The Law & The Heart

Reliance on Conformity

The Light of Revealed Truth (v. 12)

Humanity is judged by the truth that has been revealed to them.

People have always questioned how God may condemn someone who has never heard the gospel. From a Jewish perspective, especially in Paul’s day, they might say will God condemn someone who does not have the law?

The religious zealots in Israel would have no problem with the first half of v. 12. “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law...” They would say, “yes, you will definitely perish without the law.”

Paul doesn’t end there and much like Christ says something that the most religious people of his day and nation found very offensive. “all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.”

Paul’s point in verse 12 is that Gentiles without the law will be condemned for their sins without the law and the Jews with the law will be condemned by the law. So who is better off?

Possessing Revealed Truth (v. 13-15)

Again Paul poses the question of who is better off?

Three Types

The Hearer of the Law

What happens to the person who audited every course in a degree program when they show up to graduation? They might get a pat on the back but certainly no degree.

In many synagogues during Paul’s time, teaching did not focus on Scripture but on the system of man-made traditions that the rabbis had developed over the centuries since the Exile. Frequently, God’s Word in the Old Testament was merely read and listened to, without explanation or application. Most Jews, therefore, were simply “auditing the course,” hearers of the Law and nothing more.

There are many Christians today who are similarly “auditing the course”. By external appearances they are doing everything right.

Don’t watch bad movies or listen to bad music

Don’t drink or smoke

Etc

Whether they recognize it or not they have created an artificial standard of bare minimum requirements for what they think will keep God happy with them.

The Doer of the Law

What about the doer? Paul says it is the doer of the law who will be justified.

If a Jew in Paul’s day heard this he might say, well great that works for me because I am certainly a doer of the law.

Unfortunately for them Paul keeps writing and eventually comes to verses such as:

Romans 3:20 “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

Galatians 2:16 “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”

You may think you keep the law but the reality is far from what you understand.

The Gentile with their own Law

What about a Gentile who tries to live a good life?

They don’t have the Law but they have a law, a code that they try to live by. They let their conscience be their guide.

They are actually just like you. The work of the Law is written on their hearts that if I can just be good enough God will accept me.

Judged by Revealed Truth (v. 16)

“On that day” - the day of judgment.

Who is better off?

The hearer of the law

The doer of the law

The Gentile who made their own law?

The truth is they are all in the same place. God knows the secrets of their hearts.

This whole paragraph is built off of the final sentence of the previous. “For God shows no partiality.”

The Jew might show religious hypocrisy by dependence on conformity to the law. Whereas the Christian today might show that same religious hypocrisy by conforming to what ever religious expectations they have attached themselves to.

Reliance on Heritage

Another aspect of religious hypocrisy is a dependence on religious heritage to make you right with God.

This was a consistent source of hypocrisy from the Jews in Paul’s day. In speaking to them Paul says if you:

Call yourself a Jew

Rely on the Law

Boast in God

Know His will (or at least claim to)

Approve what is excellent (a claim of moral superiority)

Instructed from the Law

Guide to the blind

Light in the darkness

Instructor of the foolish

Teacher of children

The very embodiment of the Law

This is all essentially saying that “I am right with God because of who I am!”

I am a Christian because my parents were Christians

I’ve been going to this church for over 40 years.

I helped build this church

I taught Sunday School.

I gave to the church and missions.

I volunteered.

When you get to the judgment seat it does no good to shake your fist at God and cry, “Don’t you know who I am?”

Paul points out the clear hypocrisy of this kind of thinking.

You don’t practice what you preach (v. 21)

You do the very things you preach against (v. 21b, 22)

You dishonor God by breaking the law. (v. 23)

You cause the name of God to be blasphemed (v. 24)

Have you ever done anything that has cause someone else to think less of God?

As you consider the weight of that question perhaps you with me can only say, God forgive us.

God forgive us for anytime that we have caused someone to:

Think less of you

Mock you

Misunderstand you

Walk away from you

Reliance on Ritual

The third and final area of religious hypocrisy that Paul points out is a reliance on ritual to be right with God.

The religious elite of Paul’s day genuinely believed that because they were a part of the Abrahamic covenant proven through the sign of circumcision that they were automatically reconciled to God.

Paul makes a few key points in this paragraph.

Circumcision is only valuable if you obey the law.

Circumcision + Disobedience = Uncircumcision

Obedience + Uncircumcision = Circumcision

Paul then takes their definition of what it meant to be Jewish, that is, a person who by virtue of their conformity, heritage and ritual is right with God, and tells them they have totally missed the point.

To be a Jew by their definition, a person who is right with God, is a matter of the heart. That is why Paul says “a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”

The Jews had their rituals, but so do we.

How many people pray, not because they desire to speak with God, but because it is part of their routine or because they think they are somehow earning favor?

How many attend church for the same reasons?

A Careful Question

Are you relying on a prayer you once said for your salvation?

We should take care on how the gospel is presented. If you ask a child, how did you get saved? What should their response be?

I said a prayer in Sunday School.

Jesus saved me.

It is God who does the saving the prayer is just the interaction.

This is an example of how we can allow ritual to influence our theology in a negative way.