No Condemnation!

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You may not have realized this before, but Easter, like Christmas, is not reserved to one day, but in fact, it's a season. Eastertide, as it is known, runs for 50 days from Easter Sunday until the day of Pentecost. And of course, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every time we gather on Sunday, the first day of the week, because this is the day that Jesus was raised. (That's why we refer to it as the Lord's Day.) And yet at the same time, it's good and right for us to dedicate a whole season to the resurrection of Jesus. So this Eastertide, we will consider how we might “practice the resurrection,” to borrow a phrase from the poet Wendell Berry. In other words, our aim is to better understand the meaning and the significance of the resurrection of Jesus and how we might apply that to our everyday lives. And if that's the goal, then there's no better place for us to turn than to Romans 8, which forms the heart and the center of Paul's greatest letter.

So here's the plan: Over the next six weeks, we'll take a deep dive into Romans 8, drawing inspiration from N.T. Wright's relatively recent book “Into the Heart of Romans.” Now technically Presbyterians don't have bishops — we have presbyteries — but for the last 15 years or so, Tom has been my own personal bishop, and it's been a gift to have him as a friend and as a mentor. And what's fun about this little series is that we'll be able to do a little collaboration together. So I'll kick off this series, and then Tom will be back on June 1 to bring the series to a conclusion.

Now, usually when I quote world-renowned biblical scholars, they're not sitting right in front of me while I preach. So no pressure, right? Some of you are probably thinking, “Jason, are you sure this is a really good idea?” And if you're worried, please feel free to pray for me now. And if I mess it up, don't worry, you can always pick up the book and read it. And if I really botch it, Tom will be back on June 1 to clean up all of my errors.

So as we turn to Romans 8, we'll see that Paul lays out for us the problem of the human condition and what God has done about it. And so during our time together, I'd like us to consider three things: 1) The situation, 2) The resolution, and 3) The implications for us. What is the situation that Paul addresses, what is the resolution to the problem, and what are the implications for us?

¹There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³For 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, ⁴in 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. ⁵For 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. ⁶For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹You, 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. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If 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.

Romans 8:1-11

Background

Let's begin by getting our bearings. The first question that we should ask ourselves is, what is Romans 8 all about? And the answer is assurance — assurance of salvation. Now, a couple weeks ago, I said that the secret to deep lasting joy in our lives, regardless of our outer circumstances, is assurance. Jesus says, don't rejoice in your spiritual power or attainments or accomplishments, but rather rejoice that your name is written in heaven. In other words, what we need is deep assurance that God's promised future salvation is rock solid secure. The problem is that there are right and wrong ways of thinking about this assurance, and I'll just give you a little example.

In his book “Living the Resurrection,” the author Eugene Peterson tells the story of Billy Sunday. I wonder if you've ever heard of Billy Sunday. He was a baseball-player-turned-evangelist, and he was quite the showman. He became wildly popular during World War I. Apparently as many as a hundred thousand people came to hear him speak right here in New York City in 1917, and he was famous for setting up revival tents — big, massive revival tents — and he would refer to the center aisle as “the sawdust trail.” The reason why is because in these big, massive tents, they would layer sawdust all the way from the entrance of the tent right up to the front at the pulpit where he would speak. And like a red carpet, people would come down that center aisle at the end of his message.

So he would deliver a fiery sermon, and then he would make his altar call, and he would encourage people to “hit the sawdust trail”: Get up out of your seat, walk down the aisle, and make a public commitment to repent and believe in Jesus. The only problem is that he had a distorted understanding of assurance, which then gave short shrift to the Christian life. He would often say things like this, “Hit the sawdust trail, drop down to your knees, receive Jesus as your savior, and then you can go out tonight, leave that tent, get hit by a Mack truck, and you can go straight to heaven.”

Now that might be the fastest way to enter God's presence, but I'm not sure it's the wisest. And I'm not sure that that's what God actually intends for us. See, the problem is that many people think that this is the kind of assurance that the gospel is meant to provide, but this way of thinking actually reveals a truncated reductionistic version of the gospel that is focused on “me and my salvation” without realizing that the gospel that God has promised us is so much more robust and comprehensive than that.

It seems to me, however, that this whole thinking that, “Well, if you just put your trust in Jesus, your soul can go to heaven when you die” is so ingrained in our society and within in our broader culture — especially here in America — that many people, even to this day, treat the gospel like a get out of jail free card. You know what I'm talking about? In the game of Monopoly, if you're sent to jail but you have that one card that says you can get out of jail free, you don't have to stay there. Well, I think that's how we often think about the gospel. We just assume that if we believe the right things about the death and the resurrection of Jesus, well then we can get out of jail free, and our soul will go to heaven when we die, leaving the rest of our life here and now unchanged.

So perhaps I could illustrate it like this. When I was in college, I got in the car and I drove to go visit my grandmother. Now, I'm sorry if this story disappoints you and causes you to think less of your pastor, but I was speeding, and I got pulled over by a state trooper. And so he came and wrapped on the window. He asked for my driver's license and registration. He asked where I was going and why I was traveling so fast. I explained that I was a student at Princeton, but I was going to visit my grandmother. (See, I'm not that bad of a kid. Let me off the hook.) Well, he goes back to the patrol car, he waits a long time, but then he eventually comes back. He hands me back the driver's license and the registration. He says, “I’ll tell you what: I'm not going to give you a ticket. I'll only give you a warning. But there's something I want you to do for me.” He explained that his brother was a public safety officer back at Princeton, and so he said, “I want you to go find my brother and ask him, ‘What can I do to make your life easier?’”

So he let me off the hook. I go back to Princeton the next day. I find his brother in the public safety office. I explain what happened, and he just starts laughing uproariously. And then he explains to me, “You do realize that if my brother had given you a ticket, it would've been a hefty fine, and it would've put points on your license.” And he wasn't going to make me do anything, but I did ask the question, “What can I do to make your life easier?” and then he simply said, “Go and sin no more.”

You see, I did what I was supposed to do. I got off the hook, and then I never saw the police officer again. And the problem is that I think that we often treat the Christian message like that. We assume that if we just believe the right things about the death and resurrection of Jesus, if we follow the formula, then we'll be let off the hook. We will know that our souls will go to heaven when we die, and in the meantime, we don't have to do anything with Jesus anymore. But that is a reductionistic, truncated version of the gospel, not the real thing. Jesus has done so much more for us, and what he's accomplished for us is not reserved for the hereafter, but it has everything to do with the here and now. Let's be very clear that the gospel message is not about souls going to heaven when we die but rather about God making his home with us. That has been God's plan from the very beginning. God seeks to be our God so that we might be his people and that he might dwell in the midst of his people.

If you flip to the end of the Bible, if you look at the book of Revelation, what do we see? We don't see souls floating off to heaven, but rather we see God bringing heaven down to earth, to renew the whole creation, to usher in a new heavens and a new earth. And so if we think that Romans 8, for example, is giving us a formula to follow so that we know that our plutonic souls will experience some ethereal existence beyond the grave, we're completely missing the point. Because the word “soul” doesn't even appear in Romans 8, and there's no mention of heaven. Rather, what Paul speaks of in this chapter is all of creation longing to be set free from its bondage to decay.

So the gospel is about so much more. It's not just about rescuing me and you from sin and death, but it’s about renewing the whole cosmos and God restoring us to our original vocation, which was laid out in Genesis 1: to be God's image-bearing stewards who join him in his rule over creation as we exercise wise and responsible stewardship. I love the way that Tom puts it. “We're not saved from this world; we're saved for this world, and that work starts now.”

Now I've offered a longer introduction than I typically do, and the reason why is because this little passage at the beginning of Romans 8 is so dense and compact. But now I'd like to figure out what Paul is communicating, so let me return to those three points: the situation that Paul is addressing, the resolution to the problem, and the implications for us.

The Situation

With that background in mind, let's start with the situation. The first thing to note is that Romans 8 begins with a “therefore,” and as your English teacher probably told you years ago, whenever you see a “therefore,” you should ask what it’s there for. Romans 8:1-11 is the conclusion to a longer argument. That's why the “therefore” is there. It's the conclusion to a longer argument that began in chapter 7. So what's the situation that Paul is describing? What is Romans 7 all about? Romans 7 is all about the Old Testament law.

When we hear that word, “law,” we tend to think of a strict moralistic code that perhaps has the Ten Commandments at the heart, but we need to remember that the word “law” in Hebrew is Torah, which, yes, can be translated as “law” or “commandment,” but it also could be translated as “teaching” or “instruction.” And in fact, the Torah includes the entirety of the first five books of the Bible. And those first five books in the Bible are not just a list of laws (though there are many ethical instructions). It's also a narrative. It's a story. And it's the narrative that actually helps us understand, what is the law? What is the Torah?

So for example, we could ask the question, “When does God give the law to his people?” And when we ask that question, we realize that the Bible is not a moralistic book, and Christianity is not a moralistic religion. Because here's the story. When does God give the law to his people? Well, first God rescues his people from their bondage. Then he leads them through the Red Sea, and he brings them to Mount Sinai, and there he gives them his law as he enters into a special covenantal relationship with them.

Imagine if God did the opposite. Imagine if God comes to his people while they're still living in slavery in Egypt and says, “I tell you what. If you listen to my voice and keep my commands, then I'll rescue you.” Well then that would turn obedience into the precondition for salvation. But that's not what he does. Instead, he rescues his people first, and then he gives them his Torah, his instruction, to show them how to live in response to his grace. So it's not law then grace; it's grace then law. He doesn't say, “Live this way and I will save you,” but rather he says, “I've saved you, now live this way.” And so when we put the law back into the narrative of the story, we realized that the law itself is a gracious gift of God.

God is the creator God. He knows us. He made us. He designed us. He loves us. And he knows how life works best. And that is why he gives us his teaching. That's why he gives us his instruction. He's not trying to keep us down; he's trying to lift us up. He's not trying to keep us down underneath his thumb; he's trying to turn our hearts back to him.

So maybe the best way to think about it is to see the law as the covenant charter between God and his people. He enters into a special relationship with his people so that he might bless the whole world eventually through Israel. So the law really is the covenant charter that specifies the relationship. And in Deuteronomy 28, we see in particular that there are blessings and there are curses. There are blessings and curses that flow from whether or not we listen to God's instruction or ignore it.

This isn't a great analogy, but it might help. You could think of an owner's manual in a car. Let's say you want to buy an old used Mercedes-Benz with a diesel engine. Well if you buy a diesel engine, it's important to pay attention to the instructions, because what would happen if you put gas in a diesel engine? I didn't actually know, so I looked it up. Do you know what would happen if you put gas in a diesel engine? This is what AI told me: It would cause “uncontrollable detonation.” I don't know what that means, but it sounds terrible. “Uncontrollable detonation.” So in other words, if you ignore the owner's manual, your driving days will be cursed. But if you listen, they'll be blessed.

The point then which Paul makes in Romans 7 is that the law, God's instruction, his teaching, it's good, it's holy, it's righteous. God's law is good and beautiful, and above all, the reason why it's so good and beautiful is because the law promises life — real life, true life, lasting life, eternal life. The kind of life that we long for. The kind of life that we were made for. But if that's true, then what's the problem?

Paul reveals to us the problem in verse 2 when he says that Jesus had to set us free from the law of sin and death. But hold on, wait a minute. If the law promises life, why is he referring to it as the law of sin and death? The answer is that the problem lies with Sin — Sin with a capital S.

Now, when we speak of Sin, we're not talking about all the little things that we might do wrong, but rather we're talking about Sin with a capital S, meaning the dark power that affects our whole being and holds us in bondage. So Sin is so much more than our individual and isolated acts of wrongdoing; rather Sin is the power that dominates and controls us and prevents us from being truly human.

The good and gracious law is meant to give life, but the problem is that if you apply God's law to a Sin-dominated person like you and me, then it results in curse rather than blessing. It's a little bit like pouring gas in a diesel engine. It will lead to uncontrollable detonation. When you apply God's law to a Sin-dominated person, it always leads to exile. It leads to exile from the garden in the case of Adam. It leads to exile from the land in the case of Israel. And it leads to exile from life itself for all of us. Sin with a capital S leads to death.

The Resolution

So if that's the situation that Paul is addressing here at the beginning of Romans 8, then what's the resolution to this problem? The answer is the Messiah Jesus. And that brings us to the very heart of the passage where Paul writes in verse 1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Whereas the law previously would've accused us and condemned us to death because of Sin, there is now no condemnation for those who belong to the crucified and risen Messiah. But the question is why? You might be thinking, “Well, how exactly does this work?” especially in light of everything that we just said.

That's why Paul goes on to explain in verses 2-4 how this works. So he says that God's law is good because it provides us with God's instruction for how life should be lived. God knows how life works best. The only problem with the law, as Paul suggests in verse 3, is that the law is weak. The law is weak. It's good because it spells out for us how God wants us to live a good, fulfilling life. The only problem is that it doesn't give us the power to actually live that way.

So you could think a little bit like this: The law is kind of like railroad tracks. It shows you the direction you should run, but in its weakness, it doesn't give you an engine to power you down the tracks. But the good news of the gospel is that God can do what we can't do for ourselves through his Son and through his Spirit.

His Son

So first, let's consider what Paul tells us about God’s Son. Paul reminds us in verse 3 that God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for Sin. Now that is a strange, curious way of putting it. And when you wrestle with this phrase, you realize that Paul is trying to hold a couple things in tension here. Why does he say that God sent his Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh”? Well, he doesn't say that he sent his Son in sinful flesh, because Jesus is the one and only Son of God who is without sin. So he didn't come in sinful flesh, but he came in the likeness of sinful flesh because Jesus is fully human. And therefore, what Paul is showing us is that Jesus is the truly human one. And not only that, he is the true Israelite. He is the faithful covenant partner. He's the only one who could keep the covenant.

And God sends Jesus to be and to do for Israel what Israel could not be and do for itself. And as the true human, as the second Adam, Jesus succeeds where the first Adam fails. Jesus keeps the covenant. Jesus lives the life that we should have lived. Jesus dies the death that we should have died. And the reason why is because Jesus, as the true Messiah, goes to the cross, and he brings all the sins of the world onto himself in order to deal with it all right then and there.

And this might be the most important thing. Notice that Paul doesn't say that God condemned Jesus, but rather it says that God condemned Sin in the flesh of Jesus. So God condemned Sin on the cross so that he would never condemn you or me. And as a result of that, now we can experience the life that the law promised, and that's where the Spirit comes in.

His Spirit

See, once sin has been dealt with, then God can fill us with his very own Spirit. God can't fill us with his Holy Spirit until he first cleanses us, but once he cleanses us of sin, he can fill us with his Spirit, and he promises to do that every time. The moment that you put your faith in Jesus, you are filled with his very own Spirit.

And notice the power now that is at work, that is operative in our lives. Notice verse 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.” Do you realize what we're talking about? The Spirit that comes and makes its home within you is the very same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. You have the resurrection power of Jesus — the very Spirit of Jesus — at work in your life, and that changes everything.

The point, therefore, is not that Jesus is merely going to rescue us from death so that we can experience some ethereal existence. No, it's resurrection life. He's going to raise us up in the same way that he raised Jesus. He's going to raise us with new physical bodies to enjoy life with him in a new physical world. So the gospel isn't just about life after death; it's about life now and always. And now God not only shows us how to live with his good instruction, but now he gives us the power to actually do it in and through the Spirit that is operative in our lives.

And so now we find within ourselves new life, new energy, new power to become the people that we never could have been on our own — to become the people that God had always destined us to be. People marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. People of wisdom and generosity. And that's what Paul is talking about, then, when he says that the law of sin and death has now been transformed into the law of the Spirit of life. It's all because of the work of the Son and the Spirit. Now, through the Son and the Spirit, we can experience life. And what that means is there is no condemnation because of the Messiah's death and because of the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.

The Implictations for Us

So very quickly during our remaining moments, I want us to think through some of the implications of this by using an illustration from a novel.

Charles Dickens' “Tale of Two Cities” is not only the tale of London and Paris, but it's also the story of two men, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Charles Darnay is a wealthy French aristocrat. Sydney Carton is a relatively lousy, no good English lawyer. But the thing about these two men is that they look remarkably similar to one another, and they both fall in love with the same girl, Lucie Manette.

Eventually Lucie chooses to marry Charles Darnay, but even so, nevertheless, Sydney Carton makes her this promise. He says, no matter what happens, I would be willing to sacrifice anything for you and the ones whom you love. Well, years later, the French Revolution is in full swing, and Charles Darnay is arrested and sentenced to death, not because of a crime that he has committed, but because of the crimes of his father and his uncle.

Now there are only hours before his execution, but Sydney Carton remembers his promise to Lucie Manette. So he slips into the prison and he sort of tricks Charles Darnay into exchanging clothing with him. Then he drugs Charles Darnay in order to switch places with him. And so Darnay is dragged out of the prison where he's greeted by an awaiting carriage and he's reunited with his wife and his child. And now Sydney Carton remains in Darnay's cell. And given the fact that they look so similar, he's now going to take his place, and he's awaiting the sentence of death that was intended for Charles Darnay.

So while he's being transported to the execution site, he meets a seamstress who is also being taken to the guillotine during this reign of terror. She previously had met Charles Darnay, and so at first she assumes that that's who this is. But then she looks in his face, and her eyes first are filled with doubt and then astonishment when she realizes it isn't him. And she asks, “Are you dying for him?” And he says, “Yes. Shh. And his wife and child.”

Now you might say, well, that's just a story. But imagine for a moment that you were Charles Darnay. Imagine that now you had received a whole new lease on life because Sydney Carton took your place and experienced the death that was intended for you. How would you respond to that? What would be appropriate? Well I guarantee, after experiencing this new lease on life, you wouldn't say, “Well, I'm gonna go out there and get hit by a Mack truck so I can go straight to heaven.” No, you would say, “Now I can get on with my life. As far as the world is concerned, Charles Darnay is dead. No one has a handle on me anymore. Now I'm finally free. Now I'm finally free to be my true self.”

And you see, that is what God has accomplished for us in and through the work of his Son and his Spirit. When we understand now that there is not now, nor will there ever be any condemnation for those who belong to the Messiah Jesus, now we can truly live. If we understand this message of the gospel, we know that we would live differently, and here's why. The gospel gives us: 1) A new identity, 2) A new purpose, and 3) A new destiny.

A New Identity

See, first of all, we receive a new identity. The moment that we put our trust in Jesus, we know that the problem of sin has been resolved, that there is no condemnation. We receive a new sense of self, because now what happens is the verdict of the last day breaks into the present. We already know when we stand before the throne of God what the sentence will be, because the sentence has already been passed.

And this is what Paul means by justification. Justification is the opposite of condemnation. So when God justifies you, what it means is he declares you to be not guilty. And you see, because of who Jesus is and what he's accomplished for us, the sentence of the last day has broken into the present. We now live the future. We already know that we've been acquitted. God has declared us to be not guilty. He has put us in right relationship with himself. And now finally, for the first time, we know who we are. Now finally, for the first time, we know where we belong: We belong to Jesus and to his people. And see, when God puts you in right relationship with himself, he adopts you into his family. You become his beloved son or daughter.

Though it is true that we can please or displease our Heavenly Father — and Paul encourages us now to seek to please our Heavenly Father, knowing our status in his family — the point is our status in his family is fixed. It cannot fluctuate or change. No matter what happens, you will always be God's son, you will always be God's daughter, because of what Jesus has accomplished for you.

A New Purpose

That means that not only do we receive a new identity but also a new purpose. The reason why God puts you in right relationship with himself is so that even now you can become part of his renewing work to put the whole world right. And that's why I love Tom's wonderful phrase, that we as the Church are called to be small working models of the New Creation. We, both individually and corporately as a Church, through our words, our actions, our deeds, our relationships, through our life, our love, and our service are meant to provide the world around us with a glimpse — and it might just be a partial, cloudy glimpse, but it's a real glimpse nonetheless — of what this world will be like when God finishes his work and ushers in that New Creation in its completion. We're already a sign of that. Because the future has broken into our lives, the New Creation has already begun in us through our union with Jesus and his Spirit.

A New Destiny

And then finally, that means that we need to look forward to this new destiny. God's goal is not to remove us from this world but to renew this world. And that has been God's desire from the very beginning of time: to make his home with us. And that is what we're waiting for. The gospel is not just about rescuing you and me from sin and death but renewing the whole cosmos and restoring us to our original vocation as God's image-bearing representatives who join him in his rule over the New Creation. This is where we're headed, and it's already beginning now because Jesus has been raised from the dead.

Jesus has not saved us from this world; Jesus has saved us for this world. And it all begins right here as we celebrate this sacrament. So as we come to this table, let's remember that even if those accusations continue to come our way — either from our own conscience or from other people or from the great adversary, the Satan himself — because there is no condemnation for those who belong to Messiah Jesus, we can sing the hymn that we sang at the beginning of our service. “No condemnation now I dread; Jesus and all in him is mine.”

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for this magisterial chapter in the greatest of all of Paul's letters. And we pray, Father, that you would help us to rightly understand the assurance that Romans 8 provides us. It's not merely a get out of jail free card. It's not about souls going to heaven when we die. It's about you renewing the whole cosmos and making your home with us in a renewed heaven and earth. And help us now to see that the New Creation has already begun in the resurrection of Jesus, and that through your Son and Spirit, you can place that New Creation life within us now in hope of that day when you will raise us up with new physical bodies to live life with you in a new physical world. Enable us to lay hold of that hope and to share it with the world. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Sermons

Practicing the Resurrection: No Condemnation!

The Situation

The Resolution

The Implictations for Us