Yes, "Paean." The shout of victory, similar to what
Israel raised of old amid the palms of the Arabian shore, when Miriam and
her sisterhood of minstrels awoke timbrel and harp over the submerged hosts
of Pharaoh, and they sang of Him who had triumphed gloriously, casting the
horse and his rider into the depths of the sea. The believer, too, with the
consciousness of every spiritual foe vanquished--the legion-hosts of Satan
discomfited--death itself, the last enemy, left a discrowned and unsceptred
king--can exclaim, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
or sword? As it is written, For Your sake we are killed all the day long; we
are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (v. 35, 36, 37).
Moses, the ideal chief and legislator, was, after all,
human--"compassed with infirmity." By reason of that infirmity neither he
nor Aaron were permitted to conduct the pilgrim multitude into the land of
promise. In both cases, in answer to the question, "Who shall separate?"
Mount Nebo and Mount Hor were ready with a doleful reply. But Christ "is
counted worthy of more glory than Moses." "This Man, because he continues
forever, has an unchangeable priesthood." Israel, in crossing the Jordan
with their final burst of praise, had to mourn the withdrawal of both their
venerated leaders. But the Christian, amid the manifold chequered scenes of
his wilderness journey, yes, on the banks of the typical Jordan itself, can
utter the challenge regarding his Lawgiver, Priest, and King--"Who shall
separate from the love of Christ?"
With the special enumeration of trials and afflictions
here given, in v. 36, we cannot doubt that the Apostle had again very
specially his Roman converts in view. Too faithfully had coming events cast
their shadows before. Already, if Nero's most ferocious edicts had not yet
gone forth, there were abundant indications that the storm-cloud would
before long burst. His unscrupulous tribunals and lying witnesses and
flagrant miscarriage of justice were the tremors preceding the earthquake
which was to wreck (if human daring or diabolical wilfulness could succeed
in wrecking) the fortunes of the early church. But the imperial savage had
to reckon with a stronger than he--"The Lion of the tribe of Judah." The
terror inspired by the one had its triumphant counterpoise in the power and
love of the other. In spite of of barbarous cruelties--hecatombs of dead and
dying, there were those who, even in their dungeons of despair, could cheer
themselves and their fellow victims with the words "Who shall separate?"
They knew full well that hidden to the human eye, yet
cognizant to the eye of faith, there was a living Redeemer who would judge
righteous judgment, and attune the lips of the doomed and incarcerated to
"Songs in the night." A beautiful saying in the days of the Incarnation
would carry its parable of comfort to not a few of these smitten
hearts--"Behold Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as
wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not" (Luke 22;31).
What a consolatory assurance for all ages, specially for the ages of
martyrdom--Christ with His people in every season of affliction--the frail
bark tempest-tossed in the angry sea, but an invisible chain of grace
linking it within the veil; telling of an Omnipotent Savior "who makes the
storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still."
"Sword"--"Sheep for the slaughter;" the words seem to
indicate a terrific forecast in the breast of this champion of the
faith--himself one of the foredoomed. But how true also his prognostications
of triumph--the victory of endurance--"more than conquerors." Scarcely
another two centuries would pass before multitudes, unswerving in their
loyalty to Christ and His truth, would be ready to confront persecution in
its direst forms. No intensity of torture would be spared. Before long the
sword would have done its cruel work on the Apostle's own aged frame. The
forlorn hope, so nobly led, would see him fall mangled in the hour of
victory. We may have read the testimony of Ignatius of Antioch, "That I may
attain unto Jesus Christ--come fire, and iron, and grappling with wild
beasts,…come cruel torture of the devil to assail me; only be it mine to
attain unto Jesus Christ." Tens of thousands thus met unflinching the Lybian
lions in the Roman amphitheater, and gave truth and inspiration to the
familiar strain in the Church's best uninspired Song--"The noble army of
martyrs praise You!"
It has been made a question, and there are not lacking
names on either side--what the opening challenge of the verse imports. Is it
"Who shall separate our love from Christ?" or "His love from
us?"
The former is indeed a beautiful thought and in many
cases as true as it is beautiful--the fidelity of the believer to his
faithful Lord--that unswerving allegiance, never more conspicuous than in
the case of Paul himself, who with self-renouncing lowliness, yet with
fearless confidence and sincerity of heart could say, "Yes, doubtless, and I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord." He, and not a few who have attained to the same lofty
standard, never loved father, mother, brother, sister, friend, as they did
the Christ of Nazareth. But the whole drift of the chapter, the whole scope
of the previous argumentative discussion, (add to this, the wording of the
last verse of all) negate this first suggested meaning.
Each preceding proposition sets forth the believer's
security, not arising out of his personal relationship to God, but from the
relationship of the Divine Trinity to him--the relation of the Father
in election, heirship, final glorification--the relation of the Son in His
dying, rising, and ascending to the right hand of the Majesty in the
heavens--the relation of the Holy Spirit in making "intercession with
groanings which cannot be uttered." The theme of the chapter may be briefly
summarized as "the grounds of the Christian's confidence in a triune God."
It would be a comparatively poor buttress to the Apostle's argument were he
to interrupt its continuity by describing the believer's love (fluctuating
at the best) to his Redeemer. But when we read, as described in our
chapters, of all that has been achieved by Christ for His people, it seems
the most suitable of topics, in drawing to a close, to speak of the utter
unchangeableness of that love--the love He bears to us--the love
which had its agony and triumph on Calvary, and which now, on the
mediatorial throne, is immutably pledged for our salvation. While,
therefore, it is a cheering assurance that we shall never forsake
Christ, much more cheering, exalting, comforting, strengthening, is the
confidence that He will never forsake us.
And note, after the enumeration of existing or possible
evils and antagonisms, the Apostle makes the strong affirmation, "No in
all these things we are MORE THAN conquerors." This is a remarkable
expression. By the use of hyperbole he emphasizes his assurance. It recalls
words of his, already quoted, nearly allied though not exactly parallel (2
Cor. 4;17), where he speaks of "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory." The verse might be rendered "more exceeding," or, "still more
surpassing conquerors." The dying utterance of an ever revered friend and
Christian patriarch come appropriately to memory--"Sin abounded--grace
super-abounded."
"More than conquerors."--It is a wonderful but
faithful testimony to the influences and results of trial--not as some would
naturally think to cool ardor, eclipse faith, and un-nerve heroism--like the
children of Ephraim, who, carrying bows, turned faint in the day of battle.
The whole history of the Church and its martyrology gives a
distinctly different verdict. It represents faith, and love, and devotion,
and soul-consecration, as being, on the contrary, inspired, developed,
expanded, in the midst of adverse circumstances. We see this illustrated in
the sufferings of the Roman Christians. Not only victims in the strength of
manhood and in the feebleness and decrepitude of age, but the willing
self-surrender even of tender youthful heroines, such as Blandina, Perpetua,
and Felicitas. Their bravery had its counterpart in distant centuries, in
the Vaudois Valleys of Lucerna, Perosa, and San Martino, the dungeons by the
Rhone and Danube, the martyr roll-call of Spain and France, Holland and
Britain. We see it conspicuously in modern times. To take one out of many
examples, from the soldiers of the cross who "foremost fighting fell" in
Central Africa. Be it Bishop or Evangelist, no sooner is one struck down by
fever or sword or spear, than another is ready to fill the gap and bear in
true apostolic succession the honored banner. The trumpet in that stern
battle seems never to sound retreat, but onward!--"Speak unto the
children of Israel that they go forward." "Out of weakness they are made
strong, wax valiant in fight, and turn to flight the armies of the aliens."
They are divinely strengthened for superhuman endurance. The device on that
banner tells the secret--"Made more than conquerors through Him who loved
us."
Though we have just quoted the writer of our verse as a
notable illustrative example, we may well linger on the singular
corroborative testimony he bore to these twin-clauses; "more than
conqueror"-- "through Him that loved us." He had everything, humanly
speaking, to quench his zeal, impair his ardor, undermine his
constancy--nothing perhaps more so, than the loneliness of a life that so
often showed its yearning need of human sympathy and genial companionship.
There is much comprehended in the terse, bitter wail, "all men forsook me"!
But the lessening of human friendships, the removal of human props, the
discovery of the treachery and desertion of "summer friends" only seemed to
strengthen his faith and deepen his love for One "who sticks closer than a
brother." Man may fail me--man has failed me; but, "Who shall
separate me from the love of Christ?" And the conscious love for him of
that Brother-man on the throne, quickened his sensibilities. Love begat
love. His own weakness was perfected in Almighty strength. He gloried in his
infirmities, for the power of Christ thereby rested more abundantly upon
him. He felt its reality, its stability. "Such a one as Paul the aged" was
"made more than conqueror," through the exalted sympathy of the once Prince
of sufferers. Aye, and when he saw the gleam of the "sword"--the weapon with
which he ends his enumeration in the passage we are considering, he could
raise the Victor's Song--"I know whom" (not in whom, but WHOM--the
living Person of his loving Lord)--"I know whom I have believed, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him
against that day."
We shall close with two thoughts.
(1) Let us advert, once more, to the designation here
given to Christ--it is "Him that loved us." We cannot fail to recall
the parallel--indeed the identical words in the opening verses of the book
of Revelation. John (himself the Apostle of love) appears to deem it
needless to name which Person in the Holy Trinity it is to whom he refers in
his dedication. "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His
own blood" (Rev. 1;5). Let us think of that name and title in its sacred
relation to ourselves. "Him that loved us" would often be poorly descriptive
of human friends and friendships. That may be a fitful affection, the memory
of which is all that remains. In His case, loving once He loves forever. It
is love incapable of diminishing or decay. The opening challenge will be
prolonged and deepened through eternity--"Who shall separate?"
(2) Take it in another aspect? The noblest of earthly
heroes may fail in their exploits; heroic efforts may be confronted and
covered with defeat. Khartoum will always have its mournful associations and
memories in British annals, where a noble soul--an ideal warrior, man,
Christian, dared all and lost all. Like the mother of Sisera, it is at times
vain and delusive counting up spoils and trophies never to be ours.
Arbitrary and capricious often are the so-called "fortunes of war." So it
may be under the noblest and ablest of human champions. But with Christ
failure is impossible, triumph is assured. "Who is this that comes from
Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in His apparel,
traveling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness,
mighty to save" (Isa. 63;1).
Let that name and the assurance it conveys stimulate us.
Christ--He who thus loved us, might have made our wilderness journey one of
triumphant and unchequered progress, without Red Sea, or Marah-pool, or
fiery serpent--the way without a thorn--the sky without a cloud--no enemy to
be seen or encountered. He has well and wisely ordered it otherwise. We are
happily ignorant of, and exempt from, the stern and dreadful trials which
belonged to the primitive Roman Church; though in other forms and modified
shapes, distress, peril, tribulation still cast their shadows. The apostolic
words are unrescinded and unrevoked--"We are in heaviness through manifold
temptations." The "tribulation"--the "tribulum" so well known in the
Roman threshing-floor--the root-word, as Trench has pointed out, of the
tribulation of our verse, has still, and ever will have, its reality, in
connection with the divine dealings. Stroke after stroke is needed. But, as
in the hands of the Roman husbandman, the "flail" was used to sift and
separate the husk from the grain; so, that tribulum of God in His
threshing-floor is designed for the same purpose in a higher sense, to
remove moral husks and incrustations, to fit the grain of wheat for its
place in the garner, or it may be to aid its germinating power in the earth
for the better bringing forth of fruit to His glory. "We must through much
tribulation enter into the kingdom." If such be our present experience, let
us meet all sufferings and trials as Paul met them, "more than
conquerors." Tribulation, Distress, Persecution, Famine, Nakedness,
Peril, Sword--that music of winds and waves, the deep bass of the Song,
should only make us exult more in "the impregnable Rock."
Changing the figure, let us listen to the prolonged
trumpet-peal in another place, summoning not to tent or camp, but to arms
and battle--"Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the
whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore take unto you
the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day,
and having done all to stand" (Eph. 6;10-13).
And if he and they of whom he here speaks, counted not
their lives dear unto them--if they have fought the good fight, finished the
course and kept the faith, let us hear their voices gliding down from heaven
in beautiful cadence--"Be not slothful, but followers of them who through
faith and patience inherit the promises." While we respond, in the paean of
eternal victory, "thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph in
Christ."