Grace & Truth Chapel
131 Fardale Avenue ~ Mahwah, New Jersey
Phone 201-327-6226 ~ E-mail gtchapel@juno.com

Back to home page
Back to Bible Digging archive list         Back to this month's Bible Digging



"No Condemnation" (posted October 9, 2011)

  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
   - Romans 8:1

What unspeakable relief it is to the bewildered, troubled soul-- oppressed with a sense of his own unworthiness and distressed because of frequent failures to live up to his own highest resolves-- when he learns that God sees him in Christ Jesus. Thus seen, he is free from all condemnation.

He may exclaim, "But I feel so condemned." This, however, is not the question. It is not how I feel, but it is what God says. He sees me in Christ risen, forever beyond the reach of condemnation.

A prisoner before the bar, hard of hearing and dull of sight, might imagine his doom was being announced at the very moment that the judge was giving a verdict of full acquittal. Neither blindness nor deafness would alter this fact. And though we are often slow to hear, and our spiritual vision is most defective, the blessed fact remains that God has pronounced the believer free from condemnation, whether he fully rises to the glorious fact or not.

Oh, doubting one, look away then altogether from self and state, look away from frames and feelings to Christ risen, now forever beyond the cross where your sins once put Him. See yourself in Him, exalted there at God's right hand. He would not be there if the sin question was not settled to the divine satisfaction. The fact that He is there and that you are seen by God in Him is the fullest possible testimony to your freedom from all condemnation.

This leaves the soul at liberty to be occupied with pleasing God, not as a means of escaping the divine displeasure, but out of love to Him who has brought us to Himself in peace.

Henry A. Ironside



Back to home page
Back to Bible Digging archive list         Back to this month's Bible Digging