The Lawful Need Saving

 Romans 2:17-3:8

The book of Romans was written as a letter to the church in Rome.  Since it was a letter, it’s important to review what we’ve learned the past two weeks, in order to keep the context in mind.  When we read a letter from a friend or loved one, we typically read that in one sitting, from beginning to end.  We are taking about 6 months to go through this one, so I want to go back for a minute and remind us what Paul has said so far.  When we study Scripture, context is king.  We look at who is speaking, who they are addressing, and what was said before now that may help us to understand what message the speaker/author is trying to convey. 

Paul wrote the letter to the church in Rome during his third missionary journey.  He expresses his desire several times to visit Rome, but as we’ll see later, his real desire is to go farther west beyond Rome.

As part of his greeting, Paul starts the letter with a short description of the Gospel.  He tells us that God promised the Gospel regarding His own Son, a human descendent of David declared to be the Son of God as displayed by His resurrection.  In verse 5 of chapter 1, Paul says that because of Jesus, he received “grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to come to the obedience that comes from faith.”  He then tells the believers in Rome that they are among those called to belong to Jesus Christ. 

Paul continues building rapport with his readers.  He opens up about himself, saying that he is obligated to all people, regardless of ethnicity (Greeks and non-Greeks) or education (wise and foolish), to proclaim the Gospel.  In Romans 1:15, Paul says he is “eager to preach the Gospel also to you who are at Rome.”  I would have expected him to say that he is eager to preach in Rome, or to unbelievers in Rome.  I’m sure what he meant is he is eager to preach to all in Rome, but it reminds me of several old hymns like “Tell Me the Story of Jesus” or “Tell Me the Old, Old Story.”  Believers should be eager to hear the story again, and like Paul continues, unashamed to proclaim the Gospel.  Why? “Because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16)  Paul encourages the believers in Rome by assuring them of his prayers.  He commends their faith by saying that it is reported all over the world.  He says that he longs to spend time with them so that they may mutually encourage one another in the faith.

In verse 18, Paul changes gears to a sobering topic.  He gave us a glimmer of hope in the first half of chapter 1, because, much like a prosecuting attorney would build a case against the defendant, he’s about to build a case against all humanity.  And no one will walk away with a verdict of “not guilty” after Paul is finished.  He spends quite a bit of time in the first half of the letter establishing the sinfulness of man and the break in fellowship between God and man as a result. In verse 18, Paul says:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, - Romans 1:18 NIV

Paul then explains that all men have some knowledge of God and goodness.  Verses 19-20 tell us that man can see God through the created world.  But, they made gods out of created beings, and worshiped the created rather than the Creator.  Because of this, God gave them over to sinful desires, shameful lusts, and depraved minds.  God gave man a conscience to know good and evil; but man has seared that, and ignored the moral law that God wrote on his heart.

Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. - Romans 1:32 NIV

After reading Paul’s condemnation of the godless, it’s easy to say “Well, that doesn’t apply to me.  I’m a good person.  I don’t do the things in Paul’s exhaustive list he just gave at the end of chapter 1.”  Paul even seemed to know that the Jews within Rome would probably have rebuttals such as “We’re different from the Gentiles.  Did you forget that we Jews were given the revelation of God in the Mosaic Law as well as the Abrahamic covenant that is symbolized by circumcision?  Did you ignore the fact that we Jews have special privileges and are the chosen people of God?  Are you saying that we are no better than the Gentiles?  How can you - a circumcised Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, and a Pharisee - disregard these peculiar blessings that distinguish us from the Gentiles and protect us from the judgment of God?” 

Starting in chapter 2 verse 17 – the beginning of our passage for today—Paul explains why Jews cannot rely solely on their status as a Jew for righteousness. The Jews, understandably, had a national pride.  They felt as if they were better than everyone else because they were God’s chosen people.  They enjoyed a privilege no one else had.  But soon, that privilege turned into self-righteousness.  Paul understood where they were coming from, but he had news for them.  That self-righteousness did nothing for them in the sight of a holy God.  He addresses their position by taking their two foundational cornerstones away: the Law and the Abrahamic covenant symbolized by circumcision. 

He begins with the law. 

Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth-- you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." - Romans 2:17–24 NIV

The Jews relied heavily on the law given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.  They boasted in God.  He was theirs, and they were His.  No one else had such a claim.  They knew His will.  They knew what was expected of them.  Since they had the law, they were able to discern what was morally superior.  God even said that the law made them a great nation.

And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? - Deuteronomy 4:8 NIV

With knowledge often comes responsibility.  The Jews knew the law, and so were supposed to instruct others.  I’ve experienced a similar situation recently at work.  We are replacing our outdated software system that is so old the manufacturer won’t support it any more.  In preparation for the new system, we have three levels of users within the company.  There are 3 men who are designated as Core Users.  They are responsible for most of the set up and “personalization” of the new software based on our company’s needs.  They are the IT manager, CFO, and store manager.  They have a lot of responsibility to make sure that the system is up and running properly and ready for go live at the end of July.  The second group is called the Super Users.  Those of us in this category have endured 40 hours of intense training on the system as a whole, and even more focused training on our specific area of usage within the system.  Because of this extra training, we are responsible for training the final group, the End Users.  This is everyone else in the company. 

What the software company didn’t tell us is that there is really a fourth category somewhere between a Super User and a Core User.  This is where I have found myself over the last several weeks.  Enjoying knowing how things work and trying to find out how this new software is going to make my job easier, I’ve tested the system, run scenarios through it, and generally just tried to break it.  Hey, they told me to!  Blessed with a quick mind, I have learned quickly in the training seminars.  As such, other Super Users are coming to me with questions and problems. I’ve even been asked to help draft policies and procedures for this new system. We held three classes this week to start getting the end users familiar with it.  I was the only Super User out of the group of about 15 that was asked to help lead this class. 

With knowledge comes responsibility.  The Jews had knowledge.  Their responsibility was to instruct others, specifically the Gentiles.  Twice in Isaiah, God told the Israelites to be a light for the Gentiles.

I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand.  I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. - Isaiah 42:6-7 NIV

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept.  I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6 NIV

God wasn’t satisfied with them just restoring Israelites; the Jews were to also instruct the Gentiles.  The Gentiles should have been able to look at the nation of Israel and see God. They were to guide the spiritually blind, cast light into their dark lives, and instruct the foolish and the infants.  The Greek words behind “foolish” and “infant” mean those who are without moral intelligence and immature in areas of religious significance.

Paul continues his critique of the self-righteous Jews with several questions.  His point is to further expose their hypocrisy.  If you teach others, why don’t you teach yourself?  If you condemn stealing, do you steal?  Do you practice adultery after you teach against it?  Are you practicing what you teach?  The Jews, by their hypocrisy, had brought shame to God. 

Next, Paul removed circumcision from the Jews’ argument.  Circumcision was instituted by God for Abraham and his household as a sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis 17.  God was to be Abraham’s God and the God of his descendants, and Abraham would be the father of many nations.  The Jews took this to be a sign of special favor with God.  It was another thing that set them apart from the rest of the world.  But Paul wanted them to no longer depend on their heritage.  In verse 25, he qualifies circumcision.

Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.  If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised?  The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and the circumcision, are a lawbreaker. – Romans 2:25-27 NIV

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.   No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is the circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.  Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God. – Romans 2:28-32 NIV

Circumcision constituted a commitment to obedience to God.  But the Jews seemed to treat it like some special good luck charm.  A few Rabbis are quoted as saying things such as “Circumcised men do not descend into Gehenna” or “Circumcision will deliver Israel from Gehenna.”

Paul corrects their thinking about circumcision by saying that it is of no use if you don’t obey the law.  You can’t have one without the other.  To claim the covenant – God is my God – while breaking the law is to say two different things at the same time.  So, Paul says, if a Jew was circumcised, but breaks the law, he might as well have not been circumcised.  On the flip side, if a man was not circumcised, but kept the law, then he might as well have been circumcised.  Circumcision – obedience = uncircumcision.  Uncircumcision + obedience = circumcision.

Paul told the Corinthians in I Corinthians 7:19:

Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing.  Keeping God’s commands is what counts. – I Corinthians 7:19 NIV

In Galatians 6:15, Paul again wrote:

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. – Galatians 6:15 NIV

A person was a Jew only if he or she was one inwardly.  The only circumcision that counts is a circumcision of the heart.  Real circumcision is the work of the Holy Spirit.  It does not come through the strict obedience of the written code.  Authentic Jewishness – being a child of the one true God – is inward and spiritual.  Authentic circumcision is the cutting away of the old sinful nature by the sanctifying Spirit of God.  Thus, we are not praised by men for how good we are; but we seek the praise of our God and Father and the glory, honor, and immortality of Romans 2:7.

Paul has redefined what it means to be a Jew.  Circumcised, disobedient Israelites are no longer Jews.  Gentiles who by faith obey the law are counted as being a circumcised Jew.  Paul, himself a Jew and a fanatical Pharisee prior to his conversion, knew this would rile feathers, so he goes on to pose a couple questions that he then answers.  We’ll see this pattern frequently in Romans.  It was a very common tactic for teachers and philosophers of the time.

What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?  Much is every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. – Romans 3:1-2 NIV

Paul poses the argument from his pre-conversion Jewish mind of what good is it to be a circumcised Jew, now that he has torn down their two claims to fame?  He says that it is still a very good thing.  The Jews were the first people to be entrusted with the very words of God.  He spoke to the world through the Jews.  That’s a big deal!  They are still His chosen people.  Without going too far down the rabbit hole of dispensationalism, I don’t believe the church has replaced the Jews as the chosen people of God.

Paul poses another question:

What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar.  As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” – Romans 3:3-4 NIV

What if some of the Jews did not respond in faith?  Did their faithlessness cancel out the faithfulness of God?  There are many different translations of the Greek phrase me ginomai.  The NIV translates it here as “Not at all!”  The KJV uses “God forbid!”  The ESV uses “By no means!”  Others, including the NIV at times, use “Certainly not!”  Paul uses this phrase a lot throughout Romans.  Me is a negative particle expressing absolute denial.  Ginomai means to become or to begin to be or to come to pass.  So literally it has the idea “may it never come to pass” or “don’t let it be so.”  We don’t have a phrase in English that shows the forceful decisiveness of this phrase.  It will never be possible for God to be unfaithful.  Even if every man was a liar, God will still be true.  He is truth. 

The quote in at the end of Romans 3:4 is from Psalm 51.  This is the Psalm of penitence that David wrote after his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah.  In it, David is confessing his sin, and he says in verse 4:

Against you, and you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. – Psalm 51:4 NIV

Even when we sin, God is proved to be right and righteous.  Paul continues with another question.

But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say?  That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” Why not say – as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say – “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved. – Romans 3:5-8 NIV

Someone may have tried to tell Paul once that the more evil a criminal is, the more righteous the judge seems.  So if we sin, then God’s righteousness is evidenced even more, right?  And if our sin made God’s righteousness shine all the more brilliantly, then how is he right to pass judgement on us?  Paul adds a little parenthetical to make sure that his readers understand that he is arguing from the human perspective.  He wants us to be absolutely sure that this is a ridiculous argument.  He again uses the same forceful phrase from earlier, translated here as “Certainly not!”  God is the universal judge and as Abraham said in Genesis 18:25 the Judge of all the earth will do right.

Apparently some of Paul’s opposition was going around telling people that Paul was teaching people to sin so that greater good would result.  The end would justify the means.  Paul doesn’t spend much time refuting that argument.  It was and is an absurd argument, so Paul doesn’t give it the time of day other than to say that they deserve their condemnation.

It’s easy to be critical of the Jews but we often do the same things ourselves.  Are we a guide to the blind, a light to those in the dark, an instructor of those who know nothing about our great God, or a teacher of the spiritually immature?  We should be doing those things, right?  We should be guiding those who are lost, casting a light into dark lives, and teaching the spiritually immature.  But, do we practice what we teach?  Do we live a double standard?  When others look at us, do they have cause to blaspheme God?  Or do they have reason to desire to know more about God?

We say we are Christians, but do our lives during the week reflect otherwise?  When we talk about going to church, do our coworkers look at us in disbelief?  We feel self-righteous because we know the truth.  We are God’s people.  We know what is expected of us, but we don’t live it out.

When I was a dispatcher for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, I had a coworker who had moved here from Orange County California.  She had been a dispatcher for the very large sheriff’s office there, and she came to work for us because she was bored sitting at home.  It never failed that on a Sunday afternoon, we’d get a call from a woman who said that her husband had been abusing her since they both got home from church.  Or that now he was drunk and threatening her and the children.  My coworker was always baffled by these calls.  In her unredeemed heart, she knew that these things were morally wrong.  That’s partly why we have social laws against them.  As a result, I really had no chance to share the Gospel with her.  She felt that she was a better person than these people who went to church then came home and abused their spouse.   God’s name was blasphemed because of these so-called Christians.  She, and every other coworker I had there were completely disinterested in God due to these situations.

Let us endeavor to find areas in our lives that allow us to blaspheme God.  Let us open those areas to the Lord’s work to change us and conform us into the image of His Son; ones who will show others the truth of God’s love so that they will be willing to learn more.