Romans 8:37 Christ Loves Us

The Text

Romans 8:37 (CSB) No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

All of the questions, pushbacks, and opposition that Paul was facing with teaching this one particular truth of God as a through but simple exposition of Christ’s own words when He said:

John 10:28–30 (CSB) I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Now you would think that people, especially devout Christians, would welcome this bold and declarative statement of our own Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with great affection upon our hearts and great peace for our souls. Sad to say, there are many Christians today who would vehemently contend that, yes, it is certainly possible for one person to lose their salvation.

Why would one teach such a thing when the whole word of God teaches the opposite of that. When I read the Bible, I don’t see that at all. In fact, in the face of great tribulation, distress or persecution, I see Christians who hold fast to Christ. I read about the martyrs of our faith, who have murdered for refusing to proclaim anyone else but Christ is Lord and that all started with the Apostles themselves who all (but John) died horrific deaths at the cost of the gospel.

The world calls that insanity or delusional.

Christians know this not as a truth that can be selected from a multiple choice test of truths but rather absolute truth. It is not a mere “what is true for you is only true for you” but rather Jesus Christ, who lived, died, rose again, and ascended to heaven, is in fact ruling and reigning over all of creation demand everyone and everything to repent from their sin and put all of their trust in Him alone.

Now, some of you who know Christian history know for every martyr burned at the stake, many did deny Jesus to save their own lives. What about them? Did you know that one of the discussions in the church were whether or not to allow these people back into the fellowship of believers? Now, what each individual church decided, I do not know. However, just as Christ said:

Luke 12:8–9 (CSB) “And I say to you, anyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God, but whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.

and further prophecies that Peter himself would not just deny Christ once but three times¹, but it was the same Christ in John 21 who called and confirmed Peter not once but three times.

So what about now? We have so many people who grew up in churches who then decide to turn away and live their lives as their own.

And we would say, “I have seen them move in the power of the Spirit. How can they be not saved before?” To which I would state that the author of Hebrews already addressed this:

Hebrews 6:4–6 (CSB) For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.

to explain what Christ said:

Matthew 7:21–23 (CSB) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’

I say this never to say “once saved always saved.” I am not even going to try to explain it away by giving the excuse of “perhaps they were not saved, to begin with” as though I had the God-alone power that searches and knows the hearts and minds of every person in the world because I do not.

I would say with my own testimony that I know this to be true.

I was saved by God back in 2007. It was in a realization of God’s love he had for every person I have ever known including my mother who abandoned me, my father who sexually abused me, and my stepmother who aided in that abuse all up to and including this young woman I watch in a porn video not 15 minutes before God saved me. God at that moment gave me a new heart and his Spirit and among so many things, freed me from a crippling addiction to pornography.

But not ten years later, after going through additional emotional abuse that included manipulation, coercion, co-dependency, and attempts to control, I was prepared to spend the rest of my life as a lukewarm Christian. That is, doing what I want and barely participating in his work. Even when God had granted me sweet peace from this abuse, I simply was content to walk away and live the rest of my life not pursuing and even desiring God.

But you see, God is my great Father. And being that He is our Father, He alone is Perfect. The logical conclusion is that the perfect Father in heaven does not lose his kids. In that same vein, God sent three saints (I call them ‘prophets’) to come after my soul. I call them ‘prophets’ because God the Father send them out with the Holy Spirit within them called out three things in me. One, God has healed your mind, heart, and soul. Two, if you go in the direction you are going, you will head into despair. And three, God has called you to stay where you are at and continue the good work of healing and restoration that Christ has started in you.

When I heard my dear lovely friends’ sweet words contending for my soul, I repented. I repented of my sin, lust, foolishness, and destructive behavior and yet once again, I turned to Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith.

Now, I don’t necessarily need to hear any other testimonies and stories to know that all of us Christians are weak. Weak in faith, weak in the spirit, and weak in our flesh. We even sing this in little children’s song, to which I correctly sing, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, we are weak, but he is strong.”

But if that is being the case, the fact that we are weak, how on earth does Paul call us not only ‘conquerors’ but 'more than conquerors.’ To add even further insult to injury, the term that Paul uses here ‘more than,’ he uses one other time in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 which some translations use the phrase “beyond all comparison” or if you grew up with the King James Version, those translators use the phrase, “far more and exceeding.” Yes, the Apostle Paul has the audacity to call us, little weak children, "far more and exceeding conquerors"! How can this be?

My friends, we do not wage war against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.² This is not a battlefield that you or I have ever seen in wartime nor even in history books nor video games. It is a war that God started not with a war-horn blasting through the sky but with a simple righteous declaration of redemption and restoration:

Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

And when the saints of God, after going 400 years without hearing a prophet of God, heard the voice of John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness, “Make the straight the way of the Lord!”

And then the final battle cry that is the gospel of Jesus Christ, who commanded and marched toward the final decisive battle, to the place, Golgotha, the place of skulls, where the fate of the world rested on the outcome.

Jesus makes his intentions well-known:

Matthew 10:34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Jesus Christ, the Commander of the Most High, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, begins his perfect, unbeatable, unstoppable, conquering juggernaut not towards overthrowing some pitiful Greco-Roman empire but rather to His cross where he died for each of those whom he predestined, called, justified and glorified.

His path to the cross was paved with the mounds of defeated demons to his left and his right. It was at the foot of the cross where Satan was removed from power once and for all. More than that, it was at the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea where our sins were buried and Death itself received the fatal death-wound.

Jesus Christ is the Almighty Conquerer who loved us.

Jesus Christ did all of that but then audaciously declared that every one of his followers who would have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, we would go on to do greater works than the works of the Almighty Conqueror.

It is not because we are strong that makes us more than conquerors.

It is only because of God sovereignly and graciously calls us by the power of the Holy Spirit through the bloodshed body of Jesus Christ our Lord that we behold the title, “Far more and exceeding conquerors through Christ who loved us!”

Amen!