The Law was Weak through the Flesh

Romans 8:3 because the impossible thing of the law in which it was being weak through the flesh, God [did], ...

In the previous chapter (Romans 7), Paul recounted his pre-salvation struggles trying to live for God according to his law (7:15–19). However, he eventually realised that this was “the impossible thing of the law.” The law could not keep him from sin and enable him to live righteously because “it was being weak [to do as Paul had expected] through the flesh.”

Notice that the law “was being weak through the flesh,” and not because it was deficient (7:7, 12, 16). Paul was very careful to clarify that it was not the law which disabled him from living righteously. Contrarily, he repeatedly stated that the blame lay with sin which dwells in the flesh, which inclines a person to live sinfully (7:17–18, 20, 23). The law was merely a tool used by sin to produce sinfulness in a person’s life (7:5, 8, 11, 13).

Since the law was not at fault, rejecting God’s law from one’s life would not solve the problem of sin, and neither would it enable one to lead a God-pleasing life. Contrarily, “the mind of the flesh is enmity unto God because it is not submitted to the law of God, because neither is it able. Therefore the ones who are in flesh are not able to please God” (vv. 7–8). A true believer would not reject God’s law, but would instead be submissive to it, being empowered by “the law of the spirit of the life” (v. 2).

The point of Romans 7 is that on our own, we cannot live according to God’s law because of sin; something more needed to be done. Sin needed to be dealt with. The law made known to Paul the existence of sin in his flesh (7:7), but could not deal with it. But praise the Lord, what we could not do through the law, God did! You see, the solution to the problem of sin is not for us to reject God’s law, but for God do to in us what the law cannot!