So that brings me to the next point and that’s who is the condemned? I want you to recognize that when Adam sinned, the consequence of his sin was passed to all of his descendants. Some people say, “Well, I don’t think that’s fair. He blew it, and why should I be held accountable for what he did?” Keep in mind God had a covenant with Adam. The covenant was simply this:
“Adam, if you obey me in this one simple thing – do not eat of that tree simply, because I ask you to. Will you demonstrate your allegiance and your faith and your trust in my command? And if you will obey me, then I will bless you. I will give all of your posterity, all of your descendants, access to the tree of life. But, if you disobey Me, you shall immediately die and that death sentence will be passed on to all of your descendants–spiritual death, physical death, eternal death.” You see, when Adam sinned, all of humanity sinned. Keep in mind, when Adam and Eve sinned, they were the totality of humanity. There was no one else. The whole human race fell at one moment. When they fell, we all fell. And we have inherited the consequences of that sin. Just as surely as you inherit physical characteristics, genes, DNA from your parents, you 3 also inherit something else–a corrupted nature. You inherit sin. You inherit a penalty. We all are under that penalty. This is why the virgin birth of Jesus was an absolute necessity. The virgin birth of Jesus was not just an amazing birth to astound us. It was a necessity insuring Jesus did not inherit the sin line from Adam. So he was the second Adam. He was the second representative of the human race. I want you to understand something – the whole human race can be divided right down the middle. You are either in Adam or you’re in Christ. We all start out in Adam. We are in that covenant. We are in that failed relationship. We are lost, but God offers the opportunity to change allegiances and we can move from being in Adam to in Christ.
But every human being in the world is either in Adam or in Christ. Now, so what did I inherit? The Bible says I inherited guilt (Romans 5:18-19).  Guilt means I stand condemned before God. The moment I was conceived in my mother’s womb and born into this world, I was born guilty. Before I committed one act of my own sin, I owed a debt because I inherited the debt of my forefathers, all the way back to Adam. That debt could never paid except by Jesus Christ. I owe a debt to sin, and the wrath of God is against me. The Bible says I inherited condemnation from Adam. He was condemned, and I am born a condemned sinner.
Now, we often think of guilt as an emotion like “Oh, I feel guilty.” I want you to understand this is not what this kind of guilt is. Whether you feel guilty or not, you are. There are many people who do things, but never feel guilty. That has nothing to do with guilt. This is a penal standing; this is condemnation. There is a legal sentence. There is a warrant out for our arrest. We are guilty. We are guilty, and the wrath of God is against us because the holiness of God is so offended by the sin of man.
The second thing w inherit is depravity. Depravity simply means I am a factory second. You see, Adam was first quality. You know what factory seconds are. They are sold the discount store because they are defective merchandise. You and I are born morally defective. I have inherited that defect from Adam. You’ll never have to teach a child how to lie. You will never see a college course entitled “Lying – 101” or “Cheating – 203”. We just know how to do such things and so much more. It’s inherent within us; there is a corruption within us. There is the inclination to choose wrong over right. This is the depraved nature. Paul said “In my flesh, that is in that depravity of my nature, dwells no good thing ” (Romans 7:8). We inherited a depraved nature. I am not only a sinner by condemnation; I am a sinner by act.
Here is the third thing I inherited – inability. That simply means I am incapable of effecting my own moral or spiritual renewal. Human beings cannot change themselves. Oh, we have a lot of self-help things. You can learn how to have more confidence, and you learn how to break a bad habit, but the bottom line is, you will never effect your own right standing before God. You will never effect a change in your moral nature because only God can do that. The Bible calls this being lost. Do you know what lost is? You can’t find your way out.
This is what we inherited. We have guilt, we have depravity and we have the inability to change ourselves. The wonderful message of God is this – God did not want to leave us in that condition. God chose to do something about it. For each one of these consequences of sin: guilt, depravity and inability, God has a marvelous work of grace. For guilt, he has justification.
For depravity, he has sanctification. And for inability, he has regeneration. God says, “I will take care of the problem.” We are going to talk about the other two in the next few weeks. But, today it’s justification we are discussing.
We’re guilty, and we are constantly under the accusation of both our conscience and Satan himself. In our conscience, we know that we’ve done wrong. You see, not only did I inherit the penalty, I have personally added to the debt. I’ve sinned. I’ve added to this accumulated debt of human sin. My conscience condemns me. Paul made this statement in Romans 2 when he said, “Even those who’ve never seen the Bible, never heard one law of God, know they have 4 sinned.” There’s a law in our conscience that makes us aware that we have sinned. Do you realize that every religion in the world is based on the idea that man is a sinner, trying to appease God? If you’re a Hindu, you’re working on your Karma so that one day maybe you can achieve Moksha and can break out of the constant cycle of reincarnation. You hope you won’t come back as a bug and that maybe you’ll come back higher and eventually, you will join with Brahman. If you’re a Buddhist, you’re working on trying to find Nirvana by good works. If you’re Islamic, you’re trying to go through the five pillars of Islam. You’re saying the Shahadah as many times a day as you can. You’re praying five times a day facing Mecca. You’re having Ramadan fasts. You’re giving ohms to the poor. You’re doing all of these things so that hopefully when you die, you’ve done enough that God will not condemn you. We could go on and on and on. All religions are about trying to appease God and trying to break out of the cycle of our own condemnation. The difference between Christianity and the others is God has provided a way by which it’s not us trying to do it. Do you realize, in all these other religions, there is no assurance that you’ve done enough? You have no clue if you’re really going to make it. You have no clue if you’re going to achieve Nirvana or Moksha or if you’re going to escape hell. You have no clue. You just hope that maybe, just maybe, you’ve got the God’s favor. But, Christianity says you can know, because God has made a clear pathway for you to be forgiven.
And then there’s Satan, pointing his finger at us, constantly condemning us. Imagine, we’re in the court of law. There’s the judge, God Almighty. His holiness is so radiant and we see our filthiness. There’s the witness for the prosecution. In fact, he’s the prosecuting attorney, Satan himself, pointing at us saying, “He’s a liar, a cheat, dishonest. Your Honor, sir, he deserves to go to Hell.” We know we do. Soon, we’re expecting to hear the gavel fall and hear Him say “Condemned”. But for those who put their trust in Jesus, the defense attorney steps up. We feel a sense of assurance when he speaks to the judge and says, “Hi Dad”. He says, “Everything
Satan said about this person is absolutely true. But this is one for whom I died, and he has trusted me. Would you take my blood and would you apply it to their account?” Paul said in Romans 5, “We have been introduced to this grace.” It is like Jesus brings us over and introduces us to the Father, and he covers us with his righteousness. Those filthy garments, he covers them. The stains are no longer seen. This is why the next time the enemy stands up and says, “I object!” you just turn and say, “Satan, the blood of Jesus is against you. The blood of Jesus is against you.” The next time you take communion, and we do communion a lot of different ways. Sometimes I’ll say, “Raise the cup”. Do you know what you’re saying? You are saying to the enemy, “The blood of Jesus is against you. No more lies, no more accusations.” That’s what it means to be justified.

That’s what the whole Christian experience is about. It means when I come to God covered in my sin, guilty from birth, guilty by the addition of all the stuff I’ve done, owing a debt I could not pay, the blood of Jesus covers me, and I can know that I know I stand in the court of God not as a condemned sinner, but a favored son and when the gavel falls, it will not be the pronouncement of condemnation; it will be innocent! Not guilty! That’s what justification means. God pronounces you, “Not guilty”. This is what the core of Christianity is all about. This is at the very core of our faith. Paul said in Romans 3:21-27:
But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption which came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood…he did it to demonstrate his justice, so as to be just and the one who justifies. A man is justified by his faith. 5

First, everyone is a sinner. That means none of us are going to get into God’s presence by being good. The second thing he says is that justification is a gift of grace. It is a free gift God gives you. It comes through God’s unmerited favor. Thirdly, redemption is through Jesus’ blood and this is the only means this free gift can be offered. Redemption is an interesting word. It literally means to pay a ransom. We hear of people kidnapping someone and holding them for ransom.
They say, “You pay the money, and we’ll let them go.”. The idea is we’ve been kidnapped by Satan. We are in the penal institution of Satan, but Jesus has paid the ransom. I want you to understand God could not have forgiven any of us were it not for the blood of Jesus. Jesus’ death on the cross was not a martyr’s death. Many don’t understand the centrality of the cross to our faith. Jesus wasn’t a martyr dying on a cross. He wasn’t a good man dying for a cause. It wasn’t just a horrible miscarriage of justice. This was atonement. This was God, laying on Jesus, our punishment. The punishment that you and I were supposed to receive was placed on
Jesus. God could not forgive any of us and be just without the payment of sin being made. You must understand that. This is why the cross is so central. This is why we sing songs like “I cling to the old rugged cross”. If we didn’t have the cross, we would all go to Hell! Sometimes when we tell people God’s forgiveness is free, we make it sound like it’s cheap. It’s not cheap. It cost God his Son. William Barkley said this “Divine forgiveness is costly.” God is love, but God is also holy. God cannot break the great moral laws on which the universe is built. Sin must have its punishment, or the very structure of life disintegrates. Only God alone can pay the terrible price
that is necessary before men can be forgiven. Forgiveness is never a case of saying “It’s alright; it doesn’t matter.” Forgiveness is the most costly thing in the world. When we came to God and said “Oh Lord, would You forgive me of my sins?” God did not look down upon you and say “Oh man, it’s alright; it doesn’t matter.” No, it is not alright, and it does matter. The only way God could forgive us was that the debt was paid by someone else. This is what justification is about.
The only way you and I can be declared not guilty was for Jesus to declared guilty in spite of his innocence, so that we, who were the guilty, might be declared innocent. That’s what it’s all about. When Jesus cried “It is finished!” he was declaring a legal end. He was declaring “case closed”. The verdict is in.
Several years ago, I watched a television program, a story of two Japanese soldiers on a remote South Pacific island. They were the only two remaining soldiers of their battalion, and they never got the word that the war was over. Ten to fifteen years had passed. They had lived on that island, without any other inhabitants, constantly thinking the Allies were coming. How amazed they were when finally, someone came to the island and found them. They literally thought the war was still on. What it must have felt like when they were told the war was over. A treaty has been signed. Hey guys, come home! How many people in the world are living just like that?
They don’t understand, the war is over. The treaty is offered through Jesus. That’s what Paul said. When we are justified by faith, we have peace with God. War is over. Come and put your name on the treaty with Jesus. The war is over.
My friend, are you afraid of God? Are you fearful of meeting God? Paul said you could have peace with God. The war is over. All of this was done so that God can be shown both as the just and justifier. That’s why God can forgive you from sin but be just while he’s doing it. And the bottom line is this – you can only be justified by faith, not by works. A lot of people have this crazy idea that only really bad people are going to hell, and, of course, they’re not one of those.
I talk to people and ask, “How do you know you’re not going to Hell?” Usually, a person will go through this whole line of reasoning that “well, I’m a halfway decent person; I’m morally upright.” I say, “So, you’ve never done anything wrong?” “Yes, everybody’s done something wrong.” I say, “So, how do you know you’re good enough to go to heaven?” The bottom line is they really don’t’ know. They’re hoping. Hoping against hope that maybe they have stacked up enough good works. But, God says, “I can give you assurance.” Stop trusting in your work and trust in Jesus. He paid the price. You know that scale over here that you could never balance? 6