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Self-Deception in Marriage

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INTRODUCTION

Self-deception is truly an interesting psychological phenomenon. I mean, whenever it occurs in your life, that means that you are the one lied to, and you are the liar, and you buy it. “Seems reasonable,” you mutter to yourself.

Now at one level, Scripture teaches that every form of sin, disobedience or unbelief is a form of self-deception. You are living in the world that God made, with all of His self-disclosure operating, and yet you are steadfastly telling yourself that the world isn’t really like that.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: But he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise” (Proverbs 12:15). “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness” (Proverbs 30:12). Sin is the refusal to see your relationship to God and His world for what it actually is, and so it is a form of self-deception.

THE TEXT

“He feedeth on ashes: A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” (Isaiah 44:20).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Isaiah is speaking the plain stupidity that cuts down a tree (v. 14), and which uses a portion of the wood to keep himself warm, and to cook his food, on the one hand (v. 15), and from the rest of the wood he carves an object of adoration (vv. 15, 17, 19).

A deceived heart is turned aside, meaning that a deceived heart is both deceived and deceiving. The end result is that the idol he has fashioned to deliver him will be unable to deliver him. He should have known this already because he carved his savior out of a piece of wood that he cut down himself.

FOUR KINDS OF SELF-DECEPTION

We have already seen that all sins are self-deception at some level, but there are certain forms of it that might be called “high-profile” instances of self-deception.

Forgetful neglect of application: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was . . . If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain” (James 1:22-24, 26). The deception occurs in between the sermon and the moment this afternoon when application is called for.

Assumption of innocence: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Everyone here is encased in a first-person-singular narrative. And everyone here has a strong impulse to trust the narrator, which is a bad idea.

Neglect of holiness: “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Corinthians 3:18–20). We are very prone to self-deception when it comes to the moral demands of the free grace gospel. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10).

Self-serving flattery: “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Gal. 6:3). Every man wants to be the hero in his own story, and casting yourself in that role is the very worst way of accomplishing this.

A BAD MARRIAGE OR A BAD ATTITUDE

Not all Christian marriages are successful. Some really thrive, most are pretty okay, some struggle along, and a handful are what we would call “bad marriages.” If you would put yourself in that category, I want to suggest one more division that I hope you might find helpful.

One kind of bad marriage is the result of a real mismatch of persons. The conflicts and difficulties arise out of the clashes between very different perspectives. The communicate poorly and problems result. They assume too much in opposite directions and problems result. This does happen, and a lot of good pastoral help is available—in Scripture, with counselors, with good literature.

But the intractable problems are, in my experience, not strictly speaking bad marriages at all. The marriage is just the location where the badness is manifesting itself. What would you think of someone who gave a restaurant a savage one-star review on Yelp, and if you asked him why he did that, the response was that while he was there he got the worst toothache of his life? You should say, yeah, that wasn’t a bad restaurant experience. It was a bad experience in a restaurant.

Intractable marriages problems are often intractable problems in a marriage, not the result of the marriage.

PRIDE, THE GREAT ENEMY

When a self-deceived person marries, they are moving into a room filled with excuses. Opportunities for misdirection and blame-shifting abound. Remember that the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9). The thing that deceives such a person is the pride of his heart (Oba. 3), and remember that pride goes before destruction (Prov. 16:18). The self-deceived husband compares himself to himself, and the wife measures herself with herself (2 Cor. 10:12). These are not wise.

I am talking about (and to) the husband who is sullen, grouchy, and angry all the time. He tells himself is not angry all the time because he is not yelling all the time, which tells us how much he knows about it. I am talking about (and to) the wife who is a lazy and undisciplined, and if any real work threatens to intrude, she is sure to develop a serious malady with ambiguous symptoms. These two examples are stand-ins for countless others. The problem, the central problem, is self-deception.

THE MIRROR OF CHRIST

The only remedy for such self-deception is to see yourself accurately, and this can only be done by looking into the perfect law of liberty (Jas. 1:5). But this should not be understood as a detached list of rules. Christ is the end (telos) of the law (Rom. 10:4). Your identity is in Christ. If you look at yourself there, in the mirror of Christ, you do not just see Christ. You also see yourself, perhaps for the very first time.

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Psalm 140: The Tongue of Vipers

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INTRODUCTION 

The children’s rhyme about sticks and stones is actually one that is wildly off the mark. Scripture teaches us that the tongue is one of our most potent organs. When we walk with the Lord, our wholesome speech is a tree of life (Prov. 15:4). If we are given over to evil, the tongue has the capacity to burn down entire forests (Jas. 3:5-6). This psalm gives us a close look at the destructive power of speech.

THE TEXT

“Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: Preserve me from the violent man; Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; Continually are they gathered together for war. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; Adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah. Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; Preserve me from the violent man; Who have purposed to overthrow my goings . . .” (Psalm 140:1-13).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The occasion for this psalm is likely from the time when David was on the run from Saul, and his enemies at court refused to miss any opportunity to malign him. David cries out for deliverance from the evil and violent man (v. 1). Their mischievous plots begin in the heart (v. 2), move to their poisonous speech (v. 3), and end with the violence of their hands (v. 4). These evil ones are doing what they do on purpose. It is thought out, premeditated. They lay the traps and snares beforehand (v. 5).

David turns to his God as his only possible deliverance (v. 6). The Lord who is the strength of his salvation is the same one who placed a shield over his head on the day of battle (v. 7). His enemies are conceited and so he prays that they would not succeed, lest they become even more full of themselves (v. 8). David prays for a divinely appointed recoil (v. 9). From the context, we see that the retribution he wishes for them is that the fall into their own traps (v. 10). Let the malicious hunter let loose the dogs of his cruelty, and may they turn back around and starting hunting him (v. 11). God undertakes for the afflicted and poor (v. 12). The righteous will return thanks to God’s name, and the upright will dwell in His presence (v. 13).

Notice that this psalm begins with the psalmist on the run, looking out for any possible snares and traps. A mere thirteen verses later, he is dwelling in the presence of God.

VERBAL PERSECUTION

We live in a world where actions follow words, and words have the power to result in action. An intelligent Christian should be able to see and predict the trajectory of malice. The road along which this evil runs can be described as a plotting heart (v. 2), a venomous tongue (v. 3), and violent hands (v. 4).

It has become fashionable for the liars of our generation to mock the idea that Christians are being “othered.” But we most certainly are. And however easy it is for someone to say, “Oh, poor widdle Cwistians! Did somebody differ wiff you on Twitter?” That’s not persecution. But that is not what Jesus taught us. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake” (Matt. 5:11). Being reviled most certainly is persecution, and as we see in this psalm, it is the preparation for more direct action to follow.

HOW POISON WORKS

The viper bites, and poison is introduced into the body. Now that body has a circulatory system which is system which keeps the body alive. That body cannot exist without it. Your red blood cells deliver oxygen to every point in your body, and so this amazing system is your essential friend. But the circulatory system is also involved in distributing any poison that is introduced into the body to every part of your body.

Now in any social group—church, school, town, state, or nation—that circulatory system is made up of words. And lies, venomous lies, are the poison.

PROTECTING THE COMMONWEALTH

If you doubt the truth proclaimed in this psalm—about the potency of lies—just look around. Over the last several years, you have witnessed a great nation reduced to a shambolic mess, and all through the power of poisonous lips. We have faced no great invasion. We have not been struck by a giant asteroid. We have not been visited with the frogs of Egypt. We have not seen the Black Death sweep through our cities. The seven angels of Revelation have not emptied their bowls on us.

What we have seen is lies, lies everywhere. The lie of Darwinism. The lie of multiculturalism. The lie of woke. The lie of climate change. The lie of governmental authority. The lie of evangelical steadfastness. The lie of secularism. The lie of a defeated foe is destructive nonetheless, provided that the foolish believe it.

MOUTHS FULL OF GOSPEL

We have many examples of lies and liars being answered in Scripture. That is a lawful response, and in many cases it is a necessary response. Think about Paul, answering questions to the Galatians about how many times he had visited Jerusalem (Gal. 1:17). Think about Jesus, refuting charges that He was casting out demons by the prince of demons (Matt. 12:27). Think about Job, answering charges that he must have brought all his calamities down on himself (Job 42:7). So it is lawful.

But at the same time, our central response must be to point to the cross where the prince of lies was thrown down and humiliated. They fell into the trap that they themselves had prepared. They managed, with their lying tongues, to have the Lord nailed to the cross. And when they had done so, they found all their lies were completely overthrown, forever and all. If the princes of this world had known what they were about, they wouldn’t have done it (1 Cor. 2:8). We should talk about all this more, with our mouths full of gospel.

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Psalm 139: The God of All Immensity

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INTRODUCTION

This psalm might be considered a hymn to the omniscience of God (vv. 1-6) and omnipresence of God (vv. 7-12), as well as a hymn to His creative artistry (vv. 13-18), along with a thoughtful meditation on the ethical ramifications of God’s holy nature (vv. 19-24).

THE TEXT

“O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain unto it . . . And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:1-24).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Yahweh knows the psalmist, having searched him out (v. 1). God knows when he sits and when he rises (v. 2), and reads his thoughts at a distance (v. 2). God understands his paths, his lying down, and all his ways (v. 3). Before he speaks, God knows all about it (v. 4). Jehovah goes before him, and comes behind him (v. 5), and rests His hand on him. Such doctrine overwhelms David (v. 6); it is too high.

Where can God be avoided? Nowhere (v. 7). If David ascends to Heaven, God is there (v. 8). If he makes his bed in the lowest places, God is there also (v. 8). If he takes the rays of the sunrise and flies off with them to the most distant seas, Yahweh is there to lead and hold (vv. 9-10). If David tried to hide in the dark, he realizes that darkness and light are all the same to Jehovah (vv. 11-12).

But Yahweh is not just the God of all the omni-immensities—He is a meticulous craftsman as well. God owned his reins (kidneys), which the Hebrews considered the seat of desire and longing—even as those reins were being shaped (v. 13). The human body is an astounded work—stupefying, in fact. It summons nothing but praise, as our soul knows right well (v. 14). We are woven in the womb. God knew everything about what He was doing, as He was doing it in the darkness of the womb (v. 15). God saw what He was going to do in the sketch book of His own sovereign determinations (v. 16)—all of it was planned. David exults in the infinite sum of God’s thoughts, and counts them both infinite and precious (vv. 17-18).

But this great Jehovah is also holy. And as the Holy One, He is the eye of the world. God will certainly slay the wicked (v. 19), and so David banishes them. They speak in godless ways, taking God’s name in vain (v. 20), and so David hates those who hate Yahweh. He is grieved with them (v. 21). He hates them perfectly, and counts them as his own enemies (v. 22). He follows this with an astonishing invitation—search me, O God (v. 23).  Probe and test me, to see if there is any wickedness to be found in me. And lead me in the everlasting way (v. 24).

IMMEDIATE AND EXHAUSTIVE KNOWLEDGE

God knows all things immediately, without any middleman. Although it says here that God “searches out,” it also says He knows from “afar off.” He knows what David is going to say before David does. His knowledge is unmediated. Not only is His knowledge not mediated to Him, His knowledge is not divided. He is never distracted. When you cry out to Him, you have His undivided attention. He knows your going out and your coming in, and that means He knows when you have a parking spot and when you don’t.

This kind of knowledge causes us to blow fuses (v. 6). We cannot attain to it. We cannot comprehend it.

ALL THE WAY PRESENT

The omnipresence of Jehovah is not like pie dough—where the farther you spread it, the thinner it gets. God is everywhere, and everywhere He is, He is entirely there.

But this is Christian orthodoxy, not pantheism. God is everywhere, but it cannot be said that He is everything. He created the material universe, which means that it is distinct from Him. God spoke, and there were two realities: God and not God. But all contingent created reality is contained (somehow) within Him. He encompasses us all, without being identified with the created order. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:28). He goes ahead of us, and He comes behind.

THE PROFOUND MINIATURIST

 The psalmist confesses that he “is wonderfully made.” The Vulgate rendering of this is exquisite—acu pictus sum, “I am painted as with a needle.” Not only so, but God does this work in the darkness of the womb. But no matter, because darkness and light are all the same to Him (v. 12). The formation of each human being, which He has done billions of times, is an astonishing marvel. We take it all for granted, because we are besotted with our sin.

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil (Prov. 8:13; Amos 5:15). We see in Scripture how David was magnanimous with his personal enemy Saul (1 Sam. 24:5). What we are dealing with here is David’s indignation over these evildoers unwillingness to repent of their bloody and blasphemous wickedness (vv. 19-20).

And so think of it this way. The sovereign and eternal God, the one who has witnessed every grubby thought you ever had, and has witnessed them parade right in front of Him, hands over their eyes, in the firm conviction that if they can’t see, then He must not be able to see, is the same God who knit the Lord Jesus together in the womb of Mary the Virgin. And He did this so that He would have a body that could be nailed to a cross on behalf of all those impudent scamps.

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Grace & Sweat

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INTRODUCTION

I am fond of saying that grace has a backbone, but I think it is time to explain what I mean by that. The context of these remarks is the general and current ongoing discussion about the worrisome trajectories of all those incipient legalists and antinomians out there. The incipient legalists are the ones the incipient antinomians are worried about, and vice versa.

THE TEXT

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of hisgood pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

We see that for the apostle Paul, obedience is not a bad word. It does not have negative connotations for him. The Philippians were beloved by him, and he commends them for their obedience (v. 12). This was not just when Paul was present, but also when he was not with them. In particular, he tells them (in his absence) to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling (v. 12). How would it be possible for them to do this? God is the one who is at work within them, willing and doing in accordance with His good pleasure (v. 13). This means that the Philippians were to work out what God was working in. The labors of both parties, added up, did not come to 100%. God did everything in them. They did everything that was the result of what God did in them. Salvation is all of grace—even the work.

But what is the relationship of the grace of God to the (seemingly unrelated) world of hard moral effort? If the grace of God is in all and through all, and beneath us all, then why do we still have to sweat bullets? Are those who sweat bullets abandoning the grace of God? Are those who rejoice in free forgiveness forsaking the demands of discipleship? But not all conditions are meritorious.

RECONCILED FRIENDS

Spurgeon once said, when asked how he reconciled divine sovereignty with human responsibility, that he did not even try—he never sought to reconcile friends. If we think about it rightly, from the vantage of those jealous for moral probity, we will never try to reconcile grace with works—that would be like trying to reconcile an apple tree with its apples. And, if we think about it rightly, from the vantage of those jealous for the wildness of grace, we will never try to reconcile grace with merit, for the two are mortal enemies and cannot be reconciled.

But those who insist that apple trees must always produce apples will make the friends of free grace nervous, not because they have anything against apples, but rather because they know the human propensity for manufacturing shiny plastic apples, with the little hooks that make it easy to hang them, like so many Christmas tree ornaments, on our doctrinal and liturgical bramble bushes. But on the other hand, those who insist that true grace always messes up the categories of the ecclesiastical fussers make the friends of true moral order nervous—because there are, after all, numerous warnings (from people like Jesus and Paul, who should have a place in these particular discussions, after all) about those who “live this way” not inheriting the kingdom. Kind of cold, according to some people, but the wedding banquet is the kind of event you can get thrown out of.

RIGHTLY RELATED

So what is the relationship of grace to hard, moral effort? Well, hard, moral effort is a grace. It is not every grace, but it is a true grace. It is a gift of God, lest any should boast. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, and this is a description of someone being saved by grace through faith, and not by works (Eph. 2:8-10). This is the meaning of our text—“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” We are called to work out what God works in, and absolutely nothing else. If we don’t work out that salvation (as evidenced by the fruit of it), then that is clear evidence that God is not working anything in.

If we work out some pressboard imitation (a salvation that has the look of real wood!), then that shows that God is not working anything in there either. Moralism is just a three-dollar flashlight to light the pathway to Hell with. And of course, if we are guilty of the opposite error, if our lives are manifesting a lineup of dirty deeds done dirt cheap, the only real sin we are avoiding is that of hypocrisy. Overt immorality is the fifty-dollar flashlight. 

ALL GRACE, ALL THE TIME

This is why we need a little more of “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Actually, we need a lot more of it. The answer to the grace/works dilemma is high octane Calvinism, and by this, I don’t mean the formulaic kind. If God is the one Paul preached—the one of whom it can be said “of him, and through him, and to him, are all things”—then where in the universe are you going to hide your pitiful merit? If He is Almighty God, and He starts to transform your tawdry little life into something resembling Jesus, who are you to tell Him that He is now wavering on the brink of dangerous legalisms?

The bottom line is that we cannot balance our notions of grace with works or our notions of works with grace. We need to get off that particular teeter totter. We have to balance absolutely everything in our lives with God Himself, who is the font of everlasting grace—real grace. Real grace is the context of everything. If we preach the supremacy of God in Christ, and the absolute lordship of that bleeding Christ, and the efficacious work of the Spirit in us who raised Jesus from the dead, then a number of other things will resolve themselves in a multitude of wonderful ways.

In Jesus, we are the new humanity. Is Jesus grace or works? Jesus lives in the garden of God’s everlasting favor, and we are in Him. In Christ, there are no prohibited trees. Outside Him, they are all prohibited. That means there is only one real question to answer, and it does not involve any grace/works ratios. The question is more basic than that, and has to do with the new birth.

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Completely Coated in Red Forgiveness (Easter A.D. 2022)

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INTRODUCTION

On this festal day, we remember, we commemorate, we celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the dead. Death no longer has dominion over Him, which means that He is entirely and utterly out of death’s reach. Not only so, but the same thing can be said of all who were—by faith—made partakers of His death. We have also be raised with Him.

This is the import of Easter. This is the meaning of Resurrection Sunday. Not only is it the first day of the week, but it is also the first day of the new creation.

THE TEXT

“But for us also, to whom [righteousness] shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:23–25).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Here is our context. The passage is talking about the faithful example of our father Abraham, who believe the Word that was spoken to him. He believed, and his faith was credited to him as righteousness. God had told him that he would be the father of many nations. God had told him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Abraham heard that word, believed it, and his faith was the instrument that received the gift of imputed righteousness.

But God has spoken to more people than just Abraham. He has also spoken to his innumerable descendants. And what does he say to those descendants? What is the word that is spoken to us? The word is that Christ was delivered over to the agony of the cross for our offenses, and that He was raised from the dead for our justification, for our righteousness. This word is spoken by whom? According to our text, it is spoken by the one who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. This means that He is the one whom we must believe, and what must we believe?

We must believe the word that is spoken, which means that we must believe that Christ was delivered for our offenses. We must believe that Christ was raised for our justification.

The gospel is a high gospel, but it is only a high gospel because it is our gospel. And who is it that can speak that glorious word “our”?

RESURRECTION PREREQUISITES

How low can this word “our” reach? It can reach anywhere the noun it modifies can reach. Wherever offences occur, those offences can certainly be our offences. But what does that mean? It means that our justification can occur in those same places. Resurrection can happen anywhere death exists.

Would it make any sense to say that resurrections cannot happen in cemeteries? Think for a moment. That is the only place where resurrections can happen. Graveyards are God’s workbench. Death is His material of choice.

So can our gospel reach into dive bars? Strip clubs? Political rallies? Meth labs? Soup kitchens? Chess clubs? Civic associations? Anywhere death can go, life can erupt. Anything that death can drag down to the grave, everlasting life can reach down and pull back out again. Anything, and anyone. Our offenses. Our justification. Remember?

PARTAKERS OF ALL OF THIS

Christ did not come to earth and do what He did so that we would be impressed with the singular marvel of His conquest of death. It was a marvel, but it was not a singular marvel. Christ’s resurrection is the creation of the instrument of our deliverance from death. He is an Adam, remember.

What the first Adam did entailed all the rest of us. In a similar way, the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45) has done something that entails all who believe. The first Adam disobeyed at a tree, representing all of us. The last Adam obeyed on a tree, paying the penalty for all of us (2 Cor. 5:21).

This becomes ours as we are partakers with Him, and we are partakers with Him by faith alone. This is the Word—look at it. This is the Word—do you accept it? Do you trust the one who speaks it?

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

It is not possible to partake partially. If you are joined with Christ at the beginning, at the place of the cross, then you are with Him all the way to glory, which is the predetermined end of it.

“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11).

Death and resurrection. Rebellion and restoration. Diseased decay and newness of life.

ON THIS RESURRECTION SUNDAY

On this Resurrection Sunday, an entirely new thing appears in the world, a thing entirely unknown before. That new thing in the world is a righteous version of you. You did not know that it was even possible for there to be a righteous version of you. You think this because of your offenses.

So flip this around. Is it appropriate for the preacher to look straight at your dirty heart, and utter the phrase your offenses? Yes, yes. It is entirely fitting. Now if that is appropriate, and it is, then take the phrase and put it in first person. Say it this way: our offenses. Make it even more personal than that. My offenses. How many of my offenses? All of them. Myoffenses.

Do you have them all? Are they all gathered up? Do they all condemn you? Of course they all do. Just one of them would condemn you to Hell forever. Just one of them is sufficient fuel to burn everlastingly. So there you are, arms full of “my offenses.”

Now, dirty armful and all, look to the cross. A man died there, and He died for what? He died for our offenses. Do you see that? Do you believe it? Do not dare to disbelieve it. He died for our offenses. Repeat that after me. He died for our offenses. Having gotten thus far, here comes the glorious culmination of all God’s purposes. He was raised for our justification. And you are not permitted to say our offenses without also saying our justification. You cannot say my offenses without also saying my righteousness.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1).

No condemnation. And there is no condemnation because Jesus rose, and you are eternally, everlastingly, ultimately, finally, and completely righteous. Do you believe these things? Of course you do.

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