Therefore there is now no condemnation [no guilty verdict, no punishment] for those who are in Christ Jesus [who believe in Him as personal Lord and Savior]. For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has set you free from the law of sin and of death….
And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose … What then shall we say to all these things? If God is for us, who can be [successful] against us? He who did not spare [even] His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect (His chosen ones)? It is God who justifies us [declaring us blameless and putting us in a right relationship with Himself]. Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died [to pay our penalty], and more than that, who was raised [from the dead], and who is at the right hand of God interceding [with the Father] for us. Who shall ever separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us]. (Rom. 8:1,2,28,31-35,37, The Amplified Bible).[1]
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I am challenged in the depths of my being for I find that our victory is one in which there need be no delay. Paul does not say ‘we shall be‘ but ‘we are more than conquerors’. Those who remember the early years of the second world war will recall those dreary months and years of waiting before the armed might of a seemingly victorious enemy was challenged, Victory seemed a long way off. It was promised in that calm, strong voice of Sir Winston Churchill that came over the radio in those dark days, but that was all. Britain was left alone, beaten to the wall, defenceless, without weapons and blasted with bombs. Would victory ever come?
How many of us, in our Christian experience, see victory like that? It seems only a remote prospect which it is almost impossible ever to achieve. We say to ourselves ‘maybe one day we shall’ but that is not what Paul says. He says, not we shall be but we are conquerors. There need be no doubt that we are super conquerors.
Does that mean that the Christian is never defeated? No! But it does mean that he never need be!
Does it mean that the Christian is without sin? No! But it does mean that he can be without blame and without conscious and deliberate sin.
In these days when so many of us are aware of money matters we may transfer the metaphor from the realm of fighting to that off finance. If Paul had been talking in terms of money, he would have said ‘We are multi millionaires’ , and what millionaire need ever be in debt? A Christian never lacks what he needs when he possesses in Christ the unsearchable riches of God’s grace.
“In Him [Jesus Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph.1:7).
“To me [Paul], who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph.3:8).
“[I pray] that He [God] would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,…” (Eph.3:16).
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-7, NKJV).][1]
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[1] Biblical quotations added – JBW
From Day by Day with George Duncan. (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1975) 11,12.