There is a compelling incentive for Christians to be more than hopeful.  “We know how the drama reaches its crescendo” is the usual response to situations that seem to threaten our existence. We are the last to people to be concerned about losing our lives. To say we are “more than conquerors” is another understatement of the facts, not to mention a poor translation of a single word from the Greek text of Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:37).  Why do I say that? Conquering stands opposite losing, and one cannot conquer anything without losing.  Christian winning, the so-called victorious life, has more to do with a gift than with any conquest. We have no need to wrest anything from anyone. So how does a person experience conquest and not recognize loss? When Paul wrote “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer” his intention was to make our encounters with adversity all the more functional as evidences of love.  I like to think of a victorious life as less atoning forensics, poking around the sin trails, and more astounding fruitfulness.

Dying gods and falling humans

I said, “You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.  Nevertheless you die like men and fall like any one of the princes.”

Psalms 82:6-7

You keep making me look like a liar because I have boasted in the royal court at Camelot that you are conquerors.  Have you forgotten what makes all of the things arrayed against you negligible and pitiful?

Judges are known to bribe and suborn witnesses.  Sometimes chauffeurs have no cars.  Soldiers take breaks from fighting, killing and saving lives. What might you say if you saw a kayaker sitting on a park benck with oars in his hand? What do you suppose God says when he sees followers of his Son not loving the people around them? What do we suppose God does when we miss any of the golden marks he has so graphically put down in word and deed for us to emulate?

“We are more than conquerors” is not only poor translation, it is misleading, because people expect superconquerors to have exceedingly victorious experiences. It is so easy to blame the one Christ loved for experiencing sword, famine, poverty, and persecution. Their faith, we say, is inadequate faith or is being tested. They have no properly fasted. The simple truth is that we all exceedingly conquer because Christ loved us.

We hyperconquer

Greek hyper – υπέρ – is like Latin/English super, and means above. Hypernikômen – υπερνικωνεν – does not mean that we win every contest, every battle, or that we are always on top of every situation.  If that were true, no Christian would be sick, no believer would ever be disappointed or die.  No decree or declaration can end humanity’s dance with nature and the best of our nurture.  No end to dying is in sight, and no stopping of the lying comes to light.

We prevail without having to say we have beaten sword, famine, poverty, and persecution

When all is said and done believers have no equipment to ensure success that does not include faith.  Despite all the wishing, decreeing and declaring, faith is primarily hoping for something to become real.  All the miracles and wonders do not change the fact that we hope for things we do not have.  Faith facilitates our grasp of what God has promised.  There is the rub: what did God promise you?   Even if God fixed all our problems we all still need to be changed in order to ascend the podium and receive the medal (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). Praying for and accepting the things God wants us to experience and possess does not come easily.

Two things define faith: “…ἐλπιζομένων…”, hoping (Hebrews 11:1) and “…ἔλεγχος…” conviction (Hebrews 11:1)

The experience of the pole position and the winning lane will depend on our growth.  Many believers treat the gift of God as merely a ticket for going to heaven.  The critical inquiry for people making converts runs like this, “Where would you spend eternity if you died tonight?” It should not surprise us that hope is also a saving agent. Along with faith and love, hope is the third enduring virtue.  To think that we do not need hope is Pollyanna  theology because of three unchanging facts. 

One: hope is a spiritual fruit, and can only be accessed by those who have the Spirit of God.  Two: hope is not separable from Christ himself. Three: hope attaches believers to the glory before the world began (eternity past) and the glory to come, of which our life in the Spirit now is a foretaste.  So let us not keep conflating Christ the hope of the lost with Christ the hope of glory. Let us find encouragement from the fact that hope is the resident portion of the glory to which we are heading.  The Holy Spirit and the Sacred Texts are the essence (one essence) of the believer’s hope.

Absent the presumed options, perseverance

We are unwilling subjects of hope.  “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope (20) that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:20-21, NASB)

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Romans 15:4

Yeshua did not lose anything to give salvation to the world. He laid down his life, as planned. His victory guarantees that we can be always conquering exceedingly.