One more visit to Romans 8… Paul wrote this when he was actually on his way to
Rome; he sent the letter on ahead, to introduce himself to these people he had not
yet met. The church at Rome is one Paul
did not found, but he is well aware that here are believers living at the heart
of Roman imperial power… there are indications that some of them were part of
the government and of the ruling class… and they were all living amid Rome’s brutal
intolerance of anyone they thought could be a nuisance. The Roman state paraded always as conqueror… and
Paul deliberately responds… we are more than conquerors[1]
through him who loves us.
More
than conquerors… That is our theme… Rome conquers… that is what Rome does. It is the way power is achieved… by taking it,
one way or another – I came, I saw, I conquered, famously reported
Caesar. One of Handel’s great choruses, See
the Conquering Hero Comes, from the oratorio Judas Maccabeus… was actually
intended to celebrate the triumphant return of the Duke of Cumberland (Butcher
Cumberland) from the field of Culloden where he had bloodily defeated Charles
Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie… subdued the Scots (he hoped) and begun a very
nasty round-up of dissenters. There are
parts of the world where religion still behaves exactly and abominably like
that. When heroes conquer it doesn’t pay
to be in a dissenting minority. So it
seems to me important to find a route away from the military metaphor here, and
to get a civilised sense of what Paul might have had in mind when he said we
are more than conquerors.
We are not at war with anyone. That’s the point. Inspired by Jesus’s Spirit, led by the risen Lord, formed in his teaching, we don’t have enemies. Perhaps that comes as a surprise. In the Letter to the Ephesian Church Paul writes[2]: Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers… the authorities… the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil… And he goes on to describe our spiritual armour and weapons for that. To be more than conquerors is to have found a way through the darkness that inhabits so much of our world, and so much of the human spirit. It is to be enlightened in the darkness – a word that belongs as much to Christian faith as to Buddhist or any other – enlightened by Christ. In an ancient Christian hymn they sang, Awake sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light![3] The light shines in the darkness, says John, and the darkness has never overcome it. Whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness, says Jesus. God is light, writes the Apostle John, and in him is no darkness at all… the darkness is passing away, the true light is already shining. Whoever says I am in the light, while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness… Whoever hates a brother is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has blinded him…[4] it could hardly be clearer… these are the most basic of Christian teachings. That is how we live in Christ, that is how we pray, and that is how we confront, daily, the forces of darkness in ourselves and in others, and that is how we are more than conquerors.
We are, he writes in conclusion, inseparable
from the love of Christ. It is deeper in
us than hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or
sword. I am convinced[5]
that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
[1] ὑπερνικῶμεν (hypernikōmen),
“we more than conquer”... should appeal to all fans of the sports gear branded Nike,
a Greek word meaning victory, which is part of this word.
[2]
Ephesians 6:12. Paul lists four Greek words all describing what the believers
saw as “spiritual forces”, driving people to evil. What makes us do evil? Paul expresses it movingly in Romans 7:14-25.
[3]
Ephesians 5:14
[4] John
1:5; 8:12; I John 1:5; 2:8-11
[5] In
Greek it’s one word, pepeismai (πέπεισμαι) from the verb peithō
(πείθω) to persuade. Paul is utterly
convinced.
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