II. But you could not do this if all the while the power of sin were shutting you out from God. And this leads us to a second point of the utmost possible importance: viz., that now, in the midst of the struggle, and during the time of imperfection, in Christ Jesus we are free from all condemnation. If, as we pursue our course, we were to be condemned for all the sin of which we are guilty in either omission or commission, in either thought, word, or act, there could be no peace or hope in our struggle. I am not surprised that poor people who do not know the Gospel go to priests for absolution, or resort to any other man-made expedient in order to endeavour to escape from the misery of the perpetual exclusion from God of which they must be conscious. But in Christ Jesus you need nothing of the kind, for ‘there is now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus.’ Observe the force of the ‘now’ in contrast with the ‘shall’ of the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter. The complete deliverance is future: so he said, ‘Who _shall_ deliver me?’ But the perfect freedom from all condemnation is present: and therefore he says, ‘There is _now_ no condemnation.’ The ‘therefore now’ of that verse depends on the sixth verse of the seventh chapter, the intermediate passage being a parenthesis, so that the connexion is as follows: ‘Now we are delivered from the law, . . . there is therefore now no condemnation.’ The battle is not over, and you have still to fight a hard fight with sin; but now that sin cannot cut you off from God, for you are no longer under the law: you are in Christ Jesus, and He has satisfied the law in your behalf. Your sin undoubtedly deserves condemnation, and you have not a word to say in its defence: but He has already borne that condemnation, so that in Him you are free; and nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord. Now, think for one moment of the unspeakable blessedness of this most precious truth. You may review all that has occurred through the day,—your prayers, your praises, your wandering thoughts, your conversation, your motives, and your heart’s desires,—and oh, how far they will all fall short of the holiness of God! If you are not in Christ Jesus, the thought of them must fill you with anxiety, doubt, and a sense of distance from God; but if you are enabled by His grace to take home to your heart the blessed truth, that _now_, even _now_, before you have gained the victory, there is no condemnation,—then that sin does not separate you from Him. It humbles you, it is true, and deeply grieves you; but it cannot cut you off from God: you are sheltered in the covenant of Grace. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth you from all sin,’ and you may kneel before Him in the peaceful enjoyment of a true and uninterrupted fellowship with God. In the spirit of adoption you may cry Abba, Father; and with the happy trust of a child in its