Yesterday I had a conversation how our society works by shame fear and shunning (or honour, love and duty). I guess condemnation involves shunning and shaming. In earlier times it involved severe punishment and death.
Now, if a society decides that they do not want these things, then… well… two things happen. Firstly, many men lose hope. There is no challenge. There is no sense of contribution, and there is no training in working through difficult times. They become what my son calls Grass Eaters; doing the minimum, living with their parents, and disengaging from society. This is bad for them, for as Annette Beutrais has shown, the disengaged man is at great risk of suicide, old or young.
Secondly, the lack of restrictions leads to a lack of rational behaviour and an expectation that society will just pick up the pieces. You can live with your girlfriend, woman… and not many people will mind (or with your lover man)… but when you then demand artificial insemination or surrogates so you can have kids… on the state… things are wrong. Let alone expecting that the state will pay your mortgage or rescue your bank — when you live in a house you cannot afford and the bank has foolishly lent to a few tens of thousands in the same position.
Finally, without a sense of shame and condemnation this passage does not make any sense. Without a moral code, without a conscience, the entire reason for Salvation is lost. And the idea that in Christ we are not damned becomes foolish. If you have accounted yourself righteous and fabulous you have not accounted for any need for salvation.
1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law — indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Now, we can be sophisticated about this and look at the myths of apotheosis, make up explanations (Normally this involves denying the incarnation to make a “historical” Jesus and blame Paul for everything) and imply it does not exist. This is the most powerful argument against Christianity, because Christianity depends on the resurrection. Without the ressurection, the letter to the Romans does not make any sense either.
You see, to accept the need for Christ to sacrifice himself on our behalf we have to accept that we are — in any just system — worthy of condemnation. It is not about the balance of good and evil. A man who has done great good will still be condemned by any courts if he robs a passerby. For whatever reason. We may not all have murdered, robbed or been unfaithful to our vows, but we have hated, lusted, and coveted. And Jesus (in the Sermon of the Mount) said that was the equivalent: the mens rea was there. The mechanics of it may not have happened. One of the deep ironies is that the Spirit of this Age encourages lust, hatred and covetousness by the advertising that pays for our mass media.
Without the ability to be honest with ourselves. to see ourselves as needing mercy, not justice, we cannot seek Christ. Instead we will be in a narcissistic hell made of our own self-love and self worship, wondering why no person is wonderful enough for us, and why no person will just give us what we desire.
In this Easter Season, we should praise God that he still works in our hearts to bring us to himself. The fact he cares for us is unthinkable, and that he loves us enough to die for us is not understandable. And as he gives mercy, not justice, so should we give mercy, not justice to those around us.
But we need to be honest about this. Mercy is not an entitlement you can get at a court. It flows from an act of a person with power, with authority — and it cannot be litigated. So let us pray that the Spirit is in us, and that we concentrate on the Spirit of God, not the spirit of the age,