The Overcomers

by George Sidney Hurd
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Who are the overcomers of Revelation 2 through 3? What does Jesus say to them, and how should we understand Him? Are His words promises intended to reassure the hearts of believers, or should we be troubled by them? Are all believers overcomers, or is it possible to be a saved born-again believer and yet not overcome in this life? These are some of the questions I will be addressing in this article.
 
We don’t have to speculate concerning the identity of the overcomers, since the Apostle John, who wrote the book of Revelation, tells us who the overcomers are in his first epistle.
 
Everyone who has been Born of God is an Overcomer
 
“Because everyone having been born of God overcomes (nika) the world. And this is the victory (nike) that overcomes (nikesasa) the world – our faith.” (1Jn 5:4)
 
Who are the overcomers? John says that everyone (without exception) who has been born of God is an overcomer. What is it about the regenerate child of God that makes him an overcomer? That which makes us an overcomer is a fruit of regeneration, a gift that was given to us upon being born again. You may have noticed that the Nike brand is taken from the Greek word nike, which means “conquest or victory.” But the gift we received at regeneration that makes us an overcomer is not a pair of Nike tennis shoes. Rather, John says that the nike that overcomes the world is our faith.
 
Overcoming Faith is a Result of Regeneration
 
I agree with the Calvinists when they say that regeneration of necessity must logically precede saving and overcoming faith, since, prior to having been made alive in Christ, we were dead in relation to God (Eph 2:4-6). For a more detailed treatment of this subject see my article: Total Depravity and Universal Reconciliation).
 
Here in 1John 5 the Apostle makes it clear that regeneration precedes true faith, rather than us being regenerated by God in response to our own independent faith. John begins by saying:
 
“Whoever is believing (present active) that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God (perfect passive), and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.” (1 Jn 5:1)
 
Here John is saying that those who presently believe that Jesus is the Christ are believing as a result of having first been born of God. Just as a newborn baby spontaneously breathes at birth, even so, one spontaneously believes upon being made alive spiritually.  John says essentially the same thing in John 1:12 where he makes it clear that those who are believing are those who had previously been born again, not according to human volition, but according to the will of God:
 
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe (present active “are believing”) in His name:  who were born (aorist passive), not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Jn 1:12–13)
 
Those who have saving faith in Christ are believing because they were first born by the will of God. This is in agreement with Paul when he said, “no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Co 12:3). This of course is not merely a “repeat after me” confession, but a confession being made by one who has believed in their heart that Jesus Christ is Lord (Rom 10:9-10). Paul says that, when we initially believed unto justification, we “believed through grace” (Acts 18:27). In other words, our faith was graciously granted to us, it is not of ourselves (Eph 2:8-9).
 
The faith that is granted to us by grace is not only the initial faith for our justification: it is a living faith that gives us the victory to overcome and persevere until the end. The faith granted to us at regeneration is just as sure to continue throughout one’s lifetime as a newborn is sure to continue breathing for the rest of their life after taking their first breath.  A faith that doesn’t continue is what James called a dead faith (James 2:26). In 1John 5:5, just after saying that everyone who has been born of God overcomes and that the victory by which we overcome is our faith, emphasizes that it is a living faith which abides with us until the end. He said:
 
“Who is he who overcomes (present active “is overcoming”) the world, but he who believes (present active, “is believing”) that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 Jn 5:5)
 
Paul made it clear that the same faith that was graciously granted to us in order to believe unto justification when we were regenerated continues with us. 
 
“For to you it has been granted (χαρίζομαι, “graced”) on behalf of Christ, not only to believe (present active “to be believing”) in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” (Php 1:29)
 
Some who would agree with Paul that we initially believed through grace, nevertheless deny that that same faith abides with those who have been born of God, enabling them to persevere in the faith until the end. Here Paul says that the gift of grace that we have received at regeneration also enables us to continue believing in the midst of the suffering we undergo for His sake.
 
God is not simply the one who begins the good work in us: what He begins He perfects until we finish the course (Php 1:6). As the writer of Hebrews says, Jesus is not only the author of our faith, He is also the finisher of it (Heb 12:2). We believed and continue believing with the faith of Jesus which was granted to us at regeneration and continues with us until we cross the finish line (I further consider the source of our faith in my article The Faith of Jesus).
 
If you have been born according to the will of God, you can rest assured that you will also be granted the faith to overcome whatever the world may throw at you. Jesus said: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). In what sense does Christ’s victory over the world give us reason to be cheerful? Because we have been born again with Christ’s own overcoming resurrection life, and it is His life in us that keeps us. John says:
 
“We know that no one who is born of God sins (present tense, “practices sin”); but He who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him.” (1 John 5:18 NASB)
 
The reason why those who are born of God overcome is because Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who Himself is the Overcomer, keeps us. As an aside, John is not saying here that we do not sin. That would be in contradiction to what he previously said in the first chapter (1Jn 1:8,10). The present tense of the word rendered “sin” (ἁμαρτάνω), speaks of a continual practice of sin. Although rather wordy, I like the Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest’s translation of 1John 5:18. It reads:
 
“We know absolutely that everyone who has been born of God and as a result is a regenerated individual does not keep on habitually sinning. But He who was born of God maintains a watchful guardianship over him, and the Pernicious One does not lay hold of him.”
 
As Peter also says, our God who caused us to be born again through His mercy unto an incorruptible inheritance, will also keep us by His power until the end:
 
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Pe 1:3–5).
 
As Peter would certainly testify, being kept by the power of God does not mean that we will never stumble, considering that he denied his Lord three times in the worst imaginable way. As James said: “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). In what sense then did Jesus keep Peter? He interceded for him that his faith would not fail in spite of his bitter failure (Lu 22:32). The author and finisher of our faith is with us until the end: all those whom He makes alive He keeps by His power. Jesus said of His sheep:
 
“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.” (Jn 10:28–29)
 
As His sheep we overcome, not because of our own ability to care for ourselves, but because we are under the watchful care of the Good Shepherd. Those who have been born of God overcome because they are kept by Christ, the Shepherd of our souls.
 
We are living under the New Covenant of promise in which God has given us a new heart and put a new spirit within us through regeneration, causing us to walk in His ways, something no one, except for Christ Himself, was ever able to do under the Old Covenant Law (Ezek 36:26-27).
 
Understanding the Exhortations to Overcome in Revelation
 
I believe that, armed with the knowledge that everyone who has been born of God will overcome, it becomes possible for us to correctly apply the exhortations to overcome which were given by Jesus in Revelation chapters 2 through 3. Seven times Jesus held out promises to those who overcome. They are as follows:
 
1) “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Rev 2:7).
 
2) “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” (Rev 2:11)
 
3) “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it” (Rev 2:17).
 
4) “He who overcomes and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations— ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron” (Rev 2:26-27).
 
5) “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels” (Rev 3:5).
 
6) “He who overcomes I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name” (Rev 3:12).
 
7) “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” (Rev 3:21).
 
We know from 1John 5 that, if we are born again believers we are overcomers, and therefore each of these promises sure to be fulfilled for us. So, the question to be answered is, why does Jesus precede each promise saying: “To him who overcomes?” 
 
I believe that the answer to this question lies in the fact that, just as in the churches today, not all of those who were being addressed in the letters to the seven churches were born again believers.  Jesus said that His sheep hear His voice (Jn 10:27). Yet Jesus had to say to each one of the seven churches, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” This presupposes that some within each of the seven churches were not yet of His sheep and therefore couldn’t hear His voice. Before being made alive in Christ we did not have ears to hear God: we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1-2). Jesus said: “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3). Being spiritually dead, we had neither eyes to see, nor ears to hear, the spiritual realities of the kingdom of God.
Jesus even said to the church at Sardis that, as a whole, they had a name that they were alive, but they were dead. He said that there were only a few in the church of Sardis who would walk with Him in white (Rev 3:4).
 
Can One’s Name be blotted out of the Book of Life?
 
Jesus also promised in Revelation 3:5 that He would never blot their names from the Book of Life. This has led some to conclude that one’s name could be written in the Book of Life, only to be blotted out later. However, as I point out in my article, The Book of Life, once one has been made alive and believed on Christ, they are sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption (Eph 1:13-14). As those born of God, they already possess His imperishable life (John 5:24). Jesus said of those who believe:
 
“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.” (Jn 10:28–29)
 
This being true, the regenerate overcomers could never have their names blotted out from the Book of Life. But why would Jesus say this if it weren’t a possibility? For me, the key to understanding this promise is found in the cultural context of that time. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) says the following about the secular and cultural significance of the term, book of life:
 
“Book of Life: The phrase is derived from the custom of the ancients of keeping genealogical records (Neh 7:5,64; 12:22-23) and of enrolling citizens for various purposes (Jer 22:30; Ezek 13:9).” [1]
 
Merrill Unger’s Complete Expository Dictionary says the same concerning the use of this term. Under the heading, The Book of Life, it says that it was: “a figurative expression taken from the custom of registering citizens in a society or maintaining genealogical records.”
 
Just as Adolf Hitler often expunged all public records indicating that his enemies had ever existed, believers in the time of persecution under the Roman Empire were in danger of having their names blotted out of the government’s public records, or their book of life. I believe that Jesus was reassuring those undergoing persecution that He would never do what their own governing authorities threatened to do to them if they didn’t renounce their faith in Christ.
In Revelation 3:5 Jesus uses the double emphatic negative οὐ μὴ. He literally said: “I will most certainly not (οὐ μὴ) blot out his name from the Book of Life.”
 
Conclusion
 
In conclusion, we have seen that everyone who has been born of God has been granted a living faith in Christ which makes us overcomers. Upon believing, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption (Eph 1:13-14). God who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Php 1:6).
 


[1] International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Book of Life
 
 

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