A Love That Will Not Let You Go

Do you have a favorite hymn? Most of us do. One of mine, “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,” written more than a century ago, captures the resilient, secure love of God. Yet this powerful, positive hymn has a heartbreaking story behind it.

As a young man, the writer of that hymn, George Matheson, was engaged to the love of his life. He had only partial vision, but all was going well until the day a doctor gave him the news that his condition had worsened, and he would be completely blind. His fiancee decided against taking on what she considered the burden of marriage to a blind man. She returned the ring and ended the engagement.

Limitless Love

In the pain and heartache of that experience, Matheson consoled himself by remembering God’s love that has no limits, is never conditional, never withdraws and is not uncertain or lost – and that experience resulted in the writing of the hymn. My favorite line says, “Oh love that wilt not let me go/ I rest my weary soul in Thee/ I give Thee back the life I owe/ That in thine ocean depths its flow/ May richer, fuller be.”

The love of Matheson’s fiancee let him go, and we have all experienced loves that, in one way or another, did the same. But God’s love is one that will never let us go. Romans 5 tells us that the God who loved you when you were weak, ungodly, sinful and an enemy of Christ will never stop loving you. Rest your weary soul in him. God is not moving. God is not looking for a reason to leave. God is not capricious. In Christ, God’s stance toward you is settled. He loves you because you are his.

The theme of peace and reconciliation runs throughout the fifth chapter of Romans. It begins, centers on and ends with the saints. Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Verse 10 says we are reconciled to God through the death of his Son. Having been reconciled, we will be saved. And yet it ends, “We rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (v. 11).

The heartbeat of Romans 5 is peace with God and being reconciled with God. The reason reconciliation happens is this key message: God loves you not because you’re useful, not because you’re good, not because you serve others, not because of any other reason other than that you’re his child, and he wanted you in his family on purpose, forever.

God doesn’t love a future version of you that tries harder and does better. He loves you right now, and he will never let you go. In Romans 5, Paul is grounding our subjective experience of God’s love through the outside of us, objective work accomplished by Jesus Christ. We see this in verse five: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Desperate Condition

That’s the subjective experience. Sometimes you feel it; sometimes you don’t. It’s wonderful when you do. But that subjective experience – do you feel loved by God? –  is grounded not in how you feel, not in your performance, but in the outside of you, objective work Jesus did in his death, burial and resurrection.

And Paul has more to say in Romans about grounding that experience in Jesus: “For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6). God proves his love for us not in how we feel, but in “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8).

Notice the words Paul uses for us, for who we once were: “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners” and “enemies of God.” The picture is going from bad – “helpless,” “ungodly” – to worse – “sinners” and “enemies of God.” The desperate condition is ramping up because we lived in rebellion, in cosmic treason against God.

God’s not messing around with the problem we have, the reason we need reconciliation. We were powerless in ourselves to help ourselves; we can’t fix our helpless situation where we were stuck in sin. We stood condemned before a holy God, deserving nothing but God’s righteous judgment, or as Paul puts it, the “wrath” of God. That word “wrath” is used 600 times in the Bible. It’s a problem, but it has been fixed.

In their book The Meaning of Marriage, Kathy and Tim Keller write: “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.”

And so these four words – “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners” and “enemies” – let us know God knows us and sees the truth about us. Then we find that we are also loved. In his unfathomable love, Christ willingly lays down his life on the cross, becomes the perfect sacrifice for our sins, takes our place, bearing the weight of our consequences for sin, offering us the gift of eternal life. And it’s by his death that we are justified and reconciled, made recipients of his boundless grace.

The Kellers continue, saying, “To be fully known and truly loved in marriage is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

Those words tell us God knows the truth about us, and he loves us despite that. He doesn’t love us because we’re not as we could be; he loves us. Remembering that we were once helpless, ungodly sinners and enemies helps us also realize that God’s love is not conditioned on us. Christ’s sacrifice was offered to all of us without any merit – not based on our righteousness but on his unchanging character. His love reached us amid our cosmic treason. We don’t have to put our best foot forward toward God, because he sees it all anyway and loves us still.

‘For Us’

There’s one word that jumps out in this passage, which is the word “for.” It’s a simple preposition. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8, emphasis added).

The New Testament makes a big deal out of the word “for.” There’s a lot of good news built into that word. It means “on our behalf,” “for our sake,” “in our place,” “for the benefit of us.” It’s highlighting the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus for us. Jesus went to the cross in our place, on our behalf, for our benefit. The Bible regularly looks at the shameful, humiliating, excruciating, degrading death of Jesus on the cross, and then says, “That happened for you.”

Please never forget the “for-youness” of Christianity. All of that was for God’s love for you. And the word Paul uses in Romans is “justified.” Christ died for you so you could be justified with God. That means you’re made right with God, you’re reconciled because your sins are forgiven, and you’re declared righteous. There was conflict, there was estrangement, and it is gone. It’s not pending – it’s gone forever. And God initiated to make it right with you. You may or may not feel like everything’s right, but if you have faith in Christ, it is made right at God’s initiation. You are made right with God because your sins are forgiven, and you are declared righteous.

That’s from the Book of Common Prayer and, first, from the Bible. Your sins are forgiven because Jesus was treated as if he committed the sins you committed. Make a list of the ones you can remember and realize that Jesus took the hit for you as if he did those things. He was treated as if he committed cosmic treason, as if he were an enemy of God.

And this is exactly what Paul tells us: We are saved through Jesus Christ from the wrath of God, because God’s judgment for sin went to Jesus instead of us. That’s the whole point. Jesus willingly said, “I’ll take the penalty for them. Send it to me. Let me pay the bill. Let me take the consequences.” So any guilt and consequences were steered from you and me to him.

Declared Righteous

That’s great news, but that’s only half the gospel. There’s a whole other part, which is that if you’re in Christ, you are declared righteous. Jesus obeyed God perfectly. He had no reason to pray the Prayer of Confession that we pray: “We confess that we have sinned against thee in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone” (Book of Common Prayer, 320).

Jesus did the opposite. He was obedient and righteous and faithful. He earned God’s favor and righteousness. And then he gives it to us as if we have been obedient the entire time, which is why Paul says in verse 10, “We will be saved by his life.”

And so what’s happening is what theologians refer to as The Great Exchange. The Wonderful Exchange. The Sweet Exchange: “Here’s my sin with its consequences. Thank you for taking it, Jesus.”

And Jesus says, “Here’s my righteousness and God’s favor and blessing for you. Take all of it.”

That’s why we sing the line in “Rock of Ages”: “Be of sin the double cure/ Save from wrath and make me pure.” Jesus was treated as if he were something he was not – a sinner – and that’s the scandal. He did those so we might be called what we’re not, but what he is: pure, perfect, righteous and holy.

If we’re in Christ, those are the words the Bible uses for you and me because we’re standing in his righteousness. All of this comes simply by faith, by trust in what Jesus has done. Faith is just coming to Jesus, trusting him to be faithful to his promise. It’s coming with empty hands and receiving a free gift.

Charles Spurgeon, the famous nineteenth-century Baptist preacher in London, said, “It’s not the strength of your faith that saves you, but the strength of him upon whom you rely. Christ is able to save you if you come to him, be your faith weak or be it strong. It is not the strength of your faith; it is the object of your faith.”

Our Savior is stronger, more patient and more compassionate than we can imagine or remember. And he is completely trustworthy.

Relentless Pursuit

You and I were once described by those four words I mentioned earlier – “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners” and “enemies.” God sees you; God knows you; but there was a plan to save you from the foundation of the world, where Christ died for you on your behalf and obeyed on your behalf.

And Paul gives us four more words. If Jesus did his work, what does that mean for you? The words now used for you are “loved,” “justified” (made right with God), “saved” and “reconciled.”

We were once estranged from God. And in that estrangement, God initiated reconciliation through Christ, a beautiful example of God’s relentless love and pursuit of us. This is the point Paul was trying to make. If God loved and made things right with us while we were ungodly, helpless and a sinful enemy, how much more will he continue to persevere and keep us now that we’re reconciled, friends, adopted into his family?

I recently heard a story that made me think of what Paul was saying about God’s love for us, his relentless pursuit in our helplessness. There was a father in China named Guo Gangtang, and in 1997, he was in the front yard with his 2-year-old son when his son was kidnapped. Desperate but determined, this father set out on a mission that spanned two decades. He rode a motorbike over 300,000 miles, sleeping under bridges and chasing every tip he ever received. He carried banners with his son’s picture on them, handing out pamphlets to see if anyone might know where his son might be. He spent every dollar of his savings and, when he ran out, begged for money. Despite the emotional, financial and physical toll, he never gave up.

This is a beautiful picture of a parent’s love, and it has a beautiful ending. In 2021, after 24 years of unwavering determination, Guo Gangtang was reunited with his son because of a DNA match from the police. The moment that became a symbol of the enduring power of a parent’s unbreakable love and resilience.

God loves you like that – only in infinitely better ways. That beautiful picture only captures a glimpse of the eternal, infinite love God has for you. God came after you in Jesus. Jesus gave up everything to secure you for eternity. God has no intentions ever to stop loving you. His love for you is eternal, and it’s what you need more than anything else. Because of the work of Christ, we are fully and completely known by God, and at the same time completely loved. This flattens out our self-righteousness, making us grateful and worshipful.

God will never reach the end of his rope, even when it feels like he might not be too impressed with what he has on his hands. He promises to hold his people securely until he delivers them to heaven, no matter what temptation or trial we may encounter.

The good news in Romans 5 is that because of Christ, the God who loved you when you were weak, ungodly, sinful and an enemy will never stop loving you now. God is not moving. God is not looking for a reason to leave. God is not capricious. He does not change. His stance toward you is settled. He loves you because you are now his. And he will never let you go.

Editor’s Note: This column was adapted from a sermon the bishop preached at St. George Episcopal Church, The Villages, on March 8, 2026.