What does Tribe teach about condemnation?
Drawn from the message where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on condemnation starts with two realities held in tension at the same time. Pastor Brian walked the congregation through Isaiah 62, where Jerusalem is described in the same breath as both forsaken and the Lord's delight. His point was that these are not two stages, one replacing the other, but genuinely parallel truths that coexist. God's verdict over his people is not waiting on their performance to catch up before it applies.
That tension came into focus through Zechariah 3, where the high priest Jeshua stands before the angel of the Lord wearing filthy clothes while an accuser brings charges. Brian was direct: the filthy clothes are an accurate description. The accusation is not wrong about the condition. But the scene does not end with the accusation. To press that point further, he drew on Romans 8, where Paul asks who will bring a charge against God's elect and who will declare them guilty. The answer the text gives is that Christ is the one at the right hand of God interceding, and no charge lands.
The practical weight of the teaching is that a person's standing before God does not move when their behavior does. Brian put it plainly: "My sin doesn't change my righteous nature anymore than my goodness changed my sin nature." Condemnation, in this teaching, is a voice that can speak loudly and still be wrong, because the one who has the authority to declare guilt has instead declared the opposite.
Taught from Isaiah 62 · Zechariah 3:1-6 · Romans 8:33-34 · Isaiah 50:8-9
“My sin doesn't change my righteous nature anymore than my goodness changed my sin nature.”
From Choose Your Own Reality
The passage taught · Deuteronomy 9:4-6
4 Don’t say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, “For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land”; because Yahweh drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations.
5 Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
6 Know therefore, that Yahweh your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- November 6, 2023 Choose Your Own Reality Brian Hunter walks Tribe through Isaiah 62, showing two parallel realities we live in: God's delight in us versus the enemy's accusations, and how we choose between them.