Condemnation in Christ | Lesson 3

In this message, Pastor Josh Strelecki continues the Union in Christ series with a study of condemnation — the second of three features of man's identity in Adam (alongside abomination and alienation). Preaching from Romans 5:18, he shows that condemnation is not a risk hanging over an otherwise-neutral person, but a judicial verdict already rendered and already in force, inherited from Adam by birth.

Three features of that condemnation are unpacked in turn: being under sin (Romans 3:9) — subject to sin's jurisdiction, not merely prone to occasional sin; the wages of sin (Romans 6:23) — a debt already earned and owed in full, including a sobering reading from Puritan writer George Swinnock on the weight of that debt; and being guilty before God (Romans 3:19) — a legal standing unaffected by personal feeling or self-assessment. The sermon closes with application to both the one still in Adam and the one already in Christ, pointing to the substitutionary condemnation of Christ as the only remedy the verdict demands.