Conviction, Yes, Not Condemnation
These two words, Conviction and Condemnation are an integral part of the Christian theology and doctrine, but are often not well understood, as there is a fine line at times. One has to do with the Holy Spirit and the other with Satan, who will use it to keep you from the fullness of the victory of the shed blood of Christ and his finished work at Calvary to set you free, through the power of the Holy Spirit. I have myself been on a journey of understanding in this regards, as we all carry baggage, and the what if I had done that differently etc...
Conviction, let's start with that. It is known in the Bible as Godly sorrow, which leads us to repentance. God had his Word to become flesh, to shed his blood to atone for all sin, for salvation of all mankind, to save, so he doesn't want to condemn, but to save. He has to convict us in our heart, spirit, soul, to give us that alarm of "hey, don't go there, cliff, warning, sin, bad idea, stay away, steer clear." The conviction of the Holy Spirit to keep us out of sin, chaos, harm and destruction, which is what Satan wants for us, is a good thing. It is something we should welcome, want, that we have the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives, so we can have this warning signal and steer clear of situations, persons etc.. that would bring us to perdition. Once we have come to fully repent, accept Christ, we are new creatures and upon baptism of fire of the Holy Spirit we have an advocate, a powerful ally in the sanctification process and the past is the past, and it can't hurt us, unless we let Satan put us under Condemnation.
Condemnation is not of God. What Satan will do, even once you have left the sin patterns behind, is to keep bringing up the past, making you feel that you can not possibly have been forgiven, can't possibly have a real relationship with Christ. Every possible doubt etc... he can place in your path, everything he can do to make you give up on your journey with Christ, to fall back into sin and then walk away from Christ, thinking you're not good enough and thus giving up salvation. It paralyzes, causes us to see God only as a God of judgement, wrath, all that dark, negative, forgetting that he made his Word to become flesh to redeem us, save us, so we could dwell with him for all eternity. All of us fall short of the glory of God, for we are fallen from birth till death, period and no matter how good a person we are, or how kind, we are not ever going to reach the level of holiness etc... that could equal God, and so it is only in and through accepting Christ and his finished work at Calvary as our redemption, looking to the shed blood of Christ as our only source of Victory, bringing everything we are, hope for and need to the Cross, can we have Conviction as necessary from the Holy Spirit, but not Condemnation, which is from Satan. We must understand that we never have license to sin, just because of God's grace and mercy, as Paul tells us "God forbid", so that much has to be clear.
It is crucial to know the difference, crucial, for salvation' sake.
Shalom and Amen.
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