The Bad News (3): The True Jew Completes the Law (Romans 2:17-29)
Introduction: Hey True Blue
I imagine most people here consider themselves true blue Aussies. My mums Maltese, My dad’s Anglo-Australian, so I’m half and half. So at High School when we we’d play Wogs Versus Aussie sport I had a choice. I could have gone either side With Angelo Economopolis and Tony Katsabaris and Alex Dendrinos and Harry Efthymiou Or I could go with the Jono Shaw and Stephen Shearsby & Craig Hodge & Andrew Read I always went with the Aussies. I always wanted to identify with being an Aussie.
What does it mean to be an Aussie? What defines being Australian?
At one level, it is being a winner. That’s why we so desparately and pathetically call Kim Clysters ‘Aussie Kim’. She went out with Lleyton Hewitt once. She’s a good tennis player. We’ll take her, she’s ‘Aussie Kim’. Or anyone who helps us to win the Ashes, like Keppler Wessles, even though he was South African. Or Tatiana Grigorieva, we’ll have her too. She might be Russian, but she is a great pole vaulter, silver medalist, and beautiful to boot. Or we’ll take the actor Sam Neill, even though he is a New Zealander. Or anyone who will help us beat the All Blacks in Rugby.
John Williamson’s song asks the same question. Hey True Blue. Is it standing by your mate, when he’s in a fight? Or is it just Vegemite? What is it to be Australian?
Well, this morning, we look at what makes a true blue Jew. We come to look Romans 2:17-29. What makes a real Jew?
At one level, it is a very simple question? Who is your mum? If your mum is a Jew, you’re one too.
But is there any more to it than that? We would certainly say there is more to being a Christian than your mum is a Christian. Even if you were baptized, that doesn’t make you a Christian. There are many baptized whose lives don’t show them Christian at all.
So Paul will give us the criteria for judging who the real Jew is. What is a true blue Jew? What isn’t a true blue Jew?
An outward Jew is a person of law (verses 17-20)
Is anyone here a Jew? Occasionally I’ve met Christians who are Jews. What makes them Jews, according to common parlance? Well, normally we mean it’s got to do with their family tree. They go back far enough, and they are descended from the tribe of Judah, or Benjamin. They are of the people of Israel. They are physically descended from Abraham.
And this is true. But it is not enough for Paul. Because for Paul, the heart of being a Jew is being a person of the law.
Lets look at a few things in verses 17 to 20[1]. Notice verse 17. The person calling themselves a Jew relies on the law. Literally, the Jew rests up upon the law. And they brag about their relationship to God. And in verse 18, they know what is superior because they are instructed by the law. And in verse 19, the Jew can enlighten everyone else because in verse 20, they have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth.
Basically, the Jewish attitude Paul criticises is this: ‘I’ve got the law, so I’m special.’ That seems a bit strange to us. We are Aussies, who are a bit cynical about lawyers and the law and those who make them. But the Jewish law, found in the Old Testament, came from God. The 10 commandments, a summary of God’s law, was etched by the very finger of God. The Jews possessed the very oracles of God (Romans 3:2). They knew what was holy, righteous and good (Romans 7:12). With the law, God’s people Israel could live in justice and fairness. With the law, the Jews were called to show the Gentiles that God’s ways are best. The Jew was at a great advantage.
God summarised that law into Ten Commandments (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5). God gave it twice, first from a mountain, and 40 years later on a plain. God said to Israel through Moses:
I am the LORD your God who rescued you from slavery in Egypt
1. You shall have no other gods, just me
2. You shall not make or worship idols, for I am a jealous God
3. You shall not misuse my name
4. Remember the rest day by not working yourself, and not making others work on it.
5. Honour your father and mother
6. Do not murder
7. Do not commit adultery
8. Do not steal
9. Do not lie
10. Do not covet what other people have[2]
This law is holy, righteous, and good. People should be content with what they have. People shouldn’t lie, steal, murder, or betray their spouse. People shouldn’t make people work without taking a break for family and refreshment. People should have a rest. And most important of all, people should treat God right. They should only have him as their God. They should not make up idols to replace him. And they shouldn’t use his name as a swear word. Few people will say these things are bad things.
But it is easy for the Jew to go from believing our law is good, to believing that we are good. So Paul addresses those who rest and rely upon the law. He is addressing the Jew whose tendency was always to say, ‘I’ve got the law, so my relationship with God is sorted.’
A person of law has to complete the law (verses 21-24)[3]
But just like it is possible for us to be Un-Australian, it was possible for a Jew to be un-Jewish. Because a true Jew just didn’t just possess the law. A true Jew obeyed the law. Look at verse 23.
You who brag about the law, do you dishonour God by breaking the law?
You Jews boast in the law. But you haven’t done the law. You’ve broken it. You think yourself so good, running Youth Group and Saturday School, and inviting the Gentiles to ‘Judaism Explained’ and home groups and Hebrew as a Second Language… But you haven’t done the law. You’ve stolen (verse 21). You’ve committed adultery (verse 22). You’ve robbed Gentile temples (verse 22). Though you hate Gentile idolatory, you’re happy to steal stuff used in it[4]! No wonder “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (verse 24)
Paul accuses the Jews of breaking the law. In Romans 7, Paul will accuse himself as a Jew of breaking the law. He will point to his own covetousness, breaking the 10th commandment. The Jews are guilty. Paul is guilty.
What about you? Are you guilty?
Two weeks ago we saw Paul uncovering all the idolatry and all the different sins that men and women commit: envy murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful, invent ways of doing evil, disobeying parents (Romans 1:29-30). These were all standard Gentile sins. And God is angry about them.
And last week we saw that shaking our heads and going ‘tsk tsk’ at our pagan neighbours won’t get us off the hook. Pointing out other people’s sins won’t save us from our own. Saying isn’t Australia awful, with it’s sexual immorality, and homosexuality, and materialism, won’t save us from our sins. ‘For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified’. (2:13 ESV) God will judge us and our works, even our deep dark secrets (Romans 2:16).
Are you going to put up your hand now and say, ‘Fair cop! I’m guilty. I’ve broken God’s law. People shouldn’t lie, steal, murder. People shouldn’t commit sexual sin, lust and covet other people’s stuff. I’ve done some of these. People should obey their parents. I haven’t done this. People should love God and not replace him with idols. I haven’t done this, either.’
If you have found that you are in the same situation as me, a guilty sinner, condemned by the law, then you need to listen very carefully to what Paul is going to say after Romans chapter 3 verse 21. Because the way of salvation Paul outlines is the only way out that you and I have. You need to keep reading Romans to find out whether we have any hope. But one thing is for sure: relying on the law won’t do us any good at all. Because the law is all about doing, not hearing. And therefore, the true Jew is the one doing the law.
Circumcision only works if you keep the Law (verses 25-27)
And that raises another question. What about the badge of circumcision worn by the person of law? (verses 25-27) Will that save a person, if they haven’t kept the law?
And Paul says, no. Circumcision, a symbol of the law, only works if you keep the law. Verse 25:
Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. (NIV)
Circumcision is that small operation to remove the foreskin. God commanded Abraham and his descendants to do it (Genesis 17). But here Paul says it won’t help you if you’ve broken the law. It only works if you’ve kept the law.
In fact, if any of us Gentiles had kept the law, we would be considered circumcised[5]. Verse 26:
If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? (NIV)
But I doubt very much this applies to anyone here. Because as verse 27 says, this one who is not circumcised physically obeys, or more literally, completes the law. I read out the summary of the law in the 10 commandments. Has any one completed the law I read out (telou`sa)? I doubt it.
You could be a True Jew if you completed the law, even if you are not circumcised. But if not, you are not a true Jew by completing the law.
So the question is, can anyone be a true Jew? Is there such a person? Well astonishingly, yes, there is a true blue Jew.
The True Blue Jew: The One with Circumcised Heart by the Spirit (verses 28-29)
And Paul will talk about him. The True Jew is a Jew on the inside, a person of the Spirit with a circumcised heart (verses 28-29). Verses 28-29:
A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit… (NIV)
The true Jew is one who is an inward Jew, who has a circumcised heart, by the Spirit. Very much like who is the true Australian, the true blue Jew was the winner, no matter from what nation they come. The true blue Jew was the one who kept the law, no matter what country they came from, or what mark they had on their body. If someone kept the law, properly, obediently, consistently, they were really a Jew.
So that means that there is only one true Jew, really. His name is Jesus Christ.
Jesus was the Spirit-empowered Christ. (Matthew 12:15-21; Luke 4:14-22; compare 1 Peter 1:10-12). His virgin birth was the result of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). He was born under the law. At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descended upon him as a dove (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22). This confirmed Jesus as the long awaited Christ. The Spirit then led Jesus first into the desert for 40 days of tempting by the devil (Matthew 4:1, Mark 1:12, Luke 4:1-2). And he always obeyed God. During his ministry, Jesus received the Spirit ‘without measure’ to speak God’s words (John 3:34-5). Peter summarised Jesus’ earthly ministry as the result of God’s anointing ‘with the Holy Spirit and with power’ (Acts 10:38). Importantly, the Spirit also empowered Christ to perform his most important work of dying and rising again. It was ‘through the eternal Spirit’ that Christ offered himself to God in his sacrificial death (Hebrews 9:14). And Jesus was raised from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4; compare 1 Peter 3:18). Lift the bonnet on Jesus Christ and his work, and we find it super-charged by the Spirit of God.
And so it is through the obedience of the one man, the one True Jew, Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews, that the many are made righteous. One man kept the law. So one man is a true Jew: Jesus Christ. Romans chapter 8 verses 3:
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. (NIV)
And it is only in and through Jesus Christ, that a new nation, a new race of Jews, is being gathered. In their connection with Jesus Christ, a new group is forming. And these have a circumcised heart, by the Spirit[6]? In their connection with the true Jew, in their union with him, they become true Jews, too.
What is this heart circumcision, by the Spirit? We need to understand some Old Testament background for this.
In Deuteronomy God gave Israel the Ten Commandments a second time (Deuteronomy 5). And he gave many other laws as well (Deuteronomy 12-21). The laws were to govern how Israel were to live in God’s land. But God knew Israel too well. He knew Israel would disobey God’s law. And so through Moses God prophesied that Israel would break the law that he made with them (Deuteronomy 31:14-30 and 32:15-42). And God promised to punish them by destroying the nation and exiling the people still alive from the land.
But God also spoke of a hope beyond the exile, that after their punishment for their disobedience, after the exile, God would bring them back. So we get the promise in Deuteronomy 30:6:
The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live[7]. (NIV)
And Paul says this circumcision is by the Spirit, not by the written code (verse 29b). It is by the Holy Spirit, not by the written code, the law, as good as it is. The ‘written code’ is another way of talking about the law. Not by the law, but by the Spirit. And thus Paul, in chapter 2 verses 28 to 29, has rushed us into Romans chapter 8. For it is the Spirit who lives in us, those who belong to Christ (Romans 8:9-11). It is the Spirit by whom we put to death our sins (Romans 8:13). It is the Spirit by whom we cry ‘Abba, Father’ (Romans 8:15). It is the Spirit by whom we groan, as we await the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23).
For we are not those who have completed the law. But we are those for whom Christ has fulfilled the law. Romans 8:3-4 again:
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:3-4 NIV)
For what we couldn’t do, Christ did. We didn’t keep the law. But Christ did. He kept the law’s positive demands, ‘Do this and you shall live’. He came in the likeness of sinful man, but kept the law. Jesus was like us in every way except sin. And Christ bore the law’s curse, ‘the soul that sins shall die’. So God presented Christ as a sin offering. And Christ bore our condemnation. The condemnation we deserved because we are lawbreakers. He did it so the righteous requirement of the law might be met in us who have the Spirit. For is there anything in the whole world except his righteous life, death and resurrection that could have covered our lawlessness?[8] No. The law is fulfilled in us because Jesus fulfilled the law for us.
But more than that, we also fulfill the law when we love our neighbour.
‘The commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery’, ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law. (Romans 13:9-10 NIV)
The law is fulfilled by us because we love. And this love the Spirit gives us.
So who is the true blue Jew?[9] Well, if you belong to Jesus, it’s you. You! You are the true blue Jew. Every Christian is a true blue Jew.
Now, that must be surprising to you. A bit like how I ended up on the Aussies side of ‘Wogs verses Aussies’ hit the chair. A bit like how Tatiana is a true Aussie.
If the Holy Spirit has broken in and circumcised your heart, you are a true Jew and a descendant of Abraham. You are part of the Israel of God. Not because you have completed the law. You haven’t and you cannot, because of your sin. But because we have fulfilled it. It has been fulfilled in us by Christ’s death for us. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing. (Galatians 2:19-21)
And the law is also fulfilled by us when we love our neighbour. So faith works through love.
Let’s pray.
[1] V17 Five blessings the Jews have from having the law V18 Four perogatives the Jews enjoy in relation to other people because they have those blessings. Speaks of role of the Jew to enlighten the gentile world. v19-20 The advantageous position they have over the gentiles as teacher of the ignorant
[2] Later, Jesus also summarised the law into the two greatest commandments (Mark 12:29-31). (1) The Lord our God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (2) Love your neigbour as yourself.
[3] V21-22 Rhetorical questions exposing the Jew who makes the claims of vv17-20 as a hypocrite, failing to practise what he preaches. Perhaps these sins were frequent and representative of the Jewish community.
V23 Boasting about the law damages it when the law is not obeyed
V24 Quotation from LXX Is 52:5. The Jews dishonour God’s name by breaking the law
[4] On robbing temples, see Acts 19:37
[5] Circumcision only works if you complete the law (vv25-27). But circumcision doesn’t save you if you don’t practise the law. Is practising the law a heartfelt faith-filled obedience to the stipulations of the law, or a perfect conformity to the letter of the law? Moo favours the second. According to Moo, ‘faith’ on the one hand is distinguished from ‘the law’ ‘works’ and ‘doing’ (3:27-28, 4:2-5, 13-16, 10:5-8, Gal 3:12). Moo’s paraphrase: “if it should be that there were an uncircumcised person who perfectly kept the law (which in this sense there is not, though in another sense, as we will see, there is), that person would be considered a full member of the people of God.”
[6] According to Moo, for Paul, letter = law of Moses as written, spirit not really inner aspect of human being but = God’s Holy Spirit.
[7] Compare this promise with the command to circumcise your hearts in Dt 10:16. In 30:6 God enables what he commanded in 10:16. Also compare the command in Jeremiah 4:4 to circumcise your hearts, and the declaration that all the nations including all Israel, are uncircumcised in heart and will be punished (Jer 9:25-26)
[8] Compare the Epistle of Diognetus (c2nd century): Early Christian Writings, 147-8
[9] For Moo, ‘for the first time then, Paul alludes to Christians; an advance sounding of the message of salvation’, a flash forward to Romans 8. For Murray, ‘Although the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit is not developed until later in the epistle it is presupposed and introduced as relevant to an argument the burden of which is the universality of sin and condemnation.’