Therefore Part One - No Condemnation
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Introduction
Introduction
Illustration: finding Nemo... fish escape by rolling their bags filled with water into the ocean. But then they realize the question “now what?!”
Illustration: Couple newly married--”now what?” (I usually have one suggestion for them)
“Therefore” series is going to be asking the question “now what?” Now that we are believers and followers of Christ, what does that mean?
Unbeliever: answers the question what does it mean to be a Christian, what are the benefits?
For us it should be both a great comfort and challenge to us.
Paul begins this chapter with a profound statement about the reality in which stand if we are “in Christ”
Main Idea: If we are genuinely in Christ; we will experience the full acquittal of judgement, freedom from law and sin, now.
We Experience the Full Acquittal of Guilt
We Experience the Full Acquittal of Guilt
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
We must not remove “in Christ”—meaning there’s just no condemnation
There is condemnation for everyone outside of Christ
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Paul has clearly established up to this point that every human is justly deserving full condemnation from God.
Romans 1:18
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
Romans 2:5
But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:17
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
Now, in Christ, we no longer have a guilty sentence—no judgement
Legal term—both the verdict and sentence has been overturned
No deserved punishment or sentence any more … it is taken for us
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
Jesus effectively unloaded the gun of God’s wrath and judgment upon himself. Now that gun is empty.
Illustration: Abraham Solomon’s Paintings (“Waiting for the Verdict” & “Not Guilty”
We Experience the Full Freedom from Sin and Law
We Experience the Full Freedom from Sin and Law
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,
When we come to be “in Christ” (we do this by believing and trusting [faith] — we are now set free from the “law of sin and death” — what does this mean?
Every human being seeks righteousness (rightness)
some of us seek it through sin (living apart from God’s law)
This leads to death because sin causes death.
Some of us seek it through actually trying to actually follow God’s law
But Paul shows that because we have sin within us, the law actually produces even more sin within us.
So Paul says in Romans 7:10-11
The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
So the conclusion is that we are doomed (Romans 7:24)
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
But there is good news! In Christ we are set free from the law of sin and death!
What is the law of the Spirit?
Paul Explains in Romans 8:3-4
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, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
It says that Jesus Christ obeyed the law perfectly and became your sacrifice. If you trust in that sacrifice, it will be sufficient. When you trust in Christ, he is sufficient to free you from the law of sin and death. (Steve Brown)
We Experience This Reality Now
We Experience This Reality Now
For those who are in Christ Jesus, now, today, not yesterday, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year, but NOW, there is no condemnation.”
But there’s a struggle isn't there? We struggle to really believe and hold on to this truth.
This is nothing new. Illustration: Copyists added a line from verse 4 to verse 1— “who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”. Why? To simply say there’s no condemnation seems too radical … too free!
We struggle with this “now” part … this compete “no condemnation” thing.
We hear the whispers of our sullied consciences and the enemy, “God can’t forgive that … again!” “If only God knew the real you, he would certainly turn away.”
Surely I need to be more spiritual, more disciplined, more gracious, more sinless for God to love me fully.
Then bad things happen… and we think “God must be punishing me for my sin! God is angry and now I’m paying for it!
Diagnostic Question: What is God’s facial expression towards you?
If you are in Christ Jesus all of God's action toward you now is mercy and grace, love and goodness. It is not mixed. It is not as though some days he is against you with wrath - and those days are bad days - while other days he is for you with love - and those days are good days. (Piper)
In Christ Jesus God is always for you. Always! This is where Paul is going in Romans 8. He gets there in verse 31 and says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us!" His point is that in Christ Jesus "no condemnation" means that God is always omnipotently for us and not against us. Always! —John Piper
Conclusion
Conclusion