What the Law Could Not Do

Uncondemned in Christ  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  35:45
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As we continue our careful, verse-by-verse-by-verse study in Paul’s epistle to the Romans, we have already encountered a great many objections in Scripture to thinking which we may have in one way or another become accustomed to. And, of course, that, in part, is the purpose for our careful and methodical approach to studying Scripture – that we may me edified, admonished, and strengthened in our most holy faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.
And so, we ought to recall in this effort that it is the journey which is important; that if we are so very focused on getting to the next thing and next thing and next thing, or in having a particular destination in mind, we would fail to learn what is pleasing to the Lord in this our present circumstance.
And so we find that there is conflict in our study between that which is popular and that which is scriptural. And that certainly occurred last week, when rejecting the unscriptural notion that a man who is saved may fall back again under condemnation, or that heretical idea that a person cannot be justified until they are perfectly sanctified, or that mistaken view that a God who “loves” would never condemn anyone at all.
And today I suggest will be not particularly different, for there are those so-called “churches” across our nation this very morning who will preach a malignant distortion of the gospel, which is really not a gospel at all but a doctrine of demons, which wrongly places man at the center and focus of salvation.
And so, although what Paul is saying is aimed very much at the Christian, that they would know what is true of themselves in a clear and wonderful manner, it is my hope that through these studies anyone who is not now “in Christ Jesus” may feel the pull of God in their heart, and indeed turn to Him in saving faith – faith like that of Abraham, as Paul has written already in chapter 4.
But for we who are in Christ Jesus, the point Paul is making and supporting is that the man or woman in Christ Jesus is not condemned – and that characterization is true of that person now, not at some undetermined point in the future, nor that it may have once been true but may no longer be the case; Romans 8:1 saying “Therefore there is - now - no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This is our present condition.
And then of course last week, we began looking at the first of 6 proofs that Paul provides for this being the case, reading in Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” We are in an entirely new jurisdiction than we were before, we have been set free from the law of sin and of death, we are under the law of faith, to borrow from chapter 3.
And so now, we will begin looking at how Paul expands this first great proof in a trinitarian exultation of the gospel through verses 3 and 4, in one of richest, most meaning-laden sentences in the entirety of the Bible.
So let’s pray before we begin looking at these verses in earnest.
O Lord our God, forever Your word stands firm in heaven; Your faithfulness endures from generation to generation; You, o Lord, established the earth, and it stands yet still this day according to Your judgements, for all things are Your slaves and You are sovereign over all. Your commandments make us wiser than our enemy, for in them You Yourself have taught us through Your holy precepts. Father we ask this day that we would observe your precepts, that we restrain our feet from every evil way, that we would bring glory and honor to the name of Your blessed Son. Amen!
Open your Bibles with me to Romans 8:3-4, for I want you to be well-acquainted with this page in your Bible, for Dr. Steven Lawson is absolutely spot-on when he says that “each word in this sentence is dripping with meaning”, and I fully intend that we should understand the full and glorious truths this one sentence, spanning both of theses verses, holds out for us to take and glory in, to the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:3–4 LSB
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 and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Now, with all of what is being said here, let us first understand what the main line of thought is, and what is subsidiary to and supporting that thought.
The first phrase starts the main thought, “For what the Law could not do”. The following phrase, “weak as it was through the flesh”, is a subordinate clause, it supports and explains that first thought regarding the Law. “God did” is back to the main line of thought. The next phrase, “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin”, is another subordinate clause, supporting and explaining what it is that God did. The next phrase, “He condemned sin in the flesh”, is back to that main line of thought, but is still an explanation of what it was that “God did”. The next phrase, “so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us” is to explain the result and purpose of what God did. And lastly, “who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” provides a description of who the “us” is in the preceding statement, it again is a subordinate and supporting phrase.
So the main line of thought goes something like this, “For what the Law could not do God did, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.” But in this, we must understand that “what the Law could not do” was on account of it being “weak as it was through the flesh”. What God did was to “condemn sin in the flesh”, and how He accomplished that was in “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin”. Lastly, lest anyone be confused, “us”, the ones in whom the righteous requirement of the Law may be fulfilled, are those “who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Now even a quick and cursory view of this ought to recall to our minds what Paul had been saying throughout chapter 7, particularly the statement in Romans 7:4, “So, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.” and also that statement in Romans 7:6, “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were constrained, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” Once again, that parenthesis is serving to deepen our understanding of what we are being taught here in Romans 8.
And now once again, I call your attention to that small word at the beginning of the sentence, “for”, Paul is continuing to reason out his argument by explaining why he is entitled to say in verse 2 “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death”, which itself is the first proof that “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” He is explicating what he had already said in verse 2, drawing out for us the necessary details of what he has said so that we would rightly understand his meaning as to why we have been separated from the law of sin and of death.
So it is vital that we understand this first part of Paul’s statement in full, “what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did.” For a cursory glance at this may have us thinking back to the teaching of Romans 7 and settle for thinking that what is meant here is that the Law cannot deliver a man, which of course is true and was brought out clearly for us throughout the entirety of chapter 7. But, if we pay attention to what the apostle actually says here, we realize that it is a rather short-sighted and deficient view of what it is the Law fails to do.
Why do I say that?
Because the statement is that “what the Law could not do… God did”. And we are told pretty clearly what it was He did, “He condemned sin in the flesh.”
Now, this statement, “condemned sin in the flesh”, is positioned as something of a conundrum for us, for here Paul presents this as standing quite apart from what the Law is able to do – indeed, that was the point of Paul’s argument, that God did what the Law could not do. Yet further complicating the matter in our minds, we must understand that this “condemned” is the very same word used in verse 1 to say that there is now no “condemnation” – κατάκριμα – for those who are in Christ Jesus. There must be a congruity in how we use the word in both statements, it can’t have different meanings, for by their very proximity and usage, the two senses, first of no condemnation, now of condemnation, are intentionally put at odds with one another within the very same context. And we have already discussed that this is not the idea of “destroying” or “doing away with”, but rather “to declare and enact judgement against”.
And obviously, a great part of Paul’s argument thus far, and indeed throughout the whole of chapter 7, was that the Law does indeed condemn sin in our flesh, that has been the argument from the very first chapter, Romans 3:19–20 making it clear, “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law, so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” and in verse 23, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”, building on the applicability of that Law to absolutely everyone in Romans 2:15, “in that they demonstrate the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,”
So, then, the business of the Law is to condemn sin, to identify it and to pronounce judgement against those who do it; to point to a person in their flesh to say “look here, you are guilty and have condemned yourself by your own actions.” Surely, that last portion of Romans 7 from verse 7 through 25 most certainly shows that the Law does precisely that, and yet not stopping there, we read in Romans 5:20, “Now the Law came in so that the transgression would increase…” The Law is supremely effective and thorough when it condemns sin, it does so with such great strength and power, that it would be right to say that the Law perfectly condemns sin.
So when we read here in Romans 8:3, “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 and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh”, it must of necessity be telling us something else, something far more profound than a cursory reading might give us, for on the one hand Paul has demonstrated that the law condemns sin in our flesh, but now we read that the law cannot and is entirely unable to “condemn sin in the flesh”, and that God Himself has done so.
How are we to think of such things without our heads exploding?
And the answer is to be found in our careful attention to the main line of thought in these verses, which if you recall I said was “For what the Law could not do God did, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us”, with everything else supporting and expanding this main line of reasoning as to why Paul is saying that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
What could the law not do?
The law cannot cause its own righteous requirements to be fulfilled in us. It was never designed for that purpose, it was never enabled for that purpose. It is indeed powerful and unstoppable for all who fall under its rule, so powerful and so unstoppable that all who are under its reign and rule must of necessity fall under its condemnation.
So a view of being “in Christ” that stops only at the condemnation of sin in the flesh and rescue from the guilt of sin, a view which considers only that the penalty of the Law has been exacted in Christ Jesus and we need have no further worry about such things, stops far short of a right understanding of the purpose of being “in Christ Jesus.”
And so now, if your brain isn’t wounded enough at this first apparent paradox, we can add yet more to our thinking that little phrase describing the Law, “weak as it was through the flesh.”
And yet, we rightly have already described the Law as “powerful”. We have already rightly described the Law as “perfect”. We have already rightly described the Law as “unstoppable”. The apostle Paul, in Romans 7:12 had even said “So, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
How, then, can this holy and righteous and good Law be described as “weak”?
We must first go back to a right understanding of the Law before we can adequately answer this question, for the law is meant for more than to simply “condemn sin”. After all, in Romans 7:10 we read, “and this commandment, which was to lead to life, was found to lead to death for me.” In Romans 7:12, “So, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” And then, in Romans 7:13 we read, “Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.”
So, we see that the Law “was to lead to life” (7:10), it is “holy and righteous and good”, it “is good”, and was leveraged by sin for sin to reveal itself in me.
The answer is found in Romans 3:21
Romans 3:21 LSB
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
A right understanding of the Law, then, is not solely that it condemns sin and unrighteousness, but that it is a witness to the righteousness of God. The Law, first and foremost, then, provides us a descriptive representation of God’s righteousness to man, it doesn’t simply condemn, but it also displays the way of righteousness and life, for example in Leviticus 18:5 Yahweh declares, “‘So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does them, he shall live by them; I am Yahweh.”
And so, when we look back at the full statement of Romans 8:3-4 we are beginning to consider this morning, we read…
Romans 8:3–4 LSB
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 and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Get that? “…so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us…!”
Which is why Paul wrote “what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh.” Our entire experience with the Law before coming to be in Christ Jesus, was to feel the sting and wrath of its condemnation, on account of our inability to meet its righteous demands. But we must always remember, that the Law first and foremost is a witness to the righteous demands of God’s great and defining holiness. The reason we cannot meet its demands, is that far from the paganistic view of man which views man as normal and neutral, the biblical perspective is expressed in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me”, and again in Romans 5:18, “…through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men…”
In other words, we don’t experience that affirmation of the Law, it falls short, it fails to lead to life, because all in Adam walk according to the flesh but not according to the Spirit, outside of Christ Jesus, we “set our minds on the things of the flesh” (8:5). And we ought to be clear, that “the flesh” is not talking about physical matter, that things which are physical are bad, according to that old gnostic heresy, for then Jesus Christ coming “in the flesh” would mean that He who is righteous and holy became sinful. No, we will read further down in Romans 8:6-8,
Romans 8:6–8 LSB
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is at enmity toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.
The meaning of “the flesh” here in Romans 8:3-4
Romans 8:3–4 LSB
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 and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
…means the same as it does in verses 6-8, it is a life in the worldly mindset which all people by virtue of being in Adam share, it is enmity with God, rebellion against His sovereignty and holiness.
Notice, then, that it’s not that the Law which was weak, but “the flesh” the Law was required to work through which was weak. The Law has to work through a person; as strong as it is, as powerful as it is, it cannot produce righteousness on its own, but can only recognize and affirm such righteousness where it finds it, and condemn when that righteousness is absent. The Law was and still is dependent upon the efforts of those under its rule and authority to produce that righteousness.
In other words, what “the Law could not do”, is to produce righteousness within us, it is entirely unable to produce righteousness, because it must work through us, and not only through us, but through us in the flesh, in our sin, outside of Christ.
And yet, when God speaks out of His very nature when He demands, “You shall be holy, for I am holy”, He is not talking about simply keeping the Law, but to be positively righteous, to have that righteousness which is witnessed by the Law in us. That is why the Law, weak as it was through the flesh, could not do what is required by God; why He had to step in and do what the Law could not do. It is not sufficient for us to simply not be condemned by the Law, but yet more pointedly, we also must have a positive righteousness, God did what He did “so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us!” God’s Law could never supply that righteousness He requires; that is why it is so absolutely vital that we be set free from the law of sin and of death, and now placed under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
What the Law could never accomplish, God did. We don’t simply have righteousness imputed to us in Christ Jesus, we also have righteousness imparted to us.
Let us pray!

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