Paul was certain that no earthly thing or other worldly spirit could separate him from the love of God manifested in Christ Jesus. With this great, concluding statement, he closed the doctrinal part of his Epistle to the Romans. His was certainty not merely thinking or analyzing, but wrote a profound experience of great suffering and struggle based on the testimony of the Holy Spirit in his heart. Paul does not say, “If it pleases God, he will be with me”, but he confesses that the knowledge of the love of God in Christ confirmed him in the confession that it would never fail. The faithfulness of God is doubtless.
Paul did not speak about human love, nor did he speak about the merciful, loved God in general, but he saw the Father through the Son. He did not know any other way to God except through Christ. Ever since the incarnation of the Son of God, we know who the Most High, our Father, is. His fatherly love is not human compassion, for the Holy One sacrificed his Son for the unclean that we might not doubt his mercy, but be sure that he invites us into his covenant and to adoption because of the bloodshed of his Son. Because of the cross, Paul was certain that the love of God would never fail.
However, Satan is a truth, and whoever denies his existence is not aware of the condition of the universe. Paul saw several spiritual powers prepared to destroy this and the other world. He did not only face the spirit of death several times, but he also wrestled with the angels of darkness, and struggled with his prayers against the madness of hell so that he said: “If hell and heaven altogether attacked me, the love of God in Christ would not leave me. The opposing powers could not overcome me because the eternal blood of Christ has sanctified me.”
Paul had the gift of prophecy. He saw how the destroyer, liar, and murderer attacked the church, but could not overcome it, for it is in Christ, and the devil cannot pluck it out of his hand.
Even the holy law cannot move, through complaints, the faith of the apostles, because they died with Christ on the cross, and he lives in them and keeps them. The believer will be kept in the day of the last judgment, for Christ is still the faithful Victor.
Therefore, we say to you, dear brother, “Commit your spirit, your body, and your soul completely to the love of God, and take hold of the one Trinity that your name may be written in the book of life, and you may continue in the adoption of God forever.
Now observe here that Paul did not write the hymn of praise on the faithful love of God in the first person singular “I” only, but he closed his words in the first person plural “we”, covering with his full assurance all the believers in Rome and the churches of the basin of the Mediterranean Sea. The testimony of his faith will cover us as well, if we accept the persuasion in the previous chapter. Then, we do not fix our eyes on what seems to be powerful and great in this world, but we hold fast to the love of God manifested in Christ Jesus.
The last words “our Lord” appear as the end of this hymn. They confirm to us, on the other hand, that he, who triumphed in Golgotha, is the Lord of lords, in whose power we find the guarantee of our protection. He stretches out his hand over us, and does not leave us, because he loves us.