Psalms Through The Testaments

“Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way… yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself!... Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” – Psalm 44: 18, 22-23, 26

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:35-39

It’s always interesting to bump into familiar lines while going through the Psalms. I had always viewed Psalm 44:22 through the lens of Romans 8, where it sticks out in a somewhat confusing way. Paul summarizes the truths of one of the greatest chapters of all time with an emotional peroratio (“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”), and then, like a downer, of all verses, he quotes Psalm 44:22. Why? To offer proof that sufferings are to be expected? To prophecy the suffering of the church?

But reading Romans 8 through the lens of Psalm 44 feels different. This Psalm is so honest, isn’t it? How many times have we, or our friends, said, God, where are you? I’m following you with my whole heart; why am I suffering? Why have you not given me good things I’m hoping for? I feel like I’m just being killed all day long, doomed like a sheep marked for the slaughterhouse. The Psalm ends with a plea, lobbed out into the empty void.

And then, hundreds of years later, these words of Paul echo back as if in answer: the sufferings are real. They are happening. But we are more than conquerors through it all, because God has sent Jesus, like a lamb to the slaughterhouse. He rose and will bring us to a glory that is not even worth comparing with the sufferings of this present time (Romans 8:18).

Every single word of the plea was answered. Rise up: Jesus rose from the dead. Come to our help! Jesus came as God incarnate in order that the world might be saved. Redeem us: Jesus’ blood bought us out of slavery to sin and one day he will bring us out of all suffering to glory. For the sake of your steadfast love! Love was the reason God did it (John 3:16). It turns out that this is the point of it all: that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.