Romans 8:3

Romans 8:3. For what the law could not do; lit, ‘the impossible (thing) of the law.' The Mosaic law is certainly meant. What was impossible for the law to do, God did, i.e., condemned sin, etc. This is better than to explain: ‘in view of the powerlessness of the law.'

Because it was weak through the flesh. Its weakness has been proven by the experience of chap. 7, and this was ‘through the flesh,' for this depraved nature was the means of setting forth its weakness.

God sending his own Son. It was by sending Him, that He accomplished what was impossible for the law. ‘His own Son,' preexisting before He was sent, and that too as Son, in a specific sense.

In the likeness of the flesh of sin. Notice the careful wording of this description of the humanity of Christ. The characteristic of ‘flesh,' i.e., our ordinary human nature, is ‘sin;' in the ‘likeness' of this the Son of God appeared. He was entirely human, hence we do not find here, ‘in the likeness of flesh'; He was entirely sinless, hence He was not ‘in the flesh of sin,' but only ‘in the likeness of the flesh of sin.'

And for sin, or, ‘on account of sin.' Some would restrict this clause to expiation for sin, ‘for a sin-offering'; but this seems a forced interpretation of the words. The idea of expiation is of course included, but the reference is more general: ‘in order by expiating sin to destroy it' (Philippi).

Condemned sin in the flesh. This was what the law could not do. ‘Sin' has the article in the original, pointing to the ‘sin' on account of which the Law of God was sent into the world. ‘In the flesh' is to be joined with ‘condemned,' referring to the human nature which Christ has in common with us. It seems objectionable to take it in the ethical sense, or to apply it only to the human nature of Christ ‘Sin had tyrannized over us in our flesh, as the seat of its empire; and by our flesh, as its instrument and weapon. But God used our flesh as an instrument for our deliverance, and for the condemnation of sin, and for the establishment of His own empire in us' (Wordsworth). As the Apostle is treating of the emancipation from the power of sin (Romans 8:2), it is unnecessary to confine this condemnation of sin in the flesh to the expiation of Christ. By sending Christ God condemned sin entirely, both as to its punitive and polluting effects. The one great act by which sin was condemned in the flesh was the death of Christ, and this expiating act was the delivering act which should destroy the power of sin. For while the law could, to a certain extent, condemn and punish sin, what was utterly impossible for it was the removal of sin. Those in Christ have in the fact of His death the ground of pardon and the pledge of purity. The removal of sin is the end to be accomplished, as the next verse shows.