Romans 8:1, commentary and pictures

There is now present freedom from God's judgment upon transgression, but only for those who are in Christ Jesus through repentance and faith and who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. This freedom was secured because the law was weakened by the flesh and could not save, so God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemned sin in the flesh, and Christ as the sinless substitute had human sin charged to Him and punished in Him so that His perfect obedience and righteousness are imputed to the believer the moment he believes. Justification is the opposite of condemnation, by which the penitent sinner who accepts Christ's atonement passes from rebel and child of sin to adopted loyal subject, fully acquitted from the condemnation of the law by the righteousness of Christ alone received by faith in His blood. This freedom does not cancel the law or give license for lawlessness, for the law remains holy, just, good and binding, and freedom from condemnation belongs to those who delight in the law, obey it from the heart, and yield themselves as instruments of righteousness. Being in Christ means being renewed by the Spirit and united to Him as branches to the vine, so that His character, meekness, blameless conduct and Christlike love are seen in them, and they need not remain under condemnation or darkness but can stand before God's law without shame in faith, victory and joy.

Words and Condition

Condemnation is God's judgment in consequence of transgression, and everywhere all who are not in Christ Jesus are under that condemnation. Without Christ the sinner remains under the condemnation of the law, guilty and condemned if the merit of the crucified and risen Saviour is refused. There is now present freedom from condemnation, but only for those who are in Christ Jesus through repentance and faith and who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. This freedom comes because the life-giving law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus frees from the law of sin and death and from the power of sin and death. The law could not bring it because it was weakened by the flesh and human nature was weak, so God did what the law could not do by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemning sin in the flesh, that the righteousness the law requires might be fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

This freedom does not cancel the law, for the law remains holy, just, good and binding, while sin and not the law must die, and the law reveals sin and condemns transgressors unless they repent, are converted and return to loyalty. Being in Christ means fleeing to Him without delay as a sure refuge from eternal death and the second death, leaving every other interest, because Christ shed His blood to provide retreat and no power can take from His hands souls that come to Him for pardon. It means abiding in Him by faith and obedience, not by belief alone, since the sinner is exposed to eternal death until hidden in Christ and pursued by Satan, and leaving the refuge again exposes the soul to destruction. Transgressors of God's law who are thus in Christ Jesus are free from condemnation and safe from the second death.

Being in Christ means being renewed by the Spirit, chosen out of the world, united to Christ as branches to the living vine and led by the Spirit as sons of God. Those who belong to Christ do not live according to the flesh but walk according to the Spirit, receiving power to become sons of God by believing in Him. Christ's Spirit and character are seen in them in meekness, blameless conduct, heavenly conversation and Christlike love, their changed lives distinguish them from the world, and they are called Christians because Christ is in them and they resemble Him as the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Their wisdom and strength are the help of the Spirit and the words of eternal life, and being willing and obedient they are led into all truth, with holy Christlike love working in the heart with purifying influence making them living examples of Christianity.

Being in Christ is not holding truth as mere theory without conversion, which lowers the standard of truth to something common and does great harm. It means professed truth controls the entire character, and God does not leave His people without grace and power. Obedient souls thus gain power with God in prayer and power with people to save souls. Those who so come to Jesus to be cleansed may stand before God's law without shame or remorse.

How Freedom Was Secured

There is now no condemnation because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes free from the law of sin and death and from the power of sin and death. Those in Christ who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit are the ones thus freed, living by the Spirit rather than by the flesh. This freedom is lived out in dying to sin and living a new life through Jesus, keeping baptismal vows, turning from self-promotion and strife, and becoming like Christ who bore sin so that people might die to sin and live righteously.

The law could not bring this freedom because it was weakened by the flesh and human nature was weak through the flesh. What the law could not accomplish because of human weakness, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and condemning sin in the flesh. The righteousness the law requires is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, who live by the Spirit rather than the flesh.

Christ as the sinless substitute had human sin charged to Him and punished in Him and put away by Him so that His righteousness can be credited to those who through repentance and faith live by the Spirit rather than by sinful human nature. His death did not create love in God but displayed love already in God's heart, allowing full pardoning mercy to reach rebels while justice was satisfied in the substitute. Jesus as Sin-bearer stands before God carrying the condemnation sinners deserve though He does not deserve it, having passed over the ground where Adam fell and redeemed Adam's fall by bearing the test of temptation on the point of appetite. All who receive Him as personal Saviour stand before God cleared from sin by His imputed righteousness though unworthy and undeserving.

Christ knew no sin but was made sin for men, bore the punishment of the sins of the world, and His perfect obedience and righteousness are imputed to the believer personally the moment the sinner with repentance and faith believes. Through faith the sinner is set free from bondage and condemnation and is made just before God, with Christ's righteousness becoming the believer's righteousness so the believer can live in humble obedience to God's commandments. So the believer stands in the sight of God uncondemned and innocent, counted holy, bringing sins to Christ on whom sins are laid and whose sacrifice meets their penalty. Without Christ the sinner remains under the law's condemnation.

When the Spirit sets truth home to arouse the conscience to discern the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, those ready to walk in the light see themselves as transgressors of God's law and by faith behold God's infinite love in the gift of Jesus to the world. By faith they see the sentence of condemnation erased and their names recorded in the book of life. They see the robe of Christ's righteousness presented to them to prepare them for the mansions above so they may stand spotless before the Father, truths of Christ grasped by the mind as food to the soul.

Christ died as the only means of pardon and sacrifice for those freed from sin's condemnation and penalty through repentance and faith, for God's law cannot save those who break it. Having died as their sacrifice He ascended to stand before the Father as their advocate, and through His grace those freed from condemnation can obey God's law. He condemns sin and bore its penalty so sinners need not suffer its final consequence, and He provides abundant grace so His followers may not sin and are not to live according to the flesh but by the Spirit.

Law and Justification

Justification is the opposite of condemnation, and pardon and justification are one and the same thing. The penitent sinner who discerns Christ's atonement made in his behalf and accepts that atonement as his only hope for this life and the future life has his sins pardoned, which is justification by faith. Through faith he passes from the position of a rebel, a child of sin and Satan, to the position of a loyal subject of Christ Jesus, received as His child by adoption, not because of any inherent goodness but because his Substitute and Surety has taken his place and suffered for his sins, borne his guilt and reprieved him from the condemnation of death. That sacrifice fully satisfies the demands of justice, imputes Christ's own righteousness, gives eternal life, brings the guilty transgressor into favor with God and into strong hope of life eternal, and clothes him with the beautiful garments of Christ's righteousness so that pardoned he stands faultless before God. The sinner may still err but is not cast off without mercy, for God's boundless mercy is exercised toward those wholly undeserving, forgiving transgressions and sins for the sake of Jesus who became the propitiation for sins, as long as there is repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only hope.

The guilty and lost sinner is fully acquitted from the condemnation of the law by the righteousness of Christ alone, accepted as a free gift by firm faith in His blood as the atoning sacrifice, finding in Jesus Christ all that he needs. To the true believer this truth is glorious, a priceless treasure precious every hour and a cause for rejoicing, while righteousness based on anything other than Christ leaves the sinner lost, and sin itself is a hateful thing to be hated with intense hatred. This freedom does not cancel the law, do away with it, make keeping the law a fall from grace, or give freedom for lawlessness, presumption, indifference and carnal quietude. The law remains holy, just, good and binding, while sin, not the law, must die; the law reveals sin and condemns transgressors unless they repent, are converted and return to loyalty to God, and the rest and freedom of release from the law's condemnation are found only in entire dependence upon Christ, in learning of Him, wearing His yoke and bearing His burden, and possessing His meekness and lowliness. Without the guidance of the Holy Spirit minds mistake this truth for the fatal error lying close beside it and come under Satan's deception.

Freedom from condemnation belongs to those who obey God's law, resist sin's rule, yield their bodies as instruments of righteousness, delight in the law of God and live in harmony with it. To them the law is holy and just and good, not bringing condemnation but serving as strength, a wall of protection, a refuge for guardianship, and they are not under the law as condemned even as Christ judges all the earth and measures character by the divine standard. It is not a privilege for those who persist in trampling the law, for there is no condemnation to those obedient to the law of God, which is the law of angels and the law of saints, requiring powers of mind and soul and body to be sanctified to Jesus, who bought sinners with His shed blood that they might become children of God. Those freed from sin's condemnation and its penalty through repentance and faith in Christ can through Christ's grace obey God's law, since God's law cannot save those who break it and Christ's blood is the only means of pardon, Christ having died as their sacrifice and ascended to stand before the Father as their advocate. A claim of sanctification and perfect love cannot make Sabbath-breaking sinless, for genuine sanctification comes through obedience to the truth, and a sanctified heart is in harmony with all God's commandments.

There is no condemnation when a person believes every word of Christ, appropriates the Word to his own soul as the bread of life, is united to Christ by living faith, and brings Christ's requirements into practical life by keeping the commandments from the heart and bearing much fruit. Then he has the witness of the Spirit that his ways please God, the joy of Christ remaining in him full in the soul, and full assurance of hope. He is no longer under the law because the law no longer condemns his course of action, and obedience to the will of God does not make this life hard and miserable.

Life After the Spirit

Walking after the Spirit flows from genuine faith in which the heart yields to God, its affections are fixed on Him, and the heart is renewed to delight in His law and obey it, and in such walkers the righteousness the law requires is fulfilled. To walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit is to follow Christ and live to do God's will, including serving others rather than pursuing self-interest, and this service is part of sanctification. Freedom from condemnation belongs to the truly sanctified and is joined to cleansing from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and to perfecting holiness in the fear of God. That Spirit-led life refuses fleshly lusts, appetites and passions and practices temperance, self-denial and correct physical habits rather than self-indulgence and gratification of fleshly desire.

This freedom is lived out by keeping baptismal vows, dying to sin and living a new life through Jesus, turning from self-promotion and strife, and becoming like Christ who bore sin so that people might die to sin and live righteously, with the Spirit's life in Christ freeing from the power of sin and death. There is no excuse for envy, fault-finding, jealousy, sin and iniquity, because every provision has been made for whoever believes to be saved from sin and to live not after the flesh but after the Spirit, with ample and abundant grace given so followers may not sin. Those in Christ are children of light who have Christ's righteousness and are pure, holy and undefiled, since sin and holiness are entirely opposite and cannot harmonize, and those who have the light must walk in the light in obedience to the commandments, which brings every temporal and spiritual advantage.

The believer must cooperate with divine power by human effort to subdue sin, become like Christ in holiness of character, and stand complete in Him. The moment a sinner with repentance and faith believes, he stands before God uncondemned and innocent because Christ bore the punishment of the sins of the world and His perfect obedience and righteousness are imputed and credited to the believer, bearing the guilt so the repenting sinner is counted holy. Jesus forgives the sinful and lifts up the soul that feels guilt, drawing the sinner to Himself, so that transgressions great or small do not condemn the one who repents, accepts Him as personal Saviour, becomes a child of God, and lays hold of Him by faith with firm resolve to have no further part in any sin that nailed Him to the cross.

Assurance and Invitation

Those who are in Christ Jesus and walk according to the Spirit, not after the flesh, need not remain under condemnation or live in spiritual darkness. Through Jesus they may come to be cleansed and to stand before God's law without shame or remorse. Such freedom from condemnation belongs with a humble life marked by faith and victory and joy in God. Humility does not require sadness or self-depreciation.

Doing what is right from love rather than from compulsion leaves a pleasing consciousness instead of a sting or self-reproach, with no self-condemnation. Freedom from the condemnation of the law is available to all who hunger and thirst for it, because Jesus loves them. He gives them faith that works by love and purifies the soul. Being justified by that faith brings peace with God.

Christ's atoning sacrifice is full and sufficient, and the Holy Spirit applies the truth about Jesus to the mind. Reading this chapter earnestly can bring a half-converted person into the light it reveals.

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and live by the Spirit rather than the flesh, who are spiritually minded and redeemed by sovereign grace. The verse calls them to draw closer to Christ and to throw themselves on the mercy of Him who gave His life to save them. In His strength they can rise with noble purpose to honor God and to reveal Christ to the world. In Him they can redeem the past with all its self-managed mistakes.