Saints, Not Sinners No Condemnation: Romans 8:1 By Fred Pruitt

 Fred's Blog can be found here.
In Romans 8:1 Paul reaches critical mass. This little, innocuous, so well-used term, “no condemnation,” is like the great flash of light that precedes everything else in a nuclear detonation.

“No condemnation” is pure light out of heaven, exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. Each one of us in some degree knows this condemnation. This is far more than putting ourselves under a guilt trip, or a sort of “Christian” negative self image. 

This condemnation is from deeper sources than our own psychology or past behaviors.

It has nothing to do with anything about ourselves as we might think. 

It has nothing to do, for instance, with whether we are self-confident or self-doubting.

A confident person knows this condemnation as much as a timid person. We are not more condemned if we have made many more bad choices than others who have not made the same choices. Likewise, if we have made very few so called bad choices, we are not spared any measure of this condemnation. All of us share it in common measure. It is the inheritance we have been born into.  

“Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation…” Rom 5:18a  

The choice in the Garden was not about good and evil, or right and wrong. That is what the whole world lives in, but good and evil was not what the choice was about. It was about life and death. 

When they took the fruit, which was something to make them “wise as gods,” they chose death (having been warned beforehand), and immediately there appeared on the scene the precursor and continual reminder of death – condemnation, which has hounded all our heels ever since.

It is like a sense of impending doom, that I must hide, protect, hunker down, make boundaries, declare territories, to ward off certain death as long as is possible. Now it is very common in the beginning to get the gospel mixed up with right and wrong actions and thoughts, morals, world viewpoints, etc. 

We even get it mixed up with our up and down feelings, all of which ultimately become the wrong track. But it’s a wrong track which brings us here to this brink where great light is beginning to flood in as we stand ready to go into God's rest.

Now this condemnation, which means a continual sentence of death hanging over our heads, is the natural outcome of living by the law, of living by “knowing good and evil.” 

The law as outer precepts is impersonal. It has no mercy or grace. That is what happened with Adam and Eve. As soon as they partook of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, seeking something they saw outside themselves, which they were tricked into taking into themselves in order to become wise as gods, they instead instantly knew death and fear – condemnation! But we have been learning that now in the Cross we have been delivered from the law. 

Romans seven is about finding out that we cannot approach God by that path. The reason we cannot approach God down this road is because the law, though both inwardly and outwardly representative of Him, still is, in a sense, “one step removed” from God. It is not He Himself. 

The Law expresses the nature of God, yet it is not God. There simply is no set of standards that could be written, much less applied and obeyed, that could possibly equalize the created with the Creator. Paul said the law, “was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.” (Gal 3:19, 20) In other words, the law is separation. 

Under the law we are one step removed from God and always remain so. 

Who is sufficient for these things? 

The vast majority of the Church of Christ through the centuries has been stuck right here in this limbo. 

We cannot keep ourselves from sin,

and cannot propel ourselves into the fullness of spiritual life.

The veil that divides us (condemnation – Gen 3:6-10) continually remains. The veil is there because of the law and the flesh which tries to keep the law. The law presupposes the separate self to obey it. And that self, which in its false separateness can only hear the law as if it is coming from outside itself, is bound to both the demands of the law and to the separateness in which to do them. The law demands that the person fulfill precepts which are descriptions of God’s own life as He is. In order to do that one would have to either be like God, or else be God. 

The first, to be “like Him,” is impossible, even if we were to have, as we say, “His help.” One cannot recreate or imitate the Eternal. It’s the most absurd thought that ever came into the temporal universe. We’ve all tried that. 

The second, to “Be Him” is likewise impossible, but still the only recourse left after we exhaust the first. Here we find our final answer. We have found to the uttermost we cannot be like Him, and we certainly know we cannot BE Him, but now we see that Christ has come into us to be US! Not to make me be “like” Him, but He has come to live in “me” to be “me,” and in “you” to be “you.”He and I, one person together. 

And this is where our NO condemnation takes form in us. We’ve grown up all our lives knowing nothing but this condemnation. If others didn’t put it on us then we put it on ourselves. We know our guilt and we know what we deserve and now this Romans seven has brought it all sharply into focus. But here we find Paul at the end of Romans seven, finally coming to the resolution of his struggle, like a slow train, steadily getting there.

He has now taken us to the final hump, where he sees two operations, one the law of sin and death, or the law of the flesh, and the other the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is an important juncture here, and the absolute crux of the matter. On one hand Paul seems to be saying that he is operating both laws simultaneously, walking in his flesh according to the flesh, and at the same time in his spirit walking according to the spirit. 

This seems a weak solution, since it still leaves him very much a double person all his days. 

Or on the other hand, Paul seems to be saying that he walks one way one moment – when he minds the flesh he walks according to the flesh – and another way another moment – when he minds the spirit he walks according to the Spirit. But how do we do that? I thought we’d gotten out of that whole “effort” thing. 

And we seem to be left there holding just that bag as we close out Romans seven. The problem seems to be at this point, if we were left just here, is that the solution is a sort of limbo, and the limbo is because we don’t really know which way this is going to go. But this “limbo” is really the final nail in the coffin of this self that thinks it is something in itself and has some capability to now operate the life of the Spirit. 

Who is sufficient for these things? The vast majority of the Church of Christ through the centuries has been stuck right here in this limbo. We cannot keep ourselves from sin, and cannot propel ourselves into the fullness of spiritual life. 

We seem perpetually to be “two,” not just between ourselves and God, but between our “flesh” self and our “spirit” self, or sin nature and righteousness nature, or however anyone describes it. The limbo is, now that we have realized this world-destroying truth about ourselves, we have not yet come to know fully the One with Whom we have to do, and having not yet come to know Him as He is, we have no framework from which to say or believe that we will ever be anything but this two-sided person.

There must be a rescue from outside ourselves to solve this. It is a scale-dropping revelation to see we are nothing in ourselves, and to see from an observer’s point of view, opening in our consciousness by the Spirit, how with the flesh we walk in the law of sin and death, and with the “mind” we walk according to the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

O how wonderful! Praise God, that’s how it is, and now we see it. 

But wait! What’s next? There must be more to this than knowing that fact, glorious as that is. Unless something further comes, in which this continual inescapable twoness (between God and myself and between myself and myself) is supplanted by a certain wholeness and eternal (continuous) oneness, I’m still stuck, because what I’ve learned through this valley of self-effort the Lord has taken me through, is that I can do nothing of myself. 

If that is so, then I likewise cannot operate the life of the Spirit, or by anything I know to do or say, keep myself in it. No, not ever! 

The conscious life of the Spirit begins when the Spirit opens our consciousness to the fact that it is forever, “Not I, but He,” and, “the Son can do nothing of Himself … the Father that dwells in me, He does the works!” The life of the Spirit is always operated by the Spirit, so that we are forever in weakness as the lambs of God. And it is only through this final hump here, which on one side perpetually appears as if we are two, sometimes flesh and sometimes spirit, and through this revelation which comes first as this blinding flash of NO CONDEMNATION that blots out everything else, we come through this portal onto the other side, where we know Christ and ourselves joined as one spirit, so that the life we are now living is Christ, and that He has now appeared here in our form to be in us our All, in all. 

We have gone finally now from the law, i.e., knowing “about” God, as if God is an object we could study and analyze, but now having gone over this hump, we come into knowing God, not as an “over there” person we can look at and touch, but as being mixed in union and oneness in that union through Jesus, so that inwardly we now know that we living is He living. One person. 

All our lives God has spoken to us and in us in various ways, drawing us to Himself in order to reveal the Son in us. Every moment God’s true heart has been saying to us, “You are my beloved son,” even if for years of our lives we could not hear the voice. But all that time He has unfailingly, little by little, in every circumstance and event of our lives, been perfectly drawing us into Himself in order to reveal in us His love. 

And now here, as we are coming into this life that is Christ’s LIFE being lived out and expressed in the world through and AS our humanity, the greatest shockwave ever hits our mortality, swallowing it up into life, as we for the first time hear in ourselves, the Word which God has eternally been saying of us, 

“You are released from death, 

and have passed forever into my Life. 

You may rest from your labors in Me, 

knowing that I will only be in you life everlasting.”

Suddenly everything in the universe turns around and changes. The music changes keys. You have found favor! There is One Who sees you and delights in you! How could that be for one such as I? Only God knows, but here you are, now delivered from the law, now delivered from the self-efforts of a falsely independent self and all its tricks and foibles, now delivered by great wonders out of darkness into light, here right now you are, called and chosen of God, to bear His name and light in fear and trembling into the world.

The handwriting of ordinances, which was against us, has been removed, nailed to His cross, and with it the condemnation it brought us all our lives has likewise gone back into the pit from which it came. 

And the word of NO condemnation is the portal, the announcement, of that which is to come, because condemnation is that last little bit that has been about “me,” and from now on we move away from “me” in the life of the Spirit. As we become settled in who we are – Christ living as us – we move into an entirely “for others” life, out of the spontaneity of the Spirit who keeps all these things happening. We no longer accept any such thing as "condemnation" because we are He living as us, who is always the "beloved Son," in whom the Father is always pleased. Next: We try to make it to Romans 8:2 and maybe beyond in our next discussion of “Saints, Not Sinners

Coming Out of Darkness Part 21 by Gary Sigler

Facebook on Monday, 11 April 2011 at 16:44. Three Stages of Spiritual Growth Part 1 There are basically three stages of spiritual growth in the Christian life, as revealed by the Apostle John, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one" (1 John 2:12-14). Little Children When we are first born again, we are newborn babies, and it takes some time for spiritual growth. We need the liberty to be babies and little children until we grow up. John says in 1 John 2:1, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The ideal is that once you come to know Jesus, "I would that you sin not." But if you do sin, remember you have an advocate with the Father. John is saying here that right from the very beginning we need to realize that God is our Savior. If you are saved, you have a heart for God. When you have a heart for God, deep inside you want to be conformed in His image. So John says, "Little children, I would that you sin not, but if you do, remember that you have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous." Little children do not know a whole lot. They need, more than anything, to be properly loved and fed. You do not teach a baby how to be a full-grown man. As parents, we do not expect a whole lot from our little children. One of the great problems in the system of Christianity that hinders spiritual growth is that after we are born again they will not allow us the time to be little children. They expect us to be born again and then start being a spiritual man. Religion condemns all the little children because they are not grown up. Little children are still worldly. They still do many things that a mature person wouldn’t do. The one thing a little child has is confidence in their Father. They never feel like they cannot go to their Father, regardless of what they do. A child always knows that they can go to their Father and receive love and forgiveness. We Christians have a hard time believing that God is good enough to receive us just the way we are. He knows our habits and sins, yet He loves and forgives us anyway. When God called you, you may have been a prostitute or a king. When He called you, He knew exactly what you were and what it would take to transform you. He looks way beyond where you are today and He sees you in eternity fully transformed and walking in the realm of the Kingdom. Romans chapter 8 says that we have been called, predestinated, justified and glorified, all in the past tense. God looks at the finished work. God’s Unlimited Forgiveness Little children you cannot sin more than God’s ability and willingness to forgive. In fact, He has already forgiven you. On the cross, every sin ever committed, past, present, and future, was forgiven. At the cross, sin, the world, the flesh and the devil were taken into death and did not come out of the grave. In God’s eyes, sin is no more. He fully dealt with the sin problem. This cannot be just a doctrine. We need the revelation to see the full redemption that was purchased at Calvary. When we have the light and revelation of God concerning redemption, we will never be condemned again for the areas in our lives that need transformation. There will come a day when the veils will be fully removed from our eyes and we will see that sin is no more and we will be free from it. The fear of sin is what keeps many in bondage to it. I am no longer afraid of sin. I know I still experience it in certain areas, but I no longer fear it. I know sin is a product of the carnal realm. As long as I am not fully transformed, the carnal man will affect me at times. However I no longer fear this, I just continue to seek God and know that as I seek Him, as I touch Him, He will flow into those areas and bring transformation. When you no longer fear sin, it loses power in your life. One of the greatest problems today is that we do not feel good enough to partake of the riches of Christ. We do not see the power of God operating in our lives because we feel that we are not worthy. We do not believe in the simplicity of the gospel. Jesus bore the penalty for our sin and we should not feel condemned, but rather forgiven. We are God’s children, born from above. We have a new nature, but we are still for the most part little children. Because we are still more natural than spiritual, we condemn ourselves for what we do in the flesh. We feel we deserve condemnation rather than God’s forgiveness. We feel, because of our sin and our carnal nature that from time to time rises up in us, that we are not worthy. It would be wonderful if, when we come to God, we could be born a fully mature Son of God, but that just does not happen. God wants to transform us into what He is, and that is a day by day process. The religious ones look at the little children and say, "Look at them, they call themselves Christians and they do all kinds of things that they shouldn’t. They must not be born again." To them, being a Christian is a matter of conduct, of being right and doing right. They do not realize that they need to feed the little children, not condemn them. So precious few ever realize that to change the outward conduct only makes them a better person in the natural. No matter how good you are, it does not give you an entrance into the Kingdom of God. I have witnessed, time and time again, that it is much harder for a good person to enter into the realm of the Kingdom than a bad person. A good person has a hard time recognizing their need for God. If you have followed these messages on Coming Out of Darkness from the beginning, you know it doesn’t matter how good or how bad you are, you still need God to be able to live the Kingdom life. God takes natural men both, good and bad, and transforms them into Sons of God. This is the good news of the gospel. Living in the Kingdom of God has absolutely nothing to do with the natural man. We are not fully transformed yet. There are times when our flesh will get the best of us. There are still times when we say no to the prompting of the Spirit. If you are 95% transformed in the spirit and still have 5% carnality, that 5% will rise up and get the best of you at times. If you do not understand that, you will always be condemned. If you think that because you have been a Christian for 20 years you should not have any carnality, you will always condemn yourself, rather than recognizing it as the flesh and looking away to the sin offering and accepting forgiveness. Again, the penalty for our sin was paid at Calvary. That is why Jesus died and that offering was for all of humanity. He died so that you could find your way back to God. This is according to God’s purpose, which is "every man in his own order". God will bring you into the fullness of His plan for your life. Even though God will bring you fully into His purpose for your life, you still have a part to play in it. That is why it is "every man in his own order". Our actions and responses to God affect our lives, whether for good or bad. The more that we hunger and seek after God, the quicker He can work His will in our lives. If we are not willing, we need to ask Him to make us willing. The choices that we make do play a part in God’s working in our lives. However, we must also understand that it is not a matter of the flesh. We know that the things we do in the flesh do not please God, but we cannot just lay back and do nothing, thinking that God will do it all. The key is that we must seek God. Don’t try to perfect yourself in the flesh, but every day of your life, seek after God. Learn to worship Him and fall in love with Him. There have been periods in my life when I would get so discouraged and downcast that I would lose hunger for God. I have gone for periods when I wouldn’t read the Bible and I wouldn’t pray much, but I never quit being honest with God. I used to drive to a place in my car or find a place in my home every day where I would just talk to God. I have said to God many times, "I do not have the hunger anymore, please help me." I believe that is how I found the strength to keep going on. Most Christians never get beyond the stage of a little child because of condemnation. It is OK to be a child, and you will always be a spiritual child until you realize that it is OK to be where you are today. It does not matter what your problems or hang-ups are. What matters is that you have your eyes unveiled to the fact that the price for your redemption was fully paid. You need to go to God and ask Him to reveal the depths of Calvary to you. You need your understanding opened to the fact that there will come a day when you will fully reveal and manifest His glory, because that is why you were created. You do have a part to play in this. Your choices can hinder your spiritual growth but they will not stop it. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are a puppet on a string. God does have it all worked out according to His purpose, but how long will you wait before going to Him and trusting Him to do in you what you cannot do in the flesh? I have been saying for years that Christians will do everything except take the time to sit quietly in His presence, because they are so busy. If you do not spend time with God, no matter how many good works you do, it does not matter. People may benefit from your good works, but you won’t. You must begin to spend time with God. That is when the veils and the darkness begin to lift off of you. Only God can reveal to you the depths of His love. His love is not a doctrine; it must be experienced. As Christians, we should not know one another according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. There are Christians who have been Christians for many years and are still babies because they have not known these truths. Let’s not condemn the babies, let’s feed them the riches of redemption to release them from condemnation so they can grow. Next "The Young Men"