Unfathomable Riches in Christ - No condemnation
Vern Peterman · Apr 29, 2018
Unfathomable Riches of Christ, No. 15
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926199525591

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we have, this is lesson 15, the unfathomable riches of Christ, and this particular one is on no condemnation. So how do you like having your riches be a no? It's not something, right? So anyway, and we'll see where that comes from, okay? In the last several weeks we said, one, an understanding of the identification truths is essential for drafting the meaning of our unfathomable riches in Christ. Suppose we said we are never going to talk about identification truths again.

Would I have anything to talk about? So here's something that's very interesting. There are a great many churches that have no idea what we say identification truths. They have no idea what you're talking about. But once understood, we see that, oh, if I don't have any identification truths, I've got nothing to discuss. So that's really amazing, isn't it?

It is a great insight. By the way, Holly Hills didn't invent that, just so you know. What I'm discovering is that while a lot of you will hear about this first came up with the Brethren and Darby and things like that, other people recognize it as well. One of the ones I'm more recently discovering is a fellow from the middle 1700s, John Gill. He described the identification truths just beautifully. And that was many decades before John Darby was even born.

So anyway, and very likely he's not the only one. So there's a lot to be discovered there. But an understanding of the identification truths that we are in Christ, that we are joined to Christ, that we have as his history In his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding, we have, by being identified with him in those things, a new history.

So we will continue to talk about that. Next one, the related words redeem, redeemed, and redemption are part of a family of words related to slavery as it was practiced in biblical times. And we covered that a couple weeks ago and last week. So let's talk about something here. When we talk about slavery, what are we talking about? We're talking about slavery like we had the people from Africa brought over here and forced into slavery in the United States.

By the way, that was going on all over the place. Yeah, there was an entrapment, certainly that. In the biblical terms, there was a large set of laws and practices related to slavery. Some estimates, and these estimates vary, but some estimates are one in five people in the Roman Empire were in slave position. And in the larger cities, that number may be closer to half. Half of the people were slaves, so it was very common.

So when the Apostle Paul would make reference to slavery in a spiritual sense, it was something very well understood. It's not condoning it or condoning what people did with it, but it is simply a matter of using it to teach people. And so someone would be in a position of slavery, and so the Apostle Paul would say, OK, you understand that.

Now we are slaves to sin, completely sold out to sin, under ownership by sin. And being redeemed means being completely bought out of that slave market. redeemed from that slave market. So the next one, in Christ we have redemption and forgiveness so as to be justified. There is a tendency on the part of some to sort of separate these things out and just list them separately and think of them separately, but in fact they're related. Let's ask this question, do you get to be redeemed and forgiven if you're not in Christ?

No. Ephesians 1.7, in Christ we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

And then Romans 3.24, we are declared righteous, justified through the redemption, same word, that we have in Christ Jesus. So in Christ we are redeemed and also forgiven, and therefore God can declare us righteous.

So these are the connections between those. So these are not just unrelated things, but rather they are specifically related. One of the things we're going to find out when you're justified is at the end. No. Gary's saying no, that's correct. And so here's Romans chapter 5 verse 1. Therefore, we have been justified. And then what's next? Peace. So all these things are, they're in a sequence, they're in a series that are put together. They're not just little individual items. They're all connected. Alright, so with that, we summarize it this way.

The one who believes is by God's doing placed into Christ. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says it's by God's doing that you're in Christ Jesus.

Can I work to be in Christ? Can I give it my best shot and best effort? No. Can I improve my standing in Christ? No. Can I mess it up if I believe? No. I can't mess it up. There is nothing I can do to foul up being in Christ. Why? It's because all I did is what? Believe. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. All I did was believe. God says, that's it. I'll take it from there. And He does the rest. And it's very important we understand that.

Because otherwise, it's real easy for us to get caught up, oh, I've got to try to be a good Christian, or I've got to clean up my act, or after six weeks of penance, maybe God will have me back in fellowship with Him and let me in. By the way, if I find myself out of fellowship, how long does it take to get back in fellowship?

How much time? Do I have to look down at my watch or the calendar? Neither one of those. Don't take the time to glance down at your watch. Why? Because all it takes is, you know, you hear 1 John 1, 9, you know, if we confess our sins. Do you know what all that means is you agree with God about them? That's it. Do you agree with God about it?

It's like, I give the example, Nancy and I used to live just not too far from here in a 12-story building. We lived on the fifth floor and it had a trash chute. And Nancy would say, hey Vern, the trash needs to be taken out. And I'd grab the bag of trash and I'd put it in the door and let the door close and boom, you know, this thing, and that's it.

We don't get the trash out and lay it all out on the kitchen table and say, remember this egg shells here? That was from breakfast yesterday morning. This little package here, the sausages, you cooked that up for me. We've got this can of orange juice here and that was from last Thursday. We don't go through and comb through the garbage, do we? We say, is this trash? Yeah. Okay. That's it. You know. Okay. On with everything else. We don't sit there and fumble the trash and meditate on it and, you know, make sure we list every single one.

I talked to a fellow one time who believed that you had, he was told, you had to list all your sins before you're baptized or you're not saved. So he told me, he says, I'm not saved. I missed one. For him, he thought it was irretrievable. He'd missed his chance and missed the window. By God's doing, you're in Christ Jesus. All you did was believe. I can't enhance it, improve upon it, add to it, and I can't mess it up.

Isn't that great? Isn't that great? There are verses that we look at here, we're seated with Christ and the heavenlies. Do you know there's no verses that says anybody was unseated? You're seated with Christ and the heavenlies, except for Shlomo over here, and he's lost his seat. That doesn't happen, does it?

What you have here is, we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, we have redemption being fully bought out from the slave market of sin, and we have forgiveness of sins, our spiritual debts having been paid for completely, and that payment applied because we believe.

Colossians 2, 12-14, the debt note of your sins has been nailed to the cross. Do you owe him anything? Can you pay him back? Do you get an invoice when you believe? Okay, here's what you've got to pay back. You don't pay it back, sorry, you're out of luck. Oh, don't worry about it, you've got decades to pay it back. Right? No. None of that. So that's why Paul repeatedly has a free gift by grace alone. For by grace are you saved, Ephesians 2, twice. And the saved is expressed in such a way that it means permanence, twice, in Ephesians 2.

The bottom half of page one is taken out of a study we did now some years back. Comparison and contrast in Romans 5, 12 through 21. We won't go through that all, although you're certainly welcome to do so. What that passage is, it's the last half of Romans chapter 5, and it compares two men, two acts, two outcomes, two contrasting states, two differences, two effects of the law, two abundances, and two reigning principles. And so there's certainly much more to that. We won't have the time, but as you'll see on the top of the next page, that is Lesson 75 in the Law and Grace series from 2012. So we're talking almost six years ago. Wow. All right, so now But what we will look at from that passage where there's a comparison of two, and who are the two that are being compared again and again in that passage of Romans 5? Adam and Christ. It's just that simple. Adam and Christ.

And so he makes a comparison, what's the same, and contrast, what's different. I've been putting books, in which I have a duplicate of some kind, in the coffee room or the sugar room, as it's sometimes called. And people are welcome to take that. Jim got one just this morning, Principles of Interpretation. And one of the key principles of interpretation is comparison and contrast, comparing what's the same and what's different.

If we don't both compare and contrast, it was, by the way, the beginning of all sorts of arguments about the Bible. Failing to compare and contrast. What happens is we pick one or the other, right? So you have all these theological controversies, and it all started with a fail to compare and contrast. They did one or the other. Lots and lots and lots of controversies about the Bible are centered on that. So, turn over to the top of page 2.

So in the book of Romans, we see in chapters 5 and 8 that the unbeliever is under condemnation, but the one who believes is justified, declared righteous before God, and is therefore under no condemnation ever again. So, contrasting and comparing Adam and Christ, the verses in Romans chapter 5 that address condemnation, found in verses 15 and 16, and then verse 18. So, we have those quoted there. So, Romans 5, 15 and 16, the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, having their brackets, so you make sure we identify Adam.

He's the one who sinned, right? Right? Yes? No? Adam is the one who sinned, for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression, Adam's, resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift of God through Christ. It arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. How many transgressions or sins did it take for Adam to be condemned?

Just one. Just the one. That's it. Just the one. Why just one? I mean, aren't there ten commandments? Didn't you have to break several of them? Why just one? One law. There was only one to break. What was the rule? What was the law? Donated that treaty.

Did he say, don't touch it? Did he say, don't pick any more than 10 of those? No. He didn't say don't look at it. He didn't say don't look at it. Don't eat of that. How many of the fruits do you have to have a bite of before you've done it? One. One guy, Adam, one tree, one fruit, one time. And then it goes downhill from there, right? Okay. So, resulting in... Uh-oh. Yeah, what's really interesting, God had warned him. What did God warn him with?

The day you eat of it, you will die. Essentially, the Hebrew says, you'll die die. You'll die die. One of the ways that the Hebrews would emphasize things, and you see this multiple times in the Old Testament, and you even see it reflected sometimes in the New Testament, but one of the ways it would come across is by doubling the words. We sing the song, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee. The original Old Testament passage is, Thou wilt keep him in peace, peace.

Double. The day you eat of it, you're going to die, die. Emphatic. Emphasis. Double it. And all it is, is just once. The day you eat of it, you're going to die, die. And there's condemnation. That's the only thing you can get for The one thing. So did Adam need ten commandments? No. Just one. On the other hand, the free gift of God through Christ arose from many transgressions.

How many transgressions? Can anybody give me a number? How many? I'm not sure. So this is the next part, from many transgressions. Whose transgressions? Ours. Yours? Mine? Anybody have a definite, specific number that they can give us for their transgressions? Mirror rent. I can't tell you. It's like $346,293. God knows, but there's no way I can give you that number.

That's just for me. So did Adam have free will except for eating of that tree? Let's ask this. We get into a real question of what do we mean by free will. There's where the trouble comes. It's free will. Could he choose not to? Sure. Yeah. He could have chosen not to. Did God know that he would eat of the tree? Yes. Did it mean that Adam had no choice? No. So one of the things where people frequently get mixed up is they confuse God's foreknowledge with predestination. They're two different things. God knows things, it doesn't mean that he caused or forced some outcome, because he knows it. I could use a human analogy.

Have you ever been in a circumstance where without seeing what's going on you hear this screech What happened? Wreckage. You just heard a wreck. You may have seen it, may not have seen it. You just heard a wreck. When you first start hearing the screech, what are you listening for? The bang. The bang.

Okay. Do you know in advance what's likely to happen? Yup. Okay. Does that mean you caused it? No. No. So it would just be a human-level example that would illustrate the difference between our knowing what's going to take place and having caused it. Have you ever seen somebody do something they've been warned against and they end up doing it anyway? Right? Yeah, maybe it even happened to you. So this would be another instance, you know, people Out of wisdom and experience, we'll say, well, I wouldn't do it that, or you shouldn't do that, or don't touch that.

Yeah, Wayne? Does that many transgressions, does that relate to all of those people that have followed since Adam? Yeah, think about this. Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and starting with who? Adam's sin, right? starting with Adam's sin, and then that goes on until our time now. But did Christ's sin payment stop with us? No. People who are yet to be born, people to be born in the middle of the tribulation period, people to be born in the millennial kingdom, their sins too. He died for the sins of every single one in the whole world. For all time? For all time. For the first and last. Did he miss any? No. He didn't miss any. There was no, oh, wow, I forgot that. There was, oh, I didn't count that because it was sort of a little over the top and off to the side. Everything.

Jesus paid it all. Jesus paid it all. So the free gift of God arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. God declaring the believer righteous. God declaring the believers, plural, righteous. Romans 5.18, so as through the one transgression, Adam's, the result of condemnation and therefore death, you're going to die, die. To all men, even so, through one act of righteousness, is Christ their result of justification. It is God declaring the believer righteous of life.

Because if you're not declared righteous, what is that? Is that life or death? If you do not declare righteousness, it's death. If you're condemned, it is death. You're condemned to five hand slaps. That's why God didn't tell Adam, don't eat of that tree or it will stink. Don't eat of that tree, it won't taste good. You're going to die, die.

So, even through one act of righteousness, Christ, the result of justification, God declaring the believer righteous of life to all men, accomplished for all, effective for those who believe. See the difference there? Accomplished for all. Effective for those who believe. Jesus paid all. So as everybody's sins are paid for, it is effective for those who come to church every week. It's effective for the people who pray before every meal. It's effective for people who help old ladies across the street, even if they don't want to be.

Right? It's all mankind. What's that? It's all mankind of all time. Yeah. All mankind of all time. The payment is made for every single one. It's effective for everyone who believes. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier about can you make up for your sins and do things to earn, I guess, earn God's forgiveness. Yeah.

You think about this We're talking about one sin, and that sin is our DNA when we're born. I mean, even if you could follow 613 laws perfectly, it wouldn't do the trick. There's a fundamental problem, right? There's a fundamental problem. And even, you know, here's what Romans 7 is about. In Romans 7, starting at verse 7, How many laws does Paul try to obey?

One. What was the law? Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not covet. And so, just the one. I thought there were ten commandments. About what? I thought there were just ten commandments, right? There is. What's that? There is. There's 10 commandments in that particular writing that was put on the stone and hidden in the Ark of the Covenant, but 613 individual statutes in the Law of Moses. Good luck with that. Paul couldn't even finish one. Yeah, he just said, thou shalt not covet.

That sounds good. Yeah, and the sin nature just goes crazy with that. Because what's the sin nature going to do? You give it one law, and what happens? The sin nature does one of two things. It says, I can do it! And it goes nuts trying to pull it off.

You know, thanks God for letting me know what the rules are, and I can do this. Right? Whoa, I got this! And I sure appreciate your delegating it to me. And the sin nature signs up for, yeah, we'll do this stuff. That's why the Jews wanted the law in the first place. Yeah, give me the rules so I can do it. God, I got this. I don't need you. I got the rules. Thanks for the rules. I really appreciate that. But I got this. I'm otherwise done. I've got the rules down pat. All 613 of them. We sure appreciate it. And Paul says, I just tried one. One of the ten.

And the sin nature went nuts over it. Because here's the other thing, not only does the sin nature say, pick me, pick me, pick me, right? But the sin nature also has within it rebellion. It has both. Oh, thanks God for the rules. Man, I know what the rules are. We can do this. I got it. Right? And then the other thing is, you're telling me to do what? And so there's this rebellion right after you sign up. It's like this cartoon is one of my favorites applied to the law.

Here's this couple. They're on the city street standing at the crosswalk. There's a sign there. He says, absolutely no machete juggling. And the guy turns to the other guy next to him and says, suddenly I have this urge to juggle machetes. If you put a rule there, there is within the heart a desire to follow the rule and if I'm going to do really well at it, then I'm going to try really hard and all that. And on the other hand, What? You're telling me what to do? Telling me what I can't do? And we'll rebel real good against that.

The problem is in Romans 5.20 it says the law came in so that the transgression would increase.

Yes, so what, yeah, so the law is not going to help. The law pours gasoline on the fire. Yeah, so that's a good way to put it. The law pours gasoline on the fire. It doesn't help. In fact, it aggravates the problem and makes it worse. Is the problem, however, with the law? The problem is not with the law. That's what people oftentimes can't get straight. They'll say the law is bad. No, it's not. The problem isn't the law. The problem is the human being, right?

And the human being with a lost in sin nature latched onto this thing we call a body, and it's stuck there. So that reacts, and you basically have no way of getting out of the sin nature reaction on our own. If God wouldn't have put that one law in the garden, then, how do I say this? then Christianity wouldn't show the difference between all the other religions, because God comes down to interact with man. So if he would have put Adam and Eve in the garden and given no law at all, there would be no interaction and no caring for the man and woman in the garden.

So it's very necessary to have that at that point in time, right? Yeah, think about this. Why did God put a law there in the first place? Could God have just made a world in which that possibly offending tree was not there? And he just says, have at it. To Adam, and that's it. No tree. Could God have done that? Absolutely. You could have done that. What is the issue with God doing that? No conflict. There's no conflict and there's no matter of choice. No interaction. There's no interaction. And so we just kind of keep plunking along. And so here's one of the things you find.

There are two different kinds of spiritual beings that God created. One is angels. and one was with man, and both of them, under different circumstances, had a choice to make. God is glorified as his created beings choose him. Deliberately, if he had said, Adam, here's the garden, just go ahead and have at it, there was no choice to make. There was no law to break. So both with the angels and with human beings, God set a choice in place.

He didn't make it identical, did he? And for us, we have a different choice, don't we? Do the angels have any plan of salvation in place? Not that we have any revelation that no angel decided to be saved, Christ didn't come and be crucified for the angels. So there are things about grace and God's character and God's wisdom that the angels will not understand from direct personal understanding and vision from that.

But what about the choice to follow Satan or not to follow Satan? I mean, that was a choice. Yes it was. Yes it was. I mean, you look at it, even, let's go this far. Here's Eve, did she listen to Satan, the serpent in the garden? Yeah. Could Adam have said, uh uh uh, I'm not touching that stuff, even if you like the way it looks? couldn't he? Would it stop there? Because it was not Eve's sin, it was Adam's sin that caused us all to fall.

Let's look in the middle of page 2, Romans 8-1, therefore, and why is the therefore at the beginning of the sentence? Based on all the prior chapters, specifically starting with chapter 3 all the way into chapter 7, this being Romans 8.1. Therefore, based on chapters and chapters, and by the way, did Paul write in chapters? Over a thousand years after the New Testament was completed, they put chapters in.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So what percentage do you have to be in Christ in order for this to be true? 100%. And there is no other percentage, right? It's like being a little bit pregnant. There isn't any such thing, right? This is, in Christ Jesus, 100%. And so there is therefore now only a little bit of condemnation. There's how much? None. No condemnation for those who...

So this is, you know, we live in a world where people say everything's relative and there isn't any such thing as absolute truth and all that. This is a statement of two absolutes. You're either absolutely, totally, 100% permanently, from heaven's viewpoint, certifiable in Christ, or you're not. And the condemnation is either you stand condemned completely or none. If you're in Christ Jesus, how much condemnation?

None. None. That's it. So that's why I'll tell people somewhat in jest, but not entirely. If you want condemnation, you'll have to go somewhere else. I can't help you. Yeah, Stan? And that's the argument for no law, because condemnation only relates to some law, or at least one law in the garden, and many laws in the many sense. So if there's no law, there's no condemnation. So what Paul's actually saying is, there's no law.

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought it up. I decided to stop at two pages, but you just brought up the next page, if I could have had the time for it. 2 Corinthians chapter 3. The law, and by the way, In that chapter, the law refers to the Ten. The Greek word refers to the Ten Commandments. The Greek word there is lithos, the stones. So it's the Ten, not just the law of Moses in general.

The Ten Commandments, he calls it a ministry of condemnation. But he says we're not under that ministry. We have a ministry of no condemnation. You want to be under law, that's a ministry of condemnation. That's a different ministry. Sorry we don't do that.

So it isn't a matter of sticking with the one or the ten or whatever numbers we happen to pick. People like to take the law and break off little pieces so it's a little more bite-sized. We're talking not just megabytes, we're talking gigabytes here. So you have the law is this thing that's put in place there by God, and people want to whittle it down all the time.

Oh, it doesn't include those temple ceremony things. It doesn't include the punishments. I just want to whittle it down to the ten. Do you want to include the Sabbath? No, not that one, we'll make that Sunday. They want to tweak it, whittle it down, and make it so that it sounds doable. That wasn't what God had in mind. And we don't get to whittle it down.

Paul wrote to the Galatians, he says, you sign up for one, you sign up for the whole thing. James says, if you've broken one, you've broken the whole thing. The person who tells me that they're going to live by the Ten Commandments is telling me, I intend to break and not keep the other 603 individual statutes. I'll break them all. I'll just live by the Ten. God never gave that choice. That's the man's choice.

That's one of the reasons why the law was so severe. Because if you whittled the law down, then you cut grace down to size too. You don't need that much of it. See the problem? The law has to be full on, full out, heavy duty, pedal to the metal law. so that we realize our need for full-on, full-out, pedal-to-the-metal, fountains and mountains of grace.

And God never had any intent of having something somewhere in between. He never intended that people whittle the law down to something doable. Ha! Good luck with that. As Paul wrote in Romans chapter 7, just pick one. It doesn't take ten. Just pick one. Thou shalt not covet. He says, I'm in deep yogurt. I'm in deep doo-doo.

So Romans 8.31-39, what shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all. For how many? All. How will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? Would somebody like to volunteer? Would you like to volunteer? Go ahead and just bring a charge against God's elect. Would you like to volunteer for that? No volunteers? Okay, let's read the rest of it then.

God is the one who justifies, which means what? God is the one who declares as righteous, right? Who is the one who condemns? There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus Who did they justify? Who did they justify? God. God's the one who declares us righteous, right? He's the one who justifies us. If He is the one who declares us righteous, who has any qualification or higher authority Or who has a basis for appealing to God and saying, hey, these people need to be condemned? None. Nobody else is going to stand up and say, hey God, you missed one. You messed up here. No, you declared everybody righteous who believed, but did you see what Verne did? You can't possibly call that righteous.

Christ Jesus is he who died, yes rather he was raised, was at the right hand of God who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or the sword or presidential elections? No. Just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long, we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So let's take a look at that. Is there anything here on planet earth or outside planet earth that's going to mess up God's love for you? Not happening. Not happening. And things to come. How about, is there some future event that's just going to make it all come unzipped? Not happening. Not happening.

The love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He did it. It's all His doing, 100%. Like I say, if you want condemnation, I can't help you, and God can't either. You'll have to go somewhere else. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And by the way, are you going to be taken out of Christ Jesus? Is there a threat that you might be?

No, there isn't any such thing. There isn't any such thing. There are 164 places in the New Testament that says you're in Christ, you're in Christ Jesus, you're in Jesus, you're in Him, in whom, in the Beloved. 164 places. Do you know how many places say that you're taken out of? None. Not happening. Not happening. And all you did was you believed. That's all. That's all. He did it.

So there's no condemnation. No condemnation is somewhat the contrast or the opposite of justified. The inside-out way of saying I'm justified, I'm declared righteous by God, and condemnation is not partial, not possible, not eventually. There's no condemnation at all, ever, not by any percentage, not eventually, not in the future, Because you're in Christ Jesus and that's not going to change. Not by a percentage. Not in the future. Not in any way whatsoever.

Isn't that great? I can't blow it. I can't blow it. That's cool. That's really cool. Other thoughts? Question? There's another word for condemnation, conviction. Ah, you ask a very good question. OK, so conviction, convicting, we have this word conviction because we oftentimes don't use it except in a legal sense, right, in our language. And that's one of the things about some of the Bible words. They're words we often just don't use, so people have vague ideas.

We could substitute for the word conviction, being fully convinced of something. Being fully convinced of something. That helps explain this word conviction. So when you talk about conviction, does that mean Someone who is a believer or who is an unbeliever? Just in your thinking that through. I think conviction, I think of a legal term.

Okay. You got charged. All right, been charged with something. And you said you were guilty. Yeah. Got convicted, then you, after that you get punishment. Okay, so convicted is a legal term that has the equivalent meaning, from what you described, of condemnation.

I heard a pastor sit down on the radio a few days ago, and I thought that was interesting. I wonder what you thought. Yeah, and I would say that what you described, that that works. We use the word convict in different ways. But I would say at the root, where you could put other words, I prefer to stick with the Bible term, just from the standpoint that we've got a biblical context for that.

Although, when you compare it to someone who is convicted, we say in a legal sense that what happened, the judge says, yes, you are guilty. So that is a sentence of condemnation, and then he doles out the punishment that goes along with it. Scripture says, all have sinned. That's the conviction right there, isn't it? Yeah. All have sinned. This is the statement of fact. And so it is only those who are in Christ, through the redemption, who have the ability, on God's part, to declare as righteous, versus condemnation, or to put it in the current legal term, being convicted.

Yeah, and so what happens in our culture, we have a range of different punishments. There might be, you're going to do community service, you're going to pay this fine, you're going to spend X amount of time in jail, and worst case, they put you in a lifetime sentence. It's getting to be fairly rare that they actually have a death penalty that gets carried out, and especially not promptly. So, in that case, the punishment varies.

The condemnation for those who are condemned under God's condemnation, is there a range of outcomes? Death is what you get, that's it. You get one sentence, you get out on parole. No, there's no parole. There's no, I'm going to fine you and withhold the fine, etc. There's none of that. If you are declared righteous, it's life. If you are condemned, it's death. That's it. It's that simple.

And even for the eternal angels, since you said death was separation, Their punishment was death also, because they're separated from God. They're in Tartarus or wherever, and Satan has to get his approval, so he's separated also. So the separation is always the same punishment. Ultimately, the lake of fire is their destination. The lake of fire has been prepared, perfect sense, for Satan and his angels.

Done deal. Okay, we have people starting to poke their noses against the glass, let's pray. Lord, thank you, as we see this, we indeed can see that all we did was believe, and you declared us righteous, and the complete reverse of that, but the same statement, there is no condemnation. Because we're in you, all we did was believe, you did the rest. Thank you for that. What amazing mercy and grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.