8 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For 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 to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.5 For 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. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus[j] from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (Romans 8:1-11 NRS)
There is a word at the very beginning of Romans 8 that carries more weight than it appears to: "therefore." Paul doesn't just launch into this magnificent chapter cold — he connects it to everything that came before, including the exhausting admission of chapter 7, where he confessed that he kept doing what he hated and couldn't do what he loved. The "therefore" is the hinge. After all of that — after the honest reckoning with the war inside him, after the cry of "who will rescue me from this body of death?" — here is the answer landing with full force: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1, NRSV). Not less condemnation. Not reduced condemnation. None.
I know what condemnation felt like from an early age, and not always for the right reasons. Growing up the eldest of five children, having been an only child for four years before my brothers and sisters arrived, I was not always a model of saintly behavior. I knew the consequences. I knew what a spanking meant and what earned it. But I discovered early that there was something far worse than a single consequence: double jeopardy. Not the television program — the real thing. It meant a spanking from Mom, and then later, when Dad's car turned onto the driveway, my younger sister — who had developed what I can only describe as an Academy Award-winning ability to produce real tears entirely on demand — would hear those tires on the gravel and transform instantly from my perfectly happy playmate into a wailing, devastated victim, running toward Dad screaming "Junior hit me!" No trial. No presentation of facts. No character witnesses. Guilty before the car door closed, and drawn and quartered all over again.
The remarkable thing, looking back, is that by the time Dad came home my sister and I had already made our peace. We'd played together the rest of the afternoon as if nothing had happened. But the accusation was renewed even though the matter had already been settled. I was being condemned a second time for something that was, in every practical sense, already resolved.
Paul is writing about a condemnation infinitely more serious than anything my sister's tears could produce — the condemnation that stands against every human being who has ever looked honestly at their own heart and known that they have fallen short of what God requires. But the extraordinary word he uses is not "reduced" or "managed" or "set aside for now." He says none. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Not because the sin wasn't real. Not because God lowered the standard. But because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has done what the law alone could never do — it has settled the matter, permanently, through the one who met every requirement in our place.
The voice that tries to renew the accusation after the matter has already been settled — that is not the voice of the Spirit. That is the voice Paul spent all of chapter 7 describing, the law of sin and death trying to exercise dominion it has already lost. God has done what the law could not do: "by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, He condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3). The verdict has been handed down — not against you, but against sin itself, in the flesh of Christ. The tires on the driveway will not produce a second condemnation. The Father already knows the whole story, and His verdict stands.
The conclusion Paul draws is breathtaking in its personal directness: "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwells in you" (Romans 8:11). The same power that moved in the grave on Easter morning — the power that rolled back death itself — dwells in you. The Greek word is oikei — it means to make a home, to take up residence, to inhabit. The resurrection power of God has made its home in the very body that keeps failing you, in the very flesh where the battle rages. The Spirit is not visiting. He is living there. And where He lives, there is no room left for condemnation to take up residence alongside Him.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, thank You that Your Spirit has made His home in us and that the power that raised You from the dead is the same power now at work in our mortal bodies. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Replace one thought of self-condemnation today with the deliberate declaration of Romans 8:1 — say it out loud, by name, to yourself: "There is therefore now no condemnation for me, because I am in Christ Jesus."
I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me!
Winning the world for Jesus,
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
