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Today's Devotional

What the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh—Romans 8:3 (NIV).

“In the likeness of sinful flesh.” These words place in the clearest possible light the true humanity of the Son of God. It was not human nature in appearance that he took, as some have taught, but human nature in reality…..Now can he, with a feeling of the most exquisite sympathy, be touched with my infirmity; for this nature which I drag about with me, feeble and bruised, jaded and crushed, was the very nature which he took into mysterious union with his Godhead, wore it here below, and wears it still in heaven!

… He took real flesh…. He was ….“tempted like we are, yet without sin” [Hebrews 4:15]. And so in the passage before us, “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” The words suppose a resemblance to our sinful nature. And, oh! how close that resemblance was! As like a sinner as one could be, who yet in deed and in truth was not one—“who knew no sin,” but was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners” [Hebrews 7:26].

Man is a sinner; our blessed Lord was man—so truly man, that his enemies exclaimed, “We know this man is a sinner” [John 9:24]. They could not understand how one could be so really human, and yet be untainted with sin.…He hungered—he thirsted—he wept—he was wearied—he slept—he was afflicted—he sorrowed—he trembled—he suffered—he died. And as we trace these infirmities of our humanity floating upon the transparent surface of his pure life, how forcible do we feel the words—“Made in the likeness of sinful flesh”!

And when we see him traduced as a sinner by man, and, standing beneath his people’s transgressions—dealt with as a sinner by God….oh! how like sinful flesh was the robe of lowliness and suffering which he wore! And yet, “He was without sin.”

It was the resemblance, not the reality. The human nature of the Son of God was as free from sin as the Deity it enshrined. He was the “Lamb of God, without spot” [1 Peter 1:19]. The least taint of moral guilt—a shade of inherent corruption—would have proved fatal to his mission…. Oh! this is the glory of his work, and the solace of our hearts, that Christ our Savior “offered himself without spot unto God” [Hebrews 9:14]. And now we may plead his sinless atonement as the ground of our pardon, and the acceptance of our people. “He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him…” [2 Corinthians 5:21].

About the author and the source

Octavius Winslow (1808–1878) was an ardent evangelical preacher who served in the United States and in Great Britain. In addition to many books that emphasized the life and work of Christ, he wrote morning and evening devotionals.