What if the worst happens? The question may come at night, when all the world lies quiet outside our anxious mind. Or perhaps sickness brings the worry near. Or maybe no outward circumstance can account for the sense of dread that befalls us.

The question doesn’t always come so clearly. Its presence is felt not only by the blunt what if but by a thousand variations of vague unease, of unnamed apprehension. A small but strange pain suggests something worse. A memory of tragedy steals around the edges of the mind, threatening the present. For me, the disquiet can come as I watch my wife and sons drive away on some errand while the sound of a car crash plays somewhere in my mind.

As terrible as such what ifs might be, beneath them lies a larger, more desperate question that, if unanswered, multiplies fear’s power. The question is not simply “What if the worst happens?” but “If the worst does happen, will the love of Christ still hold?” Will I stay close to him? Will I keep trusting him? Or will I fall only to find the ground beneath me gone?

The apostle Paul brings the question close in Romans 8:35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” We know on some level that the answer is “No one.” But Paul wants us to do more than know on some level. He wants us to say with him, “I am sure . . .” He wants to pluck the sharpest thorn from our pain by assuring us that no calamity, no betrayal, no illness, no slander, no angel, no demon, and no terror of death “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Paul knows that confidence like his does not come from denying or ignoring our secret fears, but from facing them in Christ. And so, before he gives his answer, he lets us linger in a darker world.

Our Many Enemies

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” is Paul’s final, climactic challenge in a string of rhetorical questions beginning in Romans 8:31:

• “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).
• “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” (Romans 8:33).
• “Who is to condemn?” (Romans 8:34).

But unlike the other questions, he doesn’t answer “Who shall separate us?” right away. He lets Goliath taunt before he picks up his sling.

“Imagine the worst that could happen,” he says in effect. Imagine tribulation and distress and persecution, famine and nakedness, danger and sword (Romans 8:35). Imagine car wrecks and cancer, martyrdom and bedridden misery. Imagine the worst betrayal from your best beloved. Imagine “being killed all the day long,” being “regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Romans 8:36).

The seven threats in verse 35 go broad and deep. Whatever problem of pain we personally experience, Paul anticipates it here. If soul-crushing tribulation should be our lot, or distress beyond our strength to endure; if we should feel the ache of famine or sting of nakedness; even if our necks should bend with a blade above them — we have not met with anything outside the pain Paul has in mind.

So, as hesitant as we may be, Paul’s words dare us to face our most feared what ifs. Spin out your darkest dreads. Let your nightmares come to life for a moment. What if the worst happens? Will the love of Christ still hold then? Or will the sword that strikes your heart also strike you from his grasp?

Unlikely Conquerors

Again, we know Paul’s answer. After letting Goliath have his say, he ends his swaggering with this stone: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). No. Go ahead and distress us, bereave us, hunt us, oppress us, or even slaughter us like sheep. Even if killed, we are not conquered. We are “more than conquerors.”

I yearn for such defiance. I long to look at my worst what ifs and say with the hymn,

Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come disaster, scorn and pain.
In thy service, pain is pleasure;
With thy favor, loss is gain.

But I also feel just how far that defiance can drift from my heart. “More than conquerors” can feel thrilling to sing on Sunday morning or say in times of peace, but when I imagine how dark life could get, I can falter. I have to ask Paul again, “Where does confidence like yours come from?”

“Pay attention,” he says. Keep listening. Slow down and give heed. “We are more than conquerors,” he writes, “through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Notice the past tense: “loved.” For Paul, the power of God’s present love, no matter how painful the present moment, can be grasped only by ruthlessly remembering the love he displayed in the past. He has loved us, and therefore he will love us, come what may.

Every Heart a Calvary

Paul has already told us where Christ has “loved us”: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Calvary is where he loved us — triumphantly and eternally. There he stripped our enemies. There he plundered and disarmed the darkness. And there he also showed us that Christian conquering can look utterly unexpected. It can look like a sheep being led to the slaughter.

What do we see when we look at Christ’s love? We see Jesus hanging upon a tree. We see him praying, “My God, my God,” apparently without answer. We see him crushed by tribulation and distress and persecution, clothed with hunger and nakedness, hunted by danger and sword. We see Christ — conquered.

No, not conquered. Look again. Do you see him? Those thorns upon his head — they shine like jewels in his crown. His cross enthrones him, bending his enemies like a footstool. The earth quakes his foes’ demise. Give him three days, and he will rise deathless over death. He is not Christ conquered — against all appearances, he is Christ conquering.

And so with all his people. If we belong to “him who loved us,” to him who conquered on a cross, then pain cannot separate us from him; it can only throw us onto his own path. Even if we should seem forsaken to others and feel forsaken ourselves, the cross says otherwise: “Even here I am with you. Even here my love holds. Even here, I will carry you through anguish to glory.”

So if we looked and looked and looked to him, if we made our hearts a Calvary hill, then our sick beds would become seats of honor, and our lonely nights an hour of communion, and even our worst what ifs a chariot to carry us closer to him. And then, give us a few days, a few years, and we too will rise deathless over death — conquerors in Christ. In fact, “more than conquerors.”

More Than Conquerors

Given the kinds of darkness we can face, the word “conquerors” seems like more than we could ask or imagine. But it wasn’t enough for Paul. “More than conquerors” is the description he chose.

John Piper draws out the difference: “If you’re a conqueror, your enemies are dead at your feet. And if you’re more than a conqueror, your enemies get up from the dead and serve you.” Goliath doesn’t just lie headless on the ground; he rises and personally crowns you.

So, like a general leading his foes in triumphal procession, Paul surveys the enemies who not only cannot conquer us, but who must work for our good (Romans 8:28).

• “Neither death nor life”: The worst of the curse cannot touch you, and the hardest of days cannot overcome you. They will both give you gain in the end (Philippians 1:21; 3:8).
• “Nor angels nor rulers . . . nor powers”: Let demons prowl and roar; their terrors will only drive you nearer to the one “who is in you,” the one far “greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
• “Nor things present nor things to come”: Even if today holds sorrow and tomorrow calamity, they will both be God-ordained servants for your good.
• “Nor height nor depth”: Ascend to heaven, and God will be there; make your bed in Sheol, and he will not forsake you — deepest space and darkest sea will only measure the heights and depths of his love.

The worst of this world must serve the children of God. For the one “who loved us” rules high over the worst of this world — risen and “interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). The Lord who loved you mightily on earth now holds you mightily in heaven. He is the same Jesus, then and now — and if no enemy could keep him from saving you then, no enemy can keep him from saving you now.

When the ground gives way, we do not hold the rope that keeps us near Christ: he does. And he will prove himself to be not only the one who loved us, but the one who loves us — and the one who will go on loving us till tribulation and distress, danger and sword give way to endless days with him.