Flesh (sarx). Equivalent to man. It is often used in the sense of a living creature - man or beast. Compare 1 Pet. i. 24; Matt. xxiv. 22; Luke iii. 6. Generally with a suggestion of weakness, frailty, mortality; Septuagint, Jer. xvii. 5; Psalm lxxvii. 39; Eph. vi. 12. The word here has no doctrinal bearing.

Be justified (dikaiwqhsetai). For the kindred adjective dikaiov righteous, see on i. 17. 1. Classical usage. The primitive meaning is to make right. This may take place absolutely or relatively. The person or thing may be made right in itself, or with reference to circumstances or to the minds of those who have to do with them. Applied to things or acts, as distinguished from persons, it signifies to make right in one's judgment. Thus Thucydides, ii. 6, 7. "The Athenians judged it right to retaliate on the Lacedaemonians." Herodotus, i., 89, Croesus says to Cyrus: "I think it right to shew thee whatever I may see to thy advantage."

A different shade of meaning is to judge to be the case. So Thucydides, iv., cxxii. "The truth concerning the revolt was rather as the Athenians, judged the case to be." Again, it occurs simply in the sense to judge. Thucydides, v., xxvi. "If anyone agree that the interval of the truce should be excluded, he will not judge correctly "In both these latter cases the etymological idea of right is merged, and the judicial element predominates.

In ecclesiastical usage, to judge to be right or to decide upon in ecclesiastical councils.

Applied to persons, the meaning is predominantly judicial, though Aristotle ("Nichomachaean Ethics," v., 9) uses it in the sense of to treat one rightly. There is no reliable instance of the sense to make right intrinsically; but it means to make one right in some extrinsic or relative manner. Thus Aeschylus, "Agamemnon," 390-393: Paris, subjected to the judgment of men, tested (dikaiwqeiv) is compared to bad brass which turns black when subjected to friction. Thus tested or judged he stands in right relation to men's judgments. He is shown in the true baseness of his character.

Thus the verb acquires the meaning of condemn; adjudge to be bad. Thucydides, iii., xl. Cleon says to the Athenians, "If you do not deal with the Mitylenaeans as I advise, you will condemn yourselves." From this readily arises the sense of punish; since the punishment of a guilty man is a setting him in right relation to the political or moral system which his conduct has infringed. Thus Herodotus, i., c. "Deioces the Mede, if he heard of any act of oppression, sent for the guilty party and punished him according to his offense." Compare Plato, "Laws," ii., 934. Plato uses dikaiwthria to denote places of punishment or houses of correction ("Phaedrus," 249). According to Cicero, dikaiow was used by the Sicilians of capital punishment: "Edikaiwqhsan, that is, as the Sicilians say, they were visited with punishment and executed" ("Against Verres," v., 57).

To sum up the classical usage, the word has two main references:

1, to persons;

2, to things or acts. In both the judicial element is dominant.

The primary sense, to make right, takes on the conventional meanings to judge a thing to be right, to judge, to right a person, to treat rightly, to condemn, punish, put to death.

2. New Testament usage. This is not identical with the classical usage. In the New Testament the word is used of persons only. In Matt. xi. 19; Luke vii. 35, of a quality, Wisdom, but the quality is personified. It occurs thirty-nine times in the New Testament; 29 twenty-seven in Paul; eight in the Synoptists and Acts; three in James; one in the Revelation.

A study of the Pauline passages shows that it is used by Paul according to the sense which attaches to the adjective dikaiov, representing a state of the subject relatively to God. The verb therefore indicates the act or process by which a man is brought into a right state as related to God. In the A.V. confusion is likely to arise from the variations in translation, righteousness, just, justifier, justify. See Rom. iii. 24, 26, 28, 30; iv. 2; v. 1, 9; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 8, 11, 24; Tit. iii. 7.

The word is not, however, to be construed as indicating a mere legal transaction or adjustment between God and man, though it preserves the idea of relativity, in that God is the absolute standard by which the new condition is estimated, whether we regard God's view of the justified man, or the man's moral condition when justified. The element of character must not only not be eliminated from it; it must be foremost in it. Justification is more than pardon. Pardon is an act which frees the offender from the penalty of the law, adjusts his outward relation to the law, but does not necessarily effect any change in him personally. It is necessary to justification, but not identical with it. Justification aims directly at character. It contemplates making the man himself right; that the new and right relation to God in which faith places him shall have its natural and legitimate issue in personal rightness. The phrase faith is counted for righteousness, does not mean that faith is a substitute for righteousness, but that faith is righteousness; righteousness in the germ indeed, but still bona fide righteousness. The act of faith inaugurates a righteous life and a righteous character. The man is not made inherently holy in himself, because his righteousness is derived from God; neither is he merely declared righteous by a legal fiction without reference to his personal character; but the justifying decree, the declaration of God which pronounces him righteous, is literally true to the fact in that he is in real, sympathetic relation with the eternal source and norm of holiness, and with the divine personal inspiration of character. Faith contains all the possibilities of personal holiness. It unites man to the holy God, and through this union he becomes a partaker of the divine nature, and escapes the corruption that is in the world through lust (2 Pet. i. 4). The intent of justification is expressly declared by Paul to be conformity to Christ's image (Rom. viii. 29, 30). Justification which does not actually remove the wrong condition in man which is at the root of his enmity to God, is no justification. In the absence of this, a legal declaration that the man is right is a fiction. The declaration of righteousness must have its real and substantial basis in the man's actual moral condition.

Hence justification is called justification of life (Rom. v. 18); it is linked with the saving operation of the life of the risen Christ (Rom. iv. 25; v. 10); those who are in Christ Jesus "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. viii. 1); they exhibit patience, approval, hope, love (Romans v. 4, 5). Justification means the presentation of the self to God as a living sacrifice; non-conformity to the world; spiritual renewal; right self-estimate - all that range of right practice and feeling which is portrayed in the twelfth chapter of this Epistle. See, further, on ch. iv. 5. Knowledge (epignwsiv). Clear and exact knowledge. Always of a knowledge which powerfully influences the form of the religions life, and hence containing more of the element of personal sympathy than the simple gnwsiv knowledge, which may be concerned with the intellect alone without affecting the character. See Rom. i. 28; x. 2; Ephesians iv. 13. Also Philip. i. 9, where it is associated with the abounding of love; Col. iii. 10; Philemon 6, etc. Hence the knowledge of sin here is not mere perception, but an acquaintance with sin which works toward repentance, faith, and holy character.

Robertson's NT Word Studies