“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”  (Romans 8:1)

In this verse, we find two descriptions of the same person — a person that is in Christ Jesus. Those of us who are in Christ Jesus are first described by our position and then by our practice. We have no condemnation against us, Paul says, and we walk after the Spirit instead of the flesh.  The position is up to Christ to fulfill, the practice is up to us.  Fortunately for us, God is much better at keeping His word than we are.

Because God is completely holy, there is nothing we can do that can impress God.  Even our greatest deeds and will fall well short of the perfection that God requires.   On our own, we stand guilty before a virtuous judge who must deliver judgement in a way that matches his total sinlessness.  It might seem by the verse above that we determine our condemnation (or lack of it) by not walking in the flesh.  In other words, it might look like we earn our “freedom” by being good people.

It is not that we are “good enough” to merit favor, but that those of us who are in Christ have had our punishment transferred to Jesus, so that we are without condemnation. Romans 8:9 says “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him.”  So we who believe on Jesus Christ have the assurance that Christ has taken our place and has placed us in Him through the indwelling Spirit. Christ is our substitute, so, in spite of our great shortcomings, we are without condemnation, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ has done.  Christ’s perfect sacrifice on our behalf has wiped our criminal record clean.

How then should we, the pardoned, live? We should follow the leadership of the Spirit of God. As Paul later explains in the same chapter, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14)  We no longer need to follow the dictates of our corrupted nature or of the sinful world; we can march to the beat of a spiritual Drummer, following the footsteps of our perfect Savior.

What a privilege and joy it is to be in Christ!  Our desire, like Paul’s, should therefore be to “be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9).  Finally, we can walk free of the condemnation that is born into us and would remain in us if we did not accept Christ’s substitutional sacrifice on our behalf.

My favorite song for quite some time was “Who Am I” by Casting Crowns.  The chorus goes like this:

“Not because of who I am, But because of what You’ve done.

“Not because of what I’ve done, But because of who You are.”

It summarizes for me why we are so blessed in Christ.  If you listen to all the lyrics of that song it captures the unbelievable act of love that has led us out of bondage.

PS   you can find the song lyrics here-   

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/castingcrowns/whoami.html

and the song here:

If you get a chance to listen, I think you will love it.