Concerning Being a "Hyper-Conqueror" (Part 1)

"No, in all these things we are "more than conquerors" (hupernikomen - hyper-overcomers) through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:37-39"

Have you ever stopped to think about what it means to be “more than conquerors?”  The conqueror is the winner.  The conqueror is the one who gets the plunder.  But a conqueror implies something:  Being a conqueror indicates action on your part.  A fight, argument, battle, or at the least, a decision made by you that allows you to be called “conqueror”.

I want to help you see that the point of what Paul is saying is not that you don’t possess what a conqueror possesses.  On the contrary, in Christ, you possess it all and more! That’s the “huper” (hyper) in “hupernikOmen”. Our initial question of understanding what it is to be “more than conquerors,” is really about understanding what it is to be more…than conquerors.  We all understand conquering.  But what makes us “more”?  

Now, if there is anything that Paul tells us, it’s that we are not the catalyst of our own salvation. Even here in verse 37 Paul makes it clear that it is “through him who loved us” that we are “more than conquerors.”  The catalyst of our salvation comes from the love of God.

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” - Romans 5:6,8

Most of us understand that the absoluteness of God’s love is shown through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  But equal to that, is the absolutely overwhelming timing of that love. It brings the weak, unworthy sinners, to a place of humble brokenness so that we might desire God enough to want to give up our selfish ways and follow his calling. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Not after we demonstrated our worth or value to Him.  Not after we performed some menial task as a statement of our willingness to belong to Him.  While we were sinners, before we knew we needed or wanted it, Christ died for us.

It’s in the acceptance of the resurrection of the human/God Jesus Christ that we take on the qualities of a conqueror.  There was a war.  The conquering of death by God through Jesus Christ was the end of that war.  Christ was “hupernikOmen” in that war.  There are ongoing fights, battles, and difficulties that we will continue to face in this world as Satan strives to scratch and claw for souls, to peel away from God what is rightfully His.  Our responses in these times greatly impact whether we will continue as conquerors in Christ or we will revert to a trust in our self and our abilities to take on this world.