2:17.
“Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law and make your boast in God,”
Following the authorized text and its Greek, that word “indeed” probably doesn’t fit. The word is an interjection used to show surprise and is most often translated “look” or “see”. Old English would be “behold.” As in, “Hey, Romans, take a look at this.” And perhaps he is now picking up from verse 12, where he left off before that parenthetical section:
“you are going to be judged by the law, but look at this, my Jewish friend, you are resting on the law to save you!”
They call you a “Jew”. Ever since the Babylonian captivity, that name had surfaced as the identifier of Israel. It’s a good name. Comes down from Judah. The fourth son of Jacob/Israel. Israel is still the name of the nation. Jacob’s family is called after Jacob’s new name. But this term Jew stuck.
Judah. “Celebrated.” “Praised.” Genesis 49:8, Jacob in the Spirit makes a play on words here when he prophesies,
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“Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise…” Judah is promised the scepter. His family will produce the true kings of Israel. Judah will produce David and Hezekiah and Josiah… and Jesus, the truly celebrated one, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Oh, it’s a good name, Jew.
But the Jews, by and large, missed out on the blessing that their very name prophesied. They were called “praised”. And who was praising them, honoring them above all the nations of the earth? God Himself. Why? For His own purposes. Why does God choose anyone? His own purposes.
But the Jews began taking that name, that promise, that praise, and applying it to themselves, and praising one another, and resting in the fact that the Law was given to them, boasting that this God loved them and no one else, because they were so wonderful. Why would God call us if we weren’t the finest people on earth?
Notice the fine line of difference here. We stand back and say, there has never been a nation like Israel. How blessed, how praised. But because of God’s choice. They began to say, we are a great nation because we were so special in God’s eyes that He had to choose us. What else could He do when He saw us?
What a horrible and damning misunderstanding. I read to you from their Law, the book of Deuteronomy chapter 9:4 and following, Moses speaking,
“Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast out [nations before you], ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you… for you are a stiff- necked people… from the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord…” He goes on to list all the evils they have already committed… and they are
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still in the wilderness! They went on to out-do the pagans in their idolatry in the new land God gave them. They went on further, to crucify the Son of God.
So you are resting in your law? Boasting in your God? Hoping that the name “Jew” will cover you?
Doesn’t this attitude remind you of people you know (I hope not you, yourself) who rest in the name Christian or Calvin or Pentecostal or any of a number of names people hide behind in our own day? Some are resting in their baptism as a child. Their church membership. Their friendship with other Christians. Their good works.
There is no rest in anything short of what Jesus did for you. Rest in Him.
2:18
“…and know His will…”
Like us, they know what God wants. Written messages from prophets, and in our case, apostles of God. They and we cannot claim ignorance. “What about those who never heard?” Better question, what about those who have heard, and who know so much? What about those who memorized entire books of the Bible? We know His will. Are we resting in that knowledge or have we asked God to make that word come alive in actions? Knowing is not enough.
“…and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law…”
They knew the book so well that they could even “rightly divide” it. They could tell which things were most important, which things were of lesser importance. Jesus tested His Pharisee accusers and sometimes they came out well:
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Actually, one day they tested His knowledge of the Scriptures. (By the way, we are not knocking learning and knowledge, only saying it cannot be enough. One must do what he knows.)
Mark 12:28 and following tells the story of some scribes who asked Jesus, What is the first commandment? Jesus told them the first, and then told them the second, something they had not asked for. They were impressed, and gave an answer to Jesus that was very wise. Jesus said to that group of Pharisee-Scribes, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
They were on their way. They approved the things that were excellent. They knew what was best and second best and so on. But were they ever saved? We don’t know. You see, “not far” is still too far. The entrance to the kingdom stood before them. They knew His ways, but did they ever know Him?
Not only were the Jews resting and boasting and well-informed and discerning, or so they thought, they had a self-confidence that probably was not warranted, at least based on the interactions Jesus had with them. Verse 19:
2:19
“… and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind…”
What did Jesus say about that? Matthew 15:14, 23:24, He called them guides for sure, but blind guides! They were always being offended by the things Jesus said. One day He just told His disciples, “Leave them alone.
They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.” And in John 9:40, after He healed the one born blind, and commented on blindness, the Pharisees wanted to know if they were blind also. Instead of saying here, Yes, you are blind, He says, if you would just admit that you can’t see anything, I could deal with you, but you
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really think you can see. And your sin, your pride, your self-sufficiency and self-righteousness, remain.
And that brings us right back to Romans 2. “You are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind…” But are you really?
And you are confident that you are
“… a light to those who are in darkness…”
Jesus, in John 12, said, “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.” But in that same chapter, Luke comments, with the pathos of the Spirit of God going all the way back to Isaiah, “But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him… ‘Lord who has believed our report?’”
Who is the “they” in this chapter that Luke speaks of? There were some Greeks standing nearby, and a crowd of people, Jewish people. No one but a few disciples believed on Him. Yet the Jews according to Paul, and I might add, to this day, believe they are a light to those in darkness. But those who do not speak according to this Word, evidence to all of us that there is no light in them.
And Jews, you are confident, says Paul, that you are
2:20
“… an instructor of the foolish…”
You are wise. People should listen to you. Foolish people will gain wisdom from listening to the rabbis, yes? Jesus does not agree.
Matthew 23 offers a long list of reasons why the Jewish leadership was not to be trusted:
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• They lay heavy burdens on you but they will not move them with one of their fingers.
• They do everything they do to be seen of men.
• They exalt themselves before men.
• They fool people by their long-winded prayers.
• They think the gold of the temple is greater than the temple itself.
• They think that it is important to tithe their spices but they have no mercy to offer anyone.
• They are clean on the outside but dirty on the inside.
There are more. But these are enough to show that the Jewish leadership had no wisdom to offer the people.
Such harsh words by Jesus need to be taken seriously by anyone who would be considered a leader of God’s people. It is an awesome responsibility to stand before the people of God.
The Jews were even confident that they are a teacher of baby believers. Filled with knowledge that they can offer to one who is just starting on his way with God.
“… a teacher of babes…”
But right away our minds go to a certain night in Jerusalem when an important member of the ruling class of Israel had a private appointment with this new teacher, Jesus. He would never forget from that night how the wind was blowing and the trees were rustling when Jesus compared that wind to the Spirit of God and how that Spirit invisibly enters a man and begins life anew. He would not forget the shame he felt when this ex- carpenter spoke things Nicodemus had not heard before and then rebuked him by asking, “Seriously, are you a teacher in Israel, and you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
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How could Nicodemus or any Jewish leader bring the people of God to their God without them knowing about the prophecies of Jeremiah and the New Covenant, and Isaiah’s suffering servant and all the rest?
We must ask ourselves the question Jesus asked that Jewish Council member, Am I a teacher, am I a dad, a mom, a leader of any kind in the church and in my home, and I don’t know these things? I don’t know how to lead my family members to Christ? What am I leading them to? What is my leadership about? Is eternity in my leading and teaching?
This long description of the self-confident Jew, which we can apply to ourselves easily as Gentiles ends with,
“…having the form of knowledge and truth in the law…”
That word “form” is used one other time, same Greek word, morphosis when Paul talks to Timothy about people who have a “form” of godliness, but deny the power of it. An outline. A formula. An appearance. A semblance. Looks like something, but isn’t really, it’s just the outside.
Empty suits. Empty heads. Empty hearts.
Why, to look at a Pharisee with his clothing, His decorations that symbolized the law, his wealth, his knowledge, was to look at a model of perfection. But his self-confidence is condemned here.
I don’t think Paul is only talking of Jewish leaders. Jews in general. They had become and have become a people totally reliant on outward forms and history, and it happens in religion after religion and church after church and person after person and it can happen to you here in this place. We may start out well, but life and/or church practice becomes a habit. A happy habit for a while. Then a drudgery habit, but if we’ve trusted the habit too long, we don’t know how to break out of it. These words and the words of Jesus call us to better things.
The cults prey on “habit” Christians. They prey on restlessness. Tired old ways. They have something better, something new, and God’s sheepish
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people will follow. Then they find that the new becomes old again and they have become enclaved to error.
So Paul has described the Jews of His day, and I think it is safe to say that the description has fit throughout the centuries, minus those few times of revival. Is that an antisemitic statement? Yes. I am antisemitic as much as I am anti-Gentile. So is Paul, the Jew. We must be against things that are against God.
Now he has a series of questions of these same people. Let’s remember to try to put ourselves in this test and see how well we do.
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“You therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself?” Once more let Jesus weigh in on the conversation, since it is His conversation after all. The leaders of Judaism in Jesus’ day were
hypocrites. They taught others but did not teach themselves. Matthew 23:2-3, paraphrase: “The scribes and Pharisees have had Moses’ authority passed on to them, so do what they tell you, but don’t follow their works. They say, but they don’t do.”
“When all is said and done there is a lot more said than there is done…”
That’s a very important thing for us to know, for the church too has had hypocritical teachers through the centuries. Many are offended and leave the church when they see hypocrisy. That’s not the command of Jesus.
Jesus says, “Listen to them when they are speaking truth, but don’t follow them.” If everyone who is put off by a hypocrite leaves the church, what happens to the church?
Perhaps you can lovingly confront the hypocrite. Pray for him. But leaving is not an option.
I ran into a brother the other day who has dropped out of church. He proudly proclaimed, “I am the church.” He implied that he didn’t need
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church any longer. This brother had been in the gangs. They beat him within an inch of his life when he left the gangs for the church. And now he leaves the church. Wise?
No. He is not the church. He is one little member. And the church needs him and he needs the church, and everyone listening now is in the same category of need.
Hypocrite teachers, Paul wants to know, do you teach yourself? Asaph has a word for you if you do not, in Psalm 50:16 and following. He calls you wicked.
“To the wicked God says, ‘What right have you to declare my statutes, or take My covenant in your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and cast My words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; … these things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you; but I will rebuke you…”
Leaders, teachers, people in any authority in the church or home, listen carefully to Jesus and Asaph, and let’s not forget James:
“Let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.”
It seems that Paul had Asaph in mind when he spoke the next few lines in the text:
“You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?”
Thievery can take a lot of forms. There are those who have never taken a product out of a store without paying for it, but Paul – that is, the Holy Spirit – would not let you off the hook that easy.
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Have you cheated a little on that IRS form, found loopholes that weren’t even there, and thus stolen from the federal government? Then justified yourself with the old saying, “It’s not a sin to steal from a thief.” Yes it is. It’s a sin. Stealing is a sin.
Have you taken extra time on that lunch break, reminding yourself just how lucky the company is to have you as an employee, and how they won’t mind an extra ten minutes now and then? Stealing time is stealing money, productivity.
Have you stolen money from God, as Malachi points out? Ten percent is the beginning point, the entry point, into your giving life. It’s supposed to go up from there until eventually every penny God gives you somehow is given back to Him for His glory. But have you not even entered into the joy of the ten percent? God loves a joyful giver, but I think He would be happy at first with a joyful tither, one who pays his debt. If you are giving less than that, or nothing, you are robbing God.
The weather is bad on Sunday morning, so people keep the kids or themselves out of church. Monday morning rolls around, and the children find that the same rules do not apply for school days. It is vital that they get their education, but they are robbed on Sundays from their association with the people of God. Stealing life from a child is a pretty serious offense.
You believe the commandment, Thou shalt not steal? And you would tell everyone how true it is. But do you steal? Paul wants to know.
2:22
“You who say, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ do you commit adultery?”
We know what Jesus said about that one, right? This command is not just about finding some other woman, while you are married to a woman already, and developing an intimate relationship with her. That is a sin,
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still, make no mistake. Jesus brought it further, and placed condemnation, the breaking of God’s law, on every man who looks longingly with desire on someone that is not his wife. That is sin and needs to be confessed immediately! Men, if you can’t handle your eyes watching those football game commercials and those cheerleaders whose mothers never taught them how to dress properly in a public place, turn it off and listen on the radio.
Private watching of TV and movies is the worst thing that has come along for men trying to be holy before God. When you are in church and around people in general, it’s not so easy to look at things you shouldn’t be looking at. Your pride kicks in and you don’t want anyone to know you have this weakness. But get alone in that room, no one is around. You don’t have to turn on the porn channels, although I hear some Christian men are addicted to that. You can get your eyes filled with adultery just watching the game, or Fox News, a channel which features quite a few of the women I described earlier.
You unmarried people are not free from this command. Are you not married to Christ? Does the Spirit of God not dwell in you? Imagine your mind as a hallway where you have posted pictures of the things and people that you value most. Up and down that hallway the Holy Spirit walks and views your art work. There is a picture of Jesus on the cross. Wonderful. There is one of you visiting a hospital and giving comfort to a suffering saint. Excellent! But what is this? A picture of a half-naked woman. In fact, there are several such pictures.
How can the Holy Spirit dwell in such a hallway? Will He not be grieved beyond measure, and be unable to help you in the work you want to do for Him? Tear those images down. Be brutal. Put nothing wicked before your eyes. Let the Holy Spirit enjoy Himself in your house.
How about this one,
“…You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?”
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Now that’s a strange question. Perhaps even more hard to understand in the KJV: Do you commit sacrilege?
We know that idolatry was a horrible distraction for the people of Israel, from their days in Egypt, on through the wilderness, and into the promised land. It was in fact the reason that God had to put a halt to the Kingdom via the Babylonian captivity. But since those days, Israel had finally corrected that matter, and had come to a point of abhorrence of idolatry. Macarthur states that because some of the Caesars claimed to be gods, the Jew did not even want to handle a Roman coin on which the image of Caesar was imprinted. To them this was idolatry.
Ierosuleho , the word here translated “commit sacrilege” actually means to be a temple robber, from the noun ierosulos, a temple despoiler. Ieros , a holy place. When you do what the KJV people did, translate it “commit sacrilege”, then look up sacrilege, you find that English word comes from the Latin sacrilegus , “one who robs sacred property.”
The word came to mean, “a violation of what is sacred, consecrated to God, gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing.” But I believe the original literal meaning is best.
Paul is writing to the Jews in Rome where many temples to false gods flourished. It is a fact that Jews and others would plunder these temples in the name of God but also in the name of money. The gold and silver trappings of a pagan temple could bring in quite a profit on the market. Paul says, “You hate idolatry, but you go and steal from the temples and get rich on these gods you once despised, proving you have another god: gold.”
Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote around this time, commanded: “Let no one blaspheme those gods which other cities esteem such; nor any one steal what belongs to strange temples, nor take away the gifts that are dedicated to any god.” So there was a problem.
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And that problem is underscored in Acts 19:37 where Paul and company are cleared of a possible charge of temple-plundering. The KJV has it wrong there, I believe, talking of church-robbing. The translators lived in a day when the professing church had built temple-like buildings of its own, but no such things existed in first century Ephesus, where this statement is made.
So Paul calls out hypocrisy here. You have given up your gods, but you worship your gold. Can we apply this to ourselves? Have we committed sacrilege? Do we destroy so-called holy things and then replace them with other things that are just as evil?
We love to bash Romanism. And well we should. Romanism, trusting in works and ceremonies and rituals for our salvation, sends people to Hell. The teaching of purgatory and indulgences gives men false hope. Worship of Mary is idolatry indeed. But if you would look around the homes of Protestant Christians, you would find a stack of books with teachings just as bad as Rome’s. You would have found in recent years stacks of tapes and cd’s [now just a smart phone connected to the internet will do]. Men and women believe that as long as it’s not Roman, it’s OK. And so the church is filled, not from the pulpit necessarily, but from the pew and the phone, with idolatrous teachings that promise constant health and constant wealth. And spiritual gifts that may not even exist. That promise a salvation that needs no evidence, no fruit. Heretical teachings.
Distracting teachings. Teachings that draw men away from their pastor and church to a never-never land paid for by their offerings, which could have blessed the struggling congregation they attend, and instead are often buying yachts and private planes and mansions and corporate headquarters.
So I ask with Paul, in a 21st century way, You abhor Romanism, but do you now love many other isms that are just as deadly to your walk with God? Come out of all of these things and open your Bible.
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2:23
“You who make your boast in the law…”
Matthew 22:36, a lawyer asks Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment of the law?”
Luke 10:25-27. Another lawyer, another question, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus refers him to the law, which he proceeded to quote accurately. Jews rested on the law.
John 7:49. The Pharisees believed that any of the people of Israel who did not know the law were accursed.
John 8:5. Trying to accuse a woman caught in adultery, the scribes and Pharisees appeal to Moses, “Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned.”
John 12:34, “We have heard from the law that Christ remains forever…”
John 19:7, before Pilate the Jews said, “We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die…”
The Jews indeed rested in their law, boasted in it, held it up as the standard for all.
“… do you dishonor God through breaking the law?”
How to comment on this part of the verse except to say “Yes.” The Jews have broken all the laws of God, even as Gentiles have.
• The first commandments of God regarding idolatry they broke all through their history given in the Old Testament.
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• Taking the Lord’s name in vain: That’s not about cussing, that’s about worship: Isaiah 1.
“Bring no more vain sacrifices [but God ordained sacrifices] ; incense is an abomination to Me [but God ordained incense]… I cannot endure iniquity.” Worship in the meetings, but sinful lives.
Jesus and Isaiah: These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”
• Ezekiel 20 documents the fact that Israel had polluted the sabbaths given them by God.
• Honor your father and mother. Jesus talked about the new way of looking at that command devised by the Jews. If you would just take that money that should have been laid up for your parents, and give it to the synagogue, God would like that better.
• Murder and adultery were now looked at as outward matters, with no searching of the heart for the real reason people kill and are unfaithful.
Israel had been guilty of the worst robbery of all, robbing from God in their giving habits.
• And coveting? After their horrible removal from the land, the Jews trickled back into Israel and Judah. But the ones who got there first began giving out loans with exorbitant interest rates to the ones who came in later. Nehemiah corrected this outrage.
The Jews loved their law but could not obey it. We are no different. Psalm 119, “Oh how love I your law, it is my meditation all the day.” But I wonder if the writer of that Psalm kept the law he loved?
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2:24
“For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ as it is written.”
You may have noticed that Paul’s quotes of the Old Testament are not always exact, and/or they are taken from the Septuagint. There are some paraphrases, and substitutions of words etc. But the sense is always there. Here’s Isaiah 52:5, where this quote comes from, and some of the text surrounding it.
“My people went down at first into Egypt to dwell there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now therefore what have I here that My people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them mock them, and My name is blasphemed continually every day.”
The Jews in Egypt had no law. Some of them had turned to idols already, though Yahweh was supposedly their God. Surely the Egyptians looked down on a God that would allow His people to be in bondage all those years. The Assyrians were allowed to come into Israel and take these idolatrous Jews into bondage. How respectful could the Assyrians have been of that same God? The people worshiped some of the same gods that they did, along with their version of Yahweh. The true God was mocked and shamed and blasphemed every day of the week.
Perhaps Ezekiel tells the story even better. He picks it up after the Assyrian captivity. Ezekiel 36:17-20. Again God is speaking:
“Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own ways and deeds; to Me their way was like the uncleanness of a woman in her customary impurity. Therefore I poured out My fury upon them for the blood they had shed on the land, and for their idols with which they had defiled it. So I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed throughout the countries; I judged them
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according to their ways and their deeds. When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name – when they said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they have gone out of His land.’”
Can’t you see it? “Hey guys, look at these Jews. God’s holy people from God’s holy land. But God’s kicked them out of the Holy Land. Are you kidding? Holy? About as holy as their God I imagine!”
Every day, every day. And that antisemitism continues to this day. Jews? They’re from yesterday. They think they are so great. But their little God will have nothing to do with them. Palestine theirs? Give me a break.
God’s finished with them. And we’re finished with that whole Judeo- Christian religion! What a joke.
Did I just put Christian into the mix? Oh, I know this passage is about Jews, and we want to keep it that way, since Paul is talking to them and about them. But isn’t it true that when one calling himself Christian or preacher or evangelist messes up, the world laughs at their God and therefore blasphemes?
Not just the TV folks, people. Us. When we mess up. When the church fights. When immorality is allowed to fester in the church, and the world can’t tell the difference between holy church and unholy world. When the music and methods and attitudes inside are no different than the ones outside, what is the world to think? It’s obvious. “We don’t need you, or your God. You’re no better than us. Your divorce rate, your abortions, your drug use, your foolish talk, your obsession with sports and movies and food… why should we follow you or your God?”
Where’s Paul going with all this? You say you’re a Jew but you don’t look like the man described in the law you say you follow. You look like the rest of the world.
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But someone in the crowd says, “Yes, but God gave us a mark in our very body to prove we are His. We men were circumcised the eighth day of our lives and have been His special people ever since that day.”
Oh really. Paul’s answers my imaginary but real question in verse 25:
