No Condemnation, NOW

Romans 8 begins with the triumphant declaration, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Why does Paul say there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ? I would not have missed that word had it been omitted: “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” That is such wonderful news that I would not have thought twice if the word “now” was absent. So why did he insert that word? What is Paul trying to tell us?

As I mentioned in my sermon yesterday, there are at least two ways we might use the word “now”. We might use it to speak of something that we have been eagerly waiting for, which now, finally, is ours. My daughters receive a package from their aunt for Christmas in the first week of December, with clear instructions to not open the package until Christmas morning. Finally, Christmas arrives and we say to the girls, “It’s time; finally, after your weeks of waiting, now you can open the gift!”

Or we might use the word "now" when speaking of something that we anticipate in the future, that comes to us sooner than we expected. I am the heir of my grandfather’s estate, but he knows I have a significant need presently, so he sends a check for $5000 with a note saying, “I know this would really help you out, so please have some of your inheritance now.”

In which sense might Paul be using the word “now” in Romans 8:1? It is hard to say for certain, but I am inclined to say the first possibility makes a bit more sense in the context of this paragraph, and what Paul has already said in earlier chapters of Romans.

Notice how Paul elaborates on the good news of our freedom from condemnation in verse 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 (cf. 8:1, “no condemnation”) in the flesh…" There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, because God has now done what the law, weakened by the flesh, was not able to do. After years, decades, indeed, centuries, of struggling with God’s law because of the hardened, deadness of our sin nature, God has acted in His Son to remove the condemnation of His people. This connects with what Paul has said earlier in Romans:

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it…" (3:21). Paul goes on to explain how the verdict of righteousness (i.e., no condemnation) comes to God’s people, through His delivering up Christ to the cross to satisfy His wrath, which we receive by faith, verses 22-25.

"For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code" (7:5-6)

All those years the law commanded and the law condemned law-breakers, and through the sacrificial system, the law pointed to a righteousness and a sacrifice that would someday come. And now – finally now! – that righteousness has come in the person of Christ, in whom there is now no condemnation! Your struggle with sin, your struggle to gain righteousness on your own, apart from grace, is over, because there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

I think that is the primary sense in which Paul is using the word, “now.” But the second possibility (I was expecting an inheritance someday, but it has come now, before I expected it) could also be in view. In verses 33-34 Paul says,

"Who shall (future tense) bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us."

There is a future judgment coming, and there are days when our enemy accuses us as being rebellious, hell-deserving sinner. Sometimes our own consciences condemn us. How can we, with as much sin as still remains in our lives, be sure that on that last day, when we meet our King and Judge face to face, that the verdict will really be, ‘Not Guilty!’? Must we labor through our earthly lives wondering whether God really will in fact acquit us in His heavenly courtroom? No, we need not fear this, because there is now (already now, before the day of final judgment, so you need not wait anxiously for the verdict in the future) no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

The verdict of the last judgment was given on that first Good Friday when Jesus breathed His last and said, “It is finished!” Already now, there is no condemnation.  There is no need for anxious performance trying to clean yourself up and make yourself acceptable to God for that final day you stand before Him.  The verdict is already in; there is now no condemnation in Christ!

This is the heart of the gospel, the good news that is in Christ Jesus: There is therefore NOW (finally now, and already now!) no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Praise be to God!