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a
8:5.
The life and mind of the flesh.
b
8:6. Death.
c
8:7. Law's requirements unfulfilled.
B
8:8.
In the flesh cannot please God.
C
8:9. Not in the flesh Spirit of God Dwelleth in you.
D
8:12,13. Not debtors to the flesh its wages is death.
Its utter weakness, hopeless enmity and incurability are seen at a
glance, and a fuller examination will but intensify the conviction that
nothing short of a miracle of grace can accomplish salvation for those in
such abject bondage.
In Romans 5:6 -10 there is this fourfold description of those for whom
Christ died: 'without strength', 'ungodly', 'sinners', 'enemies'. There is a
fourfold division of the subject in Romans chapters 5 to 8 and while there
may not be an actual parallel, yet weakness (6:19; 8:3), enmity (8:5 -7),
sinnership (7:25) and ungodliness (8:8) are very evidently associated with
'the flesh'.
The expression 'in the flesh' is a comprehensive one. In some cases it
may merely convey the sense of being alive upon this earth, without any moral
significance (1 Cor. 7:28; 2 Cor. 12:7; Gal. 2:20). In Romans 5:12 to 8:39,
however, it is the state in which man is found before he is united to the
Lord that is referred to, and therefore the expression is there used in a
moral sense.
When the apostle says in 7:18 that he knows that in his flesh dwelleth
no good thing, he is not speaking of flesh and blood physiologically, but of
the carnal man, in whom resides no moral good whatever. It is a comfort to
observe the two 'dwellings' of 7:18 and 8:9. The references to the flesh
are, however, so interwoven with the argument of the Epistle, that further
and fuller exposition is not easy unless we settle down to a careful study of
the whole teaching of the section.
FORGIVENESS
Unless and until sin is forgiven, there can be neither life nor peace
nor hope, for the wages of sin is death, and there is no peace to the wicked.
The limits that such an analysis sets to our inquiry, makes it impossible
that those adjuncts to the doctrine of Forgiveness, such as Sacrifice7;
Atonement (p. 29); Mercy7; Justification (p. 410) and the like can be dealt
with here in anything like the completeness that their importance demands,
but articles devoted to them will be found under these respective headings
and should be studied together. According to Ephesians 1:7 the first result
of Redemption is 'the forgiveness of sins', and with this passage in the
Epistle of our calling we open our investigation. Neither Redemption nor
Forgiveness are exclusive to any one calling, being as essential and
fundamental to Israel as to the Church. We must, therefore, survey the
Hebrew words employed in the Old Testament, the meaning of which is carried
over by the Greek equivalents of the New Testament.
Forgiveness. This word translates the Hebrew selichah (Psa. 130:4)
which means 'a sending away', and is derived from salach found in verse 3.
Other words used are kaphar, 'to cover', the word which gives us the Old
Testament term, 'atonement', nasa, 'to lift up', 'to bear', 'to carry'. The