On Condemnation

"Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."  ~Romans 8:1

"'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, sir.' And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.'" ~John 8:10-11

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."  ~John 3:17


I have often spoken with people broken down by the condemnation of others. Sometimes it comes from the preacher.  Sometimes it comes from religious culture. It's not always the uptight religious folks who condemn either. Sometimes it comes from free-thinking, free-spirited people who have all kinds of ideas about how others ought to live and not live. Some people reserve their condemnation for fundamentalists and meat-eaters, while others reserve it for homosexuals and drug addicts.

We condemn others because it is central to our human nature to do so. We condemn others because we think that our condemnation might make them straighten up.  We think that our condemnation might make others see and be afraid and avoid the behaviors of those we condemn. We condemn because we fear that society will throw off all restraint if we stop wagging our fingers.

Above all, we condemn because we are desperately trying to deflect attention from the painful reality that our own hearts condemn us. If we can shine the spotlight on someone else, then the spotlight will no longer be on us. We do this in all kinds of ways: "My candidate isn't perfect, but your candidate does the same thing a hundred times worse." "Maybe I shouldn't have lost my temper, but you say ugly things all the time."

Even as we are trying to give ourselves cover for our own misdeeds, we convince ourselves we are doing God a favor by keeping the rest of the world properly categorized and their behavior properly regulated.

But God does not condemn.

God does not condemn because God is perfect. And so, God has no nagging insecurity to deflect.

God does not condemn because God takes responsibility. God has never sinned, and yet he took on the responsibility for all of our failings voluntarily.  God has not argued with us about who is right and who is wrong. He leaves the argument, takes flesh, and dies on a cross to obliterate the wrong. That's what love does.

If you are hurting because someone has condemned you, please know that the condemnation you feel has not come from God. It probably has much more to do with the person who condemns you than it does you.

If you have done wrong, you don't have to feel condemned about it, nor do you have to make excuses for it. God does not condemn you. So you can own up to your wrong and know that it does not define you. You can be healed and you can start over.

You do not have to wallow in a sense of condemnation in order to make up for the wrong you did. There is no penance period. People do this to each other--make each other grovel around for awhile. God is not in the business of rubbing peoples' faces in anything. And feeling bad about yourself will not make you do better anyway. So move on.

And for heaven's sake, let's try our very best to stop condemning others. If God refuses to condemn, we should learn from him that condemnation is a tactic that does not work.  If you condemn someone, you will not control their behavior.  You will only make them resent you and cause them to go looking for something about you to condemn in return.  Even if you succeed in making them feel shame, their sense of shame will never free them to behave differently.  God attended to the sin of the world by offering forgiveness, not by making us ashamed of ourselves so that we would quit.  It doesn't work that way.