Romans 8:3-4

“ For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh God sending His own Son in the likeness of a flesh of sin, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness prescribed by the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ”

The fact and agent of the deliverance had just been mentioned in Romans 8:2; Romans 8:3-4 describe its mode; Romans 8:3 its condition, Romans 8:4 its realization. The for of Romans 8:3 extends its force to the close of Romans 8:4.

Our translation shows to what construction we hold in explaining the words: what the law could not do. We make them, with Meyer, Philippi, and others, a nominative, in apposition to the divine act, to be enunciated immediately afterward: “God condemned sin, a thing which the law was powerless to accomplish.” This construction is to be preferred for its simplicity and clearness to all others: to that of Schott, who, by means of a harsh inversion, thus explains the words: “seeing that (ἐν ῴ) the impotence of the law was weak through the flesh;” that is to say, the weakness of the law was still further increased through the influence of the flesh the meaning is as forced as the construction; or to that of Hofmann, who understands the verb ἦν, was, and makes the whole a principal proposition; “The weakness of the law was (consisted) in that it was weak through the flesh.” But such an ellipsis is inadmissible, and the asyndeton between this and the following proposition is without explanation. It would be better to understand, with Luther (comp. the translations of Ostervald and Oltramare), the words ἐποίησε τοῦτο : “What the law could not do, God did by sending”...When Paul was about to write this verb, he is held to have substituted the mention of the act itself thus announced: “What was impossible...God condemned.” But does not that bring us back to Meyer's construction, which reaches the goal by a shorter course? Comp. Hebrews 8:1.

The powerlessness of the law to accomplish this work did not come from any intrinsic imperfection, but from the fact that it found resistance in man's sinful nature: διὰ τῆς σαρκός, by reason of the flesh. The law could certainly condemn sin in writing, by engraving its condemnation on stone; but not by displaying this condemnation in a real human life. And yet this was the necessary condition of the destruction of the sinful tendency in mankind, and in order to the restoration of holiness. The expression: the powerlessness or impossibility of the law, is easily understood, notwithstanding Hofmann's objection, in the sense of: “What it is impossible for the law to realize.” Meyer quotes the expression of Xenophon: τὸ δύνατον τῆς πόλεως, what the city can make or give.

The words ἐν ᾧ, in this that, evidently open up the explanation of this weakness. The depraved instinct which the law encounters in man, the flesh, prevents it from obtaining the cordial obedience which the law demands from him. The flesh here as so frequently, in the moral sense which rests on the physical: self-complacency. The participle πέμψας, sending, though an aorist, nevertheless expresses an act simultaneous with that of the finite verb condemned (see Meyer): “condemned by sending.” The term sending by itself would not necessarily imply the pre-existence of Christ; for it may apply to the appearance of a mere man charged with a divine mission; comp. John 1:6. But the notion of pre-existence necessarily follows from the relation of this verb to the expression: His own Son, especially if we take account of the clause: in the likeness of sinful flesh. It is evident that, in the view of one who speaks thus, the existence of this Son preceded His human existence (comp. the more emphatic term ἐξαπέστειλεν, Galatians 4:4).

The expression: His own Son, literally, the Son of Himself, forbids us to give to the title Son, either the meaning of eminent man, or theocratic king, or even Messiah. It necessarily refers to this Son's personal relation to God, and indicates that Him whom God sends, He takes from His own bosom; comp. John 1:18. Paul marks the contrast between the nature of the envoy (the true Son of God) and the manner of His appearing here below: in the likeness of sinful flesh.

This expression: sinful flesh (strictly flesh of sin), has been understood by many, especially most recently by Holsten, as implying the idea that sin is inherent in the flesh, that is to say, in the bodily nature. It would follow therefrom and this critic accepts the consequence that Jesus Himself, according to Paul, was not exempt from the natural sin inseparable from the substance of the body. Only Holsten adds that this objective sin never controlled the will of Jesus, nor led Him to a positive transgression (παράβασις): the pre-existing divine Spirit of Christ constantly kept the flesh in obedience. We have already seen, Romans 6:6, that if the body is to the soul a cause of its fall, it is only so because the will itself is no longer in its normal state. If by union with God it were inwardly upright and firm, it would control the body completely; but being itself since the fall controlled by selfishness, it seeks a means of satisfaction in the body, and the latter takes advantage therefrom to usurp a malignant dominion over it. Thus, and thus only, can Paul connect the notion of sin so closely with that of body or flesh. Otherwise he would be obliged to make God Himself, as the creator of the body, the author of sin. What proves in our very passage that he is not at all regarding sin as an attribute inseparable from the flesh, is the expression he uses in speaking of Jesus: in the likeness of a flesh of sin. Had he meant to express the idea ascribed to him by Holsten, why speak of likeness? Why not say simply: in a flesh of sin, that is to say, sinful like ours? While affirming similarity of substance between the flesh of Jesus and ours, the very thing the apostle wishes here is to set aside the idea of likeness in quality (in respect of sin). This is done clearly by the expression which he has chosen. It will be asked, might he not have said more briefly: in the likeness of flesh or of our flesh (ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκός)? But by expressing himself thus, he would have favored the idea that the body of Jesus was a mere appearance. And this is the very consequence which Marcion has sought to draw from our passage. One cannot help admiring the nicety of the phrase formed by the apostle, and the pliability of the language which lent itself so readily to the analysis and expression of such delicate shades.

Wendt, while rightly criticising Holsten's opinion, escapes it only by another inadmissible explanation. He understands the word flesh in the sense in which it is taken in that frequent expression: all flesh, that is to say, every man, every creature. Paul means here, he thinks, that Jesus appeared on the earth in the likeness of the sinful creature. But should we then require to take the word flesh in the preceding proposition: “The law was weak through the flesh,” in the sense of creature? It seems to us that M. Sabatier is right in saying: “No doubt the word flesh sometimes denotes man taken in his entirety. But even then it never absolutely loses its original signification; the notion of the material organism always remains the fundamental notion.” We have no need of Wendt's expedient to account for the phrase of the apostle. Here is its meaning, as it seems to us: God, by sending His Son, meant to provide a human life in that same flesh under the influence of which we sin so habitually, such that it might complete this dangerous career without sin (χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας, Hebrews 4:15); comp. 2 Corinthians 5:21: “He who knew no sin”...

What then was the reason why God sent His Son in this form? Jesus, Paul tells us in Philippians, might in virtue of His God-form, of His divine state in the presence of God, have appeared here below as the equal of God. The reason it was not so is explained by the words καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, and for sin. If man had still been in his normal state, the appearance of the Son would also have had a normal character. But there was an extraordinary thing to be destroyed, sin. And hence the necessity for the coming of the Son in a flesh like our sinful flesh. As the expression: for sin, is sometimes taken in the O. T. (LXX. version) as a substantive, in the sense of sacrifice for sin (Psalms 40:6, e.g.,), and has passed thence into the N. T. (Hebrews 10:6-18), some commentators have thought that Paul was here appropriating this Alexandrine form. But there are two reasons opposed to this idea: 1. This very special sense, which might present itself naturally to the mind of the readers of such a book as the Epistle to the Hebrews, filled throughout with allusions to the ceremonies of the Levitical worship, could hardly have been understood, without explanation, by the Christians of Rome, who were for the most part Gentiles. 2. The context does not require the idea of sacrifice, because the matter in question is not guilt to be expiated, but solely the evil tendency to be uprooted. Not that the notion of expiation should be wholly excluded from the contents of so general an expression as for sin. It is undoubtedly contained in it, but it is not here the leading idea. Paul means in a wide sense, that it is the fact of sin, and especially the intention to destroy it (by every means, expiation and sanctification), which have caused the coming of Christ here below, in this form, so unlike His glorious nature.

This coming is only the means of the means; the latter is the decisive act expressed by the words: He condemned sin. To condemn, is to declare evil, and devote to destruction; and we see no occasion to depart from this simple and usual meaning. Most commentators have thought it inapplicable, and have substituted for it the meaning of conquering, overwhelming, destroying, Chrys.: ἐνίκησεν ἁμαρτίαν; Theod.: κατέλυσεν; Beza: abolevit; Calvin: abrogavit regnum; Grot.: interfecit; Beng.: virtute privavit; so also Thol., Fritzs., De Wette, Mey., etc. But Paul has a word consecrated to this idea; it is the term καταργεῖν, to abolish, annul; comp. Romans 6:6; 1 Corinthians 15:24, etc. There is in the word κατακρῖνειν, to condemn, the notion of a judicial sentence which is not contained in the sense indicated by these authors. Other commentators have felt this, and have again found here the idea of expiation, developed in chap. 3: God condemned sin in Christ crucified, as its representative, on the cross (Rück., Olsh., Philip., Hofm., Gess); to this idea many add that of the destruction of sin, evidently demanded by the context; so Philippi: “ to destroy by expiating; ” Gess: “a destruction of the power of sin founded on a judicial sentence,” which is included in “Christ's expiatory death.” But that powerlessness of the law in consequence of the flesh, of which Paul was speaking, did not consist in not being able to condemn sin; for it did condemn and even punish it; but it was powerless to destroy it, to render man victorious over its power. Besides, would it not be surprising to find Paul, after developing the subject of expiation in its place in chap. 3, returning to it here, in very unlike terms! We are therefore led to a wholly different explanation. Paul has in view neither the destruction of sin by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:4), nor its condemnation on the cross; he is regarding Christ's holy life as a living condemnation of sin. The flesh in Him was like a door constantly open to the temptations both of pleasure and pain; and yet He constantly refused sin any entrance into His will and action. By this persevering and absolute exclusion He declared it evil and unworthy of existing in humanity. This is what the law, because of the flesh, which naturally sways every human will, could not realize in any man. This meaning, with an important shade of difference, was that to which Menken was led; it is that of Wendt; it was certainly the idea of Theophylact when he said: “He sanctified the flesh, and crowned it by condemning sin in the flesh which He had appropriated, and by showing that the flesh is not sinful in its nature” (see the passage in De Wette). Perhaps Irenaeus even had the same thought when he thus expressed himself: Condemnavit peccatum (in the inner chamber of His heart) et jam quasi condemnatum ejecit extra carnem.

It is evident that if this meaning corresponds exactly to the thought of the apostle, the question whether we should connect the following clause: ἐν τῇ σάρκι, in the flesh, with the substantive τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, sin (“sin which is in the flesh”), or with the verb κατέκρινε, condemned (“He condemned in the flesh”), is decided. Not only, indeed, in the former case would the article τήν be necessary after ἁμαρτίαν; but still more this clause: in the flesh, would be superfluous, when connected with the word sin; now it becomes very significant if it refers to the verb. It might even be said that the whole pith of the thought centres in the clause thus understood. In fact, the law could undoubtedly overwhelm sin with its sentences, and, so to speak, on paper. But Christ accomplished what it could not do, by condemning sin in the flesh, in a real, living, human nature, in a humanity subject to those same conditions of bodily existence under which we all are. Hence the reason why He must appear here below in flesh. For it was in the very fortress where sin had established its seat, that it behooved to be attacked and conquered. We must beware of translating with several: “in His flesh,” as if there were the pronoun αὐτοῦ, of Him. In this case the pronoun could not be wanting; and the thought itself would be misrepresented. For the expression: in His flesh, would only denote the particular historical fact, whereas the latter: in the flesh, while reminding us of the particular fact, expresses the general notion which brings out its necessity. Like the hero spoken of in the fable, He required, if one may venture so to speak, Himself to descend into the infected place which He was commissioned to cleanse.

Thus from the perfectly holy life of Jesus there proceeds a conspicuous condemnation of sin; and it is this moral fact, the greatest of the miracles that distinguished this life, which the Holy Spirit goes on reproducing in the life of every believer, and propagating throughout the entire race. This will be the victory gained over the law of sin (Romans 8:2). Thus we understand the connection between the condemned of Romans 8:3, and the no condemnation, Romans 8:1. In His life He condemned that sin, which by remaining master of ours, would have brought into it condemnation. The relation between Romans 8:3-4 becomes also very simple: The condemnation of sin in Christ's life is the means appointed by God to effect its destruction in ours.