Notes of a Sermon: “Who is he that condemneth?”—Rom. viii. 34. By the Rev. Donald Macfarlane, Dingwall

THE Apostle in this chapter discourses on the privileges of God’s people. No doubt they have troubles in this life, caused by, among other things, remaining sin in their souls, and many enemies without them in the world, but their privileges are great and many, a summary of which he gives in this chapter. Among these privileges the Apostle mentions this—that they are free from “condemnation.” With this he begins the chapter: “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus,” and he again takes up the subject in our text, “Who is he that condemneth?” In considering these words, we shall notice—

I.—The accusers, which the question implies.

II.—The challenge; for the question is a challenge to the accusers to substantiate their charges; and

III.—The proof the Apostle adduces in support of his implied statement, that there is “no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.”

I.—The accusers. The first accuser we shall mention is Satan. He is called in Scripture by various names, each of which is descriptive of his character as the arch-enemy of God and man, and everything that is good. Among his other names is “the accuser.” He is called “the accuser of the brethren.” These are God’s adopted children, who are brethren of His incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, and also brethren in their relation to each other as members of God’s family of redeemed men. Satan accuses these before God day and night—that is, constantly during their time on earth. He is like the troubled sea that cannot be at rest. An instance of his evil work in this respect we have in the case of Job. He appeared before God to condemn righteous Job, to whom there was no condemnation. As he could not lay hold on anything in the conduct of that holy man of God, who was, according to the testimony of the Most High, “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil,” he tried to accuse him of insincerity and hypocrisy in his profession and worship of God. He charged him with serving God from selfish and worldly motives—that is to say, that it was because God was so good in His providence to Job he served Him. “Does Job fear God for nought?” Satan insinuates that Job’s religion is a mere pretence for worldly gain, and that, if the Lord deprived him of all the wealth He bestowed on him, his religion was gone. The matter was put to the test, and Satan was once more proved to be liar. I shall not follow this instance farther. I refer you to the history of the case as it is recorded in the Bible. Job is now, and long since, in heaven, where Satan cannot disturb his peace and happiness; but the accuser of the brethren is still busy at his unrighteous work towards God’s people on earth. They are not ignorant of his devices. He gathers up all kinds of charges against them, in order to condemn them. He lays to their charge their old sins, which God long ago pardoned, for Christ’s sake; their present infirmities, their shortcomings, over which they themselves mourn, and from which they groan to be delivered. The evil one lets alone his own children to enjoy their false peace; but he is busy day and night to disturb the peace and happiness of God’s children. If we are God’s children, we may expect to be assailed by this enemy in every way he is permitted during our imperfect state here; but we shall come off at last more than conquerors through Him that loved us.

The second accuser is the world—that is, the men of the world who are still of the world that lies in wickedness, and on Satan’s side in his enmity and opposition to the Church of God. Accordingly, Christ, speaking comfort and warning to His disciples before He left them to go to His Father who sent Him, says—“These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.”—John xv. 17-21. You will thus see that it is because of their relation to Christ, and interest in Him, the world of unrenewed sinners hate His people. This was predicted early in the history of redemption: “I will put enmity between thee (Satan) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”—Gen. iii. 15. This enmity has been kept up ever since, and put in practice by Satan and his seed, and it shall be continued in the world to the end of time. The history of God’s Church in the past gives ample proof of the fact that sinners, who were of the world, have done their utmost, under the instigation of Satan, to heap up calumnious charges against God’s people in order to condemn them; and graceless professors of religion often manifested their enmity in this respect in a greater measure than their fellows who made no profession at all. The spirit of Cain is more devilish in a graceless professor than it is in the atheist. The chief priests, who claimed to be the servants of God, were ringleaders in their enmity and opposition to God’s Son, and when they could not prove any charge against Him worthy of death, they suborned false witnesses in order to condemn Him! At the time of the Reformation all kinds of infamy were falsely charged against the Reformers by those who claimed to be the only Church of God on earth. This is still the spirit and practice of the world towards God’s people in order to condemn them. I do not say that all, in their natural state, are equally hostile to God’s people, and desirous to condemn them. Some are kind to them, and take their side against their accusers. This is a good sign, and may be a forerunner of their conversion to God before they leave the world. We have seen an instance of this. We have known some young persons who were kind to God’s people, and fond of their company, and it was evident that they ended their life in this world as children of God and heirs of glory. Still, it is the nature of the carnal mind to be at enmity against God, and to show enmity to His people. If we are God’s people we cannot escape the attacks of the world, and especially the attacks of graceless persons in the Church, to accuse and condemn us.

The third class of accusers are believers themselves. They become their own accusers. If you are in Christ Jesus and without condemnation, you are condemning yourself, and you find in yourself many grounds of condemnation. “Every mouth is stopped, and all the world is become guilty before God.” All are condemned by Him, who is the Judge of all. But, ah! it is another thing for the sinner to begin to condemn himself—to begin, like Ephraim, to smite upon his thigh, or, like the publican, to smite upon his breast—as much as to say, “Here is the evil, I am the sinner; I am guilty, I deserve to be condemned.” If you are without condemnation, you have, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, begun this work, and you have not yet come to the end of it. It is true of God’s people that, from the time in which they had been convinced by the Spirit of their sins till the end of their life here on earth, they condemn themselves. Even after they are justified, and acquitted from the guilt of all their sins, they still condemn themselves for the sins which God, for Christ’s sake, freely and fully pardoned. Though God forgave them, they cannot forgive themselves. When we add to this the fact—the sad fact—that their nature is but partially renewed, that the fountain of iniquity is still within them, and that, consequently, they daily sin and come short of God’s glory, they find many causes for self-condemnation during their state of imperfection. This makes them walk humbly before God all the days of their life here below, and makes them more dependent upon the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which cleanseth from all sin, both in its guilt and depravity. That blood is their only ground of hope for justification and sanctification, and the longer they are in this world the more they are shut up to that gracious and efficacious remedy. “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross (death) of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Until they are perfectly sanctified, and conformed to the image of Christ, they must condemn themselves. This much concerning the accusers.

II.—The challenge—“Who is he that condemneth?”

There are those, as we have seen, that bring charges against God’s people calculated to condemn them; but the question is—Who is able to condemn them justly, seeing that, in the sight of God, there is to them no condemnation? The challenge amounts to an assertion of the impossibility of establishing any charge against them on account of which God should again cast them into the state of condemnation in which they had been by nature. Let Satan, the world, and their own consciences come forward, with all the accusations they can gather, and they shall find that their effort to condemn “them who are in Christ Jesus” will be in vain. None in the past, from the beginning of God’s gracious dispensation of saving sinners, has been able to condemn them; none at present is able to do it, and none for ever shall be able to do it. The challenge remains unanswered, for it is unanswerable. “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus” is the proposition the Apostle lays down in the beginning of the chapter, and in our text he challenges all accusers to be able to overthrow his statement, or the truth of his assertion.

III.—The proof the Apostle adduces in support of the statement that there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.

For this purpose he brings forward four arguments in their proper order. These arguments, though linked together as so many links in one chain, we may consider them separately, and

1. The act of God in justification. “It is God that justifieth.” In justification there is an acquittal from all guilt, and there can be no just ground of condemnation but on that of some guilt. Therefore, the Apostle says, “Who shall lay anything—the least thing—to the charge of God’s elect?” It is impossible to lay anything to their charge, because God justified them. We ought to lay to heart that justification must be at the foundation of our being in a state in which there is no condemnation to us. As nothing can justly be laid to the charge of those whom God justified, so their freedom from guilt and condemnation is complete—so complete as if they were already in heaven! Though the act of justification does not of itself remove the least stain of the depravity of our nature, yet it removes the whole guilt of our sins. All our sins are forgiven and forgotten by God, according to His promise, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”—Heb. viii. 12. Therefore, there is no condemnation to them. This is the first argument, and it must, of necessity, have the first place.

2. The second argument is the death of Christ. “It is Christ that died.” It was on the ground of Christ’s death God justified His people. There is no other ground, and there is no need of another, for the death of Christ is all-sufficient, inasmuch as, by His death, He rendered full satisfaction to the requirements of divine justice in the room of His covenant people. This is a just ground; and God is just as well as gracious when He justifies the guilty sinner that believes in Jesus. Here, then, the Apostle brings forward the death of Christ in answer to all the charges that might be brought up against believers. And we have nothing else to bring forward to meet and overthrow similar charges against ourselves. We make mention of the righteousness of Christ, even of His only, as our only plea. When pursued by our enemies, who would condemn us, let us, like the Psalmist, flee to Christ, that He may hide us (Ps. cxliii. 9). Let us take shelter in His death—in the blood of His atonement.

3. The third argument is the resurrection of Christ. “Yea, rather, that is risen again.” The resurrection of Christ is the proof that He fully satisfied the law of God for His people. The law arrested Christ as the surety of His people—not, however, against His will, but of His own free accord and mere good pleasure—and kept its hold of Him till He had paid the whole debt which they incurred, and for which He of His grace (2 Cor. viii. 9), became responsible! But when He had paid the debt, God, as the righteous Judge, discharged Him from His obligations. He raised Him from the dead—set Him free. He, so to speak, put a receipt in His hand. The resurrection was the receipt given to the glorious surety, a copy of which Christ left to His Church in the form of the Christian Sabbath. You will see the force of this argument which the Apostle uses against the condemnation of those whom God justified, and for whom Christ died. If you pay a debt, and if the matter of payment is again disputed, what will you do? You will just produce the receipt you received when you settled the account. That will settle the case once for all. The receipt is the best argument in such a disputed case. In like manner the Apostle mentions the resurrection of Christ to prove the non-condemnation of His people. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? who is he that condemneth?” in the face of these clear evidences—God’s act of justification, Christ’s death and resurrection? The text is a quotation from Old Testament Scripture—Isa. 1. 8-9—where Christ speaks, challenging all His adversaries to be able to condemn Him since God justified Him by raising Him from the dead. Now, there is such a relation between Christ and His people—He, their federal Head; they, the members of His mystical body—that they may plead His resurrection as an argument against their condemnation. “Jesus is risen.” Look not for Him in the grave, for He is risen; “He is even at the right hand of God.” “He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Paul, in encouraging young Timothy, exhorts him to “remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.”

4. The fourth argument is the intercession of Christ. “Who also maketh intercession for us.” “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous.” Though Christ finished the work of Redemption, yet He did not yet finish all His undertaking as Mediator between God and man. We are not only reconciled by His death, but also (further) saved by His life as our Advocate in heaven. He ever lives to make intercession for His people. He pleads on their behalf on the ground of the merit of His death, and not on the ground of anything in them. Therefore, when the Apostle John mentions that we have an Advocate with the Father, he is careful to add, “And He is the propitiation for our sins.” You who are conscious of your own imperfections may be tempted to say, “I am so sinful, so unworthy, and so imperfect in my endeavours to serve God, that I am afraid I cannot be well pleasing in His sight, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” But, ah, Christ intercedes for you, believer, and He intercedes on good ground—the ground of His own merit. It is to Christ’s merit the Father looks for the acceptance of your person and services, and not to anything in you—not even to grace in you, or any good work which you may have performed through grace.

In conclusion, let us make use of the subject.

1. For the comfort of believers. These, as to their experiences, may be divided into two classes—first, those who have in the past received such tokens of the Lord’s goodwill towards them as that they are assured of their interest in Christ, and whose faith fails not, notwithstanding the working of unbelief within them; second, those who are still doubting their interest in Him for want of clear evidences of their state before God. Both may take comfort from our text; for, however they may differ in their experiences, there is no difference in their state in the sight of God. Both rest on Christ alone for salvation. The former class can say, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His;” the latter may say, “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” Both are in Christ, and without condemnation. These two classes differ as to their experience; but there is one thing common to them both, viz., that they have accusers. These accusers we have mentioned. But, O believers, think of the strong and impregnable garrison God has built around you, to defend you against all your enemies that labour day and night to condemn you, His own act in justifying you, the death of Christ, His resurrection, and His continual intercession at the right hand of God. Looking at that sure defence, you may take up the challenge, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” “Who is he that condemneth?” You cannot be condemned, for your glorious surety has been condemned for you. But He is acquitted, He is risen again, and you are risen in Him, virtually in His resurrection, and actually in your justification. It is as impossible that you shall fall again into a state of condemnation as it is for Jesus Christ to come down again to His state of humiliation to begin the second time the work which He had already finished by His death. You need to remember that Christ died for your sins, according to the Scriptures; that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures; and that He ever lives to make intercession for you. You have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous. You pray, but you come short in that duty, and your prayers are, at the best, mingled with much sin and imperfection; but His intercession is perfect, constant, and all-prevailing. Put Christ between you and all that seek your ruin; put Him between you and all the guilt of your sins—actual and original; put Him between you and all remaining corruption in your nature; put Him between you and the wrath of God you deserve for your sins; put Him between you and your own righteousness of filthy rags; put him between you and Satan, the world, and the flesh, and all enemies whatsoever. In all your approaches to God in the way of worship, come by Jesus Christ—the way, the truth, and the life; for no man can come to God with acceptance but by Him. Make use of Christ in all the aspects in which He is presented to you in the Gospel, and for all the purposes for which He is given by the love of the Father, as “He is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”

2. For the encouragement of anxious enquirers. Are you convinced of your sin and misery, and asking the important question, “What must I do to be saved?” There is but one answer to that question, namely, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” It is not by your own doings you can be saved, but by the doings and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, “who suffered the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” Are you conscious of your inability to believe, to repent, and to change your nature? Instead of faith you find unbelief; instead of a soft heart you find a hard heart; instead of the burden of your sins being removed, it is still pressing you down to the pit of perdition. In this condition, are you on the verge of giving up all hope of being saved? Come as you are, with your sins, your unbelief, and impenitence; come, I say, as you are, sinful and lost, to Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Cast yourself upon Him, as, in yourself, a lost sinner, crying, “Lord, save, I perish,” and He will hear your cry, He will save you. Do not look for anything in yourself as the ground of salvation, though, if saved, the Spirit will work a good work in you; but look to Christ alone, His finished work on Calvary, as the only ground on which God accepts of sinners, even the chief. If you thus come to the Saviour of sinners, He will not cast you away to be lost in eternity, for He has promised, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in nowise cast out.” Confess your sins, forsake them, plead the merit of Christ, accept of His righteousness, and, on the ground of that righteousness, God will forgive your sins, and accept of your person as righteous in His sight as if you had never sinned against Him! You will then be entitled to join the redeemed of the Lord in their challenge, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” “Who is he that condemneth?”

3. For conviction to the careless sinner. O, poor sinner, who live without any concern about the salvation of your immortal soul, there is condemnation to you. You are already condemned, and if you continue in your impenitent state you shall be condemned finally and for ever at the day of judgment. Consider this, I beseech you, in time, while it is yet “the accepted time, and the day of salvation.” Forsake your wicked ways, and your unrighteous thoughts, and turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy upon you, and “to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” you.—Isa. lv. 7. You live now without prayer, but if you die without being born again, and without faith in Jesus Christ, you shall at the day of judgment pray to the rocks to fall upon you, and to the mountains to hide you from the wrath of Jesus Christ, before whose bar you must appear to be for ever punished for your sins. Your prayers then shall be of no avail. You now turn a deaf ear to the call of Christ in the Gospel to come to Him to save you, but at the day of judgment you must obey His command, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”—Matt. xxv. 41. But it may not yet be too late for seeking and obtaining mercy. The door of mercy is still open; Christ is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him. I invite you to come to Him; but if you refuse the gracious call, your blood shall be upon your own head. I am free from your blood, if you perish in your sins. “Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?” May God add His blessing. Amen.

The late John Morgan, Inverness.—We regret to notice this month the death of Mr. John Morgan, builder, Kingsmills Road, Inverness, who passed away on 31st May, at the age of 74 years. Mr. Morgan was a native of the parish of Halkirk, Caithness, but resided a number of years in the town of Thurso, where he was an office-bearer in the first Free Church. About eleven years ago he came to Inverness, and identified himself with the Free Presbyterian Church, where he held the office of deacon. Mr. Morgan took an intelligent interest in ecclesiastical matters from an early age, and was familiar with the various controversies that have agitated the Scottish Church for many years past. He possessed also a store of anecdotes and reminiscences of godly men, such as his father-in-law, the late William Murray, catechist, Halkirk, William Elder, and others, as well as of worthy ministers whom he knew from boyhood upwards, which he could relate in an interesting manner. He was a fresh, vigorous man until very lately, his last illness being short. At the very beginning of his illness he received a distinct impression upon his mind that death was at hand, but obtained comfort in view of that solemn change in Isaiah xliii. 2: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,” etc. Much sympathy is felt for his widow and family in their bereavement.