Romans 8:35-39 “Fathomless”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³⁵What will separate us from the love of Christ? Affliction or distress or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶Just as it is written that, “On Your behalf we are being killed all the day; we are accounted as sheep of slaughter.” ³⁷But in all these things we are being more than conquerors through the One loving us. ³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers ³⁹nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which [is] in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

This is the pinnacle of the pinnacle. I know many others have already said it, but it just simply doesn’t get any better than this. I’ve spent several weeks just hovering over these verses. Other passages I’ve studied left me with that feeling like I need to take off my shoes, but with this one, it feels like the only appropriate response is simply silence. Silence just sitting in the presence of God.

Words utterly fail.

On the other hand, there are thoughts I do want to record. I guess I’ll simply write them feeling like I’m holding out a teaspoon of water standing on the shore of the ocean.

Love. God’s love. Speaking of oceans! How utterly amazing is it to climb to the very pinnacle of the pinnacle of the Bible and find there … God’s love! How infinitely comforting ought it be to us to find that love expressed to us in the context of our suffering? How infinitely comforting ought it be to us to find that this love is the pinnacle of the very Gospel itself? Romans 1-8 is the Bible’s most thorough presentation of our glorious Gospel, that wonderful message which is “the power of God unto salvation for all them that believe, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile” (1:16), starting with our terrible guilt, “For when they knew God, they did not acknowledge Him as God, neither were thankful” (1:21), only to finally offer us the hope, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known … This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (3:21,22), finally arriving at 8:1 where we are assured, “There is therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus!”

All of that glorious Gospel leads us where? To the fathomless, infinite love of God! Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

I want to pause and acknowledge that someone will read what I say here and be quite sure I’m “missing it.”  Someone will read this and want to add, “But, but, but …” and then add whatever they’ve decided is truly most important in Christianity. My answer would be simply this: Read the text. I didn’t write Romans 8. I’m not the One who made Romans 8:35-39 the pinnacle of the pinnacle. I’m not the One who arranged this presentation of the glorious Gospel to end here in this glorious announcement from the very throne of God itself, “Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

No. There is no “But, but, but …” Jesus wants every born-again believer to arrive here at the same point as me, sitting with your Bible open, in absolute speechless wonder awash in this fathomless security of God’s infinite love. “Nothing shall separate us …” This is the entire point of the Gospel itself, to get you here. In our immediate context, we’re being told all of this in the midst of suffering. We need this assurance in the midst of suffering! If, in our suffering, we lose our grip on this infinite, fathomless love of God, then we lose our hope and, in that, we lose our strength, and, then one way or another, we collapse under it all. There is hope if only we can convince ourselves this love is true and clutch it tenaciously to our hearts.

It is ours, straight from the hand of Jesus – this infinite, fathomless love of God. Lord, give us eyes to see it and hearts to believe it. May You in fact be our Shield and our Exceeding Great Reward – even when this world seems to hurl its evil our way!