No condemnation

DEVOTION

ROMANS

NO CONDEMNATION

Rom 8:1-4

8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,   2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,   4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

NIV

It is almost wrong to stop at any one place in this letter as in the way Paul writes, he just keeps on going with a thought for nearly the whole of the letter. He has what modern English majors would say, one large run on sentence. There are many, ‘wherefores’ , ‘therefores’ and ‘what shall we say then’ to count. However, there are also these nuggets all through the letter. The fact there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, is one of those nuggets. It is the law of the Spirit which has set us free from the law of sin and death. What does the law of the Spirit mean? But first we must deal with the no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The preceding chapter described sinful man, so to speak, and one who does what he does not want to do and does not do what he does what to do. This is almost carnal thinking, and we certainly could identify with that struggle. But that is not the same person who lives by the Spirit it would seem. Yet if we accept, which we have, Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are not condemned. We live without condemnation from God because we are in Christ Jesus. But living by the Spirit comes with being in Christ as the Spirit of Christ dwells within us. Because we are in Christ, Christ is in us. Therefor we are no longer under control of the law of sin and death, but are living by the law of Spirit and life. Again being in Christ makes us meet all the righteous requirements of the law. We are not under the law, but are in Christ. This should make us different then when before we accepted Christ. We are different. We do not want to sin, we try to not sin, we do not live to sin, but live in Christ. Yet, we still sin. We just don’t get it completely. Should we really be able to live without any sin because the Spirit lives in us? It seems the idea is that we don’t live to sin, but live to please God. But we fail from time to time, yet how can we fail if the Spirit lives in us? When we make a mistake and sin, are we squelching the Spirit? Is that what that means? But at the same time if we say we do not sin, we deceive ourselves for we are not perfect, but the Spirit is. Still we are confident we do not live according to the sinful nature and we do live according to the Spirit. We do not purpose in our heart to sin which is living according to the sinful nature. We purpose in our heart to live according to the Spirit. We rejoice because the Spirit is alive within us and reveals our failures, our sin, so we can repent.  When we think or act according to our fleshly desires, the Spirit is there revealing our wrong thought or action. Before accepting Jesus, we did not have the Spirit to reveal our sin, we just lived in sin and knew no better. But now we do and we want the Spirit to show us the errors within our thinking and behaving so we can change and be more like Christ. The self is always there wanting its way. We know the Spirit will help us overcome the self because we are in Christ. But the blessing is that even in our state of transition, changing from the old ways to the new ways, which is a constant state of evolution, we have no condemnation from God. He does not condemn us to death because we are not yet perfect. He sees us through Jesus and he has declared us holy and righteous in his sight, therefor he does not condemn us because we are not perfect in the flesh. That does not mean we should live to satisfy the flesh, it just means when we fail, he does not say, “Well, you had your chance, and you blew it, now you’re condemned”. We are in Christ and the Spirit lives within us and God sees us as his children whom he loves and desires to fellowship with. Jesus died for our sin, we are free from death because of Jesus. We are free from condemnation because of Jesus. Let us live in that freedom. Let us live according to the Spirit, allowing him to motivate our lives in a way that pleases God.