The OrchardExemplo

Goodness: Romans 8:28–39

Read through the poem twice. After taking time on the first reading to familiarize yourself with the passage, on the second, take time to ponder and notice.

Encomium for Christ’s Love

28 God turns everything to good
for those who love him and are called by him
to know his designs. God has planned

29 the destiny of those he’s always known—
they’ll become like his Son, the first perfect man.

30 Their horizons have been determined by God
who makes all things right for those he loves
and promises to bring them into his glory!

31 What, then, can we say about the pains of this life?
If God is our advocate, who can be our enemy?

32 This is the God who did not spare his own Son
but for our sake sacrificed him.
This is the God who lavishes us with all goodness,
the God who has given us his Son.

33 Who can level any accusation against God’s chosen ones,
when God is the one who stands by us?

34 Who can posit any condemnation against us
when Christ Jesus experienced crucifixion
on our behalf, then rose again to appear before God,
pleading our cause day and night.

35 Who can rip us away from Christ’s love?
Can the sword of affliction or distress?
Can persecution or famine? Nakedness or peril?
As it is written in the scriptures,

36 For your sake, we are killed all day long.
We are nothing more than sheep for slaughter.

37 But in all these things we are super-conquerers
through Christ who loves us.

38 for I am persuaded there’s nothing in death or life
that can rip us away from God’s love

39 because we are held firm by Jesus Christ our Lord.
No angel, ruler, power, or creature can separate us!
No matter how high or low we go, we are held by our Lord.

Philip Comfort, The Poems and Hymns of the New Testament. Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. www.wipfandstock.com

God turns everything to good for those who love him. This opening statement paints the picture for the rest of the poem. God doesn’t promise bliss and happiness but that trials and triumphs alike work for good; God’s good purposes not our personal goals. There is a larger eternal perspective that we can’t see.

There is another bigger picture here and that is the endurance and power of the love of God. The poem moves from the goodness and justice of God to his great love.

The pivot point in the poem is the three questions that appear in verses 31 to 35 after bringing up the question of suffering (pains of this life). Who can accuse? Who can condemn? Who can rip us from Christ’s love? For those facing persecution and injustice by a superpower Roman government, these were pertinent questions.

They were answered resoundingly in the last stanza verses 37 to 39 with the conviction that nothing no matter how powerful can rip us away from Christ’s love and we are held firmly by him.

The poem focuses on the love and goodness of God for us despite all manner of trials. It is triumphant in character yet acknowledges pain and difficulty. I have tried to convey this by using a fragment of the Love motif as the main melody, which constantly moves through different chord changes, some major (happy) and some minor (sad). These chords move by fifths through all twelve notes of Western music thus signifying completeness.

It also has five beats in the bar instead of the usual four, which although unusual, has a march-like quality in spite of its unevenness There is also a relentless quality to it that signifies the love of God.