No Condemnation and Complete Forgiveness

Romans 8:1 says,

There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

Growing up in church, I quoted this verse nonchalantly.  It’s one of those verses I heard and was like, “Yea, that’s nice.”  Now it’s more than nice, it’s the good news.  It’ll make you win the devil’s condemnation game every time.

How much condemnation is left for you today?  A little?  There is none.  And how about when you read this verse tomorrow?  There is now no condemnation.  The word now means now.  It applies today, next week and forever.  So why are you still condemning yourself?

What is condemnation?  For a building inspector to condemn a building, it means the building didn’t meet the requirements.  It is unfit for use and must be demolished.  Condemnation is a sense of guilt really, with an expectation of punishment.  It’s making yourself feel bad about what you did.  Condemnation has been around since the beginning.  Adam hid himself from God because he felt condemned. 

After you fail, the devil loves to condemn you.  Imagine a court scene.  In the book of Revelation, the devil is called the accuser of the brethren.  He’ll remind you of that sin you did back in 2006 or this morning.  He’ll play the tape over and over again to you. 

His accusations sound like this: “You think you’re a Christian?  You wouldn’t have done that if you really were.”  And then you repeat what he says.  So he goes to God the Judge and says, “Your Honor, you said we can have what we say.  And you also said when two or more agree on earth they can have – and I agree with him!”  Sneaky snake satan is. 

But then your lawyer steps up.  Who is that?  Jesus Christ. 

1 John 2:1 states,

And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

An advocate acts as a lawyer. And then you look at the judge.  Who is the judge?  Your heavenly Father!  Man, you got it pretty good already!  But it’s not because you got the inside hookup that you’re going to win this case.  No, God is a just God.  But this justice is on your side.  Here’s why:

The judge looks at the lawyer.  He looks at Jesus, and He sees the holes in his hands.         

That’s it!  What do you do now?  Do you plead the fifth?  No, you plead the blood! 

“Not guilty,” says the Judge.  “But wait, I have the tape!” says the devil.  Then he plays it.  And it’s blank!  The blood of Jesus didn’t cover your sins, it washed them all away! 

There is therefore now no condemnation because Jesus took all the condemnation at the cross.  All the judgment from God was put on Him.  And because it was put on Him, it can no longer be on you.

It’s that simple really.  God cannot punish the same crime twice – once in the body of Jesus my Substitute, and again in my life.  All the punishment for your sin was on Jesus.  It was our sin that held him to the cross.  And God punished Jesus with our sin, so therefore our sin has already been condemned.

Isaiah 53:6, 11 explains,

And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity [punishment] of us all… My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities

If you ever hear someone say, “9/11 happened because God is punishing America for their sin!” that is not true.  God already punished every ounce of sin on the body of Jesus.  Or maybe you heard “If God doesn’t punish Las Vegas, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology!”  If that’s true then He owes Jesus an apology, because that’d be saying Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t enough.    

You don’t pay for the same speeding ticket twice.  If a judge demanded payment twice for the same ticket he would be unjust.  It’s called double jeopardy.  But God is just, and now His justice is on your side.  He is for you, not against you. You know who is unjust though?  The devil.  He’ll make sure you feel condemned and carry around your sin.

But the devil has no legal right.  Jesus already suffered for your sin.  So for us to walk around condemning ourselves and suffering for our sin is telling Jesus that He didn’t do a good enough job on the cross.  It’s saying His finished work wasn’t complete, that He needs my penance and my confession plus his blood.  The truth is, it’s the blood alone that saves.

Hebrews 9:26, 10:11-12; 14 proves this,

He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.  But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God

I’ve played this game before.  I’d fall into sin, and then wait a couple days until the guilt wore off before I go to God.  Of course, depending on how bad the sin was, it may even be longer.  For the “not-so-bad” sins, I’d wait until the next morning to confess it, because that’s “when his mercy is renewed.” 

Without knowing it, I was trying to earn right standing with God.  I was trying to be made right with God by taking the guilt I thought I deserved (a form of penance really), so I was trusting in what I did (my own righteousness, and not His).

Romans 10:3 talks about this condition,

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. 

I thought, “Okay, I’ve suffered enough.  I can go ask for forgiveness now.”  Or I would commit all my sins for the day and compile them so I would only need to ask Him once.  I thought, “well I could do this sin and whoa! I’m already in the middle of it - I might as well go all the way.  I guess at the end of the day I can just ask for forgiveness.  It’d be more efficient that way.” (see why I’m a Business major?)  By me asking for forgiveness, then I could be “cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9)” and become righteous again. 

I didn’t realize that I had already been forgiven of all my sins - past, present and even two months from now.  God saw the sins of my entire life and laid them on Jesus, including my future sins.  They were all judged at the cross!

I know I probably rocked your theology with the future sins comment.  “How can you say your future sins have been forgiven?!”  Well, your future sins better have been forgiven because Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago, before you even did your first sin.  Unless of course, you’ve been around for more than 2,000 years.

Well what about 1 John 1:9? 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

That chapter, 1 John 1, was written to unbelievers, the Gnostics (as well as believers who were listening to the Gnostics). Notice the words “all unrighteousness.”  You can only receive the gift of righteousness once, when you got born again.  You’re either entirely righteous or entirely not. 

Why would a Christian who is righteous by the blood have to become re-righteous again and again whenever they sin?  Under the Old Covenant, the blood of bulls and goats could atone for an entire year.  So is the perfect Son of God, Jesus, His blood only good until the minute we sin?  No, Jesus’ blood and His sacrifice is infinitely more powerful than animal’s blood and their sacrifice. 

In context, 1 John 1:8-9 is presenting two scenarios.  1:8 is talking about unbelievers who say they have no sin, therefore not admitting a need for a  Savior.  1:9 is talking about unbelievers who confess their sins, therefore admitting the need for a Savior.  If they confess they are cleansed from all unrighteousness, which now makes them righteous before God (they just got born again here).  We’ve built an entire doctrine out of one verse while so many other verses in the NT say we’ve been forgiven of all our sins.

To think that you have to confess your sins in order to be forgiven will make you go nearly insane.  Do you really think you can keep track of and confess every sin?  Or maybe it’s just the sins you know about.  Yes, that’s it.  It was the sin of commission.  But what about the sin you don’t know about?  Oh yes, yes - the sin of omission.  Or what about the sin your ancestors gave you?  Oh yea, yea the sin of transmission, generational curses.  You’ll go nuts.

People think that once you get born again, up to that point you have been forgiven of all your past sins.  If you sin after, that sin goes to your sin account.  When you confess that sin and seek forgiveness your account is cleared until your next sin.  When you confess it right away it is a “short account.” And don’t wait too long now or else if you get into a car accident with unconfessed sin you’ll go to hell, or your prayers won’t be answered during this period.  If you wait too long you’re keeping “a long account” with God.  You’re supposed to keep short accounts. 

Listen up beloved, the good news is you don’t have a sin account anymore.  The sin account has been paid in full!  Jesus paid it all and it is finished!

Hallelujah!  I’m typing myself happy!

Romans 4:8 declares,

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

Impute means to put on your account, or to credit to.  Does the man in the verse above sin?  Yes, otherwise there’d be no reason to have sin credited to his account.  But God will not credit sin to your account, because Jesus’ finished work closed the account!  In the Old Covenant, He did credit sin.  But in the New Covenant, which is barely taught, He promises in Hebrews 10:17,

Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.

Once upon a time God did remember your sin.  And he didn’t just shrug it off, sweep it under the rug and say “it’s okay, I’m merciful.”  If Judge Judy did that today she’d be off-the-air.  No, God righteously judged all of it at the cross in the body of Jesus, and you now have no debt anymore.  He is not counting your sins against you.  His justice is on your side. 

“But Aaron, didn’t Jesus say you must forgive, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you?  And did He not also say ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us?’ ”

Yes, He did.  But you have to understand that this was all before the cross.  Everything you read in the Bible, you have to filter it through the cross.  The cross will either keep it, delete it or revise it.  So after the cross Scripture says "be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you,” and “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”  Colossians 2:13: “having forgiven us all our trespasses.” 

Stop taking guilt-trips.  If you messed up, know that you can always go to God without feeling condemned because you are already forgiven.  Take responsibility and admit it, repent (which in the Greek literally means change your mind) about that sin, and confess it (meaning to agree with what He said about that sin).  What did He say about it?   He said it is forgiven, that He is not counting that sin against you - and that you and Him are still tight.

You’re not “out of fellowship” or “separated” from God after you fail.  God wasn’t with you in the first place because of your good behavior.  It was Jesus’ behavior at the cross that qualified you.  It’s realizing that you’re not separated that will keep you.  To know that you’re not condemned first will free you from this vicious cycle of sin. 

“But Aaron, if you tell people they’re not condemned, they’ll sin like crazy!” 

Oh yea?  Think they’ll go on a $500 sinning spree?  Will the church youth camps turn into a “Girls Gone Wild” video?  No, the truth is people are already going crazy because they think they’re condemned. They don’t know how much they’ve been forgiven.  And Jesus says, those who know that they are forgiven much, will love much (Luke 7:47)!  And when they love much, they don’t have to worry about keeping a list of “thou shalt nots.” It’s an automatic because it’s a relationship.

I’m not advocating sin.  There is no condemnation from God, but God isn’t the only one you’re dealing with here on earth.  You can’t show up late to work everyday and then tell your boss “well, there’s no condemnation.”  He’ll greet you with a cardboard box to go clean your office!  You’re still dealing with people, that “they may see your good works, and glorify God.”  If you sin it’ll ruin your testimony and open doors for the devil to eat your lunch. Although God doesn’t punish you for your sin, you may be punished by your sin as it runs its natural course (thank God there is still mercy though).    

How about the Master?  How did Jesus handle condemnation?  What Would Jesus Do?  Or even better, Watch What Jesus Did.  What Would Jesus Do can be filtered by one’s wrong tradition and opinion.  Instead, how about we Watch What Jesus Did – in the Bible.

John 8 tells us a story about a woman who was no doubt “caught in adultery, in the very act.”  The religious leaders dragged her to Jesus and gave him a multiple choice question based on the Law of Moses.  A.) Stone her. B.) Don’t stone her.  It was a trap.  They could accuse him both ways if he picks either answer.

But Jesus was cool (oh, He is so cool!), and He just stooped down and wrote on the stony ground, like He didn’t hear them.  You don’t always have to give an answer to the devil’s accusations.  You can just be so involved with how much God loves you that you don’t have time to listen to the snake.  But the Pharisees persisted, and he kept writing on the stones with his finger.  He was probably thinking, “Um, you really wanna quote the Law to me?  I was the one who wrote it.”

You know the story.  Jesus came up with the answer C.) He who is without sin throw the first stone.  Wow, only the Holy Spirit can think of an answer like this!  So they all left, from the oldest to youngest (I guess the older ones had more sin on their mind, so they left first).

After the dust cleared, it was just Jesus and the girl.  She probably had a stitch of clothing on - kicked, spat on, bruised and in tears.  She probably felt extremely ashamed, and saw herself as the filthiest, dirtiest no good whore.  And Jesus, the only one qualified to cast the first stone, looked at her and said:

“Woman, where are those accusers of yours?  Has no one condemned you?”      

“No one, Lord.”

And Jesus said to her,

“Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” 

Beloved, when you know God isn’t mad at you, that He’s not condemning you – you will go and sin no more.  The power to sin no more is found first in receiving no condemnation.  You don’t have to clean up your act before you go to Jesus.  You don’t have to learn how to be warm before you go to the fire.

You can always go to Him.  His blood has made you clean.  Truly, there is therefore now no condemnation in Christ.