Romans 2:28-29

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 circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.

Paul offers a very different definition of what it meant to be a Jew than what his opponents accepted. And he teaches us here that the righteousness of the new covenant is inward and moral, though it is expressed outwardly. It’s not merely external and ceremonial and ritual and symbolic, as the Jews version was. Paul says that outward signs set forth an inward reality. And the inward reality in absence of the outward sign is as if you have the outward sign. And the outward sign in the absence of the inward reality is as if you have never received the sign. So the Jews addressed here were not true Jews, as they lacked the inward reality. In v.25-29, Paul underlines that Jewish people need the gospel by showing that Gentiles are actually becoming the true Jews. Gentiles—the uncircumcised—who grasp the real meaning of the law and have their hearts changed by the Spirit and live out the obedience of faith are, in reality, the true Jews. This was a staggering thought—Gentiles would be counted as Jews by keeping the law and inherit God’s promises to Israel, while the natural-born Jews perished in judgment.

A person is a true Jew—a true part of God’s redeemed people—if he fulfills the Law, if his heart is circumcised by the Spirit to love God. Deuteronomy 30:6 “The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” That’s what Paul is talking about here, and you don’t have to be a natural-born Jew for it to happen to you. John Piper offers 2 equations:

Law minus Spirit = (1) external religious ritual (like circumcision) (2) the need for the praise of man to keep you going (3) death, because the law becomes mere “written code,” and that kills.

Law plus Spirit = (1) internal circumcision of the heart (2) satisfaction in the praise of God, even if no man approves you (3) life, united to God in love by the Spirit.

Paul is showing the Jews that they’ve misinterpreted the law and its purpose. The inward reality is more important than the outward sign. That’s not to reject the sign. We must avoid making little of the sign. The sign is important. But the outward sign is not of the essence of the reality. So now, what of the person who has not been baptized? Many who come from certain church backgrounds do not understand this principle. Are you a Jew? Not an outward Jew, but an inward Jew?

Are you circumcised by the Spirit? Paul says if you don’t see in yourself the fruits of the Spirit, then you may want to question your faith. No doubt you look at your life and see a profession of faith. Do you also see true love and esteem for Jesus Christ? Do you love His Word? Do you acknowledge the authority of the Holy Scriptures and long to have your lives guided by them? Have you grown in love to God and love to neighbor? Have you seen the Spirit working in you His fruits that wage war against the flesh and its lusts and cause your hearts to be conformed to the desires of God? Have you been captured by the Spirit of Truth, and not the spirit of this world? Are you truly circumcised?

Praise is from God, not from men. The contrast between the truly righteous person and the only apparently righteous person is this: The truly righteous person longs to be righteous in the eyes of God, but the only apparently righteous person longs for the praise of men. Paul does a play on words in verse 29, when he speaks about the Jew whose praise is not from men, but from God. “Judah” is the word from which we get the word “Jew.” And the word “Judah” was connected in the Old Testament to the idea of praise or to the word “praise.” Genesis 29:35 Leah conceived bore a son, and said “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore, she named him Judah. Do you see the connection between the praise of the Lord and Judah? Notice again as Jacob speaks in Genesis 49:8: “Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s sons shall bow down to you.” And so Paul says the true Jew, connected with the idea of praise, is praised not by men, but by God. The truly righteous person longs to have the affirmation of God rather than the affirmation of man.

Can you hear Jesus teaching in the background? Matthew 6 “Do not practice your righteousness before men to be praised by them; give, pray, and fast in secret.” The difference between inward and outward righteousness is that outward righteousness is only perceived, not real. It doesn’t penetrate the surface. It doesn’t flow from a heart which has been redeemed, spiritually regenerated by the work of God’s Holy Spirit. And Paul says, “Look at your life. And if your life only bears marks of that superficial righteousness, then perhaps your trust has been false.” If you find that your trust has been false, run to Christ now! Repent and believe. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you will be saved.

Romans 2:25-27

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 [or even though you who, by means of a] written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

This is the last hypothetical attempt by the Jews to counter Paul’s insistence that they need the gospel. And this one was Paul’s favorite to refute! Paul moves from a discussion of the value of the moral law to a discussion of the value of the ceremonial law. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham. And the Jews final effort to deny their need for Paul’s gospel was to run to this sign of the covenant. This was their proof that they were special to God. And Paul ripped their hopes to shreds when he made it clear that covenant signs (circumcision of the flesh) mean nothing apart from covenant realities (circumcision of the heart).

Paul is addressing unbelieving Jews who have assurance of their salvation. There are believers who have assurance, believers who lack assurance, unbelievers who lack assurance, and unbelievers who have a false assurance. Paul loves to preach to unbelievers without assurance. They are one step from the kingdom. They are not saved, and they know it. They are ripe to hear the gospel. Paul loves to preach the gospel to believers who lack assurance because he can assure them and the promises of God made to them, that they have not fully realized yet, and moved them into spiritual maturity where they can be secure in their faith. He loves to preach the gospel to believers who have assurance because they grow in their obedience of faith and sanctification. But those unbelievers who have assurance, they are a hard nut to crack. So Paul is throwing out every argument to undercut their false assurance, not because he hates the Jewish people, not because he doesn’t care about them, but precisely because he loves them. He does not want them to be spiritually deluded. He does not want them to be secure when they should not be. And so he’s cutting down every place they run to encourage them to run to Jesus Christ for assurance. The law will condemn. Their understanding of election is faulty. Their Jewish heritage was bankrupt. And now circumcision, it is empty. In Christ alone is salvation.

Romans 2:24

As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" [Isaiah 52:5; Ezekiel 36:22].

This is the consequence of bearing the name, “Jew;” or in our case, “Christian,” without living up to it. The Jews were called to evangelize the world on behalf of the One, True and Living God, and they not only failed to witness, but they reversed it and caused the One, True and Living God to be blasphemed. Ouch! Could Paul have been more offensive? Paul is very critical of the Jews here, and he is a Jew! He says that they have failed to exalt the name of the Lord for the world to see and failed to be witnesses to the nations for His truth by living according to it; God elected them this for this reason, and they failed. They have been hypocrites, and thus, God’s name is blasphemed because of them. That’s harsh! How would you like to hear that the reason God’s name is blasphemed is because of something you did or failed to do?

Paul basically says that every single Jew who has not received Christ as Savior and Lord is a hypocrite. That would have come across as very arrogant in Paul’s day; How about in our day? Was Paul wrong to be so critical of his own people? No. Why not? Christ and the prophets did the same thing before Paul. Paul is doing nothing new here. He was not being anti-Semitic. Criticism is not wrong. And we’ll see in Romans 9-11 that Paul still loves the Jews, even enough to give up his salvation that they might be saved.

Remember, Jesus wanted the Jewish people to come into the light, to see the joy of the salvation of the Lord, but the Jewish leaders were not willing (Matthew 23:37). They worshipped God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him. God hated their festivals and sacrifices, which He had commanded them to observe and perform, because their hearts were not in it. Paul’s charge against the Jews was not that they were making too much of the law; they weren’t making enough of it. Paul uses their hypocrisy as his proof of sin. The hypocrisy of professing believers living in contradiction with their profession is the greatest hindrance to the spread of the gospel. Paul doesn’t tell them to start living like they preach. He knows they can’t do that. They need Christ and the gospel of grace.

Now once again, according to Paul, there are only two types of people in the world. There are hypocrites who don’t know they’re hypocrites, and there are hypocrites who know it. It’s hard to hear: You are a hypocrite. I am a hypocrite. It’s not fun to hear, but there’s truth in it. Any what’s more, true believers, though hypocritical, are witnesses for Christ. You know, the Bible doesn’t say, “Please be a witness for Jesus.” The Bible says, “You are witnesses.” So the question is, are you a good one or a bad one?

Romans 2:17-23

17Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; 18if you know His will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth-- 21you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

Jews thought they were righteous, simply because they were Jews. The truth misused blinds people to the truth. The Jews had God’s truth given to them from Moses and the prophets. They had enormous privileges given to them. But they misused those things that God has given to them, and therefore, they blinded themselves to the truth that they need the gospel and to the truth of the law and its purpose. That’s a significant reality for us. Our misuse of the truth blinds us to its purpose. Paul, in v.17-23, says that the Jews misuse the truth in several ways: (1) They are specially chosen by God (national election); (2) They have a unique relationship with Him through the law; (3) They know His will (their calling was to be a light to the Gentiles) and have superior spiritual discernment (approving the spiritual essentials).

(1) Paul says the Jews take pride and have confidence in the fact that God has chosen or elected them. The people of Israel say to Paul, “We’re the elect people of God. God has chosen us out of all the nations of the earth. We don’t need your gospel.” Paul talks a lot about election elsewhere, and we’ll cover it more when we get to it in Romans 9-11, but for now, here are two reasons how the Jews were misapplying election to themselves: First, election is transforming, and these Jews hadn’t been transformed. Second, election is not only of a nation, but also of individuals. God elects individuals to salvation, and it’s a transforming election. But as we’ll see in Romans 9, not all Israel is Israel. So God has elected the nation of Israel, the people known as Jews or Hebrews, to bring forth His Messiah to the world and to exalt His name throughout the world. But God has also elected individuals to salvation, and the two groups of elected people are not necessarily the same. The Jews misunderstood this (and we often do as well, especially regarding soteriology and eschatology); Paul will explain it fully later.

(2) The Jews also thought they did not need the gospel, because they had a unique relationship with God through the law. We covered that last time. There are many functions of the law, and the Jews thought just having it was enough. They failed to realize that they weren’t keeping it. And they failed to realize that its purpose was to drive them to Christ. They thought through the law that they had a good relationship with God, but they didn’t even know much about Him or His purposes. It’s like people today who say, “I don’t care about theology and the deep topics, because I just want to live like Christ.” Well that’s nice that they want to live like Christ, but they need to know more about Who Christ is, what His purpose was in life and death, and how He is glorified by what He has accomplished. And to understand these things, we need to look at the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of the atonement, the doctrine of election, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, etc. and they need to mesh. Now we have the gospel, and we understand it; we call ourselves Christians. But we can’t get lazy about it, and we can’t let it become ritualistic. We can’t be proud that we are counted among the elect, because we contributed nothing to our election. This is what the Jews ran into. But the nation of Israel contributed nothing to its national election (Deuteronomy 7:6-8), and individuals have not contributed anything to their individual election (Romans 9:10-24).

(3) The Jews said that they already knew God’s will and had spiritual discernment. They thought, “Perhaps the Gentiles don’t have our abilities, and so they need the gospel, but not us. We’re fine because, again, we have the law.” And Paul gives them Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount saying from Matthew 7:1-5 in v.19-23. Paul had opportunities in this section to throw out the law and throw out election and throw out theology, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says that those things are true and good, but you’ve misunderstood and misused them. The Jews were in love with an idea of God, instead of with God Himself. In verses 19-23, Paul explains that misunderstanding and misuse of the truth causes people to be led astray, which is exactly what the Jewish leaders were doing to the Jewish people.

Paul says that spiritual pride has hampered the Jews’ God-given mission. It’s not that God didn’t call them to be a light to the Gentiles; He did. It’s that they have taken that as an occasion of pride, as if somehow they were inherently better than the Gentiles were, instead of saved simply by God’s grace. And so instead of serving them and longing for them to fellowship in the truth of God’s covenant promises, the Jews have lauded over them and thought themselves better. The Jews thought they knew God and His law better than everybody else. Paul said, “They don’t really know Him or His law at all, and the fact that they don’t know Him or His law has blinded them to their need of Him and of His grace.”

Paul’s entire point in v.17-23 is that the Jews confidence in who they were and the law they had was empty of value. They dishonored God not only by breaking the law, which was their confidence, but also by having a false confidence, a confidence in the blessings of God, rather than in God Himself. They robbed from God the one thing He demanded from them: faith. They, like all of us, were often quick to point at others who failed to observe the moral law, but slow to point at the failure to obey the moral law in their own hearts. The Jewish leaders loved to bring Gentiles into Judaism and criticize their behavior. But, the Jews themselves were guilty of everything they were trying to teach to the Gentiles. This is why all people need the gospel. What was the consequence of their hypocrisy? Verse 24….Ouch! We'll look at it tomorrow.

Romans 2:12-16

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Paul is reminding people that sowing disrespect of God’s Person and/or disobedience of God’s law reaps eternal condemnation. Now bear in mind that throughout this section Paul is trying to bring conviction of heart for those Jews who have rejected the gospel. He wants the Jews to run to God through the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. The Jews have said, “No, Paul, we’ve got the law. We don’t need your gospel.” One of Paul’s responses is, “Well, you haven’t understood the law. If you understood the law, you would understand that the law was never given to justify you.” Romans 3:20 “Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” Another response is, “Though you have the law, you don’t obey the law.” Hearing the law doesn’t do any good unless you do it; it just intensifies guilt because only the one who does it is justified. The 2 problems Paul is dealing with here are hypocrisy and self-justification: either saying, “I know the law,” and not doing it, or attempting to justify one’s self by the obeying the whole law, which is impossible.

By the way, why is obedience impossible? Obedience is impossible due to our sin nature. Christ is the only one Who could (and would) obey, because He lacked the sin nature. The sin nature affects desire. James 1:15 “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Our sin nature gives us evil desires, which keep us from obedience. But the Spirit is life.

When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. Here we have Paul’s answer to the common objection we mentioned earlier. In chapter 1, Paul answered the objection regarding those who don’t know God. He said that everybody knows God! And here, the objection is that people don’t have the law. How could God judge them for disobedience if they don’t know the law? Paul says they know the law. It’s written on their hearts, and when they disobey it, their consciences let them know it. So if you say, “The person who has not heard the gospel cannot be condemned to hell, because they have not rejected Christ,” Paul will say, “But that person can and will be condemned by the law, for that person has broken the law, and they know it.” There is no one who is not culpable for their sin. In other words, Paul is saying everyone stands under the just condemnation of God. And even our conscience confirms it. All of mankind knows God, knows how they ought to behave, knows that they have not lived up to these standards, and knows that failing to live rightly deserves eternal condemnation, regardless of whether they are Jew or Gentile. This is what all men know, yet they suppress it and turn against God, claiming unrighteousness or injustice in Him.

According to John MacArthur, there are 6 bases for God’s judgment: truth, knowledge, guilt, deeds, motive, and impartiality. God judges on the basis of those six things. He judges men on the basis of the truth, on the basis of their knowledge, on the basis of their guilt, on the basis of their deeds, and on the basis of their motives, all with impartiality. All of these appear throughout the first 16 verses of Romans 2.

This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. The gospel message inherently explains the final judgment of God. We tell people that they need to be saved, and that implies a coming judgment. The gospel of grace, God’s grace, requires judgment. Think about that. A lot of people think grace and justice cannot co-exist. They think a gracious, merciful God could not also be just. But grace is not the opposite of justice. Injustice is the opposite of justice. So a just God could not be unjust. But grace and justice can co-exist. In fact, there could be no grace for us apart from the justice of God; because God’s grace for us is based upon His enacting of His justice upon His Son. Until we understand our deserving of judgment, until we understand the seriousness of sin, until we believe that God’s judgment is just, then we will never understand how amazing grace is. But it is precisely because of the seriousness of sin and the reality of final judgment that God’s grace is so amazing.