CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 8:3.—The flesh of Christ alone is sinless. “Created in the likeness of sinful flesh,” that He might be in all points tempted as men are.
Romans 8:4.—Might be fulfilled, be accomplished or done in us.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 8:3-4
The method of law and the method of love.—The method of law has failed as a justifying and sanctifying force. Perhaps not failed in the divine plans; even human failure may be divine success. Law has failed “in that it was weak through the flesh.” Law could not overcome the obstructive forces of human passions, of a depraved moral nature. The method of love must now be tried; and if that fail—we may say it reverently—the divine resources are exhausted. But this method has not failed. Law cannot show one instance of success. Love can indicate many. If the method of love had triumphed in only one case, it would prove itself a success. But it can refer to multitudes. The method of love must be allowed to run the same lengthened course in human history which has been allotted to law before a verdict is pronounced; the method of love must be examined when the final roll is completed, when the vast multitude of the children of love are gathered to the home of love, and then God’s wisdom and power will be vindicated. The method of love is here exemplified and illustrated by and in:—
I. The act of sending.—“God sending His own Son”—emphasis on the words “His own.” God plucked the choice treasure from His bosom of love, and sent it forth on a strange errand; God plucked the sweetest flower from the eternal garden, and sent it forth to fill another world with its fragrance.
1. Thus the words point us to the fact of the Saviour’s pre-existence. Let us not deny the eternal existence of Christ because it is to us unknowable. Here let us rise from the known to the unknown, from a temporary to an eternal existence, and believe in that which we cannot comprehend. “In the beginning was the Word,” and this beginning is before the present system of things. It answers to that declaration in the old Testament where Wisdom, which is Christ personified, says, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old.” Here is eternal existence declared—or at least an existence which goes far beyond our powers of understanding, for it was before God’s works of old. Jesus Christ in His divine nature was not then the work of God, for He existed before all the works of God; and if Jesus be merely human, then He existed before Himself, which is absurd. And again, according to Micah, Jesus came out of Bethlehem as to His human nature, but as to His divine nature His goings forth have been from the days of eternity, from the days of old—old to us who are of yesterday; neither old nor young to Him who is “the same yesterday and to-day and for ever.” We are of yesterday, and had no previous existence. The doctrine of the migration of souls is futile, for it does not enrich consciousness or enlarge experience. Is there no growth in this migration? Why do not the great souls of the past show themselves with increased capacities in other human beings? Jesus Christ was before His birth. And His life shows a richness and a vastness which speak of pre-existence. Here is to be noted the coincidence between the Old Testament and the New, which reveal the divine unity of the Bible as proceeding from one God; for Jesus says, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.” The personified Wisdom of the Old Testament and the incarnated Wisdom of the New are one. Jesus Christ was with the Father before His works of old. He came from the Father, from everlasting. Jesus Christ had a glory with the Father before the world was, the incomprehensible glory of an eternal existence, of being when there was no created being. Jesus Christ states the doctrine distinctly when He says, “Before Abraham was, I am”; or in other words, Before Abraham was I was. My existence is prior to the existence of him who gave tithes to Melchizedek. In this sense it was understood by the Jews when they took up stones to stone Him, as making Himself greater and older than Abraham. In this sense it must be understood by every intelligent student; and thus by this fact Melchizedek is a type of Christ, having neither beginning of days nor end of life. Therefore we say with St. Paul, “He is before all things, and by Him all things consist”; the universe subsists, keeps together, is held together in its present state, by the omnipotence of Jesus Christ. He is before all things, and thus had a prior existence, and is therefore divine. He is before all created things, and therefore uncreated. Our Saviour is glorious in the incomprehensibility of His eternal existence. He comes forth from eternity to save and rescue the sons of time, and with the treasures of eternity would enrich humanity. He comes forth from the sabbatic repose of eternity to the toils and anguish of time.
2. The words point us to the loving harmony which subsisted between the Father and the Son. It is to be observed that our Lord does not speak much of His own love to the Father, but rather lets it speak for itself, as all true love will. This agrees with His own utterance: “But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do.” And the world, looking at the Saviour’s life, at His devotion to the Father’s will, at His loving determination through all pains, agonies, and self-sacrifices to accomplish the Father’s purpose, will come to the conclusion that His love to the Father was above and beyond all human comparison. Oh that bur love were one of deeds as well as of words! John the Baptist gives an emphatic utterance as to the Father’s love of the Son. John, in bearing witness to the glory of Christ, says, “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands.” This is a mysterious statement, and we cannot hope fully to understand its meaning, for we only “know in part and prophesy in part,” for “we now see through a glass, darkly,” a smoked glass, and nothing is clear to the vision. Our ideas are indistinct, and the words we use for their conveyance are inadequate. Human language is imperfect to express the thoughts which we have of the things seen; how much more must it be imperfect for converse about the things that are unseen! When we speak of God the Father and God the Son by means of our feeble language, we must remember that our terms and figures are bounded, and cannot express all that we think, far less all that may be thought, on such a sublime theme. Not only is our language poor, but our thought is feeble. The words “the Father loveth the Son” are familiar words enough. “Father” and “son” are primal words. They are as roots to the vast tree of humanity. Out of them spring families, tribes, nations, vast dynasties. And yet what are they in that connection? In what sense is God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son? The Father, and yet not superior to the Son? The Son, and yet equal to the Father? We cannot tell. Sublime mystery, and yet blessed thought, that our human relationships are employed to set forth divine relationships. And the love which exists between the divine Father and the Son must be something beyond the power of our intellects to comprehend. All our notions of love, gathered from earthly manifestations, must be far from doing justice to the bright flame which illumines the divine nature. Mostly in this world love is not a pure flame—too often it is but “fantasies’ hot fire, whose wishes soon as granted fly”; but God’s love is like Himself, free from all imperfections; and to change our figure, it flows from Himself a life-giving stream, filling heaven with joy and with glory, and then shaping for itself other channels along which to send its vast overflowings. And oh, how the love-stream went out towards the Son of God! The earthly father loves the son by virtue of the subsisting relationship. A magical influence is that which binds the father to the son, and we cannot analyse this subtle emotion. It is divinely implanted, and is the reflection of God’s love to the Son. That love refreshed the Son of God in a past eternity. Before time commenced its solemn march, in a far back eternity, God loved the Son; for Jesus was ever the Father’s delight, rejoicing always before Him. Through the power of this love we are to suppose them moving in harmony and dwelling together in sabbatic repose. For true love, then, there must be harmony of nature,—
“The secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which, heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.”
Now it is almost impossible to secure this perfect oneness in human relationships. But between God the Father and God the Son there could be no disparity of either tastes or tendencies or years. They are one in nature, though two in person. Their perfect harmony is seen most strikingly in the scheme of human redemption. God the Father beheld human misery with divine compassion. When He was devising schemes whereby His banished ones might not be expelled from Him, God the Son said, I delight to do Thy will, O God. Here am I; send Me. I am ready to go, travelling in the greatness of My strength, mighty to save. We are not then to view the loving Father as a mere vindictive God, from whom the Son extracts salvation. The lovo of the Father as well as of the Son are equally manifest in the plan of redemption. There was perfect harmony in heaven, and this harmony between the Father and the Son is communicative and productive of harmony among the angelic hosts. In confirmation of this Jesus Christ says, “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again.” In loving harmony they dwell together in eternity. And as we think of this loving harmony, we are induced to reflect how much is involved in the expression, “God sending His own Son.”
II. By the manner of sending.—“In the likeness of sinful flesh.” How great is Jesus Christ, and yet how He humbled Himself and took upon Himself the form of a servant! He assumed a true human nature. He was bone of Our hone and flesh of our flesh. In all things, sin excepted, He was made like unto His brethren. He was in the world identifying Himself with its deepest needs and highest interests. Ho had indeed infinite pity for the infinite pathos of human life. The tears of the world’s Creator are the world’s great boon. They crystallise themselves into jewels of undying hope for humanity. They mingle themselves with the world’s tears, and these lose more than half their bitterness. The Saviour’s tears flow on fields of mourning, and there spring up harvests of joy—on valleys of death, and they bloom with the sweet life of light and immortality. He did not shut Himself up in seclusion, but went about doing good. Christ was more concerned to show His divinity by the attribute of love than by the attribute of either omnipotence or omniscience. Omnipotence belonged unto Christ, but He ever kept it in check. He spake of His power, but seemed to speak of it as if to show to men how great was the restraining force of that love which could hold omnipotence in chains. Christ had power and love, and in the conflict love was allowed the victor’s place. Our Lord was omniscient, but He seldom used the attribute. Omnipotence was kept in abeyance; omniscience did not often appear; love never slept.
III. By the purpose of the sending.—“And for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”
1. He destroyed sin in the flesh by a holy life. It is said that the direction which Socrates gave to philosophical inquiry was expressed in the saying that he brought “philosophy down from heaven to earth.” But Jesus Christ did a greater work, for He brought goodness down from heaven to earth, embodied it in His own person, and manifested it in all His actions. Socrates dreamt philosophical visions; but Jesus worked out schemes of benevolence, showed Himself the rare and radiant vision of goodness incarnate. We by no means undervalue Socrates and his work, and yet we must feel that he stands at an immense distance behind that vision of goodness which gladdened our sphere when Jesus Christ moved, full of grace and of truth, a being too good for earth, whom earth neglected and rejected, and yet by whose presence earth has been highly blessed, and to whose action earth owes a more glorious aspect. Some are bold enough to place Jesus Christ on a level only with Socrates, and in doing this they forget the unchallenged purity of the Saviour’s life, and do not bear in mind the facts brought before us in the utterances of Jeremy Taylor: “The best and most excellent of the old lawgivers and philosophers among the Greeks had an alloy of viciousness, and could not be exemplary all over: some were noted for flatterers, as Plato and Aristippus; some for incontinency, as Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, Theognis, Plato, and Aristippus again; and Socrates, whom their oracle affirmed to be the wisest and most perfect man, yet was by Porphyry noted for extreme intemperance of anger, both in words and actions; and those Romans who were offered to them for examples, although they were great in reputation, yet they also had great vices; Brutus dipped his hand in the blood of Cæsar, his prince, and his father by love, endearments, and adoption; and Cato was but a wise man all day—at night he was used to drink wine too liberally; and both he and Socrates did give their wives unto their friends; the philosopher and the censor were procurers of their wives’ unchastity; and yet these were the best among the Gentiles.” These charges were made by writers who lived very close upon the time at which the men flourished of whom they wrote, and yet an attempt at refutation was not made. And yet we do not know of any attempt to convict Jesus Christ of immorality near to the time in which He flourished. The verdict which Pilate uttered, “I find no fault in Him,” was practically unchallenged by the chief priests, scribes, Sadducees, Pharisees, and angry Jews. It was a verdict which all felt to be just, and which brought conviction to every mind. If there had been but one spot on this Sun of righteousness, there were not wanting men of microscopic power to find it out. Plate’s wife referred to Jesus as a just man. The centurion and they that were with him said, “Truly this was the Son of God,” “Certainly this was a righteous man.” The centurion had the conception of a divine-human, holy being. He felt that Jesus was just in claiming to be the Son of God, and he confessed further that Jesus was holy, and none were present to contradict. The suborned blasphemers, the two false witnesses, could only declare, “This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.” Jesus Christ stood the trying test of His own time, of the envenomed spirits that sought His destruction, who, if there had been any discovery to make, would have succeeded in the attempt; but His moral glory was superior to the fangs of jealousy and of wickedness. Thus the sanctity and holiness of Jesus were glorious in these darknesses, “as a beauty, artificially covered with a thin cloud of Cyprus, transmits its excellency to the eye, made more greedy and apprehensive by that imperfect and weak restraint.” Thus were found confessors and admirers even in the midst of those despites which were done Him upon the opposing designs of malice and contradictory ambition. Eighteen hundred years have passed away, and it has been reserved for a modern French writer to draw sensual pictures of the lascivious dalliances of the holy Jesus with beautiful Jewish maidens.[2] But the picture is a proof rather of the evil mind that gave it birth than of any reality in the case it is supposed to represent. If there had been anything of this kind, we may be sure that it would not have waited eighteen hundred years for the pen of a modern romancer to reveal. The opponents of Jesus, whether political, intellectual, or religious, must be crushed; while the adherents of Jesus shall live and flourish by the power of His undying life and by virtue of His ever-increasing justice. The Sun of Righteousness sails on in sublime tranquillity, shedding His beneficent beams in spite of telescopic glare, of the romancer’s daring, and of the sceptic’s bold denunciations. Yes, of all the great and good men who have walked this earth, dignified the race, and whose names have adorned the pages of history, Jesus Christ is by far the noblest, not only on account of His intellectual greatness, though here He was without rival, but on account of His pre-eminent goodness. His life was a thrilling record of goodness, shining through every feature, suggesting every thought, ennobling every action, clothing every utterance with beauty, and endowing Him with superhuman influence. So that we may indeed stand before Him and say, Thou art fairer than the sons of men,—fairer not in physical form, though thus He was comely; fairer not in mental capacity, though thus He was mighty; but fairer in holiness and in purity. So fair that, if we range the fields and gardens for types, we must gather the loveliest of flowers, for He is the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley; if we explore the mineral world, we must take the most precious, for He is the treasure hid in the field and the pearl of great price; if we ascend to the heavens and travel from star to star, we must fix upon the most brilliant, for He is the bright morning star; if we retrace our course and go back to Israel’s history, we must think of Israel’s noblest characters, for Moses the world’s greatest lawgiver, Aaron the head of the priesthood, and David the noblest of Israel’s kings and the world’s richest poet, are types of David’s greater Son. Earth can give but faint types of Christ’s moral beauty, and He will transcend all the glories of heaven.
2. He destroyed sin in the flesh by a painful death. “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many,” as the climax of His self-sacrificing ministry. Jesus Christ was a man of sorrows, and yet He moved with sublime tranquillity along the highways of life, and thus He was the best helper the children of sorrows ever met as well as a welcome guest at the feast. It is true that in the final issue sorrow broke His heart. This sorrow, however, was not His sorrow as a man, but as a mediator. We can neither climb the heights nor fathom the depths of the Saviour’s sorrow in the period of His crucifixion. In that one fearful cup of sorrow was compressed the world’s sin. He suffered for others in a sense in which no other has suffered, and therefore the heart-breaking nature of that calamity. If He had appeared in this world but not as a mediator, sorrow would have touched and yet would not have destroyed. Love to the eternal Father and love to the race induced Jesus Christ to tread the course of the lonely sufferer. And the solitariness of Jesus brings to our view the greatness of His love most vividly. As in lonely prayer He agonises on the mountain’s side, His mighty love comes beaming from His person and clothes the barren mountain with celestial beauty. When in lonely grandeur He treads the billows, they gleam with the brightness of His ineffable love. When in His solitary struggles He sweats as it were great drops of blood, His love transforms for devout souls the bead-drops of sweat into pearls radiating divine colours of attractive brilliance. When He cries, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” that cry is but the sad yet gracious musical strain which indicates the wondrous force of His all-mastering passion. The heavens were darkened, the sun was eclipsed, the earth reeled in its steady course, as if in astonishment that love so vast should meet a doom so fearful. No wonder that all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, beholding love incarnate rejected, crucified, tortured, beholding the way in which men treat the embodied perfection of virtue, smote their breasts and returned sorrowing! No wonder that the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, as if to see if it were indeed true that love could find so ungrateful a return, and that none were found so enamoured of divine love’s charms as to rally round the Saviour in His defence and to His protection! The Saviour’s crucifixion is indeed calculated to give us an exalted view of the force of the Saviour’s love; but it is also calculated to give a depressing view of the degradation of our humanity. The darkness of earth’s sins and miseries and want of power to appreciate the highest goodness clouded over and eclipsed the light of heaven’s goodness. Earth has no darker sin, history has no blacker page, humanity has no fouler spot, than that of the Saviour’s crucifixion.
[2] “Les jeunes filles qui auraient peut-être consenti à l’aimer,” etc.
IV. By the gracious results of the sending.—Earth was darkened by the Saviour’s crucifixion, but through the darkness came ever-expanding streams of light. Thus Jesus was sin’s destroyer. Thus was opened up a way for the justification and sanctification of those who “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” We mourn that our sins crucified the Lord of light and of glory; but we rejoice that out of the sinless Sufferer’s offering arises the moral betterment and enrichment of mankind. Let us show our true gratitude by not crucifying the Son of God afresh, by triumphing over sin, by walking after the Spirit of light and of purity.
The coming of God’s own Son in the flesh.—The third verse may be read literally, and more intelligibly, by reversing the order of the clauses, thus: “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh—a thing which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh.” Without entering on many collateral controversies, ancient or modern, which these words may suggest, we observe that the great lesson conveyed is that there was something which the law could not do, and which the incarnation of the Son of God did. He sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Not in sinful flesh, but “in the likeness of it.” Does this mean that Christ’s nature was a mere likeness of humanity? Surely, to put this question is to answer it; if Christ’s manhood were not real, then there is no solid footing for faith, hope, and charity on this stricken earth. But let us mark the very words of Holy Writ. God sent His Son in the likeness—not of flesh, but—of sinful flesh. It was in its very essence humanity; but it was not in essence sinful humanity. But it never was stained with sin, and He could not know the bitterness of remorse. And yet He knew that hiding of the Father’s face, that darkness of desolation, which is for us the first, last, worst result of transgression. I believe that though He never sinned He was really tempted to sin; and that therefore there must have been something in the nature of the God-man upon which the evil one could lay hold; that the chords which bound the heart of holy Jesus to the Father’s bosom were not so screened from assault, but that the devil seized and strained them till they moaned as though they would break. Yet were they not broken. How this was we cannot tell; but I will admit all mysteries and take my stand on the Scriptures which tell us that He suffered in soul and body from the mighty tempter’s power; suffered, as the strong wrestler suffers ere he hurls his antagonist upon the ground, as the soldier suffers ere he can rest his reeking sword on the trampled sod where the dead foe is stretched. He came in the flesh, but only in the likeness of sinful flesh. His was a true, a tried, but not a sinful humanity. What, then, did this mission of God’s Son accomplish that was beyond the power of the law? We answer:—
I. It showed that human nature is not essentially or originally sinful.—Into our world, thus explaining away its iniquity and shortcoming, Christ has brought vivid picture of holiness in His own life, teaching us that the law of God is at once true to the nature of man and to the nature of God. For when men looked at Him as He fulfilled the law, and saw how good He was, how pure and sinless, the first thought was, “How true a man!” and the next, “How divine!” There were indeed times when the sense of His perfection was insupportable, and the cry of the stricken heart was, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Yet even this very cry led up to the confident conviction which said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
II. But, further, the mission of God’s Son in the flesh also enabled us to see at once the hatefulness of sin and the loveliness of holiness.—We can now hardly realise what a change in the nature of religious profession Christ has made. We now look upon a world into which Christ’s life has been infused, upon men and women who know that He is at once their model and their strength. But this is the result of a revolution. There was nothing in the world when Christ came, nothing in known history, to attract men to what we now understand by “holiness,” and gentle words never heralded such a revolution as did that cry of the great Teacher, “Take up My yoke and learn of Me.”
III. But, further, the mission of God’s Son effected the severance of the sinner from his sin.—That, as we have already seen, was what the law could not effect. But Christ has brought it about in fact and in our consciousness. It is in this strange division between the sinner and his sin that the power of Christ’s cross is seen.
IV. The mission of God’s Son thus brings it to pass that “the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”—Although this be the result in the blessed experience of very many, it is a fact resting on a further mystery. And some who can go along with us in what has been already said may now stop in uncertainty. The present life of Christ is imparted to me. It is not only that my sins are forgiven, but that the power of sin is taken away. It is not only that if I were like Christ I should be happy, but it is that Christ comes into me, and by His Spirit renews me day by day. Life could never come by law, and therefore righteousness could never come by law; but now life comes to men by Christ, a new life,—a life of holy thoughts and pure desires; a life of love, joy, patience, peace; a life which is like Christ’s life, rather which is Christ’s life. What is it to you and me that Christ has come? Is it the power of a new life? Is your religion only in your Bible, or is it in your heart? Is your Saviour in heaven or in you?—A. H. Charteris.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 8:3-4
The presence of the Son proclaims the death of sin.—“Condemned sin”: proclaimed the doom of sin. Since sin has been represented as a ruler, its doom must be dethronement. “In the flesh.” By sending His own Son in a body of flesh like that in which sin had set up its throne, and by sending Him because of sin and to save us from sin, God proclaimed in the midst of the empire of sin that that empire will be overthrown. The birth of Christ was an invasion of a province which sin had seduced into revolt and brought under its own sway. When we see the King’s Son enter the revolted province without opposition, and know that He has come because of the revolt, we are sure that the King is both able and determined to overthrow the rule of the usurper. The presence of the King’s Son proclaims the usurper’s coming dethronement.—Beet.
The Son’s pre-existence.—The term “sending,” by itself, would not necessarily imply the pre-existence of Christ; for it may apply to the appearance of a mere man charged with a divine mission. But the notion of pre-existence necessarily follows from the relation of this verb to the expression “His own Son,” especially if we take account of the regimen: “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” It is evident that, in the view of one who speaks thus, the existence of this Son preceded His human existence. The expression “His own Son,” literally “the Son of Himself,” forbids us to give to the title “Son” either the meaning of “eminent man,” or “theocratic king,” or even “Messiah.” It necessarily refers to this Son’s personal relation to God, and indicates that Him whom God sends He takes from His own bosom. Paul marks the contrast between the nature of the envoy (the true Son of God) and the manner of His appearing here below: “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” This expression “sinful flesh” (strictly, “flesh of sin”) has been understood by many, especially most recently by Holsten, as implying the idea that sin is inherent in the flesh—that is to say, in the bodily nature. It would follow therefrom—and this critic accepts the consequence—that Jesus Himself, according to Paul, was not exempt from the natural sin inseparable from the substance of the body. Only Holsten adds that this objective sin never controlled the will of Jesus, nor led Him to a positive transgression. The pre-existing divine Spirit of Christ constantly kept the flesh in obedience. We have already seen (Romans 6:6) that if the body is to the soul a cause of its fall, it is only so because the will itself is no longer in its normal state. If by union with God it were inwardly upright and firm, it would control the body completely; but being itself since the Fall controlled by selfishness, it seeks a means of satisfaction in the body, and the latter takes advantage therefrom to usurp a malignant dominion over it. Thus, and thus only, can Paul connect the notion of sin so closely with that of “body” or “flesh.” Otherwise he would be obliged to make God Himself, as the creator of the body, the author of sin. What proves in our very passage that he is not at all regarding sin as an attribute inseparable from the flesh is the expression he uses in speaking of Jesus: “in the likeness of a flesh of sin.” Had he meant to express the idea ascribed to him by Holsten, why speak of likeness? Why not say simply “in a flesh of sin”—that is to say, sinful like ours. While affirming similarity of substance between the flesh of Jesus and ours, the very thing the apostle wishes here is to set aside the idea of likeness in quality (in respect of sin). This is done clearly by the expression which he has chosen. Thus we understand the connection between the “condemned” of Romans 8:3 and the “no condemnation” (Romans 8:1). In His life He condemned that sin which, by remaining master of ours, would have brought into it condemnation. The relation between Romans 8:3-4 becomes also very simple. The condemnation of sin in Christ’s life is the means appointed by God to effect its destruction in ours.—Godet.