THE DANGER OF RELIGION
Romans 2:17-29
How
would you like to go flying with me? We
could go down to the local airport, charter an airplane and I could take you up
for a plane ride. Who is going to fly
this plane? I am. You might ask me, “Are you a licensed
pilot?” And I would pull out my father’s
logbook and show you all of the hours that he logged in flying different types
of airplanes. He was a career pilot in
the Air Force, he flew thousands of hours and he flew all sorts of planes all
over the world. “Did he teach you how to
fly?” you ask. No, but I have read some
books on flying and I have my father’s Air Force hat and some of his flying
insignias. Certainly I need nothing
more!
Sounds a little silly. But that is
exactly the situation which Paul addresses in the book of Romans. He addresses those in the church who were
relying on their ancestry to give them a proper standing before God. They had the pedigree - they traced the
lineage to Abraham. They had the books - the Law and the Prophets. And they had the insignia - the sign of
circumcision. They were ready to fly!
Paul
brings them back down to earth in this chapter.
He started in chapter 1 by showing that the pagan world is under the
wrath of God. Now he has moved to the
religious man - the Jew who was depending upon his Jewish heritage to save him.
|
Romans 1:18-32 |
Romans 2:1-29 |
|
The Pagan |
The Religious
Man |
|
The Gentile |
The Jew |
|
Understands the
existence of God and so is without excuse |
Has the Law of
God and so is without excuse |
This
is the second chapter of bad news. And
it isn't over yet. The worst is yet to
come. Paul is giving us the bad news so
that we will be ready to get the good news.
His bad news cuts deeply. But it
is the cut of a physician who has a scalpel in his hand. He is cutting out a deadly cancer.
As
we read this passage, we could substitute EVANGELICAL or PRESBYTERIAN for
“Jew.” And in doing so, we shall come
face to face with three dangers that we face.
THE
DANGER OF HERITAGE
But if you bear the name “Jew”
and rely upon the Law and boast in God, 18 and know His will and
approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, 19 and are
confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are
in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the
immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth...
(Romans 2:17-20).
Paul
begins by addressing himself to his fellow Jews. They were Jews and they were proud of the
fact. To this day, Jewish men in the
synagogue thank the Lord in their daily prayers...
That they are lo goyim (not
Gentile).
That they are lo evedim
(not slaves
That they are lo isha (not woman).
Paul
points out five great privileges and five great professions of the Jew. He begins with five great privileges:
1. He has the Law of God.
God had spoken true truth to Moses and to the prophets
and had given His commands in the form of the Law. The Jews alone had that Law. They were known as “people of the book.”
2. He had a boast in God.
He was a worshiper of the only true God. He knew God in a way that none of the pagans
knew God. He was able to worship God in
the way which He ordained that He be worshiped.
3. He knew God’s will.
He had the Scriptures of the Old Testament. He had God’s message in written form. The most precious communication in history
had been placed into his hands and written in his language.
4. He could approve the things that are essential.
He had the capacity through his knowledge of the will
of God to determine between...
Good and evil.
Moral and immoral.
Ethical and unethical.
5. He was instructed out of the Law.
He had grown up in a Jewish family and had the
knowledge of God taught to him as a young child. He had spent his childhood in the synagogue,
being taught by the rabbis. He could
quote the law of God. He knew all of the
Bible stories for they were HIS stories — stories of his own ancestors and
people.
There
were also a number of professions which the Jew made.
• A
guide to the blind: Blind people need guides.
But the worst possible scenario is a blind person being led by a guide
who is also blind.
• A
light for those in darkness: Isaiah speaks of the fact that God’s covenant
nation was appointed to be a “light for the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:6).
• A
corrector of the foolish: Real wisdom is found in knowing God. The Jews were self-professed wise men.
• A
teacher of the immature: The Jews
thought of Gentile believers as mere spiritual babies. They had not been raised with the Scriptures
and so were considered to be spiritually retarded.
• The
embodiment of knowledge and truth.
There
is a direct application that can be made to Christians today.
|
Jews of Paul’s Day |
Christians Today |
|
You bear the name “Jew” |
You bear the name
Christian. |
|
You rely upon the Law
and boast in God |
You trust in your church
and boast that you are a Christian. |
|
You know His will and
approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law |
You know the will of God
and the basics of Christian doctrine. |
|
You are confident that
you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness |
You are able to set
straight those who are in the cults and those who are unchurched. |
|
You are a corrector of
the foolish, a teacher of the immature |
You can counsel people and
teach the young. |
|
You have in the Law the
embodiment of knowledge and of the truth |
You have all the answers. |
Let
us suppose a hypothetical man. He calls
himself a Christian. He trusts in the
truths of the Scriptures. He delights in
being close to God. He has studied the
Scripture and has even gone so far as to enter a
THE
DANGER OF HYPOCRISY
...you,
therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that
one shall 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. (Romans 2:21-24).
Now
Paul asks five questions of his Jewish readers.
He does not openly assert anything.
And yet, his questions expect an obvious answer.
|
2:21 |
Immorality |
Do You Not Teach Yourself? |
|
|
|
Do You Steal? |
|
2:22 |
Sensuality |
Do You Commit Adultery? |
|
|
Idolatry |
Do you Rob Temples? |
|
2:23 |
|
Do You Dishonor God? |
1. Do You Not Teach Yourself? (2:21).
Teaching others is easy. The hardest one to teach is always yourself. The book of
James gives a warning to teachers — that they will be held to a stricter
standard (James 3:1).
2. Do You Steal? (2:21).
Not all stealing is done with a gun or with the
stealth of a thief. Much is done in the
cutthroat business tactics of those out to make a fast buck. The prophets regularly condemned such cases
of social injustice.
3. Do You Commit Adultery? (2:22).
Divorce was at epic proportions in that day, not only
among the Gentiles, but also among the Jews.
4. Do you Rob Temples? (2:22).
Since the time of the Babylonian Captivity, no Jew had
been guilty of bowing down to an idol.
But there was another sense in which they WERE guilty of idolatry. They were guilty of making idols out of other
things...
Health.
Wealth.
Prestige.
The book of Malachi talks about how men had robbed God
by holding back their tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8-9).
5. Do You Dishonor God? (2:23).
There was nothing worse in the Jewish mind than
blasphemy - to bring dishonor to God.
In
chapter 1, we saw a downward evolution of pagan man as he moved from idolatry
to sensuality to immorality. In this
chapter, the order is reversed.
|
Romans 1:21-32 |
Pagan |
Idolatry → Sensuality
→ Immorality |
|
Romans 2:21-24 |
Jew |
Immorality → Sensuality
→ Idolatry |
There
is a point here that I want you to see.
Paul has not changed subjects between chapter 1 and chapter 2. He has only changed his audience. His topic is still the wrath of God upon a
godless life.
The
religious Jew knew the Law. That was not
his problem. It was that he did not LIVE
the Law. Paul comes to this conclusion
in verse 25:
For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of
you, just as it is written. (Romans 2:24).
Paul
is quoting from the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah speaks of how the Israelites were oppressed, first when they
lived in
...they are stealing.
...they are committing adultery.
...they are robbing temples.
...they are breaking the Law.
And
the conclusion of these heathens is to blaspheme - to say, “Those folks don’t
have much of a god!”
Here
is the principle. If you are a
Christian, then you are the representative of God on earth. You are the only Jesus that some people will
ever know. And when you sin and act in
an ungodly way, you are directly responsible for blasphemy, for you have given
opportunity for pagans to speak ill of God.
It is sad but true that the worst testimony for Christianity is
Christians.
I
am told of a minister who was visiting a man in his community and the man said,
“I will never come to your church because I have had dealings with a dishonest
member of your congregation and, if that is what a Christian is, then I want no
part of it.”
The
minister noticed a piano in the corner and asked who within the family played
the instrument. He was told that the
man’s daughter was taking lessons. The
minister asked if he might hear her play.
She
came into the room and the minister leafed through the music and picked out a
very involved composition written by Chopin, asking her to play it.
“Oh,
that is much too difficult for me,” answered the girl, but at his insistence,
she attempted the piece. Of course, it
was disastrous with missed notes and poor tempo.
After
the girl had finished the piece and left the room, the minister turned to the
father and commented, “That Chopin wasn’t much of a composer, was he?” The father understood the point immediately -
that the inability of the girl was not a reflection on the worthiness of the
composition. In the same way, the
inability of the religious man to live according to the Law is no reflection
upon the Maker of the Law.
Another
story is told of a man who took a friend to hear the famous preacher Charles
Spurgeon. Afterward, he asked his
friend, “What did you think of Spurgeon?”
His friend looked blankly for a moment before replying, “Spurgeon? I don’t know about him, I was too busy paying
attention to Christ.”
That
is what will happen if we are living a proper Christian life. People will not see us - they will see
Christ.
|
Did you hear
of the dentist who took X‑rays of every patient who came in and then
made a special proposition to them. He said, “For ten dollars I will fill
these cavities that you have here, but, if you don’t want to pay that much,
for five dollars I will retouch the X‑rays.” |
THE
DANGER OF EXTERNALISM
The
sign of the Jew was circumcision. It was
the sign of his covenant with God, placed upon his own body. There is nothing wrong with circumcision. It is a rite that was commanded by God. But it is only a sign. It is an outward sign of what was supposed to
be an inward reality. If you want to
feel the full force of this passage, then read it again and substitute the word
“BAPTISM” for “circumcision” as you read Romans 2:25-29.
For
indeed BAPTISM is of value if you practice Christianity; but if you are a
transgressor of the commands of Christ, your BAPTISM has become UNBAPTISM.
So if
the UNBAPTIZED man keeps the commands of Christ, will not his UNBAPTISM be
regarded as BAPTISM?
And
he who is physically UNBAPTIZED, if he obeys Christ, will he not judge you who
though having the teachings of Christ and BAPTISM are a transgressor of those
teachings?
For
he is not a Christian who is one outwardly, nor is BAPTISM that which is
outward in the flesh.
But
he is a Christian who is one inwardly; and BAPTISM is that which is of the
heart, by the Spirit, not by water; and his praise is not from men, but from
God.
This
brings us to the question: If baptism does not save me, then what good is
it? The question in our passage does not
deal with baptism, but with circumcision.
1. The Value of Circumcision: The ritual without the reality is
useless.
For
indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a
transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. (Romans
2:25).
We could put this into a mathematical formula:
|
Circumcision + Practicing the Law
= Value But Circumcision + Transgression of
the Law = Uncircumcision |
Paul establishes that the test of authenticity is not
what is on the outside, but what is on the inside. This brings up an obvious objection. If only the inside it important, then why
worry about ANYTHING that is on the outside?
Why be baptized? Of what value is
circumcision? The answer is that
circumcision is of value if you a Law-keeper (the specific value will be seen
in the next chapter).
The religious Jews to whom Paul speaks claimed to be
Law-keepers. They made their boast in
God. They said, “God loves us and has a
wonderful plan for our lives.” They
assumed that their circumcision gave them an “in” with God.
Circumcision was never supposed to equal
superiority. Rather, it was to be a sign
of submission. It was a sign of God
putting a knife to man’s self-sufficiency.
It was to teach the lesson that there is no part of a man’s life that is
too private or too personal for God. It
was to illustrate our need to have our sins cut away from us.
But the Jews had come to see circumcision as a sign of
superiority. They began to trust in the
symbol more than in the Lord. And they
became presumptuous in their relationship with God.
Hypocrisy in Biblical Christianity is hardly ever
reflected in overt sin — it is more often reflected in presumption. We are sinners. We say that we believe this. But if you were arrested for drunk driving
and your name appeared in the newspaper telling of the event, would you go to
church that Sunday? Or would you stay
home until you had “straightened up your own life”? The answer to that question will determine on
what you are depending for your acceptance before God. It is like being in an accident and saying,
“I don’t want to go to the Emergency Room, I have this blood all over me and I
just don't look presentable.”
You know the Gospel - that God sent His Son as a
sacrifice for sins to die in your place - that He died and was buried and that
He rose again to show that He had defeated death - and that you can find
salvation only through faith in Him, trusting Him as your Lord and as your
Savior. You know the gospel. But even the gospel will do absolutely
nothing for you unless you have appropriated the gospel for yourself and have
made it a part of your life.
2. The Judgment of Circumcision: The reality without the ritual
is sufficient.
So if
the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his
uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
And
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? (Romans 2:26-27).
Here is a Gentile.
And he has never been circumcised.
But he is a law-keeper. Through
faith in Jesus Christ, he has been credited with the righteousness of God and
this is evidenced by the practical righteousness of God in his life. The result is that this man is as good as
circumcised.
When my wife and I were first married, we exchanged
wedding rings. And for the first few
years of our marriage, I wore a gold ring on my finger. Somewhere along the line, I lost the
ring. But that did not end our
marriage. It in no way detracts from our
relationship. It is simply a symbol.
When I had the ring, I did not make more of it than I
ought to have done. I did not take off the
ring and worship it. My interest was
centered, not on the ring, but on my wife who gave it to me.
Suppose that I had not lost the ring. And imagine that I became a cruel and
unfaithful husband, refusing to care for the needs of my wife. What if, one day, she had reached the
breaking point and said, “You have ceased to be a husband to me. You are cruel and there is no love in your
heart and I want you to leave.” How would she respond if I countered, “How dare you complain! I’m wearing the wedding ring and I’ve never
removed it a single time! Sure, I’ve beat you and insulted you and cheated on you, but I was
wearing the ring!” Such an answer would
be ridiculous. And it is no less
ridiculous when we depend upon externals for our relationship with God. The symbol may represent love, but it can
never replace love.
Symbols are important.
Some of them, like baptism and the Lord’s Supper, represent
salvation. They go so far as to
articulate salvation. But they do not
impart salvation.
Putting your trust in a symbol is like trying to fly a
plane based only upon the fact that you have a pilot’s insignia or a logbook or
a pilot’s hat. It won’t get you very
far. And you’re in for a tough landing.
3. The Identity of the Truly Circumcised.
For
he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward
in the flesh. 29 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. (Romans 2:28-29).
There is a small play on words in verse 29. The word “Jew” is derived from the Hebrew
name “
|
Outward Jew |
Inward Jew |
|
Outward
circumcision in the flesh. |
Circumcision
which is of the heart. |
|
Circumcision by
the letter. |
Circumcision by
the Spirit. |
|
Praise from
men. |
Praise from
God. |
This brings up a question. How can a heart be circumcised? The word “circumcision” means to “cut
around.” The Christian is one who has
undergone a heart transplant. He is one
in whom the Lord has performed a surgical operation, cutting through the
spiritual calluses of his hardened heart to replace it with a heart for God.
Outward Judaism doesn’t do much good. And neither is there much value in
Christianity that is only skin-deep. You
cannot impress God with your pedigree. Or with your rituals.
Or with your own self-effort.
Let’s
go back to my flying illustration. I know
that you wouldn’t do it, but let’s pretend that you actually go with me to the
airport and get into a plane. You watch
as I walk around to the side of the plane and begin to blow on the wings.
“What are you doing?” you ask.
“I’m trying to get enough lift to fly the plane.”
“Why don’t you turn on the engine?”
“I can’t do that.
I’m going to fly this plane by myself.”
Such
would be the words of a legalist, huffing and puffing to fly himself to
heaven. Are you out of breath? Been working really hard at trying to please
God? I have some good news. He has already done the work on your
behalf. You can trust in Him and He will
save. And then you will soar.
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