To be condemned is not a pretty sight. We often hear this word used in relation to someone facing the death penalty, ‘condemned prisoners awaiting execution’.
Just recently a man was condemned to death in Texas for a brutal crime that happened back in 2001.
What is it about the word ‘condemned’?
It has a finality about it. There seems no coming back from this pronouncement. It becomes their fate, and they await the consequences.
Of course this should only be applied to someone who is guilty. It is because of our actions that we are found guilty and are therefore condemned. If the court system has done its job, then we are deserving of the consequences.
There is a profound story in the Bible about a woman caught in adultery. The religious leaders brought a woman ‘caught in the act’ and made her stand before Jesus while he was teaching in the public temple grounds.
The Old Testament law said that this transgression was to be punished by stoning. They pushed Jesus to see if he would agree. Of course, the religious leaders were more interested in tripping Jesus up than condemning this woman.
Jesus knelt in silence and drew in the dirt as if to add power to what he was about to say while the leaders continued to question him.
He straightened up and said, “Let anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Meanwhile he bent and continued to write on the ground.
Can you picture this scene? What a wise and disarming statement from Jesus. What could her accusers do? None were without sin, yet Jesus upheld the law by saying they could stone her.
One by one they silently crept away until there were none left.
Jesus stood and asked the bewildered woman where her accusers were, saying, “Has no-one condemned you?”
“No-one, sir,” she answered.
Jesus declared, “Then neither do I condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin.”
This statement tells us so much about the grace, mercy and justice of Jesus and God. All of us are deserving of condemnation because of our disobedience towards God. Yet God in his mercy made a way for us to be saved from ‘death row’.
If we accept Jesus’ pardon (his death on the cross), like the woman in our story, we can also be pronounced, ‘not guilty’. If it is true, that there is ‘no condemnation’ for those who have Jesus living within then that means we are completely accepted by God.
It is one thing to be set free from a human court, but how much greater to be set free from the heavenly court!
Pastor David Lloyd
Community Church Kyabram
5°C