Holiness is Required to Create Holiness

Romans 8:3 KJV

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:

The problem with the law is the same problem with all religion;[1] it is weak through the flesh.

Religion is an attempt to be holy in the strength and power of the sin nature. It can never work. Just as a pot can never be cleansed with a contaminated cloth, so sin can never be reconciled in the strength of the sin nature. Something holy is required to create holiness.

That's why Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh but not in sinful flesh. The holy flesh of Christ, suffering in the place of the sinful flesh of man, once and for all condemned sin in the flesh.

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[1] Though unlike religions, the law is righteous and holy and good.