Paul begins by explaining that because of the “flesh,” the “law,” or the works of the law, could in no way help us obtain salvation. But what did Paul mean by the word “flesh”?
Zachariasz Łyko – Meaning of Flesh in Romans 8:3
Polish Adventist Professor Zachariasz Łyko, in his book Teachings of the Holy Scriptures (Nauki Pisma Świętego), page 500, explains the meaning of the word “flesh” used in Romans 8:3:
“The word flesh (Hebrew basar, Greek sarx) is, in biblical symbolism, synonymous with natural, fallen, and sinful human nature, which is centred on fleshly (material) concerns… The concept of carnality, which is equivalent to sinfulness, is not limited merely to the body, that is, the physical (somatic) aspect of the human being, but also includes the spiritual dimension—our psyche and entire personality.” (Professor Zachariasz Łyko, Teachings of the Holy Scriptures [Nauki Pisma Świętego], p. 500; translated from Polish).
Anders Nygren – Meaning of “Likeness of Sinful Flesh” in Romans 8:3
Now that we understand the meaning of the word “flesh,” let us carefully read Romans 8:3:
“For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:3, NKJV).
There is no doubt that in this passage the word “flesh” refers not merely to our physical bodies, but to our fallen nature. And we would all be in complete agreement today that Christ took our fallen nature if it were not for the word “likeness”.
Some theologians believe that if Paul had intended to teach that Christ shared our fallen humanity, he would not have written “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” but simply “in sinful flesh.” Therefore, according to these theologians, the fact that Paul used the expression “in the likeness of” undoubtedly means that he wanted us to understand that the human nature of the Son of God was only similar to ours, but not exactly the same. In other words, His human nature was not sinful but sinless.
Let us now consider what Anders Nygren had to say about this subject. Nygren was one of the most distinguished theologians, a professor of Systematic Theology at Lund University, the author of a well-known commentary on Romans and the highly influential Christian book Agape and Eros. Professor Froom wrote of this theologian that he was one of the few non-Adventist theologians who proclaimed the same message as Waggoner and Jones.
Here is how Anders Nygren explains what the apostle Paul may have meant when he wrote in Romans 8:3 that God sent His Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh”:
“Paul seeks to assure us that when Christ came into this world, He, like us, came under the influence of the same powers. This means that He too came under wrath, sin, law, and death.
He came under wrath, because in delivering us from the curse, He Himself became a curse (Galatians 3:13). He came under sin, because God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). He came under the law, because when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law (Galatians 4:4). And Hebrews 2:14 tells us that He became subject to death, so that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14).
Here too, in the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul had to say the same thing, because if Christ had not been made subject to any one of these powers, they would not have been deprived of their strength and condemned.
If Christ had not taken upon Himself the entire burden of sin (including the indwelling law of sin from Romans 15-25), He would have remained free from that which gives death its sting (1 Corinthians 15:56). In that case, sin (singular sin refers to the indwelling law of sin) would not have been put to death but would have gained absolute dominion.
Paul chose his words carefully because he had to take into account two seemingly contradictory truths concerning Christ. In expressing them, he could not go too far in either direction. One truth was Christ’s perfect sinlessness, while the other was that He had to enter the same condition as we are in and become subject to the same powers.
For this very reason, Paul wrote that Christ came not in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Out of this very flesh arose for Him the same temptations as arise for us. Nevertheless, Christ completely overcame sin within its own kingdom.
This is precisely how God dealt with the old order—the law of sin and death.”
It was to be right in sin’s own realm that the Son was to bring sin to judgment, overcome it and take away its power….
Paul is concerned to affirm that when Christ came into the world, He actually stood under the same conditions as we, and under the same destroying powers as had man in bondage…
Christ’s carnal nature was no unreality, but simple, tangible fact. He shared all our conditions. He was under the same powers of destruction. Out of ‘the flesh‘ arose for Him the same temptations as for us. But in all this He was master of sin…
It was to be right in sin’s own realm that the Son was to bring sin to judgment, overcome it, and take away its power. It is therefore important that with Christ it is actually a matter of ‘sinful flesh,’ of sarx hamartias.”
(Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans, pp. 313–317).
J.A.T. Robinson
“Jesus was a man born into the conditions of human existence, sharing fully in the limitations and contingencies of our flesh. He was not exempt from the realities of human weakness, yet he was uniquely open to God.” (The Human Face of God, p. 176)
“Paul’s phrase ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Romans 8:3) indicates that Christ’s humanity was no mere appearance but a real participation in the flesh that is prone to sin, yet without sinning himself.” (The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology, p. 34–35)
“Christ’s humanity was not a theoretical or idealized humanity, but the humanity we know, marked by the conditions of a fallen world—mortality, struggle, and the possibility of temptation.” (Thou Who Art, p. 89)
C.E.B. Cranfield
“The Son of God assumed the selfsame fallen human nature that is ours, but that in his case that fallen human nature was never the whole of him—he never ceased to be the eternal Son of God.” (Commentary on Romans, vol. 1, p. 382)
“If we recognize that Paul believed it was fallen human nature which the Son of God assumed, we shall probably be inclined to see here also a reference to the unintermittent warfare of His whole earthly life by which He forced our rebellious nature to render a perfect obedience to God.” (Commentary on Romans, 1:383)
Edward Irving
“Christ’s humanity was ‘fallen,’ indeed ‘sinful,’ but personally sinless through the Spirit’s power.” (Collected Writings, vol. 5, p. 126)
Emil Brunner
“What Christ assumed was human nature, not human personality. This means that what he assumed was the genuine possibility of temptation and sin, but not that personality which is already corrupted by original sin. This, of course, points up the truth that sin is always a personal act, and never a fact of nature.” (The Mediator, p. 318–20; also Dogmatics II, p. 343–50)
“The Son of God assumed the whole of humanity… the divine miracle does not permit us to offer detailed explanations of it.” (The Mediator, p. 320–27)
Harry Johnson
“The eternal Son of God became man for our salvation; but what kind of human nature did He assume? The answer of this book is that He took human nature as it was because of the Fall. Despite this, He lived a perfect, sinless life, and finally redeemed this ‘fallen nature’ through His Cross; in this victory is the basis of Atonement.” (The Humanity of the Saviour, flyleaf)
“To have a real identity with mankind whom He [Christ] came to save, to be the ‘Son of Man,’ it was essential that He should become a part of the human race in the very fullest sense. Does this mean that He became part of the humanity that had been weakened by the sin of generation after generation? Certainly, if He did assume this ‘fallen human nature,’ then in reality He was one with mankind.” (The Humanity of the Saviour, 56)
“The Cross was the final battle with the power of sin, and the battle was decisive, once and for all. In that struggle the ‘fallen nature‘ which He assumed was nailed to the Cross, purged and cleansed even through death; thus in Jesus, risen and victorious, there is a root of sinless humanity.” (The Humanity of the Saviour, 62)
“Jesus shared our ‘fallen human nature,’ a nature which, while it did not make sin inevitable in such a way as to undermine responsibility, yet did, nevertheless, make sin ‘highly probable‘ … Through the power of this divine nature (controlled by the Holy Spirit) the weaknesses of His human nature were overcome so that He did live a perfect life.” (The Humanity of the Saviour, 30, 31)
Jack Sequeira
“Christ dealt with sin as nature by identifying Himself personally with the sin problem. In other words, Christ took human nature at the point He found it, and through His life of obedience and His death on the cross, He condemned sin in the flesh.” (Sequeira 2009: 355)
“According to the clear teaching of the Bible, the entire human race was placed into Christ, the second Adam, at the incarnation. Thus by His obedience, the entire human race was objectively justified unto life at the cross.” (Romans 5:18; Sequeira article)
“Jesus assumed ‘fallen human nature,’ but He never added to this nature His will, and there was no break in fellowship between Himself and His Father.” (Sequeira citing Johnson/Waggoner/Jones context)
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John Calvin
“The flesh of Christ… is like to our flesh in all respects, sin only being excepted.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.13.4)
Karl Barth
“He [Jesus] was not a sinful man. But inwardly and outwardly His situation was that of a sinful man. He did not commit the sin of Adam. But He lived the human life in the very condition to which it had been limited by the sin of Adam. Remaining guiltless, He took on the consequences of the guilt of Adam and the consequences of the guilt of us all. Freely He entered into solidarity and necessary association with our fallen and lost existence.” (Church Dogmatics I/2, p. 152)
“The [human] nature taken on by God in Christ is identical to our nature, that of men placed under the banner of the fall. If this were not the case, then how could Christ be like one of us? And in what way would He have been of interest to us? Therefore, the Son of God, not only took our nature, but He entered into the condition of our distress as men condemned, fallen and separated from God.” (Church Dogmatics I/2, p. 153)
Oscar Cullmann
“The flesh, the power of death, entered man with the sin of Adam. It entered the whole man, inner and outer in such a way that it is very closely linked with the body.” (Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?, p. 101)
“Jesus saw death as separation from God, who is life and the Creator of all life. He experienced death in all its horror, not only in the body but also in His soul.” (Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?, p. 133)
Rudolf Bultmann
“In the New Testament, ‘flesh’ (sarx) denotes the sphere of human existence in its weakness and transitoriness, subject to sin and death. Christ’s coming in the flesh means his full participation in this human reality.” (Theology of the New Testament, vol. 1, p. 238–39)
“The Word became flesh (John 1:14), that is, entered into the human situation of weakness and mortality, to bring salvation through his death and resurrection.” (Jesus Christ and Mythology, p. 35)
T.F. Torrance
“Christ bore a fallen yet sinless human nature.” (Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, p. 63)
“The Incarnation was the coming of God to save us in the heart of our fallen and depraved humanity, where humanity is at its wickedest in its enmity and violence against the reconciling love of God. That is to say, the Incarnation is to be understood as the coming of God to take upon himself our fallen human nature, our actual human existence laden with sin and guilt.” (The Mediation of Christ, p. 48-49)
W.W. Prescott
“Jesus Christ came, of flesh, and in the flesh… takes the very flesh now borne by humanity; He comes in sinful flesh, and takes the case where Adam tried it and failed.” (The Doctrine of Christ, pp. 6-7)
“Jesus Christ had exactly the same flesh that we bear, — flesh of sin, flesh in which we sin, flesh, however, in which He did not sin… All humanity was brought together in Jesus Christ. He suffered on the cross, then, it was the whole family in Jesus Christ that was crucified.” (Armadale Sermon, 1895)
Watchman Nee
“The flesh is the worst part of fallen man… Christ incarnated in fallen flesh.” (The Spiritual Man, vol. 2, p. 45)
“Christ died in my stead, but He bore me with Him to the Cross, so that when He died I died. Not only have our sins been laid on Him but we ourselves have been put into Him.” (Dying With the Lord)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“We now know that we have been taken up and borne in the humanity of Jesus, and therefore that new nature we now enjoy means that we too must bear the sins and sorrows of others.” (Life Together, p. 100)
“God’s Son took on our nature, ourselves. Now we are in him. Where he is, there we are too, in the incarnation, on the Cross, and in His resurrection. We belong to him because we are in him. That is why the Scriptures call us the Body of Christ.” (Life Together)
E. J. Waggoner
“It must have been sinful man that Christ was made like unto, for He came to redeem sinful man. Christ took upon Himself, not the nature of unfallen beings, but the nature of sinful man, with all the weaknesses and tendencies to sin to which fallen human nature is subject.” (E. J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness)
“Our sins were not merely figuratively laid upon Him, but were actually in Him. He was made a curse for us; He was made sin for us, and consequently suffered death for us… Yet He Himself committed no sin.” (E. J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness)
M. C. Wilcox
“In the womb of His mother Christ received sinful flesh, the same flesh possessed by all the children of Adam… Yet although possessing this flesh with its tendencies to sin, He never sinned. Living faith kept the power of God ruling over these tendencies.” (Signs of the Times, 1900)
Ellen G. White
“For four thousand years the race had been decreasing in physical strength, in mental power, and in moral worth; and Christ took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity. Only thus could He rescue man from the lowest depths of his degradation.” (The Desire of Ages, 117)