WARNING PREACHY…
Romans 8:1-11
There
is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the
law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin
and death. 3 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, 4 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. 5 For those who live
according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those
who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death,
but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For
the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to
God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those
who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You,
however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God
dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to
him. 10 But
if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is
life because of righteousness. 11 If
the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through
his Spirit who dwells in you.
These
words were written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Rome. In just 11 verses he tackles a bunch of
Christian concepts.
1.
Condemnation
2.
The
Law
3.
Flesh
and Spirit
4.
The
Incarnation of Jesus
5.
The
Incarnation of Men
6.
Righteousness
7.
Life
and Death
8.
The
Resurrection from the Dead
9.
The
Holy Spirit
There
is a lot here and can easily leave us befuddled if we don’t address the passage
in its parts. So over the next weeks I
want to take some time to address these parts together.
CONDEMNATION…
Romans 8:1-2
1There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free
in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
The
idea of condemnation is from Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned against
God. From the very moment men chose to
go their own way they were spiritually separated from God and became spiritually
dead. Without repairing the severed
relationship with God, men would physically die and be automatically condemned
to spiritual death in Hell. It’s not
pretty but that’s the reality.
In
the Old Testament, God gave the Israelites the Law (i.e. The 10 Commandments)
to follow in order to honor God. In this
way, they lived but the problem was that the Law was not able to repair man’s
severed relationship with Him, so the Messiah was sent to do what was necessary
to makes the repair. The Spirit of the
Messiah (Jesus Christ) did the work on the cross through His death, burial, and
resurrection which destroyed sin and death, thus eliminating what separates us
and this redeemed us from our slavery to sin and death.
Therefore,
all who trust and hope in Christ are not condemned to the automatic spiritual
death when they physically die because the Spirit of Christ has set them free
from it. The physical Law (10
Commandments) held us in bondage to sin and death but the law of Spiritual life
has set us free and repaired our spiritual connection with God once again.
This
hope and life is the reality of our Christian lives. Often, people will get baptized, confirmed, and
dedicated then go to church for the rest of their lives in order to go to
heaven when they die. But the real message
here is that the Spirit of Life (Jesus Christ) has set us free from our slavery
to sin and death. This is why there is NOW
NO CONDEMNATION; because we have been redeemed!
The
caveat here is but this, the only ones who need not worry about condemnation
are those who are in Christ Jesus:
meaning those who have faith in His death, burial, and resurrection as
the redeeming factor for their lives.
For those who do not have this belief in Jesus continue where they were,
and are still condemned.
Jude 1:5
5 Though you already know all this, I want
to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but
later destroyed those who did not believe.
So there are two groups here, those who
believe that Christ redeemed us and those who do not. For those who do not, then their fates are
the same as that of Adam, but for those who do, they are in Christ and
therefore have no condemnation to be concerned with. For those of us who have faith in Christ, we
do not fear death because we know that God sees the shed blood of Jesus covering
over our sin. We need not fear judgement
for we will be passed over as the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the
Israelites when it saw the blood of the lamb on their door jams.
Do
you have the faith in Christ and know that there is no condemnation or do you
still worry about meeting Him face to face on Judgment Day? If you are concerned, I suggest you need to
meet with the Jesus who is because in Him, there is now no condemnation.
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