“There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
-Romans 8:1
I find Jesus and the gospel to be good and true, but also exciting, interesting, captivating, haunting, life-giving, and endlessly enjoyable. That’s why we gather, why we open our Bibles and fold our hands in prayer – not because we’re obligated to do so, but because Jesus stirs up something in us, something powerful, beautiful, and eternal.
The Gospel is not good advice, a good plan, a good product or a good sales pitch (which stirs up nothing in us but a bit of anxious desire). Rather, it is news, good news. It is an announcement of something that is plainly true, whether we want to buy it or not. Nothing we can say will make the Gospel any more or less true, any more or less good. It simply is. Paul presents it to us the same way he might present us with any other obvious fact. The sky is blue. Summer is hot. Winter is cold. And there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So, when Paul says this, that there is nothing in this world that can condemn us, nothing that can throw the book at us and convict us of not belonging to Jesus, it’s not for us to evaluate, but to receive, free of charge. We do not strategically manipulate it into being convincing. We just discover that it’s plainly true.
This discovery is inevitable. Like a detective who’s just solved the case, Paul has been walking us through the evidence since Romans 5, announcing to us everything that’s happened that makes Romans 8:1 true.
Romans 5:8: “God proves his love for us in this – while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:18: “Just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.”
Romans 6:4: “We were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:6: “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.”
Romans 7:4: “This is the point: you died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead.”
There is nothing here for us to negotiate with. There is only a straightforward accounting of what was accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the baptism of the Church. Paul presents Romans 8:1 as the sum total of adding up the evidence. We’re not figuring out how to make it true. It is simply the case.
And here is what makes Romans 8:1 so exciting, interesting, captivating, haunting, life-giving, and endlessly enjoyable – the good news that so brazenly contrasts with everything else we experience, where there is no shortage of condemnation available, even from within our own minds. Whether from ourselves or from someone or something else, we feel constantly condemned. We are quick to believe we’re not useful enough, not smart enough, not good-looking enough, not loved enough. But here in Romans 8, we encounter the God who is, at this very moment, looking at us and declaring: nothing is missing, nothing is not enough or too much, I see nothing that I want to condemn.
Receive this love from the God who has no desire to condemn us. And then let us go be the happiest people in the world. What else would we be?
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