Rom 8:37
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
– English KJV
“ἀλλ᾿ ἐν τούτοις πᾶσιν ὑπερνικῶμεν διὰ τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς.”
– Greek Text
“In all these things”
Verse 35 lists trials and difficulties that separates us from God: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword. These things, which once separated us from the Lord will no longer be obstacles between us and God.
“we are more than conquerors”
“ὑπερνικῶμεν” is translated as “more than conquerors” or “overwhelmingly conquer”, a direct translation would be “vanquish beyond”. But what does this actually mean? What does it mean to be more than a conqueror?
A conqueror is someone who is victorious in whatever battle they were involved with. If you fight in a battle and you win, you are a conqueror. Winning does not make you more than a conqueror, it merely makes you a conqueror. So what does it mean to be more than a conqueror?
It is easiest to explain this using an example:
Let us go to the Old Testament, just after the Israelites crossed the Jordan and entered the occupied promised land. They needed to conquer the cities that were held by the enemies. To do this, the soldiers would take their weapons and attack these cities. After hours and sometimes even days of fighting they would finally beat the enemy and take hold of the city. Then, when things were safe, the rest of the Israelites would come to the conquered city and share in the spoils of victory.
The soldiers, who fought and defeated the enemy, were the conquerors. After they beat the enemy they were rewarded by gaining livestock, silver, gold and all the other things that the enemy left behind. The women and children (and the men who did not fight) would then come to the city and also share in the rewards of victory. These women and children did not lift a finger, they did not fight or help in any way to gain victory, yet they also get a share of the reward… They are more than conquerors.
To be more than a conqueror means to share in the victory without having to fight for it.
Jesus did the fighting and won the battle, He is the conqueror. We did not fight (nor could we win if we did), yet we share in His victory, that is why we are more than conquerors. We are going to go through hard times, but Jesus is with us during those times and He already conquered death, what else is there to fear? Jesus already achieved the victory, we just need to take hold of it!
“through Him that loved us”
We can share in this victory only through Christ. The word “through” (διὰ - dia) is a preposition denoting instrumentality. It is the means by which something is accomplished. The "instrument" by which sinners “overwhelmingly conquer” is Jesus Christ our Lord. There are no other means by which we can achieve victory.
There are only two sides. We are either sharing the victory through Christ, or sharing the defeat with Satan. The good news is that we actually get an option. Every person has the opportunity to choose which side they want to share the outcome with. The reason why we have this opportunity is because Jesus “loved us”. When Jesus fought this battle, He loved us and therefore He gives each of us the chance to share in His victory.
“Him that LOVED us”:
Some may have noticed that this verse seems to be past tense… That seems a little bit terrifying, doesn’t it?
BUT, to our great relief, this is not really the case!
Let’s look at the Greek word used in this passage: agapēsantos
Agapesantos is derived from the root word, Agape, which is translated to “love”.
THere are three Greek words that are translated to "love" in English:
1) Eros is erotic love. This love is mostly about "me" and is usually a physical love.
2) Phileo is a giher form of love. This is an earthly love found by the bonding together of friends. Phileo love has conditions and limitations that can cause the love to break. These conditions and limitations mean that there are different degrees of phileo expressions. (Ex. Friends, Good Friends, Best Friends)
3) Agape is unconditional and sacrificial love. Agape is the perfect love that originates from God, a form of love that cannot be broken. It is this love that Jesus has for the world. Some regard this as the love where you would sacrifice yourself for another...however, this is only partially true.
It means that no matter how bad the other person is, no matter how many times they disappoint, hurt, backstab or cheat on you, you will give your life to protect them anyway. This is evident on what God did for us. Through our sins we have dissapointed God: when we place the value of material things before God, we cheat on Him; when we would rather depend on luck than on His grace, we backstab Him. We do all of these things. Yet, despite this, Jesus sacrificed Himseld for us anyway! That is Agape Love.
Paul made a list in verse 35, but continues with that list in verses 38 and 39, mentioning: death; life; angels; principalities; powers; anything in the present; anything in the future; height; depth; any created thing. None of these things can separate us from God’s love. This is Paul’s description of Agape love. God loves us even when we are at our worst. This, however, does not mean God will just pardon our sins! Scripture is clear that these sins need repentance before God will forgive us. It is important to understand that God loves the sinner with Agape love, but He hates the sin.
In this verse Agape is in the “Aorist Active Participle Genitive Singular Masculine” form and it only occurs in this form twice within the New Testament (Rom 8:37 and Gal 2:20). When I first saw this I had no idea what it meant… So to make myself feel better I am going to pretend that there are others who don’t understand this either and therefore explain what this means:
I am going to skip the in depth study on the tense of this verb and just explain, in a nutshell, what it means. The most important thing to understand is that this is a verb that expresses action without indicating its completion. It is something that occurs in the past but has present continuing results. Jesus loved us while He was on earth and because of that love He gives us the opportunity to repent and be saved!
The bottom line of the scripture is this: Jesus loved us and is loving us unconditionally and He will continue to love us in this way without any end in sight…and because of this, through Him, we can share in His victory even though we don’t deserve to. Which is a very good thing!
