“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh…” Romans 8:1-3
We note that the text says, as Rainsford pointed out, that there is no condemnation. It doesn’t say that there aren’t faults, or failures, or infirmities, or inconsistency or fleshly corruption.
As we go through the rest of the book, especially the last five chapters, it’s evident that we’re encouraged to live by faith and to pursue righteousness. Like the church in Rome, our lives are full of things we should avoid. We fail in many ways. We practice things we’re commanded to leave behind. Yet, still, there’s no condemnation. The reason for this is here in the text. God has introduced an entirely new set of principles. We live now in the law of the Spirit of life. Jesus Christ has freed us from the law of sin and death.
Here in the South there’s quite a bit of jubilation when our team wins an NCAA football title. Georgia has won it this year. Over the past few years, Clemson, closer to home, has climbed that high mountain. This past November, the Atlanta Braves won the World Series. In all of these events we often experience an intense outbreak of emotion. Grown men who show little emotion over other things are known to shout. Some even shed tears when their team triumphs.
In other events, music lovers are swept up rapturously at a concert, overcome by the power of music. For others still, it’s movies. A great story might move us to experience deep emotion. For my part, when watching “The Chosen” series, I often had tears running down my cheeks as I saw the Lord through the eyes of the very, very human, and frail, disciples.
With all of this said we bring your attention to the Apostle’s text. It’s been known to happen that a believer sometimes comes to a powerful realization of their status before God. All of a sudden, with an emotional power that seizes their whole being, some have been overcome by the fact that though they deserve hell, Christ has taken that away from them. We know, of course, of the counterfeit displays of this. We’ve seen – and are probably seeing even now in our minds – the charismatic frenzies of prosperity preachers. But we should consider that these are fakes of the very real thing. The knowledge of our position before God – that is, when we really stop and consider it – will give us quite a shock.
If it’s okay for sane adults to lose their minds, so to speak, over the Clemson Tigers, it’s certainly okay for them to weep joyful tears over the fact that there is now no condemnation. In fact, it might be safe to say that the more you understand your sin, and the inability of the flesh to defeat sin, and the hopeless state we’re in before the law, the more you’ll be moved by the fact of grace. I’d go so far as to say that often a person is saved for a long time before they start to understand the true nature of what’s happened to them.
Grace. Grace has happened.
The love of God has been poured into a dead heart and now that heart yearns to please God. It yearns to be free from sin. It used to yearn for the freedom from accountability. It used to dream of freedom from others, from responsibility, from risk, accountability, and from growth. It desired success and happiness but not the Lord. And then, even after conversion, many of us, in spiritual immaturity, ask the Lord for material blessings rather than the blessing of His presence. Now, though, the renewed heart, informed by the Word of God, comes daily to the cross for cleansing – weeping anew tears of sweet joy in Christ.
Chapter 3 gave us the truth about our justification. Chapter 6 told us this is because of our union with Him and chapter 7 explained it through our total identification with Him. And now we know that there can’t be any – zip, nada, zero – condemnation for us. The foundation of our life needs to be this truth or else we’ll go insane trying to live as Christians. Without this knowledge we’ll lapse into some heresy or another. The big one is mistaking perseverance of the saints for perfection of the saints. We have the righteousness of Christ through faith. We’re justified by an act of God whereby He declared us who are ungodly to be righteous (Romans 4:5) through faith. This and only this is the foundation of our Christian walk. We’re not perfect; He is. Let us not confuse perseverance with perfection.
By faith alone there is no condemnation. And by the love of God alone – the gratitude that rises up from within the redeemed heart, knowing that it’s received mercy upon undeserved mercy – we pursue personal holiness. The love of God, poured into our broken hearts, compels us, guides us, and instructs us in the way of the Spirit.
By faith alone we’ll put to death the deeds of the body. By faith alone we’ll overcome our lusts, our anger, our fears, our failures, and our flesh. The love of God in Christ Jesus is the motive and the truth of our lives. It’s the foundation of our being now and we rejoice in the hope of the glory that is to come (see Revelation 1:4-8).
But what of the law of sin and death? It is abolished. We’re set free to live in the new life of the Spirit, which is the freedom to the principles of the Word of the Lord. Our living, which is our sanctification, is the growth that comes in the measure that the principles of Scripture saturate our minds. Justification and sanctification aren’t separate acts. We’re a veritable new creation, able to call upon the name of the Lord (“Abba, Father…”) with confidence. We can now walk after the Spirit. He lives in us! Not because of our works, but because of faith. So, were we saved by faith so that we can walk in the old way? Of course not. This is why it’s so important to understand how it is we were saved because that’s the same power – the same principle – that we walk in now.
David Starr Jordan, the former president of Stanford University over a century ago, once delivered an address on the value of education. He was a prophet for the value of education. He promised that it would lead to us dismantling our warships so that they’d carry doctors and nurses and teachers to every corner of the globe. Education would deliver mankind from darkness. Education was salvation. Well, not too long after he said this, the First World War broke out. Those warships weren’t broken down. Education didn’t cause us to beat our swords into plowshares. Why was he wrong? Because the law, weakened by the flesh, can’t save man. And if the law can’t save man, which is holy and spiritual, education won’t do the trick either. Neither will riches, or romance, or art, or politics or anything else in all creation. What will? Only faith in the Son of God. All who look upon Him will be saved.
There’s an old story about a man who was picked up by the British in their zone in Germany after World War Two. Berlin at the time was separated by the victors and each zone was ruled exclusively by the law of that country – the Soviets, the British, and the Americans. Well, the Soviets wanted the man. He was guilty of many crimes apparently. But the British refused to hand him over because they knew he’d be put to death. So that man was released from the law and went on to live the rest of his life as a free man in a new land. So it is with us. We’re no longer under the jurisdiction of the law of sin and death.
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