Keys of the Kingdom - Part 5: No Condemnation

This is the fifth article in my occasional series entitled, Keys of the Kingdom, which comes from a promise Jesus famously made to the apostle Simon Peter in Matthew 16:15-19.

He said to them, “But who do you say I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

 

Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

 

And I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven to you. And whatever you may bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in heaven, and whatever you may loose on earth shall occur, having been loosed in heaven.”

As explained in Part 1: The Foundation Stone, Peter was not the Rock upon which Jesus established his Church, divine revelation by the Holy Spirit was. And the keys of the kingdom, in turn, are those revelations that the Spirit imparts. In Part Five, we shall examine more closely how the Key concept of ‘No condemnation' affects our Christian walk.

A short while ago I was meditating on Romans Chapter 7, which begins with the Apostle Paul’s admonition that any believer who turns away from grace and back to the Law is guilty of spiritual adultery. As I pondered this truth, I felt the following poem well up inside me, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Jonah cried out from the fish’s dark belly,

The thief called to Christ from his cross,

Helpless, imprisoned, unrighteous, unworthy,

Each one conscious how much he was lost.

 

But when a man comes to the Lord empty handed,

He stands not before him in vain,

For his love and his mercy endureth forever

And his grace freely flows unrestrained.

 

For his grace is unearned and unmerited favour,

From his boundless supply, unreserved,

Irrespective of all our good works and behaviour,

It is offered to all undeserved.

 

It was when we imagined our case to be hopeless,

And our sin was too great to forgive,

That God stretched out his arms on the Cross and forgave us

That by his shed Blood we might live.

 

It doesn’t make sense and it seems an injustice,

That the sinless One died in my place.

But the heart of the Gospel’s not justice or fairness,

God’s heart and the Gospel is grace.

Although there is no single Bible verse or passage I could describe as my favourite scripture Romans 8:1 certainly comes close inasmuch as it one of my most cited, because its content so concisely encapsulates what I consider the very epicentre of the Gospel, which is:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

It’s a familiar enough scripture, but one whose full significance has often been largely overlooked by a wide section of the Church.

I might also briefly mention here that there is a long running controversy about whether the second half of this verse belongs in the Bible. This arose during the 19^th century when certain early Greek manuscripts were found that differed slightly from those texts previously available in that they omitted the words, ‘who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit’, which Bible scholars would conventionally refer to as Romans 8:1b.

This led to the assumption by many, and reflected in some translations, that the latter portion had been added to the verse in later manuscripts. However, this is a view that more modern scholarship has challenged and many now believe that this portion was actually integral to the original text and lost or redacted from some copies.

For reasons that I haven’t the time to discuss here, I firmly concur with the latter view and that the verse is complete in its longer form. Nevertheless, just this once, its omission would make no difference to the text, because of the way Paul has written this portion. Remember, the Bible is not an academic textbook but a collection of writings gathered over some 1500 years, and Romans is not a treatise but an epistle, which is a letter intended by its writer to be widely read and publicly distributed. As such, it was written like any other letter, as a whole collection of news and ideas which were not originally separated into chapter and verse. These were added very much later for our ease of reference, so that we might locate any given passage or quotation quickly, for which reason Bible scholars must be constantly vigilant against decontextualisation, because any text without a context is a pretext. That’s why I am not unduly concerned by translations such as the American Standard Version which omit the latter portion of Romans 8:1, because Paul, in his inimitably forensic style, sandwiches the idea by making the same point in verse 5, as we can see:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

 

But the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

 

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; so that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

 

For they who are according to the flesh mind the things of flesh, but they who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

Why this is important we shall soon see, because I know that some teachers dislike Romans 8:1b, on theological grounds on the mistaken assumption that it alters Paul’s declaration from one of grace to legalism. This is not true, but even if it were, their attempt to counter Paul’s point by omitting it would be thwarted by his repetition of it in verse 5.

So, I return to my original assertion that Romans 8:1, in its unreduced form concisely constitutes the heart of the Christian Gospel. But how? What does it actually mean? That might sound a silly question but it isn’t because, one way and another, a large portion of the Church has done its utmost to obscure this seminal truth for nearly two millennia, for the simple reason that it is deeply uncomfortable for the carnal mind to grasp. Indeed, Paul even makes this very point in verses 8-17:

 

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be.

 

So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ is in you, indeed the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of the One who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised up Christ from the dead shall also make your mortal bodies alive by His Spirit who dwells in you.

 

Therefore, brothers, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die. But if you through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.

 

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba, Father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; so that if we suffer with Him, we may also be glorified together.

Those are powerful words with which either many Christians are unfamiliar or have been led astray to lightly disregard, oft-times having been so spiritualised as to rob them of their original power and radical impact. So, what is Paul actually saying? Simply this: That the believer is so completely forgiven by God, through Jesus’ finished work on the Cross, that there is not the least vestige of guilt lefty with which to condemn him.

However, that is not the way the Gospel is popularly presented. Instead, for many centuries now, much of the Church has put a a disarming spin on it to make it read like this:

While we were yet sinners, God sent his only begotten Son Jesus to die for our sins. [True]

If we believe in our heart that Jesus died for our sins and accept him as Lord and Saviour into our lives, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and we are saved from hell and headed for heaven. [True]

From now on, we are called to walk on a new path of righteousness, and just so long as we keep ourselves holy and righteous and pure, God will be pleased with us and we will stay saved from damnation and destined for glory. [False]

Does that surprise you? It may well do, because that’s how the Gospel if often portrayed but it is a false Gospel because, while it begins well, it ends by veering off into legalism. The catch was in the phrase: ‘just so long as we keep ourselves holy and righteous and pure’. That, Paul would have recognised immediately as heresy, because that is not grace but works.

Right here would be a good place to pause and redefine some theological jargon for the benefit of the non-theologians out there, by which I refer to two commonly used terms - grace and works, which are theologically inimical to one another. Grace in the New Testament derives from the Greek word for gift (charis), and simply means ‘unearned, unmerited and undeserved favour’. Briefly put, if you can earn grace it isn’t grace it is a purchase, it is yours by right because you paid for it. Works, are so called because the Greek is ergon from which we get English words like energy, and which simply refers to effort.

Jesus famously contrasted these two principles in his Parable of the Workers in the Field, In Matthew 16:1-16.

For the kingdom of Heaven is like a man, a housemaster, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

 

And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.” And they went.

 

And he went out about the sixth and ninth hour and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, “Why do you stand here all day idle?”

 

They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and you shall receive whatever is right.”

 

So when evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, Call the labourers and pay them their wage, beginning from the last to the first.

 

And when they who were hired about the eleventh hour came, they each one received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed that they would received more; and they also each one received a denarius.

 

And receiving it they murmured against the master of the house, saying, “These last have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and heat of the day.”

 

But he answered one of them and said, “Friend, I do you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take yours, and go; I will give to this last one the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with my own? Is your eye evil because I am good?”

 

So the last shall be first, and the first last, for many are called, but few are chosen.

This is often cited as one of the ‘Hard Sayings of Jesus’. But, in my experience, what we generally mean by a hard saying in relation to the Bible (and the sayings of Jesus in particular) is not that it is hard to understand but that it is hard to accept. Anyone reading this passage for the first time will be immediately struck by the manifest unfairness of the master's actions, and that can make it hard for us to accept until we understand the context and the point that Jesus is making.

You see, Jesus’ teaching immediately follows the incident when he was approached by the Rich Young Ruler who had asked him what good thing he should do to have eternal life.

Jesus challenged the young man’s assumptions based on the nature of his approach, which was how he might earn his salvation, resulting in a conversation which I would paraphrase like this:

‘If you want to earn salvation, keep the Law.’

 

‘Been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt.’

 

'Good. So, you won’t have any problem keeping the First Commandment. Sell all you have, give the proceeds to the poor and be my disciple.’

 

Jesus pulled the young man up short by illustrating the falsity of his premise that he was capable of keeping the Law. ‘No, you can’t’, said Jesus, and the young man went away sorrowful. But what he said next, in Matthew 19:23-24, confounded even the Twelve apostles who were with him:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I say to you that a rich man will with great difficulty enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Many preachers have tried to dilute this saying by falsely teaching that Jesus was referring to some narrow gate into Jerusalem that a camel could only enter after being unloaded. There is no such gate, nor did Jesus suggest that it entry was difficult, but clearly said it was impossible…for man.

When His disciples heard this, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked on them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (verses 25-26)

Mark’s account of the same occurrence tells us the disciples were ‘exceedingly astonished’ at Jesus’ bluntness and it was at this point that Peter injected and, protesting at all they had given up to follow Jesus, asked if it was all in vain. The reason was their Judaistic mindset, because they heard Jesus’ words quite differently from how we understand them today. We hear Jesus say ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” But his disciples would have understood it like this: ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a righteous man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

You see, we think of a rich man as fortunate, but the Jew of Jesus’ day equated wealth with righteousness because wealth was a reward from God. So the disciples didn’t just see the young ruler who came to Jesus as a rich man but as a good man. The problem was, as Jesus highlighted; so did he. That’s why Peter took such offence and began to remind Jesus of all he and the other apostles had given up to follow him: and that is the context of the Parable of the Workers in the Field.

Peter spoke for all of us who look to our own righteousness for what we consider we deserve. Surely our works count for something. ‘Let me tell you how the kingdom of God works’, said Jesus, and went on to tell of a group of workers who a certain master hired under an agreed contract. That contract represented the Old Covenant, under which a man’s righteousness was rewarded according to his performance and obedience defined in the terms stipulated by the Law. The workers who came in later represent the New Covenant believers who were given no contract but merely trusted in the master’s word.

To whom was the master more generous? To those towards whom his hand was unbound by any contract, because God loves to be generous and show the abundance of his goodness, but the Law constrains him to reward us according to its limitations.

And that’s what Paul desired to convey in Romans 8:1; that when we come to God in faith in Jesus and not boasting of our own efforts and performance, we are not only freely forgiven but are no longer even conscious of condemnation, because that‘s what ‘…walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit’ means. Many Christians mistakenly think that ‘walking according to the Spirit’ speaks of our performance, whereas it clearly speaks of our faith. We know this because verses 6-8 tell us,

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be. So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Now compare this with Hebrews 11:6, which says:

But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

It’s not rocket science but if ‘they who are in the flesh cannot please God’ and ‘without faith it is impossible to please him’, there is obviously some intimate connection between faith and walking in the Spirit. So, when Paul says in Romans 8:1, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit’, he is telling us that not only are believers in Christ not under condemnation, but that their awareness that they stand uncondemned before God stems from their walking in faith, but faith in what?

The answer is simply faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross, when he died for our sins and paid for them fully. Sadly, that is not always what is taught, and when it is not what is taught it is not what is believed, and that’s when condemnation creeps in.

‘Ah’, many preachers may say, ‘That’s the Holy Spirit convicting you of sin’.

No it’s not. But how do I know it’s not? Because God’s Word clearly says it isn’t. Here’s what Jesus promised in John 16:7-11,

But I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you.

And when that One comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.

Concerning sin, because...they do not believe on me;

concerning righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Look carefully and you notice that Jesus is referring to three distinct areas of conviction by the Holy Spirit, because his language changes subtly in each case as he speaks to his own disciples:

The world is convicted of sin ‘because they do not believe on me’.

Believers are convicted of righteousness ‘because you see me no more’.

And the devil is convicted of judgment, ‘because the ruler of this world is judged’

To be ‘convicted of sin’ is to be conscious of condemnation, and that’s where we all were without a Saviour. But once we are saved, that changes, otherwise the Spirit of Truth would be witnessing to a lie. Now it is God’s purpose to convict the believer of righteousness. Not your righteousness, or my righteousness, or any righteousness based upon our performance, but Jesus’ holy righteousness, which God imputed to us when he imputed our sins to him at the Cross.

Too good to be true? - Read this from the New Testament where the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews writes this:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

 

And they shall not each man teach his neighbour, and each man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord“, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more." (Hebrews 8:10-12)

This is citing Jeremiah’s prophecy of the establishment of what is now called the New Covenant, which Jesus said at the Last Supper God ratified in his Blood (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). Nor does the writer of Hebrews leave it there, but revisits the same theme in more detail in Hebrews 10:14-22.

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. The Holy Spirit also is a witness to us; for after he had said before, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord; I will put my Laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them", also he adds, "their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more."

 

Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Therefore, brothers, having boldness to enter into the Holy of Holies by the Blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies having been washed with pure water.

Did you notice that sentence in verse 22: ‘…let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience’?

If God’s own promise could be any clearer I can’t imagine how that might be. None other than the Holy Spirit himself promises right here and without equivocation:

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more."

No wonder then, that in Romans 8:1 Paul could so boldly assert,

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

To believe otherwise is to reject the Gospel and call God a liar because through Jesus’ shed Blood we are forgiven and that’s final.

It’s a truth that the Bible reveals and what Paul taught, but has never been universally welcomed. Even in his own day Paul faced the wrath and the ire of critics who simply could not accept the simplicity of the Gospel, that we are forgiven by God‘s grace and have nothing whatsoever to contribute to our own salvation other than to believe that. Time and again Paul was attacked, when the criticism levelled at him was that this was just an easy get out clause; a blatant excuse to sin. But, no, said Paul, it doesn’t work that way. Rather, he says in Romans 6:14-15,

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under Law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under Law, but under grace? Let it not be!

In God’s eyes, for believers in Jesus sin is no longer the issue, sin consciousness is, because when we are conscious of sin we are magnetically drawn towards it. That’s why condemnation does not work but grace does, because condemnation always draws attention to our own shortcomings while grace always focuses on God’s righteousness imputed to us. And that’s why, in Romans 8:3-4, reiterates his point in verse 1, when he says:

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; so that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

There it is right there, God’s Manifesto of Grace:

For what the law could not do, God achieved by his grace through his Son.

The reason the Law could not do it is because the Law demands that I be righteous, which I cannot do. The reason grace does what the Law cannot is because instead of demanding of me what I cannot do, grace rests on what Jesus Christ has already done.

Throughout his writings the Apostle Paul emphasised again and again that the righteousness with which we stand before God is not our own righteousness but a gift that we did not earn and do not deserve, paid for in full by Jesus on the Cross. That’s why he could say in Romans 1:16-17,

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

That’s why both James and Peter could say this:

God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

(James 4:6 & 1 Peter 5:5).

Because whenever we come to God like the rich young ruler, full of ourselves and all we have achieved and have to offer, God cannot offer his grace because we are boating of what we deserve. But when we come to our Father in humility, with empty hands and no other confession than our thanks for his goodness and mercy, he is free to extend his hand of generosity in a most astonishing way - not because we deserve it but because we are conscious of how much we do not.