Do you ever have those days when you wonder if you will persevere to the end? Sure, you know the theology of it all; you understand that those whom Christ saves He saves forever. You realize that you are saved by grace and not by your works, so your works, therefore, cannot rip you away from Christ if they are somehow deficient. God does not look at those works for your standing anyway; He looks at the work of His Son!
Yet you think about persevering and your inadequacies. You do not want to fizzle toward the end of your life and misrepresent Christ or in some way turn others away from Him. You look at your weaknesses. They are many, maybe even more than you had imagined in earlier years. How can you be certain that you will persevere? What anchors you to keep pressing on even in the face of difficulties and failures? What lifts your head to triumph out of the despair of failure? Is the work of Christ enough to take you blameless into God’s eternal presence?
That’s something of what the Apostle deals with in this chapter. He gives us the doctrinal tools to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies but instead, to live in newness of the Spirit. He shows us how practical doctrine is meant to be: that it is not theory but truth applied for the Christian. Jesus Christ’s death for us secures our justification and sanctification.
Consider what Paul explains in these opening verses of chapter 8. He connects us to his argument of not only justification by grace but sanctification by grace that he set forth in chapters 6-7. In these verses, he answers two questions in particular. First, why are believers no longer under condemnation—or penal servitude as we translated it previously? Paul declares in vv. 1-2, the fact that believers are no longer under penal servitude. He explains in two-fold fashion. (1) You are “in Christ Jesus”—in union with Him and all that He did redemptively, so you cannot stand condemned when He has triumphed for you in His death and resurrection. (2) The Holy Spirit works in life-giving power to deliver you from the bonds of sin and death, so you are no longer living under the principle of sin and death but rather living according to the principle “of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”
Second, the focus of our present study in vv. 3-4, Paul answers another question. How is it that believers are no longer under condemnation? What took place for this declaration to be made? It is one thing to know the facts and yet another to see the basis for it resulting in greater confidence and assurance in Christ’s sufficiency. So that is our purpose in this exposition. We want to understand the “how” of Christ’s sufficiency on our behalf so that we might be encouraged to press on in faithfulness. How did Jesus secure our justification and sanctification?
Once again, we find Paul hammering away at the inadequacy of the Law. Why does he have such strong sentiments about the Law? Paul understood his own default position as well as that of most everyone. Assuming that we know our need for righteousness, we naturally gravitate toward some kind of law as the means to our justification and certainly as the means to our sanctification. We innately carry the weight of righteousness on our shoulders and lean upon our inward powers to secure a right standing with God, and to keep us in God’s favor.
This can be observed in various religions outside Christianity. When a person realizes their need for relationship with the transcendent, he tries to find some means to appease his god. So he will go through rituals and perform good deeds; he will eat ritual meals and offer sacrifices. In none of these does he have assurance that his god will accept him. So he keeps trying and trying, hoping that his god will receive what he offers. It leads to a life of hopelessness and frustration. That’s why the early Christian message that sounded the twin characteristics of joy and hope struck such a powerful note with those worshiping false gods. Those devotees of false gods knew nothing of joy and hope that comes only through the gospel and not through law.
What does Paul tell us about the Law?
That’s the meaning of the Greek term, “could not do.” It is the word “able” with an alpha prefixed to it, meaning “not able” or “impossible.” “For what the Law could not do,” refers to the law as a means to justification and sanctification.
Now, this is nothing new in Romans! If there’s anything that we’ve seen over the course of our study it is that the Law cannot save or sanctify. In spite of the natural tendency to rely on the moral law as the means of judicial satisfaction, it cannot perform such a task. It is the divine standard of moral behavior. It spells out what God expects in His creation, even what He demands. It clarifies acceptable and unacceptable worship, thoughts, attitudes, and behavior. But it cannot change anyone’s heart.
I think it’s significant that God wrote the Law on tables of stone when He gave it to Moses. Inanimate stone contained the divinely codified law. As these tables of stone were placed in the Ark of the Covenant, they served as the constant reminder of man’s accountability to God. But they were still carved in stone not written on the heart by the stylus of the Spirit. Such stone-carved law could not transform anyone. The law could not make anyone righteous. It could only reveal the standard of righteousness and consequently, condemn all who failed to meet its moral demands.
Does that mean that the Law is somehow lacking? Certainly not. The Law performs its function as God intended. He just never intended for the Law to save or sanctify. It was meant to expose the heart to the reality of how desperately sinful we are and much we need grace and mercy from God. Paul explained the problem was not the Law. We are the problem: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh.” The law existed on stone tablets that had no life to work energetically for sinful men. We offer nothing even in combination with the Law to make ourselves righteous and to keep ourselves righteous.
The weakness of the law is found “through the flesh.” The prepositional phrase points to agency or means. The only way the Law could save and sanctify would be through someone fulfilling its just demands. But all that the law found was weak flesh. “The failure of the Law was due to the fact that it had to work through our flesh,” Martyn Lloyd-Jones reminded us [Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 7:1-8:4, The Law: Its Functions and Limits, 310]. Paul’s use of that term, “flesh,” points to unregenerate man—man controlled by the dominion of sin, man living under the rule of sin and death.
What does this mean? Keep in mind that Paul is addressing what the law could not do. It could do a few things. It maintained an immoveable standard of righteousness. It showed what moral perfection looked like—at least in stone. It showed the kind of moral life pleasing to God. And it condemned. Yes, more than anything, it seems, the law condemns us of our sin and shows us how unrighteous we are. But it would take perfect humanity to wield the law otherwise. The law is a standard not a person. It cannot do anything on its own. So what did it have to work with in this world? “Flesh,” weak, sin-dominated, inadequate flesh is all that the law had. And that was not enough to make anyone righteous in standing with God or in practice.
Does Paul just have justification in mind in this verse? Some writers think so yet to take that position ignores the context. We see the perfect marriage of justification and sanctification in these verses. Not only does Jesus Christ—not the law—justify us but He also secures and assures our sanctification. So, Jesus Christ came not only to put us in right standing with God but also to assure our growth in holiness as the people of God. The law cannot do that kind of work because it is powerless to effect change and transformation due to our weakness.
So if you are looking to the law or your own efforts to put you in right standing with God, then realize you are on a dead-end pursuit. By the same truth, if you are looking to the law and your own efforts to sanctify you, then realize that you will inevitably come up short. It is only through the sufficient work of Jesus Christ that sinners are made right with God and made holy in practice.
The contrast could not be clearer: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did.” Weymouth captures the Greek. “For what was impossible to the Law—thwarted as it was by human frailty—God effected” [The New Testament in Modern Speech]. Here is the story of the gospel. Here is the message of Holy Scripture. Mankind’s every effort at righteousness fails. He tries ritual. It fails. He tries morality. It fails. He tries loud, lively religious expressions. It fails. He tries ceremony and sacrifice. It fails. Whatever man tries due to his understanding of law, it fails. But where the law failed due to our sinfulness, “God effected” the work necessary to save and sanctify sinners.
What did God do? That is really the whole question in the gospel, is it not? Why do we claim the gospel to be gospel—good news? What had to be done for us to not only have right standing with God but to enjoy Him and live unto Him as those “created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:24)?
Paul explains what God did: “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” While the Apostle does not give us a complete explanation of the Incarnation, he does state it clearly in this clause. He sent a particular person to carry out the work of condemning sin in the flesh. It would not do to send an angel or cherubim, or else God would have done so. Nor would it do for God to do nothing if sin was to be condemned and those foreknown and predestined by God to be called by His name would be truly called, justified, and glorified (8:28-30). One person must stand in the place of the multitudes God foreknew and predestined. The enmity between God and His elect had to be removed. An act of judgment had to occur that would be sufficient to satisfy the moral demands of God’s Law. Someone must bring about justice so that God could declare His elect to be righteous when they repented and believed. It could not be the mere act of repentance and believing that would accomplish this or else no justice would be served, no crime of the multitude of sins against God paid for.
We would not consider justice satisfied if the man convicted this week for murdering a Bartlett couple had expected acquittal simply because he said he was sorry for his crime and would never do it again. The law demands justice for the murder of this couple. How much more does God’s law demand justice for the multiplied ways that we have broken His law? Someone—the One of God’s own choosing—God would give for this judicial demand.
Paul tells us that this Someone is “His own Son.” The personal pronouns are emphatic. It is not merely one of many sons of God that He sent. Rather, God sent His unique Son—the One eternally begotten of the Father, known as “The Word,” who was with God and was Himself God (John 1:1).
God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” His Son had a particular purpose: to condemn sin. That word “condemn” means that the full measure of divine justice aimed with laser focus upon the problem that separates us from God—our sin. He condemned sin. He judged it with finality. The aorist tense emphasizes that He has already with finality condemned sin. I need not try to add my efforts to condemn sin and satisfy divine justice because Christ has already done this with finality. I have no business trying to do works in order to appease God; God has already been appeased by the work of Christ in condemning sin.
‘But,’ one might object, ‘that was Christ dying, I acknowledge, but how does that have any bearing on my sin?’
Remember the language of representation that we studied in chapter 5. Adam represented the whole of humanity before God. When he fell in sin so did everyone in the human race (5:12). Consequently, as our representative before God—even though we were not yet born, the condemnation that fell on Adam also fell on us. “For on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation” (penal servitude, 5:16). Yet that same chapter also introduced us to representative language concerning Jesus Christ—the Second Adam. But He must qualify to represent us.
Here the language is precise: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” We must consider why Paul expressed it as he did.
First, if God sent Jesus only in the likeness of flesh, then He might have resembled us in much the same way that the angels that met with Abraham before they traveled to Sodom resembled men. Even the Lord appeared and spoke in pre-Incarnate state since Abraham saw “three men…standing opposite him” (Gen. 18:2), and only two angels later traveled to Sodom. There are numerous occasions when angels, who are ministering spirits (Heb. 1:14), appeared in men’s likeness but did not take on true humanity. Had Jesus only appeared to be human (the error of the Docetists) then He would not qualify as our Representative any more than an angel would qualify to represent us before God.
Second, if God sent Jesus in sinful flesh then (1) He would not be God by reason of a fallen nature with attending sin nor (2) would He qualify to adequately represent us before God. If He were sinful flesh then He would need a redeemer, too. Peter reminds us that our redemption took place, not with “perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:1-19). The repetitious call for unblemished lambs as sacrificial representatives in the Old Testament system pictured what God requires for one to represent us in eternal justice. The four living creatures and twenty-four elders praise Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God for His worthiness in purchasing with His blood death, men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation (Rev. 5:8-9).
So Paul tells us that God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” In other words, He fully identified with real humanity, coming in the likeness of sinful flesh not likeness of imaginative humanity. The use of the word “flesh” points to the rule of sin in unregenerate man. Christ was not sinful flesh but came in its likeness, never doing anything to disqualify Himself as our redeemer or to lessen the value and effectiveness of His sacrifice for sin. John Stott summarizes this well: “The Son came neither ‘in the likeness of flesh’, only seeming to be human, as the Docetists taught, for his humanity was real; nor ‘in sinful flesh’, assuming a fallen nature, for his humanity was sinless, but ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’, because his humanity was both real and sinless simultaneously” [Romans: God’s Good News for the World, 219].
How did Jesus Christ deliver us from condemnation? How did He so secure us that our justification and sanctification are certain? Consider this answer under two headings.
Condemnation, that cloud of guilt turned to conscious certainty of punishment looms over us apart from Christ. We can try to shake it by mind-control only to unravel when the determination fades. As long as we know that our guilt before God stands then we have no peace. But Jesus was sent by God to address this problem. Our translation presupposes a meaning given in the Septuagint to the particular Greek prepositional phrase used (kata hamartias). Yet I must agree with Leon Morris who pointed out that the Roman Christians probably would not have understood that Old Testament allusion. “We know that Christ’s sacrifice may fittingly be called a “sin offering”, but that does not mean that that is what Paul is calling it here” [The Epistle to the Romans, 303]. Literally, “God sent His own Son in likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin.” Or we might put it, “with reference to sin.” In other words, like a missile that perfectly strikes its target or an arrow that plunges into the heart of the bull’s eye, Jesus Christ came concerning sin. And in that action of coming that led to the cross, “He condemned sin in the flesh.”
The aorist tense shows that the condemnation is final. We have no cause to retreat to the Law for justification or sanctification when Jesus Christ has already judged our sin—past, present, and future—with finality. This means that the weight of divine judgment against you is fully satisfied. Christ’s judgment against your sin continues to stand. So why try to revert to the Law when Christ has rendered satisfaction, condemning sin “in the flesh,” that is, in His own flesh?
Paul further explains, “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” “Righteous demand” or “righteous ordinance,” better translates “requirement,” emphasizing that the Law is just in its demand for perfect obedience. That “requirement” has been “fulfilled in us.” Paul uses the passive voice to emphasize that Jesus Christ fulfilled this requirement so that nothing of God’s justice, no more legal demand remains dangling in our future. Nothing is left for us to do in order to meet judicial satisfaction before God.
Yet there is also a moral tone to this phrase, “might be fulfilled in us.” Keep in mind the context on sanctification. The Apostle has been stressing the practice of righteousness as well as the legal ground of righteous standing with God. Not only did Jesus provide legal satisfaction before God, but also morally transformed us through His death and the gift of the Spirit. That’s what is stressed by the phrase, “in us.” If Paul had left off the prepositional phrase, “in us,” and substituted “for us,” then we would rejoice in our justification but not see how Christ’s death affected our sanctification. Yet now he emphasizes that it is a certain work evidenced by believers walking “according to the Spirit.” “God’s commands have now become God’s enablings,” as F.F. Bruce put it [quoted by Morris, 303-304]. John Stott gives the best summary of how important verse 4 is for understanding our sanctification.
Verse 4 is of great importance for understanding of Christian holiness. First, holiness is the ultimate purpose of the incarnation and atonement. The end God had in view when sending his Son was not our justification only, through freedom from the condemnation of the law, but also our holiness, through obedience to the commandments of the law. Secondly, holiness consists in fulfilling the just requirements of the law…. The moral law has not been abolished for us; it is to be fulfilled in us. Although law-obedience is not the ground of our justification (it is in this sense that we are ‘not under the law but under grace’), it is the fruit of it and the very meaning of sanctification. Holiness is Christlikeness, and Christlikeness is fulfilling the righteousness of the law. Thirdly, holiness is the work of the Holy Spirit. Romans 7 insists that we cannot keep the law because of our indwelling ‘flesh’; Romans 8:4 insists that we can and must because of the indwelling Spirit [221-222].
The believer is no longer bound and shaped by the horizons of the flesh. The Law could never deliver us from the flesh and its impulse to disobey God. But Christ did! Now the Christian does not “walk,” or conduct his life, “according to the flesh.” A new life has been implanted, a life that through the Representative—the Son of God—has fulfilled the law’s righteous demands judicially, and now, by walking “according to the Spirit,” obeys the law’s righteous demands in holiness. Jesus Christ’s death for us accomplished both: condemning sin and fulfilling the law in us. That’s why there’s no longer any penal servitude for those who are in Christ Jesus. And that is why we can walk in the Spirit, no longer bound to live according to the flesh.
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