More than Conquerors

     Hupernikomen = we are over/above conquerors

      For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:5-11)

     And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:28-39)

     We Are Above Conquerors!

      The victory is not in the temporal things but over and beyond the temporal. For the temporal does not endure, but fades. The everlasting, THE EVERLASTING, God Himself, is our victory.

     "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

     Consider what this means. We are MORE than conquerors. We are above-conquerors! We are those for whom the victory has been won. We are the kings for whom the servant-warrior went forth and won the everlasting battle. We don't have to fight. We are more than conquerors. We are the ones for whom the battle has been fought and we now live in the victory that has been won.

      And so, like dear Stephen, even as the stones strike us and beat us down in the flesh, we look to the right hand of God and see the place that the man, Jesus, holds for us. We see that our place has already been won for us, purchased and held by the presence of Jesus at the right hand of God. Man now rules the universe in the union of the God/Man Jesus. The Lord Jesus has ruled as God from eternity, but with His ascension in the flesh to the right hand of power, He also rules as Man, our brother in the flesh, the first fruit of the resurrection, in whom we have our share in the resurrection and the kingdom of glory.

      This is what empowers us to live in absolute confidence. For Christ not only won the victory over sin for us by His suffering and death on the cross, but He rose from the dead, with His body, into which He incorporates us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. He rose to verify our new life in Him as the Son of Man risen from the dead, joined with the Son of God everlastingly as one in the flesh. There is no power that can separate or dissolve this union. And thus, when we are conjoined with Christ through Baptism, as long as we do not surrender the faith that He has poured out to us, there is no power that can separate us from the love of God, for as St. Paul concludes, the love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have been conjoined. As long as we do not choose to separate ourselves from Christ, no power in heaven or on earth can or will separate us from God's love. The victory is in Christ Jesus, who rules on our behalf at the right hand of power. Truly, we are more than conquerors through the one having loved us.