«There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit». Romans 8:1
ON MAY 2, 1997, Bill Clinton, who was then President of the United States, inaugurated the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, a monument in honor of someone who had also been president of that nation, from 1933 to 1945. One of the attractions found at that site, located in Washington, D. C., is the stone that is engraved with one of the most emblematic phrases of the State of the Union address Roosevelt gave on January 6, 1941. According to Roosevelt, at that moment, human beings were on the eve of «a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.» On one of the Memorial’s walls we find those four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Although a lot of progress has been made with some, the fact is that eighty years later we are still hoping for a world in which those freedoms are guaranteed to everyone.
In Romans 8:1, the apostle Paul assures us that among other things we have been freed from condemnation. Although he had said we are all under the authority of sin (see Romans 3:9) and therefore we all «fall short of the glory of God» (Romans 3:23), now he affirms that «there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus» (Romans 8:1). Christ has reversed the condemnation we all received because of Adam’s sin. Instead, because of Him we are set free from the authority that sin and the flesh exercised over us, and thus He freed us from the weight of condemnation and introduced us to a new life we live by the Spirit. The age of condemnation was left behind and an age of freedom was inaugurated.
While many of us transmit a condemning version of Christianity, a religion that tries to intimidate people by arguing that a horrible condemnation will fall on those who disobey, Paul invites us to have a spiritual experience free from condemnation. It’s a freedom that delivers us from being condemned and harboring a spirit of condemnation against others. And why are we not condemned? Because we have gone from being «in Adam» to being «in Christ.» As Joseph A. Fitzmyer said, «To be ‘in Christ’ means to live as someone freed from sin, death, self, and the law and consequently from wrath. As Paul will explain, it is to live by the Spirit of God.»•
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2023
“I AM WITH YOU”
From: J. VLADIMIR POLANCO
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Avineyda Hernández
