In Romans 8:3 the apostle Paul again highlights the significance of Christ’s coming (see also Romans 3:1–31, Romans 5:1–21, and Romans 6:1–23). This time he describes it in a way that closely aligns with what he had written in Romans 7:1–25 about the power of human nature, the flesh.
In original the Greek he literally writes that God sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh and did so for sins
and that thereby sin is condemned in the flesh.
Sin is condemned in the very place where it had raged, in the hearth of this deadly fire: the physical man with his passions. Sin stirs up these passions against the law of God, which is how man’s sinful nature manifests in practice.
God conquered sin by condemning it in the flesh. This condemnation (Greek: katakrinein) took place when Jesus, as sovereign, overcame sin through his divine holiness. He has condemned sin as an intruder into human nature. Over time, it had started seem as if sin had become inherent to humanity after Adam, yet through his perfectly holy and loving life, Jesus has unmasked sin as an intruder not belonging in man as such. This also constitutes the major difference between the condemnation of sin by the law—essentially a condemnation from the outside—and Jesus’ condemnation of sin from the inside. His earthly life showcases how good life truly is without the power of sin. Some exegetes restrict this condemnation of sin to Jesus’ sacrificial death, but Paul here speaks about all of Jesus’ life as man (in the flesh
). The man from Nazareth reveals how sin does not truly belong in this world.1
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,