Q. What Is the " No Condemnation" of the First Verse?

A. It is not merely that there is no wrath, but nothing that the eye of God can disapprove of. "Condemning sin in the flesh" is not exactly inflicting wrath upon it, but marking its character. Wrath would be upon a person; this is the nature.
Verse 6. "The mind of the flesh is death." If say " carnally minded," it is a state in me. The mind of the flesh" is what it always is. " The mind of the Spirit is life and peace," as occupying you with Him who is both. The new nature does not know itself, but Christ, where the Spirit of God is really leading (Col. 3:10,11). The new man is renewed in knowledge. where Christ is all. The man who says "to me to live is holiness" will not be holy; for who is to be holy? It is I, and thus "to me to live is I."
Christians in the present day are using the language of the hospital. In the hospital they speak of good days and bad days, because good days are scarce. A man in health does not think about his head, but he does when it aches. Nature thus illustrates what we find in the Scripture.
Death. If I define what death is, it is separation; in physical death, between soul and body; in spiritual death, between the soul and God. It is never extinction. The seed which dies (1 Cor. 15:36) does not come to nothing. The husk may, but the living germ is the main part of it, and if that `came to an end there would be no harvest. The root idea in death is separation. " The mind of the flesh is death," because it is enmity against God. " Neither indeed can be." It is incurable, never changes into spirit, and they that are in it cannot please God. God's only way with it was to blot it out by the death of Christ, and finally to deliver from, it when the body is changed.
People think that at conversion there is only a moral change, that the evil in us to begin with is gradually changed into good, and this must be complete before death, or they will not be fit for heaven.
In that way it would be hard to see why one should wait for death to have it; but Scripture teaches that if a man has the Spirit of God the flesh lusts against it, and the remedy is, walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill its lusts-not be gone. If I have the Spirit there is never any excuse for walking in the flesh. There is no limit to the practical power over it. (See Gal. 5)
Then, as to fitness, Col. 1:12 speaks of our having been made fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, and this is true of all Christians. Fitness is not title. A babe may be born to an inheritance, and its title be good enough; it is not fit to possess it, because it is a babe. If it is true that the flesh is gradually changed into spirit, all with whom the change is not complete are not fit, which shows that there is something wrong in the idea.
In Scripture the new nature is entirely of God, and according to God, just as the flesh is absolutely and incurably evil. In 1 John 3, " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin" (not absolutely a sin' but does not practice sin), for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because lie is born of God. This is the incorruptible seed of 1 Peter 1:23. People say his seed may not remain in him, but the apostle says it does, and cannot be changed into evil any more than the flesh can be changed into good. It will not let him be the man he was before. The very common doctrine on this subject works most sorrowfully. People are not taught to question the reality of a conversion which did little for them and could not stand the contact with the world. Matt. 13 gives us the cause of this backsliding. The stony-ground hearer has no root in him. If the seed had rooted in the man's soul it would never have withered. The heart of stone in this case was really never taken away. Such land cannot be broken up by the plow. The man has never really taken the place of a lost sinner, and the word of God has never got its hold in the depth of his soul. Here there is nothing wrong with the sower or the seed. The first three cases in this parable illustrate the opposition of the devil, the flesh, and the world; but only he on the good ground really understands. The effect of these two natures in one life may be more or less a mixture, like a pool of water fed by two springs, the one salt water and the other fresh; the fresh spring may be entirely so, and if you can stop the other the pool will be fresh.
Suppose the Lord comes, we are fit for heaven-have the new nature capable of enjoying it, and the flesh, which is no part of us as Christians, will be gone.
In Christ, is position.
In the Spirit, is power.