Romans 8:39

nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [From the various grounds of assurance which he has enumerated in this chapter, Paul gives it as his own personal, final conviction that (apart from the disciple's own will) nothing can separate him from God's love as displayed in the gift of Christ to die for man's redemption, and to reign for man's glorification. To illustrate the wide range of possible antagonism which may arise to oppose man's glorification, he submits a wonderful list of things having such inherent vastness and grandeur that they can not be defined without diminution and loss. If we should attempt to explain him, we would say that neither terrestrial existence, with its phases of life and death; nor celestial existence, reaching from angels to unknown altitudes of rulership; nor time, present or future; nor any other imaginable power; nor space, heavenward or hellward; nor any other form of creation, visible or invisible, known or unknown, can effect a separation between God and those objects of his love whom he has redeemed in Christ. As to the whole passage, the words of Erasmus are a characteristic comment. "Cicero," says he, "never said anything more eloquent." It is far more easy for us all to grasp the rhetorical and superficial beauty of this marvelous passage, which soars to the extreme altitude of divine inspiration, than to appreciate, even in the slightest or most remote degree, the excellencies of the sublime and eternal verities which it seeks to bring home to our consciences. The love of God is so little comprehended by our sinful and finite natures, that expositions of it are to us as descriptions of color are to the blind, or as explanations of melody and harmony are to the deaf. We, as they, admire the verbiage and the skill of him who has dazed our understanding, and are hardly conscious how far we fall short of truly following the conceptions which the writer sought to convey to our spirits.]

NOTE.--At this point Romans 8:39 the work on Romans was discontinued on the 16th of July, 1908. Since then (in October, 1911) Bro. McGarvey went to his rest and reward. Now, June 15, 1914, I resume work alone, and shall miss him. He was to me a considerate editor, a genial companion, a most thoughtful and faithful friend. Soon after the work was discontinued I received from him a much-prized letter, containing these words. "You have written a commentary which will compare favorably with any."

Encouraged in part by so frank a commendation from so competent an authority, I did not destroy my analysis of the Book of Romans; but (though it is very similar to that found in the Introduction) I filed it away, believing that if his judgment were correct, the merits of the work would some day call for its completion. Now, after five years and eleven months, the analysis comes forth from its dusty pigeon-hole and the work is resumed; but he is not here to rejoice with me. How inspiring the thought that he is where the pleasures unknown abound, and where such joy as I would share with him are as dust and weightless motes upon the balances! CINCINNATI, O., June 15, 1914. PHILIP Y. PENDLETON