Saying "No" to Self-Hatred and Condemnation

This Sunday morning I will preach at Redeemer out of Romans 8:1-5. The text is:

¹ Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. ³ For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

Romans 8:1, of course, is HUGE, especially since Satan's modus operandi is accusation and condemnation. (See Rev. 12:10)

I am especially taken by the last sentence fragment in v. 3 - And so he condemned sin in the flesh... I have arrived again at a piece of Scripture that seems unfamiliar, as if I've never noticed it before. Here we have the clearest statement in Paul that what happened on the cross was the judicial punishment of sin.

So the death of Christ on a cross freed us from all condemnation. But there was a lot of condemning going on on the cross, and the recipient was "Sin," which Paul views as a power. “Sin” deserved the condemnation, which it received. On the cross the condemnation that sin deserved was given out fully and finally…

…so that sinful people like you and I who were accused over and over and over by the enemy and by people wielded by the enemy as instruments of wickedness might be liberated from this threat once and for all.

Ben Witherington writes:  "This ‘condemnation’ refers to the judgment God rendered on sinful flesh by sending his Son to the cross. In this way, sin was actually condemned in Christ’s flesh and in what happened to Christ’s flesh on the cross. The condemnation then was not merely a decree, but involved a demonstration, or an affecting event – Christ’s death. The declaration of no condemnation  on those in Christ (v. 1) is based on the judgment of condemnation on sinfulness exercised on Christ on the cross (v. 3).” (Witherington, Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, 214)

I am fascinated by this.

It's going to be yet another freedom day at Redeemer. It will be the Day of Freedom for some.