Religion won't help you (Lesson 3 in the series on the Book of Romans)

The Book of Romans: A Bible study series in 16 parts

Lesson Three: Religion is not enough

To watch this talk first given on Zoom, please visit this link 

The theme of the letter continues to be: How to be right with God.

The apostle turns his attention away from general judgment, that is, that the people of the world have suppressed the truth and have turned God’s glory into their own. They have made idols of their own institutions and their own pleasures and as a result, God has had to move in judgment against them. Now Paul, a former rabbi named Saul, turns his attention to his own people, and may I add, my own people, the Jewish people. He will ask a question in chapter 3 about the benefits of being Jewish, but first he carries on in his notification of the justice of God against all mankind.

Chapter 2, beginning at verse 17 sounds like it could come from Jeremiah or Isaiah, the ancient Jewish prophets. He seriously charges all Jewish people (but in the singular, helping us to be the individual accused) with the following assumptions about our person. He says we:

1)    Call ourselves a Jew

2)    Rest on the Torah

3)    Make our boast in God

4)    Know God’s will

5)    Approve excellent things

6)    Are instructed from Torah

7)    Are confident that we are

a.     A guide to the blind

b.     A light to those in darkness

c.     An instructor of the foolish

d.     A teacher of babes

e.     Have the form of knowledge and truth in Torah

Paul then moves to a series of questions which are accusations of our wrongdoing:

1)             Do you not teach yourself

2)             Do you steal

3)             Do you commit adultery

4)             Do you rob temples

5)             Do you dishonour God through breaking the Law

The summary is found at verse 24, a quote from the 52^nd chapter of Isaiah, verse 5, ““Now therefore, what do I have here,” declares the LORD, “seeing that My people have been taken away without cause?” Again the LORD declares, “Those who rule over them howl, and My name is continually blasphemed all day long.”

Paul is saying that although the Gentiles of the opening section of chapter 2 are aware of some natural information, what is called in theological terms “general revelation”, and therefore able to be judged by their dismissal of what God had shown them, the Jewish people are even more worthy of judgment because they knew all too well the fulness of God’s more specific revelation. 

Consider the text of Isaiah, in fact, I like this whole section of Isaiah:

Is. 52:3   For thus says the LORD, “You were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without money.” ⁴ For thus says the Lord GOD, “My people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. ⁵ “Now therefore, what do I have here,” declares the LORD, “seeing that My people have been taken away without cause?” Again the LORD declares, “Those who rule over them howl, and My name is continually blasphemed all day long. ⁶ “Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore in that day I am the one who is speaking, ‘Here I am.’”

When a text is cited, in Jewish and biblical rendering, it could be pulled way out of the text, without reason, and given new meaning. Talmud is filled with the likes of that. But in this case, I see the use of a phrase in verse 5 to highlight the entirety of the last half of Isaiah! Specifically, the point being that it’s God himself who is praise-worthy. It’s God who wants HIS name known, and not the name of Israel, of Isaiah or Jewish people. The Egyptians and the Assyrians of Isaiah’s day are, if you will, the same as the ethnoi of Paul’s day. They are against the Jewish people having incarcerated them or captivated them, and it says ‘without cause.’ (verse 4 and 5, but with two different Hebrew words)

Was it causeless? The apostle in Romans is arguing that there are ample evidences of cause. The Jewish person is self-assuming and counting on a litany of high marks, thus his scorekeeping allows him to boast and to consider himself unjudgable, without reason to be condemned along with the Gentiles Paul has already consigned to the judgment seat of the Lord.

Paul’s use of the Isaiah passage brings to the reader the entire text, and thus the subsequent peak of the second half of Isaiah’s book, the Suffering Servant, whom we have now discovered in the Gospel and the One and Only. 

With all that as my take on this section, let’s go back to these accusations and see if you react in the same way as I did. 

Do you steal?

Do you commit adultery?

Do you rob God and worship idols? 

See, how you reacted with self-approval? Did you agree with Paul and really with Yeshua, or did you self-validate? What is murder, for instance? Is it hating your brother? The bible amplifies it in Leviticus 19.16:

‘You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against (Heb: stand on) the life (Heb: bloods) of your neighbor; I am the LORD.'

What is slander? What is a talebearer? What does it mean to ‘stand on the life/bloods of your neighbor?’ It’s listening to others gossip about a person. It’s defaming others. It’s murdering their reputation. Have you ever done that? 

Some of you will know the works of Ray Comfort from New Zealand and his ministry, “The Way of the Master.” (his website: https://www.livingwaters.com ) He has much to say about so much, but one of the things for which he is most known is his evangelistic strategy. He uses the 10 commandments as a guide, and I think Paul is Ray’s advisor on this one. Ray will often ask a person, “Have you ever stolen anything?” To that, no thinking person will ever say “No.” Everyone has stolen something in their lifetime. Ray will ask them if that makes them a ‘thief.’ Most decline that nomenclature, but after a short series of further questions, they will agree with him. “Have you ever lusted after a woman?” he asks young men on university campuses. Eventually, they will agree that lust and adultery was in their heart. That’s the same line of reasoning or tactic that the Apostle Paul is using here. 

The conversation partner Paul is addressing, the individual Jewish people we are imagining is actually all of Israel. Each of us needs to read this section and see ourselves in the ‘hearer’ role. Paul is talking to me. Yes, he’s talking to you in Canada and in New Zealand and here in Australia. Yes, he’s talking to those who lived in his day. AND YES, he’s talking to me. I’m the brunt of his convo. I’m the one he wants to convince. 

If you read the Bible like that, where you are the accused, you will find great success. You will be able to be repaired. You will find the truth and true happiness. When you self-justify, when you proclaim yourself the one who is ok, you will miss out on so much.

Remember the story Yeshua told about a couple of men? It’s in Luke 18

Luke 18:9   And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: ¹⁰ “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹² ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ ¹⁴ “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The writing here in Romans by Paul sounds like he’s taking the words of his rabbi, Yeshua, and applying them to national Israel, one person at a time. 

Verses 25-29 roundly and soundly chastise the Jewish people, who called themselves in those days, ‘the circumcision.’ And they were proud of their distinctions. I hear that a lot these days as well. There is an assumption that our chosenness is a proclamation from heaven of our betterness. That, the apostle says, couldn’t be further from the truth. Since we know better, we should act better, and we do not. Thus God is right and righteous to judge us.

I’ve talked to too many people who insist that Gentiles are less… it’s one of our national sins.

Remember the point of this whole epistle is to talk about and confirm that there is a way to be Right with God. And that is the way of faith. Not boasting about who we are, or our activities or our chosenness, but rather in the God who does all things well. 

Interestingly, the name “Jew” (verse 17) comes from the Hebrew word Yehudah, the 4^th son of Jacob. What does that word mean? Praise. Our national identity as Jews is to be in the praise of the Almighty, NOT in the praise of self-justification. 

Luke makes that crystal clear in his choice of including this parable taught by Yeshua. ^“trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:” If you trust in yourself, you can only view others as less. 

Tick-box religion only affords you two actions at the end. Either you will be smug and self-satisfied that you are one who accomplishes the religion, or you will be condemned for all your failures. Neither is what God wants of you. He wants you to get your eyes on Him and not on your own accomplishments. He has done it all!

So the term “a Jew is one inwardly” vs one who is “outward” is saying the same thing. It doesn’t matter if you are an insider like a Jew or an outsider like a pagan Roman. Neither is acceptable in their own being; it takes something outside ourselves to make us right. 

Jeremiah said the same thing about circumcision in (Jer. 4.4) “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your heart…lest my fury come like fire and burn… because of the evil of your doings.”  (See Deut. 10.16 also)

Dunn says this, “The return to the opening theme of passing judgment makes for a rounded whole, the thought having started with the Jewish interlocutor’s judgment of Gentiles (vv 1–3), and passed through the assertion of God’s righteous judgment (vv 5, 12–16) to the climactic reverse where the law-keeping Gentile passes judgment on the too literal Jew (v 27). The degree to which the thought of vv 25–29 parallels that of vv 12–16 confirms that Paul’s purpose was not so much to break fresh ground at each stage as to bring home the same charge with increasing pointedness to his Jewish contemporaries.”

More from Dunn, “God alone can see and approve (the hidden secrets of the heart—2:16). With this final thrust, Paul’s readers would recognize once again that he was not turning his back on, far less rejecting, all these fundamental elements of Jewish self-understanding. On the contrary, he was affirming them and claiming them anew so that Jew first but also Gentile could appropriate them as something eschatologically fresh from God, but at the deeper level previously called for and hitherto promised (of the heart and by the Spirit), and now, at last, a present possibility and reality for those listening to his words in the congregations of Rome.”

            Chapter 3 then is somewhat startling, if this were a court of law or just a series of thoughts. Paul pivots 180 degrees and says that the Jewish people are ADVANTAGED! We have the oracles of God. Paul is going to answer the question of God’s faithfulness to national Israel again and again in Romans, and here’s the first time. Verse 3:

It’s FAITH that is the key, and that dear friend is how we are made right with God, back in Paul’s day, in Moses’ day, in Abraham’s day, and certainly in the days of coronavirus in our day.

Verse 3 also says that the end of chapter 2 was not about all Jews. He will point that out in chapters 9-11, specifically calling us the remnant, but for now, the word ‘some’ helps me see that all of national Israel is not cast aside. The ones who remain are the faithful, the ones who practice ‘faith.’ 

The citation of verse 4 will take too long to unpack today, but let it be clear that the text is probably a compilation of other quotes from both the OT in Hebrew and in the LXX. Especially Psalm 115.2. 

Paul ends this section with a call to holy living, indicating some have charged him with a lie, “Let’s sin so that good may come.” He will come back to that one later in the letter, so I’ll reserve more comments until then. 

For now, let me highlight where Paul is going next week.

NEXT WEEK, since no one is advantaged and there is almost no hope in religion, then where can one turn for help?  Stay tuned!

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I recommend you watch this 7-minute 47-second video which showcases with great graphics the first four chapters of this book. 

The actual text:

2.17 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, ²¹ you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? ²² You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? ²⁴ For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written.

Rom. 2:25   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. ^26 aSo if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? ²⁷ 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? ²⁸ 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.

Rom. 3:1   Then what ¹advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? ² Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. ³ What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? ⁴ May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found^ba liar, as it is written, 

            “THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, 

            AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.”

⁵ But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) ⁶ May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? ⁷ But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? ⁸ And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.