“There Is No Condemnation” (Romans 8:1): But Why Not? -- By: Chuck Lowe
NET Bible Tagger issues
Attention: If you are experiencing issues with verses not being displayed in the pop-up window, please clear your browser cache. For desktop and laptop users, this can usually be accomplished by holding the shift key down on your keyboard while clicking the refresh icon on your browser's toolbar. Mobile users will need to find instructions for your specific phone and browser combination. Thank you.
Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 42:2 (Jun 1999)
Article: “There Is No Condemnation” (Romans 8:1): But Why Not?
Author: Chuck Lowe
JETS 42:2 (June 1999) p. 231
“There Is No Condemnation” (Romans 8:1):
But Why Not?
Why is there no condemnation for those who are in Christ (Rom 8:1)? For card-carrying evangelicals the reflexive response is: because Christ died in their place and for their sins.
Justification through the substitutionary atonement of Christ is one of the first precepts drummed into new believers, and Romans 8:1 is often the prooftext employed to establish the point. 1 Yet while the meaning of this verse may seem self-evident, commentators have considerable trouble with it.
The crux of the problem is that 8:1–2 appears to ground escape from condemnation not in the death of Christ as a substitute for sinners, but in the work of the Spirit in transforming sinners: “for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed you from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). 2 At first blush, this seems to suggest that justification depends on sanctification.
Basically one of three approaches is taken to harmonize this passage with traditional Protestant doctrine. 3 One interprets 8:2 as a reference to the death of Christ for sinners so that condemnation is averted through justification rather than through sanctification. 4 The second solution accepts 8:2 as a
* Chuck Lowe is lecturer in New Testament at Singapore Bible College, 9–15 Adam Road, Singapore 289886, Republic of Singapore.
JETS 42:2 (June 1999) p. 232
reference to sanctification, but suggests that “condemnation” in 8:1 refers not to a judicial verdict but to “penal servitude.” 5 The third approach accepts what is probably the most natural reading of the two clauses but reconfigures the relationship between them: the most popular suggestion is that sanctification is the consequence—rather than the grounds—of justification. 6
Theologically, each of these propositions is flawless: that is what makes them feasible. Justification is grounded in the substitutionary atonement of Christ, not in transformational righteousness (Rom 3:21–26). Sin do...
Click here to subscribe