From the beginning when Adam and Eve first sinned by eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, mankind has been separated from God. But the problem is that man was created for the distinct purpose of having an intimate relationship with God. But God is holy and cannot have fellowship with what is unholy.
2 Corinthians 6:14, “Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can goodness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?
So man tries very hard, as a rule, to do what is right. But they always seem to fail. Even St. Paul said in
Romans 7:21, “It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.”
And he even goes on to say in
Romans 7:24, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?”
Man, apart from his relationship with God, that is, controlled by sin, is ultimately miserable. He struggles so hard to find what is missing but he cannot find it. Many people try things like drinking, and drugs, and promiscuous relationships, together with many other things to try to find that peace and happiness, that fulfillment. And then they look at Christians and see that we don’t do all of these “fun” things and they think that we must be miserable because we’re missing out. But they end up saying like St. Paul did, “Oh, what a miserable person I am!” Because they discover that all of these things don’t bring true happiness or fulfillment at all.
Still others try to look for fulfillment in worldly success. They look for their happiness in money, or fame, or a good education and a successful career. They look for fulfillment in places that are not necessarily bad things. But nonetheless they are looking for their fulfillment in houses, cars, clothes, fame, or success. The trouble is that none of those things can bring fulfillment or true happiness.
In 1966, about a year before he died, the brilliant physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer said, "I am a complete failure!" This man had been the director of the Los Alamos Project, a research team that produced the atomic bomb, and he had also served as the head of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Yet, in looking back, he saw his achievements as meaningless. When asked about them, he replied, "They leave on the tongue only the taste of ashes."
The number of people who commit suicide after experiencing the fame and fortune of worldly success is astonishing. Multimillionaire George Vanderbilt killed himself by jumping from a hotel window. Lester Hunt, twice governor of Wyoming before being elected to the U.S. Senate, ended his own life. Actress Marilyn Monroe, writer Ernest Hemingway, and athlete Tony Lazzeri represent a host of highly influential and popular people who became so disenchanted with earthly success that they took their own lives.
Alexander the Great was not satisfied, even when he had completely subdued the nations. He wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. Hannibal, who filled three bushels with the gold rings taken from the knights he had slaughtered, committed suicide by swallowing poison. Napoleon, the feared conqueror, after being the scourge of Europe, spent his last years in banishment.
These are just a few examples of people who tried to find their fulfillment in worldly success, but failed. Why is it that they failed? Because this kind of success is not what makes people happy. If that were the case, then how could so many poverty stricken, underprivileged people in our world be so happy. Now, that’s not to say that nobody who has achieved wealth or fame or a good career can be happy. Of course they can, but it’s not those things that brings the happiness. You can only be happy rich if you could also be happy poor.
Jesus said, Matthew 16:26, “And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul?”
You can amass all the money in the world. They say that there are three things that are pretty much universally known: Elvis, Jesus, and Coca-Cola. You can be more famous than all three of them put together. You can be the most successful businessperson or researcher. You can have the best education. You can be the most successful person, by the world’s standards that there has ever been, and still end up saying like St. Paul, ““Oh, what a miserable person I am!”
Thirdly, there are those who look for their fulfillment in religion. And this is the group that St. Paul was in. These people at least recognize that the problem of their lack of fulfillment is a spiritual problem, and therefore it requires a spiritual answer. These people seek to find a way back to God through religious rituals and through trying to live right and do good. However, as we can see in
Romans 8:3, “The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature.”
Paul followed the Law of Moses, which was indeed given by God, and it was good for its purpose, but it was only good up to a point. It could not actually change a person on the inside. It could only change their actions on the outside. It could not take away their sins, but
Hebrews 10:4 “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”
Hebrews 10:11 “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.”
Even this religious law, which was given by God himself, was not sufficient to bring true fulfillment.
Now throughout time there have been many religious systems. And most of them have been founded by very wise and good people. And all of these religions, it seems, have as their goal a return to what we should be in relation to God. Every major religion has tried to find a way back to where we were before Adam and Eve fell to sin. They may call it different things and approach it using different methods, but their end goal has always been to find a way back.
Thousands of years ago, the founders of Hinduism proclaimed, “We found a way.” Then some years later, the Buddha proclaimed, “I found a way.” And Mohammed proclaimed, “I found the way.” And you could fill in the name of the founder of any other great religion and they said that they “found a way.” Now, if we want to investigate the way that any of these religions found, we can analyze the logic of their way. We can contemplate or meditate on the way. We can even look at their life as evidence, to see if it seemed to work for them. However, the simple fact is that the best that any of the millions of followers of any of these religions can do is hope that it is the right way. There cannot be any assurance that it is indeed the right way.
Now, St. Paul, like so many of these men, was also looking for the way, and he had looked for it in the Law of Moses. But then he was confronted with this reality. The answer to his question, “Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?” (7:24)
Romans 7:25, “Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Now, Jesus came amid all these people trying to find a way back to fulfillment, and he didn’t say like all the others, “I found a way.” Instead
John 14:6, “Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
He wasn’t a religious leader who found a path back to God, but he was God himself, come down to man to become the way back to God. That’s why Christianity is not a religion. A religion is man’s attempt to return to God. Christianity, on the other hand, is a relationship made possible by God’s attempt to return man to himself.
That’s not the only thing that distinguishes Jesus from all the others. You see, all the others proclaimed that they had found a way and then they died. Remember what I said before, maybe it was the right way and maybe it wasn’t. There’s really no way to know for sure. Well, Jesus was different. He proclaimed that he was the way and then he died just like all the others. If history ended there, Jesus would be no more credible than any of the other religious leaders. But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus rose from the dead. That Jesus rose from the dead is a historically verifiable fact. While, I could list the ironclad evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, I won’t take the time. Instead, I will simply tell you that I have spent weeks and weeks studying that topic, and am convinced that there is no way that it could be untrue. However, if you don’t believer me, you can come see me and I will recommend a few books that you can read.
While the others left their followers guessing whether or not they were right, Jesus came back from the dead to prove to his followers that he was right. Unlike all the others who now lie silent in their graves, the empty tomb of Jesus proclaims loudly through the ages, “I was right. It works. The way works.”
Now, Paul after spending all of Romans 7 complaining about how miserable his life was when he was looking for fulfillment in the wrong places, concludes at the end that the answer is in Jesus Christ. He then spends chapter 8 explaining how Jesus Christ is the answer. He explains exactly how Jesus Christ enabled him to have fulfillment through a relationship with God.
Romans 8:1 “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”
I.
Remember that the main problem with us having a relationship with God is our sin. The fact is that as far as sin goes, we are all guilty.
Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
In light of God’s standard, which is perfection, we all stand condemned. Earlier in
Romans 3:24, Paul is describing salvation and he uses an image of a courtroom. And once again in Romans 8:1 we see the same imagery in the word “condemned.” It’s as if we all stand in from of God as the righteous judge and he judges our actions by his standard, which is complete perfection. And we are all guilty, because we have all sinned.
ILLUSTRATION OF JUSTIFICATION
So, through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, we are made positionally righteous. WE have been declared not guilty, even though in our actions we are guilty as charged.
Even after we believe in Jesus, we can sin. And when we do, the prosecutor, the Devil whom the Bible calls, “the accuser of the brethren,” tries to make a case against us, we are assured from the start that even when we sin, “there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” That is, as long as we keep our faith in Jesus, we don’t have to spend our days worrying about whether or not we are saved at this moment. Instead, we have the assurance that every time we are dragged before God, the Righteous Judge by the accuser, we will be found not guilty.
c. 2001
