There are times in every Christian’s life when what is called for is a clear and ringing testimony, and there are times when what is most needed is a careful and persuasive argument supporting Christian truth. Overall, both are essential, for a personal testimony is no adequate substitute for an argument, when that is needed, and vise versa. In today’s wishy-washy, subjective Christian climate we need arguments especially. But, and this is the point I am making, we need personal testimonies, too.

I say this because of the final verses of chapter 8. Paul has been offering arguments for why we who believe in Christ can consider ourselves eternally secure. In fact, he seems to have brought out every possible argument he can think of in verses 28-37. They are basic to Christianity itself. But there is also a time for testimony and that is why, in verses 38 and 39, he once again writes in the first person. What a glorious testimony! There is no false optimism here, for what Paul says is based upon the sound arguments of the preceding verses. In this testimony Paul faces all possible “separators” of Christians from the love of God in Christ he can think of and then dismisses each one.

For most people today as also in the past, the most fearful of all adversaries is death – and rightly so. Apart from what we are told about death and the afterlife in Scripture, death is an unknown, except that it ends our existence here and is inescapable. Moreover, death is the greatest of all separators. Obviously it separates us from life itself. But it also separates the soul and the spirit from the body, and separates both from God if the individual is not saved. But for the believer in Christ this is not the final word. Death does separate us from things of the world, including people. But it can never separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. How do we know this? We know because Christ has conquered death. He triumphed over it. As a matter of fact, death, far from separating believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus, actually ushers them into an even closer relationship with Him.

The second possible separator that Paul mentions is “life,” this may seem strange until we remember that life sometimes seems even more cruel than death. Life brings separations, just as death does. The political aftermaths of wars sometimes separate members of families from one another. Sometimes poverty forces people to move away from loved ones if they have to leave their homes to find jobs. And consider sickness or the encroaching limitations of old age. In these things we experience separation from the simple pleasures the world once offered us. But there is no separation from God’s love.

When Paul mentions “angels” and “demons” as his next pair of possible separators, he is not thinking so much in rationally exclusive terms as he is simply sweeping over all creation to deny that anything or anyone anywhere could ever succeed in destroying our eternal security in Christ. In the first pair of possible separators Paul has looked at our most immediate experiences: life and death. In the second he looks to the realm of spirit beings and declares that not one of them, whatever that being may be like can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Having addressed the experiences of life and death and expanded his circle of possible separators to include angelic forces, both good and evil, Paul now thinks in terms of time, arguing that neither present things nor future things can separate us from God’s love in Christ. Time is powerless against believers. Paul is saying that the hard things that are pressing in on us at this very moment and any things to come in the future cannot separate us from Christ. Jesus is equal to them.

It’s hard to know what Paul is thinking of when he speaks of “powers,” particularly since he adds it as a freestanding term, without linking it to a matching word, as he has done with the other possible separators thus far. The word in Greek can refer to miraculous signs or miracles, though here it would seem to mean heavenly or spiritual forces. The only problem is that we find it hard to think of spiritual powers that are not already included in the phrase “neither angels nor demons.” Paul might be meaning it in a summary fashion that there are no powers anywhere that can divide us from Christ.

In the fourth (and last) of his matched pairs, Paul turns from human experience, spiritual powers, and time and considers space, saying that “neither height nor depth” will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. This means that the love of God is everywhere, and may be an expression of the thought found in the well-known verses Psalm 139:7-10. On the other hand it may be significant that the Greek words translated “height” and “depth” were used in the ancient world in astrology to describe a point directly overhead, above the horizon, and a point directly downward, below the horizon. These points were used in forecasting horoscopes. If this is correct, the teaching is that even so-called astrological powers cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

After the sweeping terms of the first part of these verses the closing single item is “nor anything else in all creation. It’s as if Paul has run out of words in his verbal search for possible “separators” and ends up saying, “nor anything else, anything else at all.” What does “anything else in all creation” include? The answer is that it includes everything that exists except God, since God has created all these other things. Thus, if God is for us and if God controls everything else, since He has made it, then absolutely nothing anywhere will be able to separate us from His love for us in Christ Jesus.

This is Paul’s personal testimony which is based on the soundest evidence, evidence that had persuaded Paul, and should persuade us also. Paul’s conviction is not based on the intensity of his feelings or a belief that harsh circumstances of life are bound to improve or that any of these separating factors will somehow be dissolved or go away. Rather it is based on the greatness of God’s love for us in Christ, and that awesome love has been made known in that God sent His Son to die in our place. There is nothing in all the universe greater or more steadfast than that love. Therefore, nothing in all the universe can separate us from it.

I don’t know of anything greater than that. And I don’t know of any better way of ending our studies of Romans 8 than to say again that this is Paul’s testimony, born out of his own careful study of the Scriptures and his own personal experience of the love and grace of God. So I ask you: is this your testimony? Have you been persuaded of these truths, as Paul was? Can you say, “I no longer have any doubts. I know that salvation is entirely of God and that He will keep me safe until the very end”? If you are not certain of these truths, it is because you are still looking at yourself. You are thinking of your own feeble powers and not of God and His omnipotence.

Romans 8:38-39 Reflection Questions:

Can anything you are facing personally today (pandemic, unable to worship together) keep you from the love of God in Christ Jesus? How are you showing this love to the world today?

What reasons does Paul give for rejoicing and triumphing over suffering in Romans 8:31-39?

What specific evidence of God’s love do you have in your life?