere metaphysical abstraction. It is eternity of love, for God is love. That great stream, the pouring out of His own very inmost Being, knows no pause, nor does the deep fountain from which it flows ever sink one hair’s-breadth in its pure basin.

We know of earthly loves which cannot die. They have entered so deeply into the very fabric of the soul, that like some cloth dyed in grain, as long as two threads hold together they will retain the tint. We have to thank God for such instances of love stronger than death, which make it easier for us to believe in the unchanging duration of His. But we know, too, of love that can change, and we know that all love must part. Few of us have reached middle life, who do not, looking back, see our track strewed with the gaunt skeletons of dead friendships, and dotted with ‘oaks of weeping,’ waving green and mournful over graves, and saddened by footprints striking away from the line of march, and leaving us the more solitary for their departure.

How blessed then to know of a love which cannot change or die! The past, the present, and the future are all the same to Him, to whom ‘a thousand years,’ that can corrode so much of earthly love, are in their power to change ‘as one day,’ and ‘one day,’ which can hold so few of the expressions of our love, may be ‘as a thousand years’ in the multitude and richness of the gifts which it can be expanded to contain. The whole of what He has been to any past, He is to us to-day. ‘The God of Jacob is our refuge.’ All these old-world stories of loving care and guidance may be repeated in our lives.

So we may bring the blessedness of all the past into the present, and calmly face the misty future, sure that it cannot rob us of His love.

Whatever may drop out of our vainly-clasping hands, it matters not, if only our hearts are stayed on His love, which neither things present nor things to come can alter or remove. Looking on all the flow of ceaseless change, the waste and fading, the alienation and cooling, the decrepitude and decay of earthly affection, we can lift up with gladness, heightened by the contrast, the triumphant song of the ancient Church: ‘Give thanks unto the Lord: for He is good: because His mercy endureth for ever!’

IV. The love of God is present everywhere.

The Apostle ends his catalogue with a singular trio of antagonists; ‘nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,’ as if he had got impatient of the enumeration of impotencies, and having named the outside boundaries in space of the created universe, flings, as it were, with one rapid toss, into that large room the whole that it can contain, and triumphs over it all.

As the former clause proclaimed the powerlessness of Time, so this proclaims the powerlessness of that other great mystery of creatural life which we call Space, Height or depth, it matters not. That diffusive love diffuses itself equally in all directions. Up or down, it is all the same. The distance from the centre is the same to Zenith or to Nadir.

Here, we have the same process applied to that idea of Omnipresence as was applied in the former clause to the idea of Eternity. That thought, so hard to grasp with vividness, and not altogether a glad one to a sinful soul, is all softened and glorified, as some solemn Alpine cliff of bare rock is when the tender morning light glows on it, when it is thought of as the Omnipresence of Love. ‘Thou, God, seest me,’ may be a stern word, if the God who sees be but a mighty Maker or a righteous Judge. As reasonably might we expect a prisoner in his solitary cell to be glad when he thinks that the jailer’s eye is on him from some unseen spy-hole in the wall, as expect any thought of God but one to make a man read that grand one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm with joy: ‘If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.’ So may a man say shudderingly to himself, and tremble as he asks in vain, ‘Whither shall I flee from Thy Presence?’ But how different it all is when we can cast over the marble whiteness of that solemn thought the warm hue of life, and change the form of our words into this of our text: ‘Nor height, nor depth, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.’

In that great ocean of the divine love we live and move and have our being, floating in it like some sea flower which spreads its filmy beauty and waves its long tresses in the depths of mid-ocean. The sound of its waters is ever in our ears, and above, beneath, around us, its mighty currents run evermore. We need not cower before the fixed gaze of some stony god, looking on us unmoved like those Egyptian deities that sit pitiless with idle hands on their laps, and wide-open lidless eyes gazing out across the sands. We need not fear the Omnipresence of Love, nor the Omniscience which knows us altogether, and loves us even as it knows. Rather we shall be glad that we are ever in His Presence, and desire, as the height of all felicity and the power for all goodness, to walk all the day long in the light of His countenance, till the day come when we shall receive the crown of our perfecting in that we shall be ‘ever with the Lord.’

The recognition of this triumphant sovereignty of love over all these real and supposed antagonists makes us, too, lords over them, and delivers us from the temptations which some of them present us to separate ourselves from the love of God. They all become our servants and helpers, uniting us to that love. So we are set free from the dread of death and from the distractions incident to life. So we are delivered from superstitious dread of an unseen world, and from craven fear of men. So we are emancipated from absorption in the present and from careful thought for the future. So we are at home everywhere, and every corner of the universe is to us one of the many mansions of our Father’s house. ‘All things are yours, . . . and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.’

I do not forget the closing words of this great text. I have not ventured to include them in our present subject, because they would have introduced another wide region of thought to be laid down on our already too narrow canvas.

But remember, I beseech you, that this love of God is explained by our Apostle to be ‘in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Love illimitable, all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but a love which has a channel and a course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours itself over the world. It is not, as some representations would make it, a vague, nebulous light diffused through space as in a chaotic half-made universe, but all gathered in that great Light which rules the day-even in Him who said: ‘I am the Light of the world.’ In Christ the love of God is all centred and embodied, that it may be imparted to all sinful and hungry hearts, even as burning coals are gathered on a hearth that they may give warmth to all that are in the house. ‘God so loved the world’-not merely so much , but in such a fashion -’that’-that what? Many people would leap at once from the first to the last clause of the verse, and regard eternal life for all and sundry as the only adequate expression of the universal love of God. Not so does Christ speak. Between that universal love and its ultimate purpose and desire for every man He inserts two conditions, one on God’s part, one on man’s. God’s love reaches its end, namely, the bestowal of eternal life, by means of a divine act and a human response. ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ So all the universal love of God for you and me and for all our brethren is ‘in Christ Jesus our Lord,’ and faith in Him unites us to it by bonds which no foe can break, no shock of change can snap, no time can rot, no distance can stretch to breaking. ‘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.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

persuaded. Compare Rom 2:8 (obey). App-150.:2.

neither, nor. Greek. oute.

principalities. Greek. arche. See Eph 6:12.

powers. App-172and App-176:1.

present. Greek. enistemi. Elsewhere, 1Co 3:22; 1Co 7:26. Gal 1:1, Gal 1:4. 2Th 2:2. 2Ti 3:1. Heb 9:9.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

38.] For I am persuaded (a taking up and amplifying of the -our victory is not only over these things, but Idare assert it over greater and more awful than these) that neither death, nor life (well explained by De W. as the two principal possible states of man, and not as = any thing dead or living, as Calvin and Koppe), nor angels, nor principalities (whether good or bad; is used of good, Col 1:16; Col 2:15 (see note); of bad (1Co 15:24?), Eph 6:12; here, as Eph 1:21, generally.

, absolutely, seems never to be used of bad angels: if it here means good angels, there is no objection, as Stuart alleges, to the rhetorical supposition that they might attempt this separation, any more than to that of an angel from heaven preaching another gospel, Gal 1:8), nor things present nor things to come (no vicissitudes of time), nor powers (some confusion has evidently crept into the arrangement. Ephr[65] Syr. reads, . . . . . . . . ; Basil, . . . . . . . . . I follow, with Griesb., Lachm., Tischdf., the very strong consent of the ancient MSS.), nor height nor depth (no extremes of space), nor any other created thing ( cannot here be the whole creation, as Chrys.,- , , ,-but any creature, such as are all the things named) shall be able to sever us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (here plainly enough Gods love to us in Christ,-to us, as we are in Christ, to us, manifested in and by Christ).

[65] Ephrem Syrus, b. 299, d. 378

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 8:38. , I am persuaded) all doubt being overcome.-) Things of less weight do not hurt us: for even things of greater weight shall not hurt us.- , …, neither death, etc.) This is introduced from Rom 8:34, in an admirable order:

Neither death shall hurt us, for Christ hath died:

nor life: comp. Rom 14:9. He rose again:

nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come: comp. Eph 1:20-21. Christ is at the right hand of God.

nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. He makes intercession.

Hence we have an illustration of the order of the words. For the enumeration moves in pairs; neither death nor life; nor things present, nor things to come. The other two pairs are subjoined by chiasmus;[103] nor power [1], nor height [2], nor depth [3], nor any other [4] creature; [the first referring to the fourth, the second to the third]; in such a way, however, that in some sense, also power and height, depth and any creature may be respectively joined together. A similar chiasmus occurs at Mat 12:22, so that the blind and dumb both spake and saw, [blind referring to saw; dumb to spake]. But if any one should prefer the more commonly received reading of the order of enumeration, he may read as follows.-

[103] See Appendix. From the Greek X. When the component parts of two pairs of words or propositions have a mutual relation, inverse or direct.

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,

so that there may be four pairs of species, and the second and fourth pairs may have the genus added in the first or last place. But testimony of higher antiquity maintains the former order of enumeration to be superior.[104] See Appendix. Crit. Ed. ii., p. 329, etc. I acknowledge for my own part that the generally received order of the words is more easy, and the reader is free to choose either. At all events the relation of this enumeration to Rom 8:34, which was demonstrated above, is so evident, and so full of the doctrine of salvation, that it cannot be admitted to be an arbitrary interpretation. Now, we shall look at the same clauses one by one.-, death) Death is considered as a thing most terrible and here it is put first, with which comp. Rom 8:34, and the order of its series, and Rom 8:36. Therefore the death also, which is inflicted by men, is indicated: burning alive, strangulation, casting to wild beasts, etc.[105]-, life) and in it , affliction, etc., Rom 8:35 : likewise length of life, tranquillity, and all living men [as opposed to angels]. None of these things shall be hurtful, comp. 1Co 3:22 [in Rom 8:21 men are included].-, angels) The mention of angels is made, after the implied mention of men, in the way of gradation; 1Co 15:24, note. In this passage the statement may be understood as referring to good angels (conditionally, as Gal 1:8), and of wicked angels (categorically): (for it will be found that

[104] ABCD()Gfg. Memph. later Syr. Versions, Orig. Hilary 291, Vulg. put the before . Rec. Text has no very ancient authority but Syr. Vers. for putting before .-ED.

[105] The author in his Germ. Vers. expresses the suspicion, that the state of the dead is here indicated rather than actual slaughter; from the consideration, that already in ver 35, every kind of death may be comprehended under the term sword.-E. B.

the latter are also called angels absolutely, not merely angels of the devil; Mat 25:41); 1Co 4:9; 1Co 6:3; 1Co 11:10; 1Ti 3:16; 1Pe 3:22; 2Pe 2:4; Jud 1:6; Rev 9:11, etc.; Psa 78:49.-, principalities) These are also comprehended under the general name angels, as well as other orders, Heb 1:4; Heb 1:14; but those seem to be specially denominated angels, who are more frequently sent than the rest of the heavenly orders. They are thus called principalities, and also thrones, Col 1:16; but not kingdoms, for the kingdom belongs to the Son of God, 1Co 15:24-25.- , nor things present nor things to come) Things past are not mentioned, not even sins; for they have all passed away. Present things are the events, that happen to us during our earthly pilgrimage, or which befall the whole world, until it come to an end. For the saints are viewed either individually, or as a united body. Things future refer to whatever will occur to us either after our time in the world, or after that of the whole world has terminated, as the last judgment, the conflagration of the world, eternal punishment; or those things, which, though they now exist, will yet become known to us at length by name in the world to come, and not till then.- ,1[106] nor power)[107] often corresponds to the Hebrew word , and signifies forces, hosts.

[106] 1 fg Vulg. Ambrose and Augustine support the singular . But all the other authorities quoted in my last note support .-ED.

[107] D corrected by a later hand, d.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 8:38-39

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.-To persuade is to win to a purpose or course where there are difficulties, of which the testimony commingled with the earnest desire convinces that it can be accomplished. Earnest, self-sacrificing for the accomplishment of the desired end gains acceptance for the prayer and secures the blessing. Without this earnestness of heart that makes us willing to sacrifice to God, our prayers will not reach the throne of God and will not prevail. It may not be necessary to sacrifice all for what we pray before God will hear and answer the prayer, but it is necessary that we in heart be willing to labor and sacrifice to gain the end before God will hear and answer the prayer. With this truth understood we need not be surprised that so few of our prayers are heard or answered. Jesus Christ himself is the great and perfect example in all these things to the child of God. The thing needed to gain acceptance and favor for our prayers is earnest self-sacrificing labor and devotion on our part to gain that for which we pray. Then God will hear and grant our prayers even before we ask. The great trouble with us is we are not in earnest in our service, it is not rendered from the heart, and our prayers are vain, talking without corresponding deeds of devotion. What is needed for our own good and the good of the world is to realize that our religious lives should be more earnest and devoted. We can make our prayers prevailing if we will, but we cannot do this without self-sacrifice like that made by those who did prevail with God and whose examples are given for our encouragement and imitation.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

angels

(See Scofield “Heb 1:4”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

An Inseparable Love

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 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 8:38-39.

1. We always think of this chapter as St. Pauls finest composition, and perhaps the most precious legacy which he bequeathed to the Church. It is a noble piece of literary work, full of choice language and deep philosophic thought. As a picture of the Christian life and its possessions and hopes, it reaches a sublime elevation which is nowhere else attained except in the lofty sayings of Jesus. And the best of it is kept to the last. The climax and peroration are where they ought to be. They form the grand Hallelujah Chorus which brings the oratorio to a close.

A great French critic remarks upon St. Pauls indifference to style, the rough, rugged sentences of the Apostle, with their abrupt transitions, their lack of grace and finish, falling gratingly on the Frenchmans sensitive ear. And no reader of St. Pauls writings will challenge the truth of this criticism, for there is absolutely nothing of the conscious rhetorician about him; he is too intent upon pouring out his mind and heart, too eager to get into direct, living contact with men, to think of elegance of style. But, now and again, when he becomes impassioned, when in the progress of argument or exhortation some of the grander truths of life, or some of its vivifying hopes, come pressing upon him, then the preacher, the expounder, the controversialist, the counsellor, the pastor, becomes a seer. Brain and heart getting on fire, the thoughts that come, come molten, and fashion themselves naturally, without any need of art, into forms of beauty; and so we have his hymn to Charity, his ode to Immortality, and here his pan to Love Divine.

2. These rapturous words are the climax of the Apostles long demonstration that the Gospel is the revelation of the righteousness which is of God by faith, and is thereby the power of God unto salvation. What a contrast there is between the beginning and the end of this argument! It started with sombre, sad words about mans sinfulness and aversion from the knowledge of God. It closes with this sunny outburst of triumph. Like some stream rising among black and barren cliffs, or melancholy moorlands, and foaming through narrow rifts in gloomy ravines, it reaches at last fertile lands, and flows calm, the sunlight dancing on its broad surface, till it loses itself at last in the unfathomable ocean of the love of God.

What we have before us is, first of all, lovea love which brings us into indissoluble union with God in Christ; it is called the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Next, we have a rapid list of the forces in the universe which might be conceived capable of separating us from that love. And then we have the persuasion which prevails above them all. The persuasion is mentioned first, but it may be taken last, as it closes the great argument.

I.A Love that will not let go.

II.Powers that are Powerless.

III.A Persuasion that Prevails.

A Love that will not let go

i. The Love of God

Who shall separate us from the love of God?

1. The love of God may mean our love to God or Gods love to us: which does St. Paul mean? He certainly means Gods love to us: Who shall separate us from the love of God? In the argument of this Epistle the reality of Gods love is confidently assumed. St. Paul was no shallow optimist, easily contented with the colour and glitter of the surface of things; he recognized as frankly and vividly as any pessimist can do the dark enigmas of nature and life; yet, notwithstanding this recognition, the fact of Gods love is the fundamental article of his creed. Whatever may perplex him, he never suspects that the cosmic trouble may arise in some defect of this love; in his conviction it is the primary, central truth of the universe.

Readers of Matthew Arnold will remember that in his essay on St. Paul he interprets our text as if the Apostle were exulting in his own love of God instead of Gods love of him; exulting in a love proceeding from himself instead of a love which found him and carried him away with it. It shows almost as strange a lack of insight as does the same writers conception of the God of Israel as an impersonal force. The secret of St. Pauls calm outlook and triumphant hope, the power that enabled him to rise above all evil and fear of evil was, most assuredly, not his own love of God, but Gods love of him. The great saints of the Church have never thought much of their own love of God. It is His love of them and their fellowsa love greater than their heartsthat possessed them. I think I am the poorest wretch that lives, said the dying Cromwell; but I love God, or rather (correcting myself) I am loved of God.

I love; but ah! the whole

Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee.

Lord Thou wert long beforehand with my soul,

Always Thou lovedst me.

In his Reminiscences of Frederick Denison Maurice the late Mr. Haweis relates this incident: I remember asking him one day, How are we to know when we have got hold of God? because sometimes we seem to have got a real hold of Him, whilst at other times we can realize nothing. He looked at me with those eyes which so often seemed to be looking into an eternity beyond, whilst he said in his deep and tremulously earnest voice, You have not got hold of God, but He has got hold of you.

Niagara stopped once! Owing to an ice dam thrown across the river the waters failed, the rainbow melted, the vast music was hushed. But there has been no moment in which the love of God has failed toward the rational universe, when its eternal music has been broken, or the rainbow has ceased to span the throne. There never will be such a moment. The crystal tide flows richly, and flows for ever.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson]

Let me no more my comfort draw

From my frail hold of Thee;

In this alone rejoice with awe,

Thy mighty grasp of me.

Thy purpose of eternal good

Let me but surely know;

On this Ill lean, let changing mood

And feeling come and go:

Glad when Thy sunshine fills my soul,

Nor lorn when clouds oercast,

Since Thou within Thy sure control

Of love dost hold me fast.

2. But the love of God to us carries with it our love to God. Without a response to Gods love how can we be persuaded of it? As Gods love to us is rich and everlasting, surviving all variations of time and circumstance, we will respond to His love with a love as like His own as it is possible for the creature to give. Mutuality is of the essence of love. We have thinkers who recommend the substitution of nature for God. They assure us that when we properly know the universe we can regard it with awe and fear, with admiration and love. Nature is infinitely interesting, infinitely beautiful; there is food for contemplation which never runs short; it gives continually exquisite pleasure, and the arresting and absorbing spectacle, so fascinating by its variety, is at the same time overwhelming by its greatness and glory. But reciprocity is surely of the essence of love; and however we admire, love, and praise the creation, it cannot return our affection. We smile upon it, yet there is no answering flash; we extol it, but find no sympathetic response; appreciation passes into adoration, and still our worship is unrequited. We see the folly of falling in love with a statue, notwithstanding its beauty; and nature is that statue. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; neither speak they through their throat. In nature-worship, as in all idol-worship, mutuality is not possible; all thought and feeling, confidence and sacrifice are on one side. But with God in Christ fellowship becomes a fact. He declares His love to the race most convincingly, and we love Him because He first loved us. He stretches forth His hand out of heaven, we clasp it; henceforth we are inseparable, no fortune or misfortune can unclench the grip. The love of the Eternal is one link of gold, our love to Him is another, and together they bind us to His throne for ever.

For though The love of God is broader than

The measure of mans mind, yet all in vain

The broad sun shines apace for him who hath

No window to his house; and human love

Must make an eastern outlook for the soul

Ere it can see the dawn. He cannot dream

Of oceans who hath never seen a pool.1 [Note: Anna Bunston, The Porch of Paradise, 8.]

Cynics speak scornfully of love; yet we may remember that it is the sublime element in our nature which most clearly reflects the Divine and Eternal. It sets at naught all the categories of time and sense, and identifies us with the infinite and timeless. It is indifferent to environment. It does not rise and fall with the fortune of the beloved, as the quicksilver in the glass responds to the weather; it is delightfully unconscious of secular vicissitude. It is unaffected by distance:

Mountains rise and oceans roll

To sever us in vain.

Duration does not weaken it. On receipt of his mothers portrait Cowper wrote: It is fifty-two years since I saw her last, but I have never ceased to love her. Fifty-two centuries would not have chilled his affection. Death does not quench love. In Pompeii they showed me the bone of a human finger with the ring still upon it: fine symbol of the immortality of love and loyalty!

Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickles compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

ii. In Christ Jesus

Which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1. St. Paul does not find the proof of Gods love and the justification of ours in nature, history, or life. The love of God in creation is in eclipse, or at least in partial eclipse; and if we are to construe the Divine character from the facts of nature, we must hesitate and fear. The light is not clear, and thinkers are sorely puzzled. Here, then, comes in the mission of the Christian Churchto affirm the love of God in Christ Jesus to all mankind. The justification of an absolute confidence in Gods unfailing love is found not in the sphere of nature, but in the sphere of redemption. The austere science of our day has put entirely out of court the rosy philosophy of the old deism. It annihilates sentiment; it will have none of it. If men are now to admire, reverence, and love God, they must find another basis than nature for their worship. There is none other except redemption; more than ever is the world shut up to that glorious fact. It is enough. Here the eternal love blazes out with irresistible demonstration. We cannot deny it, we cannot doubt it. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.

To-day two great schools of scientists seriously differ in their interpretation of the world. One holds that nature knows only force, selfishness, and violence; whilst the other, recognizing the large play of egotism and violence in the evolution of things, discerns that sympathy and sacrifice are prominent facts of the physical universe; the first denies love, the second acknowledges it. The contention between the philosophers will go on interminably, for really they are occupied with the diverse aspects of a paradoxical world, the moral of their controversy being that love is not absent in the creation, but revealed only partially, faintly, fitfully. In many creatures the evidences of love are conspicuous, in others there seems a denial of it. The delightful element is unmistakable in doves, butterflies, nightingales, and a thousand more lovely things; it is painfully lacking in hawks, sharks, crocodiles, rattlesnakes, and microbes. But men do not argue at noon whether the sun shines or not; and in the presence of Calvary there is an end of all strife touching the nature of God and the design of His government. Naturalism may doubt Gods love, may deny it, but at the Cross we no longer guess and fear. He who died for us loves us, whatever enigmas may mock. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christthe face marred more than any mans. What shall separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord?1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]

What is it to the circling hours,

The life they take or bring?

What is it to the winds and showers?

They know not anything.

But somehow, ere I am aware,

There comes a hush and thrill,

For all the sunshine and the air

A Presence seems to fill;

And from the sudden-opening sky,

A low Voice seems to say,

I am the Resurrection, I

The Life, the Truth, the Way.

This Nature, which you idly blame,

Is but the robe I wear;

From Me the human spirit came,

And all its griefs I bear.

The smile whose light thou canst not see,

The grace that left thy side,

Though vanished from the earth, with Me

For ever they abide.

With Him I cannot be at strife;

Then will I kneel and say,

In love He gave me that sweet life,

In love He took away.

And loves unfailing life, in Him,

Outlasts this arching sky;

For worlds may waste and suns grow dim,

But love can never die.

2. Gods love is illimitable, all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but it is a love which has a channel and a course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours itself over the world. It is not, as some representations would make it, a vague, half-nebulous light diffused through space as in a chaotic, half-made universe; but all is gathered in that great Light which rules the dayeven in Him who said: I am the Light of the World. In Christ the love of God is all centred and embodied, that it may be imparted to all sinful and hungry hearts, even as burning coals are gathered on a hearth that they may give warmth to all who are in the house.

The love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord is the heart of the Christian Gospel. It was what won the world at the beginning to the Christian obedience, and it is what holds the world now and will hold it as long as there are sins to be forgiven and hearts hungering for reconciliation with God. It is independent of much knowledge which may be discredited, and of much opinion which may become a fashion of the past. Whatever else which passes for Christianity and is supposed in some way to uphold it may decrease and disappear, this will increase and rise with purer and greater brightness upon the world. Every one of our intellectual conceptions of the mystery of the Godhead, of the Incarnation and the Atonement, may undergo a change, but the love which spoke, and acted, and lived in Jesus Christ will always touch the human heart with the deepest conviction and assurance of the love of God, and be the revelation and symbol of the Divine disposition towards the children of men.

Ideas and ideals do not manifest the love of God to menonly what God has done shows that.1 [Note: Life of Principal Rainy, ii. 137.]

3. If we would know God and love Him, we must find Him in Christ, in that Perfect Manso strong and yet so gentle, so true, yet so tenderwho moves before us in the Gospels. Is it difficult to love Him? It is not difficult to admire and praise Him. There is hardly a man in Christendom who does not do that. Even those who reject His claim to be one with the Father, even those who hold the Gospel to be but a late and imperfect tradition overlaid with many incredible fables, even those whose keen eyes detect flaws in His character and teachingeven these admit that no man ever lived or spake like Him, that He is beyond all rivalry, the wisest and best of the sons of men. It is easy, then, to admire and praise Christ; but to love Him is not so easy; for that takes faith.

God so loved the worldnot merely so much, but in such a fashionthatthat what? Many people would leap at once from the first to the last clause of the verse, and regard eternal life for all and sundry as the only adequate expression of the universal love of God. Not so does Christ speak. Between I that universal love and its ultimate purpose and desire for every man He inserts two conditions, one on Gods part, one on mans Gods love reaches its end, namely, the bestowal of eternal life, by means of a Divine act and a human response. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So all the universal love of God for you and me and for all our brethren is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and faith in Him unites us to it by bonds which no foe can break, no shock of change can snap, no time can rot, no distance can stretch to breaking.1 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

4. As we look at the love of God in Christ what do we find to be its most striking characteristics?

(1) It was a universal love, including all, even the most unworthy, in its embrace. It was not arrested by the prejudices of His time, nor did it even acknowledge their presence. It was not obsequious to the Pharisees, and cold or suspicious to the publicans. None of the numerous parties which were then struggling for ascendancy in Judea established the slightest preference to His regard. None could allege that by His partiality for others He displayed a proportionate indifference to them. Even that deep and almost impassable gulf between Gentile and Jew closed up before Him. In Him love placed itself at the disposal of every man without being deterred even by his sin. Indeed, the greater the sin the more earnestly it strove for a hearing. But its purpose was always the sameto save us from what it knew to be our deadliest foe, and to win us to the cause of holiness and truth. And it never despaired even of the most abandoned, or allowed him to go on to destruction because it was impotent to help him.

(2) Another characteristic of the love of God in Christ is that it issued in the most perfect act of self-sacrifice. It is often said that love sets no limits to itself, and this is true. It is the complete negation of selfishness. When it works it imposes no restraints upon its efforts, for their cessation would mean its own cessation also. When it forgives it forgives till seventy times seven, and then starts afresh. When it suffers there is no point at which it stops and refuses to go further, for that would be to acknowledge its own exhaustion. Now, in Christ Jesus we see this love as it never had been seen on earth before. In Him it shrank from no labour or humiliation. It carried Him from the cradle to the cross without ever pausing or hesitating on the way. He left nothing undone which might accomplish its purpose, and when the supreme act of obedience was demanded He did not shrink. The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? Among His last words was a prayer for His murderers: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. So he loved us and gave himself for us. God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

(3) Another characteristic of the love of God in Christ is that it invests us with all it has. It not only spares nothing in effecting our salvation from sin, but it enriches us with its whole possession. It is too frequently conceived as having exhausted itself in the great act of atonement, so that no surplus survives for further use, or as though it had then completed its work and remains henceforth in a state of quiescence. But Christ gave Himself for us that He might be able to give Himself to usalways the last ambition of love, short of which it never rests. Hence He prayed for His disciples: that the love wherewith His Father loved Him might be in them, and He in them. And St. Paul prays that our knowledge of the love of Christ may lead to our being filled with all the fulness of God.

(4) And, lastly, it follows from all this that the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord is a love which clings inseparably to its object. Whoever gives himself wholly to another with a perfect knowledge and understanding of what he is, can have no conceivable reason for finally renouncing him. Nothing in his own nature can urge him to do so, for this is precluded by the very fact of his self-surrender; and nothing in the person for whom that surrender has been made, for that has already been considered and overcome. So it is with the love of Christ. If it had stopped at any point short of a complete sacrifice of Himself, then it might, so to speak, have retraced its steps. It would not have been irretrievably committed. But Christ has committed Himself. He is pledged to go the whole length which our complete salvation requires. So that there can be nothing in Him which at any moment can move Him to let us go. He has left Himself no place of repentance.

Passing the prison of one of our large cities early in the morning, I once saw what seemed to be a mother in a humble cart from a distant village, waiting at the entrance, for the release, perhaps of her son, that day from his term of bondage. There were the vacant seat beside her, the little basket of dainty food, change of outer garments, and her tearful, eager glances at the door, all telling, very affectingly, to how much love the prisoner was about to be liberated, and how readily he would be transported to his far-off home. There was only a step for him from exile and shame to the parents resources, the parents dwelling, the parents arms, the parents joyall these anxiously waiting for the moment of his discharge.1 [Note: Charles New.]

A poor lad once, and a lad so trim

A poor lad once, and a lad so trim,

Gave his love to her that loved not him.

And, says she, fetch me to-night, you rogue,

Your mothers heart to feed my dog!

To his mothers house went that young man

To his mothers house went that young man,

Killed her, and took the heart and ran,

And as he was running, look you, he fell

And as he was running, look you, he fell.

And the heart rolled on the ground as well.

And the lad as the heart was a-rolling heard

That the heart was speaking, and this was the word:

The heart was weeping and crying so small

The heart was weeping and crying so small,

Are you hurt, my child, are you hurt at all?2 [Note: Jean Richepin, A Mothers Heart.]

Powers that are Powerless

Who or What, demands the Apostle, shall separate us from the love of Christ? And in his reply he gives us two catalogues of the various powers and influences which we fear as likely to weaken or to alienate our love from Him in whose love we live. In his first catalogue he enumerates tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, sword; in his second catalogue he enumerates death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present and things to come, height and depth. As we follow and consider his words, the first catalogue presents no difficulty to our thoughts; we feel, we acknowledge, that the rigours of pain, want, hunger, danger have often strangled love; we forbode that, were we long exposed to them, our love might die. But the second catalogue is more difficult. We ask, for instance, How should height or depth; or, again, How should angels separate us from the love of Christ? And it is not until we perceive that St. Paul is indulging in one of those passionate and rhetorical outbursts which are characteristic of his style that his words shoot into light. But then, when we seize this clue and follow it, we understand that, in the rapture and exaltation of his spirit, he defies all heaven and earth to extinguish, or even to lessen, his love for Christ, or Christs love for him; the very angels and principalities of heaven, supposing them capable of the endeavour, could not shake him from his rest; nor all the powers of hellno vicissitudes of time, whether present or to come; nor aught within the bounds, the heights and depths, of space. Strong in the love of Christ, he is more than conqueror over them all.

Observe the difference in order between the Authorized and Revised Versions. There is overwhelming manuscript authority for placing powers after things to come. We naturally expect them to be associated with principalities, as in 1Co 15:24; Eph 1:21. It is possible that in one of the earliest copies the word may have been accidentally omitted, and then added in the margin and reinserted at the wrong place. But it is perhaps more probable that in the rush of impassioned thought St. Paul inserts the words as they come, and that thus nor powers may be slightly belated. When not critically controlled, the order of association is a very subtle thing.1 [Note: Sanday and Headlam, Romans, 223.]

The possible enemies may be taken in four groups(1) those of our own Experience, gathered under the two comprehensive words death and life; (2) those of the world of Spirits, called angels, principalities, powers; (3) those of Time, things present and things to come; and (4) those of Space, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation.

i. Our own Experience

Neither death, nor life.

1. Death! What a crude fact it is, driving its iron wedge into the limits of this strange, mysterious life of ours; and the whole question of immortality comes quivering up into consciousness with such a sentence as this. Death, that seems to end things, but leaves us so far apart from our beloved! Shall death end thought also, and shall the dream that has been so fairthat beyond the world there lived a Heart that cared for usvanish into thick darkness and leave us utterly alone? Death shall not separate us from the love of God; death is but a moment in life, an incident in a souls career; and if God has loved us once He will love us for evermore, and on beyond the boundaries of the world Gods love waits to be gracious. Death need make no man afraid who has believed in the love of God.

That men fear death, as likely to separate them from the love of God, to impair their union with Him, or, perchance, to put them beyond His reach, is beyond a doubt. There is nothing that most men fear so much as death; nothing, alas, that most Christians fear so much. We have an instinctive and natural dread of it, which even faith finds it hard to conquer, and to which our imperfect faith often lends an additional force. It is not only the darkness and decay of the tomb that we dread; it is also the judgment which lies beyond the tomb. It is not only that we are loth to part with those whom we love; we also fear, lest, in the pangs of death, we should relax the grasp of faith. And, hence, in the Service for the Dead, we use a prayer than which few are more pathetic: O Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee. A most pathetic, and yet, as we often mean it, a most un-Christian prayer! For what we too commonly imply by it is that if, amid the pangs of dissolution and the darkness of death, we should cease to see God by faith and to put our trust in Him, He will forsake us; that if, oppressed by mortal weakness, we loosen our hold upon Him, He will let us fall; that at the very crisis, and in the very circumstance, in which an earthly friend would strengthen his comforting grasp on us, our heavenly Friend will relax His grasp and let us drop into the darkness which waits to devour us up Whereas Christ has taught us that Gods help is nearest when we most need His help, that He perfects His strength in our weakness, that our redemption from all evil depends, not on our fluctuating sense of His Presence, or on our imperfect love for Him, but on His being with us although we know it not, and His eternal unbounded love for us.1 [Note: Samuel Cox.]

2. It is a great thing to be persuaded that this power we call death, which has been so feared and fought against, cannot sever the ties which unite us to God. It seems to separate the children of men from so much. Every day we see it in its own ancient and awful way invading human homes, breaking up circles of friendship, and laying its touch upon the dearest attachments. But let us not make too much of the isolating power of death even from this point of view. There is a love between soul and soul which death cannot destroya love that loves on though the outward presence has vanished, and is often conscious of even a closer communion than when each could only half express itself through the poor medium of the body. Death means invisibility, but not the loss or destruction of love; not separation, perhaps not even distance. And how much more must it be true of God that death cannot divide us from Him, cannot pluck us out of His hands, cannot crush us out of existence? To be loved by God is to be preserved and cherished. We are His children, therefore we must live on with Him and be cared for by Him.

To God death and the hereafter are not the mysteries and barriers they are to us. Those who die to us live to Him. They are in His care wherever they are. They have not passed from His sight because they have passed from our sightgone beyond the range of our eye and ear. The mere passage from the seen to the unseen cannot touch His influence, His love to them, His power to help them and to hold communion with them. Death can have no manner of dominion over the Love that gave us their love, and gave it, not that it might perish, but for everlasting life.2 [Note: J. Hunter.]

I thought the road would be hard and bare,

But lo! flowers,

Springing flowers,

Bright flowers blossoming everywhere!

The night, I feared, would be dark and drear,

But lo! stars,

Golden stars,

Glorious, glowing stars are here!

And my shrinking heart, set free from dread,

Sees Love

(Lo! it is Love.)

Gods love crowning with Death my head!1 [Note: Margaret Blaikie, Songs by the Way, 56.]

It happened in 1901if I may introduce a personal illustrationthat my only child fell ill, and for a time, as it seemed, dangerously ill. One day she fell into a troubled sleep, in which it was evident that her dreams were disquiet. She tossed about and cried aloud. Her mother bent over her, touched her, and she awoke. The eyes of the little sufferer opened. She looked up at her mothers face, and oh! what a change passed over her own; and she said, Oh, mother dear, I have been dreaming such dreadful things. I dreamt that I was far away in a dark place, and that I called and called and you could not hear, and did not answer. And then you touched me, and I opened my eyes, and there you were. The language of the child reminded me of the language of a saint, one of the greatest that ever lived, in a prayer addressed to the King of kings and Lord of lords: We sleep, o our Father, on Thy tender and paternal bosom, and in our sleep we sometimes dream that all is wrong, only to wake and find that all is right.2 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]

The truest and tenderest earthly love says to its beloved, what is said on Charles Kingsleys tombstone in Eversley Churchyard: Amavimus, amamus, amabimus.

Even for the dead I will not bind

My soul to grief; death cannot long divide,

For is it not as if the rose that climbed

My garden-wall had bloomed the other side?

3. Nor life.We know deaththat black cloud which is ever travelling towards us across the waste and will presently touch us with its cold shadow. St. Paul bids it come. Ay, and life too. His defiance rises from death to life; for life, did we but realize it, is a worse enemy than deathmore perilous, more mysterious, more awful.

Many there be that seek Thy face

To meet the hour of parting breath;

But tis for life I need Thy grace:

Life is more solemn still than death.

What dread chances it holds! what appalling chances of disaster, of suffering, of shame! Who can forecast what may be on the morrow? Perhaps poverty, or disease, or insanity, orworse than alldisgrace. Many a man has succumbed to a sudden temptation, and, in one passionate moment, has defamed the honour of his blameless years. Surely life is more terrible than death, and it is nothing less than a deliverance and a triumph when a wayfarer arrives at his journeys end and is laid to rest without reproach.

Out of the sleep of earth, with visions rife

I woke in deaths clear morning, full of life:

And said to God, whose smile made all things bright,

That was an awful dream I had last night.

4. Not a few honest and devout souls in these days are compelled by their experience to interpret life in our text as including intellectual perplexities and doubts, suspensions of judgment on important matters of faith, uncertainties, even positive disbelief in things once surely believed among us. Growing knowledge in many directions, physical discovery, the advance of philosophical thought, the new study of comparative religion, the more purely critical study and interpretation of our sacred religious literaturethese and other causes are operating to unsettle and change traditional ways of thinking about many things and to make ancient symbols fade and fail. Let us not be anxious or fearful. The mind must obey its laws; and to feel and obey the sacred claims of truth is to love God with the mind. The truth of things is also the thought of God in things.

(1) Realizing the love of God in Jesus Christ, we more than triumph over all the mystery of life. The natural tendency of the painful things of human life is to induce a depressed mood, to render us sceptical towards the greatest truths. Many are not affected by the dark aspects of nature and history: they give these no place in their thought; they never brood over them, wondering what they mean; thoughtless and shallow, they eat and drink and sleep. It is very different with others. They cannot rest because of the suffering and sorrow of the world, and the natural action of such brooding is to work havoc in the soul. Reason fails to solve the cruel problems; then scepticism sets in, and despair by scepticism. But so long as I can say He loved me and gave himself for me, I am immune from the baneful power of mystery and intellectual bewilderment: the darkness emphasized by science and felt by us all cannot blind and destroy me. He who has saved me from death in His own death will one day clear up these painful puzzles; they are incidental and temporary. Love in the heart means light in the eye. Believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, I keep my hold on the eternal truths which ensure eternal life.

In the sunless deeps are animals with eyes of extraordinary size. And the marvellous thing is that these particular creatures have in a high degree the power of manufacturing their own light, and the economizing of the delicate phosphorescence has developed in them eyes of remarkable magnitude and power. With their self-created luminousness these abyssal fish withstand the blackness of their environment, and indirectly the darkness has secured for them eyes far more splendid than those of their shallow-water relatives. Thus is it in the abyss in which we live, and which proves to so many a gulf of dark despair. There are thousands of noble men and women with splendid eyes. They see God as clearly as any angel in heaven can see Him; they behold His government over them causing all things to work together for their good; they view the golden consummation to which the universe tends. The very darkness that presses upon them has taught them the secret of making light in themselves, and it has developed in them a power of vision that pierces to the heart of things.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]

What, then, is to be done in this rickety, crazy world, so mad, so tumultuous, so vexatious in its moral mysteries? This brings us right away to Bethlehem, to Calvary, to the Christ. I grow in the conviction that nothing can reconcile all mysteries and contradictions, and illuminate all perplexing darkness, but the light which streams from the priesthood of Him whom I worship as God the Son. He keeps the world alive; inquire more deeply into that suggestion, and find how large and true it is. Christ is the life of the world and the light of the world, and though He be statistically outnumbered, He is influentially supreme.1 [Note: Joseph Parker, Well Begun, 169.]

O Thou, in all Thy might so far,

In all Thy love so near,

Beyond the range of sun and star,

And yet beside us here,

What heart can comprehend Thy name,

Or, searching, find Thee out,

Who art within, a quickening Flame,

A Presence round about?

Yet though I know Thee but in part,

I ask not, Lord, for more;

Enough for me to know Thou art,

To love Thee and adore.

O sweeter than aught else besides,

The tender mystery

That like a veil of shadow hides

The Light I may not see!

And dearer than all things I know

Is childlike faith to me,

That makes the darkest way I go

An open path to Thee.2 [Note: Frederick Lucian Hosmer.]

(2) In the consciousness of the Divine love we more than triumph over all the suffering of life. The sorrow of life does not harm. Conquerors are often much the worse for the battle. A victorious fleet is a shattered fleet, often scarcely able to find a spar on which to hang the flag of victory; a triumphant army is a stricken host that moves spectators to tears; a conquering athlete is a ghastly sight. But the Apostle intimates that this stern fight unto death shall inflict upon us no serious and abiding wound. If we could for a moment transcend carnal limits and peep into glory, we should see that our glorified ancestry are not one whit the worse for their life of hardship and martyrdom, They suffered great tribulation, but they have survived all without a scar.

Not long ago I visited a flower-show, and, following the crowd, found myself amid a delightful host of orchids. It is needless to say what wonderful shapes and colours were displayed; masters of language need the wealth of poetry to describe the grace and magnificence which they unfold; they epitomize the perfection of the world. They are strangely privileged plants, gorgeous children of the sun, and they show what can be done under blue skies in depths of safety, in balmy air, with brilliant light. But before leaving the exhibition I wandered into another department, where the Alpine plants were being exhibited. Not expecting much this time, I was surprised and delighted by triumphs of form and colour. They did not suffer in comparison with the tropical blooms. Delicate, curiously beautiful, inexpressibly elegant, vivid in colour, of manifold dyes, perfumed with subtle scents of sweetness, they charmed and dazzled eyes that had just been satiated by the butterfly colours of Eastern beauties. And the Alpine gems owed all that they were to what they had suffered. Their sparkle is the gleam of the ice-age; their whiteness that of the eternal snows on whose border they sprang; they caught their royal blue whilst dizzy peaks thrust them into the awful sky; they are so firm because the rock on which they grew has got into them; they are so sensitive because they trembled so long on the precipice. They are the children of night and winter, the nurslings of blizzards; cataracts, glaciers, and avalanches perfected their beauty. In a vast, savage, elemental war they won the glory which makes them worthy to stand by the picked blooms painted by all the art of perpetual summer. Thus the sanctified sternness of human life blossoms in great, pure, beautiful souls which adorn heaven itself.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]

Thou hast visited me with Thy storms,

And the vials of Thy sore displeasure

Thou hast poured on my head, like a bitter draught

Poured forth without stint or measure;

Thou hast bruised me as flax is bruised;

Made me clay in the potters wheel;

Thou has hardened Thy face like steel,

And cast down my soul to the ground;

Burnt my life in the furnace of fire, like dross,

And left me in prison where souls are bound:

Yet my gain is more than my loss.

What if Thou hadst led my soul

To the pastures where dull souls feed;

And set my steps in smooth paths, far away

From the rocks where men struggle and bleed;

Penned me in low, fat plains,

Where the air is as still as death,

And Thy great winds are sunk to a breath,

And Thy torrents a crawling stream,

And the thick steam of wealth goes up day and night,

Till Thy sun gives a veiled light,

And heaven shows like a vanished dream!

What if Thou hadst set my feet

With the rich in a gilded room;

And made me to sit where the scorners sit,

Scoffing at death and doom!

What if I had hardened my heart

With dark counsels line upon line;

And blunted my soul with meat and with wine,

Till my ears had grown deaf to the bitter cry

Of the halt and the weak and the impotent;

Nor hearkened, lapt in a dull content,

To the groanings of those who die!

My being had waxed dull and dead

With the lusts of a gross desire;

But now Thou hast purged me throughly, and burnt

My shame with a living fire.

So burn me, and purge my will

Till no vestige of self remain,

And I stand out renewed without spot or stain.

Then let Thy flaming angel at last

Smite from me all that has been before;

And sink me, freed from the load of the past,

In Thy dark depths evermore.1 [Note: Sir Lewis Morris, From the Desert.]

ii. The World of Spirits

Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers.

Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers; this is a Jewish phrase for the spiritual hierarchy. The modern equivalent is the unseen forces which encompass us, those mysterious powers and operations which act upon our lives, and compel them to unthought-of issues. They lie without us, mysterious, incalculable, uncontrollable, invading us unexpectedly, shaping our experience, and determining our destiny. We never know what they will be doing with us.

This second set of enemies is still more mysterious and strong. The experiences of this world shall not separate us, but what is there beyond this world? What is that unseen which lingers near us and sometimes almost breaks through into sightangels, principalities, and powers? There have been different views of what this means.

(1) It is important, says Maclaren, to observe that this expression, when used without any qualifying adjective, seems uniformly to mean good angels, the hierarchy of blessed spirits before the throne. So that there is no reference to spiritual wickedness in high places striving to draw men away from God. The supposition which the Apostle makes is, indeed, an impossible onethat these ministering spirits, who are sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation, should so forget their mission and contradict their nature as to seek to bar us out from the love which it is their chiefest joy to bring to us. St. Paul knows it to be an impossible supposition, and its very impossibility gives energy to his conclusion, just as when in the same fashion he makes the other equally impossible supposition about an angel from heaven preaching another gospel than that which he had preached to them.

(2) On the other hand, Kelman says: If we study the thought of St. Pauls day we shall find a very orderly and detailed system of demonology, in which they conceived a brood of evil spirits who tempt the souls of men. There are those who still hold that view, and there are those who take other views of such matters. You may call it that, or you may call it nerves, or you may call it any name you please; the difficulty is not in what you call it, but in what you find it to be in your daily experience. And whatever may be the ultimate explanation of these things, this remains true, that some day we waken with our whole heart set upon doing the will of God and pleasing Him, and before the day is half-done some power from without or from within in this strange mechanism of body and spirit in which we live, some power like a great evil hand, has laid hold upon our life and broken it across, and everything has gone wrong with us, and we. try in vain to right it. The day is handed over to the powers, of darkness. And if there is anything in our experience which makes it difficult to remember and believe in the love of God, it is just such a thing as this. In any sort of bitterness, so long as it be a smooth-flowing experience, we can continue to believe; but when this sort of thing happens, God has gone from heaven, and all things are left the sport of evil power. But we are in His universe, and these are but the hounds of God that He holds in the leash in His hand and will not let too far upon the souls He loves. That also is part of the great love of God, and His love has not been defeated by angels, or principalities, or powers. He loves us still through the worst day of it all.

Lord, whomsoever Thou shalt send to me,

Let that same be

Mine Angel predilect;

Veiled or unveiled, benignant or austere,

Aloof or near;

Thine, therefore mine, elect.

So may my soul nurse patience day by day,

Watch on and pray

Obedient and at peace;

Living a lonely life in hope, in faith;

Loving till death,

When life, not love, shall cease.

Lo, thou mine Angel with transfigured face

Brimful of grace,

Brimful of love for me!

Did I misdoubt thee all that weary while,

Thee with a smile

For me as I for thee?1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

iii. Time

Nor things present, nor things to come.

1. Nor things present, nor things to come is the Apostles next class of powers impotent to disunite us from the love of God. The rhythmical arrangement of the text deserves to be noticed, not only as bearing on its music and rhetorical flow, but as affecting its force. We have first a pair of opposites, and then a triplet: death, nor life; angels, nor principalities, nor powers. We I have again a pair of opposites: things present, nor things to come; again followed by a triplet: height, nor depth, nor any other creature. The effect of this is to divide the whole into two, and to throw the first and second classes more closely together, as also the third and fourth. Time and Space, these two mysterious ideas, which work so fatally on all human love, are powerless here.

2. Men believe in the gay dawning of youth, and in the brilliant days when all things are fair, and the longest day is never too long, nor the hardest work too hard, and all things appear in the charm of life in which we began it. But how much disillusion comes, and the grey skies succeed the blue, and hopes do not fulfil themselves, and life is not what it seemed to promise! Then shall we have to give the venture up at the last, clinging to spar after spar of our wrecked ship, until at last it is altogether water-logged and sinks, and we are like to perish. When will the day come that the love of God also will die out, and we shall be left loveless in this ghastly universe? That day will never come.

Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race,

Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,

Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace;

And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,

Which is no more than what is false and vain,

And merely mortal dross;

So little is our loss,

So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou hast entombd,

And last of all, thy greedy self consumed,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

With an individual kiss;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood:

When every thing that is sincerely good

And perfectly divine,

With Truth, and Peace, and Love, shall ever shine

About the supreme Throne

Of Him, twhose happy-making sight alone,

When once our heavnly-guided soul shall climb,

Then, all this Earthy grossness quit,

Attird with Stars, we shall for ever sit,

Triumphing over Death and Chance, and thee O Time.1 [Note: Milton.]

The great Revelation of God, on which the whole of Judaism was built, was that made to Moses of the name I AM THAT I AM. And parallel to the verbal revelation was that symbol of the Bush, burning and unconsumed, which is so often misunderstood. It appears wholly contrary to the usage of Scriptural visions, which are ever wont to express in material form the same truth which accompanies them in words, that the meaning of that vision should be, as it is frequently taken as being, the continuance of Israel, unharmed by the fiery furnace of persecution. Not the continuance of Israel, but the eternity of Israels God is the teaching of that flaming wonder. The Burning Bush and the Name of the Lord proclaimed the same great truth of self-derived, self-determined, timeless, undecaying Being. And what better symbol than the bush burning, and yet not burning out, could be found of that God in whose life there is no tendency to death, whose work digs no pit of weariness into which it falls, who gives and is none the poorer, who fears no exhaustion in His spending, no extinction in His continual shining? And this eternity of Being is no mere metaphysical abstraction. It is eternity of love, for God is love. That great stream, the pouring out of His own very inmost Being, knows no pause; nor does the deep fountain from which it flows ever sink one hairs-breadth in its pure basin.2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

iv. Space

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.

1. While our Revisers had the courage of their scholarship in dealing with Rom 8:19-21, that courage seems to have failed them in dealing with this 39th verse, where the same Greek word is used, and where therefore it should, by their own rule, be rendered by the same English word. Instead of putting nor any other creation into the text, they have banished the word creation into the margin, and retained the word creature in the text, although every one must admit that between a single creature and a whole creation there is a considerable, even an enormous, difference.

There may yet, says the Apostle, be some fresh transformations. I know not what new environment may yet confront me, what strange world, what undreamed-of surroundings, what play of forces more dread and solemn than I have hitherto experienced; but I fear not even that. For there is nothing here, nothing there, nothing anywhere about which I need to fret or trouble; because, wherever I may be and whatever may happen, I shall have the love of God for my comrade and my portion.

2. As the former clause proclaimed the powerlessness of Time, so this proclaims the powerlessness of that other great mystery of creatural life which we call Space. Height or depth, it matters not. That diffusive love diffuses itself equally in all directions. Up or down, it is all the same. The distance from the centre is equal to zenith or to nadir. Here we have the same process applied to that idea of Omnipresence as was applied in the former clause to the idea of Eternity. That thought, so hard to grasp with vividness, and not altogether a glad one to a sinful soul, is all softened and glorified, as some solemn Alpine cliff of bare rock is when the tender morning light glows on it, when it is thought of as the Omnipresence of Love. Thou God seest me may be a stern word, if the God who sees be but a mighty Maker or a righteous Judge. As reasonably might we expect a prisoner in his solitary cell to be glad when he thinks that the jailers eye is on him from some unseen spy-hole in the wall as expect any thought of God but one to make a man read that grand 139th Psalm with joy: If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there. So may a man say shudderingly to himself, and tremble as he asks in vain, Whither shall I flee from thy presence? But how different it all is when we can cast over the marble whiteness of that solemn thought the warm hue of life, and change the form of our words into this of our text: Nor height, nor depth, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.

Love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,

Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,

The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,

Shall arise, made perfect, from deaths repose of it.

And I shall behold Thee, face to face,

O God, and in Thy light retrace

How in all I loved here, still wast Thou!

Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,

I shall find as able to satiate

The love, Thy gift, as my spirits wonder

Thou art able to quicken and sublimate

With this sky of Thine, that I now walk under,

And glory in Thee for, as I gaze

Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways

Of seeking Thee in a narrow shrine

Be this my way! And this is mine!1 [Note: Browning, Christmas Eve.]

III

A Persuasion that Prevails

I am persuaded.

1. I am persuaded, says the Apostle, and this is one of his great phrases. Wherever it occurs, it expresses, not merely an assured faith, a strong conviction, but a faith in something which is not obvious or indisputable, and a conviction which has been reached after many a doubt and many a struggle, after much questioning and long groping in the darkness. The Apostle has had to feel his way through the tangle out into the open. And thus, when he says I am persuaded, he is proclaiming a conviction which has satisfied his deepest need.

The assurance came to him, as it comes to every man who makes the glad discovery, out of his experience. He looked back along the road which he had travelled blindly, with bleeding feet and a troubled heart, and he saw that an unseen hand had been guiding him and shaping his lot and making all things work together for his good. And thus he was persuaded. This is the surest, if indeed it is not the only, evidence of God. It is not the teleological or ontological argument that has compelled my faith. No, it is thisthat I have found God in my life, and have seen there the operation of His grace and goodness, His wisdom and strength. I recognize, as I look back, that, when I thought I was wandering alone in the darkness, He was leading me all the time, and the experiences which were so painful and distressing at the moment have proved the most precious of all and have brought me enlargement and enrichment.

2. It is a great thing to be able to use such words as these with regard to the supreme verities. It is like having ones house built upon a rock instead of upon the shifting sand. It is like having ones course clearly marked upon the chart, and ones rudder and compass in perfect order, as compared with the man who has neither chart nor compass, and simply drifts. This explains why, on the scientific side of life, men in this age are so strong, and on the religious side so weak; they are sure of their science; they are not sure, or at least not so sure, of their religion. Agnostics, that is what so many call themselves to-daynot atheists, not infidels. Few say there is no God. What they say is, We do not know; and the uncertainty paralyses religious, action. I am persuaded, wrote the Apostle, and, being persuaded himself, he has persuaded millions more; for your convinced men, the men certain of their ground, the men who can ring out, It is so, I know, I do verily believethese are the strong men, the men who do most work, the men of widest, most potent influence. For the masses are always attracted by confidence, and will embrace the wildest superstition, embark on the most Quixotic enterprise, if one who has absolute faith in his cause leads the way; while what is in itself an unquestionable truth will hardly touch them if it is advanced with hesitancy or faltering. It is the men who, like St. Paul, can say, I am persuaded, I know whom I have believed, or, like Luther, Ich kann nicht anders, I cannot do otherwise, that move the world; for if doubt is contagious, thank God faith is contagious too.

It is still the evident and immediate duty of many people living in Christian lands to set themselves at once to know God as He has been revealed to the world by Jesus Christ. To know Him is to have an untroubled and unlimited confidence in Him, and their want of confidence shows that they do not know Him. Right knowledge of God is everything for strength and peace. It is told of one of our Scottish martyrs, that, looking up to the hills of his native Nithsdale, he cried out, I could pass through these mountains were they clothed in flame if I could only be sure that God loves me.1 [Note: J. Hunter.]

One Sunday night, as I was preaching in my own place, I had finished the sermon, as I thought, with the declaration of the sufficiency of Christ. I had closed the sermon, and had passed down to the vestry, when a plain working man followed me in. He said, Did you finish your sermon just now? I said, Yes, I think so; I meant to. I think, he said, there is something you did not say; you spoke about the forgiveness of sins, and the sufficiency of Christ, and the love of God in Redemption; but there is something else you did not say, and it is a part I never like to be left out. I said, What is it? Why, he said, years ago I was brought to Christ; and a terrible load I took to Him. I placed it down at the Cross, and I thought all was right. But the next morning my skies were grey. The next day I was beaten in the Valley of Humiliation fighting with Apollyon. He won. My temptation was too strong, I failed and I fell, I failed again, till everybody ceased to believe in me; and I ceased to believe in myself, and held myself in contempt. At last, one day, in desperation, I raised my hands to heaven and said, Lord Jesus, I claim Thy promise, I claim Thy power, look at me to-night. The man, continuing, said, For five years He has kept me as I am, and I am amongst the living to praise Him. Preach, I beseech you, next time you approach this subject, preach that Christ is able to save to the uttermost. The Saviour can battle with temptation, and make us sufficient, every time the assault comes, to win the victory for the glory of God.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]

The motto of the order of knighthood called St. Patrick is Quis separabit: Who shall separate?

Yea, of this I am persuaded

Neither Death, nor Life, nor Angels

No, not the Celestial Hierarchy,

Not they that excel in strength

Nor the present world, nor the world to come;

Nor the height of Heaven,

Nor the abyss of Hades,

Nor aught else in Gods creation,

Shall avail to sever us from the love of God,

The love incarnated in the Messiah, in Jesus,

Our Lordours!2 [Note: A. S. Way.]

An Inseparable Love

Literature

Burder (H. F.), Sermons, 462.

Campbell (D.), The Roll-Call of Faith, 11.

Cox (S.), Expository Essays, 189.

Cox (S.), Expositions, i. 91.

Garratt (S.), A Pastors Farewell, 194.

Greenhough (J. G.), The Mind of Christ in St. Paul. 47.

Hunter (J.), De Profundis Clamavi, 171.

Iverach (J.), The Other Side of Greatness, 170.

Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 319.

Maclaren (A.), The Secret of Power, 145.

Mills (B. F.), Gods World, 51.

Moinet (C.), The Good Cheer of Jesus Christ, 19.

New (C.), Sermons Preached in Hastings, 234.

Paget (F.), The Redemption of War, 65.

Parker (J.), Studies in Texts, i. 149.

Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 165.

Smith (D.), Mans Need of God, 257.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xlii. (1896), No. 2492.

Temple (F.), Sermons in Rugby, i. 12.

Thomas (J.), Concerning the King, 217.

Watkinson (W. L.), The Supreme Conquest, 1.

Cambridge Review, i. No. 4 (Hessey).

Christian World Pulpit, lvii. 388 (Kelman).

Church Pulpit Year Book, iii. 153.

Churchmans Pulpit: Easter Day and Season, vii. 332 (Temple).

Expositor, 1st Ser., iii. 119 (Cox).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

For I: Rom 4:21, 2Co 4:13, 2Ti 1:12, Heb 11:13

that: Rom 14:8, Joh 10:28, 1Co 3:22, 1Co 3:23, 1Co 15:54-58, 2Co 5:4-8, Phi 1:20-23

nor: 2Co 11:14, Eph 1:21, Eph 6:11, Eph 6:12, Col 1:16, Col 2:15, 1Pe 3:22, 1Pe 5:8-10

Reciprocal: Num 23:20 – I cannot Job 5:23 – thou Job 13:15 – he slay me Psa 94:14 – For Joh 11:25 – he that Eph 3:10 – principalities 2Ti 1:5 – I am 1Jo 3:19 – assure

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

NO SEPARATION

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 8:38-39

The love of God! Nothing shall separate us from the love of God! These are the two thoughts that I give you this evening. Some of us believe in God; some of us do not. When I say that we do not believe I mean this, that we only give God a half-hearted faith. Some of us, on the other hand, believe in Him with all our heart and soul and strength. But whether we believe in Him in a half-hearted or a whole-hearted manner, the great thing we need to know is this, that God loves each one with an intensity and reality which the human mind cannot comprehend.

I. The greatest thing in the world.The greatest thing in the world is the love of God. Take the love of God away and the world ceases to be what it is, for the love of God is the controlling factor in the world. But you say, How do I know that the controlling factor in this world is the love of God? Every flower that grows in our garden, every flower that grows under the hedgerow, is but an expression of the goodness and beauty behind it that reign everywhere. The light that we all glory in, what does it tell us? That somewhere is living and reigning the great sun. I think of the beauty and goodness Divine as I take up the Gospels and Epistles, and they speak to me of the great and eternal love of Jesus Christ. How can I help seeing, unless I am absolutely blind, that Jesus Christ is the greatest revelation of the love of God to man?

II. No separation.Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ. St. Paul gives us a long list, but may I ignore that and take something a little closer? I think, first of all, of the guilt of sin. There is some one man and some one woman in this church feeling as they have never felt beforethe pressure, the awfulness, the tremendousness of sin. Yet God will put away that sin. Sin separates man from God, but when that sin is put away by the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, there is no separationnothing between. Some have come into the church feeling that sin is too much for them. They struggle and they struggle, and they begin to believe that God cannot save them. They know He has saved them from their sin, but they do not know whether He can keep them from sin. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. God means us to realise the intensity and reality of the love of Christ for us as we have never done before.

Rev. F. W. Metcalfe.

Illustrations

(1) There is a story told of a certain officer who went into the military hospital where a man was dying, and said, You are very, very bad! I know, sir. To what Church do you belong? The Church of Christ. I do not mean thatI mean what persuasion? The man replied: My persuasion is this, 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. In this persuasion, sir, I neither fear life nor do I fear death.

(2) A preacher who had preached upon Christs redemption came down the pulpit steps and went into the vestry. Then there came a plain working-man to him and said, Did you say all you wanted to say? I think I didI think I said all I intended. I do not think you did. Some years ago I think I lived as bad a life as it was possible for any one to live. I found my way to the Cross and there I laid my burden at the foot of the Cross, and I came away feeling that my sins were all forgiven. I felt it. But next day the old temptationthat old passion, that old lust, that old desirecame upon me, and I met it on the battlefield, and I fell. I did tryGod knows how I tried again and again, and I fell and fell again and again. I felt there was no chance for me whatever, and I began to despise myself, and then, one day, suddenly, something came to me and I lifted up my hands and said, Oh Lord, I claim Thy promise. I claim Thy power, and for the last five years God has helped me. The old temptation has come but I have not given way. When you preach again say this, that Jesus Christ saves to the very uttermost, because we rely on Christ, not on our own strength, but on Him Who loves us.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

-39

Rom 8:38-39. Note that none of these things can rob us of the love of God. But that does not say that we ourselves could not forfeit it by becoming unfaithful to Him.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 8:38. For I am persuaded. In thus expressing his own triumphant conviction, the Apostle not only sums up what precedes, but goes further. The list here given exceeds the previous one; not only so, but to the great facts of Gods purpose, and the gracious facts of Christs work, there is added the subjective side, the personal confidence of the Apostle himself.

Neither death, nor life. Death is named first, probably because of the reference in Rom 8:36, and the natural antithesis is life. Dying or living, we are the objects of this love. It is altogether incorrect to explain: neither anything dead nor anything living.

Nor angels, nor principalities. This second pair refers to angelic beings; the latter term to a higher order. Comp. Eph 1:21; Eph 6:12; Col 1:16; Col 2:15. The insertion at this point of the phrase nor powers, which should be placed at the close of the verse, shows that the early transcribers so understood the passage. But it is difficult to determine whether we should understand good angels, or bad, or both. To refer the one term to the former, and the other to the latter, is both abrupt and arbitrary; to leave the evil spirits unnoticed in such a catalogue would seem strange- Hence, we may refer both terms to both classes, in the wide hypothesis the Apostle here conceives.

Nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers. Instead of continuing the arrangement by pairs, the Apostle now gives two sets in threes, in such a way, that to the two which stand contrasted, he adds a third of a general character (Meyer). The first and second terms point to vicissitudes of time, the third to earthly powers of any kind. This seems to be the only sense of powers, which is in accordance with the position assigned it by the best authorities.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our apostle concludes this excellent chapter with triumphant expressions, as he had begun it; in the first verse he proclaims, that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus; here in the last verse he pronounces, that nothing shall separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus; I am persuaded, &c.

Where observe, 1. The proposition positively laid down, nothing shall separate from the love of Christ, his love is like himself, unchangeable and everlasting; he ever loves the same person, and ever loves the same reason: Likeness is the ground of love, the attractive and loadstone of it; now the image of Christ, by the Spirit of Christ, is both preserved and increased in the believer’s soul; this engages the heart of Christ towards Christians in such a manner, that nothing shall separate them from his love.

Observe, 2. The enumeration and induction of particulars which the apostle makes use of, for confirming this proposition, that nothing can separate the believer from the love of Christ, nor diminish his interest in him.

Neither life, nor death, that is, neither the hope of life, nor the fear of death:

Nor angels, neither good nor bad; nor the good angels, for they will not attempt it; nor the bad angels, for they can never effect it;

Nor principalities, nor powers; by them understand earthly power, the great and mighty potentates of the world persecuting us for Christ, yet shall never be able to divorce us from him:

Nor things present, nor things to come; neither the things which we enjoy at present, or endure at present, or may hereafter meet with, be it prosperity or adversity; their present and future condition of life shall be sanctified, whatever comes; come what may come, come what will come, come what can come, nothing shall come amiss unto them; whatever has happened, does happen, or may happen to them in this world, shall not frustrate their hopes of future happiness in the world to come:

Nor height, nor depth; that is, neither height of honour, nor depth of ignominy; neither the top of worldy advancement, nor the bottom of worldly debasement; neither the height of spiritual enlargement, nor the depth of spiritual desertions. God can and will keep his saints in an honourable, in a comfortable, yea, in a safe state and condition all at once:

Nor any other creature; that is, if there be any other creature not comprehended, or comprized in the foregoing enumeration, whatever it be it must fall under the rank and denomination of creatures; and no creature either in heaven, or in earth, or in hell, shall separate Christ and us.

Learn hence, That it is a matter of unutterable consolation, and inexpressible triumph to believers, that nothing, though never so great and powerful, though never so amiable or terrible, shall be able to separate them from the love of their Saviour.

Blessed be God, our standing in Christ is not so lubicrous and slippery as it was in Adam: he might stand or might fall; the believer shall stand, the root bears up the branches; we shall be kept by the mighty power of God, with the concurrence of our own careful and continual endeavours, through faith unto salvation.

Observe, 3. The full assurance which the apostle had of the stability of a believer’s estate, I am persuaded, or I am fully assured:

But how so?

Not by extraordinary and special revelation, not by rapture into heaven; not by the apparition of an angel to him: but his assurance is built on that which is common to all believers; namely, the same spirit of faith, and the same love of God shed abroad in the hearts of all believers.

Observe, 4. How the apostle having spoken in his own person in the former verse, saying, I am persuaded, changes the number in the last verse: Nothing shall separate us not me.

Where note, How he associates himself with all true believers in the participation of this privilege: They have all an interest in the same love of God, the same promises of salvation, and have felt the sanctifying work of the same spirit.

It is impossible that God should retract his merciful purpose to save believers; he that chose them from eternity, from before all time, and gave his Son to suffer death for them in the fulness of time, will persevere in his purpose; namely, by grace to bring them to glory.

He whose grace prevented them when they were in their pollutions, in a state of enmity, yea, in a state of obstinacy, will he leave them after his image is engraven, and reinstamped upon them?

He that united them to Christ when they were strangers, will not cast them out of his love, now they are his members; their intercessor will preserve them from falling, and present them faultless before the presence of his Father’s glory with exceeding joy.

God’s love unto his children is everlasting, and the covenant that is built upon it, is more firm than the pillars of heaven, and the foundations of the earth: Well might the apostle then say, Nothing shall separate us from the love of God.

Observe, 5. and lastly, the ground of this love’s permanency and duration towards believers; it is the love of God in Christ Jesus that is vouchsafed to us for the sake of Christ Jesus: God looks upon Christ, and loves him, and them in him; he loves all that are members of him, and all that are like unto him.

Oh blessed Jesus! it is for thy sake that the Father smiles upon us; we are chosen in thee justified through thee, sanctified by thee, and shall be eternally glorified with thee; for neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature whatsoever, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Eternal thanks to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for the consolation that flows from hence! May so high and glorious a privilege oblige all that are interested in it, to the exercise of universal holiness, remembering, that as the privileges of the gospel are glorious and great, so the duties it requires are exact and strict.

If we would enjoy the consolation in the last verse of this chapter (here dilated upon) we must perform the duty in the first verse, (there insisted upon) namely, to walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; otherwise the privilege of non-condemnation there, and of no separation from the love of God in Christ Jesus here, will neither belong unto us, or ever be enjoyed and improved by us.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Rom 8:38-39. For I am persuaded, &c. This period describes the full assurance of hope, and the inference is made in admirable order; neither death Terrible as it is to natural men, a violent death in particular; nor the fear of it, Rom 8:36; nor life With all the affliction and distress it can bring, Rom 8:35; or a long, easy life, and the love of it; or all living men; nor angels Whether good (if it were possible they should attempt it) or bad, with all their subtlety and strength: nor principalities, nor powers Not even those of the highest rank, or of the most eminent power. Because angels are distinguished from principalities and powers, Beza and some others are of opinion that powers in this passage, as Luk 12:11, signify the persecuting rulers and potentates of the earth, who endeavoured to make the first Christians renounce their faith. But as evil angels, in other passages of Scripture, are called principalities and powers, and as the apostle rises in his description, it is probable that he speaks of these malicious spirits, the inveterate enemies of mankind; and that he calls them principalities and powers, by a metonymy of the office, or power possessed, for the persons possessing it. Macknight. Nor things present Difficult as they are, or such as may befall us during our pilgrimage, or till the world passeth away; nor things to come Extreme as they may prove; that is, future sufferings, or things which may occur, either when our time on earth is past, or when time itself is at an end, as the final judgment, the general conflagration, the everlasting fire. The apostle does not mention things past, because they have no influence on the mind, unless so far as the like things are either hoped or feared. Nor height, nor depth The former sentence respected the differences of times; this respects the differences of places. How many, great, and various things are contained in these words, we do not, need not, cannot know yet. The height, in St. Pauls sublime style, is put for heaven; the depth for the great abyss: that is, neither the heights, I will not say of walls, mountains, waves of the sea, but of heaven itself, can move us; nor the abyss itself, the very thought of which might astonish the boldest creature. Or his meaning may be, Neither the height of prosperity, nor the depth of adversity can move us. Nor any other creature Above or beneath, in heaven, earth, or hell: nothing beneath the Almighty. In this general clause the apostle includes whatever else could be named, as having any influence to separate believers from the love of God, exercised toward them through Christ: shall be able Either by force, Rom 8:35, or by any legal claim, Rom 8:33, &c., to separate us from the love of God in Christ Which will surely save, protect, and deliver us, who believe, and persevere so to do, in and through, and from them all.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Vv. 38-39. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The challenge which the apostle had just thrown out to condemnation, and sin and suffering of every kind, he now extends to all the hostile powers of the universe which could threaten the bond of love whereby Christ, and God Himself, are united to the believer. The for expresses an argument a fortiori: none of the enemies mentioned is to be feared, for not even throughout the whole universe is there a being to be dreaded.

Paul reverts to the form I, which he had dropped after Rom 8:18; the reason being that here, as well as in Rom 8:38, the matter in question is a personal conviction of a moral rather than a systematic nature. We must not forget the: if at least you persevere, which Paul himself wrote, Col 1:23, nor examples such as that of Demas, 2Ti 4:10. It is by (Rom 8:25), perseverance in believing in the love of Christ to us, that this love exercises its irresistible power over us. The conviction here expressed by Paul does not apply to himself only, but to all believers (us, Rom 8:39).

The adversaries who rise before his view seem to advance in pairs. The first pair is death and life. Death is put first, in connection no doubt with Rom 8:35-36. The inverse order which we find 1Co 3:22, is occasioned there by the difference of the context. Death: the apostle is thinking of martyrdom, the fear of which may lead to apostasy. With death and its agonies, he contrasts life with its distractions, its interests and seductions, which may lead to lukewarmness and unfaithfulness, as in the case of Demas.

The second pair: angels and principalities. Undoubtedly principalities, , might be regarded as an order of angels superior to common angelsarchangels. But in the other pairs there is always found a contrast of character: it is therefore natural to apply these two terms to spirits of opposite kinds; the first to good angels (though this sense is not exclusively the meaning of , as Meyer alleges; comp. 1Co 4:9; 1Co 6:3); the second to malignant angels, as 1Co 15:24 and Eph 6:12 (Hofmann). It will be asked how good angels could labor to separate us from Christ; but this may only be a hypothesis like that of Gal 1:8. And may not what is of itself good contribute to lead us astray, if our attachment or admiration stops short at the creature, instead of rising to God?

The Byzs. here read a third term almost synonymous: , powers; and a Mj. (C) with some Mnn. even adds a fourth: , dominations. This last term is evidently an interpolation to form a pair with the third. As to the latter, according to the Mjj. of the other two families, it has its place, if it is really authentic, after the following pair.

Third pair: things present and things to come. The first term embraces all earthly eventualities, death included; the second, all that await us in the future life. The word , which strictly signifies what is imminent, when contrasted with things to come, takes the meaning: all that is already present.

If the term powers is authentic, it must be taken as embracing in one idea the two terms of the following pair: height and depth. These are all the powers of the invisible world, whether those which exalt us to the third heaven (height), but which in an instant, by reason of pride or even violently excited sensuality, may occasion the most frightful falls to the poor human heart; or those which plunge us into the most mysterious and unspeakable agonies (depth), like that of Jesus at Gethsemane, when He exclaimed: My soul is sorrowful even unto death; comp. what He added soon after: This is your hour and the power of darkness. It is scarcely necessary to refute the following interpretations which have been proposed: good fortune and bad; or honor and disgrace; the wisdom of heretics and vulgar prejudices (Mel.); the heights from which martyrs were precipitated, and the depths of the ocean where they were buried (Thomas Aquinas); or finally, the opposite dimensions of space (Meyer).

The last term, , is usually translated by the expression: any other creature, and made a sort of et caetera. This meaning would certainly be rather poor after expressions of such ample comprehension as those which precede. But more than that, it hardly suits the word , which signifies different, and not merely other, as the word would do (for the distinction between these two adjectives, comp. 1Co 15:37-41). It seems, then, that the word signifies here, not creature, as if the reference were to a particular being, to be put side by side with several others, but creation. Paul sees in thought this whole creation disappear, on the theatre of which there has been wrought the greatest wonder of divine love; and he asks whether, if a new creation arise, and more magnificent marvels are displayed before the eyes of man, the cross in those new ages will not run the risk of being eclipsed, and the love of God in Jesus Christ of being relegated to the oblivion of the past. And he boldly affirms that whatever new creations may succeed one another, the first place in the heart of believers will ever remain for the redeeming love of which they have been the object here below.

Paul here speaks of the love of Jesus as being the love of God Himself; for it is in the former that the latter is incarnated for us, and becomes the eternal anchor of which our faith lays hold for eternity; comp. Rom 5:15 and Luke 15, where the compassion of God is completely identified with the work of Jesus on the earth.

Nowhere has the feeling of St. Paul been displayed in such overflowing measure, and yet the thread of logical deduction is not broken for an instant. This passage sums up, as we have seen, all that Paul has hitherto expounded in this Epistle. He leaves us at the end of this chapter face to face with this divinely wrought salvation, which is complete, and assured, and founded on faith alone, to be apprehended, and ever apprehended anew by the same means. Then, after a moment of contemplation and rest, he takes us again by the hand to guide us to the theatre of history, and show us this divine work unfolding itself on a great scale in the human race.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

38. I am persuaded that neither death nor life, angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor dynamites, 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. All this is beautiful, true and eminently consolatory. Yet it is an undeniable fact that we are perfectly free and can turn away at will. While we may have no disposition to do so, yet we have the power, so long as we are on probation. Fortunately it is power which I feel in my case, and doubtless in many others, will never be exercised; yet it is there.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 38

Nor angels, &c.; that is, no power whatever, visible or invisible.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

God will continue to love us when we die, and He will continue to love us whatever may befall us now. He loves us on both sides of the grave. Helpful or hostile angelic beings cannot change God’s commitment to us. Nothing that the present or future may hold can do so either. No force of any kind can remove us from His loving care. Paul listed the extremities of existence in this verse and the next. [Note: Witmer, p. 475.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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