Romans 8:1a, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”, and it truly is a wonderful phrase that gives to those who have felt guilt and condemnation something they can rejoice in, knowing that our Father God does not, has not, nor ever will behold them as worthy of disapproval. This is truly good news! But how many of us have been agents of satan, even when claiming to be Christians? Did that statement get your attention? How dare I call you an agent of satan? I think I should explain.
I think most of us have been taught somewhere along the line that satan is a very real being, truly evil, and has our destruction as his only objective so that he can usurp Father God’s reign. Now, whether or not any of that is true, we will for the sake of this discussion merely consider the word ‘satan’. It means in its most basic form ‘the accuser’. In a legal sense it would be the Prosecutor in a court scenario: the one who will try to find fault.
So, going back to our Romans’ verse; ‘There is therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’. We can say that from God our Father, who is also our sovereign Lord and King, the one who is Judge over all of creation, that when we have been accused of wrongdoing against Him, He has judged us as not guilty and has acquitted us. But the accusation of wrongdoing brought against us was according to the Law, so let’s have a quick look at that.
We know that the Law was given to mankind through the agency of Moses when he received the commandments on tablets of stone on Mt Sinai. And it won’t take much of a glance through the books of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy to realize that for most breaches of the Law the punishment is death by stoning. In fact it is interesting to note that the first act of the Law when originally brought down from the mountain was to condemn the very people it was meant to help. We could say that when the tablets were broken into pieces, 3000 were stoned to death by the Law.
Yet in the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8:2-11, when Jesus was confronted by a crowd testing Him about the Law, His response was, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” We should note from this scripture that it was the religious that were the accusers; they were the satans!
And over the centuries since, the church has often done the same. Just quickly looking at history, we see the Crusades where many thousands died for being muslim or Jews. We see the Inquisition where many thousands were tortured and killed for being accused of not being Orthodox according to a particular group’s opinion. How many died for being Protestant by the Catholics, and how many for being Catholic by the Protestants. How many Jews have been tortured and killed by Christians during pogroms and the Holocaust? How many churches have split over accusations of differences in theology or because of some slight perceived by one faction from another?
It is easy to distance ourselves from these events and say that it was then, or there, or them. Or to institutionalise the persecutions when it is so easy to forget that institutions are merely groups of people like you and me. But, you say, “I’m not like that”. Yet still we use the Law to condemn Muslims, Hindus, Gays and atheists, and probably the worst of all, tourists in their Winnebagoes!
But you say, “if they are breaking God’s Law, don’t we need to let them know?” Yes, but only if they come under your authority, such as your children whilst children, or your employees doing their job. And that’s about it.
