No Condemnation - Part 1

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I invite you to turn this morning to James Chapter 2. We're not going to continue our study in James this morning. For those of you who are visiting I should tell you that we find ourselves in a verse-by-verse study of the book of James. But there was a verse, as we went through it last time, that stood out to me and it sort of confronted me all week. And I just feel like it's important for us to go back and look at the issue that it raises in considerably more detail.

We're not going to stay here in James, but let me just call your attention to James 2:10. James, of course, is dealing with the issue of partiality; of showing either favoritism or prejudice based purely on external factors. And in the middle of that discussion, he throws in this rather strange verse, really, to appear in such a discussion. He says, "whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all." And then in Verse 11 he makes it clear that he is speaking here of the moral law of God, that law of God that is encapsulated in the Ten Commandments, because he quotes two of them in Verse 11. As I thought about that and my mind went over this verse again this week, it occurred to me that the law of God is largely ignored in today's Christianity. When is the last time you heard a message on the law of God? This has not always been true but it's certainly true today.

This week I've been reading a book that I highly recommend to you by Iain Murray. Iain Murray was an assistant to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who pastored Westminster Chapel in England for many years, and who, as you know, is a mentor of mine; although I never had the opportunity to meet him. He's a mentor through his works. But Iain Murray, his former assistant, wrote a book called The Old Evangelicalism. Listen to what he writes:

Those who do not know that they are bound and prisoners, have no desire for the redemption that sets free from the power and captivity of sin. Those who do not know that they are lawbreakers will not look to One who has honored that law in the place of sinners. Those who do not know the displeasure of God will not listen to a message of wrath turned aside and forgiveness provided in Jesus Christ. Where the gospel is presented solely as forgiveness, only as a change of status before God, it may appeal to the self-interest of the unregenerate. A person may believe that message and still be content to live an unchanged life. But where the conscience is more thoroughly dealt with by the law of God, a larger need comes into view and one which forgiveness alone would not answer. There must also be a change of nature; a deliverance from self; a new life.

He's exactly right. And in fact, there are a number of passages of Scripture that come to mind that clearly present this same truth of the role of the law in bringing us to the place where we truly seek forgiveness in Christ. I'm reminded of Romans 3:20 where Paul says, "through the law comes the knowledge of sin." Romans 7:7 (Paul says about himself personally): "I would not have come to know [about my own] sin except through the law; for I would have not known about coveting if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'" And where did Christ take the rich young ruler? You remember the young man who came to him with a sense of self-righteousness, asking what he could do to earn eternal life? Where did Jesus point that young man? He pointed him to the law. You see, understanding God moral requirements summarized in what we call the Ten Commandments is absolutely crucial, both in the cause of evangelism as well as a pattern of obedience for us as believers.

I want us to turn back to Exodus Chapter 20 this morning for a few minutes, which is where the first occurrence of the Ten Commandments is recorded. These commands are often called the "Ten Words." They are really only ten Hebrew words that summarize all of God's requirements for man. That was of course very important in a culture in which there was no written Bible. The people didn't have the Word of God to carry around like you have. They heard it orally. And so God gave them ten words. And if they could remember those ten words, they had a summary of all of God's requirements; all of God's expectations for life. These ten words are hooks on which every other law of God hangs. They're an outline. For example, take the commandment "honor your father and mother." Parents are not the only form of God-appointed authority. But by including one commandment on the issue of the duty we have to constituted authority in our lives, God reminds His people of all of His regulations; of all of His rules pertaining to our response to authority in our lives — whether it's the response to leaders in the church, whether it's response to government, or whether it's response to parents, etc. We're reminded of all authority. Take the commandment regarding adultery. Adultery obviously isn't the only sexual sin, but by including this commandment in the Decalogue, God reminds us of all that He has to say about this area of our lives; and so forth with all of the other commands.

Also, it's important to remember that God finishes the Decalogue, the Ten Words, with one that shows us that it's not merely external conformity that He seeks, but an internal response; because He ends by saying, "You shall not covet." This is an issue of the heart. So He wants us to know that not only for the tenth, but for the other nine as well, they are to penetrate not merely to our behavior but to the essence of our heart; what goes on inside of us; to attitude.

There's another very important point that many Christians overlook pertaining to the Ten Commandments. Have you ever asked yourself, "Why are all of them not in the negative form?" Eight of them are in negative — "You shall not." But two of them are positive — the fourth, "Remember the Sabbath"; and the fifth, "Honor your father and mother." Now God could have put both of those in the negative form as well. It would have been easy enough to say, "Don't dishonor your parents." Why the positive? There's a lesson there for us. The lesson is that not only are we required not to do the sin that each commandment addresses, but we are required to put on the positive virtue that is the opposite of those sins. And in the case of these two positive commandments, we are forbidden from sinning with the opposite vice of those two virtues. Christ, of course, helps us understand this even more when He summarizes the Ten Commandments. Do you remember how He summarizes God's moral law? He doesn't use two negative commands. Instead, He uses two positive commands: "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength" and "love your neighbor as yourself." This is to remind us that the Ten Commandments aren't merely about what you shouldn't do. They are primarily about what we must do. It's not enough to say that you've never broken a commandment, although no one can say that honestly. Instead, you must be able to say that you have constantly demonstrated the positive virtue both internally and externally.

As an outline of the entire law, these Ten Words really represent ten categories; ten areas of life in which God has revealed His will; and they serve as hooks on which everything God has said about that area of life can be hung. Let's look at them together. Look at the preface. The preface leading into the Ten Commandments underscores the weight and authority of these commands. Their importance is clearly obvious; first of all, because of the way they were revealed. Verse 1 begins, "Then God spoke all of these words, saying." These laws are not copied from the nations around them. God didn't borrow from Hammurabi. God spoke from the mountain. If you read Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 you discover that God actually spoke these words from the mountaintop of Sinai, and the people were absolutely frightened because the mountain was covered with smoke and fire. It was shaking with an earthquake. A trumpet started blowing, and kept blowing louder and louder until finally it stopped. And into that silence God spoke these words. It added serious weight to them. If you and I had been there, we would have been terrified along with the rest of them. Notice the person who revealed them. This also underscores the importance. "I am the Lord" (Verse 2 — "I am Yahweh. I Am the I Am; the eternally existent One; the One who needs nothing, but who gave you life and everything you have"). Moreover, look at their relationship to Him. He says, "I am your God." He also has a right to command them based on the grace He has shown them. The end of Verse 2, "I am…your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." How exactly did these people get out of Egypt into the foot of Sinai to hear this covenant God was making with them? It was through His act; by His gracious divine act of deliverance. That should be a motive for obedience, just as it is for us. We've not been rescued from Egypt, but we've been rescued from slavery of a different kind.

So that's the context in which these words appear — God speaking personally from the mountain; the people, two million plus, hearing the voice of God. And here is what He said. The first commandment is in Verse 3, "You shall have no other gods before Me." The category of life which this command speaks to is obvious. It is the category of: Who is going to be God? God Himself. This command tells us that we are to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and our God. And we are to refuse to allow anything to be more important to us than God. You see, you don't have to set up a stone statue and fall down in front of it to be an idolater. There just has to be something in your life that's more important to you than God; something that you cling to more than you cling to obedience to God. "You shall have no other gods before Me."

The second command is in Verse 4. This speaks to the issue of worship. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them nor serve them." The first commandment spoke to the object of our worship. The second command speaks to the mode or means of our worship. Notice the prohibitions — "Don't make." This forbids making a visual representation, even of the true God, to be an object through which we worship God. It also forbids all forms of false worship. "Just don't make," He said, "don't make a form through which you're going to worship Me or something else." And then He says, "Don't worship." Here the Septuagint uses the word that refers to bodily gestures such as bowing or kneeling. He says, "Don't make it and don't bow down to it or kneel before it."

One of the saddest things in my life is to go into churches like the Russian Orthodox Church that I had a chance to be in last February over in Samara, Russia; and watch these dear old ladies fall down at the foot of some statue of Jesus and kiss His feet, assuming that somehow that's going to be a proper way for them to worship the true God and His Son. God says, "Don't make such an image. And don't worship it. Don't kneel down to it." And then He says, "Don't serve it." This includes all religious ceremonies; offering of sacrifices, incense, etc. The spiritual import of this command, of the second commandment, forbids all human invention in the worship of God. By the way, that's why we do what we do in our services. We're here to worship God. The Bible has prescribed five things that should happen in worship. There is singing of praises to God, there is prayer to God, there is giving, there is the reading of God's Word, and there is the teaching of God's Word. That's why we do what we do and no more. Because if we stray from what God's Word has prescribed, we might very well cross the boundary and worship God in human invention, and break the second commandment.

There's a third command — Verse 7. It has to do with our attitude; and attitude toward and treatment of God. "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." Essentially this commandment teaches us that God is to be feared and treated with the greatest reverence and respect. Nothing that is associated with God is to be taken lightly; trivially.

The fourth command is in Verse 8. This speaks to the category of our lives of our time. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." This command tells us that God is the Lord of our time; of all of our time. And He has prescribed that we devote most of our time to working; and yet that we set aside time to worship Him. "Six days you shall work," He says, "and on one day you will worship Me." Of course, the New Testament in Colossians 2 tells us that the day has changed and the form in which we approach worship. We're not forbidden from doing everything else as it was in the Old Testament. But we are to set aside time to worship God. We do it on the first day of the week, in the pattern of the early Church, to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord on Sunday. But we are to give our time to God. We are to commit six days to work and one day to worship.

Now the fifth commandment in Verse 12 says, "Honor your father and your mother." Here God transitions from Himself to human beings. Specifically, as Martin Luther the Reformer writes, "To those who are the representatives of God, as God is to be served with honor and fear, His representatives are to be so to." This commandment speaks to the issue of authority. It's not simply about parents. It speaks to the issue of authority. God has put certain people over us in a position of authority and they are to be honored because of that. Whoever God has placed in authority over you — whether it's in the home, or whether it's government, or whether it's in the workplace, wherever it is — those who are in authority over you are to be respected because there is a system of authority in our world that allows there to be the influence of God, the influence of control, as opposed to anarchy.

The sixth command is in Verse 13. This speaks to the category of human life: "You shall not murder." Notice there's no direct object. It doesn't say that it's appropriate to take any life, including your own. You see life is divinely given and must be respected and preserved. God is the One who holds the keys of life and death, and you and I are to take every reasonable step to preserve our own lives and the lives of others. This applies to everything from how you drive on the roads, to taking reasonable stewardship of your body, to doing nothing to damage or harm another person — even in your thoughts. Christ says if you have anger and resentment and you lash out in angry speech toward another person, it's as if you murdered them. It's as if you broke this commandment.

The seventh command in Verse 14 speaks to human sexuality: "You shall not commit adultery." The essence of this command is that God has given us the gift of sexuality, and He insists that that gift be enjoyed, but only in keeping with His design and with His intention within the framework of marriage. Everything else is an absolute violation of this commandment.

The eighth is in Verse 15: "You shall not steal." The area of our lives this addresses is, of course, property. God has distributed material wealth according to His own sovereign purposes, and He demands that we respect the property of others and that we be wise stewards of our own. This even goes to the issue of how you use your money. Do you use it wisely? Do you give? Do you save? Or do you spend everything you have and even go into debt buying more toys? Property is an issue that God is concerned about and He expects us to be wise stewards with our own and to care for that of others as well.

In Verse 16 He addresses in the ninth commandment the issue of our speech. It's a huge category of how we use our mouths. It says, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." God demands that we maintain and promote truth in our speech. And, of course, this commandment includes all that Scripture has to say, such a huge volume of material, about how we use our mouths. This command is to remind us that God cares about what comes out of our mouths.

And the tenth speaks to our life circumstances. Verse 17: "You shall not covet." And it goes on to list a number of things you're not to covet. You see, God demands that we be content with our condition, with our circumstances, with our state in life; rather than desiring what He has not seen fit to give us.

Now take a look at that list again. Perhaps to this very moment you thought that you had kept most of the Ten Commandments. The truth is, when you really come to understand them, you see that you and I have violated them all. There isn't a single one that we can honestly stand before God and say, "I have kept that with all of my heart, every moment of my life." Most people understand that they often sin. I don't know about you, but when I talk to people about Christ, I've never (or I shouldn't say never — I've rarely) had someone say (it's happened on a few occasions), "I don't think I sin. I have no issue. I don't sin." Very few deny it. Yet most people, even though they acknowledge that reality, have no clue as to the magnitude of the problem. It's because they just don't see it. They don't understand God's law.

For sixteen years, as you know, I lived in Los Angeles, in a northern suburb called Santa Clarita, at the edge of L.A. County. The whole area of L.A. was composed of about 80 cities and about 12 million people. With that kind of population, you can imagine how many lights there were at night. Because of that, because of the lights of the city, at night where I lived you could walk outside, as I often did out on my patio, and see only a few stars. It was still impressive just seeing a few. But it was just a few. One of my favorite memories is when my family and I went up to Yosemite, which became one of our favorite California places. And one night we were staying at a cabin there near the Yosemite Valley. We went outside and we decided to lay our sleeping bags on the deck where there was no cover, and turn out all the lights in the cabin, and just look up. And it was spectacular. The sky was literally ablaze with the light of billions of stars. Now think about that for a moment. Those same stars had been over our heads in L.A. every night, but we just had not been able to see them. Perhaps you've had a similar experience when you've gone out into the countryside somewhere and seen the panoply of the sky painted with the stars of heaven. The same thing is true with our sins. Because we don't really understand the divine standard, we see our sins like you can see the stars on a typical L.A. night. We just see a few of the largest ones here and there. But when we really grasp the law of God, we begin to see that our sins cover our souls like the stars blanket the sky in a pitch-black night. We have a huge problem.

It's more accurate to say we really have two problems. Our first problem is that the law of God demands perfect obedience. It's not that it's ok to do well with these commands 50 percent of the time, or do well with five of them and not the other five. The law of God demands perfect, consistent, constant obedience. Our second problem is that the law demands the punishment of eternal death for the violation of this law. Now I have to tell you, it's not a very popular topic in today's church. But the Bible teaches that God will punish the violators of His law. And He'll do that forever in a place of misery and torment. After Hurricane Katrina, I heard a man on the news talk about how terrible his circumstances had been over the last week. And he said something like, "It's just been like hell." I wanted to tell him, "Sir, as bad as your last few days have been, and I'm sure it has been horrific, beyond what I can imagine, it doesn't even come close to comparing with the reality that is hell." Listen to what Christ said. Turn to Luke Chapter 12. These are the words of our Lord. And He says in Verse 4 of Luke 12, "I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more they can do." Don't be afraid of the guy down the street that can kill you, of the mugger, or the robber, or the kidnapper. Don't be afraid of that person. All they can do is kill the body. Verse 5: "But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!" You see, since we have failed to love God and others perfectly, for even a moment of our lives, that's what we deserve and what we will get. Our only hope is in Christ. Because it was in Christ's death that God dealt with our violation of the law, that violation that deserves punishment. And it was in Christ's life that God dealt with our lack of personal righteousness. Christ is our only hope. We stand before the law of God guilty, guilty as charged, and deserving of death.

To help us get our minds around what God has done for us in Christ, I want us to turn this morning to Romans Chapter 8. Yes, that's all been a very long but very important introduction. Why is it important? What did Christ say? He said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, only those who are sick." You don't go to the doctor when you're well. You only go to the doctor if you're convinced there's something really wrong with you. And it's so important spiritually to be convinced of what our true condition is, or we don't want what Christ has to offer.

Let me read Romans 8:1-4 for you. I'd like for us to look at this in the time we have remaining this morning, and then again tonight we'll finish it. Romans 8:1:

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Now to give you somewhat of the flow and the context of these verses I've just read, let me remind you that Chapter 7, the entire previous chapter, is essentially Paul's recorded spiritual autobiography. And the entirety of his spiritual life could be summarized in one word, and that's the word "sin." In Verses 7 through 13 of Chapter 7, Paul details his sinfulness before Christ found him on the Damascus road; and he talks about how he had a heart given over to covetousness. Oh yes, there was this external piety; external piety to the extent of being willing to torture and execute Christians. But inside the sordid story was, Paul says, "I had a heart filled with coveting of every kind." He said, "My heart was absolutely overcome with lusts of every kind." But Paul's sin didn't end, rather, at his conversion. In Chapter 7:14-24, Paul goes on to describe the sin that still permeated his life. He describes himself even as an Apostle. The very thing that he doesn't want to do, he ends up doing; and the thing he sets out to do, he doesn't do. He ends his self-portrait, reaches a sort of crescendo, in Verse 24: "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" Listen, if that's not how you think of yourself — if you have a higher thought of yourself than that verse, then you are spiritually clueless and you probably have never come to genuine saving faith in Jesus Christ. Because this is the way you get in.

Do you remember our Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount? He begins the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. And the very first Beatitude in Matthew 5:3 is, "Blessed are the beggars in spirit"; those who recognize they have absolutely nothing to offer God. It's like the tax collector in Luke 18:13 who was unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. He came at the time of the sacrifice. The afternoon sacrifice probably was a time of prayer. And as the lamb was being sacrificed in the temple, he refused to even lift up his eyes to God. But instead, we're told he beat on his chest, he looked down, and he said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" In essence, in Chapter 7 of Romans, Paul is saying, "I was a sinner before I became a Christian. And I'm still a sinner. My only hope is found outside of me. That hope is found in Jesus Christ." That's why he comes to Verse 25 of Chapter 7: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" And that ties immediately into Chapter 8:1: "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." And we leave the issue of Paul's sin in Chapter 7, and in Chapter 8 he develops our security in Christ; the believer's security in Christ. And as he begins to drive that theme home, he declares that for the one who believes in Jesus Christ, the condemnation of God's law is forever gone. He provides us with four details about that great truth, the fact that our condemnation is gone. Four details. Let's look at them together.

The first is the reality itself. First part of Verse 1: "Therefore there is now no condemnation." Now to really appreciate this, you have to go back and look at where Paul has been in Romans already. He has already made it clear that every human being stands condemned before God. If you were to go back and go through the first three chapters, Paul makes that very clear. Look at Romans 3:19; here is where he concludes his indictment of every human being. Romans 3:19: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law" (which he has already proved to be everybody) "so that every mouth may be closed." In other words, you have nothing to say. You stand before God, someday when every human being stands before God, they will have absolutely nothing to say in their defense. And all the world may become accountable to God. Literally if we had time to take that apart and unpack it, you would see that what he is really saying is every human being lives his life on death row; merely awaiting the sentence, awaiting the execution of the sentence. We're condemned. Chapter 5:16 — he makes the same point. He says, "Through Adam's transgression judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation." He says, "We stand condemned."

What does it mean to be condemned? Well, we use the same expression of criminals in our world. We describe someone as a "condemned criminal." When we say that, what we mean is that that person has been found guilty, they've been sentenced, and all that remains is the execution of the sentence. We use the same terminology of a building. You say, "that building is condemned." What do you mean? Well, you mean that building has been found uninhabitable, and it has been marked for destruction. We are condemned in that sense. That's the context into which Paul writes these amazing words in Verse 1. It begins: "Therefore." This means, as an inference, "from what I've already told you" (probably a reference to the entire first part of the book, Chapters 1 through 7, "in reference to all that I've told you"). "Therefore there is now" (that is, under the circumstances of the justification I've just described for you, as a result of justification that's found in Christ as the gift of God's righteousness to the believing sinner) "there is therefore no condemnation." For the justified sinner there is now no condemnation. Just the sound of that is wonderful, isn't it? We love those words. But what does that mean? Well, the Greek word that is translated "condemnation" comes from the language of the court room. It's a legal term. To be condemned, two things were true in the Greek world. Number one, you had received a verdict of "guilty." The court had presided and the judge had pronounced you guilty as charged. Secondly, it meant that not only had you been declared guilty, but you had been sentenced to the penalty that your particular crime deserved. You were condemned, found guilty, and sentenced. And Paul says that for the justified sinner, neither of those exist. There is no condemnation.

In other words, let me apply it very directly and personally. If you're a believer here this morning, God will not, indeed, God cannot, ever pronounce you guilty again before His courtroom. Moreover, the fact that there's no condemnation means not only will God never pronounce you guilty before Him again, but He will never have a sentence of death on your head again. There is no sentence of death hanging over your head like a sort of … ready to fall at any moment. And there never will be. There is no condemnation. It reminds me of John 5:24 where our Lord said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes in Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come" (literally it's the present tense in the Greek text — 'is not coming') "into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." That's the reality of your circumstance. If you truly believed in Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation. There is no guilty verdict on your head and never will be, even though you deserve it and I deserve it as well. And there is no sentence of death that is now or ever will be on your record. It's gone; wiped away; no condemnation.

How can a sinner, pronounced guilty by God, bearing the sentence of eternal punishment – how can a sinner like that, like I am and like you are — how can we come to enjoy the reality of no condemnation? Well, that brings us to the second detail that Paul outlines here; the reasons. Look at the second half of Verse 1 and Verse 2: "for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death." You see Paul here identifies two reasons that there is no longer condemnation for the believer. The first is that we are inseparably united with Jesus Christ. Verse 1: "for those who are in Christ Jesus." No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. In this one phrase, Paul identifies not only who experiences no condemnation, but why. Paul loves this phrase, "in Christ Jesus." He often introduces his letters to the churches by saying, "I'm writing to you who are the saints 'in Christ,' or 'in Christ Jesus.'" He does this in 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians; over and over and over again Paul says, "You're in Christ." But I'm afraid we rarely give it any thought. This was crucial to Paul, and it should be for us. As Sinclair Ferguson writes, "The spiritual union with Christ is the foundation of all our spiritual experience and all our spiritual blessings."

We are "in Christ." But what does that mean? In what sense are we "in Christ?" Well, there are a couple of things to understand. First of all, we've been united with Him. We are "in Him" in the sense that He is our representative. In 1 Corinthians 15:22, Paul writes, "as in Adam all die." You see, we were associated with Adam. We were "in him" in the sense that he was our representative. When he acted, it's as if we sinned. Even so, he goes on to say, "in Christ all [those who believe] will be made alive." Not only was Adam our representative (and he failed us miserably), but Christ is our representative, and we're united to Him in that sense. We're "in Christ" as our representative. We're also united to Him spiritually in a spiritual union. First Corinthians 6:17 says we are one spirit with Christ. That magnificent text in Galatians 2:20 says that "Christ lives in me." I'm a believer. There is a spiritual union. In fact, this image of the vine and the branches is used to describe that union. We are to Christ as branches are to a vine. Our life flows, as it were, directly from and through Him. Our spiritual existence is maintained by His energy. The other image that's often used in the New Testament is the image of a head and a body. Christ is our Head and we are the body. He directs us even as our head directs the rest of our body as to what to do. So we're united with Christ as our representative. We're united to Him spiritually.

We're also united to Him by faith. In Ephesians 3:17 it says Christ dwells in our hearts by faith. Galatians 3:26-27 [says] through faith we have been baptized into Christ. Because we have exercised faith in Christ, we are "in Him." And Paul says, "there is therefore now no condemnation" because we are "in Christ Jesus." There's a song that we've begun to sing here at our church that I love dearly called "Before the Throne of God Above." And it speaks in the final verse about the fact that our life is hid with Christ in God. There is no way to touch us because we're "in Christ." Nothing can happen to you, believer, that can't happen to Christ. Can Christ be eternally condemned? Of course not. And neither can you because you are "in Him."

Paul gives us the second reason that the just condemnation of the law upon us has been removed. It's in Verse 2. Not only are we inseparably united with Christ, but the second reason is the Spirit has freed us from the demands of the law. Verse 2: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death." Now this is a very difficult verse to interpret (I'll be honest with you). It's because it's very hard to know what two laws he's talking about here. Let's take a look at the first one: "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Now this is an obvious reference to the life-giving power of the Spirit. John 6:63 says that "It is the Spirit who gives life." But what is "the law of the Spirit?" That's a term that isn't used anywhere else in the New Testament — "the law of the Spirit." Well, it's probably a reference to the New Covenant message of the gospel of which the Spirit is the author, and under whose power we are changed. So it's a reference essentially to the gospel. You say, "well why call the gospel a law?" Well I think the best answer to that is that of Robert Haldanes, the famous commentator on Romans. He says, "The gospel may be properly denominated the law, or power of the Holy Spirit, because, as a law has authority and binds to obedience, so the gospel bears the stamp of Divine authority. It requires the obedience of faith; and when men refuse this submission, it is said that they have not 'obeyed the gospel' of our Lord Jesus Christ." So we're essentially talking here about the gospel.

Now what is the second law? Before we can interpret the verse, we have to understand what that law is as well. Verse 2 ends with a mention of "the law of sin and of death." What is that? Well notice Verse 3 begins with the word "For." And then he continues and he clearly discusses the Law of God: "For what the Law of God could not do…God did." But the "requirement [Verse 4] of God's law" — and so forth. So he's obviously referring to the Law of God at the beginning of Verse 3, and he's referring back to the end of Verse 2. So the point is "the law of sin and death" must be a reference to the "Law of God." Now that shouldn't surprise us because back in Romans 7:9-11, Paul has told us that when the law came, when he really understood the law, it resulted in both his sin and his spiritual death. So it is "the law of sin and death." It doesn't have the power to produce life.

So let me interpret Verse 2 for you; let me paraphrase it for you. Here essentially is what Paul is saying: The Spirit's power working in and through the gospel has forever freed us from trying to keep God's Law as a way to earn personal righteousness. It's freed us. We no longer have to try to strive to keep God's moral laws. We looked at it this morning as a way to please Him, as a way to earn His favor, as a way to gain acceptance with Him, which of course is an impossibility. Still, every unbeliever is still under the law. Have you ever thought about this? Every unbeliever is still under the law. He can do one of three things. He can either keep it perfectly and earn eternal life, which is an impossibility. Or he can fail to keep it perfectly and be punished for every violation. Or thirdly, he can turn in faith and repentance to Christ, admit his inability, and accept Christ's righteousness instead of his own. And, of course, as believers that's exactly what we've done. And when that happens, Paul says by the Spirit we are removed from the demands of the law as a way to earn God's favor, as a way to gain standing and status before God. This is what he says. Look at Romans 6:14: "we are not under law but under grace." Chapter 7:4: "you were made to die to the law through the body of Christ." Verse 6: "But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

Paul's first sermon made this same point in Acts 13:39. He said, "Through Christ everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses."

In what sense are we not under the law? In what sense are we free from the law of God? God hasn't changed His character, has He? It's not ok now to commit the sexual sins that were forbidden for us before, is it? No, of course not. We're free in this sense. We are no longer under the law as a way to be justified before God as when we were unbelievers. The law served its purpose. It brought us to our knees. It showed us we can never please God on our own. We can never have enough righteousness to earn our way into His presence. And it brought us to the place to embrace Christ. In fact, I think the most concise statement of the purpose of the law is in Galatians Chapter 2. Turn there for just a moment — Galatians 2:19 — the most concise statement of the role of the law in the entire Scripture. Paul says, "For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God." What does he mean? Well I don't think my words can put it any better than John Gerstner's. Listen to what he writes: "Paul meant that the law became his teacher to lead him away from itself to the Savior. When he fully comprehended the law's meaning, he realized what a violator of it he actually was, and he died to it as the meritorious ground of his salvation." And by God's grace we are dead to the law in the same way. While it remains our standard of obedience, we don't keep it to earn our standing before God. Christ has earned it in our stead. We are free from the law. Not in the sense of [how] some of my college roommates used to sing it, "Free from the law, oh happy condition. Sin all I want, well easy remission." That's not the freedom from the law we have. We have freedom from the law in the sense that we no loner have to strive to keep it as a way to earn our salvation before God. It could never happen anyway. Instead, the law taught us that could never happen. And it drove us to Christ. No condemnation now I dread.

What should be our response to this great reality? Well, it should flood your heart with gratitude to God for what He has done for you in Christ. There's another thing I think it should do. And my own heart has been struck with this this week as I studied this passage and I thought it through. I don't think we love Jesus Christ the way we ought to love Christ. I don't think we love Him like Paul loved Him; like the other writers of the New Testament loved Him. And I think the reason is we have not fully come to appreciate what Christ has rescued us from. Who are the ones who love the most? Christ said, "Those who are [what?] forgiven most." It's not that some of us have been forgiven more than others. The point is, when we come to fully appreciate all that we've been forgiven from, we will love the most. My prayer is that the truth we've looked at this morning and will continue to look at tonight in this passage will cause every one of us to be more deeply devoted to the Person of Jesus Christ, who is our Rescuer from the demands of God's holy law. Let's pray together.

Father, what do we say to these things? If You are for us, who can be against us? Who can condemn us when through the life and death of Jesus Christ, You have declared us to be righteous? Lord, we praise You. We thank You that there is therefore now no condemnation; no sentence of guilty; no impending punishment — and never will be. Lord, we rejoice in Your goodness. I pray for the person here this morning, Father, who in their heart of hearts as they sit there this morning and have heard Your Word, they have been confronted with themselves. They realize they have no hope, that they have violated Your holy law, and that they will suffer eternal punishment separate from the intervention of Your grace. Lord I pray that this morning would be the morning that they would repent; that they would be willing to leave their sin and embrace Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as their Lord and their Savior; become His disciple; His follower; and in so doing, receive as a gift a right standing before You. Lord I pray that would happen even this morning. We pray it in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.