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It seems clear to me that these verses cannot be properly understood unless they are closely connected, which the chapter break seriously disrupts. There are many places in my Bible where I have crossed out the chapter break to alert me to not hesitate in my reading at that point if I want to grasp the real meaning of the passage. This is definitely one of them.
As I look at the section I have several questions that I want to clarify. Those questions inevitably create more questions but the answers that come are almost always very interesting and stimulating. It is why I continue to dig my way through the Bible with a fine-tooth comb – not just to intellectually learn interesting facts but more so to interact with the original Author who wants to reveal Himself to my heart through this means.
I dwelt a little bit previously on what condemnation is, but I think there must be more I don't yet catch. I see two places where it is mentioned here and it creates a real question in my mind. What does it mean when it says, “He condemned sin in the flesh”? I want to go much deeper into that.
Another question that comes to my mind for God is, “What did God do that the Law could not do?” I want to know the answer that emerges directly from the context, not the first thing that comes to mind from typical religious thought.
Another pattern that I see even more clearly that is the backdrop for all the other things here is the paradigm shift from living in the flesh to living in the Spirit. I am convinced that living in the flesh as described at length in chapter 7 means living from the head with a focus on the externals. Living in the Spirit is changing my priorities internally from a head religion to a heart-led spirituality that is strongly rooted in the emotional, intimate side of my being. I believe that keeping this paradigm shift in mind will help greatly while looking for the answers to the first two questions.
Here are some clues that I find for the question about condemning sin in the flesh. Just two verses previously he says there is no condemnation for those.... The condemnation in this sentence is targeted at people, and implied in this statement is that previously these same people were feeling a great deal of condemnation, most likely while in the state of being described in all of chapter 7. However, in the second phrase the condemnation is directed at sin, not toward people. That makes me wonder if I really understand enough what the word really means. If condemnation is a feeling, how can sin have that feeling? Or is condemnation something imposed by someone else? We have to be very careful about our assumptions.
As I look at this and ask for clarification from the Holy Spirit, I begin to notice even more clues in the immediate context. Whatever it means that Jesus did it was a direct result and a part of the plan that His Father was carrying out to do whatever it was that He did related to the second question. It also is connected with Jesus coming “in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin...”
This creates another interesting connection. Jesus was in the likeness of sinful flesh (whatever that meant) and at the same time condemned sin in the flesh. That sound like He ended up possibly condemning Himself since He was in the flesh that was being condemned. I want to go deeper into that also.
But another clue lies just beyond that phrase. It is the results of His condemning sin in the flesh. It says “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.” Whatever it was that God did through Jesus expressed in the phrases it resulted in the Law being able to be fulfilled in us.
Now that raises another very interesting link, because it appears to me that in the previous passages it was the Law that was causing all of the troubling condemnation to start with. Many people reacted to that by trying to get rid of the Law and say that under the New Covenant the Law no longer applies to us. You know, we don't live under the Law but under grace mentality. That is another phrase wrested out of context to try to neutralize the thing that plagues our conscience and seems to create so much condemnation inside of us.
But Paul seems to have no interest here in sidelining the Law to fix the condemnation problem. Instead, he says that the real solution comes from God in such a way that, far from being sidelined or neutralized, the Law is suddenly quite satisfied with those people who are results of whatever it is Jesus did described in these verses. This is an echo of what he said back in Romans 3:31, “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.”
So what emerges from assembling these clues and arranging them into the picture? What I am starting to see is the condemnation that results when a Holy God and sin get into close proximity with each other. In the Garden of Eden it was when God was approaching that Adam and Eve began to feel the increasing heat of condemnation in their hearts and ran to hide. Was God there to condemn them? Absolutely not! But their perception of God in their hearts had been twisted and distorted by sin in their doubts about His integrity, honesty and care about them. They now believed Him to be dangerous and even likely to be coming to kill them. Nothing much has changed since. We still have the same feelings about God based on the same lies embedded in our hearts.
But what happened when Jesus showed up, sent by God to this earth, and took on the likeness of sinful flesh? What was the result of God Himself in the form of Jesus getting that close to the very same contaminated flesh in which so many lies about Him resided? How was it that condemnation showed up in the middle of that mix? And furthermore, why did He do it that way? Why, really, was it necessary for God's Son to take on Himself our flesh, mix it up with the presence of sin and experience whatever this phrase means, “condemned sin in the flesh”?
I believe it is important to know the answer to these questions because those answers are directly related to the resulting effects of the Law being satisfied in the life of everyone who chooses to live in Christ Jesus. I also think it is vitally important to understand these issues to eliminate many of the confused and tragically mistaken ideas about why Jesus came to live and die as a human. We need to understand what it was that God had in mind when He sent His Son to do whatever it was that He did.
That launches me into the second question, “What did God do that the Law could not do?”
Well, I guess I would start by asking, what do we think the Law was attempting to do but not succeeding? I look back into chapter 7 and I see this in verse 10. “This commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me.” So if God accomplished what the Law could not, then God was able to produce the result of life for me through whatever it was that Jesus did.
Another thing that God did was mentioned even more recent in 7:24,25. He says that God will set me free from this body of death through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Well, I haven't really unpacked this very far, but I want to come back again and continue to listen to what the Spirit has to say to the churches. (see Rev. 2 & 3) You and me are part of the churches and the Spirit is very eager to communicate with us if we take the time to listen and receive and absorb the life that God has provided for us “in Christ Jesus”.
