Jesus brought this out when He says, "The one who knows the most is the most responsible." And the Hebrew person does not know that the more they study the Law, and the more they become experts in knowing the Law, that makes them more responsible than anybody. The same with the believer in studying God's word. Most of it is head knowledge for us. But God holds us responsible not only to preach it, but to do it.
Transcript
We are in Romans chapter 2. We are in the section 17 through 29. We went 17 to 24 last week. In the first part of Romans chapter 2 Paul presented God’s principles of judgment. First of all, the principles of the judgment from man is in verse 1. Man judges according to his own sin. It is a faulty judgment. But in verses 2 through 16, it is God’s judgment. And the final principle that Paul mentioned in verse 16, that God is going to judge according to his gospel; the condition of people’s hearts, but also according to Paul’s gospel. So we are studying from one who has been inspired by God to present the truth of Jesus Christ.
We will begin reading at verse 17. We will do our review as we go through. First of all, in ending with the principles of God’s judgment now Paul is applying these principles to the Jewish person. Look, you yourself, thou art called a Jew. Literally, named, you name yourself, you use the name Jew. And there are five things that they are basing their privileged position on.
1) Behold, thou art called a Jew,
2) and you rest in the Law, that is, in keeping of the law. That is your security.
3) and you make your boast of God. As if we are God’s children and chosen ones.
4) Verse 18, fourthly, and you know His will. The Hebrew and Jewish people know that it is God’s will that Messiah come through the Jews and that they would be sent and commissioned to proclaim the gospel of Messiah. They are ready know that.
5) And fifthly, they are proving – that is, putting to the test the things that are different – to find out the things that are most excellent while being instructed from out of the law. So they compare everything with the law, whether it is right or wrong.
Verse 19, after their position we now see their pride. And you have persuaded yourself, that is with the word confident means. You have persuaded yourself to be a guide of the blind, a light of the ones in darkness, an instructor of the fools, a teacher of babes, while having the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. They claim to be all of these things. They have persuaded themselves to be a guide, to be a light, to be an instructor, and a teacher of young babes who are just starting out learning of the law. And so they set themselves up as a representative of God’s truth. But the condition in verse 20 says, While all the time having the form of the knowledge of the truth in the law. Just a form, no substance.
So he asks five questions, verse 21. Therefore the one who is teaching another, are you teaching yourself? Even to this day the Orthodox Jews hold that as long as they have the law and they teach the law that they are okay. They themselves do not have to keep the law. The one who is preaching not to steal, do you steal? Thirdly, the one who is saying not to commit adultery, are you committing adultery? Fourthly, the one who is abhorring idols – the word abhorring is the word for nausea, sickness. Does it make you sick? Do idols make you sick and the people that worship them? And in doing so are you literally, here is the literal translation – are you robbing temples?
According to Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 25 and 26 the Jews would come in and destroy temples and the idols that the pagans would worship but they would take the idols home and either set them up or even melt them down and take whatever is valuable out of them. It makes you sick when people worship them but then you take them and use them for your own personal use, you are robbing temples. Contradiction.
Fifthly, verse 23, Who boasts in the law, through the trespass of the law are you dishonoring God? You make your boast in the law but when you violate the law yourself you are dishonoring God.
Verse 24 that we left off with last week, For the name of God is being blasphemed on account of you, amongst the Gentiles according as it has been written. Isaiah chapter 52 verse 5 mentions the fact that the name of God would be blasphemed amongst the Gentiles because of God’s own chosen people. No matter who we follow or what we live for, wherever we go we represent His name. Whether we agree with it or not, or like it or not, people judge what we call Christianity, people judge Jesus Christ, and people judge God’s word based on our life. Watching us.
Like Paul told the Christians in Corinth in II Corinthians, in making an audit of his ministry by other people he just says, “Do not come to me about my ministry, go talk with and see the people that are getting ministered to.” They are an open book. Every believer is a book that is being read by all people. For some of us it is a mystery. And Paul says, “You have the things of the Lord written on your heart and you are living out what you believe. You are living out your relationship with Jesus Christ and all people are reading you.” But the Jews had pride just because of their position, “God chose us to preach the gospel.” Okay, now what? “Well, just because He chose us and we are His chosen people to do that I have a right standing with God.” There is where they got off the track.
As we are learning in the book of Romans as well as the book of Galatians during the first hour, the summary statement will be All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, whether it is Jew or Gentile it makes no difference to God. Are they privileged? Yes. In fact chapter 3, when we are through with chapter 2 of Romans, Romans chapter 3 starts out with, “Well then what’s the advantage to being a Jew, if a Jew does not have an advantage before the throne of God?
As a matter fact of Jesus brought this out when He says, “The one who knows the most is the most responsible.” And the Hebrew person does not know that the more they study the Law and they become excellent and experts in knowing the Law, that -makes them more responsible than anybody. The same with the believer in studying God’s word. Most of it is head knowledge for us but God holds us responsible not only to preach it, but to do it.
When we opened up the book of Acts last Thursday night, Luke in Acts chapter 1 verse 1 told us, The first account I made, and that would be the gospel of Luke, I made of all things that Jesus began to do and to teach. Notice the order: to do and to teach. Jesus did what He taught. He was not just a teacher. And more times than not His teaching was an explanation of who He was and what He was doing. We have a little trouble with that. We are responsible, not only to learn of the things of the Lord but to follow Him in obedience. So the position, sometimes the Christian gets caught in the same trap as the Orthodox Jewish person that says, “Because I am God’s chosen people I am privileged before God.” Privileged to take the gospel, yes. But not privileged as far as not responsible.
Sometimes we as Christians we say same thing. “We are Christians. We are saved. We are going to heaven. Everybody else is going to hell and we do not have to be concerned about what people think.” We are responsible for this one principle. Everyone is influenced around us by everything that we do and say. Everyone around us at any given time, they are influenced by what we do and what we say. And sometimes we do not care, well, most of the time we do not care. But we have a strong influence in this world. And spiritual maturity, a person grows to the point where they no longer exist. It does not matter what I want. It does not matter what I think. The only thing that matters is, am I causing other people to stumble in their pursuit of the truth that is in Jesus Christ? Am I causing them to turn away from the Lord?
So just like the Jew who was given the Law – and we will find out next week, the Law only has one purpose. In Romans chapter 3 verse 20, Paul says, Through the law is the knowledge of sin. But keeping the Law never saves anybody, that is why Jesus came. And in the Sermon on the Mount He gave the correct interpretation of the Scriptures. Because the Jews had brought it to the point of legalism and Jesus said, “No, you do not understand. It is not just the Law for your outward social function, it is for your inward heart.” It is from out of the heart that all the evil comes from. So it is not just the social responsibility but it is from your heart. And that is when we get into trouble because the heart is deceitful and wounded by sin, who can know it? That is where sin is.
The Bible says there is not anybody that can keep the law if it is applied correctly. Thou shalt not kill. Most of us in this room can say, “I have not killed anybody.” But Jesus said, If you have hatred in your heart toward someone you’ve killed them already in your heart. So in your heart you have sinned, even though physically the person you got angry at is still alive. So it is in the heart. And once you commit sin in your heart, what are you going to do? “Well, I will go ask God’s forgiveness for it.” I cannot ask God for forgiveness because I am a sinner and according to His justice system I cannot ask, nor can I volunteer myself as a sacrifice for my sin. It is a sinner asking God to forgive him his sin so he can go out and sin some more. It is a merry-go-round.
But Paul says in Galatians chapter 3 that the Law is a prison. It locks you up. It says, “You have sinned. Now you are in prison, what are you going to do?” Try to break out? Try to work your way out? I mean, what are you going to do? There is only one way out and that is through Jesus Christ. Once faith comes and one puts their faith in Christ, the Law’s purpose is over.
So here were the Jews saying, “We have been given the law and we keep it.” What does that mean? What do you mean, you keep it? “Well, when I sin I go get an animal sacrifice required by the law.” But that sacrifice only covers your sin it does not do away with your sin. Now what are you going to do? You see, the same gospel, Jewish person, the same gospel that you are proclaiming to the Gentiles is also for you. And that is something the Hebrew people never accepted, nor did they ever realize. That everybody else is a sinner except for the Jewish person. And that is not how God looked at sin. But it is how the Jews twisted the message and the meaning of God’s law to make them exempt and everybody else guilty.
So that is why he started out in verse 1 saying, “You, the law keeper, and you are judging the Gentile who is living this corrupt life, and committing all of these sins. The reason why you set yourself up to be the judge is because you are the same thing. You are just as guilty as the person that you are judging.” See, the Hebrew people never believed that. So their position with God was what made them in their own eyes, and in their own pride, exempt from repentance and surrender to Christ. And in so doing, the name of God was being blasphemed among the Gentiles on account you.
Verse 25, we switch from position to performance. The big law that was foremost in the mind of the Hebrew or Jewish person was circumcision for the males. So he begins with this performance and he makes some astounding statements. Listen to this. For circumcision on the one hand is profitable if you should practice the law, not do it, practice it. So circumcision – fine, that is part of the law. God told the Hebrew males and the nation itself to circumcise every male child. Now if you are practicing the law, circumcision will be profitable for you. But, if you were a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. What? How can circumcision become uncircumcision? So he says, “Once you violate the law your circumcision does not mean anything. It is as though you are uncircumcised in the sight of God.”
You say, “Was not circumcision for health reasons?” Of course it is, but God initially gave it as a law to the Hebrew or Jewish people because by doing so they are acknowledging that Messiah will come through the seed of Israel. So by not being circumcised, and you being a Jewish person, you are rejecting and showing reject to God’s covenant and promise. So all the males were circumcised on the eighth day. But if they violate the law their circumcision is not going to account for anything.
Verse 26, If therefore the uncircumcision – that would be a Gentile – should keep the righteous requirements of the law, notice how we translated it. If the uncircumcised person, that would be the Gentile, should keep the righteous requirements of the law will not his uncircumcision be counted toward circumcision? Oh man, now to the legalist mind is in knots now. “Wait a minute, I am the Hebrew person and I am circumcised but if I become a transgressor of the law my circumcision becomes uncircumcision. But that Gentile over there who is uncircumcised, if he meets the requirements of the law his uncircumcision become circumcision.”
Verse 27, And will not the uncircumcised person by nature, having fulfilled the law, will he not judge you, the one who through the letter and circumcision you transgress the law? So the outward works of keeping of the law – if the inner heart is sinning against God, whatever you have done on the outside religiously, it does not count for anything. And he says the person who is uncircumcised by nature, that would be the Gentile, he has fulfilled all the requirements of the law. That is, he realizes from the law that he is a sinner. He realizes his need of Christ, that Christ was the sacrifice given for his sin. And that a person must come and surrender to Christ by receiving Christ into his life. And let us say you are a Gentile. You have never gone through the various rituals of law keeping like the Jews. Well, once you have received Christ, since Christ came and He fulfilled all the requirements of the law which man could not fulfil, you now have met all the righteous requirements of the law through Jesus Christ. God actually gave His law to show us, “Here is My holiness,” says God, “And look how far short you fall.” And God actually – because of our sin nature, He has to hold a mirror up and say, “Look who you are,” because we are deceived, we are blind. It is not me, it is them. So if through the letter of the law, and through circumcision you are keeping it yet you are transgressing the law, do you not become a transgressor? A sinner?
The great conclusion. Two of the most important verses in the Bible because those who hold to what is called replacement theology use these two verses for that new doctrine. Replacement theology says that because the Jews rejected Christ the church today has become Israel and all of the promises are for the church, and the Law now is for the church not for Israel because they have been removed and the church now becomes Israel. Let us read it. Verse 28, For one is not a Jew in the outward, neither is the circumcision in the outward in the flesh; (verse 29) but the one is a Jew in the inward, and circumcision of the heart, in spirit, not in letter; of whose the praise is not from out of men, but from out of God. When you keep the law you get your praise from men. They either approve of you or do not. When God says to be circumcised in the outward, in the physical, that is a shadow, a form of the substance of the real. Every single person needs to be circumcised in the heart.
In II Corinthians chapter 4 Paul says that all of those who -especially the Jewish person – who cannot see the truth in Christ they have a veil over their heart. And that veil needs to be cut away as in circumcision. A person must experience a circumcised heart, inward. So outwardly whether you are circumcised or not, it is the circumcision of the heart. It is not religion, it is relationship. And my position in Christ and before God is determined upon whether the Spirit of Christ has saved me or not. Whether He has come into my life and into my spirit and in so doing circumcised my heart.
But notice the text is not talking to Gentile people about becoming Jewish. It says, The one is not a Jew who is one outward. He is talking to the Jewish person. You try to tell a Hebrew or Jewish person that and they will probably sock you right in the nose. “Oh, you are a Jew? You keep all the outward commandments? You are not a Jew.” They would get pretty angry. A person is not a Jew in the eyes of the Lord until that Hebrew or Jewish person is circumcised in the heart. It is the inward condition not the outward condition that makes a person right before God. So he is speaking in legalistic terms to the Jewish person who is keeping the law. He says everything that you keep by the letter is in the flesh, it is outward. And you do not understand that by even keeping the law, and abiding by the law that it is to be applied to your heart, to your spirit.
Have you hated? “Yeah, but I did not kill him.” You did in your heart. Have you coveted your neighbors’ ski boat? You have stolen. “Oh, but I did not steal it.” In your heart you did, now what are you going to do? As we said the first hour, that is a debt that you owe.
Once we understand this entire judicial system as God looks at us, you realize that every time we sin against God it is a debt. And man has in his history and forever tried to find a way to get that debt off of the register of God to no avail. White out. If you know an angel on the inside. Maybe a religious practice will work it off, maybe I can work it off.
Well, let us find out what God’s requirement is. He requires a human being who is a lamb without blemish and sinless to be the sacrifice, to be to pay that debt. That leaves me out. Now what am I going to do? God says, “I will even send the payment for that debt. I will send My Son to die for you and He will fulfill all the righteous requirements and it will be through Him and through your trust and faith in Him that He has done it all for you.” That will make you right in the sight of God. But God has to work seemingly overtime to convince us that we are sinners. We do not want to be sinners. Well, religiously we do. “Yeah, I have sinned. Okay, I will go through the ceremony. What do I have to do?” That our hearts are corrupt. Deceitful. And we automatically make ourselves exempt from responsibility before God.
But what I read in the New Testament is that every person who belongs to Christ that reads and studies God’s word, and God makes changes, and God gives them understanding that that person is more responsible to Christ than anybody. Because now we are responsible for that truth. Now we are responsible to represent that truth. To walk uprightly. Not in human religiosity, but walk uprightly in heart, in the midst of having a heart that is wounded by sin and will never be healed until we go to be with Christ. But we are forgiven. And we are set apart by God’s Spirit because God says, “Because you are a sinner, always will be a sinner, I have to put My Spirit in you because you cannot fulfill My ministry and represent My word so My Spirit will be in you. Number one, He will keep you from going too far astray, because you cannot keep yourself. And secondly, My Spirit in you and through you will be the testimony.”
So we say, “What is the problem?” The problem is the battle between my pride and my ego and the Spirit of Christ that lives inside of me. Who is going to control? Who is going to be the dominant one? Who is going to be the leader to say which direction my life is going to go? It is a lifetime battle, struggle, that I have with the Spirit of God. Because my flesh says, “Uh uh. We will take Jesus with us but we are not going to lay down our fleshly desires and life to have Christ lead us.” It is a lifetime battle going through whatever we have to go through for God’s humbling process until we reach the point of spiritual maturity which is evident by a person saying, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. I am still breathing. I am still here. I still talk. I am still a person. But on the other hand I am not my own anymore. I am owned by somebody else, His name is Jesus Christ. I am now His slave. Instead of being a slave to sin, I am a slave to Christ. And it is a lifetime process of God exalting Christ in me but diminishing me at same time.
As John the Baptist said, He must increase but I must decrease. And the less there is of me the more there is of Him that is evident in a person’s life. It is not religious. It is not outward. It is not position, based by religious standing. It just creates pride.
We should be humbled to know that God says, “My own chosen people rejected Me and the preaching of the gospel so I am going to take you Gentiles, I am going to save you Gentiles, and I am going to give that responsibility to you.” That is an awesome responsibility. It means everywhere I go, and in everything that I do, I represent Jesus Christ. His name. His reputation. And that is our battle all our lifelong is being humbled by God and being put out of the way, so that Christ might be magnified in our body. And that is the goal, it should be the goal of every believer. Paul said in Philippians chapter 1, May Christ be magnified in my body whether is through life or through death. Whatever it is. He might have me to be crucified, and persecuted, and made public, persecution and death. Well, if that is the case, then may people see Christ in me and not my whiny little ways.
One of my mentors who passed away about eleven years ago, I think his son made probably what is the most complementary eulogy that he can say, any son can make about his father. After he passed away his son said at the funeral, “Not only did my father teach us how to live, but he also taught us how to die.” That is everything. He died of cancer in the home with the family around him. And all through his death he was still a servant of Christ. A strong leader that said, “Here is what God’s word says, so that is it.” And even in his weakness on his deathbed he could still say, “The Lord’s will. Praise the Lord. He is calling me home.” Not only did he teach me how to live, he taught me how to die.
Paul says, May Christ be magnified in my body whether I live or whether it is through death. Whatever His will is for my life, may people see Christ in me. Not me representing a religious system, or version of Christianity. “I go to church. I try to read my Bible. I try to study the Bible as best I can, but my life is my own and I do what I want to do.” That is the pride of religion, pride of position. I do not have anything to worry about. I have a lot to be concerned about because I am responsible, because I represent the name of Jesus Christ. Everywhere I go and in everything I do, everything that happens to me. I have to stop my reaction. I have to realize that this is a designed plan of God for Him to be revealed through me. Not for me to express my human reactions and feelings though they get in the way.
Circumcision must be in the heart on the inward, not the outward. That is not what God accepts, He only accepts the inward.
Therefore what advantage is there for the Jew? Paul answers that next week along with the summary statement of Romans chapters 1 and 2. Now that he has shown that the Gentile and the Jew stands guilty before God, now what? As he will teach us in Romans chapter 3 next week.
Let’s join together for prayer.
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