When a building is condemned, it is determined to be fit for destruction. We tend to prefer restoration for buildings. When a person is alienated from friends and relatives, we say he is condemned to a life of loneliness. We would prefer reconciliation for such a person. God speaks of sinners being condemned to an eternity of torment. What is our preference for that condemnation?
Most suggested preferences include some sort of corrective measure on the part of the sinner. He should join the church, or get baptized, or turn over a new leaf, or get rid of his bad habits, or try to keep the ten commandments. But how can these things help while he continues to sin, as sinners do?
We fail to see things as God sees them. Men cannot remove the condemnation by putting an end to their sinning and doing good deeds. In fact, we are not condemned in the first place because we have sinned. Rather we are condemned because we have not taken God's way out of the condemnation.
John3:17, 18 states it simply: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." God does not wish to condemn anyone to eternal torment. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our sins, pay their penalty by His shed blood upon the cross, and rise victoriously from the dead so that He could remove the condemnation. Totally apart from any works which we might do, all that He requires is that we believe in the name of His Son. Otherwise, we remain under God's condemnation and we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
This is not theological theory. This is gospel truth. It is for all who have sinned and it works for all who trust Christ. If you, my dear reader, have never received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you are yet in your sins and condemned already. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). Trust Christ today and be free of condemnation.