The Jews had for hundreds of years viewed themselves as "better than". So, certainly they were nodding and "amen-ing" as they read the description in Romans 1:18-32. "OH! The depravity and guilt of those pagan Gentiles!"
Then, they turned the page and began to read chapter 2. That's when the hammer came down.
There's a tendency to "cherry-pick" verses in Romans 2. We must resist that tendency. Paul was verbose, to say the least; and, he was leading up to God's message of grace in chapter 3. In order to get there, Paul had to destroy the Jewish Christians' self-righteousness, which he did quite handily in chapter 2.
The central gem of chapter 2 is verse 11:
For there is no partiality with God.
You see, the Christian Jews had a hard time moving from their perception of "works-based Judaism" to "grace-based Christianity". These new believers still saw themselves as a better class of people than the Gentiles who openly and flagrantly engaged in riotous sin. Paul points out that the Jews were little better than they! The Jews put on the adornments of Judaism (circumcision, feast days, etc.), but many of them were hiding the sins they so lavishly practiced. The difference was that the Jews believed that their "chosen people" status would protect them from God's judgment. No.
The bigger hammer occurs in verse 16:
God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus.
Here we see a glimpse of the basis on which God will judge all people. He sees every thought and every intention of our hearts, every motivation, every secret sinful thought. All of that, from our thoughts to our actions will be laid bare when He evaluates each person's life, and then the question of the gospel of Jesus Christ will be asked, "What did you do with my Son?" (More on that in subsequent chapters)
I'm reminded of the scene in John 8, where Jesus asks the stoners to consider their own sinfulness.
These Jews in Rome, regardless of the grace of Jesus Christ, were still trying to gain righteousness by following the Law, and were boastful about it!
17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relationship to God18 and know his will and approve the superior things because you receive instruction from the law, 19 and if you are convinced that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an educator of the senseless, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the essential features of knowledge and of the truth—21 therefore you who teach someone else, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who tell others not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by transgressing the law! 24 For just as it is written, “the name of God is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
Can you feel the panic settling in? Can you see them squirming? Are you squirming? I read this passage and thought about us Christians today. In my mind I could see our church services, hundreds of people piously praying that a lost person would "walk the aisle" to accept Christ, with absolutely NO self-examination of the sin in his or her own life. Hearts puffed up with themselves. Hearts unbowed. Are we not then doing exactly what the Jews in Romans 2 were doing?
3 And do you think, whoever you are, when you judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God’s judgment?
Yes, I know. Grace covers it all. Yes, it does. No, we don't earn our salvation by our good works. No, we don't. However, there will be consequences (either here on earth or in our heavenly rewards account) if we are walking in disobedience. I had to ask myself this morning, reading this passage, if there were areas of my life in which I was walking in disobedience. And then, I had to confess them, repent of them. My butt got kicked.
Every, single one of us has our own set of "traps" - - sins that are so tempting to us. It is different for each individual Christian - - different sins. If we pooh-pooh our own habitual sins, thinking and merrily chirping, "I'm saved by grace," then we have utterly missed the point of Romans 2. So-called Christians who live like that had better check their own salvation, to see if their hearts are bowed to their so-called Savior.
28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something that is outward in the flesh, 29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit and not by the letter. This person’s praise is not from people but from God.
Let's read this as Christians, shall we? (This is how I applied it to my own heart, this morning.)
"For a person is not a Christ-follower who is merely one outwardly, nor is 'walking the aisle' something that is outward, in the flesh. But, someone is a Christ-follower who is one inwardly, and true salvation is of the heart, by the Spirit, and not by the letter of the Law. The person with a bowed heart is earning praise from God, regardless of what people say."
So, Christians, let's "tear our hearts, and not our garments" (Joel 2:13). To quote Phil Robertson, "All bow."
Dearest precious Father, this passage of Scripture grieves me. It breaks my heart. It bows my heart. I'm so grateful that You inspired the apostle Paul to "cut to the quick" with these young Christians so that, centuries down the road, we could apply this same message to our lives. There is no way that our good works amount to anything beyond being evidences of Your amazing grace, spilled forth into our lives. May it be so, increasingly, every successive day of our lives. May our hearts be bowed, that our lives will show forth Your praise! In Jesus' name, amen.
Jesus raised the standard of the law. Consistently, He spoke of our hearts. In a way, it's easier to comply with the law outwardly. But what if we were teletubbies and our inward thoughts were displayed on screen for all to see.
ReplyDelete