Benefits and Drawbacks, Part 8

Romans, chapter two, and you
will see that I have set a mighty portion of Scripture
before us, twelve or thirteen verses, which I propose that
we’re going to tackle all at once. And you might mock me or
scoff or whatever the case may be. Here’s part of the occupational
difficulty is just knowing this one verse. that all Scripture,
2 Timothy 3, 16, all Scripture is inspired by God. And profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, and
because of that one verse, I find it difficult to race through
Scripture. But when I was in seminary, I
do remember the admonition. Don’t forget the break and remember
the gas. And so there’s different times
where you’ve got to adjust your pace. And some people would frankly
say that I’ve been riding the brake. And so today, I just because
of the verse before us, because the point has already been made,
we are going to pick up the steam and and apply the gas, if you
will, to mix my metaphors. We do want to cover a lot of
territory today, but just because Scripture is so rich, sometimes
I find myself so totally caught up in it that I find it difficult
to to apply the gas. We pick up again in Chapter two,
which we have entitled Benefits and Drawbacks, where Paul is
discussing That very thing, the benefits that were misused by
the Jews to the extent that they essentially became drawbacks.
They were misused, mishandled. And what Paul’s point is, remember,
we’re on a hike here and I don’t want to lose anybody in the trees
if you were here last week. If you were not here last week,
we don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you misunderstanding
why we’re belaboring the point here. Paul is making the point.
that having already indicted the Gentile world, he now is
bringing the Jews into focus and indicting them as well. Paul discussed the privileges
and the arrogance of the Jews in verses one through three.
He discussed the privileges and the oversight that is the blindness
of the Jews in verse four. And in these verses, verses five
through twenty nine, Paul is discussing very explicitly privileges
and judgment that accrued to the Jews, the privileges that
were misused to the point where that became a testimony against
them. Well, in verses five through
eight, we saw that it was an impartial judgment and that this
impartial judgment was declared to them. That because of their
stubbornness and unrepentant heart, they were literally storing
up wrath, the wrath of God, that impartiality is foreshadowed
there in verses nine and 10, where God is going to judge impartially. He is going to judge. with explicit
equity, there is no unfairness or unrighteousness in God at
all. That statement is that a statement
of God’s impartiality is given clearly in verse 11, which we
looked at, which stated simply, there is no partiality with God. From there, Paul begins to explain
the impartiality in verses 12 and 13, and he applies that,
as we saw last week, explicitly to the Gentiles in verses 14
through 16. And that really brings Paul full
circle because the Jews have been in focus since verse one
of chapter two. But he wants to bring this message
home and apply it to the Jews that God is an impartial judge
and God fully intends to judge them based on their deeds. If you would, I want to pick
up in verse 17, will course all the way down through verse 29
this morning. Where Paul says, But if you bear
the name Jew and rely upon the law and boast in God and know
His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed
out of the law, and are confident that you are a guide to the blind,
a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a
teacher of the immature, having in the law the embodiment of
knowledge and of the truth, you therefore who teach another,
Do you not teach yourself? You preach that one should not
steal. Do you steal? You who say that one should not
commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols,
do you rob temples? You who boast in the law through
your breaking the law, do you dishonor God? For the name of
God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, just as it is
written. Indeed, circumcision is of value
if you practice the law, but if you are a transgressor of
the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. If, therefore,
the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the law, will
not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? And will not
he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the law, will he
not judge you, who, though having the letter of the law and circumcision,
are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is one
outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is outward in the
flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision
is that which is of the heart. By the spirit, not by the letter
and his praise is not from men, but from God. We begin in this chapter with
essentially Paul zeroing in on the Jewish nation and pronouncing
upon them judgment, which was shocking to them to be included
in that discussion. And Paul sees hold of their attention,
remember, and it was probably because of their reaction to
the message of the Gentiles. Paul was essentially playing
off that he had given them the message of the Gentiles, and
now he is rebuking them essentially for the way that they were carrying
on for centuries with regards to the Gentiles, not just in
their response to his particular message. He begins here in verse
17 by pointing up things to which the Jew would lay claim to as
a benefit, as a blessing, as an inherent right of their own.
He begins to focus here exclusively on the Gentile world. They were,
after all, the covenant people of God. They enjoyed God’s blessings
and privileges. They had the law. They had the
light before them, the lamp unto their feet, whereas the Gentiles
literally wandered in darkness, spiritual darkness. But because
of these increased blessings and privileges, because they
had the law, they were more accountable to God. They had more culpability. Not less. They were going to
be judged. And while that was surprising
to them, it made it no less true. In these verses, immediately
in front of us, verses 17 through 20, Paul begins to take up these
claims that the Jews had a tendency to lay hold of, that perhaps
even particular phrases that they would cite as being rights
that were bestowed upon them. Go back to verse one or back
to 17, if you would, for the first of these nine statements
that the Jews were laying claim to. Where Paul says, but if you
bear the name Jew, let’s first discuss the little word if. This
word literally marks the beginning of a thought that in a sense
will ultimately go formally unfinished. What I mean by that is where
Paul, when Paul says if, It prefigures, it assumes that eventually you’ll
find a then, if then. Either a positive conclusion
or a negative challenge. It goes like this, something
like this. If you claim to be this, then you should be that. Or if you want to take it in
the negative, if you claim to be this, why aren’t you then
that? Don’t misunderstand, Paul will
make his point, but it’s open ended. There’s no formal closure
to this. Paul will make his point. He
just leaves the reader hanging with the solemn with the solemn
consideration of the claims on which the Israelites rested their
hopes. And the first of these was the title Jew. It is used
in a very general sense here. They were known to be the Jews.
For hundreds of years, they were referred to throughout the other
nations as the Hebrews, largely because of their language. They
were also known as the Israelites, as one said, after the land which
God had promised and given them, according to his covenant with
Abraham, they were the Israelites. Ultimately, though, they became
known as the Jews and that name stuck. It was fine for them.
I know personally, it took me a long time to refer to the Hebrew
nation, the Israelites, as Jews. In my particular high school,
there were a great portion of Jewish kids and to use the word
Jew was almost an insult, but not so in this particular day.
It took me a long time to get over that, even to refer to the
nation of Israelites as Jews. Nevertheless, so that became
their title, really, the name by which they were known, and
it had both a racial and a religious significance. That was their
heritage. It was the common name of the
Jewish people in that day. It referred to their descent
from Judah, and it applied to all the Jewish people, all the
Israelites. It was a title of honor for them.
The root word of it meant praised, literally the praised ones. But
it also designated the people of God, and to that they took
great pride. They were the covenant people
of God. As one said that that as the
covenant people of God and a member of the theocracy, this was the
principal ground of the false confidence of the Jews. The apostle
mentions this before all others, so in other words, they began
to take this title, which at one point had a good connotation,
and they began to take pride in the title alone and not in
what the title was supposed to promote. That they were supposed
to be a peculiar people of God with a constant witness to the
other nations. But that wasn’t the only blessing
that they enjoyed. Not only a good name. But look,
the second thing is that they rely upon the law. You say, well,
isn’t that a good thing? Yes, it is. That was their calling,
that was one of their prerogatives, and it was one of their expectations
as The people of God was that they were supposed to build their
lives upon the law and what it refers to is that whole system
of law beginning with Moses, the civil religious codes that
he penned. By way of God’s influence, as
one described it, the law represented not only the Pentateuch, but
also what were called the writings, the Psalms, Proverbs, et cetera,
and the prophets. So it was really the Old Testament
in total that he’s referring to here. That law encompassed
all of God’s revelation until that time, all of his covenants,
all of his blessings, cursings, warnings, promises, teachings,
all of it. And the Jewish nation was instructed
to build their lives and to orient themselves around that. But that,
too, became a stumbling block. When it says that they rely upon
or rest upon, they rest their hopes upon the law. In a sense,
the Jew was right and supposed to do those things. He was supposed
to pay attention to God’s law and to concern himself with God’s
law and to be diligent in the things of the law. He was to
rely on it as God’s true revelation. The problem was. That what it
was supposed to produce in and through them was works of faith
and and obedience of faith. And to simply rely on it as a
literally a cold book on the shelf. Was empty. One said it this way. To fulfill
it in such a way as to put God in his debt. or imagining complacently
that the mere fact of possessing it gives him security against
God’s judgment. Now, don’t don’t be too smug
here. All of us know many Christians
or professing Christians who merely because they possess a
copy of the Bible. Essentially, take on the same
attitude merely because they attend a church. Because they
own a copy of the scriptures, because they joined a particular
denomination, essentially take on the same attitude that is
being scrutinized here. They claimed that they relied
upon the law. But it really had become just
more out of rote memory and out of tradition and not out of sincere
and heartfelt faith in the truths and principles of God’s word.
One. Commentators said it this way,
the fact that they were partakers of their religions, sacraments
and rights, that they had a divinely appointed priesthood to make
atonement for sin was the ground on which they rested their hope
and acceptance with God. Within that system, they considered
all state outside. There was no salvation and such
was the false confidence of the Jews and such has been the false
confidence of thousands of Christians. Is it just because we attend
church? Is it just because we were born in America? Is it just
because we own a Bible? That is exactly what Paul is
setting up the Jews with. Thirdly, look at their next blessing
that had become a curse. They boasted in God. Wasn’t that
a good thing? It could be. It could be in a
good sense that all of their boastings with God and how he
had dealt with them. One described it this way, to
boast or glory in any person or thing is to rejoice in him
as a source of honor, happiness, profit. And because of that,
we are forbidden, obviously, to glory in ourselves. Another
said to boast or glory in God is a thoroughly good thing if
It is the sort of boasting in him which truly gives him the
glory, a truly humble boasting in his goodness and in his mercy. But it is altogether a different
matter if it is the sort of boasting which is self-centered boasting,
boasting in him as a basis for one’s own self-importance. And
that is what had befallen the Jews. Whereas once they boasted
in the mighty deeds of God, now they boasted that they were the
people of God, as if there was something special about them
that it prompted God to choose them in the first place. So glorying in God can go either
way, you can glory in God in a good way and you can glory
in God and profane him in it. If it’s from a sense of absolute
emptiness and poverty, spiritually speaking, then it’s a good thing.
But if it’s out of arrogance, if it’s from a sense of obligation
that God has chosen you, then it’s a bad thing. It’s an interesting thing in
Paul’s epistles. And this is the first occurrence
of this word in the book of Romans, but it won’t be the last Romans
two twenty three. You who boast in the law. Romans
three twenty seven, where then is boasting Romans four to if
Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.
So it really is. It’s a word that Paul uses frequently. And Paul had an entire doctrine
about good and bad boasting. Listen to this. In Paul’s epistles,
in a more general sense, there was a right boasting in God,
as we’ve already acknowledged. Romans 511 talks about that kind
of boasting. We exult in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, there is proper boasting at times, even for the
Christian. There is boasting in Christ, Paul says in Philippians
3, 3, we are the true circumcision who worship in the spirit of
God and glory or boast in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in
the flesh. Paul said that he boasted also
in the hope of the glory of God, Romans 5, 2, we have obtained
our Introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand
and we exalt or we boast in the hope of the glory of God. We
hope or boast in the cross of Christ as well, Paul says in
Galatians 6.14. We boast in our tribulations,
Romans 5.3. We boast or exult in our weaknesses,
2nd Corinthians 12.5 and 12.9. And so there is a boasting that
is right and proper before God, that Paul says in the case of
the Jews, in the case of this nation. Their boasting had become
evil, their boasting had become distasteful in God’s sight and
eyes, all that kind of boasting, which was boasting in man, boasting
in the flesh is illegitimate and sinful. Paul mentions this
kind of boasting as well throughout his epistles. Let no one boast
in men. First Corinthians three, twenty
one, four, seven, five, twelve, all of those that where it’s
an act of asserting claim on God as if God owes you something,
that kind of boasting that look at me kind of boasting. He says
is sinful and he says that is what the nation of Israel had
degenerated into, not only their name, Not only their titles and
privileges, but also the fact that they have
been specially chosen by God. There was a fourth indicator
of their stumbling, stumbling over their privileges. Paul says,
if you bear the name Jew, rely upon the law, boast in God and
know his will, isn’t knowing God’s will a good thing? It can
be. It should be that knowledge,
that overwhelming knowledge of God, not only having been given
the law, but all of that interface with God Himself in the miracles
that He had worked in the Exodus and beyond. All of those things
were a knowledge of God, a special and particular knowledge. Those were real privileges that
were afforded the Jews. by which they were distinguished
and set apart from all the other nations. No other nation had
enjoyed that kind of intimate knowledge of God. But just as we said earlier,
the name, the trust in the law, their boasting in God, all of
those things increased their responsibility before God and
they blew it at every turn. As one said, they knew what God
required and they knew what God forbade. They knew what he commanded
and they knew what he prohibited. They knew what he approved and
what he disapproved. And that knowledge became a judgment
against them because they refused to live by it. There’s a fifth.
There’s a fifth blessing that they mishandled. Paul says they
approve the things that are essential being instructed out of the law.
You might even just refer to this more simply as discernment.
To be able to approve after testing it speaks of spiritual discernment. This is another favorite word
of Paul. 1 Corinthians 3 13. Each man’s work will become evident
for the day will show because it is to be revealed with fire.
A fire will test. That’s our word will test the
quality of each man’s work. The Jews had the ability to look
at a situation to interact with God’s word and to test the situation
and to discern right from wrong. It was beyond just an ability,
though, to discern between right and wrong. What it was was a
capacity to correctly interpret and discern God’s intentions. They had that ability. And that’s
what makes the way that they lived and the way that they conducted
themselves that much more abhorrent to God. As one said, the word
of the law of God was a light to their feet, which they could
at all times refer to guide their steps. The Jews had the means
not only to know what was right and wrong, but to discern what
was most important, the most important part, rather, of God’s
law. Remember, this was particularly Jesus indictment of the Jewish
elite of his day. Matthew 23, 23. Woe to you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin
and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law. They knew
what was right. They knew that it was if they
knew that it was right to do those little tiny things to take
their legalistic interpretation of tithing to that tiniest degree. If they knew that, then they
also knew the weightier provisions, justice and mercy and faithfulness. But these are the things you
ought to have done without neglecting the others. He didn’t rebuke
them for tithing in the tiniest little seeds. He doesn’t say
you’re being overly scrupulous. He says you should have done
that while doing the other. They knew they had the ability.
They had discernment. And it is through instruction,
literally, Paul points to catechism. That’s where we get our word
catechized to take a little one and with these small sentences
to go back and forth and to instruct. They had been instructed by God
himself, by his law. They knew exactly what they were
supposed to do on almost every given situation. There was a sixth blessing that
they stumbled over. He says that they were confident
that you are confident that you are yourself a guide to the blind. This was the Jews conviction
that they really felt like they were God’s light, God’s eyes,
to the people and they were to go about and to be God’s instructors
to all the other nations. And they began to look at themselves
as supremely and eminently qualified to do that. And by God’s design,
they were. Only they began to become proud
over this position and instead of actually doing it and leading
others out of darkness, they themselves fell into the pit.
In a sense, the Jews were supposed to be all of these things that
Paul is about to enumerate. Isaiah 42, 7 says that they were
to open blind eyes to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and
to all who dwell in darkness from the prison. That was the
calling of Israel. But it had become a point of
pride to the Jew. This know-it-all attitude, which
Jesus himself would frequently address during his days on the
earth. Remember Matthew 15, 14. Let them alone. They are blind
guides of the blind. And if a blind man leads a blind
man, both will fall in to a pit. This review was repeated by Christ
in Matthew 23. But there was another element
to this, another blessing that they were supposed to be, that
though similar, they had also mishandled. They were to be a
light to those who were in darkness. That was exactly what God had
called them to be, a light in darkness. Isaiah 42, 6, I am
the Lord. I have called you in righteousness.
I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. I will appoint
you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations. They
were called to be light. They were called to point people
in the direction of God himself. And they hadn’t. Remember, through
them, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. They hadn’t. They had mishandled God’s calling
in their life as a nation. There’s an eighth. That they
an eighth blessing that they had mishandled, they were to
be a corrector of the foolish, this is just very basic, as if
you’re talking to a child or someone who is blown, it was
used of educators to convey this idea of correction initially
by chastisement now. Israel wasn’t to take on that
role, but they were to have an influence. They were to have
an influence by their moral standard, by their upright living and walking. They were to be a rebuke to the
other nations and the other nations were to be drawn to God by how
this nation lived. But they weren’t. The ninth blessing
that they mishandled was that they were to be a teacher of
the immature. Having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and
the truth. The typical Jew was to interface
with the Gentiles wherever they were. They were to be a teacher
to the immature, not only to the to the new converts, but
to the to those who were less schooled, even in their own nation.
And instead, they heaped upon them all kinds of additional
requirements, unbiblical standards, It became anything but what they
were called to be. And it’s right here that Paul
takes them right up to the Jew, the average Jew would have been
nodding his head at all nine of those things, all nine of
those blessings. These are their words, remember?
The name of Jew, relying upon the law, boasting in God, knowing
his will, approving the things that are essential, the best
things, confidence in the fact that they were a guide to the
blind, a light to those in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a
teacher of the immature. They would have said yea and
amen to all of those. And this is right where Paul
has them. And it’s right here where Paul levies his own indictment
to the Jewish nation. What he does here is basically
sum up and introduce by way of these questions that are presented
here as questions that contrasted with the actual fact by the actual
facts, what they were called to be. These charges are written
down in the form of questions. In order to convict, hopefully,
the Jews in his own conscience, Because he would have to plead
guilty to all of these charges, there are five of them. These
sentences, the fifth is essentially a summary of the first four,
but there are five specific. Charges here that Paul will levy
at the Jews, listen. And what he points to here is
that the Jews were guilty of these particular charges, look
at verse twenty one. You who therefore teach another,
do you teach yourself? What he points to here is hypocrisy.
The fact that they were all about running here and there, promoting and articulating the
law, and yet never living it. We do that a lot, don’t we? We
set up these standards, we put ourselves forward as instructors,
and yet sometimes we fail to apply the principles to our own
hearts and lives. As one said, that’s not only
an inconsistency, it’s arrogance and hypocrisy, and that is what
the nation of Israel had gotten very good at. They had gotten
good, like Congress has, of passing and promoting laws that they
don’t have to live by. Well, they learned it from these. Matthew 23, 3, Jesus said, Therefore,
all that they tell you do and observe. Their standard was good. It was the law of God. All that
they tell you do and observe, but do not do according to their
deeds. Don’t watch the way they live. Don’t follow their example,
for they say things and do not do them. There’s a second indictment. Paul says, not only you teach
another, do you teach yourself? But the second one, you preach
that one should not steal. Do you steal? Now, this is a
hard one. Is he saying that every Jew that
ever walked the face of the earth was greedy and and thieving?
No. But he is saying that from God,
they were thieves, they stole from God. Isaiah 56, 11 says
it very clearly, the dogs are greedy. They are not satisfied.
They are shepherds who have no understanding. They have all
turned their own way, each one to his unjust gain. It was a
common thread there. In the nation of Israel that
whereas they were called to be magnanimous and they were called
to promote righteousness and justice. They were just as thieving,
just as conniving, And they were that way towards
God himself, as we’ll see in a moment. There’s a third indictment. Verse 22, you who say that one
should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? One summarized it in these terms.
He said to steal and commit adultery are great sins. But for those
who preach against them and condemn them and others to commit them
is to quadruple their guilt. They were the more guilty in
the sight of God than even the heathen themselves. Remember,
because God had called them on repeated occasion spiritual adulterers. Now, whether he’s talking about
spiritual adultery or literal adultery, we know that the Jews
had built an entire system of divorce, that if they were dissatisfied
for any reason with their wife, they could. Because of the hardness
of their hearts, divorce their wives and go about it, and God
says, you know what that is adultery, I told you what it was in my
law. And it wasn’t good enough for you. So you go about preaching
against adultery and all the while you do exactly what you
want to do. Jesus addressed this in the Sermon
on the Mount, didn’t he? Jesus said, you know what? You
have a standard. Let me tell you what the standard
is. Because the standard has fallen in your particular eyes. You’ve heard it well said that
you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone
who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart. Jesus says, let me tell you the
standard of God. The standard of God was not only
one man, one woman, but it was even higher than that. That woman
was to be the apple of your eye. If your right eye makes you stumble,
tear it out and throw it from you, for it’s better that you
lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body
to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you
stumble, cut it off and throw it from you, for it is better
to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body
to go into hell. It is said, whoever sends his
wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce. They said, if you
just follow the procedures, right, if you just go to court, if you
just get the paper, it’s OK. So what God says. Jesus says,
but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except
for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery and
whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. There’s a fourth
indictment says you have a poor idols. Do you rob temples? This
is a particularly hard one. You see, the Jews following their
Babylonian captivity really had they had turned one great corner,
they saw the devastating effects of idolatry on their own nation. Remember, they have been rebuked
for it time and again. chastised. Now they’ve been carried
off into captivity, ultimately because of their idolatry. And
they came to hate idols. They came to abhor idols. And
that’s what God wanted in the first place. They learned one
good lesson. But he says, you also robbed
temples. What on earth is that? What is he referring to here?
He’s saying the Jews would run into these idolatrous temples
and cart out the gold. There were some that took that
position that they thought that they were doing the Lord’s work
by going into these false places of worship. I don’t think that’s
the case. I don’t think that going in and
ruining heathen temples any more than it would be an honor to
God if we were to go into some false denomination, false church,
wreck their place of worship. Would that be honoring to God?
No. I think what it’s talking about
is how they profaned God himself. They had made God’s house a house
of thieves, remember, setting it up as a treasury right in
the house of God, withholding from others what was rightfully
theirs. Withholding from God what was
rightfully his and offerings and gifts and tithes. Ultimately,
their irreverent treatment of God, that’s what God you robbed
me, he says, you’re thieves, you’re a thieving people. And
the summary in verse twenty three and twenty four. The fifth indictment
against them, you who boast in the law, you talk about how good
the law is. Through your breaking the law,
do you dishonor God? And the answer is you bet you
sure do. You absolutely dishonor God.
And he issues them the age old indictment. From Isaiah 52, 5. The name of God is blasphemed
among the Gentiles because of you, just as it is written now
that originally had a completely different application in Isaiah
52, 5. They have been carted off into captivity and the other
nations were giving Israel a catcall that God had become a byword
simply because it was as if God couldn’t help them. They were
beyond even God’s help. They had given God’s enemies
the opportunity to blaspheme. This wrong boasting, as we’ve
already seen, provoked the enemies. The nation of Israel was boasting
as if they had the law, but they didn’t live as if they had the
law. And that is what became the byword. In this particular instance,
as one said, the sad plight of the Jews in exile caused the
Gentiles to speak lightly of their God, imagining that he
was unable to help his people. But now it’s not his people’s
misfortune, but their misconduct. That causes the Gentiles to conclude
that the God of such people cannot be of much account. You see, it originally referred
to the reviling of God’s name because of the oppressors of
Israel, but now it’s because of their misdeeds, their misconduct.
And here, this is the people that was specially tasked with
sanctifying God’s name among the nations, being a special,
peculiar people. And they hadn’t, they hadn’t
lived according to the law at all, and so their boasting was
all in vain. Paul takes them right up. To the final section that we
consider in this chapter. That of the valueless rituals
of God’s people. Valueless rituals. Look at verse
25, where Paul says, for indeed, circumcision is a value if you
practice the law. But if you’re a transgression
of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. There’s
this contrast here, and it’s a terrible contrast between what
the Jews profess by this outward ritual, this right R.I.T.E. and their actual lives. And they
didn’t match up. And so essentially what God says
is this right, this ritual is empty and vain, it’s worthless.
If you don’t propose to live according to the standard that
is supposed to be symbolized by this ritual, then it is an
empty ritual. One said it this way, circumcision
performed as a legal requirement puts a man under the liability
to keep the rest of the law, and though no one can keep the
whole law, he must inevitably default on his liability. Circumcision
is reckoned as uncircumcision if it is not accompanied by heart
devotion, and that was their problem. Their hearts were empty,
they were passionless, they were faithless. Look at verse 26. It’s the flip
side of the argument, if therefore, the uncircumcised man keeps the
requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded
as circumcision? What is God looking for here?
Is he looking for ritual? Is he just like in our case in
the church, is he merely wanting us to get baptized or is baptism
supposed to represent a changed life? Goes on in verse twenty seven
and says, will not he who is physically uncircumcised, if
he keeps the law, will he not judge you who, though having
the letter of the law and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?
Well, this is one of those difficult statements that we’ve seen throughout.
Paul is, he’s not saying that there’s anybody that has the
capacity out there to live perfectly, that if you just live perfectly
according to the law, that’s going to be better for you than
circumcision. It’s a hypothetical statement
to begin with. It doesn’t mean that the Gentiles,
that they have the capacity of keeping the law. And therefore,
circumcision is unimportant. What circumcision was meant to
do for the Jews is be a mark, a testimony that they intended
to live according to the law. And that was supposed to produce
in them attention, attention of yearning and desiring to please
God. And it hadn’t. It became simply
a mark in the flesh and nothing more. Verse 28, Paul says, For
he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that
which is outward in the flesh. There is an outward state. There’s
an outward sign. It’s symbolic. But if it has
no spiritual value, then it’s void. As one said, God looks
upon the heart. It does not regard mere external
circumstances. It is not, therefore, descent
from Abraham nor connection with the external theocracy that can
secure his favor, but is the possession of those internal
dispositions which external rights are intended to symbolize. In other words, there was no
life within. There was no spiritual life within. And that’s Paul’s final point
of this chapter. He is a Jew who is one. Pardon
me. He is a Jew who is one inwardly
and circumcision is that which is of the heart by the spirit,
not by the letter. And his praise is not from men,
but from God. The problem was not that they
didn’t have the law. They did. They had the right
name. They had the right rituals. But
they had no heart. God had not touched their heart.
God had not changed them from within. And that is Paul’s entire
point here is that the Jews were entirely culpable simply because
they had not yielded. They had not repented. They had
not come to the place of acknowledging that spiritually they were bankrupt
and they were in desperate need of God’s assistance. They really
thought that they had it. They thought that they had. Accomplished
all this is always what God was looking for. It wasn’t outward
circumcision at all. It was a change of heart. Deuteronomy
10, 16. Circumcise your heart and stiffen
your neck no longer. Jeremiah 4, 4. Circumcise your
cells to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart.
Jeremiah 9, 26. Ezekiel 44, 7. The theme continues
throughout the prophets. It was always a changed attitude
from within that God was looking for. And the standard hasn’t
changed with us. God doesn’t care about your church
membership. God doesn’t care about some external ritual. God
doesn’t care about all of those things that we profess. God doesn’t
care about the outward. God cares what’s within. God’s
looking for the faith from within placed in none other than the
Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else. The standard hasn’t changed. And who gets to that point? Remember,
we’re in a forest. We don’t want to lose anybody
in the trees. The point that he’s making is not only are the
Gentiles absolutely guilty and in desperate need of a savior,
so are the Jews. So is the Jewish nation desperately
in need of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. All have sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God. Let’s pray. Our father and our God, we humble
ourselves before you. Seeing the incredible privileges
that the Jews have and yet squandered. And yet the mercy that you have
to stand and to call them to repentance in that. And the mercy
that you’ve had towards us, even the privileges that we enjoy
being born in this nation with churches on every corner and
Bibles everywhere. Father, even to a degree, could
we not be indicted for squandering so many spiritual privileges
that we have and have access to? Grant us the grace, Father,
to appropriate these great means of growth and grace. Help us
to feast upon your word and to richly enjoy the fellowship of
God’s people. to pray humbly and deeply and
often to seek to promote faith in our Lord Jesus Christ with
all that we come across. God grant us the grace to be
a different people, a peculiar people as Israel was supposed
to be. Thank you. It’s in Jesus name
that we pray. Amen. You. You. you