Romans 8:3-4. 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: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The law never made anybody holy, and it never will do so. The law says to a man, "This is what you ought to do, and you will be condemned if you do not do it." That is quite true, but the law supplies no power to enable us to do this. It says to the lame man, "You must walk," and to the blind man, "You must see; "but it does not enable them either to walk or to see. On the contrary, our nature is such that, when the law issues its commands, there is a tendency in us at once to disobey them. There are some sins, which we never should have thought of committing if we had not been commanded not to do them, so that the law - not because of its own nature, but because of the wickedness of our nature, is weak and ineffectual for the producing of righteousness. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come, has lived, and has died, - died for us who are his people, and has put away our sins. Now we love him; now, being delivered from all condemnation, we love him who has delivered us, and this becomes the forge by which we are inclined to holiness, and led us further and further in a course, not merely of morality, but of holiness before God. What a blessed system this is, which saves the sinner from the love of sin, delivers a man from sinning, gives him a new nature, and puts a right spirit within him!
Romans 8:3-4. 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: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The law never made anybody holy, and it never will do so. The law says to a man, "This is what you ought to do, and you will be condemned if you do not do it." That is quite true, but the law supplies no power to enable us to do this. It says to the lame man, "You must walk," and to the blind man, "You must see; "but it does not enable them either to walk or to see. On the contrary, our nature is such that, when the law issues its commands, there is a tendency in us at once to disobey them. There are some sins, which we never should have thought of committing if we had not been commanded not to do them, so that the law - not because of its own nature, but because of the wickedness of our nature, is weak and ineffectual for the producing of righteousness. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come, has lived, and has died, - died for us who are his people, and has put away our sins. Now we love him; now, being delivered from all condemnation, we love him who has delivered us, and this becomes the forge by which we are inclined to holiness, and led us further and further in a course, not merely of morality, but of holiness before God. What a blessed system this is, which saves the sinner from the love of sin, delivers a man from sinning, gives him a new nature, and puts a right spirit within him!