'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
in the flesh.'--ROMANS viii. 3.
In the first verse of this chapter we read that 'There is no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.' The reason of that
is, that they are set free from the terrible sequence of cause and
effect which constitutes 'the law of sin and death'; and the reason
why they are freed from that awful sequence by the power of Christ
is, because He has 'condemned sin in the flesh.' The occurrence of
the two words 'condemnation' (ver. 1) and 'condemned' (ver. 3) should
be noted. Sin is personified as dwelling in the flesh, which
expression here means, not merely the body, but unregenerate human
nature. He has made his fortress there, and rules over it all. The
strong man keeps his house and his goods are in peace. He laughs to
scorn the attempts of laws and moralities of all sorts to cast him
out. His dominion is death to the human nature over which he
tyrannises. Condemnation is inevitable to the men over whom he rules.
They or he must perish. If he escape they die. If he could be slain
they might live. Christ comes, condemns the tyrant, and casts him
out. So, he being condemned, we are acquitted; and he being slain
there is no death for us. Let us try to elucidate a little further
this great metaphor by just pondering the two points prominent in
it--Sin tyrannising over human nature and resisting all attempts to
overcome it, and Christ's condemnation and casting out of the tyrant.
I. Sin tyrannising over human nature, and resisting all attempts to
overcome it.
Paul is generalising his own experience when he speaks of the
condemnation of an intrusive alien force that holds unregenerate
human nature in bondage. He is writing a page of his own
autobiography, and he is sure that all the rest of us have like pages
in ours. Heart answereth unto heart as in a mirror. If each man is a
unity, the poison must run through all his veins and affect his whole
nature. Will, understanding, heart, must all be affected and each in
its own way by the intruder; and if men are a collective whole, each
man's experience is repeated in his brother's.
The Apostle is equally transcribing his own experience when in the
text he sadly admits the futility of all efforts to shake the
dominion of sin. He has found in his own case that even the loftiest
revelation in the Mosaic law utterly fails in the attempt to condemn
sin. This is true not only in regard to the Mosaic law but in regard
to the law of conscience, and to moral teachings of any kind. It is
obvious that all such laws do condemn sin in the sense that they
solemnly declare God's judgment about it, and His sentence on it; but
in the sense of real condemnation, or casting out, and depriving sin
of its power, they all are impotent. The law may deter from overt
acts or lead to isolated acts of obedience; it may stir up antagonism
to sin's tyranny, but after that it has no more that it can do. It
cannot give the purity which it proclaims to be necessary, nor create
the obedience which it enjoins. Its thunders roll terrors, and no
fruitful rain follows them to soften the barren soil. There always
remains an unbridged gulf between the man and the law.
And this is what Paul points to in saying that it 'was weak through
the flesh.' It is good in itself, but it has to work through the
sinful nature. The only powers to which it can appeal are those which
are already in rebellion. A discrowned king whose only forces to
conquer his rebellious subjects are the rebels themselves, is not
likely to regain his crown. Because law brings no new element into
our humanity, its appeal to our humanity has little more effect than
that of the wind whistling through an archway. It appeals to
conscience and reason by a plain declaration of what is right; to
will and understanding by an exhibition of authority; to fears and
prudence by plainly setting forth consequences. But what is to be
done with men who know what is right but have no wish to do it, who
believe that they ought but will not, who know the consequences but
'choose rather the pleasures of sin for a season,' and shuffle the
future out of their minds altogether? This is the essential weakness
of all law. The tyrant is not afraid so long as there is no one
threatening his reign, but the unarmed herald of a discrowned king.
His citadel will not surrender to the blast of the trumpet blown from
Sinai.