{The Requirements of the Law Are Fulfilled in Christ!}

Do you not know? Have you not heard? God did it! God sent His One and only Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin. Why did He do this? We read in Romans 1-3 that men do not fear Him, they do not honor Him, and they exchanged His incorruptible glory for a corruptible image. {The man that Romans speaks of is me, and all humanity.} This man-made image will fade away, but the God who always was will always be! The God of heaven and earth, who man rejected, sent His Son to die for our sins and to accomplish in us what the Law could not do.

Paul ended Romans chapter 7, crying out, ” Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death!” Paul is still trapped in his body of death. You and I are still trapped in our bodies of death. Our soul is yearning to be set free into the glory that is ours in Christ Jesus! That day will come, but until it does hang onto the hope that is set before you and run your race!

Immediately after crying out,” Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death,” he cries out, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Paul understands something we as believers need to grasp. What is it that he knows that we believers need to know and understand?

What the Love of God Has Done

In the flesh or the unregenerate state, the unbelieving state, we were bound by the Law of sin and death. That Law required our spiritual and eternal death. All men, women, and children are born in this state of death. Romans 5:12:” Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” By God’s just judgment, everyone born is subject to die an eternal death. Genesis 2:16-17: “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die.”

Romans 8:3 teaches, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh“…

What was it that the Law could not do?

According to Romans 8:2, The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the Law of sin and death. The Law cannot set us free from itself nor can it change us from the inside out. The book of Galatians describes us as being held in custody by the Law. To be set free, there must be a release from the custody of the Law and there must be a heart change. Remember the man we talked about earlier in this post? This man has a heart problem. A heart change is only accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit! The Law commands perfect obedience. An unregenerate person will look at the Law and through his own works try to do all that the Law requires. But man cannot fulfill these requirements perfectly. If you are a moral, unregenerate person, the only thing the Law has done for you changes you from the outside. Your heart is not changed.

God’s love sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. Romans 8:3

God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. Philippians 2:6-8 teaches, “Christ emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond slave, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Hebrews 2:14 teaches, “Therefore since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” 

Likeness does not mean that Christ was able to sin and did not. Likeness means that he took on flesh. He looked like a man in appearance. He had hands, feet, eyes, ears… He got hungry, and He felt pain, physical and mental. BUT HE never sinned, nor was he able to sin. Think about it. God required a perfect unblemished lamb for a sacrifice. For Christ to be accepted as this sacrifice, He would have to be perfect, never to sin nor able to sin. There was no sin found in Him. We sin because we are sinners. That is our natural state. Christ is perfect in His self. He is the exact opposite of us.

Likeness means he took on a human body to fulfill the requirements of the Law. He was perfectly obedient to God’s Law, the Ten Commandments. But He also fulfilled the requirements of the Levitical Law. God sent Him as an offering for sin that would appease the wrath that was placed upon mankind because of their unrighteousness. In the Old Testament, God required a daily offering for sin. This offering satisfied His judgment. Christ is the fulfillment of that judgment, and God is well pleased with the sacrifice of His son.

Christ Condemned Sin in the Flesh

Christ came to earth to die. He came to live under the Law and to become a curse for us by hanging on the cross. On the cross, God placed the sins of the world on Him and poured His wrath on Christ that was upon us. God passed judgment on sin. He pronounced a sentence against sin, declaring that it was evil. He sentenced it to death through Christ.

What the Believer Needs to Understand

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If we are in Christ Jesus, the wrath and judgment of God are satisfied through His Son! We have died with Christ and are no longer considered unrighteous and evil. The perfection that the Law required is fulfilled in us through Christ.

The Good Work that God Began in Us

At our conversion, God began a good work in us. The rest of our days spent here on this earth will be lived out in imperfection because of sin that still dwells in us. The believer needs to stop living for their own perfection and rest in the perfection of Christ. Should we stop fighting sin? May it never be! Keep fighting the war that is within, but fight in the power of the Holy Spirit! I have learned to say, “God, I cannot do this, but I know you can. Please give me the power and the strength to walk in obedience. And when I fail, please give me repentance and grace to keep moving forward.”

He Will Carry Us On To Completion. 

 He who began the good work in you will carry it on to completion. Philippians 1:6. Will you praise God with me for His amazing love and grace?

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