The words of grace to us are centered in the phrase no condemnation. But this word from God is nonsensical unless it is understood in the context of the condemnation that could have been. Indeed, it has to be understood in the context of the condemnation that most certainly would have been had God not intervened on our behalf.
There is a liberal impulse to make God senile and indulgent, and to pat us on the back of our dirty little hands reassuringly, and to say that there is no condemnation because it wasn’t really that bad, or it was natural, or you were born that way, or God didn’t notice, or God doesn’t actually care about it. This flatters us in the most egregious way possible, and distorts everything.
But there is a fussy conservatism that knows that this kind of moral disorder cannot be right, and so it opts for a God of rigid demands, a God who whacks the sinners. And so we have moral order, but it runs on condemnation. Who can stand? Well, in this system there is a surreptitious belief that those who reecho such condemnations are therefore justified themselves. This flatters the Pharisee in us in the most egregious way possible, and distorts everything.
What is the answer? The answer is always the cross of Jesus Christ, the place—the only place—where justice and mercy abide together. This is the wisdom of God—He has coupled no condemnation and true condemnation together, and draws all men to it.