"No Condemnation Now I Dread"

The Associate Pastor at Poplar Grove UMC, Rich Holton, has a blog (surprise, surprise), and throughout Lent, Rich has been putting up hymns of Charles Wesley as devotional guides, enhancements, etc. I have been over everyday to check them out, because the younger Wesley, for all he was different from his older, more earnest brother, still managed to put succinctly in his poetry what John could only seem to do at length in his sermons - put the message of the abounding grace of Jesus Christ, and the promise of sanctifying grace, in a spiritual and emotional context that was both accessible and beautiful.

Now, when I say "succinctly", I should clarify and add that some of Charles' hymns had many, many verses; "O, For A Thousand Tongues To Sing" begins with the fourth verse of a poem that has, I think, thirteen or fourteen stanzas. As this was not uncommon at the time, I think we should give him a bit of the benefit of the doubt.

In any event, yesterday's hymn, "And Can It Be That I Should Gain", contains the following stanza, which begins with the line in the title of this post:

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine;
alive in him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.

What I love about this particular verse is the boldness of it. While there is certainly an element of thanksgiving and humility that should always be a part of the Christian life, we should also remember that grace emboldens us. We are, to quote St. John's Gospel, no longer servants but friends. We are not separated from God - there is no condemnation any more - and we are to live and work and worship and finally approach the throne not with fear, but with the boldness that is a gift of grace. There is no swinging back and forth between sin and forgiveness. There is no "backsliding", no possibility that this grace, once having grasped us, will slip away again because we have been naughty. God isn't some passive-aggressive parent looking to manipulate us. We are the beloved children for whom there is nothing but love and mercy.

I would invite everyone to navigate on over to Rich's site and spend just a few minutes in contemplation of the wisdom and insight of Charles Wesley as we, like Jesus, make our own journey to Jerusalem, and its Cross and Empty Tomb (sounds like an English pub, doesn't it?).