Triumphant Ending
TRIUMPHANT ENDING
ROMANS 8:35-39
Are you feeling insecure? Read this passage, take its message to heart and your life will be changed.
We come to Paul’s powerful poetry in his conclusion. The physical trials listed in 8:35 are those of Paul’s own experience. Look at other autobiographical passages: 2 Corinthians 6:4-10; 11:24-27; 12:10.
8:36. The mention of the “sword” suggests to Paul, steeped as he is in the Old Testament, the words of Psalm 44:22, which. is quoted exactly as it stands in the Greek Bible, the Septuagint. But note the transformation. The psalmist, in bleak despair, complains to God. He could understand how people could suffer for sin, or for abandonment of God, but not “for God’s sake,” for faithfulness and truth. Paul understood. To suffer for Christ’s sake was to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings, and to be honored by the blessed partnership (5:2; 2 Corinthians 1:5; Colossians 1:24).
8:37. The word well rendered “more than conquerors”’ was perhaps a poetic coinage of Paul’s. The Christian is pictured as no battered and exhausted victor, but as a confident, triumphant conqueror.
8:38. The opening verb is that of 2 Timothy 1:12: “I … am persuaded …” Then come the powerful alternatives. Life is often more difficult to face than death. Christ conquered death. He also conquered life, and our life is hidden with him (John 8:51; 10:28; 11:25; 2 Corinthians 4:1–5:5; Hebrews 2:14f.). “Angels … principalities … powers” are probably the spiritual forces against which Christians war (Ephesians 6:12). These hostile powers which lie behind the material universe have already been defeated by Christ (Colossians 2:15; 1 Peter 3:22). The remaining alternatives, “things present … things to come,” are understandable in the experience of everyone.
8:39. Summing up, Paul repeats 8:35. He has spoken about the dimensions of time (8:38). Rhetorically he adds the dimensions of space, and then grasps the very universe. Nothing—no, nothing—can separate the children of God from their Father.
Meditation “Thou wilt keep him in peace, PEACE …” [Isaiah 26:3—literally] “… the future all unknown—Jesus we know, and he is on the throne.”