grow strong on dewless nights and sunlit days! The text doesn’t say that it’s our love for Christ which makes us more than conquerors! God doesn’t stop loving anybody. This matter is not settled by our feelings, but by a firm faith in the fact of God’s unchang ing nature and undying love! There is only one place in all of the uni verse where this truth was amply demonstrated, and that’s Calvary! Paul delights to the greatness of that conquest! On the one hand, he refers to the saints as “sheep for the slaughter,” but in the same breath he implies that our victory will assume the same proportions as that of Christ, the Lord, Who at one time suffered as the Lamb of God. Some day He’ll return as the Lion of Judah and the King of kings. He came not only to give us life, but to give it more abundantly. God Himself is the one Who pro duces this loving confidence we can have in Him. This word persuade is more than “knowledge,” or “con fidence.” It belongs at the very cen ter of faith and Christian experi ence! We need more than the specu lations of philosophy, or the meta physics of the cults to see us through in the hours of stress and strain. Christians need not go through life “whistling in the dark.” To lean on such flimsy foundations is like rest ing our eternal weight on a wisp of fog! Paul projects his confidence to the utmost. He goes far beyond the ex ternalities of life, enumerated in verse 35. Some people are afraid to die; others are afraid to live. The true Christian need not fear either one. This love is not cowed by the unseen, such an “angels, principali ties, and powers,” nor is it subject to the tyranny of time. There is only one place where this love of God cannot reach and that is into a closed human heart! Have you let Him have complete control?
THE POWER OF LOVE A study of Romans 8:35-39 by A rvid Carlson W hile the epistle to the Romans opens in gloom, chapter eight closes in glory. Here we see the sun shine of salvation. What tremendous power can be unescapably seen in Christ’s love. We can never get be yond it, beneath it, above it, or around it. We can explore the vast ness of the universe, push back the ever-receding curtains of time, chart the waste and trackless eons of the future, probe the darkness of sin and the depth of human need, and we shall still find the love of God somewhere in the shadows, standing watch above His own! In verses 35, 36, and 37 of Ro mans 8, Paul enumerates seven cala mitous circumstances, which array themselves in opposition to the over coming Christian. It makes no dif ference whether the believer is faced with “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword,” he is well able to come out of the conflict with the crown of vic tory upon his head. The Christian life is a battle all the way. It may have its moments of peace and quiet ness, but the quiet front doesn’t mean that the enemy has deserted the battle-line. We can be more than conquerors through the infinite love of the Son of God. Problems are all the divine permissions of God’s never-failing love. Nothing can happen to a Chris tian which is outside of that prov ince. Remember, ships are not tested on a mirrored ocean, nor do oaks 12
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