I Was Punishing Myself So That God Would Not Have To

There was a period when I would not let myself enjoy anything, and I could not have told you that was what I was doing.

It looked like discipline. I would turn down invitations. I would find reasons not to eat somewhere good. If something went well I would find the flaw in it inside about four minutes, and I was good at that, and I thought it was honesty.

The truth is that I was running a penalty. Quietly, privately, on myself, every day, and the logic underneath it was not complicated once I finally saw it.

If I punish myself, then nobody else has to. Not my sister. Not my mother. And, underneath both of those, not God.

That is the actual arrangement, and I have since met a great many people running it, and none of them called it that either. They call it taking responsibility. It sounds like the most mature thing in the room.

There is one sentence in Romans that dismantles it, and it is a legal sentence rather than a warm one, which is why it works on a man who is running an argument.

Read the tense, and read the word

Here it is.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1, King James Version)

Now. Present tense, and it is doing real work. Not eventually, not after a period, not subject to review. The state described is the state as of this sentence.

No condemnation. The word is a legal one and it means the passing of a sentence. It does not mean the offense was small or that nothing happened. It means the penalty phase is not occurring.

And then the phrase that matters most for a person like the man I was: therefore. That word points backwards, to seven chapters of argument that end in a man crying out that he does not do the thing he wants to do. Paul does not put this sentence after a chapter about success. He puts it after a chapter about failure.

You are under no condemnation now, and the sentence is written in the present tense on purpose. Romans 8:1 says there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, and it is the same Spirit, named one verse later as the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, who is the one who made a man free.

The document was not amended. It was taken away.

Paul uses a picture in Colossians that is worth seeing, because a man running a private penalty always assumes there is a document somewhere.

Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. (Colossians 2:14)

The handwriting. In that world it meant a certificate of debt, written and signed by the person who owed it, which is the exact thing a person keeps running in their own head.

And notice the three verbs, in order. Blotted out. Took it out of the way. Nailed it to the cross. That is not a reduction and it is not a settlement. The document is removed from the proceedings entirely.

Which raises the practical question that undid my own arrangement. If the certificate is gone, what exactly is the penalty I am running being charged against?

You are paying against a document that was taken out of the way. Colossians 2:14 blots it out, removes it and nails it up in one verse. It is the Spirit of God, Hebrews 9:14 saying Christ through the eternal Spirit offered himself, who is named inside the offering that removed it.

Isaiah is precise about who bore what

If a person still feels there must be something outstanding, Isaiah counts it out, item by item, and it is a strange and exact list.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

The chastisement of our peace was upon him. Chastisement is the punishment word, and it is assigned to a location, and the location is not us.

That is what a private penalty is quietly disputing. Not the love of God, which most of these people believe in without difficulty. The location of the punishment.

I ran mine for about two years, and what I was actually saying, without ever putting it in words, was that some of it had not been covered and that I would handle the remainder myself.

You are not carrying a remainder, and Isaiah assigns the chastisement to a location that is not you. Isaiah 53:5 puts the chastisement of our peace upon Him. It is His Spirit, Romans 8:16 bearing witness with our spirit, who tells a person where a thing is when they have lost track of it.

When your own heart is the one bringing the charge

John writes one line about this that is almost startling in how directly it addresses an internal accuser.

For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. (1 John 3:20)

If our heart condemn us. He grants that it happens, plainly, without treating it as a failure of faith. Then he does something clever: he does not tell the reader to argue with their heart.

He outranks it. God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things, which cuts both ways and is the mercy in the sentence. He knows more about the case than the accuser does, and He has already ruled.

So the way out of a private penalty is not to win an argument with yourself. Anybody who has tried knows how that goes. It is to notice that the court you have been holding in your own chest was never the one with jurisdiction.

You have a heart that can be overruled by Somebody who knows the whole case. 1 John 3:20 says God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things, and it is the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:26 helping our infirmities, who supplies what a person cannot argue themselves into.

And if the penalty you are running has begun to look like harm rather than restraint, say it out loud to somebody: a doctor, a counselor, a pastor you trust, or the 988 crisis line, which answers every hour there is. A private sentence tends to escalate quietly and it is exactly the thing that should be said out loud in a room with another person in it.