<p>8:3&nbsp;<i>For what the law</i>- Obedience to the Law.</p><p><i>Could not do</i>- S.w. in Romans only at Rom. 15:1: &ldquo;We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the&nbsp;<i>weak</i>&rdquo;, those who &lsquo;can not&rsquo;. The connections between the doctrinal and practical sections of Romans are so frequent that this link too is surely intended. The &ldquo;weak&rdquo; Paul had in mind were therefore the Jewish believers who still trusted in the Law; patience with the legalistic, acceptance of those whose faith in Christ&rsquo;s grace is weak, bearing with the ungracious, is really the test of our Christ-likeness. For He does this with us so very often.</p><p><i>In that it was weak through the flesh</i>- &ldquo;Weak&rdquo; is s.w. Mt. 25:36 &ldquo;sick&rdquo;. Our attitude to the weak / spiritually sick is our attitude to Christ personally- because amazingly, they especially represent Him. &ldquo;Weak through the flesh&rdquo; is surely alluding to the essence of what Paul has been writing in Romans 7- that our flesh is so weak. The implication is that our weakness is related to an attitude that keeping the Law would lead to justification. And this in turn confirms my suggestion that Romans 7 is a section specifically written to first century Jewish converts who had once been under the Law of Moses. The same word occurs in Rom. 5:6- when we were &ldquo;without strength&rdquo;, weak, Christ died for us. Our weakness, our spiritual weakness, is therefore no barrier to God&rsquo;s love and Christ&rsquo;s devotion to us. Amazing, but true.</p><p><i>God, sending His own son</i>- The connection with Phil. 2:7,8 suggests this &lsquo;sending&rsquo; was specifically in the crucifixion. Likewise God so loved the world that He gave His Son to die on the cross (Jn. 3:16).</p><p><i>In the likeness of sinful flesh</i>- This seems to be parallel with &ldquo;in the likeness of men&rdquo; and &ldquo;in fashion as a man&rdquo; (Phil. 2:7,8). &ldquo;Sinful flesh&rdquo; refers therefore to &lsquo;sinful humanity&rsquo;, rather than implying that we are sinful and offensive to God simply by reason of being human beings. The spotless lamb of God had full human nature, He looked like a man because He was a man, and therefore He looked just like the same men who regularly perform sinful actions. Whatever we say about &lsquo;human nature&rsquo;, we say about the Lord Jesus- for He bore our &lsquo;nature&rsquo; and yet was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. It&rsquo;s actually very hard to Biblically define what we mean by &lsquo;human nature&rsquo;; it&rsquo;s not some intrinsic piece of &lsquo;sin&rsquo; that somehow is metaphysically ingrained into us, upon which the wrath of God abides. So I prefer to speak rather of &lsquo;the human condition&rsquo; to avoid this impression. In passing, let&rsquo;s get it clear that Rom. 8:3 doesn&rsquo;t speak of something called &lsquo;sin-in-the-flesh&rsquo;. Students as varied as John Carter and Harry Whittaker in&nbsp;<i>The Very Devil</i> have faithfully pointed out that this is neither grammatically nor contextually correct. The Lord Jesus condemned sin; and where and how did He condemn it? In &ldquo;the flesh&rdquo;, in that He too lived within the nexus of pressures and influences of this sinful world. He appeared just another man, so much so that when He stood up and indirectly proclaimed Himself Messiah, those who knew Him were amazed; because He had appeared so very ordinary. Truly He was in &ldquo;the likeness of sinful flesh&rdquo;, yet without personal sin. See on 2 Cor. 7:1.</p><p>It could even be argued from Rom. 8:3 (&quot;in the likeness of sinful flesh&quot;) that the Lord Jesus appeared to be a normal sinful human being, although He was not a sinner (see on Jn. 2:5,10). This would explain the amazement of the townspeople who knew Him, when He indirectly declared Himself to be Messiah. Grammatically, &quot;it is not the noun &quot;flesh&quot; but the adjective &quot;sinful&quot; that demands the addition of &quot;likeness&quot;&quot; (1). He appeared as a sinner, without being one. Of course we can conveniently misunderstand this, to justify our involvement with sinful things and appearing just like the surrounding world, in order to convert them. But all the same, it was exactly because the Lord Jesus appeared so normal, so closely part of sinful humanity, that He was and is our Saviour and compelling example. I have elsewhere argued that Rom. 8:3 is alluding specifically to the Lord's death, where He was treated as a sinner, strung up upon a tree like all those cursed by sinful behaviour, although in His case He was innocent. Rom. 8:3 speaks of the Lord Jesus as being &ldquo;in the likeness of sinful flesh&rdquo; in order to achieve our redemption. The Greek word translated &ldquo;likeness&rdquo; elsewhere is used to express identity and correspondence- not mere external &lsquo;appearance&rsquo; (consider its usage in Rom. 1:23; 5:14; 6:5; Phil. 2:7). Scholars, even Trinitarian ones, are generally in agreement on this point. Two examples, both from Trinitarian writers commenting upon this word in Rom. 8:3: &ldquo;Paul consistently used &ldquo;likeness&rdquo; to denote appropriate correspondence or congruity. Thus Paul affirmed Jesus&rsquo; radical conformity to and solidarity with our sinful flesh (<i>sarx</i>)&rdquo; (2). &ldquo;The sense of the word (likeness) in Rom. 8:3 by no means marks a distinction or a difference between Christ and sinful flesh. If Christ comes&nbsp;<i>en homoiomati</i>&nbsp;of sinful flesh, he comes as the full expression of that sinful flesh. He manifests it for what it is&rdquo; (3). The total identity of the Lord with our sinfulness is brought out in passages like Rom. 8:3, describing Jesus as being &ldquo;in the likeness of sinful flesh&quot; when He was made a sin offering; and 1 Pet. 2:24, which speaks of how He &ldquo;his own self&hellip; in his own body&quot; bore our sins &ldquo;upon the tree&quot;. Note that it was at the time of His death that He was especially like this. I believe that these passages speak more of the Lord&rsquo;s moral association with sinners, which reached a climax in His death, than they do of His &lsquo;nature&rsquo;.</p><p>&ldquo;For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin&rdquo; (Rom. 8:3) &ndash; cp. Gal. 4:4&ndash;5, &ldquo;Made of a woman, made under the Law (cp. &ldquo;sinful flesh&rdquo;) to redeem them that were under the Law&rdquo;. The drive of Paul&rsquo;s argument in its primary context was that having been baptized, they should leave the Law, as that was connected with the sin from which baptism saved them &ndash; it introduced them to salvation by pure grace in Jesus. The Hebrew writer had the connection in mind when he wrote of &ldquo;<i>carnal</i>&nbsp;ordinances&rdquo; (Heb. 9:10; 7:16). To be justified by the Law was to be &ldquo;made perfect by the flesh&rdquo;, so close is the connection between Law and flesh (Gal. 3:2,3). &ldquo;We (who have left the Law)... have no confidence in the flesh (i.e. the Law). Though I might also have confidence in the flesh...&rdquo; (Phil. 3:3&ndash;4), and then Paul goes on to list all the things which gave him high standing in the eyes of the Law and the Jewish system. These things he associates with &ldquo;the flesh&rdquo;. See on Col. 2:14.</p><p>&ldquo;Likeness&rdquo; is s.w. Rom. 6:5, we are planted together in the &ldquo;likeness&rdquo; of Christ&rsquo;s death. His being made like us is to be responded to by our being made like Him, starting in a baptism into His likeness.</p><p>&ldquo;Sinful flesh&rdquo; has just been used by Paul in Rom. 7:25 also Rom. 7:5, in lamenting how in our &lsquo;flesh&rsquo; status, we seem to so easily serve sin as our master. The Lord Jesus had our nature, the same struggle against a tendency to unspirituality, egged on by living in a social environment where sin is everywhere and ever present.</p><p><i>And for a sin offering</i>- The Greek&nbsp;<i>peri hamartias</i>&nbsp;&ldquo;is the Septuagint&rsquo;s technical term for the sin offering&rdquo; (4).&nbsp;</p><p><i>Condemned sin, in the flesh</i>- As a judicial action, the passing of sentence, s.w. Mk. 14:64 &ldquo;they all condemned Him to be worthy of death&rdquo;. This is how and why there is no condemnation for those in Christ (8:1). In the earlier chapters of Romans, Paul likened us as standing ashamed and condemned in the dock before the judgment seat of God; but then declared right, justified, by grace. And if we believe in that grace, it shall be true for us at the final judgment. But here the image changes slightly- for it is &ldquo;sin&rdquo;, not just ourselves personally, which was condemned on the cross by the fact that Christ died there as a human who never yielded to sin. Remember that someone or something can be &ldquo;condemned&rdquo; by someone else in the sense that that person shows the condemned party to be in the wrong in comparison with their behaviour, e.g. Noah condemning the world around him (Mt. 12:41,42; Lk. 11:31,32; Heb. 11:7). It was perhaps in this sense that the Lord condemned sin by His sinlessness and obedience unto death. The context of this phrase &ldquo;condemned sin&rdquo; in 8:3 is to be found in 8:1- there is &ldquo;no condemnation for those who are in Christ&rdquo;, and Paul is explaining why- because not only have they been declared right, but as &ldquo;in Christ&rdquo;, all that is true of Him becomes true of us. He was not only uncondemned by sin, but He went onto the offensive- and condemned sin.</p>