The title to this chapter would likely have confused some of us a few years ago, because all we had ever heard was condemnation.
Most of our great evangelists have been preachers of condemnation, preachers of judgment.
Few of them have ever revealed to us what we were in Christ. They have magnified sin above redemption.
Romans 8:1 has been an almost unknown Scripture: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”
If we had known that we could stand before the Father just as freely as Adam did in the garden, as Jesus did in His earth walk, it would have made life a great deal different.
This struggle after faith was because of a sense of unworthiness on our part.
We have had the sense of unrighteousness built into us by our teachers. We have not known what redemption means to the believer.
Second Corinthians 5:17–18 contains the story of the new creation and of man’s standing before the Father:
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [a new species]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
The old things of condemnation, the old things of sin and weakness, of failure, of doubt and fear are passed away, and there has come into us a new creation without condemnation, without fear.
We have become instantaneously a child of God and we are reconciled to Him.
There is no condemnation, there is no fear, there is no sense of sin or of unworthiness.
Like a child in its mother’s bosom, we are perfectly restful and contented.
Not only that, but Christ:
Hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18–19)
We have followed in the path of our forefathers who had developed in themselves a sense of unworthiness and sin, so that whenever they prayed they had to ask for forgiveness and cry for mercy.
They acted as though they had never been born again, as though sin had never been put away, and that the Father looked upon them with suspicion and doubt.
But did you notice verse 19? He is not even reckoning the sinners their sins, because He laid their sins on Christ.
Why should he reckon unto us, His own sons and daughters in Christ, a sin-consciousness?
He has not.
We have built it into ourselves through our ignorance.
Our sins have been wiped out as though they had never been.
That old wicked self has been put away and a new self has taken its place.
We are new creations.
Then, in 2 Corinthians 5:21, he says these marvelous words: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
And the next verse, did you notice it? “We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1).
You couldn’t work together with Him unless you were righteous, unless you were in fellowship with Him.
He has made you by the new birth, the very righteousness of God in Christ.
The sin problem is settled for the believer.
Now it is the problem of my entering into my inheritance.
You see, I shared with Him in His death.
I shared with Him in His suffering.
I shared with Him when He was made righteous.
I shared with Him when He was made alive.
I shared with Him when He met the adversary in the dark regions and conquered him.
I shared with Him when he arose from the dead.
I shared with Him in the mind of justice when He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
I am seated there according to His own Word.
I am free from condemnation.
I am free from the guilt of my old conduct and my union with Satan.
I turn to Romans 8:31 and I read what He inspired Paul to write for me: “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”
That settles it. I can hear Him whisper, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (verse 32).
And then He says these marvelous words:
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:33–34)
Then He asks this burning question: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (verse 35).
None of these things can bring the believer under condemnation. (See Romans 8:37–39.)
I wonder if you have read Ephesians 1:5–6 carefully:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
Where are you? You are in the beloved.
That means that you are beloved, that you are a part of the beloved.
You are identified with Him; you are one with Him.
In verse 7, it says, “We have redemption through his blood.” We received “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence” (verses 7–8).
There is no place for condemnation.
The only problem is this: have we learned how to walk in fellowship with Him?
Have we learned how to maintain our fellowship?
This law is laid down in the Pauline revelation and in John’s wonderful epistles.
We must walk in love as Jesus walked in love.
But you ask, “How can I do it?”
You have received the love nature of the Father, haven’t you? You have become a partaker of the divine nature. That is love. “God is love.”
Then learn to let that love nature dominate you.
Paul said he kept his body under. He meant he kept his senses from dominating him.
As far as the believer is concerned, selfishness emanates from the senses.
Then if you keep the senses in subjection, give love the right of way, you will walk in fellowship with Him.
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. (1 John 1:3–6)
What does that mean? If I step out of love, I step out of light into darkness. When I step into darkness, I know not where I am going.
First John 2:10–11 tells us:
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
If we break fellowship, 1 John 1:9 tells us how to have it restored: “If we confess our sins [things we have done that brought us into darkness], he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Now you can see that as far as you are concerned as a new creation, you have reached the end of condemnation.
It is not necessary to live in it another day.
The Son has made you free.
Now live and walk in that freedom.