As the apostle Paul concludes Romans 8, he offers a sort of closing argument in the trial of the Christian believer. The doubtful Christian has wondered, “Will I be able to persevere to the end?” Paul, with all the finality of Perry Mason revealing the real killer, has affirmed the believer’s acquittal, showing that God is for us and will give us the fullness of our salvation by carrying us on to completion (vv. 31–32). Though the Evil One seeks to dissuade us with reminders of guilt and suffering, Paul shows that these are immaterial to the outcome of the case (vv. 33–35).
Now, in verse 37, Paul moves to a grand finale with two great declarations: First, the Christian is not simply the winner, a “conqueror,” but is superlatively so. And second, this status through Christ is irrevocable, untouchable, on account of the faithful love of the Lord.
In Suffering, Through Christ
Having asked whether tribulation, distress, persecution, and so on have any power to separate us from Christ’s love, Paul now answers definitively in verse 37: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors.” The Greek word translated “conquerors” here is hypernikōmen—literally “hyper-conquerors.” In other words, it’s not as if we have narrowly won the victory. In Christ, we have trounced the enemy.
Yet notice: We are not removed from battle. Rather, we are hyper-conquerors “in all these things.” Suffering is not alien to the experience of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ; it is normal to it. Yet we triumph through it. As the singer Andraé Crouch memorably put it, “Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus.”1
To be a hyper-conqueror, however, is not to be either a very special person or a very powerful person. No, our conquest is “through him who loved us” (v. 37). As Paul has written earlier, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The love through which we conquer is the love of the Lord Jesus, who has triumphed over all.
An Airtight Case
How certain is Paul about his assertion? “I am sure,” Paul says in verse 38. In the NIV, he is “convinced.” In the King James, he is “persuaded.” The case, he says, is airtight—and self-doubting Christians may leave their doubts behind.
Up to this point, and still now, the basis of Paul’s persuasion is the character of God. It all goes back to this simple argument: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (v. 31). The revelation of all of God in Christ (John 14:9) provides the evidence that will convince the mind and heart.
When an aircraft flies in under cover of fog, the pilots’ senses will be nearly useless. Their notion of where the ground is could be off by a hundred yards. The turbulence could fill them with fear. But a trained pilot knows that when you cannot see, you fly the instruments. The objective measurements on the airplane’s control panel can tell you with certainty where you are, where the plane is, and where you need to go.
In the fog of life, the ground will often be invisible to us—but self-doubting Christians can consider the objective truths of Scripture and fly safely. Chiefly, they may consider how God has freely given up His Son for them, and He will not fail to freely give them all the promises that the Gospel brings (v. 32).
No Separation
And what, exactly, is Paul so sure about? He explains in a dramatic tour de force of theological rhetoric: “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vv. 38–39). That is a comprehensive certainty! It adds no more than his simple “No” in verse 37 in terms of the facts, yet it adds abundantly to our wisdom as we consider the myriad facets of our walk.
“Life,” with all the battles, all the benefits, all the triumphs, all the temptations, will not separate us from God’s love. “Death,” though it may separate us from all we know and all whom we have loved, will not separate us from God’s love.
The heavenly realms of spiritual good and spiritual wickedness—the cross of the Lord Jesus has disarmed these powers (Col. 2:15). No spirit of heaven or hell can contradict what God has already laid down in the Gospel (Gal. 1:8).
Time chases us and harries us. There are worries enough for the present: What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? (Matt. 6:31 ). Yet God provides. Worries multiply over the future, as they always have: “The world has gone to pot! How will my grandchildren manage?” But God will not die with our generation. God is “our help in ages past,” and He is “our hope for years to come.”2
Height and depth cannot separate us from Him. As the psalmist writes,
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me. (Ps. 139:9–10)
Wherever we take ourselves in the world and wherever others send us, the love of Christ will go there with us.
“Any powers” whatsoever cannot undo Christ’s love—nor, indeed, can “anything else,” just in case we were worried that something slipped by! There are no loopholes. Nothing can, and nothing will, drive a wedge between God and those whom He has claimed as His own.
A Sure and Certain Hope
When the Book of Common Prayer comes to the service for the burial of the dead, it says something many people find counterintuitive: “We therefore commit his body to the ground … in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
How can hope be “sure and certain”? It cannot, if by “hope" we mean the mere chance of victory. But if we set our hope on something certain—if we give ourselves over not to chance but to the one who holds our lives in His hands—then our hope can be as certain as its object.
“God is for us,” Paul says as he closes his argument. “Therefore, not only is victory assured, but we are hyper-conquerors. Christ is faithful, and having died for us, He will not let any conceivable thing in this world separate us from His love.” The self-doubting Christian can take heart, for in Christ we have a hope that assures us of our future and which cannot be taken away.
This article is the third in a three-part series examining Paul’s closing argument in Romans 8. You can read the first and second parts here and here.
This article was adapted from the sermon “No Separation” by Alistair Begg.
