BUT IN ALL THESE THINGS WE OVERWHELMINGLY CONQUER: all en toutois pasin hupernikomen (1PPAI): (2 Chr 20:25-27; Isaiah 25:8; 1 Cor 15:54,57; 2 Cor 2:14; 12:9,19; 1 Jn 4:4; 1 Jn 5:4,5; Rev 7:9,10; 11:7-12; 12:11; 17:14; 21:7)

But (KJV = "nay") (235) (alla) marks contrast or opposition. Paul is introducing something contrary to all that might have been expected.

In all these things - Paul is not overlooking one thing! Note carefully in the midst of the tribulation, in the midst of the distress, etc (see notes Romans 8:35; 36), the following is still true.

Denny comments that Paul has just mentioned a list of trials and a descriptive summation of them from Psalm 44:22 and now is saying...

these trials no only do not cut us off from Christ's love, they actually give us more intimate and thrilling experiences of it. (Nicoll, W Robertson, Editor: Expositors Greek Testament: 5 Volumes. Out of print. Search Google)

Hodge comments that...

In these verses the apostle’s confidence is expressed in the strongest language. He heaps words together to show the absolute inability of all created things, separately or together, to frustrate the purpose of God or to turn away his love from those whom he has determined to save. (Hodge, C. Romans. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 1835)

Newell exclaims...

What a wonderful book this Word of God is! "Sheep for slaughter" naming themselves more than conquerors!

Haldane notes that...

The sufferings of believers above enumerated, which, as the Apostle had just shown, verify the truth of the ancient predictions of the word of God, shall not separate them from the love of Christ, but, on the contrary, are to them the sources of the greatest benefits. In the Apostle Peter we see the weakness of all human affection and resolutions ("Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You." All the disciples said the same thing too. - Mt 26:35). All the glory, then, of this victory which we obtain is to be ascribed solely to God; for it is He who is at our right hand, and who supports us in all our afflictions. In the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Revelation, the Lamb, who is Jesus Christ, is represented as combating against the enemies of His Church (see note Revelation 17:14). He is our shield, our rock, and our refuge. It is declared that we are “kept (as in a garrison) by the power of God,” 1 Peter 1:5 (see notes), in order that we may not presume on our own strength, or attribute to ourselves the glory of our preservation; but that we may keep our eyes fixed upon Him who, with His outstretched arm, conducts us to the heavenly Canaan.  (Haldane, R. An Exposition on the Epistle to the Roman. Ages Classic Commentaries)

Spurgeon takes us back to the previous verses in the opening remarks of his sermon on Romans 8:37...

Look attentively at the champion. It needs no stretch of imagination to conceive this place to be a Roman amphitheatre. There in the midst of the arena stands the hero. The great doors of the lion’s dens are lifted up by machinery, and as soon as the lairs are open, rushing forth with fury come bears and lions, and wild beasts of all kinds, that have been starved into ferocity, with which the champion is to contend. Such was the Christian in Paul’s day, such is he now. The world is the theater of conflict: angels and devils look on; a great cloud of witnesses view the fight-and monsters are let loose against him, with whom he must contend triumphantly.

The apostle gives us a little summary of the evils with which we must fight, and he places first, “tribulation.”

The word “tribulation,” in the Latin, signifies threshing, and God’s people are often cast upon the threshing-floor to be beaten with the heavy flail of trouble; but they are more than conquerors, since they lose nothing but their straw and chaff, and the pure wheat is thus separated from that which was of no benefit to it. The original Greek word, however, suggests pressure from without. It is used in the case of persons who are bearing heavy burdens, and are heavily pressed upon. Now, believers have had to contend with outward circumstances more or less in all ages. At the present day, there are very few who do not at some time or other in their lives meet with outward pressure, either from sickness or from loss of goods, or from bereavements, or from some other of the thousand and one causes from which affliction springs. The Christian has not a smooth pathway. “In the world, ye shall have tribulation,” is a sure promise, which never fails of fulfillment. But under all burdens, true believers have been sustained, no afflictions have ever been able to destroy their confidence in God. It is said of the palm-tree, that the more weights they hang upon it the more straight and the more lofty doth it tower towards heaven; and it is so with the Christian. Like Job, he is never so glorious as when he has passed through the loss of all things, and at last rises from his dunghill more mighty than a king. Brethren, you must expect to meet with this adversary so long as you are here; and if you now suffer the pressure of affliction, remember you must overcome it, and not yield to it. Cry unto the strong for strength, that your tribulation may work out for you patience, and patience experience, and experience hope that maketh not ashamed.

The next in the list is “distress.” I find that the Greek word rather refers to mental grief than to anything external. The Christian suffers from external circumstances; but this is probably a less affliction than internal woe. “Straitness of place” is something like the Greek word. We sometimes get into a position in which we feel as if we could not move, and are not able to turn to the right hand or to the left: the way is shut up; we see no deliverance, and our own consciousness of feebleness and perplexity is unbearably terrible. Do you never get into this state in which your mind is distracted, you know not what to do; you cannot calm and steady yourself; you would if you could consider calmly the conflict, and then enter into it like a man with all his wits about him; but the devil and the world, outward trial and inward despondency combined, toss you to and fro like the waves of the sea, till you are, to use John Bunyan’s Saxon expression, “much tumbled up and down in your mind.” Well, now, if you are a genuine Christian, you will come out of this all right enough. You will be more than a conqueror over mental distress. You will take this burden as well as every other to your Lord, and cast it upon him; and the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to be the Comforter, will say to the troubled waves of your heart, “Be still.” Jesus shall say, as he walks the tempest of your soul, “It is I, be not afraid;” and though the outward tribulation and the inward distress meet together like two contending seas, they shall both be calmed by the power of the Lord Jesus.

The third evil the apostle mentions is “persecution,” which has always fallen upon the genuine lovers of Christ; their good name has been slandered. I should blush to repeat the villanies which have been uttered against the saints of the olden times. Suffice it to say, there is no crime in the category of vice which has not been falsely laid to the door of the followers of the pure and holy Jesus. Yet slander did not crush the church; the fair name of Christianity outlived the reputation of the men who had the effrontery to accuse her. Imprisonment followed slander, but in prisons God’s saints have sung like birds in cages, better than when they were in the fields of open liberty. Prisons have glowed into palaces, and been sanctified into the dwelling places of God himself, more sacred far than all the consecrated domes of gorgeous architecture. Persecution has sometimes taken to banishing the saints, but in their banishment they have been at home, and when scattered far and wide, they have gone everywhere preaching the word, and their scattering has been the gathering together of others of the elect. When persecution has even resorted to the most cruel torments, God has had many a sweet song from the rack. The joyful notes of holy Lawrence, broiling upon the gridiron, must have been more sweet to God than the songs of cherubims and seraphims, for he loved God more than the brightest of them, and proved it in his bitterest anguish; and holy Mr. Hawkes, when his lower extremities were burnt, and they expected to see him fall over the chain into the fire, lifted his flaming hands, each finger spurting fire, and clapped them three times, with the shout of “None but Christ, none but Christ!” God was honored more by that burning man than even by the ten thousand times ten thousand who ceaselessly hymn his praises in glory. Persecution, in all its forms, has fallen upon the Christian church, and up to this moment it has never achieved a triumph, but it has been an essential benefit to the church, for it cleared her of hypocrisy; when cast into the fire the pure gold lost nothing but its dross and tin, which it might well be glad to lose.

Then the apostle adds “famine.” We are not exposed to this evil so much nowadays; but, in Paul’s time, those who were banished, frequently were carried to places where they could not exercise their handicraft to earn their bread. They were taken away from their situations, from their friends, from their acquaintance; they suffered the loss of all their goods, and consequently they did not know where to find even the necessary sustenance for their bodies; and no doubt there are some now who are great losers by their conscientious convictions-who are called to suffer, in a measure, even famine itself. Then, the devil whispers, “You ought to look after your house and children; you must not follow your religion so as to lose your bread.” Ah! my friend, we shall then see whether you have the faith that can conquer famine; that can look gaunt hunger in the face; look through the ribs of the skeleton, and yet say, “Ah! famine itself I will bear sooner than sell my conscience, and stain my love to Christ.”

Then comes nakedness, another terrible form of poverty. The Christian banished from house to house, and prevented from working at his trade, was not able to procure necessary funds, and therefore his garments gradually fell to rags, and the rags one by one disappeared. At other times the persecutors stripped men and women naked, to make them yield to shame; but nakedness, even in the case of the most tender and sensitive spirits, though such have been exposed to this evil in the olden days, has been unable to daunt the unconquerable spirit of the saints. There are stories in the old martyrologies of men and women who have had to suffer this indignity; and it is reported by those who looked on, that they never seemed to be so gloriously arrayed; for when they were stood naked before the whole bestial throng, that they might gaze upon them with their cruel eyes, their very bodies seemed to glow with glory, as with calm countenance they surveyed their enemies, and gave themselves up to die.

The apostle mentions next to nakedness, peril-that is, constant exposure to sudden death. This was the life of the early Christian. “We die daily,” said the apostle. They were never sure of a moment’s mercy, for a new edict might come forth from the Roman emperor to sweep the Christians away. They went literally with their lives in their hands wherever they went. Some of their perils were voluntarily encountered for the spread of the gospel; perils by rivers and by robbers were the lot of the Christian missionary going through inhospitable climes to declare the gospel. Other perils were the result of persecution; but we are told here that believers in Jesus so steadily reposed upon Christ’s love, that they did not feel peril to be peril; and the love of Christ so lifted them up above the ordinary thoughts of flesh and blood, so that even when perils became perils indeed, they entered upon them with joy, out of love to their Lord and Master.

And to close the list, as if there were a sort of perfection in these evils, the seventh thing is the sword, that is to say, the apostle Paul singles out one cruel form of death as a picture of the whole. Ye know, and I need not tell you, how the noble army of my Master’s martyrs have given their necks to the sword, as cheerfully as the bride upon the marriage day gives her hand to the bridegroom. Ye know how they have gone to the stake and kissed the fagots; how they have sung on the way to death, though death was attended with the most cruel torments; and have rejoiced with exceeding great joy, even to leaping and dancing at the thought of being counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s sake. The apostle tells us that the saints have suffered all these things put together. He does not say in some of these things we are conquerors, but in all; many believers literally passed through outward want, inward trial, persecution, want of bread, want of raiment, the constant hazard of life, and at last laid down life itself; and yet in every case through the whole list of these gloomy fights, believers were more than conquerors. Beloved, this day you are not, the most of you, called to peril, or nakedness, or sword: if ye were, my Lord would give you grace to bear the test; but I think the troubles of a Christian man, at the present moment, though not outwardly so terrible, are yet more hard to bear than even those of the fiery age. We have to bear the sneer of the world-that is little; its blandishments, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, its hypocrisy, are far worse. O sirs, your danger is lest you grow rich and become proud, lest you give yourselves up to the fashions of this present evil world, and lose your faith. If you cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, you may be hugged to death by the bear, and the devil little cares which it is so long as he gets your love to Christ out of you, and destroys your confidence in him. I fear me that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than she was in those rough times. Are there not many professing Christians whose methods of trade are just as vicious as the methods of trade of the most shifty and tricky of the unconverted? Have we not some professed Christians who are worldly altogether? whose non-attendance at our meetings for prayer, whose want of liberality to Christ’s cause, whose entire conduct indeed proves that if there be any grace in them at all, it is not the grace which conquers the world, but the pretended grace which lets the world put its foot upon its neck. We must be awake now; for we traverse the enchanted ground, and are more likely to be ruined than ever, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame. We are likely to become bastards and not sons, tares and not wheat, hypocrites with fair vineyards, but not the true living children of the living God. Christians, do not think that these are times in which you can dispense with watchfulness or with holy ardor; you need these things more now than ever, and may God the eternal Spirit display his omnipotence in you, that you may be able to say, in all these softer things as well as in the rougher, “We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37 More Than Conquerors Pdf)

Overwhelmingly conquer (5245) (hupernikao  from hupér = above, degree which is beyond that of a compared scale of extent = more than, to a greater degree than, beyond + nikáo = to conquer, overcome, carry off the victory, come off victorious) (present tense) means to come off more than victorious or to gain a surpassing victory.

It describes one who is super-victorious, who wins more than an ordinary victory, and who is overpowering in achieving abundant victory. It describes a lopsided victory in which the enemy or opponent is completely routed. This is not the language of conceit, but of confidence in Christ. Christ’s love conquered death, and because of His love, we are can be more than conquerors through Him.

Vincent says the idea is...

A victory which is more than a victory.

Meyer says the idea is...

A holy arrogance of victory in the might of Christ.

W. B. J. Martin said that...

Hate can make a man a conqueror, can fill him with furious energy, but only love can make him more-than-conqueror

Bauer affirms that the verb hypernikao used here is a heightened form of "conquer" and suggests the translation "We are winning a most glorious victory." Is is also rendered "We win the supreme victory through him who loved us."

William Newell explains more than conquerors...

(a) It is to come off conqueror in every difficulty,

(b) It is to know that Divine, and therefore infinite, power has been engaged for us in the conflict,

(c) It is the absolute confidence that this infinite and therefore limitless Divine help is granted to us against any possible future emergency,

(d) It is to "divide the spoil" over any foe, after victory! (Isa 53:12.)

Robert Haldane writes that more than conquerors...

This is a strong expression, but in its fullest import it is strictly true. The Christian not only overcomes in the worst of his trials, but more than overcomes his adversaries, and all those things which seem to be against him. It is possible to overcome, and yet obtain no advantage from The contest, nay, to find the victory a loss. But the Christian not only vanquishes, he is also a gainer by the assault of his enemy. It is better for him than if he had not been called to suffer. He is a gainer and a conqueror, both in the immediate fruits of his sufferings, as God overrules them for his good, bringing him forth from the furnace as gold refined, and also in their final issue; for “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

The term conquerors reminds us that the life of a believer is a warfare, in which he is called to combat, both within and without.

We may remark, too, the difference between the judgment of God, and the judgment of men, respecting the victory of believers. In the world, persecutors and oppressors are judged as the conquerors; but here, those are pronounced to be such, who are oppressed and persecuted. They are the servants of Him whom the world put to death, but who said to His disciples, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (Haldane, R. An Exposition on the Epistle to the Roman. Ages Classic Commentaries)

Pastor Ray Stedman explains more than a conqueror this way writing that...

If we barely manage to win our way to heaven by the skin of our teeth, we could be said to be a conqueror, but a "more than conqueror" is someone who takes the worst that life can throw at him and uses that to become victorious. "More than conqueror" is one who, by the grace and the gift of God, and in the strength of God within him, actually takes the very things that are designed to destroy him, and they become stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks. That is being "more than conquerors."

Stedman gives the following Illustration of more that a conqueror...

Just this week, I finished reading an amazing book written by Ernest Gordon, the dean of the Chapel at Princeton University. He tells of his own experience as a British officer in the Japanese prison camp by the River Kwai in Thailand. This camp was made famous by the movie, The Bridge over the River Kwai. He was one of the prisoners that built that bridge, and he tells about that camp, and about their indescribable starvation diet which made them nothing but walking skeletons, yet they were driven out each day to do heavy labor on the bridge. Thousands of them died as cholera, and other diseases, swept through the camp. The morale of the camp plummeted to the bottom -- there was nothing left. It was a hopeless, hideous situation in which men lived in filth and squalor, and walked about as the living dead. He tells how he himself descended, through disease and weakness, to a place where his body was taken and laid away in the death house, among all the corpses. Though he was still alive, he was laid there to die. In that camp, there were one or two people who, though they were not what we would call Evangelical Christians, nevertheless, entertained a deep faith in God. One or two men began quietly, in the midst of the darkest hour of the camp, to exercise a little faith and a little love, and to do things for one another. Gradually this spirit spread, and soon others became involved. They organized a massage team to go around and massage one another's legs to try to restore health to these members that had ceased working. Gradually this spirit transformed the camp, and faith and joy and hope sprang into being again. They organized an orchestra, made their own instruments, and finally had a 40-piece orchestra. They organized a church. They began Bible study classes, and a man who had been a skeptic all his life was the teacher. As he taught the Bible, he began to see something of the reality of these things. The story goes on to tell how this whole camp was transformed, and though the outward circumstances were unchanged, the Japanese were as hostile and as cruel as ever, the work was as heavy and the disease was rampant, yet the spirit of those men was literally transformed and they became joyous, happy, victorious individuals -- many of them. The whole camp became entirely different. He told how, when at last they returned to civilization, they looked forward to coming home -- to a place where they would experience again the joys of life. But, when they got home, they discovered that civilization is an illusion -- that the realities of life were discovered back in the prison camp. It was when they were down in the darkest, and the deepest, and the lowest depths of their lives that they began to lay hold of the eternal verities that strengthen a man's soul. They became, by faith, "more than conquerors." This is the message of this chapter, isn't it? The eternal verities are not doubt and fear and death, but life and hope and love. (To read full sermon click Prayer, Providence, Praise)

Spurgeon asks and answers how Christians are more than conquerors...

The word in the original is one of the apostle Paul’s strong expressions; it might be rendered, “more exceeding conquerors.” The Vulgate, I think, has a word in it which means, “over over-comers,” over and above conquering.

For a Christian to be a conqueror is a great thing: how can he be more than a conqueror?

I think in many respects, first, a Christian is better than some conquerors because the power by which he overcomes is nobler far. Here is a champion just come from the Greek games; he has well nigh killed his adversary in a severe boxing match, and he comes in to receive the crown. Step up to him, look at that arm, and observe the thews and sinews. Why! the man’s muscles are like steel, and you say to him, “I do not wonder that you beat and bruised your foe; if I had set up a machine made of steel, and worked by a little watery vapor, it could have done the same, though nothing but mere matter would have been at work. You are a stronger man and more vigorous in constitution than your foe: that is clear; but where is the particular glory about that? One machine is stronger than another. No doubt, credit is to be given to you for your endurance, after a sort; but you are just one big brute beating another big brute. Dogs, and bulls, and game-cocks, and all kinds of animals, would have endured as much, and perhaps more.

Now, see the Christian champion coming from the fight, having won the victory! Look at him! He has overcome human wisdom; but when I look at him, I perceive no learning nor cunning: he is a simple, unlettered person, who just knows that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners; yet he has won the victory over profound philosophers: then he is more than a conqueror. He has been tempted and tried in all sorts of ways, and he was not at all a crafty person; he was very weak, yet somehow he has conquered. Now this is being more than a conqueror, when weakness overcomes strength, when brute force is baffled by gentleness and love. This is victory indeed, when the little things overcome the great things; when the base things of this world overthrow the mighty; and the things that are not bring to nought the things that are: yet this is just the triumph of grace. The Christian is, viewed according to the eye of sense, weak as water; yet faith knows him to be irresistible. According to the eye of sense, he is a thing to be trampled upon, for he will not resist; and yet, in the sight of God, he becomes in this very way, by his gentleness and patience, more than a conqueror.

The Christian is more than a conqueror again, because the conqueror fights for victory-fights with some selfish motive. Even if the motive be patriotism, although from another point of view, patriotism is one of the highest of worldly virtues, yet it is only a magnificent selfishness by which one contends for one’s own country, instead of being subject to the far more generous cosmopolite thought of caring for all men. But the Christian fights neither for any set of men nor for himself: in contending for truth he contends for all men, but especially for God; and in suffering for the right he suffers with no prospect of earthly gain. He becomes more than a conqueror, both by the strength with which he fights and the motives by which he is sustained, which are better than the motives and the strength which sustain other conquerors.
He is more than a conqueror, because he loses nothing even by the fight itself. When a battle is won, at any rate the winning side loses something. In most wars, the gain seldom makes any recompense for the effusion of blood; but the Christian’s faith, when tried, grows stronger; his patience, when tempted, becomes more patient. His graces are like the fabled Anteus, who, when thrown to the ground, sprang up stronger than before, by touching his mother earth; for the Christian, by touching his God and falling down in helplessness into the arms of the Most High, grows stronger by all that he is made to suffer. He is more than a conqueror, because he loses nothing even by the fight, and gains wondrously by the victory.

He is more than a conqueror over persecution, because most conquerors have to struggle and agonize to win the conquest. But, my brethren, many Christians, ay, and all Christians, when their faith in Christ is strong, and their love to Christ is fervent, have found it even easy to overcome suffering for the Lord. Look at Blandina, enveloped in a net, tossed upon the horns of bulls, and then made to sit in a red hot iron chair to die, and yet unconquered to the close. What did the tormentors say to the emperor- “Oh! emperor,” said the tormentors, “we are ashamed, for these Christians mock us while they suffer thy cruelties.” Indeed, the tormentors often seemed to be themselves tormented; they were worried to think they could not conquer timid women and children. They devoured their own hearts with rage; like the viper, which gnaws at the file, they broke their teeth against the iron strength of Christian faith; they could not endure it, because these people suffered without repining, endured without retracting, and glorified Christ in the fires without complaining. I love to think of Christ’s army of martyrs, ay, and of all his church, marching over the battle-field, singing as they fight, never ceasing the song, never suffering a note to fall, and at the same time advancing from victory to victory; chanting the sacred hallelujah while they tramp over their foes. I saw one day upon the lake of Orta, in northern Italy, on some holy-day of the church of Rome, a number of boats coming from all quarters of the lake towards the church upon the central islet of the lake, and it was singularly beautiful to hear the splash of the oars and the sound of song as the boats came up in long processions, with all the villagers in them, bearing their banners, to the appointed place of meeting. As the oars splashed they kept time to the rowers, and the rowers never missed a stroke because they sang, neither was the song marred because of the splash of the oars, but on they came, singing and rowing: and so has it been with the church of God. That oar of obedience, and that other oar of suffering-the church has learned to ply both of these, and to sing as she rows: “Thanks be unto God, who always maketh us to triumph in every place!” Though we be made to suffer, and be made to fight, yet we are more than conquerors, because we are conquerors even while fighting; we sing even in the heat of the battle, waving high the banner, and dividing the spoil even in the center of the fray. When the fight is hottest, we are then there most happy; and when the strife is sternest, then most blessed; and when the battle grows most arduous, then, “calm ’mid the bewildering cry, confident of victory.” Thus the saints have been in those respects more than conquerors.

More than conquerors I hope, this day, because they have conquered their enemies by doing them good, converting their persecutors by their patience. To use the old Protestant motto, the church has been the anvil, and the world has been the hammer; and though the anvil has done nothing but bear the stroke, she has broken all the hammers, as she will do to the world’s end. All true believers who really trust in Jesus’ love, and are really fired with it, will be far more glorious than the Roman conqueror when he drove his milk white steeds through the imperial city’s streets; then the young men and maidens, matrons and old men gathered to the windows and chimney-tops, and scattered flowers upon the conquering legions as they came along; but what is this compared with the triumph which is going on even now as the great host of God’s elect come streaming through the streets of the New Jerusalem? What flowers are they which angels strew in the path of the blessed? What songs are those which rise from yonder halls of Zion, conjubilant with song as the saints pass along to their everlasting habitations?

And they who, with their Leader,
Have conquered in the fight,
For ever and for ever,
Are clad in robes of white.

THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US: dia tou agaphesantos (AAPMSG) hemas: (Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2,25-27; 2 Th 2:16; 1 Jn 4:10,19; Jude 1:24; Rev1:5)

The previous chapters (especially Romans 5:11-21) describe the super abounding grace through Christ. Those who overwhelmingly conquer are supremely victorious in overcoming everyone and everything that threatens their relationship to Jesus Christ.  However their ability to triumph over all things does not arise from any inherent superiority on their part. Such a super abounding victory is only possible through Him. Believers triumph entirely through His power, the power of Him Who loved us so much that He gave His life for us that we might have life in Him...life abundant and overcoming.

Through (1228) (dia) is a preposition denoting instrumentality, the means by which something is accomplished. The "instrument" by which sinners overwhelmingly conquer is Jesus Christ our Lord.

Below is a selection of Scriptures that relate to this great truth of through Him...

A Simple Study...
"Through Him"