“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37, KJV 1900)
In the 1970 movie, Patton we have this epic quote ascribed to General George S. Patton. “For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”
At the end of the quote, Patton used the phrase “all glory is fleeting.” This phrase could be used to keep the victorious commanders from becoming overconfident or it could be used to relay a truth. The truth is that earthly glory is like a mist that vanishes or the flower that withers. On this earth no glory will last forever.
In the Christian adventure, we believers are thrown into battle, so to speak, a spiritual battle. Our conflict is not with flesh and blood, but is spiritual. In this conflict much is thrown at us. Paul lists some of these things in verse 35, including “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:35, KJV 1900) He goes on to quote Psalm 42 to further emphasize the point that, “we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” Yet, he concludes with this reassuring truth, “in all these things we are more than conquerors.” We have the assurance of complete victory.
In Patton’s quote, he describes the glorious fanfare given to the conquering commander and states that it is but fleeting. Yet, Paul tells us that we are more than conquerors through Christ. Unlike the earthly conqueror, whose glory is fleeting, our conquest is achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs all of that which is thrown against us (2 Cor 4:17). For the believer, glory is not fleeting, it is eternal. Nothing and no one can ever take it away, not even death. For we are more than conquerors through Christ.
Renewing the Heart 