Clear and Not So Clear
so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:4 NASB
So that – Before we can figure out what the consequences of perí hamartías (“for sin” Hebrew ʾāšam) meant for Paul, we’ll need to determine who the pronoun refers to in the previous verse. The verse is “he condemned sin in the flesh.” Who is “he”? Is it God who condemns sin in the flesh because of some relation to the Messiah, or is it the Messiah who condemns sin in the flesh through some act he performs? The Greek doesn’t really help us here. katekrine hamartian en te sarki doesn’t tell us who the pronoun refers to. But the context might. Since it is God who acts, sending His son, it seems that this act of God also condemns sin in the flesh. God is the agent. Yeshua is the means.
But does this make any sense? Didn’t God condemn sin in the flesh long before? Isn’t that what the Torah tells us? In what way does God sending His son make any difference when it comes to condemnation of sin in the flesh? For that matter, what is “sin in the flesh”? Isn’t sin just sin, whether it is in the flesh or not? Paul’s point seems to be that the Messiah is not qualitatively different than us. He was flesh and blood, just like we are. He lived in the same “soup,” the world in rebellion, separated from its Creator—just like us. And because of this situation, the Messiah plays a particularly important role in reconciliation. He shows us the way—not a way that can only be accomplished by some quasi-divine figure, but a way that restores all humanity to God—the way established by God’s Kingdome on earth. Paul points out that it is God who does this. God created the plan. God initiated the plan. God is the active agent in all this because God wants reconciliation. Perhaps Paul is thinking that the Messiah returns his followers to Torah, God’s original plan, but any prophet could have done that (and they tried). So, what’s different now?
Paul is writing to an ex-pagan/Jewish audience in Rome. Jews certainly understood the connection between bodily passions and sin, but the ex-pagan followers of the Messiah came from a different world. In Roman society, a person’s behavior did not affect relationship with the gods. What mattered was strict adherence to the rituals dictated by the gods. Morality was not an issue. Perfect observance of festivals, offerings, and images was. So, for pagans there were no “sins in the flesh” that disqualified religious approval. If these people became followers of the Messiah within the Jewish way of living, they would need to know that morality was an integral part of serving the God of Israel. Behavior mattered! Therefore, Paul might find it necessary to convince these ex-pagans that the leader of this movement, Yeshua HaMashiach, a human being, was the representative of what it meant to be truly faithful to the God of Israel, and this meant that “sins in the flesh” were condemned. The Hebrew idea of morality was crucial to the Hebrew God, and the life of the Messiah proved it. Romans 8:3 must be read from the perspective of the originally intended audience, not from our post-Reformation point of view.
Now we might be able to understand the consequences.
All of the preceding leads to this conclusion: hína (“so that”) the dikaíōma (requirement) of the law might be fulfilled (plēróthē) in us. dikaíōma is at stake. What is this? “The most common sense in the NT is ‘statute,’ ‘ordinance,’ especially the divine ordinances in Lk. 1:6; Rom. 2:26; Heb. 9:1 (cultic regulations), or God’s moral decree in Rom. 1:32, or the whole law of God in Rom. 8:4. . . The word is then used for a ‘right action’ in fulfilment [sic] of a legal requirement.”[1]
In other words, when God condemned personal immorality (as defined by the Torah) through His agent, the Messiah, we discovered two critically important things: 1) that religious ritual isn’t sufficient, and 2) that following the way of the Messiah is possible and pleasing to God. As a human being, Yeshua showed us the way. That way embraced the morality of the Torah—quite the opposite of the pagan view of the first century. What is required is walking according to the Spirit of the God of Israel, as demonstrated in the life of the Messiah. Paul’s concern is that Gentiles who have been called to Israel’s God will understand their moral responsibility as outlined in the Torah, realizing that this was completely opposed to their common pagan understanding but is within their reach.
How else do you think we can read this verse without importing our own post-Christian assumptions?
Topical Index: dikaíōma, requirement, ritual, religion, law, Romans 8:4
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 176). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
