Romans 8:3,4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For what the law could not do Το γαρ αδυνατον του νομου, what was impossible to the Mosaic law, whether moral or ceremonial; that is, that freedom from the guilt and power of sin, and from spiritual and eternal death, which it could not minister; in that it was weak through the flesh Through the depravity and infirmity of our fallen nature, which it was incapable of remedying or conquering. “The law was not weak or defective in itself. Its moral precepts were a perfect rule of duty, and its sanctions were sufficiently powerful to enforce obedience in those who were able to obey. But it was weak through the depravity of men's nature, which it had neither power to remedy nor to pardon; and so could not destroy sin in men's flesh. These defects of law are all remedied in the gospel; wherein pardon is promised to encourage the sinner to repent, and the assistance of the Spirit of God is offered, to enable him to believe and obey.” Macknight. Accordingly it follows, God, (Supply δυνατον εποιησε, hath made feasible, or hath done, namely, what the law could not do;) sending his own Son Ιδιον υιον, his proper Son, his Son in a sense in which no creature is or can be his son; in the likeness of sinful flesh Christ's flesh was as real as ours, but it was like sinful flesh, in being exposed to pain, misery, and death: and for sin The expression, περι αμαρτιας, here rendered, for sin, appears, from Hebrews 10:18, to be an elliptical phrase for προσφορα περι αμαρτιας, an offering for sin. The Son of God was sent in the likeness, both of sinful flesh, and of a sin-offering. He was like the old sin-offerings in this, that whereas they sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, he, by making a real atonement for sin, sanctifieth to the purifying of the spirit. Condemned sin in the flesh That Isaiah, 1 st, Manifested its infinite evil, by enduring extreme sufferings, to render the pardon of it consistent with the justice and holiness of God, and the authority of his law. 2d, Gave sentence that its guilt should be cancelled, its power destroyed, and believers wholly delivered from it. And, 3d, Procured for them that deliverance. The sins of men, being imputed to, or laid on Christ, Isaiah 53:6, by his free consent, (he being our surety,) were condemned and punished in his flesh; and no such remarkable condemnation of sin was ever effected before, or will be again, unless in the condemnation of the finally impenitent to everlasting misery. But the apostle here seems rather to speak of the condemnation of sin, not in the flesh which Christ assumed for us, but in our persons, or in us while we are in the flesh. Now in this sense, it must be acknowledged, it was condemned in some measure under the law, as well as under the gospel; “for under the law there were many pious and holy men; but sin was condemned in their flesh, not by any power inherent in, or derived from, the law: their sanctification came from the grace of the gospel, preached to them in the covenant with Abraham, Galatians 3:8, darkly set forth in the types of the law.” That the righteousness of the law The holiness it requires, described Romans 8:5-11, might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit Who are guided in our intentions and affections, words and actions, not by our animal appetites and passions, or by corrupt nature, but by the Word and Spirit of God. Love to God and man is the principal thing enjoined in the moral law, and is accounted by God the fulfilling of that law, Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8. It must be observed, however, that “the righteousness of the law to be fulfilled in us, through the condemnation of sin in the flesh, and through our not walking according to the flesh, is not perfect obedience to [the moral law, or] any law whatever; [except that of faith and love;] for that is not attainable in the present life: but it is such a degree of faith and holiness, as believers may attain through the influence of the Spirit. And being the righteousness required in the gracious new covenant, made with mankind after the fall, and fully published in the gospel, that covenant, and the gospel in which it is published, are fitly called the law of faith, Romans 3:27; and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, Romans 8:2; and the law of Christ, Galatians 6:2; and the law of liberty, James 1:25; and the law foretold to go forth out of Zion, Isaiah 2:3; and the law for which the isles, or Gentiles, were to wait, Isaiah 42:4.” Macknight. From this place Paul describes primarily the state of believers, and that of unbelievers, only to illustrate this.