How Condemnation Came Upon Man
Rom_5:18-19.
If Your Heart Does Not Condemn You
1Jn_3:21.
Jesus Christ Condemning Sin
Rom_8:3.
Those That Condemn The Just
Pro_17:15.
What Condemnation Is Based Upon
Joh_3:17-21.
What You Are Condemned By
Mat_12:36-37.
Who Is Condemned
Pro_12:2; Joh_3:17-18.
Who Is Not Condemned
Luk_6:37; Joh_3:17-18; Joh_5:24-25; Rom_8:1-2; 1Co_11:31-32.
CONDEMNATION.—The disappearance of the term ‘damnation’ in the Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 of the Gospels is suggestive of more sober and reasonable thoughts about the Divine judgment against sin. Condemnation at the last may indeed fall like a thunderbolt upon the rejected (Mat 21:19). The fig-tree in the parable has a time of probation and then may be suddenly cut down (Luk 13:6-9). At the Day of Judgment the universal benevolence of God experienced here (Mat 5:45, Luk 6:35) will give place to His righteous wrath against the persistently rebellious. Condemnation is the irrevocable sentence then passed upon the abusers of this life (Mat 25:41-46). Especially will this sentence of rejection and punishment descend then upon the hypocrite (Mar 12:40). The state of the condemned will be a veritable Gehenna (Mat 23:33). Weeping and gnashing of teeth picture the dreadful condition of condemned souls (Mat 22:13; Mat 24:51; Mat 25:30). Not only, we must suppose, punishment by pain for rebellion, but regret at past indifference, remorse at past folly, shame at past malice, will be the terrible feelings lacerating souls that have found not forgiveness but condemnation. The condemned will regret their indifference to Christ’s demands, which they have ignored (Joh 3:36). They will be tortured by the keen perception of their extreme folly in rejecting the knowledge they might have used (Luk 11:31-32). They will feel the shame of having their secret thoughts of evil exposed to a light broader than that of day (Mat 23:28). This will be the condemnation to perpetual darkness for those who have loved darkness more than the light (Mat 8:12; Mat 22:13; Mat 25:30).
But in this present life there is always at work a certain inevitable and automatic Divine condemnation. ‘The earth beareth fruit of herself’ (
But this present immanent condemnation is rather a most merciful conviction of sin and wrongfulness (Joh 16:8-11). In this present age condemnation is not final for any; nay, God’s purpose is the eternal security of men in true peace and true happiness (Joh 3:17; Joh 12:47). So far from condemnation being any man’s sure fate, there is no need for any member of the human family to have to undergo such judgment as might result in condemnation (Joh 5:29). The strong assertion in the present ending to the second Gospel, ‘He that disbelieveth shall be condemned’ (Mar 16:16), is surely the expression of the true conviction that Christ is the only Way to avoid condemnation (cf. Joh 3:36). Condemnation is God’s prerogative, and not the privilege or duty of the individual Christian as such: ‘Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned’ (Luk 6:37).
W. B. Frankland.
Not only from the Gospels, but from the rest of the Revised Version as well, the word ‘damnation’ disappears, ‘condemnation’ taking its place in Rom_3:6 and 1Ti_5:12, ‘destruction’ in 2Pe_2:3, and ‘judgment’ in Rom_13:2 and 1Co_11:29. The reason is that the process of degeneration, which had begun before the translation of the Authorized Version , linked up the term with conceptions of finality and eternity, originally alien to it, and thus made it no longer representative of apostolical thought. With the exception of 2Pe_2:3, the same Greek root occurs in all instances, and the context in the various passages is mainly responsible for the different shades of meaning. In the case of the verb, an exception must also be made of Gal_2:11, where the idea is that the act of Peter needed no verdict from outside, but carried its own condemnation, as in Rom_2:1; Rom_14:23 and Tit_3:11.
Little difficulty attaches to the use of the term in the sense of ‘destruction’ in the case of Sodom (2Pe_2:6), to the reference to the ark as a visible sign of the destruction about to come upon the unbelieving (Heb_11:7), or to the denunciation by James (Jam_5:6) of men who unjustly ascribe blame to others and exact penalty for the imagined fault. The wanton are rightly condemned for the rejection of the faith whose value they had learnt by experience (1Ti_5:12). Sound speech, on the other hand, cannot be condemned (Tit_2:8). The man who fails to judge and discipline himself is reminded of his duty by Divine chastening; and if that fail, he shares in the final judgment with the lost (1Co_11:31 f.; cf. Mar_9:47 ff.). In Rom_5:16; Rom_5:18 condemnation is the consequence of an original act of evil, and suggests the antithesis of a single act of righteousness, the effects of which overflow to the potential justification of all men; and the freedom from condemnation continues beyond the initial stage of forgiveness and ripens into all the assured experiences of union with Christ (Rom_8:1).
In several passages the term is involved in a context which to some extent obscures the meaning. The justification of evil as a means to good is indignantly dealt with in Rom_3:8; with the authors of the slander that he shared that view the apostle refuses to argue, but he leaves them with the just condemnation of God impending. That God ‘condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom_8:3) has been taken to mean that the sinlessness of Christ was by contrast a condemnation of the sin of man, or that the incarnation is a token that human nature is essentially sinless; but the previous phrases connect the thought with the death rather than with the birth of Christ. For Him as man death meant the crown of sinlessness, the closure of the last avenue through which temptation could approach Him; and in virtue of union with Christ, the believer who is dead with Him is free from sin, though not immune from temptation. In 2Co_3:9 ‘condemnation’ is antithetical to ‘righteousness,’ and synonymous with ‘death’ in 2Co_3:7. The argument appears to be that sin is so horrible that the law which reveals it is glorious; a fortiori the covenant that sweeps it out exceeds in glory. ‘This condemnation’ of Jud_1:4 ought grammatically to be retrospective, but NT usage allows a prospective use with an explanatory phrase in apposition. The meaning is that ungodliness of the kind described is self-condemned, as has been set forth in various ways in Scripture (cf. Joh_3:19, 2Pe_2:1-3) as well as in Enoch, i. 9 (cf. Jud_1:14-16). ‘The condemnation of the devil’ (1Ti_3:6) is a comparison of his fall with that of any vainglorious member of the hierarchy. Both being God’s ministers to the people, the similarity is one of circumstance, not necessarily of degree.
R. W. Moss.
Declaring an evildoer to be guilty; the punishment inflicted. Without Jesus we stand condemned before God not only because of the sin of Adam (Rom 5:16-18) but also because of our own sin (Mat 12:37). However, "There is therefore now 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 of death" (Rom 8:1-2). Christians have passed out of condemnation because they are forgiven in Christ.