The unrighteousness of religious Jews
Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an 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? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
These eight verses, forming a rather complex paragraph, divide themselves into three major thoughts. First there are four “if” clauses. They outline the advantages many Jews supposed themselves to possess by virtue of their Jewish heritage. The next two verses (21,22) pose four searching questions to those Jews, the answers to which will be extremely incriminating. The last two verses (23,24) seem best understood as Paul’s negative evaluation of the Jews’ status before God, a verdict supported by a quotation from the Old Testament Scriptures.
Supposed Jewish advantages
Paul lines up a series of bold claims that Jews were inclined to make of themselves. The sentence could be diagrammed out like this:
If you call yourself a Jew;
if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God;
if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;
if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind,
a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—
Note that, in one way or another, almost all of the perceived advantages center on knowing God’s revealed law. Armed with that knowledge, the Jews feel themselves superior to those less fortunate. They assume that they are the embodiment of knowledge and truth and are in a position to correct others.
Searching questions
Interestingly, Paul’s “if” clauses don’t have the usual conclusion we expect with a conditional sentence (If this is the case, then . . .). Because of this lack of conclusion, the NIV translators have put a dash at the end of verse 20, indicating that the sentence doesn’t end in the ordinary way. Instead of finishing out the conditional sentence with a concluding clause, Paul rather asks four questions that are intended to have the proud Jew reassess himself and his supposed superior status.
Equipped with God’s law, the Jew feels he’s in a position to instruct others and show them the error of their ways. Paul now asks, “You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?”
Paul’s point is, You who claim to be able to teach others the right way, shouldn’t you be taking your own advice? Shouldn’t you be doing what you’re urging others to do? The answer—implied here and directly stated a few verses later—is, You should do so, but you’re not. Essentially, Paul is accusing them of hypocrisy, the sin that Jesus also charged his Jewish compatriots with, time and time again.
Paul goes on with more searching questions: “You who preach against stealing, do you steal?” Again, the proper assessment: You shouldn’t, but you do—if not by actually taking your neighbor’s property, then by wanting to take it, by coveting.
“You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?” You shouldn’t, but you do commit adultery—if not by the outward act, then by lusting in your heart.
“You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” In ancient times there were no banks as we think of them today. For this reason sacred places like temples often became the storage place for valuables like precious metals and jewels.
It is not likely, however, that Paul is accusing the Jews of literally raiding these temples for their treasures. What seems a more likely interpretation here is that while the Jews as a nation claimed to abhor idols and false gods, they were all too willing to take up the false teaching and disgusting religious practices of their heathen neighbors. In this way they would be robbing ideas and customs from temples. Whichever of the two interpretations one settles upon, in either case Paul’s question implies that while the Jews claim to abhor idols, they haven’t remained unaffected by them.
The NIV translators have rendered verse 23 as a question, in line with the previous four questions—and grammatically, that is a very possible construction. There is an alternative, however, that seems more likely within the context. That alternative is to take this verse as a statement rather than a question.
The ancient Greek language in which Paul wrote his epistles had some practices that seem very strange and terribly clumsy to us today. For example, there were no word divisions in written Greek, simply an unbroken line of letters. In the earlier centuries, those letters were all capitals, and eventually they came to be all lowercase letters. Furthermore, for centuries there was little or no punctuation—no commas, periods, or question marks. There were some interrogative words that signaled a question to the reader, but if the sentence lacked such a word, the reader had to decide from context whether the writer intended a declarative sentence or a question.
We’re faced with such a contextual decision in verse 23. From the fact that the next verse is an Old Testament quotation that seems to serve as a proof passage supporting the apostle’s previous statement, it seems better to take verse 23 as a declarative statement rather than as a question. Taken as a question, the verse would read, “You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?”
In its context, however, the verse rather seems to be Paul’s evaluation of the situation, a declarative statement giving the proper answer to the previous four questions. Paul would then be saying, “You who brag about the law, you dishonor God by breaking the law.”
As support for this rather harsh judgment, Paul cites an Old Testament reference: “As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’” The passage Paul is using seems to be an adaptation of Isaiah 52:5.
Paul’s point is that even with all their supposed advantages in having the law, the Jewish people do not have the righteousness that a just and holy God requires. Instead of honoring God by cheerfully obeying the law they claim to value so highly, through their disobedience they are actually causing his name to be blasphemed among the Gentiles.