For Sin

“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 8:3)

The law, as perfect and holy as it is, could not, cannot and will not ever release the guilty for the sake of mercy, without its full satisfaction in precept and penalty. It is not that the law is weak. Its strength is what condemns sinners every day to eternal condemnation. But the flesh of sinful men is weak to satisfy its just demands. Sinners are unable to satisfy it, yet it can do no less than DEMAND absolute perfection. Not even God Himself can acquit sinners or show mercy, unless His law and justice are first fully satisfied, equal with HIS righteousness.

Therefore, God sent His own Eternal Son in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh. He was born of a virgin [Isaiah 7:14] and not a direct descendant of Adam, inseminated in the womb by God’s Spirit [Luke 1:35] but wholly and perfectly MAN, like the sinful, depraved, condemned sinners He came to save. And yet He Himself had no sin nor ever experienced it, either in His life or in His death, Hebrews 4:15! It was necessary that He be the SINLESS Lamb of God because God cannot accept anything less than perfection and still remain holy and just. When the Scripture says that He was MADE sin, 2 Corinthians 5:21 it is with the qualification, who knew no sin. It cannot mean that He was made sinful nor a sinner because even in death He had to remain the Perfect Lamb. It says He died THE JUST for the unjust, not a sinner for the unjust, 1 Pet. 3:18.

Some foolishly argue that God could not have killed His Son had He not actually been guilty of the sin of His people for whom He died or be made sinful like them. However, nothing about His death shows Him to have died the death of a sinner. His was not a natural death that sinners die but rather the death of a Substitute. The Scripture says that He died FOR SIN, not in sin. So complete was His sacrifice FOR SIN that God is satisfied, once and for all on behalf of those FOR whom He died. They are said to be redeemed, justified, sanctified, adopted and forgiven fully and freely BY HIS BLOOD, Romans 5:9. It is His death FOR SIN, reckoned His BY IMPUTATION, not infused in Him, that He put away the sin of His people once for all, Hebrews 10:10. “Now, where remission of these is, there is no more offering forsin...” (Hebrews 10:18) Anything more or less is NOT substitution.

If He redeemed you, God has already justified you fully and in time either has given or will give you His Spirit, to regenerate [Titus 3:5] indwell [Romans 8:9] and REVEAL in you this blessed, glorious, Sinless Substitute. Christ indwells the believing sinner through Spirit-given-faith, Ephesians 3:17. This is the Savior in Whom the believing sinner rests ALL his hope.