This statement is such a well known scripture and an encouraging word that everyone one wishes to appropriate without considering the prerequisite "Being in Christ."
What does is it mean to be in Christ? Paul makes a case for it from Romans 1 to 7, and here in Chapter 8 he concludes that there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
He is not saying those who attend church, or those who love Christians, or those who admire Jesus or again those who own a bible.
No, only those of us who have understood that God's justified wrath is expressed against all unrighteousness of mankind who have rejected God and any form of godliness because of an innate predisposition to cherish wickedness and resist goodness as defined by God. Yes, those of us who have realized that no man is exempt from this defect and that everyone is deserving God's appropriate punishment for our collective and individual fallen condition (Death). Again those of us who accept that the solution to our predicament could only come from God alone. And it did!... yes, God, because of His infinite Love toward us, provided His own begotten Son as the only acceptable atonning offering to die a substitutionary death to grant those of us who accept this gracious gift by faith alone the possibility to escape God's wrath and be given eternal life as we commit to give our bodies over to God to become slaves to righteousness in the same way we did offer them to unrighteousness in our previous fallen condition.
Yes, those of us who clearly identify with Christ's crucifixion as our propitiation, do receive His life and become His siblings. So to us, ONLY to us, there is NO CONDEMNATION because the life we have and now live... we live IN CHRIST never to be forsaken ever again.
So, the $1,000,000 question? Are you in Christ?
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