This past summer, I memorized Romans 8 with some brothers from my church. One verse in particular grabbed my attention:
Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
The phrase more than conquerors was peculiar to me. So I dug into the ancient koine Greek: hypernikōmen. It’s a mash-up of the words hyper and nikōmen.
Hyper is the same prefix we use in English (think hyperactive versus hypo) so it means super or over or excessive. The second word shares the same root as nike, which you probably recognize. The billion-dollar brand Nike takes its name from Nike, the goddess of victory. So the word means victory or win.
So Paul is saying that in Christ we don’t just win. We super-win.
Win over what? He lists it out in the prior verses: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. Even in those places, the verdict is clear: overwhelming victory in Christ.
Don’t take that for granted because not all victories are created equal. A Pyrrhic victory, for instance, is a “win” so costly it tantamount to defeat. Imagine a battle where every soldier falls and only one limps away alive. Who really won that? Everyone walks away a loser. So the Christian’s victory is nothing like that. It’s not a razor-thin edge where we barely survive the clash with the world, the flesh, and the devil. No. Our victory is decisive. And it’s hyper-nike.
In Christ, we don’t just scrape by. We overwhelmingly conquer. Amen.