April 9

Our Glorious Standing!

There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. — Rom 8:1

The characteristics of this glorious standing. It is present: “Now.”

If we are in Christ, we need not wait in doubts and fears for the verdict of the great white Throne. Its decisions cannot make our standing more clear, or our acceptance more sure, but we shall learn there the meaning of God’s dealings with mankind, and triumph in the successful vindication of His ways. We can never be more free from the condemnation of God’s righteous law than we are at this present.

It is certain: “There is no condemnation.” You must catch this accent of conviction, and be able to speak with no faltering voice of your assured acceptance with God, if you would enter upon the rich inheritance of this chapter, to which these opening words stand as the door of passage. The shadow of a peradventure cannot live in the light of that certainty of which the Apostle speaks.

It is invariable. There are Some who live on a sliding scale between condemnation and acceptance. If health is buoyant and the heart is full of song, they are sure of their acceptance with God; but if the sun is darkened and the clouds return; when the heart is dull and sad, they imagine that they are under the ban of God’s displeasure. They forget that our standing in Christ Jesus is one thing; our appreciation and enjoyment of it quite another. Your own heart may condemn you; memory, the recorder of the soul, may summon from the past evidence against you; the great Accuser of souls may lay against you grievous and well-founded charges; your tides of feeling may ebb far down the beach; your faith may become weak and lose its power and grip; your sense of unworthiness may become increasingly oppressive—none of these things can touch your acceptance with God if you are complying with His one all-inclusive condition—“no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” This mystic union with the Son of God is only possible to faith working by love (1Jo 3:23-24).

Prayer

We commit ourselves to Thy care and keeping this day; let Thy grace be mighty in us, and sufficient for us, and let it work in us both to will and to do of Thine own good pleasure, and grant us strength for all the duties of the day. Amen.