He Condemns Me; He Condemns Me Not?
Musings from the Garden
By Peggy Wyar
As a friend and I were processing how God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible, I sensed shame was prevalent within them, so I made this comment:
“Why would God, who is pure love, offer His only Son, Jesus, for our Redemption, and then spend the rest of our lives sending us condemning emails and letters?”
As we talked about whether this question was valid, I think we recognized the contradiction must be in how we process what we read in His Word. After all, the Bible tells us in John 3:17 that God did not send His Son to condemn us, but to save us.
Romans 8:1-4 NIV says it like this:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Notice that those who are in Christ Jesus are not condemned. Jesus condemned sin in the flesh, nailing it to the cross, so it would no longer have power over us as believers (Romans 6). We have the choice now to walk according to the Spirit and not in the flesh.
Having been set free, we have been adopted by God, made heirs in His kingdom, and been given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our inheritance. We have everything we need to live godly in this life, but we may still stumble. Will God condemn us since we still mess up?
Consider this: Would you cast out your own child if they made a mistake? Would a loving parent ridicule their child for a childish mistake? How would a loving relative treat their addicted loved one who is trying to be free of their bad choices? I think mercy would be given.
John 11:13 says “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
I think the key to processing what we read in God’s Word is asking for the Holy Spirit to reveal His Word for us. John 15:26 tells us that the Helper is the Spirit of truth who testifies of Jesus. John 16:8-14 NIV describes for us the work of the Holy Spirit:
“When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”
Notice who is condemned in this passage; the prince of this world. The Holy Spirit may convict us but does not condemn us. As children of God, we are privileged to know the Holy Spirit who guides us into truth, who speaks what He hears the Father speaking, and reveals Jesus to us.
We need to be ready to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as we process what we think and how we receive what we read in the Bible. A good reminder is:
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Our upbringing, past circumstances, besetting sin areas and any number of other things can make it difficult to hear God in truth, but we have weapons that we can use to battle against wrong views of God and deceptive understandings of His Word. These weapons are divinely powerful for enabling us to hear clearly what God is saying to us.
I submit to you to consider that the weapons we have at our disposal are laid out in Ephesians 6:10-20. We have salvation in Jesus (our helmet). We have His righteousness (our breastplate). We know the gospel of peace (our boots), the good news of redemption. We know and are known by Jesus, who is the Truth (our belt). We have His word (our sword) to destroy the lies of the enemy. We are equipped for the battle. We can pray in the Holy Spirit and believe that God will answer.
We can hear God speaking to us through His Word. Our God loves us as a good Father. He will not condemn us and leave us without hope. He has given His Holy Spirit to help us know Him more. Let’s stand firm in Jesus, no longer condemned.
Romans 15:13 NIV “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”