If I don’t write about this I am going to explode.

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (x)

I’ve read Romans many times, but I confess I have not read it as one cohesive letter more than once or twice, and neither of those times did the context of Romans 8:1 jump out at me as it did this morning as I rushed to complete my Bible study lesson before tonight’s meeting.

We’ve been studying this letter for a few months now, and I think it’s the depth of study that has slowed me down enough to really grasp how Paul is building up to this great crescendo of Grace. And what verse in the Bible shows more grace than Romans 8:1? Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yet all these years, though I’ve loved that verse and held onto it when I felt myself slipping into the mire of guilt, I somehow always thought of it as coming after some exposition of our justification with God through faith.

This verse does not come after the gospel message at all — nowhere in the preceding verses does Paul talk about the miracle of our identification with Christ through His death, burial, and resurrection. The entirety of the preceding two paragraphs before this life-giving verse is all about our very real and practical battle with sin, and why it is now a battle and not our identity.

In essence, we know that we are no longer under condemnation because we struggle with sin! We can be assured of our salvation when we wrestle and fight and cry out to God: wretched man that I am!

And while this may seem like an argument in favor of living a defeated life, it is so far from that; rather, this is an argument for living a life that is constantly seeking death to the flesh that wars against our new desire to please Christ. May we never grow so comfortable in our sin that we stop thinking we are at war with it. And may God’s grace be so evident to us that we cry out with gratitude for Jesus winning that final war, giving us confidence that this battle will not go on into eternity.

And may we take heart that as we struggle, we are confirming this truth: there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.