You’ve probably heard it said, “It doesn’t matter what you believe; it’s how you live that counts.” Is this true? A. J. Gordon encountered this philosophy one time as he talked with a fellow passenger on a train. The man believed he could get to heaven by his good works. Pointing to the conductor who was making his way through the coach, Gordon asked his new friend, “Did you ever notice how carefully he always examines the ticket but takes no pains whatever to inspect the passenger?” … “You see,” continued Gordon, “the passenger and the ticket are accepted together. If [the passenger] doesn’t have [a ticket], or has the wrong one, he will be asked to get off the train—no matter how honest he might appear to be. Just as the ticket stands for the man, faith stands for you.” ¹ You have to have the right ticket to make it to heaven. Keeping the law is not it.

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Romans 8:3 (KJV)
3 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:
If you remember, and if you don’t remember it’s okay (there is a link in the show notes if you want to review the thread), we said the three words ‘could not do’ were one word in the Greek.

• Simply stated. Keeping the law will not get you to heaven.
• Automatically, questions arise.
• Didn’t the law come from God?
• Isn’t God perfect? The answer to both is yes.
• Since the law came from a perfect God, then the law itself must be perfect.
• Well if everything is perfect, why is there a problem with the law?
• Romans 8:3 answers this with ‘It was weak through the flesh.
• This still doesn’t quite answer all the questions.
• Here’s one more. Isn’t God all knowing? If God is all knowing, then He must have known that the law wouldn’t work.  So, why did He still give it? If He knew the thing was not going to work, why did He give it?
• One way you can glean the answer, not the only way, is to understand the law of seed-time and harvest.

What Is Seed-Time and Harvest?

• Seed time and harvest is about planting seeds and reaping harvests.
• But there is more than that.
• Between planting the seed and reaping the harvest there is something which must take place.
• You don’t just plant the seed and BAM, instant fruit, instant vegetables.
• Something happens in the ground to the seed once it has been committed.
• What is that something? Development.
• Everything which goes on between God and man works on the principle of development.
• And, here’s one thing we know about development. It takes time.
• God’s individual plan for your life is tied to development.
• You have to grow in order to move on, in order to move up.
• God’s corporate plan works in a similar fashion. It’s tied to development.
• Ask yourself this question. Why did it take 4000 years to get Jesus into the earth? Why?
• How come God didn’t send Jesus right away?
• Adam lived on the earth for 930 years.
• Think about it, almost ten centuries.
• Wasn’t ten centuries enough time to get Jesus into the earth?

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Galatians 4:4–5 (KJV)
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

• Things in God’s plan had to develop.
• Situations had to mature.
• Circumstances had to fall into place.
• The Bible calls all of that development, ‘the fulness of time.’
• The giving of the law was a step in the plan. It wasn’t the whole plan.
• The law wasn’t the culmination of the plan.
• Jesus was the culmination of the plan.

[Tweet “The law was never the culmination of God’s plan. Jesus was the culmination of the plan.”]

The Word ‘Weak’ in the Phrase ‘Weak through the Flesh’

• This word ‘weak’ in Romans 8:3 is the same word translated sick, ill, impotent or invalid in Luke 4:40.

Luke 4:40 (KJV)
40 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.

• Paul using the word, ‘weak’, in Romans 8:3, a word used for physical sickness, paints a graphic picture of the human condition.
• The flesh with the sin nature in tow, is completely debilitated, totally broken down, weak, sick, ill and afflicted, and can never be depended on to help live a godly life.
• God’s holy and perfect law simply couldn’t produce salvation in the life of man because the flesh was sick; infected with the sin nature.
• The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus gives us the ability to control the spread of this disease condition.
• Notice, I said control not eliminate.
• When a man is born again his insides are changed but his outsides remain the same. A born again person is alive in their heart but the sin nature still remains in their flesh. But you now have self-control, a fruit of the recreated born again human spirit.
• The combination of working with the Holy Spirit in your spirit to walk in newness of life is an ongoing situation designed to take you to the end of your life.
• At which point God has a new body prepared for you.
• Why do you need a new body? The old body is infected with the sin nature.
• Your current body which is the house of your spirit, with its infected sin nature will be scrapped for a new glorified sin free body (Romans 8:23, 2 Corinthians 5:1-3).

The Likeness of Sinful Flesh

• God sent his own Son in the likeness or resemblance of sinful flesh
• Note the verse says the ‘likeness’ of sinful flesh not the exactness of sinful flesh.
• Jesus did not have the sin nature. He had a physical body, just like you and I. But His body wasn’t infected with the sin nature.
• The sin nature is passed through the father.
• Thus in considering the word ‘likeness’, you run right into the doctrine of the virgin birth.

Why Was the Virgin Birth Necessary?

Genesis 2:17 (KJV)
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

• Literally, this reads “in the day of your eating from it, dying you shall die.”
• The Lord warns Adam of impending death but it’s not a singular death but a twofold death.
• You know what happened. Adam ate of the fruit of the tree. He violated God’s law. He then made aprons sewing them out of leaves.
• Think about this action of sewing fig leaves.
• This seems to be quite an achievement for someone so close to death, don’t you think?
• That’s what God told Adam. You eat, you die.
• It’s obvious Adam didn’t die physically ON THE DAY HE ATE. He is sowing fig leaves.
• He went from protecting the garden to become a fashion designer. Talk about a step down. That was it.
• Adam lived quite a long physical life after this point (Genesis 5:4-5).
• Adam did die on the day he ate. But, he didn’t die physically. He died spiritually. He died in his heart. His heart experienced spiritual death. His spirit became disconnected from the life of God.
• Darkness came into His heart.
• If you would, Adam became un-born again.
• Ephesians 2:1–3 describes this state .
• Adam died and by his action death, that is spiritual death, passed to all men.

Romans 5:12 (KJV)
12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

• How did spiritual death pass?
  • It passes through procreation.
• The sin nature is passed through the seed of man.
• You can see this passing of spiritual death to men by looking at the first man Adam.

Genesis 4:1–9 (KJV)
1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord 3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. 4 … And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell…8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. 9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?

• Look at Cain’s actions.
  • Cain was very wroth.
  • Cain rose up and slew his brother.
  • Cain lied about where his brother was.
• Where did anger, murder and lying come from?
• God didn’t create it. It wasn’t in the garden originally.
• Sin is the outgrowth of spiritual death.
• It was the inevitable outcome of Adam’s actions on the day he sinned eating of the fruit of the tree.
• All of the sin, you see recorded in the pages of the Bible, declared on the front pages of today’s newspapers, and voiced through the airwaves of this planet are the offspring of spiritual death.
• All of the atrocities of men have only one root sin nature.

The Wrong Kind of Help

• You’ve never sinned by yourself. You’ve always had help.
• The only man who ever sinned by himself was Adam.
• You’ve always had help.
• You’ve always had the sin nature to kick in on you.
• It caught you in your weak moments.
• In your down time. When you were physically spent
• In your emotionally low’s.
• So, don’t be hard on yourself. Repent. Access the blood of Jesus. He is faithful and just to forgive you.
• Every time you do so, Jesus beats the enemy and he uses your life to do it.

Matthew 1:18 (KJV)
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

• The Holy Spirit Himself was the father of Jesus.
• If the Holy Spirit had not been ‘the father’ component in Mary, the sin nature would have passed to Jesus through Joseph.
• That’s the reason Jesus had to be born of a virgin.
• That doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t experience all the other frailties innate to the human condition.
  • He experienced tiredness (John 4:6).
  • He knew sorrow (Luke 19:41-44).
  • He felt pain (Isaiah 53:3).
  • He experienced temptation (Heb. 4:15).
• So what the law could not do because it was weak through the flesh, ‘God sending his own Son’ in the likeness of sinful flesh fixes both the law problem and the sin problem.
• What the Law itself could not possibly do, God Himself personally did through Jesus.
• When the first Adam couldn’t fulfill the law of the garden, “You shall not eat of the tree”, the second Adam Jesus did. He fulfilled the law of the garden.
• Both Jesus and Adam were made the same way.
• The first Adam was made by the breath of God.
• The second Adam, Jesus was made by the breath of the Holy Spirit. Neither one of them had the sin nature.
• The first Adam fell. The second Adam got the job done.

The Sin Nature Stands Condemned

• …and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
• The words ‘for sin’ clues us into the purpose for Jesus coming.
• Jesus came because of the sin issue.

1 John 3:8 (KJV)
8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

• Jesus came for sin.
• He came to eliminate Satan’s access to your life because of sin.
• Now, we come to a familiar word, a word we have already looked at when we went through the first verse of Romans, the word condemned. God condemned sin in the flesh.
• The word ‘condemned’, in verse three, means to judge or to pass sentence.
• Listen to the Word here. God passed sentence against sin in the flesh.
• What comes to mind here, is a court of law.
  • Can you see the Judge coming in to take his position?
  • Note how everyone rises in honor of the Judge.
  • The verdict is then read in the hearing of the court.
  • “We find the defendant guilty.”
  • The sin nature stands condemned, as a shamefaced offender of the law of God.
  • The sin nature which has dogged mankind since the Garden has been found guilty.
  • The sentence is set. It’s a just sentence measured out by the courts of heaven.
  • The penalty? Death.
  • The date for the execution has been set.
  • The sin nature sits on death row.
  • Only the Father God knows the day and the hour.
  • He knows when we will receive our transformation.
  • He knows the day the infection called the sin nature will be completely removed from planet earth.
  • Our new body awaits us.
• What a strange thing a Christian is?
• Believers walk around on planet earth with an ‘old body’, a dead man on the outside. Such a ‘dead man’ whose nature sits on death row. And all the while they live, they are a free man on the inside filled with the life of the Most High God.

Call to Action:

We should understand all what Jesus accomplished in destroying the power of the sin nature. This knowledge should lead us to a degree of carefulness when it comes to sin. We will never honor God yielding to a nature Jesus died to destroy. Our life offers reverence to God as we walk in God and not allow the lust of the flesh to dominate us.

Episode Resources

You can find more information on Roaming through Romans by visiting the following posts:

1. #S2-020: How Romans Can Add Value to Your Life [Podcast]
2. #S2-021:  Why There Is No Condemnation In Christ [Podcast]
3. #S2-022: Why the Law of the Spirit of Life Sets You Free [Podcast]

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Question: How did God deal with your life to help you understand that keeping the law is not the way to heaven? Please share your comments in the comments section below.