Rom 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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. ESV
In reading through Romans 8 again over the past few weeks I once again read those two words that I have glossed over many times … height (Hupsoma) and depth (Bathos). Finding the Greek definition was the easy part, understanding what Paul meant was something else. It is not just that the height of the mountains nor the depth of the ocean can separate us from the love of Jesus. There is something else here that the first century church understood that is still valid today, but we don’t think about it. Both of these terms are common terms used by astrologers in setting forth horoscopes. They use the words “height” to describe the point directly overhead and “depth” to describe the space just below the horizon from which the stars appear to ascend.
What Paul is saying here is that superstition cannot separate us from God’s love. As one writer put it: A true Christian can sit down at a table with thirteen people, can spill salt, break a mirror, put an umbrella up inside a room, walk under a ladder, have a black cat walk across his path, and all of that can happen on Friday the thirteenth. Yet none of it, nor all of it together, can separate him from the love of God.
But put that in the first century and it’s a different story. Non-Christians in the ancient world lived in terror of everything around them. The sun, the moon, the stars were filled with a host of gods, both good and evil who had to be satisfied with sacrifices and offerings. Take for instance the Tower of Babel.
The Tower of Babel introduced the Satanic origin of astrology, which was one of the reasons that God introduced the curse of “nationality” and confounded the tongues of men.
Gen 11:4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” ESV
The KJV it makes the point clearer: at whose top there would be heaven. This was but the beginning as down through the centuries other towers have been discovered like the Mayan and Aztec temples in Mexico. And on top of all of them, including Babel, are flat stone slabs with the representation of the zodiac and its 12 signs; a ziggurat.
The Tower of Babel is simply the monument that man, having departed from God, erected where his priests consulted the zodiac and plotted the horoscope; the height and the depth, the zenith and the horizon. So it is in our day, unbelieving man is bound up in any and every superstition that is wrapped in a false religious idea. Horoscopes are not a joke. Every day millions of horoscope pamphlets and news papers are sold in America (and around the world) that people use to govern their lives, giving themselves over to the influence of Satan. They literally follow these horoscopes to the letter. Here is an example I found that says it all.
A New York newspaper lost its copy of the daily horoscope and went to press without it. Immediately their switchboard was jammed by calls from people wanting the information normally contained in the horoscope. Soon there were thousands of people thronging outside the building demanding the paper provide the horoscope. The paper contacted its Chicago office and had a copy sent and they copied it and distributed it to the crowd. Many people were hurt in the stampede to get a copy. Individuals told reporters that they depended almost entirely on those horoscopes to conduct their lives, and that they wouldn’t buy or sell without the information they contained. These nonbelievers have no knowledge of spiritual things. It doesn’t me that they have not been taught, but that they are in gross, willful ignorance of spiritual things:
Isa 5:13-14 Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men go hungry, and their multitude is parched with thirst. 14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure, and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down, her revelers and he who exults in her. ESV
Prov 1:28-31 28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, 30 would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, 31 therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. ESV
How tragic that man does not understand that Jesus Christ is Lord of all circumstances. We need to ask ourselves if the church has faithfully shared the good news of the gospel. Man does not need to live in fear and grasp at the lies of the enemy they read and follow every day.
Hupsoma and Bathos, horoscopes and superstition … they can’t separate a child of God from the love of Christ. As His bride we carry the antidote to Satan’s lies, the truth about the Tower of Babel, the answer to the height and depth … but that message needs to be delivered!