Title: Comfort or Concern?
v1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…”
Truly one of the great phrases in all of scripture. But in order to understand this phrase as more than simply being comforting, we’d do well this morning to consider the depth of this phrase and how it relates to what Paul has been teaching us through the first seven chapters of Romans thus far.
In order to do that correctly I’d like to look more closely at two phrases within this verse.
1. “Therefore now.”
This signifies a time requirement. Now, Paul tells us, now that Christ has come, and has served as the final fulfillment of the law, because of this, there is presently no condemnation for followers of Christ.
So the logical question becomes: What about the men and women of God who lived before Christ? How are there sins forgiven? The answer: by the same blood of Christ. For them, the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham’s family had not yet come. They were held by God’s grace, in his forbearance, knowing that Christ blood would be spilt for past sinners like Moses, Abraham, David, and Ruth, present sinners like Peter, Paul, John, and James, and future sinners like you and I.
What Paul is saying by signifying the time is this: Now the age of Christ and the Messiah are a present reality. We live in a time when we can understand our own lack of ability to make ourselves holy through the law, and it is then that we turn to Jesus, accept his death in our place, and becomes followers of His Way.
2. “No condemnation.”
I believe this is a two-fold reference from Paul concerning our escaping sin. First, we are free from the judgement itself. Not that we won’t be judged, for Hebrews tells us clearly that every human, believer or not will have every one of their thoughts and actions laid out before God and we must give account for them.
The difference between the believer and the non-believer at this point is that the believer has no intercessor, no one to speak on their behalf. My sin, I am sure, when laid upon the altar of God, will be just as sickening and depraved as my non-Christian neighbors. But in that moment, it is Christ who will step forward and say, “Father, this one is with me.”
And because of Christ’s complete holiness, the only thing judgement will see will the innocent spilt blood of the son, and I will be accepted into eternity with God based not on my being sinless and white, but based on myself being stained blood red.
The second reference is to the punishment of the judgement itself.
The result of Christ interceding on my behalf is that I receive grace, that is, exactly what I don’t deserve and could never earn on my own. The sinner who does not repent does not receiving a cruel punishment, we need to lose this notion of our God “enjoying” the consequence of Hell.
The very real consequence of Hell is, in fact, exactly what God’s Holiness requires from an unrepentant soul.
We often read the papers and view our television and comment on our justice system. We are upset when people who have money, or celebrity status, or both, seem to “get off the hook” and have reduced sentences. And, on the other side of the coin, when a minority if convicted of the same crime, we often see people handed down unusually cruel and long sentences, and we cry “inequality” in cur justice system.
And it has been this way since the dawn of man, and it will be this way forever. Why? Because the system is made of men, run by men, and is therefore, inherently sinful and flawed.
But judgement before our perfect, holy, God is an entirely different animal.
There are exactly two options with judgement before God. Either the person is an enemy of God and receives exactly what he or she deserves, or the person is a reconciled enemy of God and they receive grace. There is no other option.
And what is the evidence that Paul points to in order to illustrate which one an individual may be? The way that person walks. They either walk according to the spirit, or they walk according to the flesh.
And it was in the previous chapter, Romans 7, where Paul goes into detail about the overlapping opposition of those two forces waging war within our souls.
So we come to our concluding question this morning: Does Romans 8:1 bring you comfort, or bring you concern? It depends on where you walk. If you are saved this morning, if your life points to the evidence of that supposed profession, repentance, and conversion to Christ, then this verse should grant you comfort…in knowing you will be receiving grace instead of judgement.
But if you walk according to the flesh. If the evidence of your life contradicts what you say you believe, then this verse should cause you extreme concern. Because there are millions of “professing Christians” burning in Hell right now, who sat in the same pews you are sitting in, who sang the same hymns we’ve sung this morning, who kept the same company you keep, who paid their tithes diligently, and who were also hypocrites and picked and chose what parts of the Bible they’d follow and even when they’d follow them. You look these people Sunday morning in the church and they look and act like everyone else.
But you put these people back into the world and they look and act like the world.
God will give the chameleon exactly what they deserve.