“We Are Free from Condemnation” Romans 8:1-12

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of architecture. I particularly like older buildings of a certain era. There’s something interesting about the way houses and buildings were designed about 100 years ago.

Of course, such buildings are usually found in more rundown parts of town. It’s not unusual to come across a home that has clearly seen better days. In fact, there are times when a house is set for knocking down. That house has been condemned.

To be condemned is to be dismissed as unworthy of redemption. For houses, they are condemned when it would cost more to repair them and make them habitable than it would be to destroy the house.

People are sometimes condemned when we just give up on that person. “You’re hopeless,” is what we’re saying to someone like that.

Fortunately, God doesn’t see us as we often see others and, sometimes, ourselves. God doesn’t see someone who is beyond hope. The whole message of the Gospel is not only can we be redeemed, but we can be set free from condemnation for all eternity.

That’s what today’s passage is about.

Central Truth: Since Christ set us free from sin, we are no longer under condemnation.

God does not condemn us because:

Christ Died for Our Sins (1-4)

Have you ever given someone a compliment, only to have to listen to a dissertation on why the person really doesn’t deserve the compliment? Maybe we’re taught that accepting a compliment is a form of conceit, or maybe we have come to believe that we are not really worthy of praise. For most people, though, it’s hard to receive a compliment and simply say, “Thank you.”

This carries over into our walk with Christ. We want to believe that God loves us, and that He has made us His children. Maybe intellectually, we known this, but, for some reason, we just aren’t feeling it. We remember our old way of doing things, we think about where we are right now and none of us really feels as though we are right where God wants us.

We condemn ourselves in our own eyes.

As we’ve been learning over the past few weeks, though, being a child of God means we walk by faith, not by feelings. And the faith statement we can see in verses 1-2 is that God does not condemn those who follow Christ.

The key phrase in this passage is, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The moment we accept Christ as Savior, the moment we confess our sin and turn to Him, we are freed from condemnation. The reason this is so is because Jesus, through His crucifixion, and by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, we are given a freedom from sin and death.

One of the key tenets of Baptist faith is that which is called, “Once saved, always saved.” What that means is that when a person accepts Christ as Savior, that person is saved by God’s grace and brought into His family. We are grafted onto the vine that is Jesus. Once a person is saved, God saves them for all eternity.

That’s why Paul is able to write that the law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. If we are saved, we are set free from sin and from death. They no longer have a hold on us. And if we are set free from sin and death, then God cannot and will not condemn us.

It goes back to the idea of two natures. There is the sinful nature, that part of us that could only relate to the world, but not to God. And there is the spiritual nature, that ability that allows us to speak with God and hear His voice. The spiritual nature died when we sinned, but it was given new life when God’s grace saved us from our sin, freeing us from condemnation and setting us free to follow Him.

God set us free from sin by sending Christ to earth. He was tempted as we are, but is without sin. He took our sin to Calvary. By His redemptive death, Jesus took away the cost of sin. We are able now, because of God’s Spirit, to no longer live according to the sinful nature, but now we see the world and relate to the world by the Spirit’s direction.

And that means that we are not condemned.

Our Minds are Set on the Spirit (5-8)

Paul expands on the idea of the two contrasting natures. The sinful nature is focused on doing the things of Satan. That doesn’t mean that people who are unsaved are downright evil, only that they have no idea of God’s will and so follow the trail of sin that we all lived in before knowing Christ.

In contrast, Paul writes, “those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires” (v. 5b).

Look how Paul contrasts the two natures. The sinful man has his mind set on natural things, but the believer has our mind set on what the Spirit desires. The sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God, unsubmissive, unable to please God.

These last three issues deserve more detail. I find it interesting that sinful man is hostile to God, even though the Bible is clear that this is the case. From Adam and Eve to the present, our sinfulness is rebellion against God’s leadership. We tell ourselves we don’t need God, that we can do it our way. When presented by God’s truth, we turn a blind eye to Him, and sometimes we get angry. “Who are You to impose your ways on me?” we ask. This hostility naturally turns to an unwillingness to submit to God’s will. If I submit to God’s will, then it is an admission that I really do need Him. Even the hint that God might actually exist can incur the wrath of some people. How can such a person be inclined to submit to God?

The inevitable end is that such a person is unable to please God. Why should we expect God to be satisfied with us if, everytime we have the opportunity to obey Him, we turn our noses up, we sneer at the idea and we go off in the totally different direction? Our attitude is one of disdain and anger. Why should we then expect God to be pleased with that attitude?

But those who are set free from sin and death through Jesus Christ are not like that. We are blessed to set our minds on the things that God’s Spirit desires. And that leads us to the next part of today’s passage.

The Spirit Lives in Us (9-12)

Whereas the sinful person is incapable of following God’s will, those who have found freedom in Christ can live by the Spirit.

It’s a good idea in this passage to change the word, “if” into “since” in most cases. “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God lives in you. . . But since Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And since the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.”

Three things. First, we are controlled by the Spirit. He lives in us and with us, and He is at work in us to “will and to act according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). It is this Spirit that is transforming us. It is this Spirit that leads us into all truth and reminds us of all that Jesus taught.

Second, our body is dead to sin, but our Spirit is alive. Satan can only relate to us through our body. He cannot interrupt our spirit, because that is where God’s Spirit lives. So, Satan uses our body to tempt us. He seeks to do this through our emotions, our feelings, and our old way of doing things. But remember, we are dead to sin, so we are no longer obligated to listen to Satan. We bring our emotions into control of the Spirit. We are alive to God and can turn to Him when Satan tries to lure us away from Him.

Third, these dead bodies will be given new life when Christ returns. We will take on immortality and have glorified bodies. What does a glorified body look like? It looks similar to the one we have now. When the resurrected Jesus appeared, He was recognizable because He looked like the Jesus who had died on the cross. No one can say for certain what exactly the glorified body will look like, but we do know that God created us as physical people. We relate to the world and to God through our bodies. We will continue to do so for all eternity.

As a result of these three things, Paul tells us, “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it” (v.12). Paul goes on to write that “those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God” (v.14). He then tells us that the Spirit that lives in us enables us to relate to God as a child relates to his or her earthly father. “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (v.16).

Our obligation, then, in light of what was written before and in light of what God has done for us through Christ Jesus, is to live according to the Spirit.

Conclusion

I don’t like to see an old building condemned. But it is time that we learn to condemn our old way of living—that way is dead, it is gone and it must not be revived. It’s time we turn away from the feelings and emotions that tell us we are unworthy of God’s love. We need to walk away from the idea that “God will get us” and that God is looking at us with an eye to disapprove of us for every little slip up we do.

It is time we embrace the truth of God’s word. We are not condemned. Instead, we are filled with a Spirit that enables us to learn and to live God’s will in our lives. Live by faith, not by feelings.