The Apostle ends his catalogue with a singular trio of antagonists;
'nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,' as if he had got
impatient of the enumeration of impotencies, and having named the
outside boundaries in space of the created universe, flings, as it
were, with one rapid toss, into that large room the whole that it can
contain, and triumphs over it all.
As the former clause proclaimed the powerlessness of Time, so this
proclaims the powerlessness of that other great mystery of creatural
life which we call Space, Height or depth, it matters not. That
diffusive love diffuses itself equally in all directions. Up or down,
it is all the same. The distance from the centre is the same to
Zenith or to Nadir.
Here, we have the same process applied to that idea of Omnipresence
as was applied in the former clause to the idea of Eternity. That
thought, so hard to grasp with vividness, and not altogether a glad
one to a sinful soul, is all softened and glorified, as some solemn
Alpine cliff of bare rock is when the tender morning light glows on
it, when it is thought of as the Omnipresence of Love. 'Thou, God,
seest me,' may be a stern word, if the God who sees be but a mighty
Maker or a righteous Judge. As reasonably might we expect a prisoner
in his solitary cell to be glad when he thinks that the jailer's eye
is on him from some unseen spy-hole in the wall, as expect any
thought of God but one to make a man read that grand one hundred and
thirty-ninth Psalm with joy: 'If I ascend into heaven, Thou art
there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.' So may a
man say shudderingly to himself, and tremble as he asks in vain,
'Whither shall I flee from Thy Presence?' But how different it all is
when we can cast over the marble whiteness of that solemn thought the
warm hue of life, and change the form of our words into this of our
text: 'Nor height, nor depth, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God.'
In that great ocean of the divine love we live and move and have our
being, floating in it like some sea flower which spreads its filmy
beauty and waves its long tresses in the depths of mid-ocean. The
sound of its waters is ever in our ears, and above, beneath, around
us, its mighty currents run evermore. We need not cower before the
fixed gaze of some stony god, looking on us unmoved like those
Egyptian deities that sit pitiless with idle hands on their laps, and
wide-open lidless eyes gazing out across the sands. We need not fear
the Omnipresence of Love, nor the Omniscience which knows us
altogether, and loves us even as it knows. Rather we shall be glad
that we are ever in His Presence, and desire, as the height of all
felicity and the power for all goodness, to walk all the day long in
the light of His countenance, till the day come when we shall receive
the crown of our perfecting in that we shall be 'ever with the Lord.'
The recognition of this triumphant sovereignty of love over all these
real and supposed antagonists makes us, too, lords over them, and
delivers us from the temptations which some of them present us to
separate ourselves from the love of God. They all become our servants
and helpers, uniting us to that love. So we are set free from the
dread of death and from the distractions incident to life. So we are
delivered from superstitious dread of an unseen world, and from
craven fear of men. So we are emancipated from absorption in the
present and from careful thought for the future. So we are at home
everywhere, and every corner of the universe is to us one of the many
mansions of our Father's house. 'All things are yours, ... and ye are
Christ's; and Christ is God's.'
I do not forget the closing words of this great text. I have not
ventured to include them in our present subject, because they would
have introduced another wide region of thought to be laid down on our
already too narrow canvas.
But remember, I beseech you, that this love of God is explained by
our Apostle to be 'in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Love illimitable,
all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but a love which has a channel and a
course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours
itself over the world. It is not, as some representations would make
it, a vague, nebulous light diffused through space as in a chaotic
half-made universe, but all gathered in that great Light which rules
the day--even in Him who said: 'I am the Light of the world.' In
Christ the love of God is all centred and embodied, that it may be
imparted to all sinful and hungry hearts, even as burning coals are
gathered on a hearth that they may give warmth to all that are in the
house. 'God _so_ loved the world'--not merely _so much_, but in _such
a fashion_--'that'--that what? Many people would leap at once from
the first to the last clause of the verse, and regard eternal life
for all and sundry as the only adequate expression of the universal
love of God. Not so does Christ speak. Between that universal love
and its ultimate purpose and desire for every man He inserts two
conditions, one on God's part, one on man's. God's love reaches its
end, namely, the bestowal of eternal life, by means of a divine act
and a human response. 'God _so_ loved the world, that He _gave_ His
only begotten Son, that whosoever _believeth_ in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.' So all the universal love of God
for you and me and for all our brethren is 'in Christ Jesus our
Lord,' and faith in Him unites us to it by bonds which no foe can
break, no shock of change can snap, no time can rot, no distance can
stretch to breaking. 'For I am persuaded, that neither death nor
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, 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.'