Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3067
“Who is he who condemns?It is Christ who died, yes rather, who is risen again, who is even at the right hand ofGod, who also makes intercession for us.” Romans 8:34.
[Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon, upon this passage are as follows—#256, Volume 5—THE BELIEVER’S CHALLENGE;
#1223, Volume 21—JESUS, THE SUBSTITUTE FOR HIS PEOPLE and #2240, Volume 38— A CHALLENGE AND A SHIELD.]
ALL through this very wonderful chapter the Apostle seems to be piling up, in heaps upon heaps, the many marvels of Divine Grace. I might quote from the old classic fable of the giants who piled the mountains, one upon the other— Pelion upon Ossa—and I might say that even so has Paul done here. He has piled mountain upon mountain of wondrous Grace in his description of the way to Heaven! And now he seems to have climbed to the top of them all and to have transformed them into a kind of Tabor or Pisgah. And as he stands there, he exults in the Lord! He waves the palm branch of triumph. He boasts with holy boasting. And he challenges all his enemies to attack him—“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.”
I. Here, first of all, is A SOLEMN QUESTION—a very solemn question if it were put to all here present—“Who is he who condemns?”—for I am afraid that some of my hearers, if they asked that question, might have a speedy answer— “It is your own conscience that condemns you; it is the Word of God that condemns you; it is Christ Himself who condemns you. It is God, the Judge of All, who condemns you because you have not fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before you in the Gospel—you have not believed in Jesus Christ.” But Paul is speaking as a Believer in Christ and for him to ask the question, or for any other Believer to ask it, is a very different thing, for he may say what others must not, “Who can lay anything to mycharge? Who is he that can condemn me, now that I have believed in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior?”
Now, Beloved, one answer that might be given to this question, “Who is he who condemns?” is that, there are many who would if they could for probably no Believer in Christ is without his enemies. There are few good men and women who are not slandered. The majority of God’s people have been persecuted in some way or other—and some of them have had to lie in prison year after year. Many more have been condemned to die and yet, inasmuch as slanderers and persecutors have no right to condemn the man of God, he may challenge his slanderers and his persecutors and say, “You may profess to condemn me if you please, but I count your condemnation to be no more potent than the whistling of the wind. You would condemn me if you could, but you cannot really do so.” Satan, our arch-enemy, would condemn us if it were in his power. Only fancy him for a moment sitting on the Judgment Seat. If we had the devil to judge us, he would soon bring to our recollection our many faults, follies and failings—and condemn us for them. But, O you fiend of Hell, God has not made you the judge of His saints! You may cast foul insinuations against them, but the Lord says to you concerning each one of them, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” Satan has no right to judge us and no power to condemn us! So when he speaks the worst he can about us, we laugh him to scorn, rejoicing that God will shortly bruise him under our feet!
But, Beloved, sometimes our own conscience condemns us. The best man here will, at times, have painful memories of the past and to look at the past, except through the glass made red by our Savior’s precious blood, is to look upon
despair—for our past transgressions would drag us down to Hell were it not for the Atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Yes, and we need not look back far to have this sad view, for the sins of any one of the best days we have ever lived might cause us to tremble! The sins of our holy things are black enough to cause us great sorrow. Did you ever pray a prayer that you could not have wept over afterwards? Have you ever preached a sermon with which you could feel content? Is not sin mixed with all that we do? But here is the mercy, that our conscience is not set upon God’s Throne to judge and to condemn us, although we do well to listen to the voice of conscience and to give heed to its admonitions. The Apostle John reminds us that, “if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” And that, “if any man sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.” With all our imperfections and our consciousness of guilt we rejoice that—
“There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”
It looks like a bold question for any man to put so unreservedly, “Who is he that condemns?” But there is really only One who can condemn. Our characters may have been pulled to pieces by a thousand accusers, but they could not condemn us. When a prisoner stands in the dock, he need not be afraid of anybody except the judge and jury. It does not matter what you or I may believe about him—nobody but the 12 men in the box can give the verdict against him or in his favor. These are the persons before whom he has cause to tremble but before none besides. So whoever may pretend to condemn us, there is only One who can really do so—and that is the Judge—and what is His name? O Christian, what a comforting fact is this to you! Your Judge is your Savior! And it is not possible to conceive that He who died and rose again, and entered into Heaven—and every day pleads for us—can ever use His blessed lips to pronounce condemnation upon any one of His own people! “Oh,” you say, “but He must do it as He is the Judge! He must not show any favor on the Judgment Seat.” That is a correct remark and I have been sorry whenever I have heard a preacher say that. It is a consolation to think that the Judge will be our Friend. Why, Beloved, we must not imagine that Jesus will judge partially and give His verdict in our favor because we are His friends. No, but here is our comfort—He who is our Judge, beyond everybody else, knows the whole truth about us and He would not justify us at the last if we really ought to be condemned. Ah, no, He is too just to do that! But He knows that every Believer is so completely justified that he cannot be condemned. He knows, as nobody else does, how the Believer was justified—what blood it was that washed the Believer white! And what righteousness it is that has made the Believer “accepted in the Beloved.” He knows His own and He knows the way in which He has justified His own and, therefore, as an Omniscient, Infallibly just Judge, He knows that the sentence which will be passed upon the Believer, which is a sentence of acquittal, is the only one that could be passed!
“Who is he who condemns? Christ who died.” So the fact stands that whatever there may be in store for others in connection with the coming Day of Final Judgment and the banishment of the condemned to Hell, all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will never be condemned! Under no possible or conceivable circumstances can they ever be condemned, for they who are once forgiven and justified always shall be forgiven and justified in time and throughout eternity! There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus—and there never shall be! [See Sermon #1917, Volume 32—in christ no